Last week we discussed about the last verse of the surah Nasr; a verse that began with a demand and decree from Allah Almighty, in order for us to exalt Him, conduct tasbih towards Him. We also mentioned several other instances from the Qur’an in which worship towards Allah Almighty has been inferred. We said that worship is one of the conditions and requirements of an adherent towards God, because namaz, fasting, hajj, shahada, iman, all of these in a sense, are a remembrance and worship towards Allah Almighty. God’s demands are of a special character that cannot be compared to other duties and obligations of this world. When Allah Almighty establishes a decree “Worship Allah Almighty (mentioning the name of Allah Almighty)”, this initially is considered a decree from which one cannot run away. It is obligatory, imagine the Creator asking something from you and for you not to abide; if the head of the family or an employer makes certain requests the employees or family members are obliged to finish the duty otherwise they would be fired; and can you now imagine the character of Lord’s requirement? He has urged that certain decrees to be fulfilled by the creatures that He Himself created, and to whom if the abundance is stopped then all creatures would perish. Yet despite God’s decrees, creatures do not respect His order and yet again He doesn’t stop the abundance to them. His decree is one that needs to be accepted by a person’s will and perhaps this is the most sophisticated meaning of democracy; a decree for the freed man, and for man to have the freedom of choice to act upon his will. I mentioned this specific decree of Allah Almighty on purpose (this does not only refer to tasbih but with namaz too), because it is an important element and that element is a good message for all people, regardless if they are believers or nonbelievers. Muslims of our time have a great weakness of theirs which is lack of understanding other hues, other nuances of Islam practiced by others, and this can be dangerous. Nowadays people live in a time when fast communication is everything to them, in which various ideas and concepts, regardless if we agree with them or not, are spread very fast across the world. Today it’s impossible to back up ideologies without building a bond, a relationship with the person presenting; if the ideologies are to be presented nicely, in that case they can come to be understood and accepted. This is the only way for it to succeed since we are facing more and more dangerous disruptions that occur in many places in the Islamic world. This means that the decree, essentially, is directed towards the freedom of humans; we cannot force anyone into anything. We are only communicating with the freedom of a person (please remember this well), and that person within the boundaries of his freedom, has the right to rejoice with or turn down this decree (the one decree from Allah Almighty). Under any occasion this doesn’t mean that we will stop the abundance to this person. This doesn’t mean we have a right to abandon him or not speak to him only because he turned down our invitation. He will own all the rights to his own life as a human, regardless if he agrees or disagrees with our order.
Our weakness here is that when we speak about tasbih, we mainly refer to subhanallah, conduct namaz and this is all that it takes to worship Allah Almighty. There is one scholar from the XIX to XX century with Albanian origin (once I have mentioned him here), is Iman Tahsin from Janina. He has been closely related to the Sultan Abdul Hamit the II; he was even sent to post diplomatic studies in Sorbonne, France. After returning from France he established the first contemporary university during the Islamic world, during the Ottoman Empire, called Dar’u’l-funun / the house of arts (Fakir has translated some of his work from Osmani to Albanian, and some of them have been published in Albania). There is one work by him that Fakir, myself, have translated (in fact it is a brochure but books are not measured in pages), it is called “Tarihu’l-Kainat ve yahud Hilkat”/“The history of the universe or creation” , he is one of the few Muslim authors that established his work on the achievements of the contemporary science of that time (XVIII-XIX centuries). He talks about the creation of the Universe, in which he combines the traditional arguments (from the Qur’an, Bible, Gospel) and at the same time the scientific and rational arguments. He talks about 10 sciences and among those he talks about mechanic meteorology, physics, chemistry and so forth, through these fields he gives arguments of the existence of Allah Almighty in the universe. Yet at the same time he offered a platform so that people could analyze the history of creation of man, and in the end of each page that had to do with science (lets say for example he wrote two-three paragraphs on mechanical meteorology), and when talking about meteorology he talked about the tides and the downs, the creation of winds and the movement of winds from the Atlantic Ocean to the North Pole, and then in that of the South (he explains this in very detailed manner and connects them to the Qur’an), and in the end of his writing he finished his paragraph will Subhanallah / Praise be to Allah Almighty. What is this telling us? This is telling us that Allah Almighty is not only worshiped by tasbih only, or only with namaz, but Allah Almighty is also worshiped through meteorology (as an example). Even the zikr of a scientist is a remembrance of Allah Almighty by the scientist. This is also one of the highest means of remembrance towards Allah Almighty. This goes to all domains of life, meaning that even a public employer could be conducting zikr if he does his job well, and this also counts as remembrance of Allah Almighty.
