All True Pain Lies in Misguidance, and All True Pleasure in Belief; a Mighty Truth Robed in Imagination
Prudent fellow‑traveller! My friend! If you want to see clearly the differences beween the luminous way of the straight path and the gloomy path of those who have received Your anger and those who have gone astray,
Come, take your fancy and mount your imagination, together we shall go to the darkness of non‑existence. We shall visit that vast grave, that city of the dead.
A Pre‑Eternal All-Powerful One took us out of that place of darkness with His hand of power, mounted us on existence, and sent us to this world, this city without pleasures.
Now we have come to the world of existence, this fearful desert. Our eyes have opened, we’ve looked in the six directions. Firstly we look before us seeking favours,
but tribulations and pains assault us like enemies. We take fright at that and draw back. We look to left and right to the natural elements, seeking assistance.
But we see their hearts are hard and merciless. They grind their teeth, glowering at us angrily. They heed neither plea nor plaint.
Like creatures beleaguered, we despairingly lift our gazes upwards. Seeking help, we look to the heavenly bodies, but they threaten us awesomely.
As though each were a bomb; having shot out of their cases they are speeding through space. But somehow or other they do not obstruct each other.
If by chance one confused its way, this Manifest World would be blown to pieces, Allah forbid! It is tied to coincidence; no good can come of that.
In despair we turn back our gaze from that direction, overcome by grievous bewilderment. We bow our heads and look to ourselves; we consider and study ourselves.
Now we hear the shouts of myriad needs coming from our wretched selves. The cries of thousands of wants issue forth. While expecting solace, we take fright.
No good comes from that either. Seeking refuge, we consult our consciences, we look within seeking a solution. Alas, again we can find none; we have to help the conscience.
For in it are thousands of hopes, turbulent emotions, wild desires, spread throughout the universe. We tremble with all of them, and can offer no help.
Compressed between existence and non‑existence, those hopes stretch out to pre-eternity on one side and post-eternity on the other. They have such breadth, if they swallowed the world, the conscience still would not be satisfied.
Wherever we have recourse on this grievous road, we encounter misfortune. For the ways of those who have received Your anger and those who have gone astray are thus. Chance and misguidance beset that road.
We follow it and fall into our present state. Even now we temporarily forget its beginning and end, the Maker and resurrection of the dead.
It is worse than Hell, it scorches more terribly, it crushes our spirits. For we had recourse to those six directions, but this state resulted.
It fills us with awesome terror, making us shudder with impotence, disquiet and apprehension, orphanhood and despair, so that it racks our conscience.
Now we shall form a front opposite each of the directions and try to repulse them. Firstly we have recourse to our own strength, but alas! we are powerless, weak.
Secondly, we address ourselves to silencing the needs of the soul. But alas! we see that they cry out unceasingly.
Thirdly, we cry out for help seeking a saviour, but no one hears or responds. We suppose everything to be hostile, everything strange.
Nothing consoles our hearts, nothing gives a sense of security, or true pleasure.
Fourthly, the more we looked at the celestial bodies, the more they filled us with fright and awe. Vexing the conscience, alienating it; tormenting the mind, filling it with delusions.
Brother! That is the way of misguidance! On it we experienced all the darkness of unbelief. Come, now, my brother, we’ll turn again to that non‑being.
Again we shall come. This time our way is the Straight Path, and the way of belief. Our guide and leader are providence and the Qur’an, the falcon that overflies the centuries.
At one time, the Pre‑Eternal Sovereign’s mercy and grace willed our existence, His power brought us forth, graciously mounting us on the law of His will, completing us stage after stage.
Then it compassionately clothed us in the garment of existence, bestowed on us the Trust and its rank; the mark of this is supplication and the obligatory prayers.
All the stages are stopping‑places on our long road. To make our road easy, divine determining issued a decree and pasted it on the page of our foreheads;
Wherever we go, with whichever group we are guests, we are welcomed in truly brotherly fashion. We give of our belongings and we receive from theirs.
Love born of commerce, they nourish us, adorn us with gifts, then they see us on our way. Now at last we have come to the door of the world. We hear a noise.
See, we have arrived at the earth. We have stepped foot in the Manifest World. The festival of the Most Merciful, the clamorous habitation of man. We know nothing at all, our guide and leader is the will of the Merciful One.
Our guide’s deputy, our delicate eyes. We open our eyes and look around. Do we recall the first time we came?
We were strangers, orphans. Our enemies were many. We did not know our protector. Now, with the light of belief, we have a strong pillar,
a point of support, a protector, who repulses those enemies. And that is belief in Allah the Most High, which is the light of our spirits, and light of our lives, and spirit of our spirits.
Now our hearts are easy, we disregard the enemies, not even recognizing them. When on our first journey we consulted our consciences, we heard innumerable cries and laments, and complaints.
It was due to them that we were overcome by misfortune. For our hopes and desires, capacity, and senses always desire eternity. But we did not know how to obtain it, hence their lamentations and cries.
However, all praise be to Allah, this time we have found a source of succour which always gives life to our innate capabilities and hopes; it makes them take flight for eternity.
