JOURNEY OF THE UNIVERSE
AS EXPOUNDED IN THE QUR`AN
(Excerpts Only)
By:
Shaykh
Fadhlalla Haeri
Chapter
5
Grinding to a
Halt
Any
beginning has an end, and yet, because of a strange veil of
heedlessness that man tends to pull over himself, we find that he
does not visualize or think about his own end. If his end were in
sight, it is most likely that he would use the time leading up to it
fully, efficiently and with a sense of urgency. Man is a thinking
animal. He is driven to use his faculty of thought by his need to
meet his daily physical requirements. Throughout his life he thinks
about, plans, and reviews his existential well-being. It would be a
natural conclusion for him to also think about the end of his
journey through life.
A
questioner asked about the chastisement which must befall the
unbelievers – there is none to avert it. From God, the word of
the ways of Ascent. (al-Ma'ârij:1-3)
Sûrat
al-Ma'ârij begins with the doubting
questioner wanting to know what the end will be like. Ma'ârij
(ways of ascent) is from 'araja, to ascend, mount, or limp.
The fall of Adam is his ascension. He was brought into this world in
order to ascend. Man's own ascension lies in his recognition and
awareness of what causes him to fall, and that is based on choice. A
fully programmed, pulsating being has no choice; his actions are
predictable. Flexibility and choice mark the rise of intelligence.
The maturation of intelligence comes about when the right choice is
made.
With
this flexibility and choice comes discrimination. The healthy,
intelligent person internalizes the teachings of old experiences and
continues to learn from new ones. Wisdom is the inner program
according to which a person with wide experience acts. The more
encompassing that wisdom is, the more harmonious and successful is
the action. Ultimately, when wisdom and intelligence are optimal,
choice and flexibility are minimal. If one is able to bring into the
formula all the relevant factors pertaining to a situation at hand,
the best course of action will be a specifically defined one – no
choice. Man therefore goes through a full cycle that starts with no
choice and ends with no choice, but the last phase is confirmed by
his faculty of reason.
Do
they not reflect within themselves: Allah did not create the
heavens and earth and what is between them but with truth, and
(for) an appointed term? And most surely most of the people are
deniers of the meeting of their Lord. (ar-Rûm:8)
God
created the heavens and the earth and that no man's land between
them with truth, that is, with absolute knowledge and justice. This
creation has a limited existence; it will not last forever. Most
people avoid the fact that they will eventually meet their Lord.
It
is love and attachment to this world that makes us forget that we
will return back to our source, our Sustainer, our Lord, the
Creator, the Everlasting. The hurly-burly of the outer world and the
physical aspects of life make us forget and cause us to lapse into ghaflah,
heedlessness, carelessness, and neglect; and these are the
attributes of Shaytân. Shaytân is what makes us
neglectful or fearful of provision. That element within us makes us
negative and niggardly.
And
one of His signs is your sleeping and your seeking of His
bounty, by night and (by) day. Surely there are signs in this
for a people who would hear. (ar-Rûm:23)
The
common courtesy towards the night is to sleep, that is, to let our
outer form rest. If one wants to awaken his inner core, however, it
is better to do so during the night when all the distractions of the
day are at a minimum. When one wants to see the birth of night, he
watches the sunset. If one wants to awaken his innermost self, he
has to wait until his outermost self is asleep and deadened to the
world. If he wants to see Allah, he must experience death. If he
wants only to see Allah he becomes dead to other than Allah.
Nahâr,
day, implies toil and outer growth. Man cannot have outer growth
without inner growth. He cannot claim that he is a man of the inner
life and abuse everybody else outwardly. If a man says he is a sufi
but wreaks havoc in the land, he is living a contradiction, a lie.
If he is a sufi, he should follow the meaning of the three letters
of its root word sûf: sâd, wâw, and fe. Imam
'Ali, upon him be peace, said sâd stands for sidq
(sincerity) and safâ (purity); wâw stands for widd
(love) and wafâ (faithfulness); and fe stands for faqr
(poverty) and fanâ (self-obliteration). If one stands for
these, the outer is unified with the inner and the inner with the
outer. Otherwise, he will at best limp through life. Ultimately, the
only person who suffers from these lies is the individual.
There
are signs for people who are receptive to them, who hear and heed
the warning signals. Hearing is the first sense we experience when
we are born. Even in the womb a child can hear the name of Allah in
the beat of the mother's heart – Allah, Allah, Allah.
And
one of His signs is that He shows you the lightning for fear and
for hope, and sends down water from the clouds, then gives life
therewith to the earth after its death; most surely there are
signs in this for a people who understand (ar-Rûm:24)
If
there is a great deal of fear of seeing these phenomena, we have to
express it outwardly because we are unifiers of the outward and the
inward. A Muslim expresses this truth by performing special prayers.
Whenever a significant disturbance occurs, be it a natural
phenomenon such as an eclipse or a sudden fearful turbulence in the
heart, this prayer simply acknowledges his need of his Lord. It is a
proof of his submission. It is not performed in order to beseech God
to stop these phenomena. What is decreed will happen.
And
every soul shall be paid back fully (for) what it has done, and
He knows best what they do. (az-Zumar:70)
Every
soul will be repaid. The individual is the author of his own
illusions and the doer of his own actions. Man is given this long
lifetime so that he can reconstruct the Truth within himself. It is
the divine One who is within you, the sublime One, the abandoned
One, the free One, the one and only One – Allah within you. He is
the absolute Knower of what has been done, of what is being done,
and what will be done.
