Ep 5 — Faith Through Awareness

Session 3: Faith Through Awareness. delivered Saturday, 30 Shahrivar 1353 / 4 Ramadan al-Mubarak 1394 Surat Al 'Imran (3:190-191). Indeed, in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and in the alternation of night and day, there are signs for those endowed with understanding — those who remember God standing and sitting and lying upon their sides, and who reflect upon the creation of the heavens and the earth, [saying:] 'Our Lord, You did not create this in vain. Glory be to You! Protect us, then, from the punishment of the Fire.' In light of the several verses we are reciting today, two or three further truths concerning faith come to hand. Faith is one of the outstanding traits of God's prophets, of the believers, and of those who follow them: to have faith, to believe, to be convinced of one's own mission. Here lies the difference between divine leaders and the political leaders of the world. The divine leader, like one who himself treads the road, is sincerely a believer with his whole being — in what he says, in every step he takes, in the path he walks. The politicians of the world, by contrast, may at times have beautiful words and charming, eloquent speech, yet they do not have the requisite faith — or even any faith at all — in what they say. Here is a story told of the leaders of one of the greatest countries of the Eastern Bloc — a state that, for all its atheistic pretensions, professed a culture and school of thought that severely condemns every non-materialist idea. After the independence of India, hoping to win the hearts of the millions of the newly independent Indian masses, these leaders made a journey to the land of India. And the Hindus and the Indians generally looked on in utter astonishment: for they saw upon the foreheads of the leaders of this communist country the mark of Tilak. Tilak was one of the freedom-loving leaders of India, a clergyman — one of the great Hindu holy men, reckoned for a span of time the chief and forerunner of the Indian revolution. This is worth mentioning in the margin, though it has no bearing on my subject. The Indian movement, which from the day of its blossoming to the day of its fruition lasted a full ninety years, had as its principal leaders, from beginning to end, the clergy. These were either Muslim clergy such as Mawlana Shah Mahmud Dihlawi, Mawlana Mahmud al-Hasan, Mawlana Abu al-Kalam Azad, Mawlana Muhammad 'Ali, Mawlana Shawkat 'Ali — for Mawlana means Ayatullah; in the usage of the Muslims of India, it is something equivalent to the rank of "Hadrat Ayatullah" that we have. Ayatullah Muhammad 'Ali, Ayatullah Shawkat 'Ali, Ayatullah Abu al-Kalam, Ayatullah Mahmud al-Hasan — these "Ayatullahs" were the great leaders of the Indian movement on the part of the Muslims. On the part of the Hindus, Mahatma Gandhi was a Hindu holy man, a Jain holy man, attached to the school of Jainism. Let me tell you about Tilak, a Hindu holy man of astonishing greatness. He was a remarkable man, this Tilak — who died in the midst of the movement, before its outcome was reached; he passed from this world and never saw the freedom of India. Yet thirty, forty years after his death, those he had nurtured tasted the sweet drink of freedom. And a mark remained behind, called the mark of Tilak, in memory of that great freedom-loving man who was a clergyman. It is the mark of a holy man; it carries an aspect of spirituality, a metaphysical aspect — because in the view of the Hindus, Tilak himself possessed spiritual stations. So when the materialist leaders of the Soviet Union came to India and wanted to catch the attention of the masses, they drew the mark of Tilak upon their foreheads — as if to say: yes, we too are with you in this. And yet their own pretensions gave the lie to it, and their whole school of thought gives the lie to it. Such is the standing of leaders who are politicians, remote from spiritual responsibility, from faith, and from the divine. But the prophets of God are not like this. They have believed in what they said with their whole being. To whatever they summoned the people, they themselves came hastening first, ahead of all others. It would make no sense for me to recline and sleep at the foot of the mountain, letting my whole being wilt and grow cold, and then say to you, "Gentlemen, up there at the top of the mountain there is delicious water; run, go, hurry, be swift, sari'u (vie with one another), sabiqu (outstrip one another)" — while I myself never stir from here. Everyone would have the right to say: if you were telling the truth, if you really knew of a refreshing spring, then you, burning with thirst, you poor wretch, would have set out yourself! So you are lying; so you do not believe in what you are saying. The divine leaders went ahead of everyone, before all others — like the vanguards of a road, banner in hand, foot on the path, firm, pressing forward. Abraham, the Friend of the All-Merciful, says: the first who submitted [in Islam] and yielded before You, O Lord, was I myself; after me came the rest of God's creation, following me. This is the mark of divine leaders. The divine leader must be like this, and is like this. The Most Noble Prophet was himself present in the most important and most dangerous events of early Islam. Yes, it