Thursday 31 December 2015

THE THREE PLACES OF WORSHIP

There is a long Hadith of Rasool Allah SAW (Prophet Muhammad Peace Be Upon Him) which defines Ihsa'n as "Ihsa'n is that you pray to Allah SWT as if you are watching Him. Even if you can't see Him He can certainly see you."

A disciple once went to Dr Arfi RA and said, "Hazrat (sir)! Alhamdulillah (Thanks to Allah) I have obtained status of Ihsa'n." Hazrat Arfi RA asked, "That is very good news but do you feel as if you are watching Allah SWT only when you are in the masjid (mosque) or also when you are with you are with your wife and children? The disciple asked in confusion, "But Hazrat, doesn't the hadith say that pray to Allah SWT as if you are watching Him?" Hazrat Arfi RA said, "That is exactly why I asked you this question. Most people think that this Hadith is only about the masjid. But a Muslim actually has three places of worship. The masjid, his home, and his place of work. When you are in the masjid do remember that Allah SWT is watching you. When you are at home with your wife and kids then also remember that Allah SWT is watching you. When you are at work even there remember that Allah SWT is watching you. When you start remembering Allah SWT in all three places only then consider that you have reached the status of Ihs'an."

Monday 28 December 2015

HOW TO FIND THE RIGHT PATH

One of my very good friends asked me recently what would be the benefit of me writing all this ...? Surely it is not going to change the world. True indeed! I thought a lot about why I write and was there any point to it all.

I was exceptionally fortunate that in my formative years I got the opportunity to spend quite a bit of time under the shadow of some of the most balanced, most moderate people I have ever met and some may find it difficult to believe that I met them in a Madrassah! Even though I never became a good practising Muslim myself, and still am very poor at keeping up with all the required acts I developed an understanding and love of Islam that i could never have obtained through merely reading books.

I am probably the worst Muslim I have ever met but I have been very lucky to get some unique life experiences many other people may never get. I just wish to share those experiences and my learnings with my children, and that includes my friends' and family's children, and then leave them to make their own choices. I will share some glimpses from that journey but with a disclaimer that this is NOT a book on religion, these are just my personal opinions, experiences and feelings and we all know that opinions can always be wrong, despite some persons' beliefs to the contrary. As it is a life-long journey that is still ongoing I couldn't cover everything in one write-up so this will become a series.

I was in fourth year of medical school when I first went to this Madrassah. Having always being bull headed I decided that I will go exactly as I always dressed, in a jeans and sleeveless T shirt. My first surprise came when in a mosque full of over a hundred people with beards, caps or umama, dressed in shalwar kameez,  bared ankles, and not one person gave me so much as a second glance. That was liberating indeed that people with such traditional appearance could be so accepting or tolerant of people with an almost alien appearance.

I still remember one of the first naseehat (lessons) I received, "Continue to interact with your friends exactly as you have always done and keep laughing and joking with them as you always did. They should not feel that you have become too dry, too rigid, or that now you do not talk about anything but one topic since you have turned towards religion. However, if they do something that is not permissible then get away from them only for that time, but as soon as that is finished get together with them as normal."

I was so surprised that you go to a Madrassah to learn religion and the first advice you get has nothing to do with prayers, or changing your appearance, or reading the Quran. It is about continuing to laugh and joke with your friends. I was so immature that it took me years to understand how profound an impact that first naseehat had on the rest of my life. My wife has asked me may times how come I am so close friends with so and so when they are so different from me. I always laugh and say that it is because they have stood by with me in every difficulty I have had in my life so I couldn't care less about what they have done at some point in their lives. But that is not the real reason. The real reason is that a part of the naseehat above was not to judge people, not to think that you are better than them, but to accept them exactly as they are. And that is why I did or they did never got in the way of our friendships.

