The First
Wisdom
A sign that
one is relying on one’s deeds is the decrease in hope when one makes a mistake[1]
Is relying on one’s deeds praiseworthy in the Revealed Law or
blameworthy?
Ibn ʿAṭāʾillāh says: When it comes to Allah being pleased with you
and the reward He has promised you, beware of relying on the deeds that you
have done and have been granted tawfīq[2]
to do, such as prayer, fasting, charity and various other righteous acts.
Rather, rely therein on Allah’s kindness, favour and generosity.
Is there any proof for this? Yes, and it is the ḥadīth of the
Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, which has been
related by Al-Bukhārī and others: {Not a single one of you will be entered into
Paradise by his deeds.} They said, ‘Not even you, O Messenger of Allah?’ He
said, {Not even me, unless Allah covers me with His mercy.}
Therefore, deeds are not the price for entering Paradise. As that
is the case, what is thus sought when one is granted the tawfīq to carry
out acts of obedience is to desire Allah’s pleasure and reward, hoping for His
favour, pardon and generosity, and not to desire some sort of payment for the
deed that one was granted tawfīq to do.
And here he says: One of the clearest proofs that you are relying
on your deeds and not on Allah’s favour is that your hope in the Exalted’s
pardon decreases when you make mistakes, i.e. when you become entangled in acts
of disobedience and sin.
What this means is that while you were hoping for Allah’s
generosity and magnanimity you were actually relying therein on your deeds, and
thus whenever your good deeds were few and your sins were many, hope
disappeared. This is the standard that shows that in your hope you are relying
on your deeds and not on Allah’s favour and generosity, Glorified and Exalted
is He. In brief, this is the meaning of this wisdom of Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Illāh, may
Allah have mercy on him.
Furthermore, this wisdom has an important dimension in creed, an
important dimension in the Sunnah, in the speech of our master, the Messenger
of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and after that it has a
dimension in nurturing good character, and if Allah so wills we shall expound each
one.
***
Let us thus understand that the wisdoms of Ibn ʿAṭāʾillāh fall
into three categories:
The first category revolves around the axis of tawḥīd.[3]
The second category revolves around the axis of
character.[4]
Let us begin by expounding the theological dimension and analysing
it in the first wisdom:
The author of Jawharat Al-Tawḥīd[7]
says:
If He rewards us, that is solely out of His favour
And
if He punishes us, that is solely out of His justice
This is the doctrine that should be dyed within every Muslim, and
this is the way that was followed by the righteous, first three generations,[8]
may Allah be pleased with all of them.
Someone might say at this point, ‘Rather, the outward purport is
that the reward that we deserve is solely on account of the righteous actions
that we have done.’
However, if we contemplate the relationship between the slave and
his Lord and examine it closely, we realise that the matter is not like that.
What is the meaning of your statement: ‘Allah will only reward me
because of my deeds…He will only enter me into Paradise because of my deeds.’?
What these words mean is that Allah, Mighty and Majestic, has set a price for
Paradise, and it is not represented in dirhams or monetary liquidity but rather
in acts of worship and obedience and avoiding that which is unlawful.
Therefore, if you carry out acts of obedience and refrain from forbidden
matters then you have paid the price, and thereupon you have become deserving
of the merchandise that you have purchased! When you say, ‘I am only rewarded
because of the deeds I have done’, then this is what your words mean, but is
the matter really like that? In other words, when you carry out the commands
that Allah, Mighty and Majestic, has demanded of you, do you become deserving
of Paradise and the owner of it by the sweat of your brow, in the same
way that someone would become deserving of some donums of land by paying the
set price to the owner who put it up for sale? If you contemplate, you will see
that the matter is very different. If I were to pay the price for this garden
in money, just as the seller has requested, I would thus become the owner of
that garden, without him showing me any act of kindness, in a legally required,
mechanical fashion. I would then have the right to say to him, ‘Get off my
land. I’ve paid the full price for it.’
