Episode 36 - It is a moment... when despair intensifies, hope grows
"We have none but Allah"; a phrase that has become synonymous with "There is no help but in Allah" in many of our minds, a phrase for those who did not find their sufficiency among people and were forced to choose Allah! It has become a declaration of bankruptcy! Yet the original meaning is that whoever has none but Allah has lost nothing and needs nothing; {Is not Allah sufficient for His servant?} [Al-Zumar: 36]..! And whoever has everything but Allah has nothing but falsehood that does not satisfy or nourish. Is not everything but Allah false?
What happens to us when calamity befalls us is that we turn to Allah first, but we soon realize that this turning must be sincere and fruitful, and it has consequences. One of its consequences is that we seek every negligence we have committed against Allah and correct it, every flaw in our lives and mend it, every sin and repent from it..
Another consequence of this turning is that we examine our hearts, search for their diseases and treat them. We will then find that we have neglected our hearts for years, and they have become ruins, hollow, heedless, where the meanings of loving Allah, sincerity in reliance upon Him, humility before Him, submission to Him, attachment to Him, and longing to meet Him have weakened! We will find that we must remove its thorns, turn its soil, and sow it with the verses of Allah, and water it with the water of standing, fasting, and supplication.
Yes; we will discover that turning to Allah, fleeing to Him, and holding onto His rope all have consequences and a price.
But we want to be rid of the calamity quickly! The process of leaving sins, mending flaws, uprooting thorns, sowing seeds, watering them, and waiting for them to sprout takes time, and time passes, not in our favor, so what is the solution?
The solution we usually choose is to seek worldly causes that seem faster and lighter than the process of sincere turning to Allah. We intend to walk in these causes alongside the process of turning to Allah and its consequences, and whichever precedes in lifting the calamity, it is good, and as for the consequences of turning to Allah, there is time in life to complete them!
Here begins the deviation; when we slacken in bearing the consequences of turning to Allah, we seek an alternative! We deceive ourselves that this alternative is a cause, and that Allah has commanded us to take the means. Yes, taking the means is praiseworthy when our turning to Allah is sincere, and we are patient and persevere in reforming ourselves, so that there is no attachment in the heart except to Him, the Most High. But when our seeking of means is a result of our prolonging the path of turning to Allah and our laziness in bearing its consequences, then these means become, in our perception, a substitute for Allah, and they compete with turning to Allah in our hearts, occupy its space, and divert our time, effort, emotion, and thought, so that we think of these material means during our prayer, standing, recitation, and supplication. The appearances are with Allah, and the inner selves are with the means and the ways of obtaining them, completing them, fearing their loss, the obstacles to their effect, their alternatives in case of failure, and their latest news!
And whenever we discover that these means have ruined the process of turning to Allah, we numb ourselves with excuses. We say to ourselves: "These means are time-bound, and if they are missed, the door of repentance is open and not closed. If I am troubled that I do not weep out of fear of Allah or humble myself in my prayer, this is not new. I have lived with it for many years, and nothing comes all at once. I have improvement, even if it is slow, and Allah is Merciful. He sees my condition and the greatness of the matter that preoccupies me, so He will excuse me. Then I cannot turn to my heart to correct it while I am preoccupied with the means and my shortcomings in them, so let me focus now on the means to relieve my heart from them, so that I may devote myself to correcting my heart!"
As if we take the means as "guarantees" with Allah, so that if we fall short in Allah's right and do not ensure relief from Him, the means will help us! Do you want to know if this disease has entered your heart? When you put your head down to sleep, in this moment that summarizes the fluctuations of your being throughout a whole day, and you recite the traditional supplication, focus well. Do you mean what you say? Are you ready to bear the consequences of these words: "O Allah, I have submitted myself to You, and entrusted my affair to You"?
If your heart is disturbed while you say it and you contemplate its meaning, know that the heart is disturbed and afraid when lying! Because you do not truly want to surrender yourself completely to Allah, but you want guarantees with Allah!
You will not feel at ease if you surrender yourself to Allah while it is tainted, and you have not yet intended to turn to Allah sincerely and fulfill His right. This is the danger, and here lies the mistake; when attachment to worldly means is a substitute for completing the turning to Allah, which we have found its consequences burdensome, so we think that these means are faster in effect, or more certain in result, or more effective in silencing our self-reproach than sincere turning to Allah, the Most High.
