The Wrappings of Gratitude

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

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

The concept of wrongdoing and justice is very interesting particularly when viewed through the story of the creation of Adam (as) which is analogous to our own story and creation. What makes these two ideas so very interesting and important is the extent to which almost everything in our lives, no matter who we are, is entirely directed and dictated by our understanding of justice. Unlike the common idea of justice that people think of which is someone having committed some wrongdoing to another person, this article looks at this idea from a different perspective which enables us to view justice, not only as an idea of right and wrong, but we begin to see it as something whose understanding is essential to our success and well-being, both in the life and the next. We begin our analysis through the story of our own very creation, that of Adam (as). Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala created Adam (as) and bade the angels to prostrate to Adam (as), they all did except for Iblis:

وَإِذْ قُلْنَا لِلْمَلاَئِكَةِ اسْجُدُواْ لآدَمَ فَسَجَدُواْ إِلاَّ إِبْلِيسَ أَبَى وَاسْتَكْبَرَ وَكَانَ مِنَ الْكَافِرِينَ

“And behold, We said to the angels: “Bow down to Adam” and they bowed down. Not so Iblis: he refused and was haughty: He was of those who reject Faith.” (Surah al-Baqarah 2:34)

وَلَقَدْ خَلَقْنَاكُمْ ثُمَّ صَوَّرْنَاكُمْ ثُمَّ قُلْنَا لِلْمَلآئِكَةِ اسْجُدُواْ لآدَمَ فَسَجَدُواْ إِلاَّ إِبْلِيسَ لَمْ يَكُن مِّنَ السَّاجِدِينَ

“It is We Who created you and gave you shape; then We bade the angels prostrate to Adam, and they prostrate; not so Iblis; He refused to be of those who prostrate.” (Surah al-Araf, 7:11)

All the angels obeyed Allah except Iblis; one of the first meanings we draw from this is that disbelief actually begins with disobedience to Allah rather than arriving at an intellectual state of rejecting the existence of God. Conversely, what we can also understand from this analogy is that belief in Allah is demonstrated through His obedience rather than through having arrived at some point of intellectual enlightenment.  Hence, it also means that belief does not emanate from understanding, but rather it begins through obedience, because to claim to believe on the basis of understanding would mean one would have to gain knowledge for ones entire life and depend on ones understanding being perfect to such an extent as to guide one to faith.To claim to either accept or reject faith on the basis of understanding alone is a false idea. There are numerous proofs for this which we will not examine here, but an idea which will become clear through this text.

Taking further this idea, of acquiring belief through understanding, this was exactly Iblis’s position, that unless he understood what he was being commanded to do he was not going to obey Allah, and hence he refused, thus becoming a disbeliever. So his disbelief was not necessarily because he didn’t believe in Allah, because he was aware of Allah, but rather it began through his disobedience which emanated from both arrogance and envy.

Now, how does this relate to the idea of wrongdoing and justice? Well, this was just the beginning of what led Iblis deeper into disbelief, his refusal to obey Allah. The next stage was, not being content in having disobeyed Allah, he sought to justify his actions by lying against Allah. In doing so he enters deeper into disbelief because whilst the first action might be thought of as a mistake (although it was not) the second certainly could not because it was a premeditated lie.

قَالَ رَبِّ بِمَا أَغْوَيْتَنِي لأُزَيِّنَنَّ لَهُمْ فِي الأَرْضِ وَلأُغْوِيَنَّهُمْ أَجْمَعِينَ

“(Iblis) said: “O my Lord! because Thou hast put me in the wrong, I will make (wrong) fair-seeming to them on the earth, and I will put them all in the wrong.” (Surah al-Hijr, 15:39)

This is the point to which all human beings are brought, and are made to testify, just as Iblis had to, to the truth. Either one speaks the truth at this stage, the outward sign of which is obedience to Allah, or one rejects the truth and hence disobeys Allah. The question that all of us are posed with, no matter who we are, is whether we acknowledge the existence of God, and in doing so, whether we are then humble enough to submit ourselves to His complete power and authority. That is the real question behind our creation.

