STRUGGLE FOR THE TRUTH

First and foremost, the struggle for truth is the struggle for God; He is to be known, admired, glorified, feared, loved and brought into every possible aspect of a person’s life.

It is only when mankind finds God this way that His codes, rules, regulations and all else becomes truly useful. If God is not at the forefront of the struggle, then His regulations is nothing more than ideology. Religion must be connected to God.

If God is not feared and loved, His rules and regulation is easily forgotten. When God is not prioritised, glorified and admired, His regulatioans will not seem important anymore. People tend to be selective when practising God’s regulations, picking and choosing only what they feel will benefit them. If the regulations becomes troublesome, it is too easily pushed aside.

In conclusion, other aspects such as justice, unity, laws against disobedience and cruelty, are all easily practised and carried out if God is at the forefront of it all. All of God’s regulatioans , whether they are commands or prohibitions, become beautiful and easy to practice. Even the small things become valuable and enjoyable to practice, what more the more important things.

God created two roles for mankind: as servants and as caliphs. As servants, God has commanded for everyone to get to know Him in all His glory, greatness and supremacy over all things. The result would be one whose heart has been completely filled with tauhid, a love and fear of God so great that it could never run out. The greatness of God is felt deep within, for God is the Most Kind, the Most Loving, the Most Powerful and so on so forth.

To know God deeply is to feel fear, worry, love and hope, and to know that it is on God alone that we can depend on. To have God is to have everything, just as to lose God is to lose everything.

Then a deep humbleness would enter the heart, leading to an awareness of how weak, meagre [dhaif] , inadequate, disobedient and forgetful we human beings are. Not only that, but we should also feel limited, ineffective, unintelligent and ignorant. We must be confident that everything that happens has its God-given meaning and positive outcome behind it. We have to accept that every single thing has a positive purpose from God the Most Sublime and Most Great.

The consequence of being aware of God and being humble before Him is a servant of God who is full of God fearing [taqwa]. When one fears God, one would automatically loathe and turn away from all evil deeds, and instead decide to clean oneself from all poisonous bad [mazmumah] traits.

Love for God is the greatest motivation for His servants to become good, dedicated, loyal and useful individuals. Love of God inspires the best good traits in all those who feel it. When a servant of God manages to achieve this, he shall be saved and in turn will lead to the saving of others.

The second role of mankind is as the caliph. As the caliph, God has commanded mankind to rule, govern, organise, develop and handle all aspects of the public’s every day life. The public has many needs including education, economy, culture, politics, social, health, nutrition, government, technological communication and so on so forth.

All of the public’s needs have to be arranged and taken care of in the best possible way. Because this earth ultimately belongs to God, the task of the caliph is a responsibility bestowed by Him. Hence, God has commanded this task to be in sync with servitude towards Him. All the activities of the caliph have to safe and active in the saving others, thus leading to the prosperity and benefit of mankind.

How can the people given the responsibility of the caliph be confident of their ability to fulfil this mission? It is evident to all that the world is full of people with a dog-eat-dog attitude that encourages dishonesty and selfishness. It is for so-called ‘progress’ that people have fought, cheated, coerced, killed and even gone to war over. Progress and development have lost their meaning; instead of encouraging the happiness and harmony of mankind, it causes their destruction.

In order to find the cause of all this damage, we need not look any further than the leaders in charge: these are people who have taken the responsibilities of caliph upon themselves, but have ignored their role as servants of God. In other words, the leaders and administrators are people who don’t know God, do not feel His presence and do not dedicate themselves to His service. These are people without taqwa, people who are full of bad traits, and are treacherous, immoral and full of sin. It is only when a leader has fulfilled his responsibility as a servant of God that he will be able to fulfil his responsibility as caliph.

UNSETTLED SOULS

 

Among the reasons that someone’s soul is unsettled are as follows:

1. They have often been cruel to others.

2. They have sinned too much.

3. They have insulted and been cruel to their parents.

4. They have insulted and been cruel to their teachers, especially teachers that show the way to the Hereafter.

5. They don’t believe in God

6. They no longer hope for God’s aid.

7. They are being tested when their faith (iman) is weak or not there at all.

Peace or calmness is centred in the spiritual heart. It needs to be taken care for because when peace is lost, so is happiness. And when happiness is gone, life is no longer beautiful, no matter how rich you are, or if you live in a castle together with power and a beautiful wife and all those sorts of things.

When peace is lost, that person will constantly be distressed. Anything that they do will turn out wrong somehow. They lose their appetite, sleep fitfully, can no longer concentrate, are constantly staring off into space, cannot pay attention when people talk to them, become anti-social, and cannot even concentrate enough to read. Their friends are worried when they see them. They are quick to lose their temper, irresponsible, anti-social, easily sulking, are easily offended, have no patience, cannot face any challenges, are quickly bored with work, unmanage their daily needs and prefer not to talk.

