Mindrips

Snapshots of life, imagined and lived

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Reflection – Day 004

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How many times have we religionists heard from people who, when asked in what they believe reply, ‘I don’t really know, but I believe that there is something, something greater than all this’? We are tempted to think when confronted with such sentiments about how poor this ‘belief’ is, how empty and even, perhaps, how lazy to come to this thought and then stop, instead of following intuition, curiosity or common sense to a point further along the road that may reveal more of what this ‘something greater’ might be. But halt a moment. Whilst clearly wrong, whilst naïve and simplistic in this view, and even though blameworthy, we must understand these people are victims of one of the greatest achievements of wishful thinking yet conjured!

This idea of ‘something greater’ we can call Life Force, and it is born from our proclivities to ease and idleness, to satiating desires and avoiding consequences. This Life Force can be switched on and off, yet even if left on this Life Force will not bother you when you are up to no good for it is blind. It has no mind, no morals, it just is. When you are feeling good, on top of the world, riding on the crest of the wave, it is convenient and nice to think of the mysterious Life Force assembling before you the beauty of the world. It is an emotional comfort without any unpleasant consequences, and conveniently, an object of blame when you falter, fail or are besieged by tragedy. You hold it to account and it is so latent and dormant that it will not hold you to account. How attractive all this is – how delusional, false and what better example of wishful (un-) thinking? And all the while Judgement looms.

Reflection – Day 003

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Reason alone should tell us that Reason alone is insufficient to grasp the abstraction of the true nature of Allah, for no eye can grasp Him. Compounding this, as nothing whatsoever is like Allah then with what materials can Reason do her work? When we hear about Allah therefore, we must stop. The eyes of the heart must open, letting in, thereby, the Light, for the eyes of Reason are blind, they cannot function in this realm. The fuel of Reason is experience, with a little help from imagination.

As we go through life we will sometimes touch and at other times be hit by something concrete that will correct our conception of Allah, purify it, clarify it and as such will serve to head us off from the abyss of abstraction into which we will surely fall if we use Reason without first feeding her the requisite materials. We search the darkness for the Light of Allah, but can only reach it upon a Light from Allah: Reason alone cannot, she tells us, help.

Reflection – Day 002

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As Muslims, we acknowledge that all good is from Allah, and this is something sought and is a means of attaining pleasure in this world and the next. Yet we are in a fix. Every day, or so it seems, we wake up and make ourselves enemies to this goodness and its pleasures, and quite frankly we are most unlikely to do much better tomorrow. Our case would appear hopeless.

We agree that greed, trickery, exploitation and oppression should be detested, yet we want Him (ta’ala) to make an exception in our case and let us off this one time. How loose we are and inconsistent, how duplicitous are our souls in the condemnation of others without due regard to ourselves! The goodness Allah makes freely available to those who seek it sincerely is a form of great safety, but if ignored, is a source of great danger.

Praise be to Allah for the doorway of repentance, and praise be to Allah for His Mercy which overcomes our shortfalls, our failings, our dishonesty and which instead fulfills our hopes and dreams… insha Allah!

Reflection: Day 001

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It is good and it is important to regard the world and all that is in it. It is good to reflect upon and admire its beauty, intricacies, colours and smells, its tastes and its noises, its multifarious blended sensations. It is important to find a place for us in this world; finding a place is also finding a purpose, for to be correctly placed is to be in alignment with what came before and what is to follow, it is to fit between your surroundings, it is an understanding about your relationship to all else. This is good. This is important.

Even so, this is limited and thus limiting. Our relationship is to all else, and this relationship is mediated upon our purpose in this world. Our purpose is to worship Allah, so the relationship most important to us and most fruitful is our relationship with Allah. To regard the world is to regard His creation which in general or specifically are signs and pointers to the Creator. Yet you will find out more about Allah by listening to the words He revealed than observing the world alone, just as you learn more about a man by listening to his conversation than regarding the house he has built. And by doing both, listening and regarding, we enter a lasting and sound relationship, thinking and acting in concert with nature, our nature, and with the One who created it all. This is important. And this is good.

Reflection – Preface

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preface

The series of short reflections I shall be publishing are from a book I was trying to write. They are at times a little unpolished, but were meant to be spurs for reflection by Muslims daily in addition to the expected time spent with the Qur’an, never a replacement for it. There were to be at least 365 to form a ‘day book.’

