The
Result of the “Liberation of Spirit”
For the ruh that has become animated,
activated, and liberated from the shackles of nafs, the logical result is the
commencement of a journey. This journey has been succinctly described by
Plotinus as “the flight of the alone to The Alone.” Without suggesting anything
more than a partial and imperfect resemblance between the two, we say that our ruh is solitary and lonely and so is
Almighty Allah (SWT). The ruh is not related to anyone,
it has no father, it is nobody’s offspring, and it has no spouse; all these
relations are linked to the material body of the human being and not to the
spiritual soul. In modern philosophy, the term “alienation” has come to be
widely used to describe this sense of loneliness and solitude. Indeed, these
are the feelings experienced by any person who begins to develop intellectually
and/or psychologically. In other words, the more an individual moves above the
merely animal level, the more will be his or her consciousness of loneliness
and solitude. Consequently, on the one hand there is the unique individuality of
the ruh and, on the other hand, there is The One Who is absolutely Alone.
There cannot even be an inkling of the slightest contamination in the “Oneness”
of The One.
Now it is an established law of
nature that everything has an inherent urge or tendency to return to its real
source and origin, and therefore the direction of the spirit’s journey is
towards its source — Almighty Allah (SWT). The ruh has been likened to a bird that
has been imprisoned in the cage of the physical body. This bird is agitating to
free itself and rise towards the heavens, and this has been symbolized by Plotinus
as the “flight of the alone to The Alone.” We can add a little something to
this symbolism by noting that it is the flight of “the finite alone” to “The
Infinite Alone.” Two couplets from Iqbal’s Gulshan-e-Raz-e-Jadeed (The New Garden of Mystery) are instructive
regarding this discussion:
My heart burns on the loneliness of
God!
In order, therefore, to maintain
intact His Ego-Society
I sow in my dust the seed of
selfhood,
And keep a constant vigil over my
“I.”
Summarizing the discussion thus
far, the basic point to note is that the cultivation and strengthening of the ruh is an absolute must for every
individual. The means for attaining this goal is dhikr or remembrance of Allah (SWT). The
most potent means of attaining remembrance is the Qur’an — which describes
itself as “The Remembrance” — then prayer, and finally the various Prophetic supplications.
Remembrance of Allah (SWT) helps to enlighten the ruh, with the result that the depth
and intensity of faith continue to develop until a stage is reached where the
believer attains the level of Ihsan.
The
Disciplining and Purification of the Nafs
The process of disciplining and
purifying the nafs must accompany the efforts to nourish and strengthen the ruh. One has to engage in various
exercises in order to culture the nafs so that it moves from craving
libidinal gratification to being content and satisfied in the pursuit of higher
ideals. Just as various exercises are required for training the vocal chords of
the singer, the reflexes of the athlete, and the eyes of the physician, the
disciplining of the nafs also requires certain exercises. Indeed, it is not possible to
culture the nafs without undertaking intense effort and steely determination.
Foremost among the exercises to
discipline the nafs is the establishment of prayer. In general, prayer is a means of
remembrance of Allah (SWT) and therefore it helps in strengthening the ruh. To establish regular prayer in a
collective setting, on the other hand, is a very effective means of
disciplining the nafs. Establishing the prayer five times a day in a masjid requires that a specific timetable be followed
so that, in spite of all the distractions and difficulties of everyday life,
one still manages to show up for the prayers regularly. In addition to the five
obligatory prayers, there is the most esteemed of the supererogatory prayers, tahajjud. Here one has to get up in the
middle of the night, although the nafs craves rest and sleep. Secondly,
there is the exercise of fasting in which one must abstain from two of the most
potent physical needs, food and sex, from dawn to sunset. The third exercise is
spending one’s hard earned money for the sake of Allah (SWT). Since the nafs wants to hold on to this wealth and
lavish it on itself, it pains the nafs seeing this wealth being “wasted”
in charity.