Like many people of my age then I used to have serious doubts about religion and Allah. Did I believe in Islam just because i was born a Muslim? What if I had been born a Christian, or a Hindu? Would I have believe that to be the true religion then? Was there really a God? Was there really a life after death? I have always been an avid reader and that is why I have always told my children and my students. Keep reading, and not just your textbooks, it will expose you to worlds you will never see otherwise. I used to read the sermons of a long deceased saint and one day I suddenly came across something that I felt was a true representation of my own feelings. It said something like, "If you want to turn to the path of Allah but you do not know what the true path is. If you do not know whether the Hindus are right, the Christians are right or whether the Sunnis or Shia are right. Then what you should do is set some time apart every day and say these words. 'O God! I want to follow your true path. I do not have the knowledge or the wisdom to recognise your true path. I do not have the ability to recognise your true path by reading books. I am just praying to you to guide me to the path of the righteous.'"

The buzzing then said that the person should keep reciting this dual for some time to come and should not be disappointed too quickly if he doesn't sense an immediate change. He also said that there are two advantages of saying this prayer. The first is that Allah swt says in the Holy Quran, "Pray to Me. I will accept your prayers." So how is it possible that one prays for guidance and that prayer won't be accepted. The other is that suppose this person had only a short life remaining and died soon afterwards. When he goes in front of Allah swt at least he will be able to say, "Ya Allah! I did not have the knowledge nor the wisdom to recognise your one true path by myself. That is why I kept praying to You to grant me guidance. What else could I have done?" InshaAllah he will be forgiven.

The other incident that opened doors for me happened in front of me. One of my friends went with us to meet the buzurg I used to meet. He asked, "Hazrat! I think that there is an Allah but I am not sure. I feel there must be but I do not have peace of mind." To our relief the buzurg laughed and said, "It is good that you came to discuss this. Some people keep harbouring these beliefs for their entire lives but never seek to resolve their doubts." He then asked him some questions about his knowledge of logic but finding out that we hadn't really studies logic he said, "Lets leave the knowledge aside. I will just tell you a few words that you should repeat daily at a convenient time of day at least for the next few months. These words are 'O You who other people call God. if You exist then make me believe in you!"

The buzurg then laughed and said, "You can see no burden is being placed on you. You are not even being forced to pray to God. You just have to say a few words to someone other people call God. If He exists He will make you believe in Him. If He doesn't you are off the hook because you have done the best you could."

These two simple dua have had such a profound effect on my life that it is difficult to describe it in words and I won't even try to. There are some experiences you have to go through in life to be able to truly understand them.

Both these prayers also served as a very important tool for me. Any time anyone would want to argue with me ver religion I would just say, "My friend. Neither one of us is a religious scholar so lets not try to multiply our ignorance by debating our matters we know little about. Why don't I suggest another much more pragmatic way. Lets both of us raise our hands for prayers and pray that Allah SWT give guidance to both of us. If I get the guidance that I am wrong I will change my ways. If you are wrong you promise to change your ways." The most comical situation would be when some people would start squirming and not join me in that prayer. I had not realised until then that some people are so staunchly married to their beliefs that they don't even want to risk praying for divine guidance in case they are proven wrong.

RIGHTS OF OTHERS

It is a continuation of the series, "MY KIND OF ISLAM" but I thought that rather than just numbering the write-ups which won't mean anything I will just title these as dominant themes. It is not my life story which is important anyway, it is what I learnt about religion that is most important.

One thing that always stopped me from writing about Islam is an ayet of the Quran which says something like (not an exact translation) "Why do you not practice things that you preach?" I was always afraid that someday someone will ask me how much of what I was saying did I actually practice. The compromise is that I just quote what I have read or heard from some very wise people. The words are mine, the thoughts and the wisdom are not.

The first step on the path of Allah SWT is to do Tauba (repentance). (Don't know whether this is an accurate translation but guess it is close enough). As in life there are three stages, the past - one has to do some atonement for everything done wrong in the past, the present - one has to immediately disengage from all the wrongdoings one is involved in, and the future - one has to vow to stay away from all wrongdoings in the future.

In proper Tauba one has to first do an inventory of what one has done wrong in life. As people generally know there are two main categories of rights in Islam, Huqooq-ullah (Rights of Allah SWT) and Huqooq-ul-Ibad (Rights of human beings). Contrary to popular wisdom proper atonement of rights of human beings is far more trickier than atonement of rights of Allah SWT which should serve as a stark reminder to refrain from usurping other people's rights. Allah SWT is much kinder and has made it very easy to atone for His rights that people may have neglected. I will write a first a little bit about the former, but in today's Muslim societies there is such a gross disregard of rights of other human beings almost as if it is not a apart of Islam that this write up will mostly be devoted to the rights of human beings.