Further I was going to organise them seasonally and thought about a thematic index for additional referencing. The book would be preceded by a short piece on ‘Reflection’ which I will publish here also insha Allah. Nothing will be published in its original order except this preface.

The project didn’t get far so rather than waste the work done I have decided to publish them here for my small and select readers.

I ask Allah to benefit us all by them.

Treading on Light

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light

The light of guidance that is Islam is so strong, so bright that one thinks it can only be applied in absolute terms. One can be blinded to its nuance, its varying possibilities, applications and paths. Its core is light. But light comes in beams and strands, it bends and straightens and curves. It’s centre is one, yet its reception are many blended streams. It is not that there are many equal truths, that there are many paths. No. There is still a difference between genuineness and falsehood, there are still rights and wrongs, and there is still the real Islam and claimant Islam. The path to heaven is straight and long and although well lit, we may not always place our feet exactly where the Prophet (sall Allahu alayhi wa sallam) trod. It does not mean we are going the wrong way, it is just that Allah guided me uniquely from the way He ta’ala uniquely guided you. Lower the wing of gentleness.

Ending to what end?

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end

The unexpected cough, the unstoppable sneeze or the inexorable blinking of your eyes, all are signs of Allah’s encompassing power. They are signs of His easy ability to end you without warning. Science may have names and biology reasons, but when these names and reasons come between man and belief instead of supporting man and belief, they are detrimental. They cloud the issue, they fog the mind, and they are misdirection for our purpose and ends. The ‘spiritual’ is a reality that we can hint at and sense but can in no way grasp. That is why it is belief and not provable, repeatable scientific fact. So these small events of unstoppable force are signs. They are the intersection between the physical, the psychic and the spiritual, and these signs contain lessons and warnings. By default it seems, we end up following our base nature which is rooted in fear and turns through arrogance to scorn our own deaths; it becomes as if we and we alone are the exceptions to the rule, and this is the dangerous sort of belief. We hide in the explanations of science, among the multitude of our flock, ignoring as we do so the grisly fact that we have all of us been bred for the slaughter. It is not that you will end, it is in what state that end will occur. There is after all, more to come. You have been warned.

Journeys, Leaps, Faith

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journey

Journeys to Islam are just the beginning of journeys in Islam. God doesn’t search for us, it is we who search for Him. We are the adventurers, the explorers, the few – our steps on the path of discovery, sometimes firm, sometimes faltering, are all increments of faith. In the end we are certain in our faith about that which we cannot prove with any certainty, that is why it is a leap.

Observation – Signs

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signs

The unexpected cough, the unstoppable sneeze or the inexorable blinking of your eyes, all are signs of Allah’s all-encompassing power. They are signs of His easy ability to end you without warning. Science may have names and biology reasons, but when these names and reasons come between man and belief in Allah instead of supporting man and belief in Allah, they are detrimental. They cloud the issue, they fog the mind, and they are misdirection for our purpose and ends.

The ‘spiritual’ is a reality that we can hint at and sense but can in no way grasp. That is why it is belief and not provable, repeatable scientific fact. So these small events of unstoppable force are signs, they are the intersection between the physical and the psychic and the spiritual, and those signs contain lessons and warnings.

By default, it seems, we end up following our base nature. It is a nature rooted in fear and turns through arrogance, to us scorning our own deaths. It becomes as if we and we alone are the exceptions to the rule. This is a very dangerous sort of belief.

We hide in the explanations of science, using them not for revealing our environment and ourselves, but to massage our fears out of sight. We lurk amongst the numbers of our flock, thinking ourselves safe in the crowd. We ignore the grisly fact that we have all of us been bred for the slaughter.

It is not that you will end. It is in what state that end will occur. There is after all more to come.

You have been warned.

Observation – Beauty Beheld

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beauty

 

The Prophet Muhammad (sall Allahu alayhi wa sallam) said,

‘All of Allah’s creation is beautiful.’

(Authentic, Sahih Al Jami’ no. 4522)

Reflecting upon this statement, I say:

‘True beauty is in the eye that is beholding. It is the act of beholding, of trying to find beauty that in turn makes it visible to us.’

Implicit in the statement of the Prophet (sall Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) above, is a requirement that we seek beauty within all created things. It may be, therefore, that ‘ugly’ is not only our own shortsightedness, but also our lazy lack of imagination!