is true that 'Abdullah ibn Mas'ud was beaten, that Khabbab was tortured, that 'Ammar Yasir fell under torture — but the torture of the Prophet himself was no less than theirs; it was greater. Compare the situation of the Prophet, that man who staked his all, with the situation of these Muslims around him, and you will see it plainly: the severity exercised against the Messenger of God himself was greater and more grueling than against them. First to step forward, first to advance. Faith is one of the characteristics found in the prophets of God — an acceptance with one's whole being, a belief in what one says. And the sign of that belief is precisely this: that one takes a step on that road ahead of everyone else and moves forward. This is what the verse of the Qur'an teaches us: The Messenger has believed in what was sent down to him from his Lord, and so have the believers. Each one has believed in God, His angels, His scriptures, and His messengers. They say, 'We make no distinction between any of His messengers.' And they say, 'We hear and we obey. Grant us Your forgiveness, our Lord, and to You is the final return.' Amana al-Rasul bima unzila ilayhi min Rabbihi — the Prophet has believed in what was sent down to him from his Lord. Wa al-mu'minun — and so have the believers: those who came to faith in him, those outstanding individuals who gathered around him and became the loudspeakers of his summons. Kullun amana billah — each one of them believed in God, accepted Him; wa mala'ikatihi — and His angels; wa kutubihi — and the heavenly scriptures, from beginning to end; wa rusulihi — and all His messengers. The Prophet and his companions have faith in every one of them, for the road is a single road — "In this path the prophets are like caravan-guides; they are the guides and signposts of the caravan." They are all caravan-guides of a single caravan, guides toward a single goal; everywhere among the people they have been fellow travelers, charging forward toward one destination. La nufarriqu bayna ahadin min rusulih — this is from the tongue of the believers — we make no distinction between any of His prophets. For us Jesus is honored, just as Moses, just as Abraham, just as Idris, just as Jacob, just as Jirjis (St. George), just as Noah, just as all the prophets from beginning to end. All were envoys of God, envoys of a single goal, heralds of a single felicity and a single paradise, all upon one line. La nufarriqu bayna ahadin min rusulih — we make no distinction between any of His messengers. (I will return to this question of belief in prophethood, God willing, in a later part of this series, in its own time and turn.) Wa qalu — hold onto these next sentences, for they are a piece of evidence for a matter I shall speak of later. So the prophets have faith, our Prophet too has it, and the believers who cling to him also — all have faith. Wa qalu — and they say: sami'na — we heard, we understood, we hearkened; sami'na — not that it merely fell upon our ears. Sam', sama', means hearing — the state of hearing, which is other than the ear. The ear, in the sense of that particular bodily organ, is expressed in Arabic by the word udhun, whereas sam' means hearing. You see this in Persian too: they say of so-and-so that he is "heedful" (literally, "word-heeding"), that he hears what is said. "Did you hear what I said, or not?" you say to the person across from you. Of course he heard — there was no more than half a meter between you, and your voice would carry even ten meters. What you really mean is: "Did you understand what I said? Did it sink into your brain? Did it enter your mind or not?" These believers say sami'na — we understood with our whole being what God had appointed and sent for us. Wa ata'na — and we obeyed. What does that mean? It means our obedience was not blind; it came out of clarity and awareness and sam' (true hearing). Ghufranaka Rabbana — Your forgiveness, Your pardon, O our Lord. The reward we ask of You, O God, is Your forgiveness and nothing else. Wa ilayka al-masir — and to You is our return. (On this matter of the return to God there are very interesting things which, God willing, I will explain within this very series in the section on the Resurrection [ma'ad] from the Qur'an, if we are granted the life and the opportunity.) What have we understood so far from these verses? That faith and belief are the mark of those drawn to the summons of Islam. People who have no faith, no belief, who merely go along because others went — going, as it were, just to be on the safe side — stand outside the domain of Islamic thought, and there is no need for awkward reticence about saying so. Faith is necessary. Faith means belief: accepting and receiving the matter in full clarity, moving in pursuit of an attraction. If this attraction is not present in the school of religion and the Qur'an, and has not captured your heart — that is, if faith is not in this heart — then this heart is dead. It is not alive with the light of Islam; it cannot be called a Muslim. So faith is necessary. This is the first point. The second point (which we marked with a "2" on these sheets ) is that faith is of two kinds. One kind of faith is imitative, prejudiced, fanatical: because our fathers and elders believed, we too believed; because in our book, in the