The Incoherences and The Greatest Intervention

Allah t’ala is the one that cures, and yet our Messenger (saw) said that all things have a cure except death. 

At root this is the conflict between our Theologians and our Philosophers. 

The latter said that all effects have causes, and the Most Gracious is the ultimate cause and reason for all things. 

And then that the efficient (most direct) cause of all effects are natural in origin. That they are a consequence of the Most Gracious creating and sustaining a natural order, that we can investigate and deliberate upon. This is that all illnesses have a cure except from death itself, which as a prescription is a command for us all to search for those cures. 

 The Theologians worried that this emphasis on the natural order of things would necessarily divorce God from His Creation. 

And so they invented the theory of occasionalism, that the Most Gracious continuously recreates this World, and that it is He that ensures that proper effects follow on from proper causes. 

And that it is He who gives life and apportions death, and cures from illness whomsoever He wills. 

But the most interesting thing about this conflict in outlook is that it was concluded by a jurist who came to be recognised through out our lands as our champion, and who is most known for his regard for Mysticism (Tassawuf) associated with our religion. 

Al- Ghazali’s background was within Fiqh (jurisprudence), which is given over to analytical thought, and his intelligence there is second to none. But he could not find  any satisfaction there for a malady within his own soul. That is why it is said that he turned to Mysticism. 

In the battle between theology and philosophy, mysticism was a non-entity. 

It had been rightly sidelined to the edges of our religion which advocates as rational approach to life. 

The Messenger (saw) famously said, “Tie your camel first (in order to prevent it running off), and then have faith”. 

This speaks on so many different levels. 

That faith is rational. 

That we should all have regard for cause and effect: that proper effects naturally follow on from proper causes.

That faith is not secondary to these, but equal to them. 

One of main issues that the Theologians had with the Philosophers was the Philosopher’s account for miracles. 

For they explained them as natural phenomena, coming from within what God had already determined as their created nature. That God does not intervene, nor need, nor want to intervene. 

When we recall the miracle of Ibrahim (as) then we would say that the nature of fire is to burn. That God made it cool for him, and changed it’s nature for him points to a real intervention that is only brought more home to us when we consider the conversation had between Ibrahim (as) and the angel of the fire. 

We live in the age following on from Ghazali’s defeat of Ibn Sina. 

The scientific endeavour was predicated on every proper cause having its proper effect. In God’s speech He declared : “No change will you find in the Sunnat Allah - the ways of God”. 

And also indicated that His laws go beyond the physical laws of each of the sciences when He (swt) said “Allah t’ala will not change the state of a people until they change their very own selves”. 

When the Theologians interpreted the Speech to bolster their claims towards the theory of occasionalism, they overstepped the bounds and neglected some of the speech in favour of other parts of it. 

The basis of interpretation especially when it is done via the religious classes should primarily be when one portion informs another, and not to take one and leave the other. 

They in effect nullified the first portion of the Messengers words when he (saw) said “Tie your camel first…”

And this sounded the death knoll for all of our Islamic Sciences, and then for all of our endeavours to understand God’s ways and His Creation (the natural sciences). 

God’s command to look at creation, look again and your eyesight will come back confounded, humbled and in awe, lay neglected. 

Instead we, as a Nation, should return back to the interpretive sciences, not least in regards to the greatest of endeavours of trying to understand the Quran and it’s ongoing miracle. 

And those interpretive sciences are speculative in nature, and are distinct from the religion which is fully complete and fully perfect. 

Glory be to God who created such perfection, within His cosmos, speech and religion. 

All thanks is due to Him, that made us part of that perfection that He continually blesses with uncounted sustenance. 

He is Allah, greater than all of His creation and far above. 

One of God’s known names is al-Batin, the Hidden One, which contrasts with a second of His names - az-Zahir, the self evident One. 

He is also Al-Adl, the Just. 

And part of His quality of being the Hidden and the Just is that He sets up and sustains laws which He does not breach. 

It is these laws that lend perfection to creation, and they should be a source to stand in awe of the Most Gracious. 

