Give To Receive
20. GIVE TO RECEIVE- THE INFALLIBLE TRADE PLAN
Nobody gave to Allah and lost. All who gave ‘ a loan’ to Allah (as Allah sometimes puts it) made a huge gain, a most lucrative profit and that has been the case each and every time- and also without much delay!
What is giving a loan to Allah? Is Allah poor or does He need anything at all? No! Then what does ‘giving a loan to Allah’ mean? To see this we must look at another term, a slight variation of this one, the term ‘giving in the Way of Allah’ (fee sabeel Allah). Still another term is giving or doing a favour for the sake of Allah’s Face (li wajh Allah). We can see each of these synonymous terms from the verses of Allah direct:
“Truly your wealth and children are tests for you; your great prize is (not with them however but) with Allah. Fear Allah reverently as much as you can, give ear (to His Word) and obey and give charity: whoever escapes the miserliness of his ego then such are indeed the saved. If you give a comely loan to Allah He (the All-Gracious) multiplies it for you many times over (when repaying it back) and also forgives you. Surely Allah is ever-thankful (towards His well-behaved servants) and slow in anger” (64: 15- 17)
This verse is perhaps the most comprehensive of all in that it explains:
What holds most people back from giving charitably to the needy outside his immediate family, i.e. spouse and children, is because he is too selfish to identify with any other people other than himself and his direct extensions his children and his partner their mother his wife. There are people who even will not look after their own mothers who may be starving because they are too much concentrated on their immediate children and their mother who should be, by instinct, the best carer for them under normal circumstances. Furthermore, the material welfare is almost the only kind of welfare impious people recognise: they are not too interested in spiritual values and their rewards. Since material welfare depends on material assets, that is to say wealth, impious people cannot pass the test of piety concerning their wealth and immediate families: they can hear but can never register the fact that the real and enduring satisfactions are what is in Allah’s Hand as prizes for faith and good conduct. If a miserly man believes in Allah and in the Hereafter at all it is not so much real faith but a form of superstitious anxiety neurosis, just like a pagan’s, which neurosis compels him to maintain a tense and hostile relationship with Allah with a view to placate Allah by measures having to do with anything but money. As such the miser can pray and fast more than others and that he hopes will compensate for the crime of stinginess he cannot stop committing. By all evidence from Allah and His Messenger, it won’t wash.
‘Fear Allah reverently as much as you can’: what supreme realism! Obviously Allah recognises that whoever we are, however great our spiritual aspiration we in the final analysis remain fallible men even when prophets and may fall short of what is due to Allah in our relationship to Him. While He always gives us more than we deserve we render less service to Him than He deserves. Given the reality, Allah says He is prepared to accept our practical and humble best and will not hold us to account for our rather gross shortfalls. Instead He will accept our basic goodwill and imperfect compliance as full and adequate, out of His loving mercy (so should we be towards those who owe us something).
Remember? In Sufism Allah, on top of His ontological meaning also means the immediate inner guide of man aiming at moral perfection which guide we may otherwise identify as the man’s own mind. Surely no Sufi or his mind is Allah in any ontological sense: we take refuge in Allah from such blasphemy; but the exceptionally good servant does emulate and shadow Allah in loving mercy as much as he the poor thing can and that is the most praiseworthy and admirable thing to do by any man. Some times such an exceptional man is termed an ‘Insan al Kamil’, i.e. a perfect man. He is a rarity though and in actual fact never perfect except in a human sense. Perfection in a human being only means the perfection humanly possible one element of which is humbly admitting one’s imperfection in front of Allah. Apart from these so-called perfect men we normally have believers who can, at best, only occasionally can rise to the occasion of a testing situation from Allah and perfor
As for the ‘fee sabeel Allah’: He All-Gracious says “Spend in the Way of Allah and do not throw yourselves into danger by your own hands (by miserliness): be gracious, Allah loves the gracious (2: 195). You see, being a miserly person is taking a mortal risk with Allah. He All-Gracious will greatly resent the unnecessary stinginess of a servant of His, a servant whose all needs He has been satisfying from the word go. Allah is not only giving us what we ourselves need for our survival and some adequate additional happiness; he is also giving us some surplus to be spent in His Way, that is to say, to help persuade people to believe in their Lord and obey Him for their own good. Few people are as poor as not to afford giving anything to others: one can at least offer manual help to his neighbour or friend and that is charity enough when nothing else is available. The Prophet said that even a kind smile was a piece of charitable donation (sadaqa).
