The Wrappings of Gratitude

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

In the Name of Allah Most-Compassionate, Most-Merciful

The Garden of my heart,
What shall I describe to you, are the gardens of my heart?
They are a place awaiting the beautiful,
A place of peace and love,
Of beauty and tranquillity,
Of birds and flowers,
These are some of the gardens of my heart.

But how, you may ask, do you invite people to such a place,
How do they enter into the gardens of your heart?
Let me tell you what I know;

If you want the people of beauty to enter into the gardens of your heart,
Then you must provide them a beautiful path.

A path of beautiful roses and tulips,
Of lavender and jasmine,
Of cherry blossoms drifting gently in the warm breeze,
Scented with love,
Sweetened by the bees of your garden,
Gathering the sweetest thoughts,
And raining them down on you.

If you want the people of beauty to enter,
Into the gardens of your heart,
Then you must provide them a beautiful path,
For if the path is beautiful then,
They will know that the heart must be a place of even greater beauty.

Is the path to the gardens of your heart, not also,
The path to God?
And the path to the gardens of paradise?
If the path of God is as beautiful as this,
Then how unimaginably beautiful must His garden be?

So if you want to invite the people of beauty,
Into the gardens of your heart,
Then you must make the path to it,
As though you were inviting God Himself,
Awaiting His judgement with eager anticipation,
Hoping upon hope that He would approve.

Then think, how beautiful must that path be for Him,
For Him to walk along it,
To walk into the gardens of your heart,
To give His approval,
And at once God enters your heart nothing other than,
Him can live there, forever.

Are the gardens of your heart, not also,
The gardens of paradise,
To which you invite others,
To which God invites you,
To reside therein for eternity?

For you can only call people to paradise,
If you have paradise in your heart,
So, these are the gardens of my heart,
What shall I describe to you, are the gardens of my heart?

·18 Ramadan 1428·

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

In the Name of Allah Most-Compassionate, Most-Merciful

Every good word I write is a mercy from You. Every good thought I have is a mercy from You. Every step I walk to the mosque is rewarded as a prayer by You, and yet it is You that created my legs, gave me the intention to go to the mosque and enter it with hope. The prayer that I made was taught to me by You and given to me as a gift, that whenever I needed to turn to You and pray, whenever I needed Your guidance, all I needed to do was ask, and You would answer. Every word I recite in my prayer is a mercy from You, Your reward to me for doing merely what You have taught me to do. Every tear I shed, a mercy from You for the love and compassion You have placed in my heart, so that it melts at the mere sound of Your words from the noble Quran.

That compassion I did not create. The tears that wash my heart I did not create. The heart I did not create. The ears which the words penetrate I did not create. The mind that is able to comprehend the beauty of the words, I did not create. Where am ‘I’ in this? I realise only that my Lord’s mercy is beyond my comprehension, and as He says:

وَإِن تَعُدُّواْ نِعْمَةَ اللّهِ لاَ تُحْصُوهَا إِنَّ اللّهَ لَغَفُورٌ رَّحِيمٌ

“Even if you were to enumerate all the blessings of Allah, truly never could you enumerate them Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful” (Quran, an-Nahl 16:18)

I do not exist. Only my Lord exists, and only by His power and by His will does everything occur in this world. How can I possibly convey how merciful our Lord is to us? This is the spiritual journey on this spiritual path to the realisation of Rabb-il-Alimeen . And even if we were to gain the slightest glimpse of this realisation in our lives, then truly we would have been blessed by His Hands. And yet even that slightest of sights in no way conveys to our limited perceptions and beating hearts the magnificence of our Lord, Allah subhanahu wa’tala. To say we realise only says that we have been brought to the door of humility, with prostrating heads and hearts, trembling with hope and fear that He may forgive us and draw us near to Him. To say we realise is only to say that we are bearing witness to the truth, Al Haqq and then again to what extent have we spoken the truth of our witnessing, only Allah truly knows, but we hope we have spoken the truth. It is only the truest and purest of hearts that can realise Allah to the extent to which permitted by Him, and the truest and purest of all hearts was possessed by the noble prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him. And then in succession were the hearts of the other prophets and messengers, peace be upon them all, but none exceeded our own prophet and we are so fortunate and blessed to have been chosen by Allah to be a part of his Ummah. Again we could not measure the blessing and generosity of our Lord to choose us to be Muslims, to belong to the best Ummah, to belong to the greatest prophet, the prophet whose heart and soul were so pure that only he amongst the entire creation was permitted to stand in the presence of Allah, close to Him, closer than even the angels.