But we can only stand in awe of them if we investigate them, turn our eyes and our minds towards understanding them. 

And then when we know that He is the One that created and sustains the laws that cause movement and change, that even then He is the One who is fully able to intervene. 

And part of His intervention is that it so perfect that it does not break with His Laws, and therefore He commands from us patient perseverance, and loves the patient - those that never lose their hope. 

Those whose faith is not in vain, those that continue to believe past the pain. 

And this intervention is fully a personal miracle, except when He protects you from the people. 

Then consider the life of the Messenger (saw), how he was protected at every juncture.  That is one of his greatest miracles. 

There is no doubt that that intervention changed the whole course of human history.  

A greater intervention there never was. 

Literalism vs The Search for Meaning and The First Step of The Journey

“Do not pray your Asr until you reach Bani Quraydha” so commanded the Messenger (saw) of the Most Merciful, after the Angel Jibreel (Gabriel) appeared to him clad in his robes of war, and informed him that the angels had gone there in advance of him. 

One group of Muslims sought the meaning within the command and surmised that the Messenger had said so as a means of encouraging them to make haste. 

The other group took what the Messenger (saw) had said at face value and withheld offering their Asr until they had reached Bani Quraydha, even that is when the time for Maghreb had set it. 

Afterwards, at Bani Quraydha, they each asked the Messenger (saw) who was right and he said both. 

Every once in a while I revisit the question of who I am with respect to this question, and every time I come back with the answer that I’m with the group that withheld their Asr. 

And yet I’m as far as I can think of from being a literalist, and I hold that the Speech of God  was sent as a blessing to stimulate our thought and make us think and contemplate. 

That the Most Gracious has tasked each one of us with finding the better meanings within it. 

So this is the reason why I continually revisit that question because there be an anomaly. 

I am a man who loves to explore the meanings, and yet here in respect to this question it is as if I continually reject that search in favour of a literalist approach. 

I don’t even ever go so far as to deliberate on how praying Asr before the arrival at Bani Quraydha would inevitably slow my arrival there. Rather for me it is simply that the Messenger (saw) commanded it so, so therefore be it must. 

Once again we come back to the difference between the religion and what it commands, and the belief and what it entails. 

For the two are different as I have explained in a video (*1) that deliberate upon Hadith Jibreel (as), narrated by Umar (ra)(about whom the Messenger (saw) said that if he had not been sent as a Messenger then Umar would have been in his stead). 

Islam is the five and what they entail. And here as I have explained previously the principles of parsimony should hold. (*2)

That you should not overcomplicate the religion, and should leave off the superfluous in favour of the agreed upon. 

And here the command of the Messenger (saw) is exactly equivalent to that. 

However Imaan - belief- is something much deeper. 

For whilst the Muslims are guaranteed Paradise by virtue of Hadith Bitaka (narrated by Muad (ra)). 

It is the Mumin - the believers- that are brought close to the Most Gracious. 

And the manner of them being brought close is through the journey of their lives, in which a time will come when they remember that to Allah is their eventual return. And it is the Quran replete with similitudes, signs for contemplation, and admonishments that is their guide on that journey. 

For God’s speech will come alive for you in your journey, if you allow it to speak to you. 

As I explained in the video, belief is internal and the journey is internal. 

Ihsan (perfection) comes when that belief is manifest in your actions. 

And true belief can only come when you contemplate the Quran, and read it alongside the story of your life. 

For we each have a story, and the Most Gracious, He is the owner of mighty Grace. 

It is at those instances of connection that the miracle of the Speech becomes all the more clear. *3

Now let us return to the famous saying of the Messenger (saw) in which he said that belief has seventy branches and the least of it is removing harm from the paths that people take. 

If belief is essentially internal then what can this mean?

Here we see the Messenger (saw) encouraging you to start your journey in a way that encompasses several beautiful ideas 

1- that it is easy to start the journey, as easy as removing harm from the paths of people

2- that there is so much more that will happen on that path of your journey 

3- and that the tantalising seventy are a ready invitation to contemplate and seek for. 