This is how the relationship between one slave and another is. As
for when Allah, Glorified and Exalted, commands you to do the acts of obedience
that He has enjoined upon you and forbids you from the unlawful matters that He
has warned you about, and Allah gives you the tawfīq to carry out these
obligations and avoid that which is unlawful, the matter is completely
different. Who gave you the ability to perform that prayer? Who gave you the
ability to do that fast? Who opened your heart to faith? Was it not Allah,
Mighty and Majestic? Allah spoke the truth when He said, {They make it a favour
to you that they have become Muslims. Say: Don’t think that your Islam is a
favour to me. Rather, Allah has favoured you by guiding you to faith.} [Al-Ḥujurāt
49:17]
Therefore, there is a massive difference between the two illustrations.
Who has made you love faith and hate disbelief, iniquity and disobedience? Who?
It is Allah, Glorified and Exalted. Who has opened your heart and given you the
ability to come to one of Allah’s houses and attend the congregational prayer,
and then sit and listen to that which will bring you closer to Allah, Glorified
and Exalted? Who? It is Allah, Glorified and Exalted. Therefore, what is it
that makes you imagine that obedience is the price you pay from your own
property in exchange for taking possession of Allah the Exalted’s Paradise,
making an analogy of the one who pays instalments from his own free wealth in
order to take possession of a garden, an analogy despite the massive
difference.
Therefore, it is not permissible for you to imagine that you
deserve (contemplate the exact expression that I am using: it is not
permissible for you to imagine that you deserve) Allah the Exalted’s Paradise
and His reward because you have carried out what He demanded, because you have
done what He obligated, and avoided that which He declared unlawful. It is not
permissible for you to believe this, and if you were to believe it, it would be
one of the most dangerous kinds of idolatry.[9]
This is because such a creedal doctrine would mean that you
believe that your prayer is performed with an intrinsic ability[10]
from you, and that you carry it out as a favour for Allah, that your obedience
that Allah, Mighty and Majestic, has commanded you to is carried out with
movement from your own essential being, and your essential being is your
intrinsic property, and your ability is your intrinsic property, and thus you
are the owner of your actions and you are the one who creates and brings your
abilities into existence, and the Originator[11]
has no connection to it whatsoever. Therefore, according to your imagination,
it’s as if you are presenting your acts of obedience to Him on a plate and
saying, ‘Here’s what You commanded and I’ve carried it out just as You wanted,
with my own intrinsic power and ability, so give me the Paradise that you
promised me.’
And this is how the process becomes one of buying and selling…I’ve
given you the value and therefore I have the right to demand the price back
from you! Is this what is logical between the slave and his Lord? Where are you
in relation to the reality of your slavehood to Allah? Where are you in
relation to the sanctified words that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless
him and grant him peace, would teach to his Companions, {There is no power or
strength except with Allah}? Where are you in relation to the certitude of
faith that there is no doubt that Allah, Glorified and Exalted, is the Creator
of the slaves’ actions?[12]
Who is it that creates our, i.e. we the slaves, actions? I don’t think it will
take us long to expound the truth, which is the creed of the righteous, first
three generations, and they are the Muslim Orthodoxy,[13]
as represented by the Ashʿarīs and the Māturīdīs.[14]
Therefore, when I praise Allah, Glorified and Exalted, on my tongue, I should
thank Allah for moving my tongue with this praise. If I get up in the middle of
the night to pray, I should praise Allah for granting me the tawfīq to
stand before him. Were it not for His love for me, were it not for His concern
for me, were it not for His kindness towards me, I would have been immersed in
my sleep, and yet He honoured me by having me stand before Him like this.
One
time, I told you the story of a young girl who was working as a servant for a
family, and one night the man of the house woke up in the middle of the night
and saw the girl praying in a corner of the house, and while she was
prostrating he heard her say, ‘O Allah, I ask You by Your love for me to make
me happy…that you protect me and honour me…’ and the rest of her supplication.
The man of the house saw her words as significant, so he waited for her to
finish her prayer and then he proceeded to ask her, ‘What is this pampering
before Allah?’ You said, ‘O Allah, I ask You by Your love for me to make me
happy and to honour me and to…’ She replied, ‘My master, were it not for His
love for me, He wouldn’t have awoken me at this hour. Were it not for His love
for me, He wouldn’t have made me stand before Him, were it not for His love for
me, He wouldn’t have made me have this intimate conversation with Him.’
Take notice, dear brothers: this is the tawḥīd that should
be dyed in every single one of us. How can you favour Allah with your prayer
when He is the one who gave you the tawfīq to do it?!
