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This content has been automatically translated. View original in Arabic
"We have none but Allah" has become, for many of us, synonymous with the phrase "there is no help in one's hand." A phrase for those who have not found their richness in humans and were forced to choose Allah. It has become a declaration of bankruptcy, even though the original meaning is that those who have none but Allah have lost nothing and need nothing. Is Allah not sufficient for His servant? And those who have everything but Allah have nothing but falsehood that neither nourishes nor satisfies hunger. Indeed, everything except Allah is false.
What happens to us when calamity befalls us is that we resort to Allah initially, but we soon realize that this resort, to be sincere and fruitful, has consequences. Among its consequences is that we seek every negligence we have committed against Allah to correct it, every gap in our lives to close it, and every sin to repent from it.
Among the consequences of this resort is that we turn to our hearts and search for their diseases to treat them. And we will find that we have neglected our hearts for years, so they have become ruins, barren and heedless, where the meanings of loving Allah, the sincerity of relying on Him, humility before Him, submission to Him, attachment to Him, longing to meet Him, have weakened. We will find that it is necessary to remove its thorns, turn over its soil, sow the verses of Allah in it, and water it with the water of standing, fasting, and supplication.
Yes, we will discover that resorting to Allah, fleeing to Him, and holding onto His rope all have consequences and a price. But we want to get rid of the calamity quickly, and the process of leaving sins, closing gaps, 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 to have a quicker result and a lighter burden than the process of sincere resort to Allah. We intend to pursue these causes alongside the process of resorting to Allah and its consequences, and whichever precedes in lifting the calamity, we will be content with it. As for the consequences of resorting to Allah, there is time in life to complete them.
Here begins the deviation when we slacken in bearing the consequences of resorting to Allah and seek an alternative. We deceive ourselves that this alternative is a cause and that Allah has commanded us to take causes. Yes, taking causes is praiseworthy when our resort 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.
But when our pursuit of causes is a result of our lengthening the path of resorting to Allah and our laziness in bearing its consequences, then these causes become, in our perception, an alternative to Allah. These causes compete with resorting to Allah in our hearts, occupy its space, and divert our time, effort, emotion, and thought. We become thinking of these material causes during our prayers, standing, recitation, and supplication. The outward is with Allah, and the inward is with the causes and ways of obtaining them, the fear of their loss, the obstacles to their effect, their alternatives in case of failure, and their latest news.
And whenever we discover that these causes have ruined the process of resorting to Allah, we numb ourselves with excuses. We say to ourselves that these causes are timed and if they are missed, they are missed, but the door of repentance is open and does not close. If I am worried that I do not cry out of fear of Allah and I do not humble myself in my prayers, this is not new, I have lived like this for years and nothing comes all at once. I have improvement, even if it is slow, and Allah is Merciful, He sees what is in me and the magnitude of the matter that preoccupies me, so He will excuse me. Then I will not be able to turn to my heart to correct it while I am preoccupied with the causes and my shortcomings in them, so I will focus now on the causes to relieve my mind from them until I can devote myself to correcting my heart.
As if we are taking these causes as guarantees with Allah, so that if we fall short in our duty to Allah and do not ensure relief from His side, the causes will help us.
Do you want to know if this disease has afflicted your heart? When you put your head down to sleep at this moment that summarizes the fluctuations of your being throughout a full day, if your heart is disturbed and afraid while you say it, contemplating its meaning, know that the heart is disturbed and afraid when lying. Because you do not really 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, 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 causes is a substitute for completing the resort to Allah, the consequences of which we have found burdensome. We think that these causes are faster acting or more certain in result or more effective in silencing our self-reproach than sincere resort to Allah. You will continue to bring causes out of the heart to replace causes, and you will continue to move from mirage to mirage, seeking water but finding none, and the mountains of causes will turn to dust. And you will not call upon Allah sincerely during this confusion.
For resorting to Allah is a noble station that refuses to be competed with or competed against, so it remains outside the heart looking at these causes that have been emptied of Allah and have become falsehood. And resorting 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 on nothing. And you despair of all worldly causes, and you despair of yourself and your abilities, intelligence, and planning, and you taste the bitterness of the weakness of your strength, the paucity of your means, and your humiliation among people. And you despair of your family, clan, friends, and lovers, and you learn that even if they intend good for you, they do not possess for themselves any benefit or harm to you. And you despair of all the earthly ropes extended to you, and you are certain that there is no protector from the decree of Allah except those whom He has mercy on. Indeed, and you despair of all your righteous deeds, and you are ashamed to supplicate to Allah with them because you doubt their acceptance and they have issued from your heedless heart.