Now the ‘li wajh Allah’: we read in Allah’s Book “They (the truly pious), despite their own desire and need for it, feed food to the destitute, the orphan and the prisoner, saying ‘we are feeding you for the sake of the Face of Allah’, we are not asking from you any reward or thanks’. We are afraid of a Day from our Lord, a Day of frowning and affliction” (76: 8- 10). What does this mean? Why, it means that loving merciful sincere believers fear one and only one thing: to find in the end that Allah is not happy with them; instead of Allah’s Face beaming at them with loving approval it may frown at them with disapproval- the most terrible experience for anybody to find himself and herself experiencing. It means a total waste of one’s life, a total and endless disgrace! Can you imagine yourself to be irreversibly rejected by someone you can utterly not do without? How powerful is the Qur’an in playing with the right buttons of our hearts? What a skill and scope in the gnosis of the human heart!
Lastly, as for ‘li wajh Allah’, for the sake of Allah’s Face. We read:
“They (the true and good servants) keep their promises (to Allah and men) fearing a Day whose evil will be flapping wings all over the place. They (accordingly) feed food to the destitute, the orphan and the prisoner, despite they themselves liking and needing it: “We are feeding you for the sake of Allah’s Face; in return we are not asking from you any reward or thanks. In Fact and instead we are fearing from our Lord a Day of frown and affliction”. Because of this (attitude) Allah spares them from the evil of that Day; instead He imparts to them light of joy and contentment of heart (76: 7-11).
Mind you, Allah’s Face means Allah’s Pleasure: it is because when you pleasantly satisfy someone he or she shows you a face radiant with approval and gratitude. That must be the most satisfactory result of and reward for an action for those who are human enough. What can be more heart-warming and healing than seeing the beaming face, beaming like the full moon, of a most beloved person for you ever because you did something which was most elating to him or her? Again the Book of Allah wins eloquence competition. May we see our Lord beaming His pleasure to us!
The ways Allah gives to givers for His Face’s sake are many. Let us enumerate some which are among common experience:
1.)
When you give what remains with you becomes more blessed and goes farther in meeting your needs. For example, less money in your pocket makes you more cautious in your purchases; you are more careful about where you spend your money. Your need for economy subconsciously drives you to places of better bargains where you almost certainly discover a star buy you could otherwise not find. A miser is also miserly towards himself and unable to part with money lives more like a money carrier than spender; he may buy and eat the worst food or wear cheap, ill-fitting clothes. What is more he lives in a constant fear of robbers and crooks. In short a miser’s life is misery (suffering) in the fullest sense. At the opposite end we have the prodigal: he will spend any amount on himself on silliest luxuries while towards good causes or needy fellow human-beings he will be the least interested and stoniest-hearted man. He just throws good money after worst possible things which he perceives as glamorous and normally has no friends but only greedy hangers-on who are after his money. He is not worthy of having true friends because true friends give good advice and try to stop him fooling himself and equating spendthriftness with successful and prosperous living. In the eyes of wise people nothing is more ridiculous and foolish than buying glamorous-looking rubbish at the astronomical prices they command among the foolish. Some clever investors do deal in such rubbish but theirs is business and not fatuous fascination. Examples of glamorous rubbish buying are buying at an auction the bra or the pants worn by a famous glamour actress in a famous film; perhaps a handkerchief with the dried spittle of the screen icon will also sell at an astronomical price at an auction! Can one imagine and exaggerate how such big sums of money be spent in Allah’s Way instead relieving the poverty of hundreds if not thousand of starving people? The wealth of glamour-worshippers have no blessing in it; it is just thrown away to satisfy the insatiable social prejudices of the fools that some wealthy people are.
2.)
Giving for charity with a heart never regretting it promotes health and prolongs life: that is one of the findings in a recent study by doctors. Other factors contributing to good health and long life are a successful marriage, good children, a good healthy diet and life-style, higher education, a profession which is enjoyed and being popular with and having many good friends and believe it or not, a strong and well-enjoyed religious faith augmented with regular ritual practices. Contrarily, the things which cause ill-health and cut lives short are miserliness at charity, singleness or a bad marriage, bad children, lower education, a hated job or profession, a bad diet and unhealthy lifestyle and lack of religious faith and the regular rituals going with it. Why this is so should be plain to see: Excessive and frustrating stress is one of the depressants and destroyers of the human system; the anger, worry and sense of impotence it causes not only drains one of energies and other inner resources needed for success in life but the settled despair of an ever-stressed person makes him or her secretly wish for death- and get it!
3.)