This is the principle that the author of Jawharat Al-Tawḥīd
and all other scholars of theology mean when they say:
If He rewards us, that is solely out of His favour
And
if He punishes us, that is solely out of His justice
At this point, some of us might be thinking: If that is the case,
then what is the meaning of Allah’s statement, Mighty and Majestic: {Enter
Paradise with that which you used to do.} [Al-Naḥl 16:32], and Allah has
repeated these words many times in his pre-eternal elucidation? I will give you
the answer and it will increase you in love for Allah and it will increase you
in being immersed in the feelings of slavehood to Him:
Indeed, these words are established by one party, and it is Allah,
Mighty and Majestic, and not two contracting parties…Allah gives you the tawfīq
to do deeds and He inspires you to do the right thing. You knock on his door in
fervent supplication, saying, ‘O Allah, there is no power or strength except
with You. My forelock is in Your hands and You do what You want with it. Take
it to the path of felicity and straightforwardness. Then Allah answers your
supplication, opens your heart to goodness, gives you the tawfīq to do
righteous deeds and then He says to you on the Day of Resurrection: {Enter
Paradise with that which you used to do.} [Al-Naḥl 16:32] Are these words from
Him, Mighty and Majestic, i.e. the implementation of the consensual contract
between you and Him, the same as a contract between a seller and a buyer?
No, and we seek refuge in Allah. Indeed, when He, Mighty and
Majestic, made your deeds a cause for entering Paradise He only did so out of
His favour and beneficence.
If you refuse to imagine that the issue between Allah and His
slaves is anything but an exchange of one right for another, and you bring
those claims with you on the Day of Resurrection, saying to Allah, ‘I deserve
Paradise and to reside therein eternally because of the required deeds that I
have done’, and Allah, Mighty and Majestic – based on this claim of yours –
decides to take you to account in a precise manner, there will be no right
remaining from what you were claiming and it will all vanish under the might of
your slavehood to Allah and your need of His help and tawfīq.
Perhaps the closest example of what I’m saying would be how a
father acts with his son when he wants to encourage him to be generous and do
good deeds. He would say to his son, ‘If you give that poor person some money
I’ll give you a present.’ The father then slips some money into the child’s
pocket and the son responds to his father’s requests because he hopes for the
present he promised him. Thus, he gives the poor person the money that his
father slipped into his pocket and his father rejoices at it, and to show how
pleased he is with this act of generosity he describes his son by saying, ‘You
have done a sublime humanitarian deed, and there is no doubt that you deserve
an immense reward for it.’
It is clear that this is a clever means of nurturing, which the
father is using with his son. There is no doubt that the son will understand
this later, that the money in his pocket was his father’s money, and that the
present that he received in the name of recompense and reward for his good deed
was actually a show of love towards him out of a desire to motivate him to do
more beautiful, humanitarian deeds. Thus, Allah’s statement, Mighty and
Majestic: {Enter Paradise with that which you used to do.} [Al-Naḥl 16:32] is
nothing but of this nature.
It has been mentioned in more than one report that one of the
slaves of Allah the Exalted will say on the Day of Resurrection: ‘O Lord, take
me to account with Your justice and with what I deserve, for indeed I lived my
entire life in the world without spending a single day in Your disobedience.’
Then Allah will remind him of the blessing of his two seeing eyes, which Allah
had granted him. ‘Have you shown thanks for these eyes?’ Allah’s favour towards
him[15]
will be placed on one side of the scale and all his acts of obedience and
worship will be placed on the other, and the side with the divine favour will
outweigh the side with the acts of obedience and worship that Allah had given
him the ability to do.
If you looked at Allah’s blessings which you have at your disposal
in the life of this world you would see that just a single moment in which you
enjoy these blessings is greater than all the acts of obedience you have ever
done…you are Allah’s slave, Glorified and Exalted is He. With His power you
obey Him, with His mercy you move towards Him, and because of His mercy towards
you, you draw nearer to Him. Indeed I say what my father, may Allah the Exalted
have mercy on him, used to say in one of his supplications: ‘O Lord, indeed I
thank You but You are the one who has inspired me to thank You, so my gratitude
requires that I thank you for giving me the tawfīq for this gratitude,
and then the matter continues indefinitely. You are the Creator of everything
and You are Kind to me in all states.