Lately we have been facing a dangerous problem in our society and that is the non-sufficient paychecks of professors, doctors, lecturers in our public institutes. And oftentimes, people being served by these doctors, professors, teachers, pay the price, by not getting good enough service. Tell me something, which kid today can learn math without attending private classes? There isn’t one. This tells us that people don’t comprehend well that schooling, medical world, and all other crafts are tasbih / worship towards Allah Almighty. The most important thing to us is for Allah Almighty to be pleased with us, and everything else comes after. We don’t need wealth or anything else of value from this world, unless with what we earn we cannot please Allah Almighty; this is supposed to be our philosophy of life. Only in this manner, in this philosophy of life we can live in peace, otherwise its not possible.
Resultantly, Iman Tahsin, in a very conscious manner, at the end of each paragraph in which he spoke of an important scientific research, he inserts the word Subhanallah; which is decreed to us here on the Nasr Surah, Allah Almighty says: “Fa sabbih bi hamdi rabbike wastagfirh”.
There is another element that I wish to encounter: in this passage, both worship and being grateful and thankful to Allah Almighty, are mentioned. You may have noticed that oftentimes when we speak about being grateful to Allah Almighty, we mention two crucial terms and those are Hamd, which is mentioned in the surah Al-Fatiha “Alhamduli-llah”, and the second term is Shukr, which also has a similar connotation and we also translate this as thankfulness. Scholars have discussed the difference of the word usage of hamd and shukr. (in a separate verse Allah Almighty says: “La in shakartum la ezeedineekum” / And [remember] when your Lord proclaimed, ‘If you are grateful, I will surely increase you [in favor]” (Surah Ibrahim, 7). Here in this verse it says if you are grateful (to HimWhereas hamd is mentioned without any other words in front of a verse, without a conditioning. This tells us that hamd is used as purely gratefulness without the need for something material in return, but merely being grateful for existing as good human beings, for being born Muslims, for being here reading this lecture now; all of these events of being grateful are actually for future potential matters that will increase God’s will to intervene and advocate your life and aid to improve it.
Two renewed Sufis, Shakik Belhi and Abu Said Nuri have once been discussing and Abu Said Nur asked Shakik Belhi “what do you do when Allah Almighty grants you abundance and what do you do when he doesn’t?” Shakik Belhi has replied “when we are granted abundance, we thank Allah Almighty, when He doesn’t provide abundance we have sabr / practice patience”. Abu Said Nur has been a very devoted man and had replied back through a metaphor “this is what even dogs do”; meaning that when the owner gives them food the dogs are thankful for it, and when the owner doesn’t give them good, they just wait patiently because there is nothing else for the dogs to do. Then Shakik Belhi asked Abu Said Nur: “ok then, what do you do?” the latter replied: “when we are given abundance from Allah Almighty, then we share that with others, and when we are not given abundance, we thank Allah Almighty”. This is hamd, this is the message here. Both (shukr and hamd) are valuable in Islam, but hamd is essential, basic. That’s why the Qur’an begins with this word; it is not by coincidence that the Qur’an begins with a category, one axiological category; begins with a highest value; by being thankful.