Anyone in those unsettled conditions, if they do not have strong faith or knowledge, they will be unable to control that feeling of distress, no matter if they are on their own or not. They constantly look gloomy and their hearts are in torment, and everyone around them can see it.

But if they are clever and have a certain status in society, maybe they are able to control their feelings in order to uphold their public persona and appearance. But when they are alone the feelings come back out and the distress in their heart is revealed in their face.

There are those who have good looks, are cheerful and happy-go-lucky, and it is difficult to detect the feelings in their heart. But if they cannot control it, then their feelings will be visible on their face. So when someone who is usually cheerful and outgoing suddenly becomes quiet, loses their cheer, prefers to be alone and no longer jokes around. Their spouse, family and friends all become worried.

To lose this feeling of unease, one should stop doing wrong to others and ask for forgiveness from those that we have wrong in the past. Leave sins and return to depending on God. God willing,  the peace will not leave.

THE IMPORTANCE IN TAKING CARE OF OUR SOULS

 

It is a fact that people pay a great deal of attention to their physical heath. There a thousand and one ways of doing this; if one is sick no time would be wasted in getting to a doctor. If the doctor is ineffective, one would quickly move to another doctor or specialist.

The strange thing is, people do not act with such urgency if their spiritual health is being effected. Either they do not care about it, or think it’s not important. Whereas the results of spiritual diseases are more dire; they lead to evils in this world and torture in the hereafter.

Let us have a look at why it is so important to take care of our heart and soul:

1. Because the soul is permanent, unlike the temporary nature of the physical body. In the Hereafter, the soul will have a new form.

2. It is the soul that will feel the rewards or suffer the punishments in the Hereafter.

3. It is the soul that is the target of the angels and evils. The angels want to fill it with iman and confidence, while the evils want to fill it with evilness and doubts.

4. The soul is where God’s (spiritual guidance) ilham and knowledge is accepted and stored

5. If a person’s soul is clean, God will bestow them with ‘firasat’ (the most accurate intuition).

6. If a person’s soul is very clean, their sense of sight will become sharper than what their physical eyes are capable of. God will give them ability to see things that are invisible to normal people. This is the mukasyafatul qulub.

7. The heart, or soul, is the ruler of the body. If the heart is good, it will command its troops (the body’s limbs) to do good things. If it is evil, it will command its troops to do evil.

8. It is the receptacle for both the good (mahmudah) traits that everyone desires as well as the bad (mazmumah)  traits that everyone hates and has to stay away from.

9. This is where all emotions come from: happiness or sorrow, comfort or stress, calm or worry, hope or frustration, joy or disappointment, love or hate, trust or scepticism, optimism or pessimism, sympathy or yearning.

10. All of our physical actions are reflections of the goodness or badness of our heart and soul.

11. The heart contains the sight and value of God, while the body sees only the physical plane.

12. All spiritual inspiration ( hidayah) comes from the heart or soul.

13. The best of all good (mahmudah)  traits is sincerity ( ikhlas) which determines whether our good deeds will be accepted or rejected by God. It is our heart and soul that contains the true value of our ‘sincerity’, and only God can see it.

14. If  someone does something good, no one would say that it is their hands or feet that are good, but their hearts.

15. Endurance comes from a strength of soul/heart.

16. All changes that occur in one’s life are only the result of the changes that occur within their heart and soul.

17. Diseases of the soul lead to Hell; diseases of the body lead to Heaven (the difficulties are suffering of the corporeal body eradicate sins).

18. No matter how bad a physical disease can be, it would only affect your body. If the soul is diseased, it would affect everything in your life and everyone all around you.

19. If the body is ill, the worst that can happen is death. If the soul is ill, its faith will be destroyed.

20. Bodily diseases are only temporary, but spiritual diseases cause eternal suffering.

21. Only humans abhor physical diseases; God abhors spiritual diseases.

22. Physical ills affect the body, spiritual ills affect your faith.

23. Sometimes we can receive signs from God through dreams, whether clearly or in a parable. It is the soul that sees the dream, not the eyes.

24. The Messenger commands us to be afraid of the soul’s vision. God’s instructions do not ask us to be afraid of the normal eye’s vision.

25. Physical diseases are not contemptible in Islam, but spiritual diseases are.

26. Physical diseases do not cause mistrust between people, but spiritual diseases do.

27. Physical diseases do not lead to the forming rivalries, enemies and wars, but spiritual diseases do.

28. The soul can travel free from the body and see all sorts of unusual things with God’s permission.

29. After the death, the soul can return to visit its family, but the body cannot.

30. People feel sympathy for those with physical diseases, but not those with spiritual diseases.

WICKED THINGS HAPPENED : WHY ?

