SURAH AL-‘IKHLAS
After a brief pause we shall now proceed with elaborating the Surah Al-‘Ikhlas. One of the Surahs which the Prophet (PBUH) says that it is 1/3 of the Qur’an, inasmuch this is the reason why oftentimes we listen that inside homes in our Islamic religious tradition where they say that despite one being unable to read the Qur’an, only by one reciting 3 times Qul Huwallah, the same goes for those who go and visit the graves of their loved ones they recite 3 times Qul Huwallah and 1 time Alham (Surah Al-Fatihah). It is one of the transmissions obtained from the Prophet (PBUH) in regards to Ayshe. One night the Prophet (PBUH) was praying the yatzi namas and as he was directed to pray the last sunnet he had turned to Hz. Ayshe: “ until I finish the sunnet of the yatzi, you can do one hatme”. Hz. Ayshe got concerned thinking how could it be that during such a brief time of praying the sunnet of yatzi for her to make a hatme. She waited until the Prophet (PBUH) had given salavat and then she had asked him: “what should I do, how can I recite one hatme, I cannot recite one hatme in such a short time”. The Prophet (PBUH) had then told her to read 3 times the surah Al-‘Ikhlas and one time the Surah Al-Fatiqah and this will consider as if she has conducted hatme of the Qur’an. To this reason I encountered that this is one of the most crucial surahs; previously we also said that the descend of this surah is that the people of Mecca had asked the Prophet (PBUH) to tell them the characteristics of his God.
Primarily in the idolatry / polytheist understanding gods have their characteristics (as you know the closest to us is the Greek mythology, inferring that each god has its own characteristic) even among the first mushriks, it was asked from the Prophet (PBUH) to delineate the characteristics of God which he calls. The Prophet (PBUH) never spoke out from his own judgment since the Qur’an says: “Nor does he speak from [his own] inclination. (Surah An-Najm, verse: 3) but “It is not but a revelation revealed. “ (Surah An-Najm, verse: 4).
This element is highly important as several times we have highlighted that the Prophet (PBUH) keeps the sacred words viral. The Qur’an is not contained within the human context if we take the Prophet (PBUH) out of the picture. In general even religiousness, when we are speaking about religiousness (not for knowledge or religion) it is clear that without a living being there is no religiousness, it is one element which can be pursued from the one who is alive. One time one of the companions of Allah Almighty, an evliya, was sitting around the Kabba and a group of hadjij nearby asked him why he was sitting outside and didn’t go inside. Earlier in the time, the great scholars especially from the time of as’habs, companies of the Prophet (PBUH) and the generations after them, tabiinevs, have been seated behind the black curtains inside the Kabba and there they would have given lectures and would have recited the Qur’an, even nowadays the Qur’an is recited inside. Seid Ibn Museyyeb one of the scholars which had thorough knowledge on the prophetic tradition (hadith is called the prophetic tradition, the messages and transmissions of the Prophet (PBUH) ) and one group had turned to the evliya by telling him to enter inside since inside Seid Ibn Museyyeb was telling hadiths from the Prophet (PBUH). While the latter gave given one very interesting and significant answer: “There Seid Ibn Museyyeb transmits from the dead, whereas I take knowledge only from Him the alive who never dies.” He means that the transmission of the hadiths of the Prophet (PBUH) (I have mentioned this on several occasions in the lectures) is done from one generation onto another by mentioning the persons which have transmitted them hither the hadiths, this is how the originality of the hadith has been pertained. However when I now encounter these persons, for instance I say that I have transmitted this from Buhari, Buhari has transmitted this from Urbey Ibn Zubeyri, Urbey Ibn Zubeyri from Hisam Ibn Urv, Hisam Ibn Urv from Abdula Ibn Omeri, Abudal Ibn Omer from Salman al-Farisi, Salman Al Farisi from the Prophet (PBUH). Inasmuch all these persons have physically passed away, they are not in this world, however what is of high importance is to establish these hadiths in viral connection with Allah Almighty; these hadiths to be ardent and to be felt, to this reason this viral is highly important.
You have noticed in occasions when people want to reinforce their statements they use references, but a strong character is the person whose words are accepted without the need of references, which shows that people have such great trust and faith in this person that they accept his words as true without the need of references (footnotes), hence Mustafa Tatci says that the individual who is integrated both with spirituality and knowledge, he absorbs all the people who are established in the chain hither the Prophet (PBUH) and moreover this individual is an imam for his time, such an identity is Mawlana Jalal al-Din Rumi as well as Muhidiin Ibn al-Arabi, especially in the spiritual domain.
