Spend as proof of your truth while you still can

 

بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمـَنِ الرَّحِيمِ

...And spend on others out of what We have provided for you as sustenance,  ere there come a time when death approaches any of you, and he then says, "O my Sustainer! If only Thou wouldst grant me a delay for a short while,  so that I could give in charity and be among the righteous!".  But never does God grant a delay to a human being when his term has come; and God is fully aware of all that you do. 63:10-11


Spend in the name of God

Charity in the way of Allah is a proof of our sincerity in religion and devotion to Allah. Throughout the history of human kind there are countless examples of charity where humans have excelled, and set for us a precedence to follow. I am showcasing a few stories here from the vast literature available at our disposal.

Example 1: Watering the plants
Abu Aqil Ansari was one of those companions of the Prophet ﷺ who had the smallest of means but was extremely large hearted. When the call was made for preparations for the expedition of Tabuk, just like all Muslims, he also wanted to contribute. Unfortunately, he did not have anything of value in the house. But he wanted to participate, and couldn't live with himself if he could not.

He decided to earn some money to give in charity. He found that the owner of a nearby orchard, a Jew by religion, wanted his date plants watered. Abu Aqil offered his services and a deal was struck for one date for every large bucket of water.  He worked all night long using the heavy bucket to water each and every plant and was among the last companions to reach the masjid bringing charity. He went to the Prophet ﷺ and said: 'O Allah's Messengerﷺ! This is a Sa' of dates. I spent the night bringing water and earned two Sa' of dates as compensation. I kept one Sa' (for my family) and brought you the other Sa'.'

Looking at a handful of dates in blistered and bloody hands (due to hard work), the some people started to mock Aqil saying "Allah and His Messenger ﷺ are not in need of this charity. What benefit would this Sa' of yours bring? Allah does not need the Sa' of Abu Aqil."

This hurt Abu Aqil but he bore it patiently.  The Prophet ﷺ was moved by is noble and selfless action and took the dates by his own hands and distributed them over the piles of charity (that the others had brought). His sadaqah may seemed little, but his sincerity and effort caused it to weight more than the mountain of Uhud.

It is also on this occasion that Allah revealed the verses:

الَّذِينَ يَلْمِزُونَ الْمُطَّوِّعِينَ مِنَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ فِي الصَّدَقَاتِ وَالَّذِينَ لاَ يَجِدُونَ إِلاَّ جُهْدَهُمْ فَيَسْخَرُونَ مِنْهُمْ سَخِرَ اللّهُ مِنْهُمْ وَلَهُمْ عَذَابٌ أَلِيمٌ

"[It is these hypocrites] who find fault with such of the believers as give for the sake of God more than they are duty-bound to give, as well as with, such as find nothing [to give] beyond [the meagre fruits of] their toil, and who scoff at them [all]. God will cause their scoffing to rebound on themselves. and grievous suffering awaits them" [Quran - 9:79]

 
Example 2: The Halwa

Al-Rabi ibn Khuthaym, a pious tabi'ee, a student of Abdullah ibn Masʽud was known for his asceticism, silence, and scrupulousness in religious observance. He had dug a grave in his house, and used each day to sleep therein so that by this expedient he might remember death unceasingly. He would say "Were the remembrance of death to leave my heart for a single hour, it would become corrupted."

Once his wife said to him that she wished that she could prepare something for him to eat, a delicacy, so that she may feel a sense of fulfillment since their entire married life he had never asked her to prepare anything special, not had ever complained about anything. He relented and told her about his favorite sweetmeat, a halwa made of dates and butter. The wife was extremely happy about it and worked extra hard to make it absolutely delicious with an assortment of nuts.

As soon as she served a fragrant, delicious, piping hot halwa to him a mentally ill person knocked at their door. His unkempt appearance, drooling and groaning was evidence of his disconnect with the world.  Rabi took the bowl and sat down next to the man and started feeding him little by little until the man had eaten all of the halwa.

His wife, witnessing the whole scene protested that in their entire married life, Rabi had never desired any delicacy, and yet he ended up not eating anything out of it. What she felt was worst is that he fed it to someone who was absolutely unaware of what he was eating, whether it was a specially prepared delicacy or anything ordinary. Rabi wept upon hearing this and said, "O my beloved wife, he may not be aware of what he was eating, but my Lord and God is most certainly aware. Is it not enough for you and me that my Beloved Lord would be pleased that we gave the thing that we loved to one of His creation who is unwell and not taken care of ?"