Therefore, Allah the Exalted’s statement: {Enter Paradise with
that which you used to do.} [Al-Naḥl 16:32] is established by one party. As for
us, we should know that we are entering Paradise solely out of His favour,
Mighty and Majestic. You carry out what He has made you legally responsible for
with the feelings of the right that is due from you, such that when you do what
Allah, Mighty and Majestic, has commanded and carry it out in the desired
fashion, you should know that you are striving towards Allah’s generosity,
Mighty and Majestic is He, without you deserving anything. You should only be
aspiring for His mercy and His pardon. One of the righteous saw a man from
amongst the godly [?] in his sleep after his death and he said to him – and he
knew he had died - : ‘What has Allah done with you?’ He replied me, ‘He stood
me before Him and said, “What have you come to Me with?’ I replied, ‘O Lord, I
am a slave, and a slave doesn’t own anything that he can bring to his master. I
have come desiring Your pardon and hoping for your generosity.’
Have you looked at the logic of slavehood? This is how we will
come tomorrow before Allah, Mighty and Majestic, and whoever doesn’t realise
this today shall realise it tomorrow.
This is what has been affirmed by the Messenger of Allah, may
Allah bless him and grant him peace, in the ḥadīth that has been related by
Al-Bukhārī from the ḥadīth of Abū Hurayra, as well as from the ḥadīth of Lady
ʿĀʾisha and the ḥadīth of Abū Saʿīd Al-Khudrī, that the Messenger of Allah
said, {Not a single one of you will be entered into Paradise by his deeds.}
They said, ‘Not even you, O Messenger of Allah?’ He said, {Not even me, unless
Allah covers me with His mercy.} Here we should notice the precision of the
Messenger of Allah’s speech in expressing the meaning that we have been
explaining and clarifying, for he, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, did
not say, ‘None of you will enter Paradise with his deeds.’ If he had said so
then his speech would have contradicted the Qurʾān, which affirms that Allah
enters His righteous slaves in Paradise with their deeds, and an example is in
His statement, Mighty and Majestic: {Enter Paradise with that which you used to
do.} [Al-Naḥl 16:32] Rather, he said, {Not a single one of you will be entered
into Paradise by his deeds.} In other words, your reliance on your deeds
independent of Allah’s pardon and clemency, His tolerance and generosity, will
dash your hopes and none of your dreams will be realised. This is because Allah
is the one who made your trifling deeds a path to His forgiveness and His Paradise.
The particle bāʾ[16]
in the Exalted’s statement: {with that which you used to do} has been attached
to deeds. As for Allah’s mercy, Allah’s generosity, the vastness of Allah’s
pardon, you don’t deserve it, O slave, whoever you are and whatever your affair
and station may be.
Look at the example of one of us who gives money to a poor person
and contemplate how the driver of divine mercy and sublime forgiveness is
manifested for the bāʾ, which is inserted to indicate causation on
behalf of one’s deeds: it is known that wealth is Allah’s wealth, and it has no
true owner apart from Him. Has He not said: {And give from Allah’s wealth which
He has given to you}? [Al-Nūr 24:33]? Then He addresses us by saying, {Who will
lend Allah a good loan, which He will then multiply for him several times
over?} [Al-Baqarah 2:245] He gives you from His wealth and then you presume
that you are the actual owner of it. He places His Exalted Essence in the place
of a borrower, saying: ‘Lend me something from this wealth of yours and I
promise that I will return it to you and it will be multiplied many times
over.’
So do you believe that you are the true owner and that Allah is
nothing but in need of you and borrowing from you?! Is it possible to become so
intoxicated by this divine, generous, loving rhetoric such that you become
distracted from reality and believe that you are the owner and that Allah is
the borrower, and then you claim that you have the right to demand back what
you lent to Allah in addition to the benefits that you’ve mutually agreed upon?
If you imagine this, and you forget that the bāʾ of
causation is actually a manifestation of divine kindness, you are insane by
every qualification.
Therefore, we have realised and tasted the meaning of the words of
our master, the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace:
{Not a single one of you will be entered into Paradise by his deeds} and the
rest of the ḥadīth.
But let us ask: is there any contradiction between Allah promising
you that you will enter Paradise through His mercy and Him commanding you at
the same time to worship Him?
