Faith

[ابوالوليد المسلم]

Faith

Maulana Waheeduddin Khan



Acceptance of God as one’s Lord (shahadah) is like making a covenant to place Him at the central point in one’s life, so that He may become the pivot of one’s thoughts and emotions. It means entrusting oneself to Him entirely, and focussing upon Him all one’s hopes and aspirations, fears and entreaties. Then, instead of living for worldly things, one will live for one’s Sustainer. He will thus become all in all in one’s life. Man all too often lives for worldly things which come to dominate his thoughts and emotions. Some live for their household and family; some for business and the money it brings; some for political activity and party leadership, and some for honour and authority. Every man, big or small, lives for something or the other which is material in this everyday world of ours. But this is to live in ignorance — trying to build one’s nest on branches that do not exist. A truly worthy life is that which is lived for one’s Lord, with no support other than Him. Man should live in remembrance of God. His name should be on his lips as he wakens and as he sleeps. As he halts or proceeds on his way, he should live in trust of God, and when he speaks or remains silent, it should be for the pleasure of his Lord. Faith in God is like the electric current, which illuminates the whole environment and sets all machines in motion. When a man finds the link of faith to connect him to God, he experiences just such an illumination from within sudden and all-embracing. His latent spirit is then awakened and his heart is warmed by his newfound faith. A new kind of fire is kindled within him. Man, born of the womb of his mother, has his second birth from the womb of faith. He now experiences what is meant by union with God. A lover, emotionally, is one with his beloved, even when he is physically separated from the ****** of his love. In this state, he sees in everything the image of the loved one. One who is inspired by his faith in God is just like this earthly lover. He sees the glories of God in heaven’s blue vaults, and His might and grandeur in the fury of tempests. The birds, with their twittering, seem to warble hymns to God. The rising sun is the radiant hand of God extending towards him. Every leaf of every plant and tree is a verdant page on which he reads the story of divine creation. Zephyrs fanning his cheeks are harbingers of his unity with God. A true believer in God is like a diver in the divine ocean. Every plunge that he makes serves to unite him in his experience more and more inextricably with his Maker, so that he belongs to God as God belongs to him. Faith in God means faith in a Being who is at once Creator, Master and Sustainer of all creation. Everything has been made by Him and Him alone, and receives eternal sustenance from Him. There is nothing which can exist without Him. Consciousness of this and faith in God go hand in hand. As a consequence, a man of faith begins to look upon himself as a servant of God. In each and every thing he witnesses the glory of God, and every blessing he receives strikes him as a gift from God; hymns to the deity and remembrance of God spring from his heart like fountains. He lives, not in forgetfulness, but in a state of acute awareness, all events being reminders to him of God. When he awakens from a deep and *******ing sleep, he begins involuntarily to thank his Lord for having blessed man with sleep, without which he would be in such a perpetual state of exhaustion that life, brief as it is, would become hellish for him and drive him to madness. When the sun rises high in the sky and sends its light to the world, dispelling the darkness of the night, his heart cries out in ecstasy, ‘Glory be to God who created light. Had there been no light, the whole world would be a fearful ocean of darkness.’ When, driven by hunger and thirst, he eats and drinks, his entire being is filled with heartfelt gratitude and, bewildered and amazed, he asks himself: ‘What would become of men if there were no God to send us food and drink?’ When in need, or if he is hurt, he looks towards God, calling upon Him for succour. When he encounters adversity, he accepts it as part of God’s design, and if he is fortunate enough to earn profits or, in some other way, finds himself at an advantage, he is reminded of God’s blessings and his heart is filled with gratitude. His achievements do not, however, fill him with conceit, nor do his failures crush him or even make him impatient. In all such matters, whether of loss or gain, his adoration of God is never impaired, nor does anyone or anything other than God ever become its ******. No expediency ever makes him forget his Lord. The discovery of the power of gravity on earth and on other bodies, or of radiation in the universe with the help of sophisticated instruments is an achievement of an academic nature with no overtones of religious compulsion. But the discovery of God is an entirely different phenomenon. It is the direct apprehension of a Being who is all-seeing and all-hearing, and who is the repository of all wisdom and might. Discovering God means, moreover, acceptance of the fact that God has not created man, or the universe at large in vain. That a magnificent universe should stand mute, without its true significance ever being understood and appreciated, is inconceivable when its Creator and Sustainer is an all-knowing God. Man’s discovery of faith instills in him the conviction that a day must come when the unseen God – the great orchestrator of all events in the Universe – will make Himself manifest, so that man will see and believe tomorrow what he fails to see and, therefore, questions, today. His belief tells him that the manifestation of the Creator and Master will be like the brightness of the sun after the darkness of the night – the manifestation, indeed, of an omniscient Judge and Arbiter. The Lord’s manifestation of Himself will be the hour of retribution for the universe. At the very moment of His appearance, the arrogant and the