Now, if we apply our understanding of the above ayah to concept of wrongdoing what we find is that the motivation for the wrongdoing of Iblis was because he had considered that some unjustifiable wrong had been done to him. One key reason why Iblis blames Allah and one of the main reasons we are told for his refusal to bow to Allah is:

قَالَ مَا مَنَعَكَ أَلاَّ تَسْجُدَ إِذْ أَمَرْتُكَ قَالَ أَنَاْ خَيْرٌ مِّنْهُ خَلَقْتَنِي مِن نَّارٍ وَخَلَقْتَهُ مِن طِينٍ

“(Allah) said: “What prevented thee from prostrating when I commanded thee?” He said: “I am better than he: Thou didst create me from fire, and him from clay.”(Surah al-Araf, 7:12)

Iblis’ disobedience to Allah not only emanated from not willing to do something he did not understand, and not only did it arise from his arrogance for thinking he was the greatest of all of God’s creation, and not only did it precede from his envy of man, that Allah could choose something over him. The heart of his disbelief lay in his perception of having been wronged and this is the very thing he states to Allah for his refusal to prostrate. In his view something that he deserved, that was rightfully his had been taken away from him, which was his position with Allah. He surmised that this could not possibly be his fault in anyway but rather it must be the fault of Allah, a’oudibillah.

Hence, we can see the point at which the road to disbelief began for Iblis, not necessarily its beginning but the point at which he ventured deeper into disbelief.  What this means for us as human beings is that we will, during the course of our lives make mistakes, some small and some great, but those mistakes can be rectified through turning to Allah and seeking his pardon, forgiveness and protection. However, it is when we consider some wrong has been done to us, by which we begin to justify our own wrong actions, it is then that we fall deeper into the trap shaytan wants us to fall into, which is to consider that something that should be ours has been wrongly taken away from us. It is this very idea that forms the basis for all disbelief, and in a lesser form, is the very idea that tests the faith of the believers.

In essence what we’re referring to is not only the idea of wrongdoing and justice but specifically that the idea of loss coupled with a sense of being wronged – is the source of all disobedience to Allah. Hence if we apply this idea to almost every example where a person might consider he has either lost something or not gained something then each and every case may be understood in the context of the self percieving that it has been wronged in someway. A sense of loss and a sens of being wronged reside side by side. This sense of being wronged is usually also the justification of wrong in exactly the same way as Iblis justified his wrong action. That, ‘because something is being denied me, or something that should be mine has been taken away from me, it justifies me not being obedient to Allah and hence disobeying Him in order to get what I believe is rightfully mine.’ The justification the disbelievers, hypocrites and the fasiqun, will almost always follow this same line of false reasoning as we will see further.

When we don’t get what we want, or something that was once ours is no longer ours, causes in human beings a sense of loss. This is not the problem. The problem is how we understand this loss and how we respond to it. What Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala is showing us throughout the Qur’an is to consider our gains and losses in the context of our overall creation, not just during our short existence on this earth, but in the context that something we might lose here on earth we might get back manifold in the hereafter, and so on.  We’re also given the very powerful example of the Prophet (s), who, given his station with Allah, given that he was the preeminent Prophet (s), the greatest of all of them, he did not have to be tested for himself necessarily but as an example to the believers. One of his considerable tests was the loss of his wife to whom he had been married for twenty-five years, a loss that caused him considerable pain. Not only did he suffer the loss of Khadijah (ra) but had also to bury in his lifetime five of his six children. But given such a severe test, the Prophet (s) never considered these losses as something that Allah had taken away from him, his only response was to seek the forgiveness of Allah, to humble himself and to acknowledge that it is Allah that has complete power, He gives to whom He pleases out of His wisdom and He withholds from whom He pleases out of His wisdom. His wisdom is beyond our understanding, but what is not necessarily outside of our understanding is the idea that the beginning of belief begins with obedience, and the beginning of disbelief begins through misunderstanding the idea of justice, of falsely attributing injustice to Allah, or considering that Allah could ever wrong us in anyway.

But most importantly what we must strive to remember is that material gains or losses are immaterial in comparison to Allah, we have not lost anything if we have Allah, and that we have not gained anything if we do not have Allah. As one of the scholars so eloquently put it:

“O Allah, if someone has found You what has he lost, and if someone has lost You what has he found?”

In sha’Allah in the following post we will delve deeper into the idea of loss and gain to demonstrate how they play a considerable role in activily influencing our decisions, shaping our characters and determining our destinies.

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

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

Permit me to recall a really beautiful story to you of my last day in Medina on this blessed day of Jumu’ah.