There is no contradiction, because worship is Allah’s right over
you due to the fact that you are His slave, and Paradise is a favour and gift
from Allah to you due to the fact that He is most merciful and forgiving
towards you. He has already decreed that the people closest to His mercy are
those who do the most with regards to fulfilling His rights, and He declared
this when He said, {My mercy extends to all things, but I will prescribe it for
those who have taqwā.} [Al-ʿArāf 7:156]
And let no one say, ‘Why do I need Allah’s mercy and pardon if I
am a believer and I have taqwā? The answer is that neither faith nor taqwā
are a price for the gift that you will receive. Rather, it is a consequential
right of Allah over you. If you fulfil the right that is on your neck then you
don’t deserve anything in return, and everything you receive from Him is a
favour, mercy and pardon.
Now, let us return to the words of Ibn ʿAṭāillāh and let us
focus on a very important point that he warns us about: ‘A sign that one is
relying on one’s deeds is the decrease in hope when one makes a mistake.’
In other words, one of the most dangerous consequences of relying
on your deeds for Allah’s reward is losing hope of His pardon when you become
embroiled in mistakes and sins, for between the two matters is an inextricable
concomitance. The only way for one’s hope in Allah’s mercy and pardon not to be
diminished when one falls short is not to depend on your deeds when tawfīq
is your ally. When you do that, you will be striving for Allah’s generosity and
magnanimity in both states, to the same extent that you will be fearful of His
wrath and loathing.
Therefore, fear of Allah’s wrath and punishment must be present
with constant hope in His mercy and favour, because man, whoever he may be,
cannot detach himself from falling short with regards to the rights of Lordship
over him, in all states and vicissitudes.
Thereupon, indeed the one who sees himself as suffering from
weakness and falling short such that he cannot fulfil any of Allah’s rights
over him, two equal feelings will tug at him in all situations: one of them is
his feelings of hope in Allah’s favour and pardon and the second is his feelings
of shame and fear of falling short with regards to Allah, Mighty and Majestic.
The first set of feelings will not become ascendant and more intense when he
sees himself having the tawfīq to carry out acts of obedience, and the
second set of feelings will not be aroused when he sees himself falling short
and being negligent with regards to fulfilling Allah’s rights, Mighty and
Majestic, because in all situations he will not grant his acts of obedience any
weight and he won’t rely on them when it comes to hoping for Allah’s mercy and
pardon. Therefore, in all situations, he is between fear and hope.
Perhaps Shayṭān will whisper to you that your acts of obedience
and drawing nearer to Allah have no part to play in Allah bestowing His favours
upon His slaves, and thus there is no difference between the slave carrying out
such acts and desisting from them!
However, you should know that Shayṭān’s whisperings are not the
outcome of our explanation of Ibn ʿAṭāʾillāh’s words, or the words of the
scholars of tawḥīd in this regard. Allah the Exalted has said, {My mercy
extends to all things}. Did He say after that, ‘I will prescribe it for all of
mankind’? or did he He say, {I will prescribe it for those who have taqwā}?
[Al-ʿArāf 7:156]
There are two matters that the reality of a person’s worship of
Allah cannot be detached from. The first is that one travels the paths of
guidance and adherence to Allah’s commands and stays away from what He has
prohibited. The second is that one knows that it is by Allah’s mercy and
pardon, not his own efforts and deeds, that He will obtain reward.
This is the comprehensive meaning that is comprised in Allah the
Exalted’s statement: {But I am Ever-Forgiving to anyone who repents and
believes and acts rightly and then is guided.} [Taha 20:82] In other words,
faith and righteous action are both obligatory, and reward comes by way of
forgiveness and pardon, not by way of compensation and deserving it.
Indeed I, by the ruling of my slavehood to Allah, implement His
commands. That levy of slavehood to Allah is on my neck. Then I spread out my
hands facing the heavens, saying, ‘O Lord, I am Your slave, the son of Your
male slave and Your female slave.’ My forelock is in Your hand. Your judgement
of me is assured and Your decree concerning me is just. I ask You for Your
mercy. Do not treat me the way I deserve to be treated. Rather, treat me with
what You are worthy of. Indeed, You said, {Everyone acts according to his
nature} [Al-Isrāʾ 17:84]. Your nature is mercy, so have mercy on me. Your
nature is forgiveness, so forgive me.’