domain of our religion, they say so, we too say so — and even if you bring proof, you have brought it in vain, for we do not accept what you say. This too is a kind of faith, but a faith that rests either on imitation or on prejudice. It is either out of imitation, like the faith of the common run of people. Ask one of the common folk, "Sir, on what basis did you say that the Prophet of Islam is true?" and they know nothing at all — nothing at all! Because their fathers said so, because the teacher at school said so, because the people in the street and bazaar say the Prophet is true, this person too says the Prophet is true. He does have faith, mind you; he truly does believe that the Prophet is true — but this belief was picked up from one tongue and another, out of imitation, with eyes closed. Like this imitative faith is prejudiced (fanatical) faith — by which some people are prepared, God forbid, to disrespect the other prophets, for the sake of pleasing our own Prophet! They imagine that even in the highest heavens there is contradiction among the prophets: "Moses! Who was Moses, man — our Prophet!" And unfortunately this is not peculiar to the ignorant class. Sometimes it appears among classes from whom one has greater expectations — from whom one expects more understanding, a firmer grasp — and we have at times noticed examples of it here and there; there is no need to recount them. This is what is called prejudice: because the religion of Islam says so, this is right; and because the other religions say it, it is wrong. Because we Muslims perform such-and-such an act, this is right; because others perform some other act, this is wrong. He has a faith, but this faith does not rest upon proof; it is only out of prejudice. And you know what prejudice means: partisanship without proof, partisanship out of feeling, not out of logic. This is called prejudice. This faith is imitative and prejudiced. The faith which has worth in Islam is not imitative and prejudiced faith; that is, imitative and prejudiced faith has no value. You want proof? Of dozens of proofs let me state one: when faith is out of imitation and prejudice, its loss too is easy. Just as the child, without any effort of its own, and the pupil, without any striving of its own, received a faith for free from its father and mother or from the authorities of its school, in the very same way the thieves of faith take this faith from him for free. And suddenly, when you look, there is a faithless generation, the faiths all plundered, gone, the faiths all become hollow; before the flame of materialism, the faiths have melted like snow in the dead of summer and seeped into the ground. Whom am I speaking of? It would be very ordinary and commonplace for me to say "the young generation," but I do not say that the faithless generation is the young generation. If we are still observing here and there the blossoms of faith, as a glimmer, a flash, it is in the young generation that we are observing it — bravo once again to the young generation, who seek a faith that is non-imitative, non-prejudiced, and out of awareness. No indeed; I mean to speak of the generation before the young — this generation before our society's youth, those who hold to certain things in the form of blind faiths. Of course such a one goes to the rawdah-recitation gathering, of course he goes to congregational prayer if the chance arises; but because it is not out of logic, because it is not out of awareness and understanding, he is very readily prepared to set even the mosque on fire, to trample even Imam Husayn underfoot, and to sacrifice all of these for the thing that has real worth in his eyes — just as they do, just as we see them do. And one of our misfortunes today is the confrontation with the generation before today's young. They were deprived of the special awareness and clear-sightedness of today's young Muslim, and deprived too — alas — of that deep, firm faith of two generations back, which remained immune to the ravages of the age. They have neither one thing nor the other. They lack the understanding and awareness that could have let them build a settled faith and cast off the bond of money, rank, fame, popularity, comfort, and ease. Nor do they have a firm strongbox and a strong, sturdy enclosure — such as stood around the men of two centuries ago and one century ago — whereby at least to preserve their faith in a strongroom, even if it be that same imitative faith. After all, a hundred years ago this multitude of highwaymen of thought, faith, and creed did not exist. Back then the hands of the enemy, those treacherous fingers, had not yet reached so deeply into the body of our society. The schemes had not yet arrived at their conclusion — that the people's authentic religious faith must be stripped from them so that any calamity could be visited upon their heads. That came later. And this generation before the young, this generation that today is not young but was the youth of yesterday, is now exposed to a foundation-uprooting flood of faith and creed — and against that flood it does not have even a sturdy faith. Blessed are those who choose their faith out of awareness, out of understanding. The flood comes and carries off the towering trees; but the plant that, though slender and tender, has roots beneath