That even that internal journey begins with an act. 

And the act before that act is nothing other than fully aware and complete submission to the Most Gracious, for He knows you better than you could ever know yourself. 

Knowledge is sought through study and contemplation, but more importantly contemplating your life in the light of Wahiy. 

*1 see my Instagram- Shafi Bachelani 

*2 the prescriptive parsimony of the Messenger (saw) see blog “Legitimacy and Authority” 5th June 2022

 *3 And Umar (ra) said that it was as if it had been revealed just for me. See blog post on S Taha published 25th December 2020. 

The Layers beyond Yusuf

When we deliberate further on the Story of Yusuf (as) we might ask why God would need to put the words into Yakub’s (as) mouth in order to start the chain of events.

It is as if on top of the physical laws that govern our motion, and interactions with other physical bodies, there are moral laws that God has created and continues to sustain. And then we can see at multiple levels of existence the blessings of Allah that He maintains intricacies and keeps stability.  

Then we might remember that He is al-Batin, the One that wishes to remain hidden. And that even at the furtherest point, past the Lote tree where not even Jibreel (as) could pass. Even at that point God says that the Messenger (saw) witnessed the greatest of signs, and our  creator - the Most Gracious- remained shrouded. 

And then we might remember the famous Hadith about the man who killed 99 people. And we would recall how God stretched the Earth. 

Why would He need to do that, if by His Mercy He could decree whatever He wished. 

It is as if He had created the Angels and then appointed them to do the job of administering to our moral world. 

And as in our case, His care for them even extends to wishing for them to perform their calling to the best of their abilities. That He gave them a purpose, and wished for them to feel the fulfilment of doing that job well. 

Indeed to really come to know God is simply to look at the lives of those that He favoured with belief. And then to look at those things that He extols and wishes for us to be. 

And here we can see His care extending to every level of existence, no matter how small or how invisible to our scrutiny. 

And that even extends to cause and effect, and our free will. 

And even to our need to work. 

For is not God, Rab ul Alameen?

The Lord, sustainer of all the Worlds. 

The One who provides. 

And so He gives us our days full of light, so that we might seek our livelihood and provide for those in our care. 

And when the Messenger (saw) saw a man working hard with his hands, he (saw) said “God loves those hands”. 

And when a widow came to ask for his help, he provided her with a rope so that she could go to the outskirts of the town to collect firewood to bring it into town to then sell. So that she could feel the blessing of providing for herself, by her own means. 

And he (saw) further commanded us to pay the labourer before his sweat dries. 

Indeed just as cleanliness is close to godliness, so to are we when we work hard to provide for ourselves and those in our care. 

This because God is the ultimate provider, and when you work hard to provide for them with honesty, then God’s Barakah and blessings flows through you. And you become a vehicle for that, His blessing. 

And just as a vessel retains some of the water that is poured out from it, being a source for God’s nourishment and Barakah, is itself a blessing. 

And some of that stays with you past your endeavours. 

But most importantly when you look at those that He favours with belief, you will find that they have a strong sense of morals - of what is right, and what is wrong.  

And God is the Most Moral of all. 

How they malign Him when they bring arguments about evil and Hell. 

Indeed God wishes for you to do good, and so He sent countless Prophets and Messengers. So much so that there is not one person born who has not heard of the concept of Hell. 

The reality of Hell hits such a profound nerve in each Nation that it has in all likelihood entered the idiom of all languages. 

Then as God says : “Then what will be the end of those who wrong (another)?”

God, himself, does not need to answer the question because we all know instinctively it’s answer. 

That  Hell is simply the fullest expression of God’s morality. 

And Heaven is simply the fullest expression of His generosity. 

That He rewards those that do good to one another, and abases those who wrong one another. But it is by their own actions that they abase themselves. 

In another blog I have answered the necessity of Hell, from a different perspective. 

Knowledge is sought through study and contemplation. And not this above. 

Appeals to Authority

Today’s foundation rock of Islamic Knowledge dissemination by our Scholarly classes, is nothing except based upon appellations to authority. 

