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.)
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.)
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