‘O My Fellow Prisoners!’: Further Reflections on Difficulties

Peace, one and all…

In a recent post, I offered a few thoughts on difficult situations.

Opening the Quran recently, I came across a beautiful and helpful ayah. In Surah Yusuf, we read the following verse:

O my fellow prisoners! Are diverse lords better, or God, the One (al-Wahid) ,the Paramount (al-Qahhar)? (Quran 12:39, The Study Quran)

The context for this verse is the story of beloved Yusuf (as). In this verse, Yusuf (as) is speaking to his companions in the prison of Pharaoh. He (as) advises to reflect on their situations, challenging them to see beyond the veil of false gods, of secondary causes, to understand that life’s ups and downs come from a single, loving Source. This verse spoke powerfully to me of witnessing this truth clearly. It also spoke to me of steadfastness, of holding tightly on to that love. It also spoke to my heart of adab, of honestly and faithfully turning to the One in the midst of our difficulties. Turn to the One, the Paramount alone, converse deeply in your heart with the Real. Turn your face to God fully.

We sometimes find ourselves imprisoned in difficult situations. This is because the divine wants us to pause, to learn a particularly important lesson. If we try to run from it, we find the doors locked and the Jailer waiting to return us to our cell once more. Can we understand this as a spiritual seclusion, as khalwa? Can we allow our prison to become a place of quiet retreat? Can we allow our difficulties to become a door to liberation? These are the questions that this verse prompted within me.

After lunch, I turned again to the beautiful Fifty Poems of Attar.

While your love is in the midst of the soul
the soul is successful in all things.

O Lord, is there anyone in both worlds
who doesn’t know the price of your love?

The entire world has been denied your love
because it has been concealed from the world.

Grief for you is a quaking mountain;
passion is a shoreless ocean.

I sat with you only for a moment;
too little, too late for my wishes.

If I am to arrive at our union
my wish is to get there before death.

O soul, how will you surpass this world
as long as to this world you’re attached?

This impatient, restless soul of Attar’s
lives eternally on the scent of union

Attar, Fifty Poems of Attar 15

Difficult situations offer a chance to pause, reflect and focus. Will we perceive these situations as imprisonment, or as a spiritual retreat? In either case, both spring forth from God’s beautiful justice, the divine rebalancing that rescues us from ourselves, that liberates us so that we might disappear into that shoreless ocean.

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