Salaam Sayyidi and Salaam to everyone
1.Sayyidi,last year you wrote a sentence:
“Sadly for me to be truthful is far more suited than being pious”
I could not understand it that time. Now I am beginning to see the depths of these words. All I can say is thank you.
2. It has been more than eight years I have been performing five times prayer a day.
But all these years I saw nothing.
I experienced nothing.
No sign of any Divine Ray.
All I see is my Self repeating verses of the Quran, making Dhikr, standing up,bowing down and so on.
I feel like a hypocrite, Nafs thinks that it is doing an extemely pious deed while there is no connection with Allah whatsoever.
What might the possible reason behind this? Any hint?
Salaam Shakir
This is an example of Christian views of worship which is now adopted by Muslims.
“I” get up and pray, “I” chant remembrance of Allah, “I” worship Allah. Therefore “I” am enlightened, “I” am rewarded and “I” have salvation!
These are all falsehood, which we view in movies Americans make, the kinds like Ten Commandments and Noah and the rest of entertainment, which has become people’s TV religion, Muslims’ alike. As Marilyn Manson sang:
GOD IS IN THE TV
He was correct insofar as American concept of religion, which we have adopted as Muslims.
Recall that the Prophet told us prior to the actual ritualized prayer i.e. Salat, to perform shorter prayers or Dhikr or sit silently awaiting the arrival of the prayer time.
I like the sitting silently, you sit still and WAIT to be called by Allah to perform a worship or WAIT to be given permission to call ITs Name.
We cannot initiate that call, it is Allah’s Call from the other realm, cannot be initiated from here.
Ignorant man thinks he is worshiping Allah, enlightened man thinks he is invoked to worship. Very different acts, very different men.
But Allah may call you tonight to worship, maybe not, maybe 30 years from now, our concept of time and Allah’s concept of time do not coincide.
Our concept of causality and Allah’s concept of causality do not coincide.
The seed does not sunder to sprout! Allah is the sunderer!
Your problem, my problem, is excessive and harsh exposure to American Judeo-Christian media and ailing concepts of religion and belief which we ignorantly and incessantly regurgitate as this falsified version of Islam.
I am not saying to ban the American media, I am saying to turn off the absorption of their religious dogmatic programming by unsuspecting viewer. THINK when you watch a movie e.g. Noah or Ten Commandments, THINK what is the programming behind the flashy images, how to block them from becoming our religion.
Dara
Salam Shakir and Dara
Shakir, I was moved by your post and wanted to reply with something supportive, but did not for the same reason of feeling ignorant and hypocritical. But I think this feeling can be a trap, and since the previous post is about speaking from the heart, from personal knowledge rather than dogma, I decided to say something to you in friendship.
We have a shared experience. I too spent years in fruitless prayer, seeking so truly and finding almost only this feeling of personal hypocrisy. I know many people go through this and it is demoralising. But it does not mean that you are failing and it may be an essential process to go through. By the time it ends, you will know – not in despair but in trust – that there is nothing you can do or say to get it right, and you cannot get away from yourself. And you’re still in the way, blocking your own reception of God, even though He is there, closer than your jugular vein. But now you’re doing it differently. Instead of trying to get it right (a form of arrogance) you just want to get out of the way! And when the futility of that desire sinks in, instead of destroying yourself you turn to the rest of creation and live towards it as well and lovingly as you can, not to impress God, not to try and produce personal virtue, but simply because this is all that is left to do, and it may or may not even count as service.
And how it turns out, presumably that will differ from person to person. I can only tell you that it is good and you were never alone. And now you also have the companionship of the many who travel the same path alongside you and send you their warm greetings.
gjpm
Does Allah really needs our worship and prayers? The Quran says Allahus Samad…meaning that Allah as a zaat is not in need of anything.
Salaam Altaf
As you said Allah needs no worship from us. I find myself far away from Islam when during the worship I feel-good that I am doing something for Allah as in favors.
I like to mention two movies along the lines of our discussion that resonates some concepts:
Amadeus
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086879/
Copying Beethoven
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0424908/
In both movies there are explicit and illustrated passages of conversations about God and the fake made up missions imposed on the individual who is just a musician entertaining people, but yet has turned into GOD’S WORK and the drama that goes along with it.
If you carefully listen and de-construct the English words of Anna Holz or Salieri, you see this ever-present pomp in the man dialogue with God.
I am finding bizarre forms of these in Muslim dialogues these days, something I was not hearing from them before say in 70s or 80s.
It is quite clear that in our time, God needs man’s worship, and God is compromised otherwise and man’s work and worship for God is central to existence of God.
As you said Altaf, Allah needs nothing from our worship. But do we not say things in contrast as Muslims? Example: Allah wants you dead or punished (and therefore the violence of the few ensue).