Gratefulness is a mindset of compliments; have you noticed that those who lose the inceptive to give compliments are usually people with no positive attitude. For instance, people in our culture have an issue with this; we don’t know how to give compliments; even when we want to praise someone, we instead end up offending them. We have developed many ways of offending others, but very little about complimenting other. Islam is the religion of compliments, because it even starts with a compliment; by hamd / thankfulness – one axiological value. This is their value in Islam, both of hamd and tasbih / worship. Each one of you here that is undergoing some studies, have in mind that each time you dedicate yourself to your study you are saying La ilaha-ilallah, La ilaha-ilallah, La ilaha-ilallah. For those that are dedicated to science, even the Prophet (PBUH) in some hadeeths says that (these are authentic hadeeths, sahih) from the moment these people step out of their door and go where they are supposed to go, Allah Almighty sends an angel to that provides wings under their feet and takes them to the place where they collect the knowledge then takes them back home; then the hadeeth says that the color of the pen of a scholar is like the blood of shahids / because this consumed color of a pen is like the shed blood of a shahid on the battlefield. This is why, we have mentioned several times that, as Muslims, those that are dedicated to Allah Almighty have a great responsibility. And have in mind that religion (I have inferred this several times) cannot be manifested only by words; it seeks scientific reasoning to matters, seeks analytical analyses to religious maters; this is all very crucial for us to progress in time. In this manner, hamd and tasbih, are as vacuum time fulfillment from Allah Almighty. One of the main issues with people is that they have a lot of free time (people don’t know what to do), they sleep till lunchtime, stay in coffee places, gamble, watch football for 4-5 hours per week (this is too much). This is why in the surah Ash-Sharh Allah Almighty says: “Fa idha faragta fansab. Wai la rabbika fargab”. / “So when you have finished [your duties], then stand up [for worship]. And to your Lord direct [your] longing.” (verse 7-8).
It is during our free time that we develop habits and then these habits are hard to change (we create the habit of sleep and playing games during this free time), that’s why the verse from surah Ash–Sharh tells us to develop the habit of remembrance hamd towards Allah Almighty. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t allow ourselves to enjoy and experience some entertainment, but the focus of our life should not revolve around things that mainly waste our time. Let’s think about it for a moment, for instance, from a metaphysical point of view, how much do we gain from playing games for about 4 hours, leave aside the sin here, what eternal benefit do we have from this? No eternal benefit. Then, is it possible for a smart person to allow himself to be led by this? Then other things that come with wasted time are negligence, gaffle which both are the greatest enemy of Allah Almighty and the worship to Him. This has been encountered in the surah Al-Mu’minun, verse 3: “Wa’l-ladhine hum ani’l-lagwi mu’ridun” “And they who turn away from ill speech”, that this is second most important after namaz. Tasbih as well, has a connotation on filling our free time; that’s why in Tasawuf Darwish have daily remembrances called awrad, for example every time after namaz they say 33 times la ilaha il-lallah; they read something after morning prayer; after each namaz they read something extra in order to fill their free time with remembrance of God (fulfilling the earlier verse we just mentioned here).
Don’t be scared when I use the word Darwish; they are not the people you would normally think about, those persons in our community who have represented the tasawwuf in our territories. The word darwish means companion, friend of God. The word Sufi means, a person who has separated from all the pleasures of this world, has purified his soul and has been devoted himself to God; there is nothing wrong with this here. It was during the Serbian hegemony that we turned away from tarikkats and were forced to crease aversions of tarikkats and tasawwufs. After the WWI, when the Serbs had entered today’s territories, they had destroyed the tekkes, since sheikhs were the main carriers of the social life during this Osman time. Every new system destroys the original system that was responsible for delivering values, then they influenced this new system by inserting new non-Islamic elements inside the tekkes (we witness this sometimes even today). However today most of this system is being filtered, there is no tekke without namaz, they keep them clean, no consumption of alcohol, fasting is practiced regularly and hajj as well, and even Darwish and Sufis have additional daily obligations they must abide aside from namaz.
The essence of tasbih / zikr is represented in another verse of the Qur’an as well. We said that the best commentator of the Qur’an is by the Qur’an itself, this why those who haven’t studied the Qur’an cannot speak on behalf religion. We explained the meaning of tasbih with the scientific verse (ikra bismi), we explained this verse with the concept of not wasting time and now we will explain it by another verse in which Allah Almighty says: “Wa’r-rujzi fahjur” – to erase, remove the imperfections from thyself” – and this is another meaning of tasbih which is highly important.