But
when the deafening cry comes, ('Abasa:33)
This
âyah describes one of the first conditions of the last day,
of reckoning. As-sâkhkhah is the final call. It is what
closes off the hearing so that nothing makes sense any more. The
deafening cry heralds the end to the systems of perception and
comprehension as we understand them. It is sound that drowns out all
other sounds, like the blasts of a trumpet. The forceful wind
expanding through a narrow passageway shoutingly announces the
blowing away of the earth's solidity.
The
day on which a man shall flee from his brother, And his mother
and his father, and his wife and his children ('Abasa:34-6)
When
that day comes, man's condition will be one of intense
disorientation, as if he has run away from the brother he loves, who
is like him and has helped him, who has given him a reason to exist
by serving and helping.
When
the physical foundation for existential stability disintegrates, all
other forces, powers and links that maintained the harmony and
equilibrium of life on earth will collapse. All relationships will
disintegrate. A brother will not recognize a brother, and every self
will be centered on itself. The urgency and disruption of that time
is beyond our normal comprehension. In circumstances when mother
nature is no longer reliable, man will also flee from his biological
mother. The security of any past established relationship is
rendered meaningless in the face of mass upheaval and cacophony.
Every
man of them shall on that day have an affair which will occupy
him. ('Abasa:37)
The
day of reckoning is a great shock because it is the beginning of a
new life, a new experience. All the dead will be resurrected,
everything will become clear and exposed, and all the little things
that we considered insignificant are clearly magnified and revealed
to be important. The consequences of all the things we have done in
this existence, which we thought could be forgotten about or were of
no consequence, will be exposed. We will clearly see in a subtle
form all the people in this life who reminded us of God and the next
life but whom we dismissed. All the accounts that we have not
settled in this world, all our lack of awareness, all our
hypocrisies, all those years of only having concerned ourselves with
our material existence, all the different idols we worshipped and
the different excuses we gave – they will all instantly appear
before us.
As
a result of these events there will be major havoc. Everybody will
be concerned about himself. Nobody will be able to remember his
offspring or his mother, father, wife or wealth; everyone will be
concerned about his own state and situation. The end will be so
sharp and decisive that there will be no possibility of any crutches
or aids – each will be on his own.
(Many)
faces on that day shall be bright, laughing, joyous. ('Abasa:38-9)
The
face of the one who is in tawhîd, who has unified himself
with destiny – who has abandoned himself to Allah, lived for
Allah, and is returned to Allah – will on that day be
distinguished by its bright and unveiled light. Musfirah
(shining bright) means that their abandonment is clear on their
faces. The verbal root of musfirah means to unveil, reveal,
expose, and travel. When one travels, he is exposed and vulnerable;
he reveals himself to the rest of the world. The man of tawhîd
will joyously reflect his reality because he has lived with the
certainty of Truth.
And
(many) faces on that day, on them shall be dust, darkness shall
cover them: These are they who deny the truth, the iniquitous. ('Abasa:40-42)
Other
faces on that day will be covered with dust. They will not yet have
shaken the dust of their nafs (lower self) off their souls.
They will still be tarnished with the dust of what they have
inscribed on their hearts. On this day they will be unable to sing
the song of Truth or even to reflect it.
The
purpose of this existence is for us to stop singing our own songs so
that the one and only song bubbles up through our hearts. But as we
know, we constantly play our own compositions. Those on the dark
side of denial shall be covered with dust, exhausted. This
occurrence implies that the gold within them – their reality –
has not been mined. They have not seen their true reality because
they have allowed dust to settle thickly over it. Tired with the
weight of the dust, they are the unbelievers who wreaked havoc on
this earth.
And
on the day that the enemies of God shall be brought together to the
fire, then they shall be formed into groups. Until when they come to
it, their ears and their eyes and their skins shall bear witness
against them as to what they did. (Hâ Mîm:19-20)
Hashara
is to gather, to come together. The whole of creation was originally
gathered together. Then the heavens and the earth were split. In the
end everything will once again be gathered. The creational reality
will collapse and come to its final resting place. It will revert
into that unfathomable dense matter it once was.
Man
has always sought to discover the fundamental particle of matter in
this creation. Scientists try to measure and create mathematical
equations about it. Contemporary scientists illustrate the density
of the primal matter by saying that if one were to put it in a
thimble it would weigh billions of tons. The density is so great
that we can no longer conceive of it. It is not even a dot. It is
the command "Be", and it is. The physical creation will
collapse back into that denseness and beyond intellectual
comprehension. Its energy, or its echo, is the gathering that is
described.
Men
are not just physical entities; they also have souls or spirits. On
that day those electromagnetic bundles which are called souls will
all be joined. All souls emanate from one source, like sparks flying
out of a fire, reaching a certain height (age) and returning after
having been processed or oxidized.
Once
the gatheredness has occurred, everything will be sorted out
according to its quality. The screening and segregating process is
totally just. Those who are fit for a final, unending, bottomless
pit will be in the fire of jahannam (hell). Their ears, eyes,
and skins will give witness against them. At that time they are
whatever they have heard, seen, or felt. There can be no separation
from what is absorbed through experience, and there certainly is no
running away from it. For this reason, the Prophet, peace and
blessings be upon him, would not hear anything bad about anyone. He
would say that this sort of poison was more difficult for him to
clean out than food poisoning. With the latter one vomits, but after
a day or so he recovers. But the poison which you have heard about
someone you love or trust is going to take longer to get rid of. One
should therefore cover his ears because he wants to safeguard
himself. His ear will give witness to what it has heard. Man is what
he hears and sees.
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