Trusting The Lord
4. TRUSTING THE LORD IS BECAUSE OF HIS LOVE
A true Sufi, basically speaking, lives from a cheerful mood simply because he knows that both this world and the next are created and controlled by Allah and Allah is only too good a creator and ruler as far as sincere, loving and respecting believers in Him are concerned.
This is somewhat the same situation children of exceptionally good parents enjoy. Once upon a time there was a serial TV film titled ‘The Little House on the Prairie’ which ran for years if I am not mistaken. Here we had an ideal family living in a wooden house on the American prairie in a village of similar wooden houses with a wooden school and a wooden church house to complete the picture of a typical Western American settlers community. I am sure those who are not too young must have followed this lovely TV series over some years. The gist of the serial story was this: A young, handsome village couple had three or four young children with the oldest at her mid-teens and they were as ideal people as real life could present. The parents loved each other in the truest romantic and committed sense, they doted on their children without spoiling them and the children almost worshipped their good parents. This though ruled out no problems and some tragedies of life (at one point the eldest daughter went blind and was taken from doctor to doctor in the hope of a cure) and tears were as much part of the lives of the family members as laughs.
But there was a decisive, unfailing optimism about and thankfulness towards life throughout and it was this foundation of the story that kept hundreds of millions throughout the world transfixed on this TV series. Whatever life threw at them this family of the little house on the prairie always coped with it successfully thanks- and please listen carefully- thanks to their unfailing faith in and love for God! This in fact is the very best in Christian ethos but as in all religious traditions is enjoyed only by a minority. As always, the majority misunderstand and misapply the precepts of their faith which should be more about the spirit or the heart, I mean a golden heart. As a result we end up with few good Christians, few good Muslims, few good Jews, few good Parsees or Buddhists etc. while the majorities of these faiths live either entirely from soulless rituals and silly superstitions or ignore most or all of their religious beliefs and obligations and boast of being atheists, anti-religion or bon viveurs (good-livers, hedonists) or what have you. All experience shows however that overall the happiest people in life are those who are good, I mean real good in their relations to their god, I mean ‘the God’ whom they regard the maker and master of all creation and events. We do not need fiction like the said TV series and novels similarly disposed; if we look long and hard enough we find exemplary pious families being the most lovable and trustworthy in their neighbourhoods and that is because their convincing love of God inspires their neighbours and acquaintances to love these lovers of God. They radiate some basic happiness even when they sustain a tragedy and that cannot fail to impress those positively who observe them. After all, we all are made by God and know, even if at times subconsciously, that loving God is the deepest and surest foundation of all worthy, saving and blessing loves.
I am afraid we made a small but serious mistake above: we had said that only a minority in each advanced religion enjoy the happiness. We should see a more gradual picture. We should have said “The more each member of a religion lovingly and reverently believes in God the happier becomes his or her overall outlook on life and the easier he or she can cope with the ups, downs and uncertainties of life”. I have an easier conscience now.
At this point I am afraid I must deal with a possible objection on the part of some simplistic thinking Muslims to my inclusion of all advanced religions (i.e., religions based on a belief in One God, at least in an ultimate sense and are definitely morally and humanely oriented). Such misinformed Muslims could say that there is no question of Christians and Jews, for example, finding happiness and a future with God. Although many verses of the Qur’an may be construed to mean so many others open escape routes and let-outs which are unmistakeable. Such pregnant and productive ‘contradictions’ in the Qur’an are simply too numerous to list and in the eyes of the more perceptive they indicate the good-parent-like admonition and guidance habits of Allah (Sunnatullah). Let us see some examples.
