Truly Beautiful Part 2
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ
ِ
In the Name of Allah Most-Compassionate, Most-Merciful
Someone commented after my first post titled “Truly Beautiful”, asking what made me have such beautiful thoughts? Since the comment I had no need to want to follow up that post or the comment, the answer to the question could only be one. Such thoughts were inspired by the One that has created minds to think and hearts to feel. For this I can truthfully take no credit other than my desire to want to speak the best truth to the best of my ability, and then to what extent can I claim credit for the desire to speak the truth, only God knows, for He is Al-Haqq, The Truth. I think in truth I find everything beautiful, speaking the truth, the beauty of God’s creation, beautiful words, good virtues, courage, independence, uniqueness, humility, nobility and much more besides. All this combines to create a beautiful spirit, which is the definition that Islam gives to true beauty. From a beautiful spirit emanate, from God’s inspiration, inspired thoughts. A soul that contains anything less than these good qualities is superficial to varying degrees. So in answer to the question of what inspires me to have such thoughts as those I commit to paper, the answer is that I’m searching for the truth, and in doing so I have had to go through beauty. Beauty is like a most wonderous scent, once you love it, are inspired by it, then it saturates you with its perfume, and you begin to see the entire world through it. Just as if you were to wear a pleasing scent, you would smell its fragance all day, and everytime you caught it you would find it pleasing, soothing. In the same way beauty saturates the entire soul with this scent so that you see everything that is beautiful as beautiful, but you also see beauty where others cannot.
The truth is beauty and everything beautiful speaks the truth which is to testify to the existence of the One that created the same beauty and scattered it absolutely everywhere in the universe. Its easy to take this for granted, but it really is quite overwhelming when you love beauty so much, to see so much beauty in God’s creation and not be overwhelmed. The truth is also that I’m searching for true beauty and I haven’t yet found it. I’m trying to understand what is truly beautiful, because to know the answer to this question will have a profound impact on everything else. Everything of beauty is beautiful, but there must also be some distinguishing factor that places one type of beauty above the rest. Do you know what it is? Your comments please.
One of the central aspects of Islam is tawheed, the belief in Divine Unity, or the Oneness of God. In answer to the question posed by someone as to who God was, Allah revealed surah al-Ikhlas. Unlike most surahs whose name is based on a particualar theme of the Surah such as Ale-Imran, Baqarah, Al-Wakiah, An-Nisa and so on, Al-Ikhlas which means sincerity is not directly the theme of this surah. In answer to who Allah is, Allah says:
قُلْ هُوَ اللَّهُ أَحَدٌ
اللَّهُ الصَّمَدُ
لَمْ يَلِدْ وَلَمْ يُولَدْ
وَلَمْ يَكُن لَّهُ كُفُوًاأَحَدٌ
Say: He, Allah, is One,
Allah, the Eternal, Absolute
He begetteth not, nor is He begotten,
And there is none like unto Him.
(Quran, Al-Ikhlas 112:1-4)
Thus in direct answer to who Allah is, He refers to His absolute unity, that there is none comparable to Him, He is above His creation. This part most people understand, but what is even more important is how the idea of Divine Unity is understood because this very powerful idea can permeate through into every aspect of ones existence. In other words to begin to understand Allah as One which is the absolute key to true worship requires sincerity, hence that is why the Surah is entitled Al-Ikhlas. Without sincerity one cannot even begin to know the Oneness of Allah and hence one is unable to worship Him as He has intended us to do so. There is another aspect to this which is the association of Divine Unity – with the Unity of the Ummah – with sincerity. In other words to understand tawheed, the Oneness of Allah, leads to the Oneness of the Ummah. But conversely to be disunited in ones heart, to not understand Divine Unity also leads to disunity in the Ummah. The operative factor here is sincerity, which if corrected, has a direct bearing on the unity and hence success of the Ummah. As Allah says in the Quran:
َّمَّا جَعَلَ اللَّهُ لِرَجُلٍ مِّن قَلْبَيْنِ فِ
“Allah has not made for any man two hearts in his (one) body”
(Quran, Al-Ahzab 33:04)
Here the term “two hearts” denotes disunity, for one each heart has its own desire and hence Allah is asking the retorical question of whether he has placed two hearts or just one in the body? In reality there can only be one heart in one body, that is to say, one a physical heart and one spiritual heart whose desire is only singular. The Ummah is described as a body, and thus if the heart of that body is unified so will its desires and hence its actions. The opposite is also true. But this unity is predicated on sincerity which is what surah al-Ikhlas is dealing with, and without the requisite sincerity coming from the belivers, the desire for Unity amongst each other, and the desire to understand the Oneness of Allah, one will not be granted tawheed. And what, I ask you, is greater in the universe than to be united in the worship of Allah? To be united in love, in our love for Him, when everthing in the universe is set right?
The reason I mentioned Divine Unity is because it is perhaps the highest aspect of true beauty, and this is something a person feels deep in their soul, for when we are united, together, loving, compassionate, giving and caring towards one another, there is nothing more beautiful than this.