Among us there may be 2-3 people who don’t perform their namaz in timely manner and tonight he or she might say well today once I get home I will pray; but he or she should stick to his word and do it tonight, otherwise it will not count. If you do it today instead of tomorrow, this counts as tasbih too; the same goes for other decisions too. Several times some people have come to me and said “dear Iman, until today I have committed to this sin, but from today onwards I give my word to God that I will not do this again; will God forgive me now?” Surely He will forgive you as long as you don’t owe anything to anyone and that for which you regret is in full sincerity, for that you will be forgiven by God (we will elaborate on this at the end of this surah). Owing someone something is not always through money; maybe we broke someone’s heart or hurt someone; this too is a case when we owe something to someone. People usually think that to cause harm is to steal someone’s money, but sometimes maybe you took credit for someone else’s work; this is an instance of owing something to someone. As Muslims we need to avoid going between these affairs. People might say well then you will never become wealthy like this but believe me it is not the case. We might not be filthy rich, but we will be rich because we shall be pleased and happy with what we have; but those who become wealthy by immoral practices will never be satisfied and will be consumed by greed. This is why we are rich; happy with what we have. Surely through hamd and tasbih we need to eliminate our negative attributes from our personality.
Another element I want to mention is, what it actually means when we engage in ill doing, its not only things like I drank alcohol and similar examples, its also cases when someone needs our help and we reject to help them; you have a possibility to do good here but you don’t do it; and this is ill doing. In Islam, ill doing doesn’t only refer to single acts of sin; but also, those times when you are capable of doing good deeds yet refuse to do them. That’s why the adherent should always use his potential and abilities to do good to humankind. Tasawwuf has a rule: without tasting it, you will never know. Those who have not tasted it, cannot comprehend it; good deeds are alike, if you don’t do it, if you are not a person that does good deeds you won’t understand this level; that’s why doing good deeds needs to become our habit. In the book “The direction to the Way of happiness” Al-Farabi speaks about some positive behaviors of people, like courage, heroism (Fakir has translated this book into Albanian 25 years ago) and he says that if you wish for these traits to become really positively enforced in your character, you need to turn them into habits. People have become courageous because they have turned courage into a habit, and the same for heroic traits of people; these are traits that we as Muslims must also turn them into habits. This is also a type of hamd and gratefulness to Allah Almighty. Shall we be able to truly and fully be grateful to Allah Almighty? (this mainly refers to adherents who are more devoted), but we need to have in mind this question as well. We shall never be able to fully show our gratitude to Allah Almighty, as He deserves it. Once, the Prophet (PBUH) turned to Allah Almighty and said: “I never succeeded to show my full gratitude to You, to be grateful to You as You have proclaimed, but the best way to exalt You is as You have exalted Thyself”; that’s why the best prayers are found in the Qur’an. A friend of mine recently said “sometimes when I read the Qur’an it seems like someone else is talking to someone else”, and this is true. Imagine the time when people were still nonexistent; who turned to whom and said rabbana / dear God of ours, “Dear God give us both goodness in this world and the hereafter”? there were no people, just God. I am not sure if you recall in our first lectures we said that people and the earth are merely a reflection of the attributes of God, and in this connotation, the attributes of God turn to the individuality of God; to the dhat of God. In another hadeeth the Prophet (PBUH) says: “I didn’t succeed to exalt You, the way You deserve to be exalted”.
Thus, gratefulness and exalting Allah Almighty are elements that ought to accompany us in all spheres of life, this needs to be remembered well. Islam is a system of life; Islam is not something experienced only in the Mosque. Islam is found amid all domains of life. And please also have in mind that not all of us can act like angels. If it was God’s will, he would have made us alike, we would have just prayed to Him and it would be enough. We all have faults, Fakir here has faults, you have faults; we cannot run from faults, we should strive to avoid them, but aside our faults we need to commit to good deeds. In the Surah Hud, verse 114 Allah Almighty says: “Inna’l-hasanati yudhhibna’s-sayyiat” /And establish prayer at the two ends of the day and at the approach of the night. Indeed, good deeds do away with misdeeds. That is a reminder for those who remember”. Therefore, we should strive to commit to good deeds constantly, in order to keep balance with our misdoings and not let them surpass us. It is important for what we considered haram not to become philosophy of our life, for it not to become a normal daily practice for us.
Thank you!