 

When the king (soul) within oneself is good, all the knowledge that has been collected in the brain will be used for good and the rest of the body’s limbs will be used only for God and to do good to others.

But what will happen if the king (soul) within is not educated, causing it to become ignorant and corrupt?

When the king within is evil, it will cause all the brain’s knowledge and body’s limbs to do evil deeds as well.

This is what has happened today. People all around the world do all sorts of wicked things.

Among the things that are special about human beings as bestowed by God is the instinctual way that people have spiritual reminders ingrained into them. These reminders can be positive or negative.

By positive reminders we mean that people naturally want to be:
1. Loved.
2. Helped.
3. Sympathised with.
4. Visited.
5. Given knowledge.
6. Informed.
7. Given presents.
8. Forgiven.
9. Given peace of mind, as so on so forth.

As for the negative reminders, this means that people don’t want to be:
1. Hated.
2. Insulted.
3. Disturbed.
4. Scolded.
5. Embarrassed.
6. Troubled.
7. Ignored.
8. Left to handle their troubles alone.
9. Looked down on.
10. Robbed or mugged.
11. Treated cruelly, and so on so forth.

Besides all of these, the most basic of all natural instincts is the feeling of Godliness. It is only the way in which God manifests Himself that they don’t know and have to learn.

All that was mentioned above are the ghazirah or natural instincts present in all human beings as supplied by God along with the physical body. This is what is meant by God’s supply of reminders in everyone.

People are supposed to use these basic reminders through their lives, because the natural instincts of all people are the same. Everyone has the same likes and dislikes. This means that God has placed in each and every person the foundation, an awareness of God along with a set of likes and dislikes that fit into an awareness of what is allowed and prohibited by God. It is all already there.

Based on the natural instincts of human beings, everyone should remember all the things that make them happy and do these things to others so that they can be happy as well. Everyone should also remember the things that make them unhappy so they can avoid doing those things to others. Islam encourages this life philosophy, strengthening it with the promise of Heaven and the punishment of Hell. This extends the natural reminder to everyone to think of the things that make them happy and do them unto others, and vice versa, so that everyone can live in peace and harmony.

Unfortunately, the situation today is such that the majority of people are aware of the things they like, and do want other people to treat them that way, but refuse to do it to others. The opposite goes for things people don’t like: though they know they don’t want other people to do such things to them, they insist on still doing it to others. This inevitable leads to arguments, fights and even wars. In the end, everybody suffers.

Why don’t people heed these reminders?

This shows that human nafs (desires) with its arrogance and selfishness encouraged by the evil are constantly distracting people so they forget these reminders, even though they come from God.

Due to this self-centred attitude, everyone wants good things to happen to themselves and themselves alone, leaving the bad things to happen to everyone else.

When we act selfishly and cause problems for others or simply ignore the troubles they’re already in, anger and hate blooms rapidly. Out of jealousy and bitterness those with problems will purposely inflict more problems upon others, until those who had previously been comfortable suffer along with them, leading to an endless circle of strife in all sorts of shapes and forms. This is what happens when people don’t think back on the natural reminders that God has given to all.

People who have forgotten or been negligent with the reminders, whether the natural ones or the Islamic ones, cannot be left just like that. People cannot be left to suffer from the negative attributes that can take over their lives completely. This is the responsibility of all leaders, teachers, parents and preachers towards educating the masses.

THE ABSOLUTE TRUTH

 

We are usually deceived with what we see. We are usually mistaken with what we think. We are usually in haste with what we desire. The absolute truth will appear with an intuitive sense that comes from a pure heart.

A righteous person feels he is the most sinful person among others and thus he simply have no time or moment to have a look at others’ wrongdoings.

The heart is similar to an empty bowl, both the angels and evils grabbing the opportunity to fill it up. Beware! Do not let the evil win as he will fill it up with sinful things.

With religous independence, everyone is given the freedom to practise their own faith and no one is allowed to belittle or hate one another on religous grounds. There is freedom of explanation in the search of the truth giving opportunity for everyone to have the true and clear faith as there is only one truth from God.

With mental independence, there is freedom for everyone to voice out opinions and thoughts without any fear or worries.

But there is one very important form of independence which is frequently forgotten and yet it is the one determining the peace and harmony in one’s life. More importantly it even determines whether one goes to Heaven or Hell. Which form of independence is this?

It is the independence from evil nafs [desire], contributing to ill traits which has been destroying mankind, it has been destroying individuals and others including wealth and property.This independence means there is freedom from ill traits, the greatest destroyer which is then transformed to the beautiful serene noble traits.