Every good action comes from a good intention, which comes from good knowledge, which comes from You. Every good word comes from a good heart, which comes from You. Every act of kindness comes from a love for You, which comes from You. Every good we do comes from You, and is a mercy and a blessing, a means of drawing nearer to You so that You may forgive us our sins and admit us into Your mercy. There are not enough words that we could ever conceive that could describe Your immeasurable mercy to Your creation. There are not enough beautiful words in all the languages of mankind that could describe Your beauty and majesty. As the noble messenger once prayed so beautifully, “O God, I seek refuge in Your pleasure from Your wrath, in Your forgiveness from Your punishment, and with You from You. I am not able to praise You as You praise Yourself.” As he also once said, “You are beautiful and You love beauty”.

Then what greater beauty is there in all the universe than to know You, to love You, and to be loved by You?

·04 Ramadan 1428·

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

In the Name of Allah Most-Compassionate, Most-Merciful

Love, indeed a preoccupation of many hearts throughout the ages, and mine too. Let me then begin by saying – love – what a truly wonderful thing to behold. That most blessed of gifts from our Lord to us. And whether one is white or black, Muslim or Christian, love affects us, or at least has the potential to, in much the same way.Such is the power of love, for there is more to love than meets the eye. But deliberating on this issue for a while, I have come to conclude, that one cannot fall in love until one is already in love. “A paradox”, I hear you cry, perhaps, but let me explain, for you may know why. For, if one falls in love one is claiming to know love, but how can you know a thing before it has been made known to you? How then does a person know it is true love they are experiencing until one knows what true love truly is?

What we like, whether the scent of her perfume, or the colour of her hair, may not necessarily be a sign of love, but simply the things we like. How then do we distinguish between what we like and what we love, between what we think is love and what we know, in the depths of our heart to be true love? We may also feel a deep emotion stir inside, we cannot rest, nor think of anything else but our beloved, but is this true love? And how do we know, if we have never felt this emotion before? And even though feelings do belie, most will say, ‘You just do’. Indeed to a degree this is true. For in our natures is contained a universe of love. But to what extent we are in love before we fall in love will determine the depth to which we understand true love, when it finds us or at least when one blessed night we find it. To know love is to know, there is no greater love than Divine Love.

وَعَلَّمَ آدَمَ الأَسْمَاء كُلَّهَا ثُمَّ عَرَضَهُمْ عَلَى
الْمَلاَئِكَةِ فَقَالَ أَنبِئُونِي بِأَسْمَاء هَـؤُلاء إِن كُنتُمْ صَادِقِينَ
قَالُواْ سُبْحَانَكَ لاَ عِلْمَ لَنَا إِلاَّ مَا عَلَّمْتَنَا إِنَّكَ أَنتَ الْعَلِيمُ الْحَكِيمُ

“And He taught Adam the names of all things; then He placed them before the angels, and said: “Tell me the names of these if ye are right.” They said: “Glory to Thee, of knowledge We have none, save what Thou Hast taught us: In truth it is Thou Who art perfect in knowledge and wisdom.” (Quran, 2:31-32)

A love which clarifies and purifies, enlightens, and teaches us all the meanings of true love. So that when the purest of human loves does find us, we know it to be true. And we know this because, if the love we have felt for our Lord, the love He has shone in our hearts with His pure light, is the same love felt when the eyes of the beloved cast themselves upon their destiny, then we know what we feel is true. But to truly know this love, the hearts and eyes therein must be filled with love already, filled so that they see nothing else but His love, His .signs, His mercy and His grace. Thus, when they both humbly set sail for the sacred shores of marriage, praying for the blessings of Allah, asking Him to make it successful, pure and eternal, they must already possess love inside their hearts, they must already be in love with the One that taught them to love, and then all that remains is to fall in love. And this because they already know, “know each other, respect each other, and admire each other”. And they do so because they can see the signs of Divine Love in each other.

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

In the Name of Allah Most-Compassionate, Most-Merciful

It is common to think that difficult trials and tribulations in a persons life are the originary reasons that give rise to negative feeings in the heart. What people wrongly think is that tests in themselves give rise to negative feelings. However, as will be argued here, this is not neccesarily the case, but instead is an argument people pose in order to hide behind the facade of blaming others for the weakness in their own characters response to difficulty.

Two Tests and Two Responses

وَلَا تَسْتَوِي الْحَسَنَةُ وَلَا السَّيِّئَةُ ادْفَعْ بِالَّتِي هِيَ
أَحْسَنُ فَإِذَا الَّذِي بَيْنَكَ وَبَيْنَهُ عَدَاوَةٌ
كَأَنَّهُ وَلِيٌّ حَمِيمٌ

“The good deed and the evil deed are not alike.
Repel the evil deed with one which is better, then lo!
he, between whom and thee there was enmity (will become)
as though he was a bosom friend”. (Quran, Fussilat 41:34)

Let us begin by saying that, each test contains two tests. The test itself and the manner in which a person responds to the test. To this there are also two responses, either one turns towards God or away from Him. What those, that blame the test for their negative response, are actually failing to accept is that their negative response was actually their heart’s genuine and negative response to the test. In other words a true reflection of their level of emaan. Not wishing to see a true reflection of their selves in the mirror of their heart’s response, they seek to blame the test itself for their response. Sometimes going so far as to justify that response whilst knowing it was wrong.