I say words like these without demanding any compensation for an
action I feel I have offered. Rather, I ask Him for His mercy in accordance
with my weakness and the intensity of my need. I beg Him to give just as a
beggar begs for money or food from those whom he hopes will be generous and
charitable. This is how slavehood to Allah is, Glorified and Exalted is He.
Perhaps you will say: ‘But Allah warns the disobedient and the
sinners about His loathing and His punishment, so how can my hope in His pardon
and beneficence not diminish when I commit that which necessitates this
diminishment? How, when Allah has conditioned the attainment of His mercy on
faith and taqwā, when He said, {I prescribe it for those who have taqwā.}?
[Al-ʿArāf 7:156]
The answer is that the disobedient person who is required to
remain hopeful of Allah’s generosity and pardon cannot turn to Allah in hope
unless he enters His vastness from the door of repentance.
Have you seen the disobedient person who comes knocking on Allah’s
door hoping for His pardon and forgiveness? Would it make sense for him to do
that while persisting in His disobedience, relaxing in His deviations and
sins?! No…it is clear according to the standards of human morals and feelings,
let alone feelings of slavehood to Allah, that this disobedient person, as much
as the hope for Allah’s pardon and forgiveness thrives within him, the
incentives of repentance and the feelings of remorse he has will increase, as
well as the determination to desist from what he was busily engaged in. Thus,
if he sincerely repents, the hope he has for Allah’s pardon will grow and not
diminish, as it is assumed that he reads the Book of Allah the Exalted and
stops to examines statements such as: {Do they not know that Allah accepts
repentance from His slaves and acknowledges their charity, and that Allah is
the Ever-Relenting, the Most-Merciful?} [Al-Tawba 9:104]
And it is assumed that he has stopped and examined the likes of
the ḥadīth qudsī that is agreed upon[17]
and which the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace,
narrates from his Lord, {A slave commits a sin and says, ‘O Allah, forgive me
for my sin.’ So, Allah, Blessed and Exalted, says, ‘My slave has committed a sin
and he knows he has a Lord Who forgives sins and punishes sins.’ Then he goes
back and sins again, and says, ‘Which lord will forgive me my sins?’ He,
Blessed and Exalted, replies, ‘My slave has committed a sin and he knows he has
a Lord Who forgives sins and punishes sins.’ Then he goes back and sins again,
and says, ‘Which lord will forgive me my sins?’ He, Blessed and Exalted,
replies, ‘My slave has committed a sin and he knows he has a Lord Who forgives
sins and punishes sins. I have forgiven my slave so let him do what he wants.’
Therefore, there is no escape from repentance, and it is the only
way that hope can be constantly thriving in the soul of someone who is
disobedient. As for the person who continues to be busily engaged in sins and
to whom repentance simply doesn’t occur, then hope for Allah’s pardon also
cannot possibly occur to him.
Thus, it should be clear to you after what I’ve mentioned and
explained that getting involved in the opposite of what Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Illāh has mentioned is the other proof against relying on
one’s deeds. In other words, whosoever’s hope in Allah’s favour and reward
increases whenever he turns to Allah with more righteous deeds, that is a proof
that he is relying on his righteous deeds and not on Allah’s pardon and forgiveness.
The gravity of this link between increasing in hope and increasing
in righteous deeds is obvious. If we imagine someone whose righteous deeds
increase over time, and his obedience increases greatly, and every time that
increases, his confidence in Allah’s reward and promise also increases, the
gravity is clear because the conclusion this person will come to, by necessity
of this link, is that he is in a specific phase and he will be absolutely
certain that he has become from the people of Paradise and from those honoured
with the blessings that Allah has promised. Because it is according to this
link between deeds and compensation, he will inevitably believe – if he reaches
that phase in his righteous deeds – that all of his deeds have been accepted by
Allah and that his life is full of acts of obedience.
Therefore, he is
decisively from the people of Paradise! This is making a judgement[18]
before Allah, and how many times has the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless
him and grant him peace, warned against it!