Example 3:  The Water Fountain

Al-Bayhaqi mentions that once his teacher, Al-Hakim, developed sores on his face. We tried to find all kinds of cures and medicines but after more than a year of treatment, the sores had turned worse. Then our teacher requested Abu Uthman al-Sabuni, another famous and pious scholar to make a special supplication during the Friday sermon.  The supplication and prayer was done and lots of people participated. 

The following Friday, al-Sabuni got a note from the audience. It was from a woman who had written that the previous week when she had gone home she, feeling bad, continued praying for al-Hakim till the wee hours of the night till she fell asleep. She had then been blessed with a vision of the Prophet ﷺ in her dream. She was asked to convey the message to Al-Hakim to make arrangements for ordinary people to have access to drinking water.

When Al-Hakim came to know, he immediately had a sabil constructed right on the road outside his house. Once it was prepared and cleaned, he got it filled with the sweetest water and had ice placed in it for extra cooling and refreshing purposes.

Hardly a week had passed after this that his sores started healing and not long after he was completely healed. His face turned even more handsome and radiant than before and he lived on several years after that.

In the name of God

بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمـَنِ الرَّحِيمِ

....and who say, "This is from God," while it is not from God: and thus do they tell a lie about God, being well aware [that it is a lie].  Last part of 3:78

Muhammad 'Abduh (in Manar III, 345), says that the above-mentioned distortion of scriptures does not necessarily presuppose a corruption of the text as such: it can also be brought about "by attributing to an expression or meaning other than the one which was originally intended."
In this context,  Abu Bakr (May Allah be pleased with him), has reportedly said:
“What earth would give me place to live and what sky would shade me if I should speak about the Quran with my opinion(conjecture) or by something I do not know.”

In the name of God

This so called century of information,  has brought with it an excess of polarization of beliefs across the spectrum, whether religious or non-religious, and at the same time an unfortunate surfeit of those who claim to speak on behalf of God, or in the name of God. The ayat above explains that this is historically done, and will always happen. The examples below relate to it, albeit on a lighter note.

Case 1: The Rescue

One day, a man climbed up a rather tall tree to pluck some fruit. But as soon as he had his fill, he realized that that the trip down was not going to be as easy as the trip up. He started panicking and shouting for help. Soon a small crowd gathered, trying to figure out a way to help him (without putting themselves at risk, of course).

As luck would have it, a "scholar" passed by and he immediately took charge. He seemed to be in know of things. A scholar of the scripture. He summoned for a length of rope to be brought to him, and had it thrown up to the stranded man . "Tie this around your waist, and I will immediately rescue you."

When the man had the rope tied around his waist, he and the others were wondering what to do next. The scholar reassured them:"Do not worry, I have read of a similar rescue attempt in the scriptures, and it was successful."

Saying that, he yanked hard at the rope, whereupon the man fell from the tree and was hurt badly, lucky to have survived.

 The horrified bystanders shouted, "What kind of a rescue attempt was that?"

"Well," the scholar said with an enlightened expression on his face, "Now I realize the difference. The person mentioned in the scriptures was stranded in a well, not on a tree."

So saying this , he left them to go about their business. And probably take the unfortunate man to the hospital, I guess.

Case 2: Divine Inspiration

One night, the village scholar woke up with much excitement. He eagerly told his wife,  "Please get up!  Hurry ! I have just been divinely inspired! Get me something to write it down immediately!"

The wife rushed to find the necessary materials, lit a lamp and was waiting to hear this piece of divine wisdom.

He wrote furiously, and then rewrote several times, and then put out the lamp and tried to go back to sleep.

The wife was curious, "Wait. Let me know what is the divine inspiration."

He gave it to her and said: "Read and Be enlightened.".

She impatiently went to the other room and lit a candle and eagerly looked at the writing, which said:
"Wherever you go, there you are."

And this became another one of the "divinely inspired" hackneyed ideas in his repertoire that he kept teaching the people of the village, may God have mercy on them.

Case 3: Dilettante

Once someone elliptically told a scholar's son : "Your father is not a scholar but a dilettante." The boy took fancy to this word and started muttering it like a charm. "Di-lit-tan-te...Di-lit-tan-te...Di-lit-tan-te.......Di-lit-tan-te"  while playing the kind of games that kids of his age usually play.

Soon after, his father was returning from his discourses with a friend and the friend, overhearing this muttering, was curious as to the meaning of the word.

He said:"Boy, come here. What is the meaning of the word 'dilettante"?"

