“…there is no blame on them if they arrange an amicable settlement between themselves; and such settlement is best; even though men's souls are swayed by greed. But if ye do good and practice self-restraint Allah is well-acquainted with all that ye do.” (Qur'an 4 verse 128)
We are in a warring world, where anger is more likely than favour, where war equipments are more than food-farming equipment and where in almost all countries, the defence budget is higher than the health budget and research into destructive weapons has far more funding than research into weapons of enlightenment & progressive skills of reading, writing and access to education. However, since we went unashamedly into war with our own blood and neighbours, ethnic, race and citizenry and even fellow-adherents, nature has since joined in the destruction. The massive catastrophes are all unfolding all at once from the Pakistani flood, China’s landslides, Russia’s heat wave cum wildfires etc.
Rarely do you find peaceful hearts in today’s world: a heart without anger, hatred or malice of anyone or anything. Rarely! Hardly!! Start with yourself, is your heart completely free of antagonism towards anyone or anything?
Yet, a pure and peaceful is the guaranteed way of a glimpse of hope that you may be headed towards Paradise. The Messenger of Allah (pbuh) was sitting with a group of the companions and he said "A man will now enter who is from the people of Paradise." Just then a companion walked in. This happened again the next day. Another companion named 'Abdullah ibn 'Amr ibn al-'Aas wanted to find out what was so special about this man. So he asked the man if he can stay over his house for 3 days making up some excuses. The man allowed him to stay. 'Abdullah noticed that the man didn't do anything out of the ordinary: He didn't fast all the time, he didn’t pray all night, etc. So after the third day, 'Abdullah told him what the Prophet (peace be upon him) said about him and his desire to find out why he has been described as from the People of Paradise. The man couldn't think of anything, but after a while he said perhaps it may be because he does not go to sleep with any ill-feelings towards anyone from his heart and his willingness to forgive anyone who has done anything wrong towards him. This is a Man with a Heart at Peace, this is a Man from the People of Paradise.
To have a world free of war, communities must be populated by hearts at peace. This cannot and will never happen by accident, but must be a deliberate and calculated effort. Ramadan is a tool for achieving such sublime, selfless and peaceful hearts. We Muslims have the mandate to lead this change as part of our destined purpose as God’s vicegerent or stewards on God’s earth. My intention is to encourage hate-free hearts this Ramadan, hope you will try to join me in this effort.
“And the servants of (Allah) Most Gracious are those who walk on the earth in humility and when the ignorant address them they say "Peace!"” (Qur'an 25 verse 63)
Contributed by Shamsideen AbuSuad, UK.
Salaams - a most apt post I think for me and for many others. When people have done you the most grave injustices and shown utter ingratitude towards your kindness it cannot be helped to feel enraged and angry - to hate them but hate their actions more. In Islam we are allowed our vengeance according to the law - not our own decrees but yes it is better to forgive.
ReplyDeleteI feel in this day and age, to do this, and many facets of our deen, as the noble Prophet (SAW) said is like holding hot coals or a branch of thorns. This means when he (SAW) said in a hadith one day it will be difficult for us to undertake our religion akin to holding hot coals etc was not just to pray, our fast but even in these more subtle things like controlling hate and anger against injustice.
Furthermore when you stop your hate and try to have the adaab of a Muslim as the last ayat says, in this day and age people take that as weakness and attack more.
So what then is the solution - naturally your article and my sentiments and any Islamic advice given, there has to be a context for each situation and its derived solution
As-salaam Alaykum Swordsmen,
ReplyDeleteI have deliberately not answered your question for a few days, because the second part of this article (Day 29) was work in progress and would address something about it.
Indeed, it is human to feel hurt and to feel hatred, but the delineation is what you feel hatred towards! If Mr A owns a house, a car, two children and business, but in the course of business, Mr A cheats Mr B during a particular transaction, Mr B is humanly engineered to feel hurt once it is clear that he has been cheated. Mr B would hate the business activity of Mr A, may never transact any other business with him ever again. This is perfectly OK. However, what we find in life, is that Mr B's grievance with Mr A, would encapsulate the entirety of Mr A. Mr B, if not careful, would want to hurt Mr A personally, he would also hate everything and everyone associate with Mr A, he would damage his properties, hate his Children and abuse his mother. These are all as a result of raw emotions and unguarded reaction. This is almost second nature to us all, becauseof our animal insticts.
However, the challenge for the Muslim is to rise above such animal instinct. Allah says, we have created man and lowered him to the lowest of the low, except those who have faith (who will raise above such base-level orientation). It is our attempts in life towards these elevation that makes us first, Muslim, then Mu'min, etc (there are other levels including Muhsinin, saliheen, etc.)
Finally, the issue of weakness is address in the story of Salahdeen which I referred to in the article "The Heart @ Peace." Salahdeen is a military success, yet, he was humane and humbled, and no one thought of him as weak or soft. All behaviours (military action or humanitarian efforts) have deeper influences. One influence is raw/animalistic/base-human instinct, the other is angelic/iman-oriented/inner-peace-tuned (nafs mutmainna) instinct. Our daily goal is to achieve a nasf mutmainna, Muhammad Asad discribed this as "Inner-peace"; Abdullah Yusuf Ali translated it to mean "Soul in Complete Rest and Satisfaction"; Pickthall refers to it as "Soul at Peace."
Please understand that this is the best of position to be, it is not our default setting, it is the "perfect setting" to work towards. On that journey we will be at different levels. Yusuf Ali captures this perfectly is his note to Qur'an 89 verse 27 thus:
"The righteous enter into their inheritance and receive their welcome with a title that suggests freedom from all pain, sorrow, doubt, struggle, disappointment, passion, and even further desire; at rest, in peace; in a state of complete satisfaction. In Muslim theology, this stage of the soul is the final stage of bliss. The unregenerate human soul, that seeks its satisfaction in the lower earthly desires, is the Ammara (Qur'an 12 verse 53). The self-reproaching soul that feels conscious of sin and resists it is the Lawwama (Qur'an 75 verse 2)"
In his note to the last Qur'an reference above, he explained the Soul-Stages even more: "Our doctors postulate three states or stages of the development of the human soul: (1) Ammara (xii. 53), which is prone to evil, and, if not checked and controlled, will lead to perdition; (2) Lawwama, as here, which feels conscious of evil, and resists it, asks for Allah's grace and pardon after repentance and tries to amend; it hopes to reach salvation; (3) Mutmainna (lxxxix 27), the highest stage of all, when it achieves full rest and satisfaction. Our second stage may be compared to Conscience, except that in English usage Conscience is a faculty and not a stage in spiritual development."
May God be our strength and continue to shower His mercies upon us all. Amin.