It is a moment of despair, hopelessness, drought, and impossibility from everything. A moment when the heart is empty of everything. A moment when hope collapses in everything, everything. It is the appropriate moment for the feeling of resorting to Allah to be cast into the heart. This feeling of waiting used to see causes that come and go and weave in the ruin of the heart the threads of the spider. But when the heart is emptied of them all, the resort to Allah is cast into it, filling it, inhabiting its corners, causing its greenery to grow, and making it pulsate with strength anew. The rain does not delay to overflow the channels of the eyes, so that their tears flow anew after a long drought, and the circle is completed with a tongue that stutters with supplications that flow upon it and tremble with the beats of the heart and the outpouring of tears.
It is a moment you will know it is when you live it, like the moment of the three who were left behind, until the earth became narrow for them despite its spaciousness and their souls 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 to repent, for indeed I want to accept your repentance. It is a moment you will know it is, a moment when a knocker knocks on your being saying: now, O heart, your pulse, O eye, your tear, O tongue, your supplication, now Allah wants to answer your supplication.
It is but a moment. You will say, "It is just a moment, can it be that my heart has not been touched by the breezes of that moment throughout all the trials that have passed?" Yes, it is the devil. When he senses laziness in you to bear the consequences of seeking Allah, he attacks you to divert you from the path of Allah, saying, "Where are you going? Where are you going? The path you intend to take is long, here is a nearby pasture, so beware." He then takes the reins of your heart and moves it between the pastures of worldly matters, and if you disobey him at the beginning of the path, you will reach your destination.
It is the devil who sees you knocking on the door of true relief. When he senses boredom and lethargy in you, he says to you, "Here is an easy exit, follow me." He then leads you into the hallway of causes, where you waste your time and effort. And whenever you try to return to the door of true relief, he says, "Slowly, look at the end of this tunnel for light." But there is no light; rather, he diverts you from the path and claims to guide you. If you had disobeyed him from the beginning and persisted in knocking on the door, it would have been opened for you.
It is true that seeking Allah has consequences, and it is true that uprooting the thorns from the heart and sowing seeds in it requires time and effort. So why do we keep attaching our hearts to worldly causes and to creatures to save us from our difficulties, and pay the price of that with time, effort, torn spirit, scattered mind, grief, anxiety, and disappointment in creatures? Why do we not learn from others? It is alright, it is human nature; we learn from experience ourselves until, after being tried and tasting its bitterness, we become more resolute and stronger in our determination to resist the devil if he tries to divert us from the door of true relief, and we say to him, "Turn away from me."
But the disaster is if one does not learn from his own experiences and insists on entering the hallway, the hallway of worldly causes disconnected from Allah, the hallway of attachment to creatures in every new trial. And it is not befitting for a believer to be bitten from the same hole twice.
So ask Allah the Almighty to grant you this moment of despair and hope, despair in creatures and hope in the Creator, glorified is He. It is a moment, but what a noble and rare moment it is. It is a moment in which, if the heart experiences it, it will shake off the mountains of accumulated worries and Allah will destroy them in an instant. It is a moment that transfers the heart from the vast valley of loss to attachment to the Throne. It is a moment that takes you from the depths of failure to the peak of hope, and from the loneliness of despair to the joy of companionship. It is a moment that rescues you from the fears that consume you from every side to the protection of Allah where there is safety. It is a moment in which you thought you had lost everything, only to discover afterward that you had found everything. It is a moment as if it were a shout in the cemetery of the heart, bringing its dead back to life. It is a moment of attachment to Allah, to Allah alone, and by Allah, it is the moment of relief. Relief for your heart by bringing it back to life after death, and relief from your distress in the way that Allah wills and with which you are pleased.
These are the moments of the prophets, peace be upon them. Although the lives of the prophets were all about attachment to Allah, this attachment was tested, purified, and intensified, reaching its peak in moments when relief came.
It is a moment of despair in 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, there came to them Our victory." The relief of Allah is near, very near, for nothing stands between us and Him except this moment. It is we who distance ourselves from Him by entering the hallways of causes devoid of Allah and moving between their pastures when we find the consequences of seeking Allah burdensome due to the weakness of our insight and lack of patience.
Therefore, the patience required in trials is not just the patience of endurance in the face of worries, but more importantly, the patience in bearing the consequences of seeking Allah, glorified is He. It is a moment of pure certainty in the truth of Allah and absolute trust in His ability to honor us no matter how the causes may be, and that those who persist in knocking on the door are about to have it opened. A moment of certainty that if the nation were to agree to benefit you with something, they would not benefit you except with something that Allah has written for you. A moment that rescues you from the hallway and puts you in front of the door of relief once again.
