BismiLlah,
I just watched a video of a young Palestinian girl saying, "We miss bread – the white one.” I don’t even know what to comment on this. May Allah help our brothers and sisters in Palestine (and all across the world where the Muslims are oppressed) against His enemies and the oppressors, aameen.
This little girl’s statement brought to my mind the reality of privileges. We are very privileged people. Yes, the country is difficult and prices are rising, jobs are scarce and sustenance is little, but we are privileged. And, a good reason we can’t understand how privileged we are – as Imam Abu Ismail al-Harawi RH taught us in his phenomenal Manazil as-Saireen – is because our appreciation for these privileges have been hindered by the clouds of habituation.
In the first station of his book, Imam al-Harawi RH mentioned that the first means to waking up from the slumber of heedlessness is “the heart’s beholding of the bounties [of Allah] while despairing of ever being able to count them or realize their magnitude, thereafter busying the heart with the realization of His graciousness in bestowing them and coming to full recognition of one’s failure in showing the necessary gratitude.”
When last did we thank Allah for the sun and the moon?
قُلْ أَرَءَيْتُمْ إِن جَعَلَ ٱللَّهُ عَلَيْكُمُ ٱلَّيْلَ سَرْمَدًا إِلَىٰ يَوْمِ ٱلْقِيَـٰمَةِ مَنْ إِلَـٰهٌ غَيْرُ ٱللَّهِ يَأْتِيكُم بِضِيَآءٍ ۖ أَفَلَا تَسْمَعُونَ
Say, "Have you considered: if Allāh should make for you the night continuous until the Day of Resurrection, what deity other than Allāh could bring you light? Then will you not hear?"
قُلْ أَرَءَيْتُمْ إِن جَعَلَ ٱللَّهُ عَلَيْكُمُ ٱلنَّهَارَ سَرْمَدًا إِلَىٰ يَوْمِ ٱلْقِيَـٰمَةِ مَنْ إِلَـٰهٌ غَيْرُ ٱللَّهِ يَأْتِيكُم بِلَيْلٍۢ تَسْكُنُونَ فِيهِ ۖ أَفَلَا تُبْصِرُونَ
Say, "Have you considered: if Allāh should make for you the day continuous until the Day of Resurrection, what deity other than Allāh could bring you a night in which you may rest? Then will you not see?"
— Al-Qasas 71-72
Some people say that free will is an illusion. At some level of thought and consciousness, one would realize that it is determination/determinism (qadr wal-qadaa) that is the illusion that distracts from reality. The realities of the heavens and earth, the alternations of the night and day, the rise and fall of nations, and the birth and death of men are pointers to Allah, Al-Muddabir al-Umur, kulluhum. These cycles in nature and the improper usage of the statement “QadruLlah wa ma sha’a faala” are clouds that could distract a person from The Divine Reality, Al-Baaqi, The One who remains. In the face of the light of God’s essence, all things vanish – except for what He wills to retain.
حَدَّثَنَا أَبُو بَكْرِ بْنُ أَبِي شَيْبَةَ، وَأَبُو كُرَيْبٍ قَالاَ حَدَّثَنَا أَبُو مُعَاوِيَةَ، حَدَّثَنَا الأَعْمَشُ، عَنْ عَمْرِو بْنِ مُرَّةَ، عَنْ أَبِي عُبَيْدَةَ، عَنْ أَبِي مُوسَى، قَالَ قَامَ فِينَا رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم بِخَمْسِ كَلِمَاتٍ فَقَالَ " إِنَّ اللَّهَ عَزَّ وَجَلَّ لاَ يَنَامُ وَلاَ يَنْبَغِي لَهُ أَنْ يَنَامَ يَخْفِضُ الْقِسْطَ وَيَرْفَعُهُ يُرْفَعُ إِلَيْهِ عَمَلُ اللَّيْلِ قَبْلَ عَمَلِ النَّهَارِ وَعَمَلُ النَّهَارِ قَبْلَ عَمَلِ اللَّيْلِ حِجَابُهُ النُّورُ - وَفِي رِوَايَةِ أَبِي بَكْرٍ النَّارُ - لَوْ كَشَفَهُ لأَحْرَقَتْ سُبُحَاتُ وَجْهِهِ مَا انْتَهَى إِلَيْهِ بَصَرُهُ مِنْ خَلْقِهِ " . - وَفِي رِوَايَةِ أَبِي بَكْرٍ عَنِ الأَعْمَشِ وَلَمْ يَقُلْ حَدَّثَنَا .
Abu Musa reported: The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) was standing amongst us and he told us five things. He said: Verily the Exalted and Mighty God does not sleep, and it does not befit Him to sleep. He lowers the scale and lifts it. The deeds in the night are taken up to Him before the deeds of the day, and the deeds of the day before the deeds of the night. His veil is the light. In the hadith narrated by Abu Bakr (instead of the word "light" ), it is fire. If He withdraws it (the veil), the splendor of His countenance would consume His creation so far as His sight reaches.