You will continue to produce causes to replace causes, and you will continue to move from mirage to mirage, seeking water but finding none, and turning mountains of means into dust!
And you will not supplicate to Allah sincerely during this turmoil; for turning to Allah is a noble station that rejects being crowded or crowded out, so it remains outside the heart, looking at these means that have strayed from Allah and have become falsehood, and turning to Allah refuses to be joined with falsehood in one heart.
It is the moment when you learn the lesson and understand it, and realize that in all your previous efforts you were not on the right path. You despair of all worldly means, despair of yourself and your abilities, intelligence, and planning, and taste the bitterness of the weakness of your strength, the paucity of your means, and your insignificance to people. You despair of your family, tribe, friends, and lovers, and learn that even if they want good for you, they do not possess, by themselves, any benefit or harm for you. You despair of all the earthly ropes stretched to you and are certain that there is no protection from Allah's decree except for whom He has mercy. Indeed, you despair of all your good deeds and are ashamed to seek Allah with them because you doubt their acceptance, as they have come from a heedless heart!
It is a moment of despair, hopelessness, drought, and postponement from everything. A moment of emptiness of the heart from everything. A moment of the collapse of hope in everything. Everything! It is the appropriate moment for the feeling of turning to Allah to burst into the heart!
This feeling of waiting saw causes that came and went, weaving spider webs in the ruins of the heart. When the heart was emptied of all of them and exhausted them all, turning to Allah burst into it, filled its corners, and planted its greenery, making it pulsate with strength anew. It was not long before the dew overflowed on the veins of the eyes, and their tears poured anew after long drought, and the episode was completed with a tongue that stammered with supplications that flowed to it and trembled with the beats of the heart and the pulses of tears.
It is a moment... you will know it is it when you live it.
Like the moment of the three who were left until the earth became narrow for them in its vastness, and their selves became narrow, and they despaired of everything, and were certain that there is no refuge from Allah except to Him, Allah cast into their hearts and inspired them: "Repent, for I want to repent for you."
It is a moment... you will know it is it; a moment when a striker strikes your being, saying: "Now! O heart, your pulse, O eye, your tears, O tongue, your supplication... Now: Allah wants to answer your supplication."
It is but a moment! You will say: If it is a moment, how is it that my heart was not exposed to the breezes of that moment throughout all my previous calamities? Yes; when the devil felt your laziness in the consequences of turning to Allah, he attacked you to divert you from Allah, saying: "Where are you going? The path you are heading for is long; here is a nearby fertility, so follow." So you surrendered him to the reins of your heart, and he moved it between the pastures of drought, and if you had disobeyed him at the beginning of the path, you would have reached!
It is the devil; he saw you knocking on the door of true relief, but when he felt your weariness and lethargy, he said to you: "Here is an easy exit, follow me." So he led you in the hallway of means, and you wasted your time and effort there. And whenever you intended to return to the door of true relief, he said: "Slowly... I see the end of this tunnel with light." But there is no light; he only diverts you from the path and claims to guide you, and if you had disobeyed him at the beginning and insisted on knocking on the door, it would have been opened for you.
It is true that turning to Allah has consequences, and it is true that uprooting thorns from the heart and sowing seeds in it requires time and effort, but it is much less than the time and effort you will spend in vain in the hallway of means devoid of Allah. And with Allah, you will find comfort and tranquility, and with these means, you will find fear and disappointment, and in the first, you will reach, and in the second, you will not increase except in confusion!
So why then do we keep hanging our hearts on worldly means and creatures to save us from our distresses? And pay the cost of that in time, effort, tearing of the soul, scattering of thought, suffocation, anxiety, oppression, and disappointment in creatures!
Why do we not learn from others?
It is human nature; we insist on experimenting with ourselves, until when it strikes us and we taste its bitterness, we become firmer and stronger in resisting the devil if he tries to divert us from the door of true relief and say to him: "He has deceived others... He has deceived others."
But the disaster is if none of us learns from his own experiences and insists on entering the hallway - the hallway of worldly means disconnected from Allah, the hallway of attachment to creatures - in every new calamity, and it is not appropriate for a believer to be bitten from the same hole twice!
So may Allah grant you the moment of despair and hope; despair of creatures, and hope in the Creator, Glorified and Exalted be He.