The Negative Response

However, the negative response to a test is a manifestation of the negativity already possessed in the heart by that person, prior to the test. So, there is a subtle yet vast difference between thinking ‘tests give rise to negative feelings and negative feelings giving rise to tests’. The main purpose of a test from Allah is not the test in itself, but rather to show the person the true level of their yakin (certainty) in His existence.

Thus the one that responds negatively does so because he is unable to accept that his response is actually part of who he is. If he did not possess that character, those traits, that heart, then he would not have fallen into despair because of the test. It is easier to blame the test, and hence seek to blame God for testing him, rather than being courageous enough to look at the worst of ones characteristics, accept they came from him and then seek to remove them from the heart. As the Quran says:

“Yet when We bestow Our favours on man, he turns away and becomes remote on his side (instead of coming to Us), and when evil seizes him he gives himself up to despair!” (Quran, al-Isra 17:83)

The Positive Response

Given the idea, negative feelings of the heart giving rise to tests, what is the proof to show this principle is true? The most powerful proof is contained in response of the prophet, sallallahu alayhi wasallam, to the bad actions against him, which he responded with pure goodness. Who despite all the deep tragedies of losing his closest family, the opposition he faced from his clan, the rejection, suffering and hatred, he never allowed even an atoms worth of negative feeling to be generated in his heart towards either those opposing him or towards the test. Such opposition must have been even more accentuated because of his deep sensitivity, love and utterly pure desire to guide the very people that had suddenly become his bitterest enemies for no other reason than an envy towards his vast and pure character, peace and blessings be upon him.

Hence the response of the heart of the messenger of Allah is a proof that no matter how difficult tests may be, it is not the test that gives rise to negativity and disbelief, but instead it is disbelief that was always present in the heart, which the test drew out. Hence another proof that the person responding negatively deserved the test was the way he responded to it. Hence his own response provides a proof against him. Now one may question why Allah would choose to draw this disbelief out of the heart? The purpose behind this is that the test acts as a form of a mirror, reflecting back to the person the essence of his character in order that he may remove and correct these negative traits before finding himself with such a heart on the final day. As Allah says:

Conversely, the person that responds positively by being increased in his certainty and not shaken in his faith, sees a sign of a heart in which is contained faith which, when tested, was only increased in its love for Allah. The heart was not dibilitated by the pain of the test but saw beyond the material pain, seeing only benefit contained in the love, contained in the test, all intended to improve him, to draw him closer to his Creator. So the heart’s response was to accept the wisdom of the pain of the test, whereas those that responded negatively were blinded by the pain (or change expected of them) and hence failed to see beyond this to the wisdom for which they were tested.

Who is the owner of hearts?

Another perspective to the question of the heart’s response is that in both cases of the negative and positive response, it is not necessarily the person responding but their heart. The person is the heart, the heart is the person. His heart represents who he really is. How he responds to any given situation depends entirely on the heart given to him. So thus by witnessing ones heart’s response to tribulations, a persons truest character is being brought out before him. However, this does not mean that a person seeks a defence of his negative response by claiming that he had no choice but to respond in the way he did. However, if we understand that the heart’s true nature is hidden and only brought forth through the medium of tests, then the purpose of tests is understood as a means by which one is purged of weakness of heart through being able to witness the content of ones character through the heart’s response to tests. If he responds negatively then it is a blessing so that he may correct his faults while he has the opportunity to do so.

However those that respond positively also have to face a secondary test that of avoiding exulting in their response by being proud in themselves for their response. If it is understood that ones response is based on the heart given to him by Allah then his response was indicative of the blessing of possessing such a heart and not necessarily because of any great effort on his part. And although he may well have consciously striven to ensure he only responded positively, one cannot remove from that response the possibility that his positive response was primarily because of the heart given to him in the first place. When Ayesha, radia’anha, asked the prophet, sall’Allahhu alayhi wasallam, why he stood for such long hours in the night prayer given that he had already been granted paradise? The response of the prophet was to say, “Should I not be a grateful servant?” This is an indication that all good is attributed to Allah and that we are the mere recipients of His countless blessings, blessings which do not necessarily directly correspond to whatever good we may consciously strive for. So even in our good, what we ought to take credit for is considerably less than what we deserve.