Religious faith in itself needs a separate paragraph: strong belief is that absolute foolish or absolute wise thing (depending on its content) making a make or break contribution to one’s welfare. It is foolish to believe in psychologically deluding and morally degrading claims about the nature of things. For example, believing that a certain guru is a god or the God and that his commands must be obeyed even when they fly in the face of common, reputable morality and commonsense or fairness is detestable. There have always been and still are cults in which one man and often his family members keep a host of believers in their thrall to such a degree that the believers live and behave like their zombified slaves, apparently grateful for being slaves, and implement any and every wish asked by the guru and his dynastic relations. For example, the rulers may ask for the assassination of an opponent or burgling a government office or court of law to steal and destroy evidence implicating their rulers in some illegal activity like tax evasion or involvement in drugs trade. The slaves will do it and do it to incredible perfection!
In Islam’s past there have been many similar cults the most notorious of which, namely the Assassins, gifted to the world languages the term ‘assassination’. In actual fact even Nazis
4.)
Arguably nothing satisfies and ingratiates hearts more than proper and timely gifts. It is a very well-known fact that bribes often work miracles: there is no and there has been no government in history which is and has been immune to the charms of a bribe and even international relations are lubricated by them. Man simply has a soft heart for gifts and will do the wishes of a giver one way or another. We do not want to describe gifts given by religious people to others as bribes but psychologically they work the same way except that to the recipient is added in gratefulness also God. That is why Allah calls Himself ‘al Shakoor’, the thanks-giver. Help His servants in need and He declares that it was He Who had received it and it will be He Who will reward it. In this vein said the Messenger of Allah: the charitable donation handed to a needy person falls in the Hand of Allah before it falls in the hand of the taker. If the taker is happy with the gift to the power of ten, Allah is happy with it to the power of a million, so to speak! Whatever the future response of the taker it is certain that Allah’s response will be one of infinite gratitude shown by infinite gifts from Him. And let us think of the admiration and goodwill charitable donations create in the hearts of the recipients. Apart from loving the giver they may come to love his ways and even to adopt it. Islam is known to have spread ten times more by kindness than war which was never an instrument of conversion to begin with but an instrument of pre-emptive pacification of rival powers. For example, had not Islam fought the Roman and Persian empires it risked almost certain annihilation by them. Without exception all political powers to date have been ready with aggression and expansion simply because those who were warlike could eventually kill off those who were peaceful. Islam could not ignore this fact nor Christianity could, whatever the Christ was supposed to have said. Buying off hearts by gifts is the least costly way for advancing any cause and if the cause is peace which Islam’s is, then no wonder Islam put such a high premium on charitable giving. You charitably give to those in need in return you receive love and peace. Not bad, is it?
5.)
In general, all sane minds controlled by a humane conscience feel that helping those in need is inalienably tied to receiving help when the giver needs it. It was recently in the news that a labourer working in road repairs fell into a freshly dug small tunnel designed to serve as an underpass across an urban road. Unfortunately a lot of heaped earth followed him into the tunnel and he ended up almost buried alive under several tons of earth. He was a member of a team of about a dozen workers. As soon as the poor fellow was so buried not only his friends but even some passers-by rushed to his rescue. The fire brigade and other similar emergency services were called; it was a race against time. While the machines did the heavy clearance work the men toiled to do the finer work by using smaller implements and sometimes their bare hands. It was feared that the trapped fellow could only survive for two hours. In desperation the machinists removed several metres of the asphalt surfacing so that the men could dig the ground without having to cut the asphalt bit by bit. The whole rescue took four hours, all were afraid that it would be too late but by Allah’s mercy the victim was eventually recovered unconscious, badly soiled and bruised but alive. His friends sobbed with relief and joy along with the hundreds who waited on the pavements praying and encouraging. Why this community-wide charity? Because all knew or subconsciously felt that if it was this man today they themselves could be in a similar situation tomorrow. Suddenly men’s subconscious selfishness created superb altruism: look at how Allah creates wonderful things from despicable raw materials. Is this example not an analogue of that most wonderful and noble of all animals the man’s creation from soil within months of his parents eating food coming from soil? Where is soil, where is the man in sophistication?
This must be at least one meaning of the claim that Allah creates everything from nothing: truly there is no trace of man in soil, yet by some rearrangement of its various parts it ends up as a baby human-being within months and a man, almost a god among other creatures, within less than two decades! Or it is like the apparently purely hedonistic sexual urge building up the most sincerely altruistic, loving mercy-saturated institution called family. The miraculous altruism called social cohesion similarly grows from mutual charity; the more giving in charity in a society the more secure and peaceful each member becomes; it is always possible and even inevitable that each member will have to give something as well as be given and rescued. Those who give most will receive most, those who give least will receive least by Allah’s decree- at least in terms of satisfaction. What deceives people in this matter is that they take giving and receiving only in a material sense. That is wrong. A kindly generous man may give a million worth of charity in his life and receive back only a hundred thousand. But that is not what he receives in total. He also receives invisible benefits at least ten times more in worth than the million he gave. That is what Allah says. His receipts will include many priceless benefits like a peace of mind, an ease of conscience, wide-spread grateful respect and even worshipful love and prayerful mention both on earth and in heaven and often also good health and a long life. Contrarily, many strange and terrible illnesses and absurdly bad accidents will hit people with a guilty conscience because a nagging conscience is a great distracter of mind and attention as well as a fountain of unconscious suicidal intentions. The self-disgust a miser, a too selfish person harbours poisons hi
May Allah save us from our lower inclinations and fill us with all the nobler inclinations leading to feelings in and actions from us beloved to him. Amen.
