Reflectionson Faith (2)

By Muhammad Mitwaly Ash-Sha’rawy

Inthe name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

Ipraise you my Lord, and ask for your aid, and I pray that peace be uponthebest of your creations, our prophet Mohammad.

 

Wehave concluded from the last episode that disbelieving and disobeyingAllah isanother negligence from that human who has forgotten his role in life.We havealso said that the All Truth, (Al-Haqq SWT) who has created man andmade himthe most superior creation in the universe wanted to award mankind andtoprovide them with all means of happiness. For the reality of lifestates thatevery person enjoying some kind of blessing is compelled to leave itbehind.And even if man does not leave the blessing by passing away, it hasbeen seenin many circumstances of life that the blessing abandons him and hestays strippedof that blessing.

 

Sothe indulgence of man with the blessings does not last in this finitelife. Theblessing is either going to walk away from you, or you are going toquit it.But the All Truth, (Al-Haqq) wanted to honor man in another way so Hewilled togive man the law that states for him what to do and what not to do. Soif man decidedto follow the law of Allah, then Allah would elevate him and give himmoreawards by sending him to an everlasting life where he never departs orgetsdeprived of the blessings. This is man’s prominent aspiration.

 

Whatscares people in their life is their fear of dying and leaving behindall theblessings, or the idea of living without those blessings altogether. SoifAllah promised His believer another life where he does not depart theblessingand does not get deprived of it, then this would be an elevation of theawardsbestowed upon the believer. When the believer accepts the law of Allahhe doesthat for his own endless benefit. Therefore, the believer is rationaland thedisbeliever is foolish. The people who disobey Allah are stupid and thepeoplewho obey Allah are wise. For the later are the ones who have wiselyplannedtheir life. They have sacrificed a limited blessing in a finite lifefor an interminableblessing in an eternal life. So obeying the law of Allah is rational,but thepeople, out of their negligence, love the immediate benefit even if itis a trivialone. However, the wise people are those who plan and work for theperpetual andeverlasting benefit.

 

Themessengers of Allah came to guide man’s drive on earth, and one of thefundamentals of this guided path that Allah urges His servants tofollow is theconfidence in the guide. Because that person who has no faith in theguide orwho does not trust the one advising or directing him implicitly accusestheguide of seeking benefit to himself. But would Allah want any benefitfrom usby asking us to follow His law? So we should not accuse the advisor, ortheguide, or the director. Therefore, we find that Allah (SWT) continuedto sendHis messengers whenever the creation forgets about the divine law.Allah sendsthem a new messenger because He wants to guide His creation. Thosemessagesended by the message of our Prophet Mohammad (Peace be upon him). Hewas the lastof the messengers, and his message does not need to be complemented bya newmessage from Heavens.  And why was Mohammadthe seal of messengers? That is because all the previous messengerscame at atime when life was relatively primitive in the universe. And theprimitiveness ofman’s activities in the universe brings him closer to his Creator.

 

Wehave many examples for that, for instance when people in the old timesused togo to a well looking for water and they do not find any, they wouldraise theirhands looking to the sky pleading to Allah to send rain. This isbecause therewere no mediators between their drinking water and the Heavenly rain.But nowthere are a lot of mediators and there are tanks to store the water,motors toraise the water to the tanks and pumping machines to pump the water inthetubes.  All those mediators are nowbetween the water in its natural state and the person who is blessedwith it inhis final civilized state. For now when the faucet is out of water youdo notthink of the Heavens, but you will say “Call the responsible company!!Go checkthe tubes!!“ a lot of intermediaries, until you find out that the pumpsare notgetting any water out of the wells because the wells have dried. Onlythenpeople would turn to Heavens and ask Allah to send them the rain. Sothe meansthat people use to elevate their standard of life might give them someconceitin their knowledge and in their achievements. They might get distantfrom the originof the blessing that comes from Heavens. The more time passes and themore the brainsinvent, the more arrogant man gets with his mind and thoughts,imagining thathe is not in need of anyone.

 

Thusthe message that comes down upon a civilized life (the message ofIslam) shouldbe a message that compulsorily draws attention to the truth andovercomes allaspects of intellectual conceit. It should provide man with somethingthat getshim out of that overwhelming materialism to the genuine origin ofeverythingand to the All Granter of all things. The law of Islam represented inthe Qur’an,the holy book, is the law that covers all doubts and uncertainties intheuniverse. And whenever the human intellect advances, the Qur’anprovides manwith knowledge that pushes away any doubts resulting from pride in hismind andboastfulness in his innovations. In the law of the Qur’an, Islam isrepresentedin two matters: the first explains the essence of life and the other isrepresentedin the commands to do and to do not. Orders to do and do not have neverchangedand no one could add to them. No mind can invent or rework them becausetheyconstitute a divine law to all the people from the era of ProphetMohammad(PBUH) till the Day of Resurrection. It is not reasonable to have afterthetimes of Mohammad (PBUH) new orders to do or not to do.

 

Soall commands to do or not to do were sent through Mohammad (PBUH) andwill lasttill the Day of Judgment. The only thing that could change is the giftsofentities on earth, the gifts that you could benefit from if you noticethemaround you, and if you do not have the chance to notice them, they willnotharm your belief. Imagine that you did not invent electricity orairplanes orair shuttles, what is the effect of that on your activities in liferegardingthe do and do not commands? If you managed to reach those inventionsyou aregoing to use them, and if not, you will get no harm. On the other hand,if youfollow the divine commands you are awarded for it and if you do notfollow theorders you get punished. That is why the divine law has to beconsistent forall Moslems, since the day it was outlined by Allah’s Prophet Mohammad(PBUH)till the day we meet Allah.

 

Thatis the reason why all new innovations do not intervene with the do andthe donot commands. We tell those who try to make new commands for each era:you cannot replace Allah’s commands, because the commands to do and to do notthatcome from Allah never change.  We tellthose who try to replace the do from Allah with the do not from thepeople or thedo not from the people with the do from Allah that they arepolytheists. We askthem to use their mind to search in all aspects of life and to drawfrom lifewhatever they like, but never to teach Allah their religion by sayingdo thisand stop doing that. For Allah does not need to learn how to give usorders andHe does not need to be corrected in whatever He commands us to do. Wetell the personwho does not accept the orders from Allah to do and not to do that heshould fearAllah and keep his thoughts to himself. He should not carry the sin ofmisleading others. And since all new innovations are only concernedwith entitiesin life, we invite those who tryto come upwith new commands to look in the Qur’an and observe how it has coveredall lifeproblems that might disrupt the law of Allah in all life aspects.

 

Everyprogress in life is a result of you using the mind that is created byAllah towork on the matter created by Allah with the help of the power andenergy thatis created for you by Allah. You do not have any credit for that. So ifyoureach any innovation with your mind, using the matter and the powerthat areall creations of Allah, did you do anything yourself? Or did you onlydirectthe creations of Allah? And if you only directed Allah’s creations,then youshould not be deceived by the creation of your mind and let it fill youwithpride and conceit. Conversely, you should be conscious of the Grantorof yourmind to believe in Him.  The energythat you have is transient and the proof for that in life is theexistence ofpeople who are mentally ill and people who are physically disabled andpeople whohave no ability to discover or invent.So thereis actually nothing in that for your own ego.

 

Weask Allah (SWT) to lead us to our mission in this life to be worthy ofhisgrace on The Day we meet Him.