Nahjul Balagha: Sermon 1, paragraph 2 part 2

Salams.

In our last post we looked at the first sentence of the second paragraph of sermon number 1.  This sermon covers the first of the principles of submission which is tawhid or the unity of Allah (SWT).

The second sentence of this paragraph:

The perfection of acknowledging Him is to testify Him

is a very deep, profound and complete idea that covers the entire faith and belief if we allow ourselves to contemplate on it fully.  As we saw in the first sentence, that testifying Allah is the very first step to belief, and it can not be done without thinking about His creation on the outside of ourselves or contemplating deeply on the meaning of our own lives and why we have been placed within His creation in the first place.  Once we have gained the awareness that ourside ourselves is a universe that has not been put in place functioning in a perfect manner by some power we are logically taken to the perfection of that level when the threshold has been reached of the certainty that it is not by mistake as well as the fact that it is undeniable that it was created by a single entity - Allah. 

This is where the automatic perfection kicks in, that of testifying Him, however, testifying Him is multifaceted beginning with a very basic mental testimony of yes it is undeniable that there is One creator of this entire existence.  The mental testimony is followed by the verbal "La illaha Illallah" or There is only One God. and this is the most basic involvement of a human being.  In this instance we can all agree that not all Muslims are equal.  There are some of us who merely testify with our tongues but we may not have reached the point of witnessing with our bodies.  Again this witnessing also follows the course of many levels.

We may not yet have reach the point of obeying the simplest of commands of Allah such as:
Praying, fasting, giving charity, paying the poor taxes or going for hajj.  This are as we will all agree the most basic fundamentals and manifestations of submission whereby we are not necessarily considered believers but are at least within the boundaries of Islam.  One evidence of this is the Holy Prophet's tradition paraphrased reads:
The fine line between belief and disbelief is the prayer.  
If we do not yet pray, we have not entered belief but are merely on the level of verbal testification of Him.  Once, however we have committed to fulfilling these commands, we have entered an inner circle of testification beyond the level of verbal testification and that is the testification of Allah with our limbs.  

It was Imam Zainul Abideen (as) the 4th Imam who spoke of the duties of human beings.  He began with our duties towards Allah and these duties towards Allah began with the testification of our limbs to His Oneness.  Again, this level is still on the physical level even though it does go beyond verbal testimony but has not yet reached the testimony of the heart which is obviously a higher grade of both understanding and of testimony because the heart can either be attached to Allah and His friends or towards the physical and material life (the dunya) based on the level of the human beings' superior understanding of his duties towards Allah and his understanding of his relationship with Allah. The submission of the limbs, although being a manifestation of man's verbal testimony is not evidence of his emotional testimony.  This is what the holy Prophet meant when he said:

Say not that you are believers, but say that you are muslims for Islam has not yet entered your hearts.  

This shows the point at which a person is transformed from a simple Muslim to a believer because belief is a term used to refer to the state of the heart not of the mind or the limbs.  It is interesting also to note here that the "revolution of the heart" is the point at which a human being is transformed because it is the heart that has become revolutionary because understanding takes place in the heart rather than the mind.

Once this belief or testimony has touched the heart, we witness the tranquility within the person in question because of the submission of the person towards Allah over the difficult events that he encounters in life however in these events, he is able to remain patient, still and in control of his emotions.  The stillness of his limbs in these sittuations is the sign of the level of belief and submission because in the previous level where the limbs were testifying Allah, the heart was not yet submitted to Allah and therefore patience had not yet been gifted to him.

One of the exercises to increase this belief and patience is the act of fasting whereby Muslims are under training to keep their mouth, and limbs under the power of submission which leads to the heart being submitted and this leads to a higher level of morality where one loves Allah over his own nafs or self.

We can take this a step further as we climb the faculties of man and arrive at the throat, expression or communicative center.  The throat is under the control of man's self until he is able to offer his mind into the control of Allah. This requires a superior level of thinking not just understanding and a higher  level of intelligence which only comes from higher knowledge beyond the self into an understanding of man's duties towards at least the initial limits of society - the family, and neighbourhood.  This will cause man to control his tounge.

Once man has connected his mind and thoughts to Allah, he will be able to have control over his entire body and this is the submission of his entire self to the will of Allah.  This is the completion of the level of testifying Him at which point it is called - believing in His One-ness.  The reason for this is that, at this point we have understood the unity of purpose of all man in submitting to Allah's will and only in this understanding comes the submission of the entire self.  This is what we have seen in the behalvior of the Imams and this is the difference of verbal testimony vs complete testimony whereby once's life becomes the testimony to His one-ness.

Remember, this is only the second level of Islam where submission crosses over to belief.

Nahjul Balagha analysis: Sermon 1, Paragraph 2

Salams to all our readers.

In this post we are looking at the second paragraph of Imam Ali's (as) talk on the creation of the Earth, sky and the birth of Adam.

In his first paragraph we looked at the existence of Allah with relation to our mind and it's capabilities to understand certain aspects of Allah from His creation.  We understand from the first paragraph that We are to limit our contemplation of Allah to what we know and what we know is limited to what we sense in the earth extending out into the Universe in general and then honing into the intricacies of creation.  We will gain sufficient knowledge to advance our thinking to the most sophisticated of intellectual levels.  Putting this knowledge into action; we can progress in live both individually and globally, advancing in science and discoveries to bring humanity through new dimensions of understanding if it is taken as an individual responsibility of every human being to undersand these concepts.

So that was the mind and expression and their duties and potentials since expression and writing was also mentioned in this very same paragraph.  Next, we look at the development of man with regard to his relationship with Allah - which if we break it down to what that means, we get the heart and man's religious progress.