The boy, without batting an eyelid, said: "It is a seasoning used to make fried chicken."

The father, looked at the boy with so much pride, and smiled :" See how smart my son is. He made that answer up all by himself. I am sure in the classic treatises, such a meaning can be found as well if we research carefully. "

Case 4: A remedy for wild lions

A religious scholar was frenetically going on and on about a supplication, and a cure to keep dangerous lions away from the neighborhood. He supported his arguments drawing upon his international experience learning from a teacher who had learnt and used it against the wildest lions of Africa.

So saying, he gave all of them a white powder (looked like salt to me, though I dare not taste it), and a mantra to go with it, that had to be recited starting the night of the full-moon, standing on one leg, and to be recited continuously for forty days.  He claimed that since he has come back from his travels, he did it before and it is a safe remedy, worth trying.

As he was exhorting the audience to start on this endeavor, a child innocently asked. "But dear teacher, there are no wild and dangerous lions in this region."

To which, the teacher gleefully replied "Effective, isn't it?".

Case 5: Buttering bread the right way

Once a scholar gave a lengthy discourse about how whenever you butter a slice of bread, and drop it, every time it will land on the buttered side, rendering it unsuitable for eating. He gave proofs and explanations from the length and breadth of his knowledge. Everyone was impressed, but there was one student of the Sufi path who believed in trying before believing.
So he went and bought bread and butter. Applied butter generously to a slice of bread, and threw it up, and lo and behold, it landed the right side up. Meaning, the unbuttered side on the ground. The buttered side facing up.

Demonstrating this as a failure of what the scholar was saying, the Sufi questioned the scholar about it.

To which, the scholar explained "It is not my fault that you put butter on the wrong side of the bread".

Conclusion

So, if this is the state of scholarship around us, what should we do? I propose that rather than spending time and energy on these "scholars",  we should instead focus on improving ourselves, by looking at how the teachings of God have been implemented by the pious people, and seek to implement them ourselves.  And this has been the purpose of the stories in my blog from its inception.

Once the disciples of Mevlana Rumi came late from the masjid. Upon being asked the reason for the delay, he answered, “A preacher had mounted the pulpit and was giving advice. I suddenly felt overwhelmed, as did the others, was not able to leave.”
“What did he say that made everyone overwhelmed?” asked our Master.

“He was basically talking about this verse:"

 الْحَمْدُ لِلّهِ الَّذِي هَدَانَا لِهَـذَا وَمَا كُنَّا لِنَهْتَدِيَ لَوْلا أَنْ هَدَانَا اللّهُ لَقَدْ جَاءتْ رُسُلُ رَبِّنَا بِالْحَقِّ وَنُودُواْ أَن تِلْكُمُ الْجَنَّةُ أُورِثْتُمُوهَا بِمَا كُنتُمْ تَعْمَلُونَ

"All praise is due to God, who has guided us unto this; for we would certainly not have found the right path unless God had guided us! Indeed, our Sustainer's apostles have told us the truth!" (Part of 7:43)'

 "And he was arguing about our superiority over the others and of those of different faiths. This made almost everyone in the mosque abandoned themselves to supplication and lament.”

Our Master, smiling sadly, said “What a malicious one! Witness how the blind are leading the blind!  They look down on the others, thinking, gloating: ‘I am better than you.’

But we should instead be measuring ourselves by the standards of Prophets and Friends of God—then we would see our proper worth and understand what constitutes real religious perfection."

Sultan Valad relates that once, a group of distinguished people were visting, when Mevlana shared this passionately:

“O Bahauddin, if you wish to be in Paradise forever, be a friend to everyone and never hold malice towards anyone in your heart.”

Then he recited:
Do not ask for more; do not consider yourself superior to others;
be like balm and a guiding candle, not a stinging needle.
If you do not want evil to come to you from anyone,
Never speak, teach or even think evil of anyone.
When you speak about others with goodwill and intention
you will be blessed with continuous happiness, and this is a from paradise itself.
If you speak with bitterness about someone,
you harbor malice and anger, this is from Hell itself.
When you remember your friends,
the garden of your heart blooms with happiness,
replete with roses and sweet smelling herbs.
If you speak of enemies,
thorns and poisonous snakes enter the garden of your heart,
and you will grow weary and wither away.
All the prophets and saints (May peace be with them)
have realized this and thus acted accordingly.
Their fellow human beings, overwhelmed by their beautiful character,
are involuntarily drawn to their kindness and willingly, happily
end up following them in their path .