“They (the People of the Bible) are not all same; There is a group (umma) among the people of the Bible who recite the verses of Allah at night and make prostrations (to Allah). They believe in Allah and the Last Day, they enjoin good and discourage evil and compete in good works. They are good people” (3: 113- 114)
That Muslims, Christians and Jews can live side by side, worship the same and only God but otherwise can apply their own respective religious laws can be seen from the following:
“Let those who believe in the Gospel judge by what Allah sent down in it. Whoever does not judge by what Allah sent down they are then the sinners… We have given to each of you (the three respective ummats/ religious communities of Moses, Jesus and Muhammad) a Law and a Way in order to test you. Therefore compete in good works; your return will be to Allah and He will then judge among you on matters you disputed” (5: 47- 48)
That is why, unlike the baseless and immoral idolaters Allah did not allow Muslims to fight Jews and Christians with a view to covert them to Islam but ordered us to let them be and keep our peace with them so long as they keep theirs with us. What is more, He ordered us to get along well with them. For example, in Islamic Law the rights of a Jewish or Christian neighbour is no less sacrosanct than a Muslim neighbour’s and in the very Prophet’s Medina we have stories of some Muslims and Jews being very respectful and charitable neighbours to the delight of the Messenger of Allah. This good neighbourliness with Jews and Christians in Muslim lands continued for centuries until the virus of nationalism arrived from the West as syphilis had arrive before.
After this necessary detour we may now return to our subject. Yes, truest and permanent fundamental happiness comes from recognising and lovingly and reverently believing in God which results in happily obeying Him. No man has a better, vaster and more durable a perspective of live and existence than one who believes in God thus; Please do not make the mistake of calling God a myth however happy and productive myth it may be. God is all too Real; in fact He is the Only Fully and Independently Real while the creation is a derived, evolving reality unable to continue without God supporting it. Read if you wish:
“Indeed Allah is keeping the heavens and the earth lest they fall away. Were they to collapse who else could hold them up after Allah. Indeed He has always been forbearing and forgiving” (35- 41)
What is mythical about Allah is not His Existence but the description of His past, present and future Actions which descriptions are always metaphorical and therefore separate from the common and scientific views of natural events. For example the phenomenon of thunder has a scientific explanation which relates tangible and measurable entities like various temperatures, electric charges, water condensations and movements in the atmosphere and a religious explanation as a phenomenon ordered by Allah to display itself and cause something rewarding or punishing to His servants. Both are true and real in their own space of jurisdiction. As such a myth is a conceptual and verbal account of a real phenomenon with a view to point out to its spiritual and moral import. It is not a lie; it is a genre of describing realities in a spiritual, moral, emotive and motivational way and context. As such myths, when they are rightly guided and not misguided are more valuable in making people happy than their scientific counterparts.
To demonstrate this point let us go to the cosmological view of the universe versus its theological version. The cosmological version tentatively and often incompletely and imperfectly describes and informs while the theological version assures, comforts and morally guides the believers. What is more, it also works. A true believer, if he cultivates his faith both by more contemplation and application of its moral and humanitarian implications develops in his subconscious mind, unknown to him, a data base and moral guide which inform and guide all his thoughts, emotions and actions in a way to make him come across and recognise many good opportunities conducive to success and satisfaction.
Sufis know this phenomenon only to well and regard a person enjoying this blessing as a budding saint. They call his frequent good breaks or good opportunities, call them what you wish ‘irhasat’ which means a persistent string of happy coincidences in his evolving life. For example such a budding saint will be surprised to see that when he thinks he is lost in an unfamiliar place while he is in a hurry to reach a worthy destination a total stranger or an unexpected friend will arrive on the spot as if out of the blue and offer him a lift. In one case, a brother told me, he was very broke and was in need of £5 to prevent being taken to court for his soaring debt to his local grocer who was selling him his needs on monthly credit. Sitting at a cheap café sipping a cup of tea he found the café owner come to him and while removing the empty cup from the table squeeze into his palm a five pound note, adding that the tea was a gift to him and he could go away happily with the café owner’s blessing! This event having happened about 40 years ago and that £5 in today’s values may mean £250 at least.
As the budding saint grows into a mature one his little miracles also grow into major ones. They are not Biblical miracles like the raising of the dead or curing the blind and the leper but they are still great gifts serving the purpose of God reminding him how happy He is with him and thereby enhancing his enthusiasm for serving God even more. But the greatest gift Allah grants on His friends are not these discrete good breaks and miraculous coincidences but what we said at the beginning: An ever increasing and eventually almost uninterrupted sense of cool and content euphoria, perfectly sane and wise, which saturates and takes over his soul, his psychology, his worldview. From then on he is on a happy-going raft on a river of no return taking him to a euphoric death despite any apparent aches and pains (which are not always the case though) after a life of increasing peace of mind, contentment of heart and thankfulness to God. Amen.
