Realism

 

4.  REALISM IS MORE IDEAL THAN IDEALISM

 

Satan is a very crafty, very skilful deceiver. If he cannot destroy a person by seducing him with sinful gross indulgences like lying, stealing, unjust violence etc., he will then try to destroy his intended victim by deluding the victim with too unrealistic ambitions and plans as a result of which the victim will be entangled in a thousand mad ideas and acts until he   messes up all his relations with all the parties he is involved with. Even if he succeeds in establishing the world he wants it will always be strained with secret resentments and occasional blow-ups and in the end, as the natural law demands the natural order will reassert itself and bury the hapless idealist under the rubble of his mad constructs. The most recent example is Communism in the late Soviet Union; after decades of boastings, pretences and threats it collapsed under its own ill-balanced weight.

 

A far older example is Christianity. In his perhaps unconscious subversion of it St Paul preached a too rarefied idealism about how man should live like (e.g. no marriage or if married then sex only very occasionally for reproduction alone); it bred an incredibly self-denying, self-destroying monasticism on the one hand and a pretentious, hypocritical and power-hungry, wealth-greedy priesthood. In between, the populace led frustrated and subjugated lives equally suffering from sleaze and self-indulgence (like endemic alcoholism and secret sexual affairs) the sins of which could be cancelled by confessing and paying up a redemption fee to the clergy. As from the French Revolution (1789) the whole false and untenable structure came down crumbling and crushing until today we have few practicing Christians and almost a total domination of hedonism among the masses from the top classes to the bottom. Scandalous rumours about the top classes are now the bread and butter of the profit-hungry Western media, especially in the case of the so-called tabloid press which outsell broadsheets massively and TVs which choose a tabloid content. Sleaze (financial corruption, nepotism, cronyism) infests and infects all public bodies regularly and steadily while all concerned, namely the media, the bureaucracy, professional bodies and politicians etc. protest their innocence and I-DE-A-LISM! Bravo to you maestro Satan!

Secularism (exclusion of religion from public administration and morality) failed humanity as badly as misguided religions and has been no less responsible for injustice and atrocity. Secularism is just another idealism and as such destined to crash and crack its brains on the rocks of reality. It led to hedonism and hedonism always leads to sordid crimes (see the ever-increasing roguery, drugs, promiscuity, infanticide and prostitution) causing incredible waste and eventual national failure. Lastly, both failed religions and secularism are united in hating Islam. Why?

 

It is for exactly the reason that it is not idealistic like other beliefs and ideologies but realistic. I am claiming that secularism is also unrealistically idealistic in believing that the more freedoms you give people the happier, safer and  more humane they become both as persons and as a society! This has not been the result but the opposite. Manners replaced morals and self-abuse became universal.

 

As for Islam’s exclusive realism it allows all the man’s natural instincts to find expression and satisfaction within limits of hygiene, decency and justice. It both grants freedoms and limits them in the interests of health and public order. A Muslim has not to feel guilty about eating and drinking adequate amounts of healthful food, satisfying  his or her reproductive and familial instincts through marriage, wearing adequate clothing and inhabiting as comfortable accommodation as he or she can get and participating in social life freely without class or race restrictions and very many more sensible and egalitarian arrangements. Islam is also the most science and technology-friendly of all religions and readiest to admit the metaphorical nature of dogmas and the possibility and desirability of going beyond them and attaining timeless spiritual saving truths. To see how reasonable Islam is we can look at its rivals.

 

Hinduism and its kindred derivations impose a caste system and promise a curse called reincarnation forgetting that a single lifetime is often too long for the suffering humans who make up the majority. If anything, people getting older and frailer would much prefer the Paradise of Islam to another and yet another… wretched life back on earth. What about all those incredibly sacrificial and self-negating practices suffered on the part of yogis to avoid the imaginary hell of reincarnation? What about the caste system and higher castes having inalienable rights to dictate to the lower?