It was my final day in Medina and we were planning to leave after Asr prayer, as it was, the evening before, I had like most others, given my salaam to the Prophet (s) and had not planned to pray in the Rowdah, or  so I thought. The rowdah, as you know is the area of the original mosque, next to which is the house of Aisha (ra) where the Prophet (s) is buried. As one might expect we were all quite sad to have to leave, none moreso than myself, who felt this place home like none other. Well I remember having done all my packing and prayed dhuhr in the masjid and then had some lunch. As I was walking back to the hotel I met a group of the brothers on the trip who said they were going to the masjid early before Asr to do some dhikr and ibadah. So I decided to go also but because I had given my salaam to the Prophet (s) the night before, which had already been a difficult undertaking, I said that I probably would not go to the Rowdah but would just pray somewhere quiet in the mosque. So we set off, the hotel was literally a couple of minutes from the masjid. When we arrived, and as is the norm, one tries to pray as far forward as possible, usually made easier during Asr as the masjid would fill slightly later than at other times. So we continued walk and did so right the way to the front and to the old part of the masjid marked by the sea of columns from the Ottoman times.

I was quite happy with this as its usually quite difficult to get that far forward given how busy it usually is as you might expect. Well on this occasion, and to all our surprise, the area of the Rowdah, marked with green carpet rather than the red carpet in the rest of the mosque, had been cordoned off for cleaning. Subha’Allah, in the ten days or so of having been there I’d never seen so much expanse of green carpet as it was always occupied by worshippers throughout the day. Now, the cleaners, may Allah bless them all, had almost finished and there was an ever growing crowd of people that had assembled at the point where the separating cordon was to be lifted. It was an interesting few moments, one of the cleaners stood waiting for the signal from one of his colleagues to open the barrier. So everyone’s eyes were on this guy, just as he seemed he was going to unclip the barrier everyone was one their toes getting ready to sprint to get to the best places they could inside the Rowdah, but then he would re-clip the barrier and we’d all collectively moan at the false alarm. This happened one ot two times more which only increased our anticipation at wanting to pray as close to our Prophet (s) as possible. Then all of a sudden this chap was given the signal and he unclipped the barrier, barely had he unfurled this barrier from its place and made an opening, that a surge of overwhelming delighted worshippers raced with each other to find that place in the Rowdah that pleased them the most. I was no different and found a tremendous surge in my heart, of a feeling of being most blessed and fortunate to be presented this opportunity to pray in the Rowdah for one final time even though it had not been my intention. And so, like all these all believers i raced, some went to the mihrab where the Prophet (s) stood to lead the prayer and address the believers, some were content to simply get onto the green carpet, whilst others like myself sought a place as close as possible to the Prophet (s).

It is difficult to adequately describe the intensity of that ibadah or the sense of blessing and honour conveyed by Allah in being permitted to pray so close to the Prophet (s) one final time, even though it had not been my intention. That time and many others, continue to remain very strong memories and experiences of a place like none other on earth. A place the scholars describe as Jannah on account of the five portions of Jannah that are contained in Medina, a place made no more important because it is the city and more importantly the blessed residence of the Prophet (s) without whom none of these experiences and blessings would ever have been possible. We are forever indebted to our Prophet, may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him.

وَالَّذِينَ تَبَوَّؤُوا الدَّارَ وَالْإِيمَانَ مِن قَبْلِهِمْ يُحِبُّونَ مَنْ هَاجَرَ إِلَيْهِمْ وَلَا يَجِدُونَ فِي صُدُورِهِمْ حَاجَةً مِّمَّا أُوتُوا وَيُؤْثِرُونَ عَلَى أَنفُسِهِمْ وَلَوْ كَانَ بِهِمْ خَصَاصَةٌ وَمَن يُوقَ شُحَّ نَفْسِهِ فَأُوْلَئِكَ هُمُ الْمُفْلِحُونَ

“But those who, before them, had homes in [Medina] and had adopted the faith, show their affection to those who came to them for refuge, and do not entertain in their hearts desire for things given to them, but give them preference over themselves, even though poverty was their [own lot]. And those saved from the covetousness of their own souls,- they are the ones that achieve prosperity. “(Qur’an, al-Hashr 59:9)

Insha’Allah, let us then, as the followers of the our noble Prophet (s), seek to make easy for others that journey to the city of the Prophet (s) just as the Ansar did for the Muhajarun and all others that would undertake a most difficult journey just to be in the company of the Prophet (s). Just as Allah made it easy for us, let us strive to make it one of our life’s serious ambitions to not only return to the city of the Prophet (s) but to help all those that have yet to visit the Prophet (s) and particularly all those yet to find him. May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him.