Even that is when they talk against blind following, and that because they have not the tools, nor hold any theoretical basis for any other way. *1

Then we should consider the Sunnah of the one vested with the greater authority *2, when the Most Gracious said to him: “they do not reject you, but they reject me”. 

We know that Quraysh did not deny the existence of the God of Abraham, but rather they denied His message by failing to help the poor and destitute, failing to clothe, shelter and look after their orphans and widows. And so they denied His ultimate goodness, and His very own morality.  

Then it is clear that the main concern of the Messenger (saw) was the Message. That he wished to relay it without appeals to authority, and wished that people accept it because of its inherent truth, and the goodness that it calls to within the each of us. 

A man came to the Muhammed (saw) in Medina, and simply asked him if he were the Messenger (saw) sent from God. When he affirmed this sole fact, the man immediately took his Shahadah, and departed fully satisfied. 

For him that was enough. 

But that he had to ask was telling. 

Because when you read the account it is abundantly clear that the man simply wanted the Messenger (saw) to affirm who he was, because the Messenger (saw) was more concerned with the dissemination of the message of truth than with himself. 

That the Messenger (saw) wanted foremost for his people to affirm the ultimate goodness of God without reference to any authority, let alone his own. 

And then we see how the Most Gracious engineered it so that the Messenger (saw) was forced to declare his Messengership to the multitude at Hunayn. 

A more incredible event there never was. 

Consider the last sermon where he spoke to the people on the greater Hajj standing on mount Arafat. Did he once allude to his authority?

Rather the defining statement in all of it was his question to the people: “Have I delivered the Message?”  

God has placed within each of us an intrinsic appreciation of His true Message so that when we are told it, our heart rotates towards it. That we know that it is true, that we recognise the nobility and truth and all that is good that is within it. 

It needs no more authority than the resonance it finds within each, our own selves. 

That God is One, without partner or helper, and that all men are brothers one of another, and that none is superior to another except in his closeness to God. And that the return of all of us is to the Most Gracious. 

This natural appreciation of what is right, and just, is the reason why the Messenger (saw) advised us that when we ask for an opinion from a knowledgeable person that we should not accept it if we feel a trouble within our own selves. That their judgement should play second fiddle to that which is within each of us. That God is al-Haqq, and He has created us and the whole of the cosmos in truth. 

Obviously the Messenger’s (saw) authority is established by God’s speech in so many places. 

That is not in doubt. 

But where doubt lies is within each our own interpretation of those two sources of knowledge that have come down to us, God’s speech and the Messenger’s (saw) explanation of it through his deeds and sayings. 

And doubt in regards to the proper interpretation should be an engine for discernment, and not a minefield of mutual friction. 

How often does the Most Gracious say We did this to make you think?

And He placed therein ambiguity, as a means of making us deliberate and think. 

But for some it is a means of causing them to stray. 

And the surest way of straying is to accept things purely on authority, without thinking, nor being forced to think. 

And that capacity to think resides within each and all of us. 

Those that use appeals to authority do not help each and everyone of us in our journey towards God. 

That man who is truly blessed who at least once in his lifetime God engineers for him to be fully alone with his trial. 

Then his return is to God, and the last portion of Baqara becomes a means for him to draw close. 

The man is who is truly wretched is the one whom another constructs a trial for him, and his return is not to the Most Gracious, the true Maula of those who believe, but to the one that constructed it in the first. 

In a similar way after the greatest verse in the Quran, Ayah Kursi, we learn of the conversation between Ibrahim (as) and Nebuchadnezzar, the tyrant. 

Ibrahim (as) said God gives life and takes it. 

Nebuchadnezzar countered that I give death by my command, and when I stay it, then I give life too. 

Ibrahim (as) rebuked, God causes the Sun to rise in the East, will you then make it rise from the West?

Allah is the Maula of those who believe, and He guides whom He will to a straight way. 

Knowledge is sought through study, reflection and deliberation. 

Not this above, nor talks and lectures.