5. LOVE REBUKES, LOVE MAY PUNISH, FOR IT WISHES WELL
We get not only our first taste of love from our parents but also the first taste of- punishment! What is more, if both we and our parents are healthy souls we feel, later in life, as much happy about the parental punishments we experienced as their demonstrations of love. And the reason is simple: Good parents care too much about us to neglect our any needs for a good if sometimes also painful lesson in life.
In fact all good training involves a lot of deliberately inflicted pain (not necessarily physical), inflicted for perfectly good and inevitable reasons. We spectators can watch and enjoy many sports and games and wonder at the incredible looking skills and stamina of the players. But perhaps not all of us are aware of how much painful training involving many rebukes and punishment goes into the production of those wonderful results. And ask any champion what he or she thinks about his or her coach who trained him or her for those results and he or she will only express glowing praises for his or her coach. Perhaps the most trying bodily training forms are those involved in martial and military skills. A karate teacher have at times to beat his pupils as heartily and soundly as in a karate match while commandoes in training are subjected to almost inhumanly ‘cruel’ drills and tests in order to develop all those revolting appetites for surviving under the most unusual circumstances (like eating live rats or cockroaches) or those monstrous ways of killing enemies like breaking a neck or a back with one blow by the use of bare hands.
Whatever the degree of terror, horror and danger involved, training of human beings by those who can and must train them is an inseparable part of life and development and as such can be seen as fully Divine; that is to say, part of Divine Providence. Animals also have their share of painful training which has definitely merciful ends in sight. No leopard for example can survive in the wild unless trained by its mother to hunt and keep the hunt from other predators. Despite all the care and effort that go into the training of young wild cats only one in two or three cubs can make it to adulthood and independence: the rest fall by the roadside, sometimes perishing in the jaws of another adult cat which gobbles up any suitably estranged youngsters. ‘Nature is cruel’ say some but that is more loving mercy for the generality of living beings than blind cruelty; tests, dangers and punishments keep pushing up the overall quality of them. In human terms we find history favouring human groups who train their members to higher standards intellectually, morally and technically and thereby enable them to rule over and improve others who somehow survive their domination. We owe the steady rise of civilisation to the trying and testing treatment by the victors of the defeated. Although a lot of such treatment can amount to sheer cruelty some do have a saving grace and that is what promotes many a victim into a victor later on. Obviously God knows His business well!
From the above we do not mean that injustice and cruelty is necessary for the raising of new generations or future winners. That in fact is exactly the point of developed, universal religions, in our case and opinion the best example of which is Islam. Islam, because it is not too world-renouncing to stunt human material potential and also not too worldly to stunt human spiritual potential. Being non-clerical it also is the most democratic of religions and being race blind (unlike Judaism for example) it is the most universal; it simply purports a single world community of if possible uniform believers and conscientious moral workers and in any case aims at peace despite some occasional necessity for war- hence its defining and only name ‘Islam’ which means ‘peace’.