It is a moment... but how noble it is from a moment and how rare! It is a moment... if the heart lives it, it will shake off the mountains of accumulated worries upon it and destroy them. It is a moment... but it transports the heart from the valley of profound loss to attachment to the Throne. It is a moment... it takes you from the depths of failure to the peak of hope, and from the loneliness of despair to the joy of comfort. It is a moment... it rescues you from the fears that gnaw at you from every side to the lap of Allah where there is safety. It is a moment... you thought before it that you had lost everything, only to discover after it that you have found everything. It is a moment... as if it is a cry in the cemetery of the heart that revives its dead.
It is the moment of attachment to Allah, to Allah alone, and it is the moment of relief, relief for your heart by reviving it after death, and relief from your distress in the way that Allah wills and satisfies you with it.
It is the moment of the moments of the prophets, peace be upon them. It is true that the life of the prophets is all attachment to Allah, but this attachment was scrutinized, purified, stripped, and reached its peak in moments, and then relief came. Like the moment of Nuh when he called his Lord {I am overcome, so help me} [Al-Qamar: 10], so Allah saved him and those with him in the ark. Like the moment of Ibrahim when he said: "Sufficient for me is Allah, and how excellent is the Guardian"; so Allah made the fire coolness and safety for him. Like the moment of Yunus when he said: {There is no deity except You, glory be to You. Indeed, I have been of the wrongdoers} [Al-Anbiya: 87], so Allah saved him from distress and from the belly of the whale. Like the moment of Musa when he said: {Indeed, with me is my Lord; He will guide me} [Al-Shu'ara: 62], so Allah saved him and his people from a sea before him and an enemy behind him. Like the moment of Ayyub when he called his Lord: {Indeed, adversity has touched me, and You are the Most Merciful of the merciful} [Al-Anbiya: 83], so Allah removed from him his adversity and gave him his family and their like with them. Like the moment of Yusuf when his heart was free from attachment to the king and the tainted exit from prison, he said: {Return to your Lord and ask Him} [Yusuf: 50], so Allah saved him from prison and gave him kingship. Like the moment of Yaqub when he said to his sons: {And do not despair of the mercy of Allah} [Yusuf: 87], so Allah returned to him his sons and his sight. Like the moment of Muhammad, peace be upon him, when he said: {Do not grieve; indeed, Allah is with us} [At-Tawbah: 40], so Allah saved him from the swords of the polytheists that were above his head in a desert where there was no kinship, and they would not defend the Messenger of Allah or his followers.
It is the moment of despair of creatures, so there is nothing left but hope in the Creator, and relief comes quickly. {Until, when the messengers despaired and thought that they were denied, Our help came to them, and We saved whom We willed. And there is no repelling of Our punishment from the criminal people} [Yusuf: 110].
Indeed, Allah's relief is near, very near; for there is nothing between us and Him except this moment, but we are the ones who distance ourselves from Him by entering the alleys of means devoid of Allah and moving between their pastures, when we find the consequences of turning to Allah burdensome due to the weakness of our insight and lack of patience! Therefore, the patience required in calamity is not only patience in enduring the affliction, but more important than that is patience in performing the consequences of turning to Allah, Glorified and Exalted be He. It is the moment of pure certainty in Allah's truth, and absolute trust in His ability to save us no matter how the means have failed, and that whoever insists on knocking on the door is about to have it opened for him.
The moment of certainty that if the nation gathered to benefit you with something, they would not benefit you except with something that Allah has written for you. The moment that takes you out of the hallway and puts you in front of the door of relief again.
Therefore, if we live this moment and are certain that we have none but Allah, then what happiness and joy and peace of mind! And the phrase will not be a declaration of bankruptcy, but a declaration of wealth and self-sufficiency. And we will not say it with weakness and sadness and fear, but we will say it with steadfastness and pride and good tidings; because whoever has none but Allah, Allah is sufficient for him, and how excellent is the Guardian, and how excellent is the Master and the Helper. And at that time, when we put our heads down to sleep and say: "O Allah, I have submitted myself to You, and entrusted my affair to You", our hearts will tremble; but this time it is the trembling of love for Allah and comfort with Him after long heedlessness of Him.