 

What about the racism in Judaism? Can one really believe that our only common creator God could really choose a small and historically proven ne’er-do-well race (ne’er-do-well by choice) and set them against all and all against them as a result? The Qur’an is teaching us instead that Jews were an elect race once upon a time but failed to keep their side of the bargain which was living piously and winning all they came into contact with to One God on equal terms. Islam teaches us that God is for all of us equally and our standing with Him entirely depends on our goodwill and good conduct issuing from it.  As such Islam superseded Judaism and is open to all races equally. Had Jews accepted Muhammad (S) they could join the rest of humanity as equals and needed not to suffer what they suffered from then on. The Shariah is almost identical with the Torah (Jewish Law) and if anything, more lenient and practical.

 

Christianity for its part almost committed suicide by being carried over by an extremely unrealistic and frequently also misguided idealism as already explained. Its ostensible peace aim has always been drowned in the sadistic belligerence of its champions- Remember the witch hunts and the Crusades, all instigated and sanctified by popes!

All this does not mean that in practice Muslims have too far less to answer for in their behaviour. But at least they have the saving grace of the most realistic faith which, had they followed better, they could be less culpable than at present. Our curse has always been the mad idealists among us nowadays termed fundamentalist. Subdue them and practice sensible piety and see the difference. Lastly our Islamic realism also extends to the realisation of the impossibility of creating a perfect world: we can only try our best and achieve some improvements which are far better than nothing. When you know perfection is impossible you do not go to excesses. May Allah help us. Amen.

 

5.  SPIRIT IS BOTH THE BEGINNING AND THE END

 

We are now embarking on the revelation of the top simple and therefore the top secret of spirituality. If you can understand and digest it you will at last be able to appreciate it. This is rare, so please be careful. I am sure that on most my effort will be wasted. What I look for are the few souls ready to mature and thereby resolve the ultimate conflict and source of all moral and spiritual (not bodily) suffering of existence. All the same though, when moral and spiritual suffering is conquered bodily sufferings lose a lot of their power. May Allah spare us from them as well nevertheless. After all, whatever achievements we may attain, we still remain weak and that is what provokes the loving mercy (Rahmat) of Allah for us.

 

Now you will hopefully remember that as a baby you could make little sense of the world around you. Natural phenomena like day and night, hot and cold, wind and rain… just happened. Older children and adults did and spoke a thousand things you could not understand and what is worse you would also often not bother or wish to understand. You were still largely at the mercy of your senses like of painful hunger and pleasant satiety,  feeling miserably cold and then pleasurably warm or sweetly loved and tolerantly indulged by your elders or on the contrary frowned at and scolded and even bodily punished. It was a world which belonged to the older people where you were at the mercy of all, where you were an outsider, sometimes happy thanks to others’ help, sometimes unhappy thanks to those others’ indifference or positive hostility for what reason you could not always see.

By the latest 15 or 20 however you became the part of that world of the grown-ups. Now younger people were at the receiving end of your mercy or wrath going through the same dark but ever more lighting tunnel you had gone until then. Now you understand them while they cannot understand you. You do not fear them, they do fear you.

 

What happened? Why, your mind grew up and matured as you never thought possible: it is a law of nature that all things, given the chance, develop towards their potential ends on a one-way path until a peak is attained and then a slow decline sets in except in spiritual development: here we come across one of the most important differences between matter and spirit: normally spirit goes always higher and higher, the matter rises and then falls.