Imam (as) begins:

The foremost in religion is the acknowledgement of Him, the perfection of Acknowleging Him is to testify Him, the perfection of testifying Him is to believe in His One-ness, the perfection of believing in His One-ness is to regard Him Pure, and the perfection of His purity is to deny him attributes, because every attribute is a proof that it is different from that to which it is different from  that to which it is attributed and a proof that it is different from that to which it is attributed and everything to which something is attributed to is different from the attribute.  Thus whoever attaches attributes to Allah recognizes His like, and who recognizes His like regards Him two; and who regards Him two recognizes parts for Him; and who recognizes parts for Him mistook Him; and who mistook Him pointed at Him; and who pointed at Him; admitted limitations for Him; and who admitted limitations for Him numbered Him.

The first third of this paragraph Imam Ali builds up faith, the turning point of faith is in the way we perceive His attributes which is the turning point of this paragraph.  Depending on whether we perceive these attributes correctly according to how Imam Ali (as) guides us towards perceiving them and the incorrect way which he warns us about in this very same paragraph we will either reach belief or disbelief.  The down turn occurs in stages according to the warnings at every step of the explanation that Imam Ali gives in this paragraph.

The initial stage of belief begins with acknowledgement.  Which takes us back to the first paragraph and the act of thinking.  So how do we think about Him?  Again, the first paragraph gives us that guidance and terminates with looking around at His creation.  So simply put, we acknowledge Him by recognizing the One-ness of the One who initiated creation and put everything into order and continues to maintain the entire system.  Without thought and acknowledgement there can not be any belief or faith.

The cruciality of this guidance is that it is given by the leader of the faithful.  Contemplate here on who is guiding and His role and mission in our faith in order that we do not take this advice lightly but instead realize that our entire existence and fate both in this world AND the hereafter rests on completely understanding these ideas because actions are in accordance with our thoughts.  

Further, we can understand here that to understand these ideas first and to act on them after having understood them is the duty a muslim has towards his first Imam - it is the way we follow him (often in life we may ask (if we are aware) how do we follow our Imams since to follow the Imams beginning with the first is to be guided successfully towards our destination - the deliverance into the realm of true faith and progression in life resulting in eternal life.

The beauty of Imam's guidance is that it is gentle, hopeful and un oppressive.  He uses truth, warnings and hope to motivate us towards thinking and acting correctly.

In our next post we will look at the second sentence of this very same paragraph.

The perfection of acknowledging Him is to testify Him.  

Until then it behoves us to contemplate on the creation around us, recieve inspiration from spending time in nature, eating natural foods, reading Quran and focus on those verses where Allah talks about the creation, the earth, the gardens, the skies and his signs out there and by living as close to His creation as possible since in this highly technological life we may become disconnected with our thoughts as well as our hearts and wind up living life that is less than satisfactory even if we are financially blessed which most of us are.

Also, we may stop and question daily, what is expected of me today?  or What are my duties and responsibilities that I need to or could perform to make my Creator happy?  or How can I gain greater life out of my day to day existence?  These questions may help us to live in an aware state.

Until next time, fi amanillah.

More life to you.

Nahjul Balagha analysis: Sermon 1 - Part 2: Knowledge is everywhere - Open your eyes, think, question.

He for whose description no limit has been laid down, no eulogy exists, no time is ordained and no duration is fixed.

Where as in the first part of the paragraph, Imam Ali (as) has been guiding us  how to think about Allah, and laid out the boundaries for understanding Him conceptually, in this second part of the first paragraph he negates any limitation of Allah by time and space to further expand out understanding of His limitlessness, enabling us to expand our mind further by understanding the vastness of His existence.  

We also see that in this paragraph two methods so far have been used to show the vastness or ever existence of Allah.  The first negates our ability to describe, count, understand and reason Allah with completeness, whilst the second negated the negatives of Allah.  

He brought forth creation through His Omnipotence, dispersed winds through His Compassion, and made firm the shaking earth with rocks.

In the last part of this paragraph, for the benefit of man who understands concepts only through what he is familiar with, Imam Ali brings to our attention the Originator and Omnipotent aspect of Allah's attributes by referring taking our minds to the invisibility and subtlety of His creation - the winds and the magnitude of the physical that our mind can perceive in the earth and the rocks.  Through this we are not only invited to recognize Allah through His creation and to ponder on the wisdom of His creation but also we are invited to research further into the Holy Quran into these elements of creation.

In order to juice this paragraph for greater meaning and understanding, we can look further into the Quran for what Allah says about the thinking aspect of man, the earth, the rocks (and mountains) and time.  We can also go and look further into how Allah talks about His creative aspect, the reasons for it, how it came into being and the creation itself.

Further, would be to look at the traditions of our Holy Prophet and other Imams (especially Imam Jafar as Sadiq (as) in his book Tawhid Al Mufadhal) and see more explanations on the intellect, the earth, the rocks and the wind. 

In this way our intellect can begin to expand and allow for new questions and new dimensions of our mind to open up.

The beauty of Imam Ali's guidance is that whereas often in schools we are taught what to think as we memorize information and present them back to examiners, Imam Ali takes us back to the beginning of creation (the earth, the wind and the rocks and gives us a spring board from where to begin research or questioning.  

Often, in life when we have questions we find a book that has been written by a scientist or someone who is experienced on a subject but when we question ourselves honestly about what Allah has said about this same issue we can not answer.

In essence we are approaching knowledge backwards where as we should be going back to the original sources (the Quran and the traditions) and then referring to science for it to prove or disprove science.  In addition, if we understand what Allah has said about a topic we may also understand what our behavior should be towards this part of Allah's creation, each other or life.

We will go deeper into these matters on here Inshallah.