Rather, the path is to distance oneself from this slippery slope
and to know that Allah’s rights over His slaves are not fulfilled through acts
of obedience, regardless of how many they are or how great they are. Rather,
these rights will always remain. If it were possible to fulfil His rights,
Mighty and Majestic, through acts of obedience, the first people to do so would
be the Messengers and Prophets, but despite that we haven’t found any of them
tying their hope in Allah’s reward to their act of obedience and drawing nearer
to Him. Rather, they were all striving for Allah’s forgiveness and pardon.
Our master Ibrāhīm, peace and blessings be upon him – and he is the
intimate friend of the All-Merciful[19]
- saw himself as less than the rank of the righteous from amongst Allah’s
slaves, so he asked Allah to be united with them, saying, {My Lord, give me
right judgement and unite me with the righteous}. [Al-Shuʿarāʾ 26:83] He
would strive for Allah’s forgiveness and pardon, saying, {Our Lord! Forgive me
and my parents and the believers on the Day the Reckoning takes place.} [Ibrāhīm 14:41]
Yūsuf, peace
and blessings be upon him, also saw himself as less than attaining the rank of
the righteous, so he would ask Allah to unite him with them if he was not one
of them. Did he not say, as Allah, Mighty and Majestic has informed us: {My
Lord, You have granted power to me on earth and taught me the true meaning of
events. Originator of the heavens and earth, You are my Friend in this world
and the next. So take me as a Muslim at my death and unite me with the
righteous.} [Yūsuf 12:101]
As for the master of the Messengers and Prophets, he is the one
saying what you already know, {Not a single one of you will be entered into
Paradise by his deeds.} They said, ‘Not even you, O Messenger of Allah?’ He
said, {Not even me, unless Allah covers me with His mercy.}
Therefore an individual, whoever he may be, when he is granted the
tawfīq to do
righteous deeds he is only fulfilling a very small portion from the levy of
slavehood to Allah, Mighty and Majestic, and from the rights of the blessings
that Allah has bountifully showered on him in the life of this world, and they
are many and various innumerable blessings.
If this person, despite the acts of obedience he has been given
the tawfīq to do, is
still burdened under Allah’s rights of Lordship over him, and burdened under
the rights of the blessings that Allah has graciously bestowed upon him, how
and with what argument can he demand that Allah honour him in return by giving
him His eternal Paradise, and that He add to the blessings that He has already
given him in this life and whose rights have still not been fulfilled by giving
him the blessings of the Hereafter that he has described and talked about
clearly in His Book?
***
The quintessence of what is being said is that the human being –
after knowing Allah and realising that he is His owned slave – must worship
Allah because he is His slave and because Allah is his Lord; in other words,
regardless of whether Allah rewards him for his worship or doesn’t reward him.
Then he must ask Him for His Paradise, as a favour and gift from Him, and seek
refuge in Him from His Fire and punishment, kindly and seeking His mercy. This
is how the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, was in
his supplications.
If one of us were to decide within himself that he would only
worship Allah out of desire for His Paradise such that if he knew he would
never attain this reward by way of worshiping Allah he would stop worshipping
him and never worry about Allah’s Revealed Law and rules, this person would not
be a Muslim or a believer by Allah’s standard and judgment. This is because he would
be declaring himself as not a slave of Allah but rather a slave of Paradise,
which he is looking for a means to get to.
And here we realise the loftiness of the feelings of tawḥīd in the intimate conversation
of Rābiʿah Al-ʿAdawiyyah
with her Lord, as she used to say, ‘O Allah, when I have worshipped You I have
not worshipped You out of desire for Your Paradise nor out of fear of Your
Fire. Rather, I know that You are a Lord who deserves to be worshipped, so I
have worshipped You.’
Some superficial people think that Rābiʿah was
expressing her lack of need of the Paradise that Allah had promised His
righteous slaves, and thus they endlessly rebuked and reviled her. This is
hastening to understand something and oppression in judgment. Rābiʿah was asking
Allah for His Paradise and seeking refuge in Him from His Fire, and how many
times in her intimate conversations did she feel afraid of His punishment,
which she saw herself as exposed to. How many times did she yearn for His
kindness and the Paradise of being close to Him. But she did not seek that as
compensation for her worship. Rather, she asked Him for that because He is the
Independent, the Generous, and she is the impoverished, the one desiring his
generosity.