I have personally experienced this moment when I was imprisoned unjustly. During my imprisonment, I was tormented by the fear that something bad might happen to my parents in my absence. The problem was that I had previously fallen short in dedicating enough time and effort to make them happy. Often, I was preoccupied with calling to Islam and other beneficial matters, but the failure to prioritize is in itself a mistake for which a person must seek forgiveness. Allah the Almighty has enjoined upon us to honor our parents and to excel in that: "And to parents do good," so there is no excuse for you to be preoccupied with matters other than honoring your parents, which are beloved to Allah the Almighty. The devil may convince you to be distracted by the lesser important matters over the more important ones.
Therefore, during my imprisonment, I was plagued by fears that I might not see one of my parents or both of them. My heart clung to worldly causes, which seemed like many ropes stretched out that would save me from my plight, but these ropes were suddenly cut, and the causes collapsed suddenly. I found myself in a moment of despair from everything, everything worldly, everything material. And in this moment, my heart clung to Allah the Almighty with a true attachment.
During my imprisonment, I wrote a poem that expresses this moment:
My peace of mind is disturbed throughout my imprisonment, And grief chokes me and tightens my chest. I long to see my children, to play with them, to hug them to my chest. And I have parents who have reached old age, Worn out by illness and harm. This is my father, exhausted and bedridden, His body has diminished with the autumn of my life. And I have a mother who endures what I endure, She is about to melt from grief and oppression. And my wife, because of my absence, Her heart is broken and tears flow. My little ones ask her about my absence, Her heart boils like embers. And I have become a hostage to my enemies, Who have tried to throw me into evil. As if I am dead before reaching my end, They have buried me and covered my grave with dirt. And I have not followed the way of my Lord, And I thought it was free from all bitterness. I did not think it was filled with roses, And spread with rubies and pearls. I am not ignorant of the laws of tribulations, Nor am I complaining if it is my turn. I am not afraid of losing wealth, Nor am I afraid of being impoverished. But I am afraid of death, That it may strike my parents. And I have fallen short with them in their right, And I am not excused at all with my excuse. If they die while I am in prison, Then my regret and the loss of my affair. Their memory will remain a deep wound, And a break in the heart without healing. And I was a loving father to my children, But I was preoccupied with achieving my honor. So I did not shower them with my affection, But I greeted them with much reprimand. I turn my eyes and delay my thought, Perhaps I can seek help to lift my affliction. I turned to the people to save me, But I did not find any support for my back. Except for brothers who tried with their effort, But they could not release me from my prison. And the messengers who caused my imprisonment, Their questions were imprisoned for revenge? He did not respond to me with half a line, Nor did he return to me with any good. And if you seek justice from a wicked person, You are like a filthy leper to be purified. A wretched, defeated one, my sight has returned, He did not return with what would comfort me. When I closed the doors in front of me, And despair almost crushed every human being, I pitched my tent at your door, O Lord, And I hope for your healing of my break. And I searched in my work, perhaps I Stored any provision for my distress. With a pure act that pleases my Lord, May it intercede for me in revealing my distress. But I saw only a barren desert, And I accepted nothing but my sin. And I am truly regretful, O Lord, And I intend to repent for the rest of my life. And I have promised you before this, You have shown me kindness and exposed my treachery. But I love you, my Lord, And my voice is filled with your love and my poetry. And I did not extend my hand to you, my Lord, It returned without its request in vain. I thought your forgiveness, O Lord, was good, For I have not tasted except goodness. O Lord, have mercy on your weak one, And make him happy with ease after hardship. And return me to my aging parents, So that they may see my goodness and kindness. Answer me if you know the sincerity of my speech, For your declaration is not hidden from the Most Merciful. I swear by all my efforts that He will surely show kindness. Remove my sorrow and that of my brothers, And dispel our night with the dawn's light.
I have personally experienced this moment, but how much the Muslim world needs to experience it! How much the Muslim world needs today to cut off hope in everything, to cut off hope in the creatures, in the Security Council, in the United Nations, in the Western countries! How much this feeling is needed when you raise the slogan, the slogan "We have no one but Allah," to realize the meaning of this slogan. By Allah, if you believe in it with true faith and act upon its consequences and attach your heart to Allah alone, then Allah will surely make for you a relief and an exit.
O Muslims, O Muslims, rely on your Lord, attach your hearts to His mercy, do not attach your hearts to the creatures, and do not seek refuge with anyone other than your Lord, glorified and exalted be He. Believe in seeking refuge with Allah, cast yourselves upon His threshold, glorified and exalted be He. "If Allah should aid you, no one can overcome you; but if He should forsake you, who is there that can aid you after Him?" And Allah is the All-Knowing, the Most Wise. And peace be upon our Prophet Muhammad and his family and companions.