For Huqooq-ullah what one needs to do is to do some gross calculation of how many Namaz (Salah), how many fasts (Roza, Saum) and how much Zakat one may have missed in life from the time it became obligatory which is at puberty, and then start repaying that debt. For example, if one calculates that they have missed Namaz for 5 years what they need to do is to start praying one extra Namaz with each new one until the count is completed. Something similar is required for Roza and Zakat. But Allah SWT's rehmat (blessing) is so vast and limitless that Buzurg say that if someone starts doing this and dies after praying just one Qaza (due) Namaz it will be counted as if he had prayed all his qaza namaz because his intention was to pray all, not one, it was just that his time had come up. In Islam means and ends are not two different things, means are the end, but it is a whole different topic about which I will try to write some other day.

Coming back to atonement for Huqooq-ul-Ibad (rights of human beings) first one has to make almost like an inventory of how many times one has abused rights of other people since attaining puberty. There are three categories of abuses of other people. The first is verbal e.g. being abusive to someone, saying bad things about them behind their back, etc. The second is physical, for example having hit someone unjustly, or hurt them physically in some other way. The third is financial, which includes taking someone's money away wrongfully.

For the verbal abuse one has to try to find all the people one has abused, as much as is practicable, and ask for their forgiveness. In cases where he may have said bad things behind people's back he may need to go to those people he said those things to and has to tell them that what he had said was wrong or inappropriate.

For physical abuse, one has to offer to be hit by the victim as hard as one had hit the victim unjustly. There are examples of this from the life of Rasool Allah SAW (Muslim's Holy Prophet Muhammad PBUH). It may sound far-fetched but it all comes down to one's belief system. If one does not believe in the life hereafter one can do whatever one pleases. However, if one does believe in the life hereafter then Allah SWT has made it absolutely clear that He will not forgive any abuse towards a human being until that person has forgiven it. Now it is up to us to decide whether we want to settle these accounts in this world or the next one.

For financial abuse, one has to calculate and then try return all the money they had taken unlawfully to its rightful owners. And it is not limited to individuals. A railway guard went for Tauba to a buzurg. He told the buzurg that he had taken his family many times on rail trips without paying for their tickets but no one asked him because he was a guard in the railway. The buzurg told him to calculate the unpaid fare and pay it back to the railway company before they could proceed further with his islah (religious correction). Just like it is haram to take money unlawfully from an individual, similarly it is haram to take money unlawfully from an institution. In one case a newbie had to find a dead victim's inheritors to return the money he had taken wrongly from their father.

Now you may have begun to realise why I said earlier that it is far trickier to atone for abuse of rights of human beings than abuse of rights of Allah SWT. In this instance prevention is definitely better than cure.

One more gross misperception to clarify here is that all the rights written above apply equally to Muslims and non-Muslims. Whenever the Holy Quran talks about justice it says do justice "bain-un naas" (between people), it doesn't say "bain-ul-Muslimeen" (between Muslims.) The Ulema (scholars) who have written interpretations of the Quran say that what it means is that as far as applying rules of justice is concerned, in Islam there is no difference between rights of Muslims and non-Muslims. They are both equally sacred, and there are examples from Rasool Allah's SAW life in Medinah when non-Muslims preferred to bring disputes to him for justice than go to their own leaders.

 In the end I will just share something I read a longtime but it touched my heart so strongly that I have never forgotten it. A buzurg used to say (my translation so I ask forgiveness for any errors), "When I hear about one of my murideen (religious disciples) that he has stopped doing zikr or praying nafil (non-obligatory) namaz then I feel sad. When I hear that a mureed (religious disciple) has skipped a Farz (obligatory) namaz I feel upset with them. But when I hear that a mureed has verbally or physically abused someone, or has taken someone's money unlawfully I begingto get feelings of intense anger towards them."