If we consider it true that a proof that tests are primarily intended to purge the heart of negativity, weakness and disbelief to varying degrees depending on the individual, then some may be moved to question the proof offered for this principle. Namely that the response of the prophet was only natural, for he was after all, the prophet of God and the best of all creation, so how could he react any other way. This is actually the very point being made. For, because he was the prophet he had been given the purest of all hearts, a heart only able to respond with gratitude, kindness, forgiveness and mercy, towards even those that sought to harm him. Countless examples exist of him forgiving those that had at one time gone to great lengths to harm him, and yet when they eventually they recognised his prophethood and inclined towards him, he forgave them. His response was based on the heart he had been given by Allah. This heart’s response was also coupled with an understanding of the wisdom behind the test, so that both the intellect and heart combined to respond in the best manner. The combination was a perfect balance between the use of reason, intellect and the spiritual response of a pure heart overflowing with compassion.

Again to this some may pose a similar reply from a different perspective by saying that he responded thus because he was the messenger of Allah. This argument is posed as a means of avoiding tackling ones faults. However to employ such an argument would be to seek to reject the Quran and Sunnah. By stating only the messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, could respond in such a high manner would be to say that following the Quran and Sunnah are impossible. Thus whenever a difficult question arises he invokes this reason instead of striving for nothing short of the highest standards if conduct as enjoined by the Quran and Sunnah, rather than as an avoidance of responsibility.

Summary
Thus tests are the perfect truth serum of the heart, for they draw out what is contained in the heart, some of which may be known but much of which is hidden. One of the most unsubstantiated claims to make with Allah is in claiming purity for oneself, as Allah says in the Quran:

“Those who avoid enormities of sin and abominations, save the unwilled offences – (for them) lo! thy Lord is of vast mercy. He is Best Aware of you (from the time) when He created you from the earth, and when ye were hidden in the bellies of your mothers. Therefore ascribe not purity unto yourselves. He is Best Aware of him who wardeth off (evil)”. (Quran, at-Tur, 53:32)

Allah is reminding us not to claim purity for ourselves for we do not truly know what is contained in our hearts. The best position is to suspect oneself and ones intentions by being honest with Allah about ones faults and complete dependency on Him. As He states:

“Say: “Whether ye hide what is in your hearts or reveal it, Allah knows it all: He knows what is in the heavens, and what is on earth. And Allah has power over all things”. (Quran, Al-e-Imran, 3:29)

Thus if we understand tests as a necessary means of purging the heart of negavity and also as a means of viewing its composition we are placed in the fortuante position of being able to alter ones response through correctly ones faults. Similarly, those that have responded positively to tests have greater grounds for showing gratitude because firstly they were tested which demonstrates God’s love for them, they responded positively which is a sign of their sound heart, and also a sign of the heart granted to them. To witness this ought to generate gratitude and the generation of gratitude is in turn a sign of being brought to the doors of gratitude before Allah, which is another great blessing.

The Messenger of Allah, sall’Allahu Alayhi wasallam

Thus if we want to judge our true states we ought to examine carefully how we have reacted to difficulties and tragedies and the degree to which either negative or positive feelings have resulted in the heart. In either case one ought to be moved to be grateful to Allah for the test. A person would show considerable gratitude to ones doctor for saving his life if that resulted from having his infected limb severed by the doctor. The patient does not consider the loss of the limb as a cause for grief but a cause or joy for through this mercy his life was saved. In the same way if we take to heart the view that God is all good, and all goodness is attributed to Him as the Originator and Creator of Goodness, then we think nothing short of Allah than our Lord and Creator who is helping us at every instance, through both prosperity and adversity alike. The servant that understands this is the servant that beings to become the beloved of Allah. We are thus reminded of the most beautiful prayer of the prophet, sall’Allahu alayhi wasallam, at Ta’if when he prayed so beautifully and showed us his true heart’s response in his unbounded love, gratitude and humility to Allah.

“O Allah! I complain to You of my weakness, my scarcity of resources and the humiliation I have been subjected to by the people. O Most Merciful of those who are merciful. O Lord of the weak and my Lord too. To whom have you entrusted me? To a distant person who receives me with hostility? Or to an enemy to whom you have granted authority over my affair? So long as You are not angry with me, I do not care. Your favour is of a more expansive relief to me. I seek refuge in the light of Your Face by which all darkness is dispelled and every affair of this world and the next is set right, lest Your anger or Your displeasure descends upon me. I desire Your pleasure and satisfaction until You are pleased. There is no power and no might except by You”.

If the messenger of Allah responded in such a beautiful manner given his exulted position then how ought are we to respond?