Freedom from destruction caused by hatred, arrogance, anger,slander. Freedom from vindictiveness, stinginess, greediness , laziness , inactive, self pride, self importance and glamour.These ill traits are offending almost everyone and would be replaced by kindness, humbleness, gentleness which are loved by all. Generosity, hardworking, bravery, forgivefullnes developed into a culture. Sincerity, thoughtfulness for others, all deeply felt in the heart. There is Love for God, fear Him, getting closer to Him , all to be felt in the heart. This is the “True Independence”

Good deeds and honourable character radiate from a virtuous heart. Bad deeds and devious characters radiate from an impure or evil heart. It has nothing to do with our mind except when the heart is virtuous together with an intelligent mind, there will be many great ideas on how to implement good things. On the other hand when the heart is devious and impure together with an intelligent mind, there will be many ideas on how to do evil things.
 
Please show us, oh God, the way to the truth
So that we do not get astrayed on our way to You
Oh God, please save us!

FEAR OF GOD - PRIMARY LINE OF DEFENSE

  

3rd day of the trial…….

To everyone involved, 

When God is not feared or when God is out of one’s mind, one tends to lead his or her own way of life.What’s important is one can live with ease, comfort, luxury and wealth and there seems to be no concern about honour and religion.

The Messenger [Peace Be Upon Him] once said:

 Translated: “The world is the plantation of the Hereafter.”

This means that all efforts, activities, developments and civilisations that are raised in this world are like plantations whose products are to be enjoyed in the Hereafter. In Heaven awaits the rewards.

When people are fully aware of God, they will avoid doing all bad things. Such a thing would be more effective than any rule or regulation. This is because a heart that is empowered with the fear of God above all others is the strongest armour against all vices.

It is only when one fears God that their behaviour or morals will improve. This is what is meant by applying the knowledge of faith or belief ; faith belongs in the heart, not the head, and should never be limited to the tongue.

Fear of God acts as the primary line of defense against all outside enemies. Other defenses are more temporary, for although they can help in the here and now, they cannot help in the long term.

Religion and honour are precious in life, priceless, could not be exchanged with anything else. These must be upheld even if we are forced to give up our lives.This is the price of religion and honour only if we could understand and appreciate the value.

The most miraculous of God’s creations is the person with the greatest taqwa, namely the Messenger of God, Prophet Muhammad who is the most amazing creation of God when compared to other creations, in terms especially of his heart or spirit. His heart is unlike other hearts ; 

When he is hurt, he pardons and prays for the offender. When cruelty is inflicted on him, he reciprocates with goodness. When faced with difficulties, he submits to God and fears God. When granted pleasure, he feels ashamed and is afraid of God

GOD, THE FAIREST JUDGE AMONGST ALL JUDGES

                                               

                                      

 

God, Show us the ways, show us the ways to reveal justice..You are Most Knowing, Most Wise

The Trial begins……….. 

To Everyone Involved: The Victim (deceased) , The Accused & Their Families and Friends, The Judge, The Prosecutors & The Defence Team and Others.

God has predesigned our lives up to every second, every single moment. Whatever happened both inside and outside us, all has been predetermined by God from time immemorial. God has set our destiny with utmost wisdom, farsightedness, fairness and justification, ideal and protecting all creations.  
 
There is not even one single defect when God determines anything as God is the Most Perfect and Most Pure from any mistakes and negligence. Refusing to accept and having ill feelings towards God`s fate upon us could disavow us and blemishing our faith. As if God`s fate and destiny has weaknesses and inaccurate. Actually human`s nafs or desire will accept anything good from God and he feels good about God at that instance.

However, when something unbeneficial happens to him, he feels God`s fate is inaccurate. He begins to grumble, whining and protesting showing his dissatisfaction. This is how human beings behave, very unrighteous and despicable towards God.   

WHY THE SOUL IS VEILED

 

Nobody can deny the fact that everyman whether a Muslim or otherwise possess a spiritual part (the soul) which is sensitive to environmental and phenomenal changes. In normal circumstances we may not be aware of this or may not even feel anything unusual. But when confronted with something extraordinary, our souls will be stirred enough to create sensation, or to cause us to react suitably to the situation.

For instance :

1. When we encounter something frightening, we spontaneously feel scared and eerie, or scream

2. When we see filth, we spontaneously feel revulsion and nausea

3. When we see something attractive, we feel at ease, tranquil and entertained

4. When we see delicious food, we spontaneously develop appetite

5. When we are with honourable person, we spontaneously feel respect for him

6. When we are with wiser person, we spontaneously feel inferior

7. When we are with person who has helped us, we spontaneously feel grateful and indebted

Those are our instinctive characteristics. Being very sensitive the soul can be immediately stimulated to react and work without the need for external motivation or assistance other than the stimulant itself.

From the psychological stand point, a person will carry out his life style in accordance to his inner (spiritual) requirements duly stimulated by the circumstances he is in. So we will find that ones life style reflects his spiritual nature.

(to be continued…)