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| Abdul Samad | 05 Apr 2012 |
| Basis of Human Submission to the Divine |
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 The central premise of this diary, the basis for our submission to the Supreme, has intrigued me since some time and when the question was raised in class, amidst prevailing doubt and a nervous silence, I knew I had found my topic.
Do we submit to prayer, to the Divine Essence, the Mighty Lord, in full acknowledgement of our own insignificance and His Supreme Power out of pure fear-the warnings, detailed in the holy books, of hell with its grisly images of fire and relentless agony- or rather, as I shall argue over the course of my diary, out of unadulterated love, the realization that He is a munificent and merciful Lord, a Just King and the Beloved. There arises the tension of loving a God who is to be Feared and Fearing a God who you love.
There is good reason to fear the Lord. Considered objectively, humans- me and you- are infinitely insignificant, overwhelmingly dependent on survival on things beyond our grasp. Life that we accord such profound value, for which we plan and toil and dream, the dearest of our possessions, can end without warning, without caution. Death waits in the wings, latent but always present and as you have read this sentence-yes, these last few seconds-you have edged closer to your eventual demise.
Having seen parents who admonish their children to go to the mosque and fast using punishment and Hellfire as motivators, I came to question adherence to faith brought about by threat, engendered through coercion, manufactured through compulsion. The very idea of submission to the Divine based solely on fear, on the image of a Lord who punishes when he is not prayed to, troubles me, much the same way, I suspect, it does to all those who shall read this diary. Likewise, there are others who follow religion-pray, fast among other religious injunctions- out of the intense desire for the rewards of heaven-the flowing rivers, the lush gardens, maidens untouched by man or Jinn. Prayer based solely on the desire for Heaven is equally troublesome.
We should pray to God not for the sake of reward or punishment-Heaven and Hell- but just because the King of Kings, One who has made us out of love, has blessed so with so much, needs to be bowed to. The fear of Allah is laced with mercy, tinged with compassion and embroiled in a coating of pure love. An all Powerful Lord, who treats his creation with kindness and mercy, implanting in them feelings of mutual affection, who guides them, imparts within them knowledge, is to be loved, all things considered.
Rabia Al Basri, in using the words, “But If I worship You for Your Own sake”, provides the answer, presenting a third way of basing our relationship with God, one that has mesmerized me in its spiritual depth. This is based on purity and love, untainted by either the fear of hell or the inordinate desire for Paradise. This realization, it should be made clear, only comes at a higher state of spiritual learning, attained, though not exclusively, by Sufi masters and Sheikhs. The words of Rabia al Basri strike a chord:
O Allah! If I worship You for fear of Hell, burn me in Hell,
and if I worship You in hope of Paradise, exclude me from Paradise.
But if I worship You for Your Own sake,
grudge me not Your everlasting Beauty.”
What is human life but a search, an exploration to be made by every soul, on its own, for Union with the Divine, the Supreme Essence, the Beloved. Everything that is in existence does point to Him. He is hidden, yet manifest; He is transcendent, yet is as Kabir, the Indian mystic and poet, artfully described the ‘breath inside the breath’, he is both the mystery and the answer, ever present, the All Knower, the All powerful. Leo Tolstoy, the Russian literary genius, echoed the same argument when he wrote,” To the question: what meaning is there that is not destroyed by death? The answer is: unity with the infinite God.” The recognition of the ephemeral nature of human life, the inevitability of death, the fragility of the human condition, all, through the employing of human reason, indicate, to all those willing to rip the veils from their eyes, that this earthly life is merely a transient abode. Rabia Al Basri, a Sufi poet and mystic recognizes this and yearns for Union with her Lord when she poignantly writes ” I have separated myself from all created beings, My hope is for union with Thee, for that is the goal of my desire.”
When Bulleh Shah, in what has become a classic Sufi poem, observed” Bulla! I know not who I am”, or when Rumi beautifully articulates” If I love myself, I love you. If I love you, I love myself”, or when Ibn Arabi states unequivocally that he professes the religion of love, a central theme emerges; namely that humans are the manifestation of the Divine Essence, a reflection of His attributes, a mirror through which he sees Himself and that love and love alone forms the sacred bond which ties both the Master and his servants. This motif of love and attachment is beautifully articulated by Amir Khusro when he writes:
With my lover I am playing
The game of love,
If I win, he is mine
If I lose, I am his.
Next time you kneel your head before your Lord, when you lie on the prayer mat, do not enter Sajda out of compulsion. Pray because you want to, with all sincerity and intent and not because you have to-as a matter of religious obligation. For those who understand, it makes all the difference in the world. It would be fitting to end by quoting Faiz Ahmad Faiz, a Pakistani poet:
A day will come for sure when I will see the truth
My beautiful Beloved is behind a veil, that is all |
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Notes: Opinions expressed here are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Muslims Debate.
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