Do not blindly follow conjectures of other people

بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمـَنِ الرَّحِيمِ

Now if you pay heed unto the majority of those [who live] on earth, they will but lead you astray from the path of God: they follow but [other people's] conjectures, and they themselves do nothing but guess.  6:116

Do not blindly follow conjectures of other people

Towards the end of the twentieth century, Muslim scholasticism saw a resurgence in the literalist tradition, partly due to the economic support offered by certain governments for the same. This has led to a decline in the teaching of so-called twenty-first century skills, especially creativity and critical thinking, and increased emphasis on sticking to opinions of past scholars.  The challenge is not a new one, but it definitely is on a larger scale now, as compared to the past.

One of the famous Punjabi scholars of undivided India, Hafiz Muhammad ibn Barakallah Lakhwi (1806-1893) , who has had a tremendous impact on religious thought in the Punjabi language, narrates a story to illustrate this problem from more than a hundred years ago.

There was once a trader who used to travel far and wide for business.  When he got married, it was thought that he would settle down, but few months into the marriage, he decided to travel again as expenses were increasing.  He promised to write to his wife regularly, and he kept his promise till he reached a city in Afghanistan where he had to stay for sometime. His laziness overwhelmed his desire to keep his promise.  As his replies grew few and far between, despite his newly wed wife sending letters on a regular basis, she started becoming upset by all of this. One fine morning, fed up by all of this, she asked her brother to bring the family stationery and the seal and wrote a terse message to him.

"On this and this date, your wife has become a widow."

Then she sealed it and stamped it with the family seal, and asked her brother to go travel to Afghanistan, find his brother-in-law, and deliver the letter to him in person. The brother reached his destination after several weeks, and lost no time in locating his brother-in-law.  After the usual curtsies he delivered the letter.

Upon reading the letter, the trader became distraught. He start crying inconsolably.  His friends gathered round and offered him support and tried to find out what was wrong.  He just showed them the letter and kept on weeping.

One of his friends was puzzled.  He protested to his friend, the trader : "But your wife can only become a widow if you are dead. And yet, here you are, hale and hearty."

To which the trader replied: "What you say does seem to make sense, but I recognize her handwriting, and the stationery, as well as the family seal. Furthermore,  it is delivered by her brother himself. Thus, this chain of narration is authentic and cannot be ignored or disregarded."

Believe without the need for proof

بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمـَنِ الرَّحِيمِ

[Know that true]  believers are only those who have attained to faith in God and His Apostle and thereafter have had no doubt..... Part of 49:15

Believe without the need for proof !

I would like to share a little known incident during the life of eminent theologian Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, which underscores the superiority of belief over reasoning. It may well be difficult to establish whether Razi had become a practicing Sufi towards the end of his life or not. There even exists a letter from Shaykh al-Akbar ibn ‘Arabi, who, impressed by his imaginative faculty (al-quwwa al-mutakhayyila), ended up advising (and probably praying for) Razi to try to reach the stage of gnosis and contemplation, even going so far as to tell him that in heaven, medicine and geometry will not be of much help to him. He certainly became sympathetic to Sufism, especially in his later life, when he started writing deeply spiritual poetry. Quite a few of his books have esoteric ideas as well.

The build up of the incident supposedly involves Razi meeting the Sufi saint Najm al-Din Kubra in a gathering and being very condescending and belittling to Sufis in general. Having boastfully claimed the superiority of his religious knowledge over others, he went ahead and said that he knew a hundred proofs of existence of God. Najm al-Din replied calmly,

 البرهان لإزالة الشك , والله تعالى جعل في قلبي نورا ,لا يدخل معه الشك فضلاً عن الحاجة للبرهان 

"Is not each proof due to some doubt? God has placed in my heart a light of certainty which dispels all doubt so that they are no longer in need of any (further) proofs.”

The answer shocked Razi, and he begged the saint to be allowed to enter on the Path under his direction.

After some days of vigil and prayers, the saint asked Razi to lie down and started reciting a prayer and moving a white shroud from his feet towards his chest. Razi suddenly stood up shouting at the top of his voice: "I cannot, I cannot!"  He felt as if all the knowledge of which he had been so proud was slowly leaving him and he could not bear it. The saint replied that the purpose of the exercise was to remove all bookish knowledge from him so that he is freed from its burdens.  Thereupon Razi agreed to resume the process.  Again, as the saint was pulling the shroud upto Razi's chest, he sprung up again screaming ( لا أطيق ) "I cannot stand it!". This time he begged the saint that it was unbearable for him to rid everything he had so painstakingly acquired over the years.  So the saint asked him, " What then do you want from me?". Razi replied: "Just help me navigate the test when my time is near."

This anecdote is narrated in Fritz Meier/Meyer, Die Fawa'ih algamal wa-fawatih al-galal des Nagm ad-Din al-Kubra (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1957), pp. 45-46, and according to another version in Ahmad Ibn Mustafa Tash Kubri Zadah's Mawsu'at Mustalahat Miftah al-Sa'adah wa-Misbah al-Siyadah fi Mawdu'at al-'Ulum, (Hyderabad, 1329 k.s.], vol. 1, pp. 450-51), it is rather during this retreat that Razi is supposed to have received the inspiration that guided him in the composition of his great commentary on the Qur'an.

