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| The Transformative Nature of
Islam Abdul Haqq Bewley As for him who overstepped the bounds and
preferred the life of the dunya, the Blazing Fire will be his refuge. But
as for him who feared the Station of his Lord and forbade the lower self
its appetites, the Garden will be his refuge. (79:37-40) That is because Allah would never change a
blessing He has conferred on a people until they had changed what was in
themselves. Allah is All-Hearing, All-Knowing. (8:54) The second ayat is repeated twice in the
Qur'an and is usually quoted in the context of improvement, in other
words: Allah will not make things better for us until we better ourselves.
But in fact, although it clearly can mean this, the meaning both times it
is used appears to be the opposite: that Allah will not make things worse
for us unless we change for the worse. The change can be in both
directions. The important thing to grasp from the ayat is that everything
in existence is in a state of constant change and that this also applies
to Muslims both as individuals and communities. Islam is a dynamic, it is
a process, it is an organic patterning. It is not a fixed, solid
structure, a rigid legal framework which you somehow get hold of and fit
yourself into. It is vital to understand this if we want Islam to spread
and become fully established and implemented in the world again. Islam is all about change, about growth,
about transformation on the one hand or, and we seek refuge with Allah
from it happening, the opposite of this, about stasis, shrinkage and
deterioration. When someone becomes Muslim, they change. The change can be
seen in their faces. Their lives are transformed. This is absolutely
inevitable and if it does not happen, it means that they have not really
become Muslim, their Islam has not "taken". The transformation
is the result of the heart's exposure to the Muhammadan light and when we
speak of the heart it must be understood that we are not speaking in any
way figuratively. There is in the breast of every human being an organ of
perception which is our access point to the subtle worlds of meaning,
angelic energy and Divine power which interpenetrate with this world of
physical appearances which we inhabit. The root meaning of the Arabic word for
heart, qalb, is turn over, change, transform, convert, transmute. Becoming
Muslim entails turning one's heart upside down, so that instead of facing
downwards towards the opaque density of the dunya, it faces upwards
towards the subtle worlds of the spiritual realities, towards the
potential of your own perfectibility as a human being whose highest
possibility is the Muhammadan light itself Although we commonly talk about inward and outward it must be understood that there is no hard and fast line between them; they are interpenetrating realms. Therefore so-called inward transformation inevitably manifests itself outwardly, so that being Muslim involves our lives in inexorable and irreversible change. What happens is that we begin to take on the Muhammadan form. This connects with the ayat in Sura Ali 'Imran: Say, 'If you love Allah, then follow me and
Allah will love you' (3:31) Being Muslim means being drawn to all those
things that the Prophet, salla'Llahu 'alayhi wa sallam, did and taught his
Companions to do. First the basic practices of the deen and gradually
those qualities of character, such as taqwa, generosity, fortitude,
courtesy and other virtues, which found their perfection in the Messenger
of Allah, salla'Llahu 'alayhi wa sallam, and inseparable from this is the
desire to share the invaluable gift of Islam we have been given with as
many other people as possible. A word of warning here for the many Muslims
who do treat their deen as a rigid structure, as a series of outward
actions they impose on themselves and others without true inward
acquiescence and submission. Doing this inevitably leads to a split in
their being which almost always results in periodic acts of
self-gratification of the most repugnant kind and in extreme cases to
madness. And warning also for those who say that they are Muslims inwardly
while refusing to take on the obligations of the Shari'a. Their lack of
outward transformation shows that they are deluding themselves in a most
dangerous way and putting their ultimate fate in the gravest jeopardy. There is never any room for complacency.
Being a Muslim means being willing to undergo a never ending process of
self-transformation. The transformation process is endless because
perfection belongs to Allah alone and is a goal which can always be
approached but never attained, but we can never give up trying. There can
be no such thing as sitting back and saying to yourself, 'That's it.
That's as far as I can go. I've done as much as I can do.' If you settle
for the status quo it means you are losing your deen. As we have said
Islam is a dynamic; there is no such thing as stasis. If you are not going
forwards, you are going backwards. If you are not gaining ground, you are
losing ground. You are in fact giving the lie to Allah's great blessing to
you by not taking it on to the full. He himself says of such a state: We will lead them, step by step, into
destruction from where they do not know. (7:182) Source: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/ABewley/transkhutba.html Khutba: Friday 23rd June 2000 |