I have personally experienced this moment when I was unjustly separated from my family. During this separation, I was troubled by the fear that something might happen to my parents in my absence, and the problem was that I had previously fallen short with them in dedicating the necessary time and effort to make them happy. Often, my preoccupation with the call and other beneficial matters, but the failure to prioritize is in itself a mistake that a person must seek forgiveness for. Allah, the Most High, has enjoined upon us the honor of our parents and excellence in that; {And to parents do good} [Al-Isra: 23]. There is no excuse for you to be preoccupied with your parents' rights with other matters that are beloved to Allah, the Most High, for the devil may be satisfied with you by distracting you from the essential to the non-essential. Therefore, during my separation, I was haunted by the fear that I might not reach one of my parents or both of them.
My heart clung to worldly means. There seemed to be many ropes stretched out that would save me from my calamity, but these ropes were suddenly cut, and the means collapsed suddenly, so I found myself in a moment of despair of everything, everything earthly, everything material. And in this moment, my heart clung to Allah, the Most High, with true attachment.
During my separation, I wrote a poem that expresses this moment.
My purity of soul is darkened by the length of my imprisonment I long to see my family And I have parents who have reached old age This father is weak and bedridden And I have a mother who endures what I endure And grief chokes me and tightens my chest Play with them, I embrace them in my bosom From illness, I have been afflicted with harm His body has withered with the autumn of old age Almost melting from thirst and oppression
And my family's mother has suffered from my absence My little ones ask about me And I have become a hostage to people As if I had died before reaching my death Her heart is broken and tears flow In her chest like embers They have tried to bring me good news But they have buried me - and I am alive - in my grave
And I have not followed the path of my Lord Nor did I feel that it was protected by roses Nor am I ignorant of the laws of calamity Nor do I fear the loss of status But I fear death And I have fallen short with them in truth If they die and I do not die with them in righteousness Their memory will remain a deep wound And I was a father to my children, loving But I did not shower them with my affection I thought it was free from all evil Spread with rubies and pearls And I do not complain that my turn has come Nor do I fear to be tried with poverty On my parents if I am afflicted with misfortune And I am not always excused with an excuse So my regrets and the loss of my affair! And a heartbreak without healing But I was preoccupied with the vanity of glory Rather, I faced them with much reproach
I turn my eyes and contemplate I turned to the servants to save me Except for brothers who have striven as I have striven Humiliated, I have returned with nothing Perhaps I may seek help to lift oppression But I have not found any support for my back But they could not free me And they did not return with what would comfort me
When they closed the doors in my face I knocked on your door, O Lord, my refuge And I have searched in my work, perhaps With a pure deed that pleases my Lord But I have not seen except a barren desert And I am truly repentant, O Lord And I have promised you before this But I love you, O my Lord And I have not extended my hand to you, O my Lord I thought of your forgiveness, O Lord, goodness So have mercy on the weak, O my Lord And return me to my aging parents Answer me if you know the truth of my speech By the Most Merciful, I swear all my effort Remove from me and my brothers grief And despair almost crushes all good news And I hope for your support for my weakness I have stored for my distress any treasure So may it be effective with you in revealing distress And I have not turned to you except with my sin And I intend repentance that I have not lived in my life You have found generosity, and I have spread my treachery And I have scattered your love and my poetry And it has returned from your gifts with nothing And I have not tasted except goodness And I hasten it to me with ease after difficulty To see how my goodness and kindness So it does not hide from you my announcement and secret And I know that it will be effective with goodness And it will end our night with the dawn of dawn
I have personally experienced this moment, but how much the Islamic world needs to live it! How much the Islamic world needs today to cut off hope in everything; to cut off hope in creatures. How much these peoples need, when they raise the slogans: "We have none but Allah," to understand the meaning of this slogan. By Allah, if they believe in it with true faith and stand by its consequences and attach their hearts to Allah alone, Allah will surely make for them relief and an exit.
O Muslims... O Muslims... rely on your Lord, attach your hearts to His rope, do not attach your hearts to creatures, do not turn to anyone but your Lord, Glorified and Exalted be He, be sincere in turning to Allah, cast yourselves upon His threshold, Glorified and Exalted be He.
{If Allah supports you, none can overcome you. And if He forsakes you, then who is there after Him that can support you?} [Al-Imran: 160].
And Allah, the Most High, knows best and is wiser. And peace be upon our Prophet Muhammad and his family and companions.