It shows them the way, our innate capabilities seek help; drink down the water of life from that source, and race to their perfection through that point of succour, that invigorating, elusive symbol.
The second pole of belief is affirmation of the resurrection of the dead. Everlasting happiness is that shell’s pearl. The proof of belief, the Qur’an; the conscience, a human mystery.
Now raise your head, and take a look at the universe. Speak a word with it. It appeared formidable on our former way. Now it is smiling, laughing on every side, coyly winking and blinking.
Do you not see, our eyes have become bees? They fly everywhere in the garden of the universe, around the profusion of flowers; each flower profers them a delectable draft.
Each also offers solace, love, and a feeling of familiarity. They too give and take, and offer testimony, they make honey flow forth from honey, that mysterious falcon.
As our gaze alights on the motions of the heavenly bodies, or the stars, or suns, they show up the Creator’s wisdom, and the manner of His instruction, and the manifestation of His mercy, making them take flight.
It is as though the sun is speaking with us, saying: “My brothers! Don’t feel frightened or dismayed. You are welcome, how good you have come! This dwelling‑place is yours, I am but a candle-holder.
“I am like you, but a pure, obedient, unrebellious servant. Out of His utter mercy, the Single and Eternally Besought One subjected me so that I would serve you with my light. Light and heat are from me, supplication and prayer from you!”
Now look at the moon! And the stars and the seas; each says in its own tongue: “Welcome! It’s good you’ve come! Don’t you recognize us?”
Look through the mystery of co‑operation, through the signs of the order. Each says: “We are all servants, mirrors of the All-Glorious One’s mercy; don’t worry, don’t be dismayed!
“Don’t feel frightened or sceptical at the yelling of earthquakes and cries of events, for within them are the rolling of recitations, the clamour of glorifications, the tumult of supplication and entreaty.
“The All‑Glorious One Who sent us to you holds their reins in His hands. The eye of faith reads on their faces the signs of mercy; each proclaims them.”
O believer with a wakeful heart! Let our eyes rest a little; we shall hand over our sensitive ears to the blessed hand of belief in their place. We shall send them to the world to listen to its delightful refrains.
The universal mourning and lamentations of death imagined on our first way are now all supplications and orisons, cries of glorification.
Listen to the murmuring of the air, the twittering of chicks, the pattering of the rain, the plashing of the seas, the crashing of thunder, the crackling of stones; all are meaningful refrains.
The humming of the air, the intoning of the thunder, the strains of the waves are all recitations of Grandeur. The chanting of the rains, the warbling of birds are all glorifications of Mercy, allusions to reality.
The sounds of things are all sounds of existence: “I too exist,” they say. The silent universe suddenly finds voice: “Don’t suppose us to be lifeless, O chattering man!”
A tasty morsel or droplet of rain; the birds break into song. With their different voices, their tiny songs, they applaud mercy, alight on bounties, proclaiming their thanks.
Implicitly they say: “Beings of the universe, my brothers! How fine are our circumstances; We are tenderly nourished, we are happy at our lot.” With beaks upstretched they scatter their songs on the air.
In its entirety the universe is a lofty orchestra; through the light of belief its recitations, its glorifications, are heard. For its wisdom rejects the existence of chance, its order repulses it; in unison they banish doubt.
Fellow‑traveller! We are leaving now this world of similitudes, stepping down from imagination and fancy. We shall alight in the arena of reason, take stock, and close down those ways.
Our first way, full of pain, that of those who have received Your anger and those who have gone astray, inflicts suffering on the innermost conscience, and severe pain. Consciousness showed this; we became the reverse of conscious.
We have to be saved from it, we need to be, so the pain can be pacified or numbed, we can’t endure it otherwise; we can no longer listen to the lamentations.
Guidance is healing, but fancies block out the feelings. This requires solace, it requires feigned unmindfulness, it requires occupation, it requires entertainment. Enchanting desires.
Then it can deceive the conscience and put the spirit to sleep so they feel no pain. Otherwise that grievous suffering scorches the conscience; the pain is unendurable, the despair cannot be borne.
This means, however far one deviates from the Straight Path, to that extent one is affected in that way, causing the conscience to cry out. Within every pleasure is a pain, a taint.
That means glittering civilization, which is a mixture of fancy, lust, amusement, and licentiousness, is a deceptive panacea for the ghastly distress arising from misguidance, a poisonous narcotic.
My dear friend! On our second way, that light‑filled road, we perceived a state of mind in which life became a source of pleasure, pains became joys.
We understood that it imparts a state to the spirit varying in degree according the strength of belief. The body receives pleasure through the spirit, the spirit receives pleasure through the conscience.
An immediate pleasure is felt in the conscience; a spiritual paradise is present in the heart. To think of it is to open it up; while consciousness is marked by its secrets.
Now, however much the heart is aroused, the conscience stimulated, the spirit stirred, it increases the pleasure, transforming fire into light, and winter into spring.
The doors of paradises open up in the conscience, the world becomes a paradise. Within it our spirits take flight, soaring like kites, entreating, praying.
Worthy fellow‑traveller! Farewell for now. Let us offer a prayer together, then we shall part, to meet again!
Allah! Lead us to the Straight Path. Amen.