If you ask me what spirit is I can only quote Allah who states “They ask thee about the Spirit. Say ‘The Spirit is an affair of my Lord (its full secret is only privy to Him); what knowledge you have been given about it is but little” (17: 85).  That ‘little’ is that (as all Sufis know) the spirit is about the MEANING we cannot help giving to things and events interesting and affecting us which begin with ourselves- in other words we are our own most interesting and involved subject of conscious or unconscious study. In fact we are the centre of our private universe of which all events and objects we are conscious of are integral parts. What we do with all things we come to know is ascribing them a MEANING, a concept and interpretation of what they mean for us. This is an inevitable self-projection phenomenon and therefore a totally a self-centred affair: a sudden rain may make me angry because it will spoil my day out while the same rain sends my neighbour heavenwards with joy because it will save him or her the trouble of watering his garden once again. What happened? It is the same rain. It is because your and your neighbour’s attitudes towards the rain are different. Each of you is self-centred and can therefore see things from their own centres of interest. Tomorrow you may move to another house with a beautiful garden. Now you will pleasantly wait for timely rains. What happened? What has changed? Why, your attitude towards the rain is changed because your interests have. Our world view reflects our soul and our soul in this projected and reflected back version becomes for us the World or universal soul, the Spirit, the MEANING of the whole existence for us. For grandest and happiest outcomes this SPIRIT should read GOD, the God of Islam, namely ALLAH. If you are one of those great souls who can and loves seeing Allah in every and any direction it turns to the cause of your this happiness is because Allah is ruling you from the inside of your deep heart and will be guiding you in all your interests and affairs. Read if you wish:

 

“Whichever direction there is the Face of Allah” (2: 115), and

“Those who believe and do good works- Allah guides them through their faith (10: 9)

Conversely “Those who disbelieve Allah’s verses’/signs- Allah will not guide them (16: 104)

 

I am now claiming that our whole life is like that. What meaning you give to your world and what aims you pursue in life reflects your spirit, for you it is the spirit of the universe which, as a result of your own beliefs can be at is noblest and grandest as ALLAH or meanest and smallest- minded as the devil that you are! Our personal lives are accordingly full of values which determine our loves and hates, hopes and fears since these should be entirely based on those values. Nobody can live and function without values, that is to say without personal loves and hates, hopes and fears. What is more all conflict or harmony under the sun issue from the differences or similarities between the values of people involved.  However this does not mean that all those who have the same loves and hates or hopes and fears live harmoniously together. The truth is that when the shared values are material the companions can only be rivals and may have to fight and at times fight only too badly.  Look at the Arab-Israeli dispute: Their love is one and the same- the land of Palestine, because both equally love it. Because they have no higher value, like ALLAH, they cannot resolve their dispute.  Their love for it may appear spiritual but it is not so. Lovers of something for spiritual reasons can share its benefits as we can see from the phenomenon of pilgrimage (hajj). Pligrims are not fighting on the possession of Mecca; they love it for purely spiritual reasons, but those interested in the money they could earn from possessing and governing Mecca (material love) have always fought bloody battles over it. By a ‘material value’ I mean something which when one gets more of it another must get less of it. Money is another  such value. When I get some money another must have parted with it. Position is also material- when one becomes the prime minister of his country another ceases to be the prime minister. In each case it is the case that the winning party is happy and the losing party unhappy. Sometimes this is such that resentment and a desire for revenge come in and a fight in one form or another may follow.  Even religious rivals behave similarly!

 

If and when, somehow, resentment and fight becomes unnecessary perfect harmony and mutual love can prevail. This is when the values shared are spiritual. Since a value is an interpretation we put on a thing or event and since we are free to interpret anything or any event as it appeals to us why not interpret as many things and events as helpfully as we can? In other words, why not give meaning to things and events in ways which leads in each case to both personal contentment and interpersonal peace and love?

This is what the Qur’an is all about: It offers us the best ever way to give meaning to all things founding and surrounding our existence so as to derive from our own personal existence highest possible satisfaction and most constructive relationships with both our physical and social environment. Qur’an’s spirit is the Holy Spirit and that is what Holy Spirit means. We must make it ours and then we also become a Qur’an in human form, another good embodiment of the Holy Spirit. Let us briefly see how.