the ground twice its own size — it remains sound; it survives. What is rooted from the foundation cannot be effaced by these things. In any case, this is a truth, a certain point in Islam. Worthy faith is aware faith. It is faith joined with understanding and perception; it is a faith born of insight, with open eyes, unafraid of hardship. Take the faith of a certain Muslim man — the kind we can preserve only by saying: let him not read the newspaper, let him not read such-and-such a book, let him not walk in the street and bazaar, let him not speak with such-and-such a person, let him not suffer cold or heat, let him not see sun or moon, so that it may last. That faith, alas, will not last. What is needed is a faith chosen so consciously that even under the harshest conditions it cannot be taken from him. Concerning 'Ammar Yasir, the verse of the Qur'an says: …except one who is compelled while his heart is at rest in faith… If under torture, to turn the enemy away from you for a moment, you said a single word — say it; your faith is not a faith that torture can efface from your heart. Consider the faith Khabbab ibn al-Aratt had: they would heat iron and press it to his neck — this is no joke; they would bring glowing iron near his body and press it to his skin — and because of that deep, aware faith of his, he would not give up. This is faith. When faith has been built out of clarity, out of understanding, out of thought, with correct reckonings, then we have no need to wrap it in cloth and rags and lock it in a strongbox, lest heat and grime harm it — no harm reaches it. It is unaware faith that keeps a person constantly anxious, in dread: lest, lest, lest. If we want faiths to be firm, if we want them not to be effaced, if we want faith to be aware faith, then we must continually give awareness to those we want to be believers. Let us not dread their becoming aware; let us not take pleasure in their remaining shut of eye and ear. The way is this: a good substance of awareness must first come into being in people's minds and hearts, and with that awareness a correct, sturdy faith — a reinforced concrete — must be built within the heart. Then, even against a shrapnel cannon, as the old young men used to say, it cannot be effaced. Islam says faith must be aware. These verses at the end of Surat Al 'Imran introduce aware faith to us. Indeed, in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and in the alternation of night and day, there are signs for those endowed with understanding… Inna fi khalqi al-samawati wa al-ard — these are an introduction — wa ikhtilafi al-layli wa al-nahar — indeed, in the creation of the heavens and the earth and the alternation of night and day. La'ayat — indeed there are signs — for the dull-witted? For the senseless? For those who do not think? Never! Li-uli al-albab — for those of understanding, the wise. The wise one possesses intellect and the power to understand — and that is all of us, provided we put our thought and intelligence to work. The wise were not, from the moment of birth, set apart by a special emblem, so that we could say, "we were never among them and cannot become wise; the wise are a breed apart." No. "Wise" means all of us, along with the other three billion human beings in the world — all of us are wise, on one condition: that we put to work, even a little, this power of intellect within us. Suppose you paid money for a machine, set it down in the house, and never opened it, never put it to use. Go check on it after a while and you will find it has no efficiency, no functioning — it has rusted; and even if it has not rusted, it does not run smoothly. The fault was not the machine's; it was yours, for never putting it to work. Ulu al-albab means those who put the power of thought and reflection and intellect to work until they become wise. Who are ulu al-albab? Here is one of the subtle points of the Qur'an. If ordinary people wished to introduce the wise, they would say: the wise one is he who is foremost in every affair of his life, who is never duped in any matter, who in business dealings, in politics, in political maneuvering, in disputes and confrontations with rivals, everywhere has the upper hand. The Qur'an accepts none of these games. Because it deems a human being's real worth to lie in his connection with God, it introduces the wise one quite differently: the wise one, in the Qur'an's view, is the one who holds these highest values above everything and everyone else. Alladhina yadhkuruna Allah — they are the wise ones who remember God, qiyaman — while standing, wa qu'udan — while sitting, wa 'ala junubihim — while fallen upon their sides. That is, in every state they are mindful of God. But this mindfulness is not some ecstatic, dervish-like trance that certain people are pleased to imagine: "Very well, we too are always mindful of God; we are always crying out 'Hu!'" No — being mindful of God in an active way, a mindfulness that counts as a deed. How so? Wa yatafakkaruna fi khalqi al-samawati wa al-ard — and they reflect upon the creation of the heavens and the earth; they are in a state of contemplation. So the wise, ulu al-albab, are those who live in a state of reflection: wa yatafakkaruna fi khalqi al-samawati wa al-ard. Then, when they carry out this reflection, with the tongue