The establishment of prayer,
fasting, and spending for the sake of Allah (SWT) are all exercises that
counter the demands of the nafs and thereby serve to weaken its hold on the heart. Note that the
same goal is further achieved through two other religious obligations, each of
which combines the features of the aforementioned three obligations. First, there
is the obligation of Hajj. In Hajj there are specific requirements regarding dhikr and prayer, restrictions of ihram, the spending of wealth, as well
as the risk and discomfort of a long journey. Second, there is the mission of
spreading the word of Islam and struggling to establish it on the earth (Iqamah Al-Deen). This mission also brings with it
a great deal of trials and tribulations that require the believer to control
the demands of the nafs.
A believer undertaking this mission
has to face abusive language and insults, endure malicious propaganda, suffer
the taunts of street urchins, and bear the pain of being described as charlatan
or insane. The Prophet (SAW) himself had to listen to people calling him a liar,
a mere poet, a possessed individual, a sorcerer, a demented person, a magician,
and other such things, all because he was calling the people towards Islam. In
the face of this abuse, the command from Allah (SWT) was to remain patient and
steadfast, and not to respond to any insult, provocation, or physical harm.
Just like the Prophet (SAW) and his Companions (RAA), every believer must face
these insults during the course of the struggle to establish Islam — the
patient endurance of which serves to control and discipline the nafs. Similarly, there can be no struggle
for Islam without the expenditure of money, time, and capabilities. At the same
time, one endangers not only one’s own well being but also that of one’s family
by condemning tyranny and injustice. When, during the course of this mission,
the stage of open conflict arrives one has to put one’s very own life on the
line. At this stage the two most fundamental biological instincts —
preservation of the self and preservation of the species — have to be curtailed
for the sake of a higher, spiritual ideal.
The most important point to note in
the context of this discussion is the following: Only one of two conditions can
be present in a given society: either Islam is established and dominant as a
politico-socio-economic order, or it has been relegated to the private affairs of
the individual. If Islam is dominant, then Salat, Zakat, Saum, and Hajj would be the primary means of disciplining
and purifying the nafs, and one should also engage in supererogatory practices to further
attain this goal. In the latter case, however, the mission of calling people to
Islam and striving to make it dominant takes precedence over all supererogatory
(nafl) acts of worship. When Islam is weak
and overpowered by forces of disbelief, primary attention has to be given to Jihad as a means of disciplining and purifying
the nafs and not to supererogatory acts of worships.
The importance of engaging in the
struggle to establish Islam as it relates to the culturing of the nafs on the individual level is quite
clear — this struggle is an exercise in disciplining the nafs so that the ruh may be enlightened and liberated.
There is, however, another important and collective dimension to this struggle.
The ultimate goal of the struggle for Iqamah Al-Deen is to establish a just and
equitable society so that the opportunity is afforded to the
greatest number of people to adopt the path of self-purification and spiritual
enlightenment.
Imagine the selfishness and self-centeredness of an individual who has spent years roaming in the deserts, isolated on mountain tops, or living in the jungles — all for the sake of his own spiritual enlightenment. This person undertakes all sorts of difficult exercises and risks in order to cleanse, purify, and refine his own self, while the vast multitudes of his fellow human beings are condemned to an oppressive, wretched, and inhuman existence due to the tyranny of men who have set themselves up in the place of God. This multitude of humanity will not even be afforded the opportunity to ponder over ideals any higher or nobler than their empty stomachs and tin-roof shacks. Whether the individual seeker actually attains spiritual enlightenment or not, that point is totally irrelevant for the vast majority of human beings — the wretched of the earth. The efforts on the part of this individual to reach the heights of spiritual enlightenment are self-centered and totally divorced from the altruistic struggle to establish justice.