 

The ultimate meaning the Qur’an teaches us is that the whole existence both at its full breadth and full depth is Allah. Read if you wish:

 

“HE is the First and the Last and the Outer and the Inner and He knows of everything (57: 3)

 

Remember also that we were supposed to see the Face of Allah whichever direction we were to turn to (2: 115)

 

And Allah, Whom we are required to find and be with at all times, means full greatness, goodness and justice. Whatever happens it is ultimately Allah Who is behind it which means that all are and shall be well in the end, however long it takes and whatever intermediate stages have to be gone through.  The basic hypothesis about Allah is that He is ultimately good and only good in every sense and we can rely on him on our prospects of coming to total and final good in the end whatever happens in the whole world in between. This certainly is not science but faith, yet in the form of the Qur’anic faith it is the very best medium through which all human sufferings can be alleviated, noblest aspirations can be entertained and when followed happiest ends attained. If we consent to and wholeheartedly interpret existence in the way the Qur’an teaches us we end up as among the best friends of Allah about whom He All-Gracious says:

 

“Beware (of the fact) that for the friends of Allah there shall be neither fear nor shall they ever grieve. Theirs are all the good-news in the life of this world and in the next: there can be no change in Allah’s words- this is the greatest possible success (for anybody)” (10: 62- 64)

 

Allah’s friends are those who adopt and accept Allah’s values as theirs and those values are the in-principle equality of all people, the necessity of justice among all people, and the promise of peace and welfare for all once they abandon any false values and make peace with Allah. If all identified with Allah and since Allah is one what ensues can only be unity and harmony. Of course perfection always evades us but the more Godliness we can muster through discovering the Holy Spirit and admitting it into our system the more unity and harmony we can bring about among us. Amen.

 

Lastly and conversely, the reason why so many professing religious believers cannot achieve unity and harmony is that they mostly absorb and wear the outer meaning of religious statements which then mean for them some outward action with little or a distorted soul in it: such a shallow believer may attend a mosque service only to fall out with others on creedal or ritual points and come to blows if not daggers. A profound believer however has not only absorbed the letter of the religion but its soul which is the Holy Spirit and under its infallible guidance he can negotiate every territory of troubled waters and deal with other people, believers or not, in ways which will keep all parties safe and peaceful except when such gross and glaring wrong is involved that it needs removing. Then the mature believer will know how to remedy such a situation with minimum fuss and at minimum cost to all parties concerned. It is said that the casualty numbers of all the wars conducted by the Messenger of Allah over a decade until his death barely exceeded three hundred on all sides combined; what is more, the result was peace, harmony and contentment for all parties who eventually united in Islam. Muslim fighting Muslim over unworthy material prizes or coming to blows on philosophical points began after the Prophet’s departure and the cause was again a failure to identify and adopt the Holy Spirit, the Ultimate Good and Gracious MEANING we need to ascribe to existence. The price of failing to find and adopt the Holy Spirit is a vicious circle of strife and war, resentment, hatred and injustice on all sides who failed. The Meaning, the Holy Spirit has been offered to us in the Qur’an but most of us failed even to notice it in the Qur’an let alone adopt it.  Allah describes who the fortunate adopters and absorbers and dispensers of the Holy Spirit contained in His Books are when He says:

 

“These are those on whom Allah bestowed favours from among the prophets from the offspring of Adam, those whom We carried with Noah and from the offspring of Abraham and Israel, and from among those whom we guided and elected. When the verses of the Most Gracious were recited to them they used to fall into prostration, weeping (19: 58).

 

They were recognising the ultimate merciful, gracious meaning of existence which originated in Allah and was verbalised in Allah’s Books. Let us be like them. Amen.

 

6.  COSMIC OUTLOOK- THAT ONLY DELIVERS THE NOBLE TRUTH, NOBLE HAPPINESS

 

In all forms of injustice among people we accuse the selfishness of one or more parties and that often is the case. But once this diagnosis is made it is not often the case that the accused party will admit being the selfish party and offer redress in some form of compensation or at least an apology. Why? Because so long we remain selfish we cannot see or even if we see cannot appreciate the grievance of the party we offended; instead we more concentrate on ways of washing our hands clean of our responsibility. This despicable response to the rightful accusations of others is not only shown by single individuals but juristic persons, like a government, a company, an army etc. These are often even more ‘selfish’ and unconscionable and will usually fight tooth and nail in order not to be made to pay for their injustices. The top culprits are national governments to be sure; follow or study the diplomatic correspondence between two nations contesting something and you will most often find that neither is prepared to grant even an inch of admission of wrong let alone any remedial action. Governments believe that their duty is to protect and promote national interests and that is defined as “I am always right to want and demand anything from others which I believe will make me stronger while I am not prepared to grant any concessions to any other body whether another government or another juristic body like a company or a real person whatever the justice of my demands or desires”.