As for her acts of obedience and worship, she was drawing nearer
to Allah through them because He is her Lord and she is His slave. She is
indebted with regards to being His slave, and therefore her slavehood presses
her to worship Him and submit to the authority of His Lordship, for nothing
other than the fact that she is His slave and because He is her Lord. And
whether He grants her the blessings of His Paradise or throws her into His
painful punishment, she will never nullify the covenant of this adherence with
Him, and how could she nullify it when in every situation she is the making of
His hand and the property of His Essence.
This is the position of Rābiʿah, may Allah
be pleased with her, and so are there amongst the Muslims those who say, ‘This
is an incorrect position’? This would make the correct position its opposite,
which would be to say, ‘O Allah, I haven’t worshipped You because You are a
Lord who deserves to be worshipped but because I desire Your Paradise’! Are
there people who believe in Allah, even if they are iniquitous, who would
address Allah with such impudence?
Despite our shortcomings and our remoteness from the rank of the
likes of Rābiʿah Al-ʿAdawiyyah, it
is indeed not permitted for us to address our Lord and our Creator except with
the exact speech that she would address her Lord with. We should say:
O Allah, You are our Lord and we are Your slaves. We worship You
and obey Your commands as much as we are able to, for nothing other than the
fact that You are our Lord and we are Your slaves. We know that however upright
we might be on Your path, we will always fall short, and not because of
arrogance towards Your affair but because You have decreed for us to be weak.
We will travel to you from this life of ours with many violations;
mistakes, misdeeds and deviations, hoping that we will have the tawfīq to patch
over them with true, sincere repentance. We will travel to you impoverished and
naked apart from the meekness of being Your slave and being in need of You.
And let the answer of each one of us be when we are asked, ‘What
have you come with from your life that I established you in?’: ‘I have come
with hope in Your mercy, with hope in Your generosity. I have come impoverished
apart from my slavehood to You. That is my capital with which I stand before
You and it will never give me the courage at that point to beg for Your
Paradise and the generosity of Your gifts apart from what I know of Your favour
and Your generosity and what I exult in through being attributed to the
meekness of being Your slave.
To proceed, this is the core of tawḥīd, which must
dominate the feelings of every Muslim after being established with certainty in
the intellect. It is the reality that Ibn ʿAṭāʾillāh intended
when he said, ‘A sign that one is relying on one’s deeds is the decrease in
hope when one makes a mistake.’
[1] (tn): Translated from al-Hikam al-ʿAṭāʿiyyah:
Sharḥ wa Taḥlīl, by Imam Muhammad Saʿīd Ramaḍān al-Būṭī (Damascus: Dar
al-Fikr, 2009), v.1, p.21-39
[2] (tn): i.e. the success to do something, or
“enabling success”
[3] (tn): i.e. the belief that Allah is the only
deity that exists and thus the only deity worthy of worship
[4] (tn): Ar. akhlāq
[5] (tn): Ar. sulūk
[6] (tn): Ar. nafs
[7] (tn):
i.e. Imam Al-Laqānī…
[8] (tn): Ar. Al-Salaf Al-Ṣāliḥ, based on
the ḥadīth in Al-Bukhārī and Muslim: “The best of my community (khayr
ummatī) is my generation, then those who follow them, then those who follow
them.”” There is also the wording: “The best of people (khayr al-nās)
is my generation…” Another wording in Muslim is: “The best generation (khayr
al-qurūn) is my generation…” These generations are the Companions (al-Ṣaḥābah),
the Followers (al-Tābiʿūn) and the Followers of the Followers (Atbaʿ or
Tābiʿū al-Tābiʿīn).
[9] (tn): Ar. al-shirk
[10] (tn): Ar. qudrah dhātiyyah
[11] (tn): Ar. Al-Bāriʾ
[12] (tn): Please see Al-Ṣāffāt 37:96
[13] (tn): Ar. ahl al-sunnah wa al-jamāʿah
[14] (tn): and the Ḥanbalīs
[15] (tn): i.e. the blessing of seeing eyes
[16] (tn): meaning with
This translation is also covered in this podcast.
This translation has been reposted because its original publication, which was on the Naseem al-Sham website, is no longer available because that website was hacked.
This translation has been reposted because its original publication, which was on the Naseem al-Sham website, is no longer available because that website was hacked.
