Assalamu alaikum,
Peace be with you,
And Ramadan Mubarak.
Welcome to the University of Sufism's reading of Rosina Fawzia Al-Rawi's book,
The Call of Allah,
A Companion to the Holy Month of Ramadan.
Today I am sharing day number 28 about taslim and ehum,
Surrender and knowledge.
Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim.
In the name of the One,
The Most Merciful,
The Singularly Compassionate.
Nothing rejoices me more than the moment when my servant draws near to me in worship,
As I have enjoined him to.
My servant keeps drawing closer to me in surrender until I love him,
And when I love him,
I am the hearing with which he hears,
The sight with which he sees,
The hand with which he seizes,
And the foot with which he walks.
Were he to ask something of me,
I would surely give it to him,
And were he to ask me for refuge,
I would surely grant it to him.
On our journey back home to our true self,
From the exile of the periphery,
We will always encounter places of darkness,
Just like we find and experience them in the outer world.
If we touch these places for Allah's sake,
Without worrying about our self,
Without wanting to learn or grow,
But only to live more fully,
Then the transformation can begin.
Complete perfect surrender to God enables us to touch the darkness within ourselves,
And the darkness of the world for his sake.
Surrender is our only true protection and our only real security.
Only after the walls have been torn down can the warm clarifying rays of sunshine reach us,
Strengthening and protecting us from the danger of being seized or engulfed by darkness.
What is valuable and what is harmful?
What is true and what is of no benefit?
Just like darkness,
The useless and the harmful are transient states of illusion,
But also of challenge,
Temptation,
Confusion,
And choice.
Those who carry unity in their heart can identify the episodes for what they are without drowning in them.
Evil is not the opposite of God.
Evil is resistance to God.
Everything is made of the same energy.
Divine energy is dark and light,
Male and female.
It contains both the white light and the black void.
Although we use the concept of duality,
The opposites are only apparent.
They complete one another and are not really contrary.
Allah uses duality in our world in order to lead us to unity.
Everything is interwoven in inseparable patterns.
We are not separate parts of a whole.
We are the whole.
Become acquainted with the good,
Positive aspects of your fellow human beings because that is love.
Meditation,
Contemplation,
Muraqabah,
And prayer help us transcend the linear mind and they enable us to grasp the reality that all things are intertwined.
So see where you stand and where you are heading to.
Look at your life with the eye of your heart.
Acknowledge that you are blessed and entrust yourself more and more to him because life is an evolutionary process of trust.
For what is trust but surrendering to the love of Allah which dwells in the innermost part of our soul?
In life there are phases and situations when we cannot contribute or change anything on the outside.
In such times it is essential to develop the inner qualities of strength,
Confidence,
Trust,
And surrender.
It is our destiny in our finite nature,
We who are subject to the changes of time,
To set out to experience Allah,
The eternally living,
Al-Hayy.
But how can we experience Allah?
We can only come closer to him through his creation,
His traces,
His names,
And his deeds.
As we come closer to Allah,
We start understanding the Quran.
Do not satisfy yourself with being a worshipper,
Abida,
Abid.
Be a knower,
Alima,
Alim.
Allah wants to transform our state from worshippers to knowers.
Worshippers need knowledge,
Feeling which outer and inner influences will easily shake and confuse them.
In the old days,
When life was simple,
Being a worshipper was enough,
But nowadays given the constant flow of information,
Entertainment,
And ideas,
It has become difficult for us to avoid being distracted and troubled by doubts.
In the past,
Mere worshipping meant salvation,
But today we have to know Allah in order to remain firm and go deeper.
Indeed,
Knowledge is protection,
Is salam.
Whenever we read the Quran and try to understand more and more,
Whenever we speak about Allah and go into discussion,
Every new insight helps us surrender more and come closer to him.
Quran 2 ayat 115 And God's is the east and the west,
And wherever you turn,
There is God's countenance.
Behold,
God is infinite,
All-knowing.
Ramadan opens new doors for us.
It is the month of closeness,
Surrender,
And forgiveness,
Sulh,
Of self and others.
Surrender is a process,
A journey during which we slowly touch all the parts in us,
The doubting,
The irritated,
The wavering,
And lead them to Allah on the path of surrender,
Dedication,
And love.
It is perfectly natural to experience resistance.
This is when we can clearly experience the activity and the opposing force of the ego,
Or nafs,
Every part in us which believes that it needs to defend its individuality,
Every part in us which believes that it needs to protect its peace and freedom,
Every part in us which believes that it can only come into its own by itself and through the outside world.
The arena of this fight lies in the ego,
The nafs.
May we strengthen our will and our direction through the Quran,
Through our prayers,
Through our conscious good deeds,
Through our longing and love for Allah,
And through our belief in the paradise that we have been promised.
Forgetfulness is unbelief and belief,
Cannot exist without unbelief.
For belief is giving up unbelief.
Therefore,
Unbelief must exist so that it may be given up.
Rumi.
Fihi.
Mafihi.
When the Prophet,
Peace be upon him,
Was asked to define the religion,
The Deen,
Which he,
Peace be upon him,
Had been sent to transmit,
He divided it into three parts,
Islam,
Iman,
And Ihsan.
He defined Islam with the five pillars,
The deeds which every Muslim has to perform.
Iman,
Or faith,
Includes the things which every Muslim must believe in.
The six Islamic fundamental principles of faith,
Arqan al-Iman,
Are to believe in 1.
Allah,
The One God.
2.
His Angels.
3.
His Books.
4.
His Messengers.
5.
The Last Judgment.
6.
The fact that destiny,
Be it good or bad,
Is determined by Allah alone.
Quran 2,
Ayat 285 The Apostle and the believers with him believe in what has been bestowed upon him from on high by his Sustainer.
They all believe in God and His Angels and His Revelations and His Apostles,
Making no distinction between any of His Apostles.
Regarding Ihsan,
The Prophet,
Peace be upon him,
Said,
It is to worship Allah as if you see Him,
And while you cannot really see Him yet,
He sees you.
Ihsan unties the other two aspects of the Deen.
Ihsan is being intensely aware of Allah's presence.
Islam is to surrender to the Divine Laws.
Iman is to taste.
It is to experience in one's heart the testimony of what Allah,
The Almighty,
Ordered us to believe.
Etymologically,
Iman means confirmation.
Ihsan literally means to make beautiful things or perform good deeds.
It comes from the verb Asana,
To act well,
To do something brilliantly.
Whoever makes beautiful things is a Muqsina or Muqseen.
There is therefore a deep connection between Ihsan and Niyah,
Intention.
Ihsan is to purify one's self and one's heart.
In order to achieve perfect worship,
Namely to worship Allah as if we could see Him,
Knowing that Allah constantly sees us and watches over us.
May the month of Ramadan make Muqsineen of us,
Inshallah.
The practice suggested for today.
May this sentence firm up your feet on the path to Allah.
Allahuma zidni imanan wal ilman.
O Allah,
Deepen my faith and deepen my knowledge.
Ameen.
Thank you for joining us today for this reading of the call to Allah,
A companion to the holy month of Ramadan,
With the permission of Rosina Fawzi al-Rawi.