of the heart and the tongue of the outward they say: Rabbana — our Lord! Ma khalaqta hadha batilan, subhanak — You did not create this in vain; transcendent are You above such vain creating. And that is the most important and most fundamental point of an ideology. Every life-shaping ideology comes down to this fundamental point: I am here for some purpose. If one believes in God, he says, "I was brought here for a purpose"; if one does not believe in God, he says, "In any case I have some task here." The most fundamental point of any intellectual philosophy meant to inspire an individual and social life is precisely this: Rabbana ma khalaqta hadha batilan. The believer says to his Lord: our Lord, You did not create this heaven and earth, all this uproar, in vain. Subhanak — You are too transcendent and pure to do a vain work. So I have a responsibility. So I must tread a road. So I, in the face of this strange and astonishing order, am a point — and for a purpose. In this strange order, I too have a place, and for a purpose. So that if I do not do it rightly — that act in the very manner You have willed — I have ruined this order. Subhanak, qina 'adhaba al-nar — so keep us safe from the torment of the Fire; the fire of the Resurrection, which, while it is a reality, is also the symbol of the fire of God's wrath and retribution, and is likewise [part of] the constitution of the world. All of this is an introduction, so that we may rightly grasp aware faith from within these verses. You yourselves must have noticed how awareness ascends and rises up from these verses. Rabbana innaka man tudkhili al-nara faqad akhzaytah — our Lord, the one whom You make enter the Fire, You have disgraced and abased; wa ma lil-zalimina min ansar — and for the wrongdoers whom You have made enter the Fire there is no helper and no supporter, neither from the constitution [of the world] nor any hand from the Unseen, in no way whatsoever. That is, those who move along the path of injustice, unbelief and hypocrisy, and falsehood are condemned to extinction and nonexistence; nothing in this world supports them. Rabbana — these wise, intelligent ones, these ulu al-albab, these thinkers upon heaven and earth who have understood that they did not come into this world in vain and that this world was not created in vain, continue their speech — we are arriving here at faith. They say: Rabbana — O our Lord — innana sami'na — we heard and understood, with the ear of the body and the ear of the heart; munadiyan — a caller, a crier — who yunadi lil-iman — was calling out for faith, sounding the call of faith; an aminu bi-Rabbikum — saying, "Believe in your Lord"; fa-amanna — and then we believed. What sort of faith did these believe with? Did someone just say "Believe," and they believed? No. These are the very ulu al-albab, the very thinkers. This caller may outwardly be a prophet, but inwardly he is the prophet of their own intellect and insight, who summons them toward reflection and faith in God and calls them. So the caller said to them, "Believe," and they believed out of insight, out of understanding, out of perception and complete awareness. This kind of faith is what is desired in Islam: aware faith. That is the second point. There is also a third point. Aware faith is what Islam desires, and God Most High accepts no unaware faith and assigns it no honor or worth. So in several places the Qur'an severely rebukes the blind, imitative, prejudiced faiths — for such faiths often slam a person to the ground head-first. Here is one of its verses. And when it is said to them, 'Come to what God has sent down and to the Messenger…' The talk is of the unbelievers and the reactionaries: when they are told, "Come toward what God has sent down, and come toward the Prophet" — that is, come and test and understand what God has sent down and what the Prophet teaches; come close, understand, listen, see what the Prophet says; does the Prophet have something to say? — what is their answer? Instead of coming, instead of thinking, instead of trying to understand and to choose their road, qalu — they say: hasbuna ma wajadna 'alayhi aba'ana — "the way and custom upon which we found our fathers is enough for us. We do not go after these new words." In the words of one researcher, the unbelievers in the Qur'an are everywhere another name for the reactionaries of the centuries and the ages. Everywhere the Prophet is the enlightened intellectual of his time: he has a new word, a new road, he summons toward the new, whereas the unbelievers and opponents are the prejudiced, the imitators, the rigid-minded, the reactionaries who neither like nor accept his new road. Their words too are: "Tread the road just as the [former] travelers trod." We did not see our fathers and mothers this way; we saw them another way, and we want to understand it their way and act their way. Then what does the Qur'an answer? A wa law kana aba'uhum la ya'lamuna shay'an wa la yahtadun — they have carried this imitation of their fathers so far that they follow them even though their fathers knew nothing and found no way aright. The Qur'an says to them: even if your fathers understood nothing, found no road, could not tell their own good from their own ill — even so, do you imitate them? See how it blames and reproaches imitation.