The two then went their separate ways, and Razi returned to his hometown thousands of miles away. One day when Najm al-Din Kubra was doing ablution (wudhu') with a pot in his hand, he suddenly became agitated and in the process hurled the pot towards the wall in front of him and yelled : "O Fakhr al-Din! Say, 'I believe in my Lord without the need for proof." After that he calmed down a bit, and then smiled, and continued his ablutions.  The disciples were shocked at this, and noted the date and time, but they would not come around to ask the saint for an explanation of all that happened.  Several months passed, and the disciples of Razi came to their town and they were able to confirm that the date and time of Razi's passing coincided with the incident of the wudhu' pot. The disciples of Razi confirmed that the theologian was much agitated at the time of his passing and kept mumbling for a long time, and just before he passed away he exclaimed "I believe in my Lord without the need for proof!" and then was calm, relaxed and then passed away smiling.

Finally the disciples gathered around the saint Najm-al-Din and asked for the secret behind all this.  He said that at the time of death Razi was confronted by iblees (the Devil) who challenged him to prove the existence of God. As Razi started to give proofs, he was met with strong refutations each time. Reaching ninety-odd proofs, Razi realized that his proofs were running out and his logic was betraying him at a very critical juncture of his life. Thereupon the saint came to the rescue by telling Razi what he said, and thus iblees was left defeated and Razi died on true faith.

Learn true charity

بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمـَنِ الرَّحِيمِ

...[for,] if He were to demand of you all of them, and urge you ("to divest yourselves of all your possessions"), you would niggardly cling [to them], and so He would [but] bring out your moral failings.47:37

Learn true charity

Mujaddid Alfe Thani Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi ( رَحِمَهُ ٱللّٰهُ‎) was a famous Sufi scholar of the Indian Sub-continent, from the Naqshbandi tariqah. 

Once, in context of discussing generosity in spending for charity he mentions the following story:

When someone asked Shaykh Bayazid Bastami ( رَحِمَهُ ٱللّٰهُ‎) about what is obligatory in charity, he said :
"Do you want to know according to the jurist, or according to the Knower (عارِف) of God ?" 

 The questioner asked: "Is there a difference?"

To which Bayazid replied: "Of course.  The jurists will say give one-fortieth (2.5%) and be proud of yourself on having completed the obligation. But the Knowers will say even after giving everything, you should be obliged that it was accepted."

The puzzled questioner replied : " I have never even heard of such a thing that you are expected to give everything, and yet feel grateful/obliged."

The great shaykh replied "Have you not heard of the precedence set by our master Abu Bakr (رضي الله عنه)?".  Then he went on to narrate the story which is in the following hadith, among others :

عن عمر بن الخطاب قال أَمَرَنَا رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ أَنْ نَتَصَدَّقَ فَوَافَقَ ذَلِكَ عِنْدِي مَالًا فَقُلْتُ الْيَوْمَ أَسْبِقُ أَبَا بَكْرٍ إِنْ سَبَقْتُهُ يَوْمًا قَالَ فَجِئْتُ بِنِصْفِ مَالِي فَقَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ مَا أَبْقَيْتَ لِأَهْلِكَ قُلْتُ مِثْلَهُ وَأَتَى أَبُو بَكْرٍ بِكُلِّ مَا عِنْدَهُ فَقَالَ يَا أَبَا بَكْرٍ مَا أَبْقَيْتَ لِأَهْلِكَ قَالَ أَبْقَيْتُ لَهُمْ اللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُ قُلْتُ وَاللَّهِ لَا أَسْبِقُهُ إِلَى شَيْءٍ أَبَدًا

3675 سنن الترمذي كتاب المناقب باب في مناقب أبي بكر وعمر رضي الله عنهما كليهما

قَالَ هَذَا حَدِيثٌ حَسَنٌ صَحِيحٌ

Umar ibn al-Khattab (رضي الله عنه) reported: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ  ordered us to give charity and at the time I had some wealth. I said to myself, “Today I will outdo Abu Bakr, if ever there was a day to outdo him.” I went with half of my wealth to the Prophet ﷺ and he said, “What have you left for your family?” I said, “The same amount.” Then, Abu Bakr (رضي الله عنه) came with everything he had. The Prophet ﷺ said, “O Abu Bakr, what have you left for your family?” Abu Bakr said, “Allah and his messenger ﷺ.” I said, “By Allah, I will never do better than Abu Bakr.”Source: Sunan al-Tirmidhī 3675

Grade: Sahih (authentic) according to Al-Tirmidh

The shaykh continued, "Abu Bakr (رضي الله عنه) gave all his wealth and possessions, and even his daughter in marriage to the Prophet ﷺ , and yet all his life he feld indebted to the Prophet ﷺ that he was graced by the company of the Prophet ﷺ, and blessed by the fact that the Prophet ﷺ would accept his humble offering."

The Naqshbandis traced their tariqah to this beloved companion of the Prophet ﷺ. The minimum requirement from the Knower of Allah is that they must give away everything they possess. They reach gnosis by losing what they possess and standing with what He owns. It is as if Bayazid is saying that to reach God, the way by abandoning everything that is other than Allah.