Imagine the selfishness and self-centeredness of an individual who has spent years roaming in the deserts, isolated on mountain tops, or living in the jungles — all for the sake of his own spiritual enlightenment. This person undertakes all sorts of difficult exercises and risks in order to cleanse, purify, and refine his own self, while the vast multitudes of his fellow human beings are condemned to an oppressive, wretched, and inhuman existence due to the tyranny of men who have set themselves up in the place of God. This multitude of humanity will not even be afforded the opportunity to ponder over ideals any higher or nobler than their empty stomachs and tin-roof shacks. Whether the individual seeker actually attains spiritual enlightenment or not, that point is totally irrelevant for the vast majority of human beings — the wretched of the earth. The efforts on the part of this individual to reach the heights of spiritual enlightenment are self-centered and totally divorced from the altruistic struggle to establish justice.
Whatever may be the ultimate outcome
of this effort in the eyes of Allah (SWT), from a sociological point of view we
can state with absolute confidence that selfishness and self-centeredness negate
all higher spiritual values.
It has been detailed in my tract The Objective and Goal of Muhammad’s
Prophethood (SAW) that the advent of the Last Prophet (SAW) took place at a critical
juncture in human history. From his era onwards, the domain of individual
liberty and freedom began to shrink and the domain of the collective system
began to expand dramatically. In other words, it became progressively more
difficult for the individual to shape his or her own life, free from the
influence of the collective system in place. This tyranny has reached its
absolute climax in the modern secular society where the very hopes, fears, and
dreams of the individual are engineered by a corporate system over which he or
she has no control. For the masses of humanity who are not privileged to enjoy
the fruits of the modern corporate-consumer culture, political tyranny combines
with economic destitution and a grossly unjust social stratification to produce
a society where no individual can possibly assert his or her individuality. The
hadith
of
the Prophet (SAW) — “Poverty leads towards disbelief” — has a direct bearing on
this subject. Indeed, if the scrooges of hunger, indigence, and despair do not
actually produce disbelief, they definitely have the effect of making the
individual heedless and forgetful of Allah (SWT). This idea is expressed by
Faiz Ahmad Faiz in an Urdu couplet thus:
Life has alienated me,
From the remembrance of your
beauty;
More entrancing than even you,
Are the sorrows of this world.
Shah Waliullah Delhvi (RA) has
offered a very penetrating analysis regarding the relationship between extreme
wealth, grinding poverty, and the condition of religion in society. He says
that the unjust distribution of wealth in society eventually leads to its
concentration in the hands of a tiny elite. The elite possessing this wealth
indulge in luxury, extravagance, and opulence; it becomes immersed in all the
vices that inevitably accompany such a lifestyle. The impoverished masses, on
the other hand, find themselves trapped in a life of destitution and desperation,
a life in which the procurement of the next meal becomes their central concern.
Consequently, most of the people living in such a society begin to merely exist
at the levels of animals — the rich because they choose to, the masses because
they are forced to. In both cases, human beings become oblivious and forgetful
of Allah (SWT). How can there be any hope of spiritual growth under such unjust
socio-economic conditions?
There is a very critical point to
note about the religious concept of “service to humanity.” This concept has
three different levels.
- On the most basic level it is the feeding, clothing, and sheltering of the poor and tending to the needs of the indigent. For an individual who is calling people towards Allah (SWT) and towards the light of truth, it is of great importance that he or she not only have sympathy and empathy for the poor and the needy, but that he or she actually serves them.
- The second level of “service to humanity” is to help human beings regarding their fate in the Hereafter. What good is it to temporarily allay the suffering of an individual in the worldly life, if he or she will not benefit from the Grace of Allah (SWT) in the Hereafter? Consequently, calling people to Islam so that they may benefit from Divine Grace in the Hereafter is a more noble level of “service to humanity.”
- The third level in this regard is to struggle for the freedom of the creatures of Allah (SWT) from bondage to the tyranny of despots, and to establish a just and equitable order in which all are free to develop their spiritual potential and to love, adore, and obey their Lord. This is the noblest of the three levels of “service to humanity” because it produces benefits in this world as well as in the Hereafter. Reducing the concept of “service to humanity” merely to the first level betrays a limited and distorted conception of religious obligations.
To be continued....
No comments:
Post a Comment