– Sahih Muslim 179a, https://sunnah.com/muslim:179a
I make this digression to establish that Qadr itself can be a distraction from the reality of Al-Haqq, Allah. One must not be satisfied with believing in Qadr in a manner that distracts them from Allah’s wisdom in His creation (al-khalq) and His decree (ash-shar’). He gives some people favors and deprives others of those same favors.
We mustn't let the desirables in God’s creation distract us from the reality of God’s favoring of us – by the clouds of habituation and repetition. In this regard, Imam al-Harawi RH said that realizing Allah’s bounties upon us is achieved through “the light of the intellect, witnessing the rays of grace (through the clouds of routine/habituation), and, taking heed from the condition of those afflicted.”
A fancy way to understand these three is to go in reverse order: when someone asleep is awakened by the condition of those afflicted (or an absence of a favor), he begins to witness the rays of grace that have been previously clouded by the clouds of routine/habituation, then he attains – by another one of Allah’s bounties – the light of the intellect which leads him to realize Allah’s bounties and thank Allah for all the favors that Allah has bestowed upon him.
I love Muhammad Hijab’s definition of love – funny how it partially tells us about Hijab’s psycho-emotional makeup. He mentioned something along the lines of love being that connection to a person/thing that creates grief when lost and induces anxiety when threatened. This makes sense. One of the ways a believer – although ironically – can know that Allah has blessed them with loving Him is that the believer is saddened by his sins and his heart is not settled when he approaches a matter that has disobedience/transgression within.
If we want to know how privileged we are – and the scholars teach us that the greatest of blessings is al-Iman (faith), as it is Iman that would help us to use all other blessings positively or negatively – let us look at those things we love, those things that our love for them would turn to grief if those things are lost and anxiety if there is a threat of losing them. Then, let us look at the range of people who do not have these things.
Even more, and I’ll end with this, In shaa Allah, let us realize – as Ustadh Hamza Tzortis (may Allah preserve him) mentioned in his phenomenal book on the existence of Allah and the truth of Islam:
“There is something in your life that you receive freely, yet you do not earn it and do not own it. There is no good reason to believe that you deserve it either. This thing is this moment, and the next moment, and all of the moments of your existence. You do not earn these moments, so what can you possibly do to earn another instant in your life? This is exactly why in popular culture, we call it a gift: the gift of life. That’s why we all consider it to be so precious. You do not own these moments because you do not have the capacity to bring anything into existence: you cannot even create a fly. You do not deserve another moment of your existence because it is not yours: you do not have the ability to produce life, even for a second. In light of these basic truths, you must always be in a state of gratitude, because you always receive something that you neither earn, nor own, nor deserve.”
A few pages later, Ustadh Hamza goes on to say:
“An important point regarding worshipping God is that it is His right, even if we are not recipients of any type of comfort. If we were to live a life full of suffering, God must still be worshipped. Worshipping God is not dependent on some kind of reciprocal relationship; He gives us life, and we worship Him in return. Do not misunderstand what I am saying here: God showers us with many blessings…..however, He is worshipped because of who He is and not necessarily how He decides – via His boundless wisdom – to distribute His bounty.”
Familiarity with God’s blessings breeds contempt. Ramadan is coming. May Allah take us to it, aameen. It is a time when a lot of our blessings are forbidden to us for hours every day. It is a time when we can reverse-engineer and follow Imam al-Harawi’s recipe: “When someone asleep is awakened by the condition of those afflicted, he begins to witness the rays of grace that have been previously clouded by the clouds of routine/habituation, then he attains – by another one of Allah’s bounties – the light of the intellect which leads him to realize Allah’s bounties and thank Allah for all the favors that Allah has bestowed upon him.”
We should fast from our blessings as reasonably as we can to remove the clouds of routine and habituation that prevent us from seeing them. We should not be greedy, wanting so much more when we haven’t sincerely thanked Allah for the blessings He has given. When Allah answers our Dua, it is not enough to thank Him for the answered Duas: We must also ask Him to guide us to use the answer to the Duas in the best of ways. Are we using the answers to our Duas in the best of ways? For the believer, everything is a blessing or something that leads to a blessing, so we should focus on gratitude.
Regarding our privileges, let us thank Allah and do right by these privileges. We should not ignore Allah’s blessings, as that would be a form of ingratitude. We must actively seek out those blessings in our lives, understand why they are blessings, thank Allah for them, and seek to use them in the best of ways. A person might not be able to properly thank Allah for a blessing that they do not realize why it is a gift. We must not allow our gifts to turn into opportunities for shaytan to distract us from The Gifter, Al-Wahhab.
A lot has been said. The sages say less. The neophytes say much, teaching less than the sages. The truth comes from Allah. The author errs, seeking forgiveness and guidance from Allah. Ma’asalam.
– Umar Hfe
February 25th, 2024.