self-centred will be cast down from their self-erected pedestals, when they will seem smaller than the smallest of insects. In sharp contrast, God’s righteous and faithful servants, no matter how oppressed and dejected in condition, will forthwith become exalted and worthy of the greatest respect. God’s withholding Himself from view gives His faithless servants the opportunity to indulge in all kinds of reprehensible behaviour, while His assumption of a physical, visible form will be a moment of absolute glory for the faithful, who will then set foot in a new, better, nay, perfect world where the transgressors will be consigned to hellfire forever, and the faithful will enjoy eternal bliss in Paradise; When man acquires this faith, he trembles with fear of God, and cries out: ‘O my God save me from disgrace on the day when You make Yourself manifest in all Your might and glory, when the balance of judgement is set up and man stands helpless before You, because no one besides You has any power or authority.’ One important aspect of making God the sole ****** of worship is the acceptance of the idea of prophethood. The moment an individual accepts God as a living, conscious Being, he is confronted with the question: ‘What does my Lord expect from me?’ From within himself, he receives signals in response.
The universe, too, seems silently to be relaying messages from his Lord. But he feels a strong desire to receive such messages loud and clear, so that he may know for certain what the future holds for him, and as he strains to find answers to his questions, he hears as if by a miracle, the pronouncement of the Apostle of God: ‘I am God’s servant and messenger. He has sent me down for the guidance of mankind. Turn to me and receive from me the message of your Lord.’ For someone genuinely in quest of the truth, it will not be difficult to recognize that voice, for he would have already torn away whatever veil of ignorance and prejudice had been preventing the voice of truth from penetrating his innermost thoughts. Just as a child can recognize the voice of his mother, so can a man recognize the voice of the Prophet, bringing him God’s message. Like the blessed rain falling upon parched earth, each drop of divine truth is immediately and gratefully absorbed. Discovery of God leads him to the discovery of the Prophet, and recognition of the Prophet in turn deepens and intensifies his understanding of his Lord. A prophet is neither an Angel nor a superhuman being. He is human being born of a human mother just like any other normal person. His uniqueness lies in the fact that God has chosen him to bring His message to mankind. God saw in Muhammad ibn Abdullah (peace be upon him) a man whose natural self was fully alive; in whom there was no contradiction between word and deed; who never once betrayed a trust during the forty years of his life prior to his prophethood. He was completely truthful, never failed to keep his word and possessed a heart that throbbed for humanity. To him, personal gain meant nothing. What really mattered to him was the cause of truth. God saw in him an immaculate spirit that made him worthy of divine trust. He found in him a character free of all subservience to expediency, and fully capable of carrying out divine commandments without swerving so much as an inch from the straight and narrow path. In this man from Mecca, He discovered a thirst for truth which could only be slaked at a divine source; which held out the assurance that whatever truth was revealed to him would be cherished by him as such. In these respects, he had proved himself the most perfect man during the forty years prior to his prophethood. It was on these grounds, therefore, that God chose him as His last messenger for the whole of creation. Throughout the twenty-three years of his life as a Prophet, this perfect man discharged his duties in an entirely exemplary fashion, thus fully justifying his elevation to the status of Prophet of God. It was through him that the Qur’an, as revealed to him by God’s emissary, the Angel Gabriel, was given to mankind. The Prophet and his companions did everything in their power to preserve it in its original form and, in this pristine state; it has been handed down in its entirety from generation to generation. In this way we can never be in any doubt as to what God demands of us. Through the Qur’an God still speaks to man in his own tongue.


The Prophet not only received the divine revelation, but strictly applied its principles to his own mode of living. The example he set appealed to people because his experiences were those of a normal human being, ranging throughout his lifespan from those of the ordinary, common man to those, ultimately, of judge and ruler. Just like other men, he lived in a household, and moved among the populace in the towns and in the marketplaces. He knew prosperity. But he also knew hunger, thirst, poverty. He knew what it was to be successful and he knew what it was to be rejected, especially when it was a question of calling his fellow-men to the true path of enlightenment. Just like any other person, he had his joys and his sorrows, his moments of elation and his moments of despair. But, at all times, notwithstanding life’s vicissitudes, no speck of dishonour ever tarnished his reputation. At all times, his conduct was godly. His life indeed became the perfect living model of the divine guidance set forth in the verses of the Qur’an. He provided a shining example for all men, and it will be so till the very Day of the Last Judgement. Those who aspire to reach their Sustainer, and enter into the eternal gardens of paradise, have but one course to follow: they must seek out the commandments of God in the Qur’an, and their realization in the life of the Prophet, and then must pattern their lives along the same lines. For the Prophet’s life is so perfect as to be an example for both great and small, for king and commoner alike. No other course will lead such aspirants to their true objective. No other life will be pleasing in the eyes of God.