21. HOW THE SATAN RAIDS AND PLAGUES MUSLIMS
GODLESNESS AMONG APPARENTLY SERIOUS MUSLIMS
Said the Almighty, All-Wise “Allah will not change what a people are in until and unless they change what is inside them (13: 11). Allah surely spoke the truth.
In what condition and shape are Muslims of today? Don’t we all know? Why are they in this sorry situation? The ignorant among us will answer this saying “Our enemies brought us down”. This is absolutely true in a sense which these naïve ignorants are unaware of: the enemies they speak of are not so much outside but inside them- it is their egos, those untamed, unreformed, semi-bestial egos. If you do not believe me then listen to Allah “No harm hits you but it is because what your hands earned. Yet He (All-Gracious) ignores and waives a lot” (42: 30). So, we brought it on ourselves.
Muslims are three kinds. Let us begin with the worst: we have people with essentially nasty characters whatever their degree of knowledge or observation of Islam’s formalities. Some of these are almost frank unbelievers but just; to avoid trouble they may show occasional virtual respect to Islamic values and traditions. Essentially though they are bold sinners if occasion allows or opportunity knocks. They mostly populate the ranks of the rogues and cheats among the humble classes and the leaders among the prouder. If pressed too hard they may express the bitter juices of their hearts. Read if you wish the verse about a bad youngster who keeps disappointing his parents because he is following his ego and has little interest in faith and piety:
“The one who says to his parents ‘Fie on you! Are you threatening me that I shall be resurrected while many generations passed before me (with nobody returning)…These are nothing but the tales of the ancients (46: 17)
Then come those people who are basically peaceful and decent if nearly nominal Muslims, who may or may not observe Islam’s rituals adequately but live more or less as morally responsible lives as they can. In case they observe the rituals it is out of habit gained in childhood. Otherwise they only consent or feel the necessity to defer to Islamic feelings and join religious activities minimally just to keep up the appearances. These are not too guilty people and in fact among them there are very many basically decent and charitable persons. Such basically good persons we may call Muslims by born character. They have sensitive consciences but simply do not have that special kind of intelligence and inclination to study Islam in any depth. They simply show a matter-of-fact respect for their ancestral religion, will not mind joining in selected essential rituals like eid prayers or offer animal sacrifices in situations calling for the
At this point something similar must be said about those many good souls among non-Muslims: although their creeds and the religious laws they observe to varying extends are not as correct as those of Islam’s their basic good natures may entitle them to be known by us as ‘Muslims by character’ and therefore to be seen as quite possible candidates for ultimate salvation one way or another. In other words we must never write off anybody simply because he or she is not a Muslim by objective if simplistic standards: their deep secrets are with Allah and we pray and hope that Allah blesses them. This attitude of universal loving mercy and goodwill should always be our perspective of humanity. I am therefore asking my dear readers to keep this in mind when they read about what I will be saying about, for example, Jews and Christians soon and also at all times in my other writings.
The third kind is that class of ambitious Muslims who keep asserting their faith in and commitment to Islam and will objectively practice what they formally preach. But we should not be deceived with all such. That is because, often unexpectedly, it is among this class that the Satan is most active and productive of results. Jews, Christians and Muslims all diagnose this class among themselves as their cause of chief concern and complaint. To make a premature diagnosis we can say that what is wrong with such people apparently so much interested in Islam is their- guess what- ambition! In other words intensely learning and practicing (or so pretending) Muslims are themselves of two kinds: the worldly ambitious and those whose ambition is pleasing the Lord All-Gracious. Mind you, all categories and classifications we are stating from the beginning are rough and approximate; humans are very complex and sophisticated creatures and appearances can be very deceptive. Actually only Allah knows who is who and He rarely disclosed His approval of anybody, like His approval of His named messengers in His revealed Books.
To demonstrate on what catastrophic scale this phenomenon of ‘outside saint, inside satan’ people have been plaguing all the three Abrahamic (or Semitic) religions let us summarise the histories of each.