December 19, 2010
COPING WITH FEAR AND GRIEF: An Islamic Approach [Part Two]
Section: WRITINGS | 250 reads
(39)
Freedom from Social Bondage
A second stage of dying is to be dead to the tyrannical hold that other people have over one’s life.
Connections and attachments to people!
Whether through birth, blood, marriage or otherwise!
They have a natural relationship with not only some of the greatest moments of happiness, joy and security on earth but also to some of the worst forms of insecurity, fear and grief!
No matter how one looks at them, social relationships of all kinds are a major and unfailing source of fear and grief in human life.
For, social bondage is one of the worst tyrannies that human beings can perpetrate on one another.
In its most rabid forms, it is one of Shaitan’s most powerful and effective tools of domination and control over the lives and destinies of the children of his arch-enemy Adam.
Even those whom Allah has blessed with wealth and power, and has thus freed from everyday worries of making a living or paying their bills, are often reduced to a life of utter misery due to trouble and complications in their social relationships.
Even those blessed by God with great intelligence and wisdom are brought to their knees and reduced to utter helplessness and foolishness due to the problems that arise on the social front of their lives.
They are often miserable because they are nursing the loss of a social relationship in the past or because they fear the loss of one in the future.
A child, a parent, a friend, a husband, a wife, a trusted work associate, a close relative – in how many different ways can a human heart be made miserable with fear and grief with regard to every one of them!
That is why, if we want freedom from fear and grief coming from these sources, we must die a second death – yet another stage of dying to the world and to its bonds and lures.
That second stage of death teaches us to deal with precisely these kinds of fears and griefs – those that are inherent in our social relationships.
It teaches us to die from every one of them – to be dead to them all.
That means it asks us to detach ourselves from all earthly human bonds – from family to friends to associates. And then connect to them only through God.
That means, once again, it requires us to see God and not merely his creation.
It requires us to see all these connections as passing through God and not directly.
That means it expects us to work in those relations entirely as directed by God and for the fulfillment of his purposes and directives.
That means a person must allow neither births nor deaths, nor marriages nor friendships to make the slightest difference in the way he perceives and carries himself in this world.
His total focus at all times must be Allah, through whom all human relations must pass and find their existence and validation.
To the extent such a person is not tied directly to other human beings but is connected to them only through Allah, he is dead to them.
And to that extent he is free from all fear and grief that come from them.
From now on, his life with them is only a temporary loan that may be recovered and reclaimed by the owner at any time without notice.
At all times his bags are packed and he is ready to depart at a moment’s notice.
And he travels light.
For, he no longer hauls the burdens of fear and grief coming from social relations gone sour – a child or spouse or friend dead or ill without hope of recovery; a marriage on the rocks; a friendship betrayed; or a child gone astray.
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Freedom from Personal Passions
The third stage of dying is to be dead to all personal passions and desires, except those sanctioned by God.
A person must be dead to all of them and thereafter reclaim them only as permitted by Allah and only through him.
Such a person can know no anger or sorrow except through and for Allah.
Nor can he know love or devotion except through and for Allah.
Nor can he lust after power and position except in so far as they are instrumental in helping him serve Allah and his people better.
Such a person eventually reaches a stage where he knows no fear or grief except through and for Allah – the only fear or grief worth having.
The one fear and grief that override and nullify all else in this world.
It is the good type of fear and grief. It is the type of fear and grief that free him from all other forms of fear and grief and guarantee him peace, joy and security both in this as well as the next world.
Such a person loves what Allah loves and despises what displeases Allah.
His biggest sadness and grief come from memory of moments that were not spent in the remembrance of Allah and in close conversations with him.
Moments which were not utilized in Allah’s Dhikr. For, as the Qur’an points out, it is in Allah’s Dhikr that good people’s hearts find true peace, comfort and security (13:28).
Ala, Bidhikrillahi Tat-Ma-innul Quloob
(Soorah Ar-Ra’d).
Such a person still, as a human being, grieves in his personal life for all that makes any civilized, caring and compassionate human being grieve, such as the death of a spouse or the illness of a child or the sudden rupture of a valued friendship or an undue loss suffered in business.
But his grief is a bigger grief. It has a much larger scope. He now grieves for others as much as if not more than he grieves for himself.
Suffering of people around him hurts and grieves him more than do his own personal losses and tragedies. Oppression and injustice directed at poor, innocent and defenseless people everywhere arouses his passion and indignation more than insults and abuses directed at him personally.
His heart hurts and aches and grieves beyond measure at the way humanity hurtles along the path of self-destruction oblivious to the commands of Allah.
He is heartbroken thinking about how Shaitan has a field day at the expense of the poor, hapless, misguided, arrogant, naïve, foolish children of Adam, playing with them and toying with their destinies all the time.
He is crushed thinking about the depth to which human beings can sink in their disobedience of their maker and in their cruelty and contempt for and abuse and exploitation of one another.
But his biggest grief and most overpowering sadness come when he recalls how he failed to measure up every time God tested him with adversity – or with joy and opportunity.
When he thinks how in the grip of his past sorrows – or joy – he had permitted his eye to wander away from Allah, the real giver of joy and sorrow.
Even though, he realizes with great anguish, the Qur’an had given fair notice of it to every believer.
And here is how the Qur’an did it:
Wa La-Nablu-wannakum Bi-Shai-in Minal
Khaufi wal-Joo-I wa Naqsin Minal Amwaali
Wal-Anfusi Wath-Thamaraat. Wa Bashshiris-
Saabireen (Soorah Al-Baqarah).
Which in paraphrase means:
And we shall surely test you with a bit
of fear and hunger and reduction in wealth
and persons and fruits. And give good news
and congratulations to the patient ones (2:155).
And he also knows full well what the consequences are for turning away from the remembrance – the Dhikr – of Allah.
Allah says it clearly in the Qur’an:
Wa Man A’rada An Dhikree, Fa-Inna
Lahoo Ma’eeshatan Danka, Wa Nah-Shuruhoo
Yaumal Qiyaamati A’maa (Soorah TaaHaa).
Which in paraphrase means:
Whoever turns away from my Dhikr,
there surely is a miserable life in store
for him, and we shall raise him blind
on the Day of Judgment (20:128).
Those are indeed the dark spots of real pain, sorrow, hurt, agony and grief that such a person has collected on his soul from his past.
Those are the scars on his aching, wounded heart that come alive to torment him every time he thinks about days gone by – and about all that might have been.
All the missed opportunities of loving and serving Allah more; of loving and serving Allah’s people more; of remembering and praising Allah more; and of helping more and more of the people of Allah to find their way back to Allah.
If this is the nature of the grief whose shadow haunts his past, so indeed is also the nature of his fear about the future.
His greatest fear of the future is the thought of his heart going dead on him, such that it will no longer melt and tremble at the thought of Allah and at the mention of Allah’s glorious name – and at the chanting of his words in the Qur’an.
His worst fear is that of being the only one denied the right to look at Allah’s glorious countenance on the Day of Judgment, when all others would be allowed that blessing and that boon.
Grief and fear both exist even in this state of near-total liberation; even in this higher stage of death from and to the world; even in such a noble and God-fearing heart.
But they are very different from the kind of grief and fear that stalk and torment the souls of ordinary people lost in the pursuit of their unbridled lusts and passions and dead to the higher, nobler and more spiritual form of living.
Next Article: Four Words that Changed the World! All It Takes Is You!
Previous Article: COPING WITH FEAR AND GRIEF: An Islamic Approach [Part One]
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