Those disciples who lived in his khanqah (seminary) also have written separately that the Buzurg never asked any of his disciples whether the had completed the agreed number of zikr (recitation) or who prayed how many nafil. During Fajr prayers when the disciples tried to rouse the people still sleeping the buzurg often stopped them saying who knew who might have been praying till how late at night and they may get distressed if woken up too early. But if he found out that one of his disciples had hurt someone or hit someone, or had taken money from someone wrongfully then he got extremely angry and told them to leave the seminary. He used to say that the first step of becoming a good Muslim was becoming a good human being, and if people hadn't learnt anything about becoming a good human being after spending so much time with him then it was better that they went elsewhere.

I will just end with a verse that the same buzurg used to recite often;

طریقت بجز خدمت خلق نیست
ایں تسبیح و سجادہ و دلق نیست

(Tareeqat (Tassawuf) is nothing but helping other human beings.
It is not merely reciting zikr, sitting on a prayer mat or dressing in certain ways.)

THE IMPORTANCE OF MODERATION اعتدال

buzurg (holy man) once said, "Moderation is such an attribute that if someone manages to achieve it then they do not need to achieve anything else."

اعتدال ایسی چیز ہے کہ جس کو زندگی میں یہ حاصل ہو جاٴے اسے زندگی میں کچھ بھی حاصل کرنے کی ضرورت نہیں۔

But what is moderation and how do you know whether you have achieved it or not?

In my younger days, like everyone that age, I used to be very emotional and single tracked. It is an age when you can get very excited about something and if you do not have good mentoring it is very easy to get sidetracked and lose one's way. 

Once I said to the buzurg, "Hazrat (sir), I feel like I want to keep doing Allah's zikr (recitation of Allah SWT's nam) all the time and don't feel like studying."

I thought the buzurg being a religious scholar himself would be very happy but his response stunned me. He said, "What did you just say? Do you think worldly affairs and Islam are two different things? If your niyyat (intention) is good then all your studies are Allah's zikr. If you keep the intention that you are becoming a doctor to help people and to serve them your studying, your thinking and worrying about studies, your preparing for and appearing in exams, it will all be counted as zikr."

The buzurg further said, "It is a misconception that somehow taking a fee is against serving people. What your niyyat should be that after becoming a doctor while you will charge fee from those who can afford it, you will never turn away a patient because he or she cannot afford to pay. If your niyyat wasn't right as yet then correct it now. But once you start studying with that niyyat of helping people then every moment of your studies is being spent in doing Allah's SWT zikr."

On another occasion the buzurg explained that it is a misconception that religion and our worldly affairs are two separate things and that to do Allah's SWT ibadat (prayer) you have to get away from everyone, go to some remote place and keep reciting Allah's SWT name all the time. He said that if one corrects one's intentions then all our studies and our jobs become Allah's SWT zikr  and ibadat  and there is no difference between the two.

On another occasion I complained about being unable to balance between religion and studies. The buzurg chided me kindly saying, "At the moment you are single. You have no responsibilities besides having to study. Later on in life you will have a job, wife, kids, parents to look after, your career. How will you balance between all of these conflicting demands of life?" He then advised me that life is all about balancing conflicting responsibilities so that no one aspect of life is neglected at the expanse of the other. You can't be a good Muslim unless so you are also a good worker (at your job), a good husband, a good father, and a good relative and friend. Life is all about balance.

I will end with just one more of his quotes that has been a guiding beacon all my life. Some people use religion as an excuse not to achieve anything in life. They feel very proud that they spend all their time praying, while in reality someone else is doing all the hard work and earning a meal for them. Once we were discussing post graduation and someone saying that they did not want to study any further because of religious reasons. The buzurg said, "Whatever you choose to do in your life try to reach right to the very top in your career. A person should always try to reach the peak in whatever they do." Then he smiled and said, "A person should be tarik-ud-duniya (a person who has given up on worldly possessions), not matrook-ud-duniya (someone the world has given up on). Look, Hazrat Ibrahim Bin Adham gave up on his kingdom for Allah SWT, but he had a kingdom to give up. But if someone doesn't have anything anyway what is he going to give up for Allah SWT?"

IMPORTANCE OF BEING SOFT SPOKEN

buzurg (holy man) once said, "There are three ways of communicating. The first is that a person speaks clearly and truthfully but the tone is harsh. The second is that the person speaks softly but the content is vague. The third is that the person speaks clearly and truthfully but the one is soft. That is the best way of communicating and that was the Sunnah of Rasool Allah SAW."

Moulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi RA