In order to transmit the spiritual practice in other people one spiritual experience is indubitable, the one who does not experience God cannot intent to transmit to others elements of God. Inasmuch my point was to delineate that Qul Huwallah is one of those Surahs which contains that dimension, even the reading of the Surah itself ascends the spirit of the adherent.
What have the Mekkans sought from the Prophet (PBUH): to acquaint God; who is this God of yours? In the earlier lectures we began speaking on the attributes. Allah Almighty acquaints Himself to us through His names and attributes. The Esma names are in the Qur’an, whereas God in the Qur’an never uses the matter of attributes (sifas). Oftentimes in the past and even nowadays this is discussed, but it is mainly encountered in a rather shallow perspective, for instance there are a number of religious groups (whose names I do not intent to mention) which state that God does not have attributes but merely names; in ehli sunnet we accept God both with His names and attributes. For the names God Himself speaks, principally the character of the revelation does not intent to speak on the attributes. God, inasmuch authority brings forth the conclusions, God does not have a need to justify what He says, and precisely to this He brings forth the name; the name is one concept, it brings the idea upon which actions can be taken, whereas an attribute is the deem of the one who shows deity on God and hence from God’s word we bring forth the attributes, indubitably that they are in the context of God’s words.
For instance God exists / wujjud, as one special attribute we cannot find this in the Qur’an, however the name of God Ar-Rahman we can come across in the Qur’an, since mercy is a concept of God, whereas the existence of God is one of the essential attributes / dhatiya of Allah Almighty. To this reason we began analyzing the attributes of God and subject to them we attain to the stage of comprehending how is God represented for us to whom we believe, and as I can see we arrived at the fifth attribute al-Mukhalafatu lil-Hawadith; inasmuch the fifth attribute of Allah Almighty which delineates that God does not appear in similarity with anything in the universe. It is the desire of man to see God, to see the spirit, albeit the person cannot do this by his eyes and never in this life can be man be able to see Him. I will give you one concrete example which has answered some esoteric mattes for me, I shall carry my own experience to you here. Have you ever thought why people build graves for their loved ones who pass away? Why do they establish stone on top of a grave? Why they make mausoleums? Why they make built graves? I have been in occasions where people’s children have passed away in young ages and they have come to me asking: oh imam, my spirit is in woe, I want to build my child a grave what do you recommend? Why, does this take place? Or have you thought why when people want to give zakaah they prefer to make public fountains, to make ambulances or to make mosques, in order to make the minarahs longer in size? Have you ever thought why? Or for instance why do we conduct zikr with tesbihs, why do they exist? Man seeks to touch the sawwab, have this in mind. This is human intuit within him; to want to touch the sawwab. For instance man can say La Ilaha Ilallah without taking tesbih, but when he has tesbih in his hands it looks to him as if he has conducted more righteous deeds. It is the identical situation when one commits to an act which can be absorb with physical senses, it seems to the person as he has done more deeds this way. The man knows his child is not near him, but when he will see his child’s grave it will appear to him as if he is seeing something material from his child. I am not inferring here any jurisdiction matter on whether or not this phenomena is permitted, but instead encountering merely the psychological feeling within man.
The same cognitive feeling takes place regarding God, throughout history man has wished to see God however the moment they have given a shape to Him each person has created gods according to how they have wanted them to be, and thus you see that the authority is no longer on God, but instead it is the stand view of the one who dwells; each one perceives God as he / she wishes. And precisely to this Islam considers this matter to be a blasphemy and shirk.
