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| Muhâsabah (Self-criticism
or Self-interrogation) Fethullah Gulen Literally meaning reckoning, settling the
accounts and self-interrogation, Muhâsabah (self-criticism) is that a
believer always reviews whatever he says and does every day or even every
hour, good or bad, right or wrong. He also thanks God for the good he has
done and tries to erase his sins and deviations by asking God to forgive
him and he amends his errors and sins by repentance and remorse. Muhâsabah
is the very important and serious attempt of a believer to assert himself
in his loyalty to God. It is recorded by the writer of Futuhat al-Makkiya
(‘Makkan Conquests’) — Muhy al-Din ibn al-‘Arabi — that the
righteous people of the early centuries of Islam used to either write down
or commit to their memories whatever they did or said every day. Then they
criticized themselves for any evil or sin in their words and deeds in
order to protect themselves from the storms of vanity and
whirls of self-pride, and they also asked for God’s forgiveness
for that evil sin. They used to shelter in the quarantine of repentance
against the viruses of errors and deviations, and prostrate in
thankfulness to God for the meritorious deeds or words that the Almighty
created through them. Self-criticism may also be described as
seeking and discovering one’s inwardness and spiritual depth and
exerting the necessary spiritual and intellectual efforts to acquire true
human values and develop the sentiments that encourage them. It is by
means of such efforts
that a man distinguishes between what is good and bad and what is
beneficial or harmful to him throughout his life and maintains the
uprightness of his heart. It is through continuous self-criticism
that a man is enabled to evaluate the present and prepare for the future.
Again, it is through self-criticism that he can make up for past mistakes
and be absolved in the sight of God, constantly realizing self-renewal in
his inner world in order to achieve a steady relation with God. This is so
because it depends on whether a man can live a spiritual life and is aware
of what takes place in his inner world that he can preserve his celestial
nature as a true human being and keep his inner senses and feelings
active. With respect to both his spiritual life and
his everyday practical life, a Muslim cannot be indifferent to
self-criticism. On the one hand, he tries to revive his ruined past with
the breezes of hope and mercy blown by Divine calls such as Repent to God
(24.31) and Turn to Your Lord repentant (39.54) which come from the
worlds beyond and echo in his conscience. On the other, through the
warnings, at once as frightening as thunderbolts and as exhilarating as
mercy, contained in the verses such as O you who believe! Fear God and
observe your duty to Him. And let every soul consider what it has prepared
for the morrow (59.18), he comes to his senses and becomes alert (against
committing new sins), being defended as if behind locked doors against all
kinds of evils. Taking each moment of his life to be a time of germination
in spring, he seeks ever-greater depth in spirit and heart with insight
and consciousness arising from belief. Even if he is sometimes pulled down
by the carnal dimension of his existence and falters, he is always on the
alert, as is stated in the Divine declaration: Those who fear God and
observe His commandments, when a passing stroke from Satan troubles them,
they immediately remember (God), and lo! They are all aware (7.201). Self-criticism is like a lamp in the heart
of a believer and a warner and a well-wishing adviser in his conscience.
Every believing man distinguishes through it between what is good and evil
and what is beautiful and ugly and what is pleasing to God and what is
displeasing to Him, and by the guidance of that well-wishing adviser, he
surmounts all obstacles, however seemingly insurmountable, and reaches his
destination. Self-criticism attracts Divine mercy and
favor, enabling one to go deeper in belief and
servanthood, to succeed in practicing Islam, and to gain nearness
to God and eternal happiness. It also prevents a believer from falling
into despair that will ultimately lead him to rely in vanity on his own
acts of worship to be saved from Divine punishment in
the Hereafter. [Note: If a man falls into despair (of Divine mercy)
concerning his eternal life because of his sins, he tries to find a way to
relief from Divine punishment. He then remembers his past good acts and
relies on them. However, this is an utterly inadequate way, as it is
purely through Divine mercy that a man can be saved from God’s
punishment and enter Paradise. Tr.] As self-criticism opens for man the
door to spiritual peace and tranquility, it also causes him to fear God
and His punishment in awe of Him. In the hearts of those who constantly
criticize themselves and call themselves to account for their deeds is
always echoed the Prophetic warning: If you knew what I know, you would
laugh little but weep a lot. Self-criticism which gives rise to both
peacefulness and fear in a man’s heart, continuously inspires in him the
anxiety of those who live doubled up with the heavy responsibility they
feel — the anxiety voiced as: If only I had been a tree cut into pieces.
Self-criticism makes man always
feel the distress and strain expressed in: The earth seemed constrained to
them for all its vastness and their own souls strained to them (9.118). In
every cell of their brains resounds: Whether you make known what is in
your souls or hide it, God will bring you to account for it (2.284), and
they groan in utterances like I wish my mother had not given birth to me! While it is difficult for everyone to
achieve self-criticism of such a degree, it is also difficult for one who
does not do so [to be sure that he will be able] to live today better than
yesterday and tomorrow better than today. Those who are crushed between
the wheels of time, those whose every day is not better than the preceding
one, cannot perform well their duties pertaining to the afterlife. It shows the perfection of one’s belief
that one constantly criticizes and reprimands oneself. Every soul who has
planned his life to reach the horizon of perfect, universal man is
conscious of his life and spends every moment of his life struggling with
himself. He demands a password or visa from whatever occurs to his heart
and mind. He controls himself against the temptations of Satan or the
excitement of his temper and is extremely careful about whatever he will
say or do. He frequently criticizes himself even for those of his acts
seemingly most sensible and acceptable. When it is evening every day, he
calls himself to account for what he has done through the day and when it
is morning, he begins his day with a resolution not to commit a sin. He
knits the ‘lace of his life’ with the ‘threads’ of self-criticism
and self-accusation. [Meaning,
he spends every moment of his life in self-criticism and constant
awareness of what he says and does.] Source: |