In this Islam of ours whose deepest and highest expression is in true Sufism which is based on the spiritual absorption and moral emulation of the Messenger of Allah, peace is not only the ultimate objective of faith but also its ultimate worldly reward. A man who can live at peace with others is the most successful Muslim and a Muslim community which can keep or if necessary enforce a just peace is the most successful community. For a person’s peace with others we read from Allah’s Book:
“The true servants of the Universally Caring and Merciful One are those who walk the earth with humility and if and when any ignorants challenge or tease them they respond with the word of peace. They do not bear false witness; if and when they come across idle talk they (refuse to join in) and pass by with dignity and gracefulness. When their Lord’s verses are reminded them they do not remain deaf and blind to them, instead they pray ‘Our Lord, grant us spouses and offspring who will delight us (with their propriety and nobility of character and action) and make us leaders of the pious (25: 63; 72- 74)
What do we see in these Holy verses? Why, we see a type of person who is all grace, all good will, all justice, all wisdom and of noblest personal and social aspiration; this personality type asks for more and more personal spiritual and moral perfection, fears and detests vain, idle, irresponsible, misguided or totally unguided talk and activity all of which are frequent causes of personal and social demeanings and damnations; instead he asks for peace and social pleasantry, social solidarity and across the board charity and responsibility to rule over the society of men. Allah promises them the highest reward in the next verse:
“To them, on account of their pious patience and perseverance, shall be given the Chamber (of highest spiritual rank) where they shall be met by reverential greetings. They shall remain there eternally- what a great settlement and station is that!” (25: 75- 76)
Because the Book of Allah, by its own testimony, is a book of metaphors (Kitabun mutashabiha) this verse may admit a double interpretation. Firstly and more popularly it gives to God’s friends the good-news that in the Hereafter they shall inherit the highest habitation and station of Paradise where their attendant angels will lavish on them reverence and gracious services. Secondly they shall leave behind for posterity such a god name that all future generations of sensible and informed people will keep dearly loving, remembering and revering them and celebrating their memory and legacy. Why do you think Abraham, Moses, Jesus Christ and Muhammad the Seal of the Prophets (may Allah’s blessings and greetings be on all His chosen messengers), for example, never cease to be dropped from lips in loving reverential words and to be blessed in memories and conversations? That this also is a valid and legitimate interpretation may be seen from the verse “We have granted them (our elected servants) a gift of Our Loving Mercy and left behind for them a high and deserved good reputation (for all future generations to celebrate)” (19: 50)
What is this gift of loving mercy? It must be the moral quality of loving mercy put in their holy hearts by the Ultimate Source and Repository of all Love and Mercy- namely God!
And this loving mercy shared by all believers according to the strength of their faith is not a fool’s love and mercy (which often proves more a couple of curses than a blessing) but is saturated and informed by highest and purest wisdom in the sense that such wise believers, mirroring their Lord, do not only deliver sweets to their subjects but also medicinal bitters which will be equally beneficial if not more to the beneficiaries. In the latter respect they follow the line of their Creator Who not so much means to destroy His subjects but rather to restore them to a better and higher condition with such an administration of medicinal bitters. Yes, in exceptional cases a worldly destruction may be inflicted on a subject but such relief of conscience will it give to the subject that he or she will be thankful for it. I personally believed myself to be heavily victimised a few times by some people who somehow escaped worldly justice, yet, in the long run their treatment of me led me to such blessings that I sometimes thought of going and finding and kissing them for their contribution to my happiness.
Of course most of the painful experiences we go though life involve no crime. An example is the termination of a dangerous pregnancy. A well-qualified, conscientious doctor will suggest and often get consent for a termination when the life of the mother is in very serious risk; our imams allowed this. In the story of Moses and Khidr in Surat al Kahf we find wise Khidr killing a child, to the consternation of Moses, for the reason that he Khidr ‘feared’ (repeat, only feared) the child was going to be a great trouble and shame for his good parents. Khidr also added “We thus wanted that their Lord grants them a purer child, more mercy-oriented (instead of being criminally-oriented) (18: 81). If this does not legitimise preventive strikes against convincingly feared sources of danger what does? Prophets did it, saints did it, doctors did it, commanders did it- when a strongly possible too great danger or risk looms a person or body of persons who occupy a responsible place or position for the safety of some more precious asset this person or body can take any pre-emptive action they think is necessary.
This should be enough to prove that good parents, good teachers, good employers, good commanders, good doctors etc. may have to take painful decisions and inflict some pain and even administer death on some dangerous persons (or animals) or destroy some other dangerous objects. All these, provided they are wisely and informedly (not unwisely and ignorantly or malevolently) done for loving merciful reasons are demonstrations of loving mercy, are modelled on God’s Own treatment of His servants and like Khidr’s, are God’s Own work by proxy.
May it never be necessary that we hurt anybody for any reason or be hurt by others for any reason; in whatever form or for whatever reason to hurt anybody or any animal causes our heart to bleed and in case we did it without enough justification casts us into Hell.
Of course such an ideal life record is a pie in the sky; all of us have done, are presesently doing and will be doing many wrongs. Hopefully our sheer efforts to avoid or prevent such wrongs will attract the forgiving mercy of Allah and make Him help us to do less and less of them so much so that even our victims take pity on us and forgive us. For nothing helps our being forgiven by forgiving others and what better forgiveness there is than forgiving our oppressors? May forgiveness for all by all win in the end. Amen.