This is the same scenario as the parabola for the elephant which both Plato and Mawlana mention, have you heard of it? They put the elephant in a dark place then they ask people to go inside and asked them what was inside; nobody saw the elephant but each person subject to what they touched on the elephant gave their conclusions, which means that each one has analyzed it in their own way. Inasmuch people throughout history have assimilated God to something material (teshbih) or they have anthro-pomized, they have given Him human characteristics (tejim); both of which are in total contradiction with righteous belief in God. Precisely to this if we seek and wish to believe God we should be assured that God does not assimilate to similar, alike things al-Mukhalafatu lil-Hawadith, means however we think on it, despite the way we want to see it, God is not like that. Al hawadith means similar, something which has taken place – we call It created, but it does not mean or it does not refer to created, instead it infers something which has taken place later in time; something which has happened and this phenomena also created by God, from all of this which God has created Allah Almighty is not similar to any of it. Hence in each passing moment when man seeks to see God through his human senses, the latter motions into polytheism. Albeit, man does not only see through the eyes. This is one crucial element. There is one verse in the Qur’an which says: “So have they not traveled through the earth and have hearts by which to reason and ears by which to hear? For indeed, it is not eyes that are blinded, but blinded are the hearts which are within the breasts” (Surah Al-Haj, verse 46), and in another verse it says: “And We have certainly created for Hell many of the jinn and mankind. They have hearts with which they do not understand, they have eyes with which they do not see, and they have ears with which they do not hear. Those are like livestock; rather, they are more astray. It is they who are the heedless” (Surah Al-‘A’raf, verse: 179). This shows that despite them having eyes and seeing with their eyes they cannot see the haqiqah / the truth, they cannot see God, they do not hear God, they do not feel God near… it says: “For indeed, it is not eyes that are blinded, but blinded are the hearts which are within the breasts”, which means that the heart was given the possibility to see, and the possibility to go blind.
God can be seen with the eyes of the heart, the eyes of the heart do not give shape, do not see through the form, the eyes of the heart are eyes which see and feel without form and in most cases the form prevents the sight of heart. We have most chances to experience this since with the eyes of the heart we can only see that which we most behold dear, and this is God for us. In this world we can Him with the eyes of genuine love / ashki haqiqah; true love for us is only love towards God. Majnun had fallen in love with Layla to take her to God, in order to understand love. Ashki majazi / the symbolic love is every love of this world which we share, for instance we love our children, oftentimes love prevents us from seeing the weaknesses of our children, inasmuch we see them with the eyes of the heart and not the eyes in our forehead. It happens that a boy in love with a girl tells his mother “I’m thinking to marry this girl because she is the right one”, whereas the mother turns to him: ‘where have you found this person, it would be better to take you and make you a bride than her, she is not good”, whereas the boy answers “let me give you my eyes to see through them, how beautiful she is”, which means that the mother sees the girl with the eyes of reality, and the boy sees that girl with the eyes of the heart.
Is God also seen like this? No, it is not so. But in order for us to comprehend it better we convey this experience, which represents similarities. Inasmuch it must be felt, in this fashion Hazrat Ali never in namaz prayer has he prayed without feeling God in his innerness. Since God is with the person, this is what the Qur’an says:” And We have already created man and know what his soul whispers to him, and We are closer to him than [his] jugular vein” (Surah Qaf, verse 16).
To this reason such a conception, especially in Tasawwuf, not only that they do not only attach anything similar to God, but even the ‘something’ does not exist, see here even our own formation is not a real ultimate one which in reality it does not exist, and we know that this does not exist when we pass away, when we die, the moment when the essence which is not visible within us, the essence which cannot be encompassed by a microscope, this essence leaves us, the form, the body departs, decays, nothing is left of us. We are led to believe that we are now contained within one body, one form but in essence we are without a shape; inasmuch what makes us eternal is our shapelessness, is our spirit, and then imagine God’s eternity. Thus, how can we feel, experience God? Even this has its own methods. Things which we cannot observe or comprehend with our eyes we seek to see them through helping elements; for instance we cannot see in distance so we take a pair of binoculars and through them we see in great distance. Even very small parts we cannot see merely through our eyes hence we take a microscope and through this tool we are then able to see them. Thus if we want to sense God close we cannot just apply common techniques, I will pray 5 times namaz, I will pray and that’s it. One pair of spiritual binoculars are needed, one spiritual microscope is also needed and this is nafile ibadah, hence each ibadah we conduct as a supplement and we turn directed hither Allah Almighty, the more we commit to Him, the more He removes the veils from us. There is one ilahi which is recited in Albanian and it says: “Dearly welcome spirit reva, from kalu bela” and somewhere in the middle of the lines it says: “remove the veils so we can see” so one line of this ilahi is” open the veils so we can see You” and the aim of this is to experience God through the eyes of the spirit.
