The Intimate Discourses of Ibn Ata’illah 3

Peace, one and all…

Intimate Discourse 3

My God, the diversity of Your planning and the speed of Your predestined decrees prevent Your servants, the gnostics, from relying on gifts or despairing of You during trials.

Commentary

‘The divine decrees are ever-changing. A man is sometimes in poverty and then Allah Most High bestows wealth on him; and sometimes the rich are reduced to penury. Health is transformed into sickness and vice versa. Strength into weakness and weakness into strength. Honour is snatched away and disgrace sets in. The lowly is elevated and granted respect and rank. 

These ever-changing conditions are part of predestination (taqdir) which unravel with swiftness. These two factors prevent the gnostics from smugness in their comforts and bounties they are endowed with; hence they do not focus their attention on the material and spiritual bounties awarded to them. They have understood the temporary nature of these awards. These are things which come and go. It is, therefore, not worthwhile to attached the heart to things which will disappear.

They also do not lose hope in Allah’s mercy when calamities descend upon them. They are fully aware that these calamities too are not enduring. These too will disappear.’

Reflections

This passage really hits home. There have been many occasions where I have found myself relying on other than God. When challenging issues have come my way, I have observed myself trying to micro-manage my way out of that situation: this person will do x and then I can do y and everything will be ok. On occasions, I have found myself thinking, ‘If this situation goes wrong, then this person will help me’. In other words, it is hard to see the reality of things when our hearts look first at secondary causes. Things can neither help us nor harm us. In reality, only Allah does anything.

In that sense, Ibn Ata’illah’s couplet gets right to the point: the purpose of these ever-changing circumstances is to free the heart from every unworthy attachment, from everything other than God. Whenever we rely on some thing, it is eventually removed. Every hand-hold other than God’s will dissolve.

۞ وَمَن يُسْلِمْ وَجْهَهُۥٓ إِلَى ٱللَّهِ وَهُوَ مُحْسِنٌۭ فَقَدِ ٱسْتَمْسَكَ بِٱلْعُرْوَةِ ٱلْوُثْقَىٰ ۗ وَإِلَى ٱللَّهِ عَـٰقِبَةُ ٱلْأُمُورِ ٢٢

‘Whoever directs himself wholly to God and does good work has grasped the surest handhold, for the outcome of everything is with God’ (Quran 31:22)

From this perspective, the tests and trails of life, regardless of how we perceive them, are all designed to underline our utter neediness before Allah and to therefore, to empty our hearts of distractions. That emptying process allows us to move beyond our conditioning and our habitual behaviours. We can, as it were, de-program ourselves. We can unplug, breathe and let go.

This couplet leads me to a place of bewilderment. Gifts and trials become one and the same thing. Each thing represents Allah’s merciful dissolution of unhelpful attachments. Allah is the Bestower. Allah is the Ultimate Inheritor. These realisations begin to dissolve my very notion of who I am. If I am not my automatic behaviours and compulsions, what am I? If I am utterly encompassed by the Divine Reality, then what am I? 

The beloved Knowers of God see things this way far more deeply than this one. In fact, it is their permanent state of being. Seeing this beautiful oneness is an integral part of their recognition, of their ma’rifah. The overflowing nature of these shifts, and the speed at which they occur, also underline another aspect of mercy. Allah loves those who purify themselves and draw near. Divine love is the cause of our liberation. A much-loved hadith beautifully articulates this:

حَدَّثَنَا عُمَرُ بْنُ حَفْصٍ، حَدَّثَنَا أَبِي، حَدَّثَنَا الأَعْمَشُ، سَمِعْتُ أَبَا صَالِحٍ، عَنْ أَبِي هُرَيْرَةَ ـ رضى الله عنه ـ قَالَ قَالَ النَّبِيُّ صلى الله عليه وسلم ‏ “‏ يَقُولُ اللَّهُ تَعَالَى أَنَا عِنْدَ ظَنِّ عَبْدِي بِي، وَأَنَا مَعَهُ إِذَا ذَكَرَنِي، فَإِنْ ذَكَرَنِي فِي نَفْسِهِ ذَكَرْتُهُ فِي نَفْسِي، وَإِنْ ذَكَرَنِي فِي مَلأٍ ذَكَرْتُهُ فِي مَلأٍ خَيْرٍ مِنْهُمْ، وَإِنْ تَقَرَّبَ إِلَىَّ بِشِبْرٍ تَقَرَّبْتُ إِلَيْهِ ذِرَاعًا، وَإِنْ تَقَرَّبَ إِلَىَّ ذِرَاعًا تَقَرَّبْتُ إِلَيْهِ بَاعًا، وَإِنْ أَتَانِي يَمْشِي أَتَيْتُهُ هَرْوَلَةً ‏”‏‏.‏

Narrated Abu Huraira: The Prophet (ﷺ) said, “Allah says: ‘I am just as My slave thinks I am, (i.e. I am able to do for him what he thinks I can do for him) and I am with him if He remembers Me. If he remembers Me in himself, I too, remember him in Myself; and if he remembers Me in a group of people, I remember him in a group that is better than they; and if he comes one span nearer to Me, I go one cubit nearer to him; and if he comes one cubit nearer to Me, I go a distance of two outstretched arms nearer to him; and if he comes to Me walking, I go to him running.’ “
(Sahih al-Bukhari 7405)

Our hearts are thus kept between fear and hope, between joy and despair. In our innermost centre, there is a still point, a space empty of every duality. As we grow, that space can begin to open out and become our place of liberation, from where we can leap beyond our limitations. This heart is reminded forcefully of the semazen, the whirling dervish, who turns in the centre of God’s love, silently chanting, ‘Allah, Allah, Allah‘

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