 

This shows that an organised group of persons can and often do have a group selfishness which can be no less selfish than a single person’s: in fact the opposite is true; being alone and vulnerable and often having some sense of decency, persons may eventually grant that they are in the wrong while groups, instinctively going into a solidarity mode no matter what, can resist the temptation for being more decent and admitting some liability.

Frequent British examples are occasional litigations between a patient and a hospital. The patient accuses the hospital for giving him substandard treatment and he may be quite and demonstrably right in his complaint but the hospital management will often not entertain the complaint. It will instead issue a dry and blunt denial seasoned with a lot of medical and legal jargon and the victim may have to go all the way up to court or to the government ombudsman and spend a long time and perhaps also money before he can get an apology and some compensation from the hospital: instant honest admission of guilt and conscientious redress are not the most popular responses of juristic persons- their top managers are chosen from among the hardiest and most shifty and dodgy characters with a long tract record of evasive strategies and possibly even some skills in fraud. They may destroy documents required by the victim to prove the case and say that the documents must have been mislaid- no document no proof! In cases involving even mightier legal persons, like a government, fires may be arranged to burn down archive rooms in order to destroy the evidence and intelligence services are experts in such feats.

 

Now Islam is out to condemn and correct all such selfish and therefore immoral behaviours. Caliph Umar was so concerned with and stressed by his public responsibilities that he was often in a depressed and worried mood. Asked once why he was so he replied “If a kid (baby goat) was to fall off a bridge I built on river Tigris and be lost I would consider myself failed in my duty to care for every person and asset under my custody and be answerable to God when I meet Him Almighty”. Once he was walking through Jerusalem and came across a very old and weak Christian beggar. He asked his attendants “How come this old man is begging in the streets? We collected poll tax from him when he was stronger only to leave him to his devices when he became weak: pay him a pension and take him off the streets”.

 

Whence this conscience, this non-sectarian, universal humanity of that great Umar? We Sufis know the answer for sure: As all true believers in and full lovers of God he had the cosmic or universal outlook of God! Despite their differences in merit or worth all men, in fact all living beings had some fundamental, inalienable rights in his sight and the religion of a victim had nothing to do with his rights. Islam guaranteed the right to life, to safety, to faith, to  honour, to earnings, and to inheritance of all its citizens no matter their religion. We have amply documented cases of litigation between Muslim rulers and their non-Muslim subjects in which our rulers matter-of-factly admitted liability or culpability when examined by a judge and if found in the wrong promptly apologised and compensated the victim as directed by the judge.

 

We are not here to describe the legal propriety of some great and famous Muslims (many others were not).  What we want to see is that each and every one of us should examine his or her deep heart and make sure that its attitude towards all creatures of God are like God’s: objective, fair and arduous in preventing injustice and promoting justice without racial, sexual, economic or religious prejudice. It is only when persons cultivate and firmly establish a cosmic, God-like attitude towards God’s all creatures that they can be regarded as true submitters to God, that is to say true Muslims. True civilisation is then and only then and through such true civilisation all the intractable disputes of this world can be justly and humanely solved, disputes like Kashmir, Palestine, Cyprus or what have you. The intractability of such disputes is because of the inflexibility of the actors fighting over them and the inflexibility is because of extreme selfishness and arrogance born of extreme selfishness in the actors. Take up the Cosmic or Godly vision and attitude and at no time justice and peace arrives. Is this possible? By all experience and historical evidence, hardly. But every micron and millimetre travelled in this direction will bring us closer to true humanity, true civilisation. Who knows, perhaps one day we’ll do something like that.  You see, we are so foolish, so ignorant, so self-subverting, unaware that every time we gain an unjust advantage we lose more of our humanity and therefore more of the spiritual delights possible for us to attain, delights which are infinitely more pleasurable than the delights selfish indulgences can deliver and infinitely nobler happiness as well. Amen.