The sixth attribute from the personal attributes of Allah Almighty is Kiyamun bi nefsih. This is one attribute which seeks from us to use our minds, our discourse / reasoning. Kiyamun bi nefsih means God exists from Himself alone and God is alive, He is existent; He is existent from Himself and not from something else. The moment God is in need of somebody else he is no longer God. Hence even from the rational conception, if God is in need of something else, then automatically he is weak, he is subject to weaknesses, so we cannot concept him as god here amid our understanding. Allah Almighty is the mere and only existence, inasmuch He has real ultimate existence, being haqiqah, vujjud haqiqah and this state of being is possessed only by Allah Almighty; the state of being of God is all embracing to this reason we conclude that the absolute nothingness does not exist. The moment when God exists and God is everywhere, is there a place where God is not present? There is not, then where shall you insert nothingness? Where shall you put nothingness to take place? In the terminology of Islamic apologetics (akaid), even Abu Hanifa encounters in one of his works: God has created things, not from things” (in order for this to sound better in English we say from nothingness, but not from absolute nothingness, that is the reason why it is said “ not from things”, but there is a chance to be created from something else, and principally creatures are with the decree of God created from God; there is one creation like the sunrays which arise from the Sun, which shows that this also is one creation / halk). Philosophy has analyzed this from the aspect of intellectualism, whereas Sufis discuss this from the illuminist conception. What does this infer? For instance is there one Muslim which shall say that the world and every material which has been created, which took place (man) has not been in God’s knowledge? There is no such Muslim who shall say this. Meaning that each thing before it was created has been in the knowledge of God, or it can be said if it was in the knowledge of God then it is existent and from the knowledge of God there is creation, one outcome of existence. Or for instance there is one light which has one ray which this ray is created from Allah Almighty. This method of rationalization was moreover conducted by Descartes, for instance before Descartes said: “Cogito, ergo sum”, “I think, thereof I am” he had concluded. He meant: “I think I exist, then from where does my existence arise? Am I the reason of my existence?” he began to think and had concluded: “I have no power to prevent one disease, even if I just drink cold water and then I will get a cold, I cannot even prevent this. Which means that I am a weak person, I am a weak being, in this case I cannot even prevent my own death, nobody has asked me about my birth, which means that my existence is not from myself. My existence is from something else, what is around me?” he had assayed all around him, the mountains, the trees, the Sun, the Moon, the stars, everything around him and he had concluded: “nothing of this has a relation with me, which means that my existence is not depended from them”. In reality Descartes words mean to reflect: “I dwell in thought about God” here between there is a word which says: “Cogito deus…” meaning “I think about God, thereof I exist” , the moment when you conclude that there is one superpower which has created the universe “then only I can comprehend my existence, all aside from this, as long as I do not dwell in thought about Him, I cannot comprehend my existence”.
And for instance think about this, people who think that they are atheist they cannot comprehend existence, they waste their lives. Whereas adherents, regardless to which religion they belong, they can have a batil belief (faith which is not right according to us), they can be Christians, they can be Jews and so forth but still there is a purpose in their lives. In the case where neither of these faiths are present they spend their lives in waste; only the ones who have such a perception attach meaning to existence. In the context of Descarte’s judgment we can conclude that Allah Almighty is the only being who exists from Himself.
In Islamic Tasawwuf oneness is the principal element of existence, ahad. Faqir has one translation “Uncountable zeros before the one” (the ones from you who belong to the elder generations) which is rather an older translation, but I suggest it to you; the author of the original work is Ali Shariat and it is in a poetic short story, it’s a very good book, and one very important matter is discussed in a poetic way.
It suggests: take the one; before the number one, you can insert countless zeros they will still have no value, which shows that the zeros do not generate any value for the number one, but they instead diminish its value continuously, if instead one of the zeros you insert after the number one, then the value is increased, if you insert one more zero after the number one, then the value increases further, and if you insert another one in addition the value will just keep increasing. Which shows that man is precisely like that as well. As long as he has God, the One before, despite man being just a zero, which shows we are inexistent, but only because it comes after the One it becomes ten, if another zero comes past the one it becomes a hundred.
Inasmuch the state of being has one reality and the value of existence, existence can only be comprehended if we attain to understand the existence of Allah Almighty. With this we conclude on the dhatiya attributes of Allah Almighty, inshallah from next week we shall proceed with the thubutiya attributes. The fundamental difference between dhatiya and thubutiya attributes stands in the aspect that thubutiya attributes moreover have a reflection into this world, for instance hayat / viral; ilm/ knowledge, in one way they are present even in the presence and life of people, whereas dhatiya attributes are special attributes referring merely to Allah Almighty. Thank you.