Salaam Dara,
I will surely check out those movies. Previously, whenever I used to start praying, my ego was so filled up with a sense of superiority over those “lowly beings” who do not pray. Now when I pray (sparingly that is) I ask myself does IT really require me to do this…sounds a kind of egoistic human trait for IT
salaam Altaf
Exactly as you said if one feels superior over people because of any reason worst in religious duty, then that person has no path to Allah and might as well not worship at all.
However this does not rhyme well with what you see in the mosques and Muslim scholars and clergy.
So you are a victim.
These days it is very hard to worship and not feel superior.
In Middle East, until 80s, Islam was not the popular ideology of the choice, if you care to review you find that communism and socialism or capitalism were highly valued and sought.
But none of them worked, specially for the Arab and Iranian.
So they were out of ideologies and they picked Islam as means to re-mobilize masses after bitter defeats. Again it is not working, because it is not the religion of the Prophet is another man made ideology cooked by the Arab and Iranian.
But the leadership needs followers, soldiers; in other words loyal and aggressive folk seeking superiority to build nations armies and economies, and those are not in tune with psychology of proper Islamic worship when the person is not aggressive and feeling superiority.
You see that in Right Wing Jew and Christian as well, they were not spared at all.
Either Allah sends us light, or we are lost in these dark times.
Dara
Salam Dara,
I am always having bitter discussions with the mullahs of the masjids in my vicinity. These people have literally destroyed the deen of Muhammad. The mullahs have branded me as a kaafir and even deemed my nikaah as null and void.
I think there are two types of islam, one is the Allah’s islam and one is Mullah’s islam…
Altaf
We do not worship Muslims nor Mullahs, we worship Allah.
When these Mullahs pay for your food and house and your kids school, then they have the right to push their own religion.
If they do not do a thing for you, then you are free to worship Allah as Allah deserves and as the Prophet prescribed.
Insofar as modern Islam, if the Prophet was alive they would call him Kafir.
Dara
Salaam Sayyidi and Salaam James Grant Sir
I thought I had a lot to say. But after reading your replies I became silent.
Shakir must not lose HOPE and he needs to WAIT with patience to be called by Allah SubhanaHu Wa Ta’ala.
My dear Shakir,
You know one thing? You seem to be seeking. If so, Allah has promised to everyone that if you seek you will find; indeed Allah will show you signs in the heavens and within yourself.
Of that we are assured. But how does that work?
I share with you my understanding, because I have gone through a similar path, or what I think of as a similar path, because in reality every person is unique and has a unique path.
First of all how do I know that I am seeking?
Am I seeking following my soul, or am I practicing what I have been told to practice? This is not a rhetorical question. I think it is at the root of the seeking.
To answer this question I tell myself that I must meet three prerequisites. First I must trust myself, i.e. trust what my inner self tells me. In Surah Shams we are told that : WA ALHAMAHA FUJURAHA WA TAQWAHA. This holds for every person. Every person is made self sufficient with respect to knowing what is good for him and what is bad for him. This ability is built into all of us. Allah tells us so, and we know so, and we can trust what we know, and we can trust it better than everything else. That is because Allah has ALHAMAHA this knowledge or the capability to achieve this knowledge within each one of us.
Second, I must have an open mind. An open mind is to be willing to consider everything and every proposition. Everything is on the table. There are no taboos. In order to do this, we must connect with what we have within us; and we must search and re-search what we seek. This is the third prerequisite. It means we must seek, and having sought once, we must seek again, to test our findings, to validate them or invalidate them, and start all over again, if needed.
Seeking is a dynamic process. It finds and rebuts. It finds from all sources, from all places, from all times, from all people, and most of all it finds within ourselves. Because it is dynamic, it does not stay stagnant for 8 years. You do not seek for 8 years and have nothing to show for it. Allah has promised that if you seek you will find. And in my experience you will find in realtime. However, finding takes many allotropic forms, knowing and experiencing which is itself the act of finding. Sometimes, you may not recognize that you have found what you were seeking because you found allotropies, but you are not left with an inner feeling that you have sought and not found.
Salaam Whisper Sir
Thank you very much for such affectionate and loving words.
InshaAllah I bear these words in my mind and try to explore them.
But I can not say or claim I am seeking. Beacause my actions are opposite to that. I am surrounded by the defects of my Nafs.
True, there is a yearning there. But when I see myself, I find there is no way I am worthy of it.
Salaam Shakir Dear and may Allah illuminate your State and mine.
I do not wish to elongate the conversation, for silence is really music. Two points I want to clarify.
//But when I see myself, I find there is no way I am worthy of it.//
See the first prerequisite — TRUST YOURSELF with the grace of Allah.
//I am surrounded by the defects of my Nafs.//
That is true for each one of us. (however, please keep the nafs out of it; nafs has been too much bad mouthed). But each of us has only one way to deal with it. That is the search and re-search cycle. Look at your inner self and discover it a little, and proportionately shed a little of the defects coming from the society. Than go back somewhat illuminated and look again at your inner self. Shed a little more of the defects coming from the society. The cycle continues till we die, and it keeps making us progressively more illuminated than before. But the spiral starts NOW.