Depend solely on your Lord

بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمـَنِ الرَّحِيمِ

Original illustration. View image

... فَٱبۡتَغُواْ عِندَ ٱللَّهِ ٱلرِّزۡقَ وَٱعۡبُدُوهُ وَٱشۡكُرُواْ لَهُۥٓۖ إِلَيۡهِ تُرۡجَعُونَ

... fabtaghoo ‘indal laahir rizqa wa’budoohu washkuroo lahooo ilaihi turja’oon

Part of Al-Ankabut (The Spider) 29:17 seek, then, all [your] sustenance from God, and worship Him [alone] and be grateful to Him: [for] unto Him you shall be brought back!

Depend solely on your Lord

In the well-known historical compilation Al-Bidāya wa-n-Nihāya (البداية والنهاية), The Beginning and The End, by Ibn Kathir, there is a report, retold here in English, about the grandson of sayyidina Umar ibn al-Khattabؓ, known as Sālim ibn Abdullahؓ ibn Umarؓ.

Once when Hisham bin Abdul Malik, one of the Umayyad rulers, was performing Hajj, he encountered Sālim in the Ka'aba. In this expanded retelling, Sālim is pictured dressed simply and carrying a pair of sandals in need of repair. The scene invites us to imagine the ruler's thought: Perhaps he is needy and I should help him; after all, I am the rich and generous ruler. He went close to him and said, "Sālim, let me know if you are in need of anything so that I can help you."

Sālim replied, in meaning, that he was ashamed before Allah to ask anyone else for his needs while he was in the house of Allah.

Hisham left him alone for a time, but followed him out of the House of Allah. In the retelling, he was not one to give up easily. As soon as they were outside, he caught up to him and said, 'O Sālim, now that we are outside the House of Allah, your reason for not telling me earlier no longer applies. Tell me your needs so that I can fulfill them.'

Sālim asked, 'Are you referring to something worldly or my needs in the Hereafter?'

Hisham promptly replied, 'Of course, something worldly. Only Allah can fulfill your needs of the Hereafter.'

Perhaps realizing that the poor ruler needed to understand the truths of the world, Sālim said, 'O Hisham, I swear by Allah, I have yet to ask anything worldly from the One who owns the world, so how do you expect me to ask of someone who does not own it?'

The expanded telling closes with Hisham’s eyes welling up with tears and the words, “I would give up my entire kingdom to be like Sālim.” If spoken, he may well have meant them at that moment; this closing detail is not in the Ibn Kathir passage cited below.

Source note: Ibn Kathir records the core exchange in the obituary of Sālim ibn Abdullah under the year 106 AH in Al-Bidāya wa-n-Nihāya. The damaged sandals, imagined thoughts, tears, and closing remark belong to this expanded retelling and are not present in that passage. Read the Arabic passage

Know your Limits and Limitations

بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمـَنِ الرَّحِيمِ

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فَعَّالٞ لِّمَا يُرِيدُ

Fa’ ‘aalul limaa yureed

Al-Buruj (The Mansions of the Stars) 85:16 a Sovereign Doer of whatever He wills.

Know Your Limits and Limitations

This story grew out of a debate with an acquaintance who then belonged to the Ahmadiyyah community (whose members we Muslims often call Qadiani or Mirzai, sometimes derogatorily). He later renounced those beliefs and returned to Islam. Knowing that I am from Kashmir, he had tried to form a connection using the name of Hakeem Noor-ud-din, who spent several years as the court physician of the Maharaja of Kashmir. Hakeem Noor-ud-din was one of the most well-read and well-travelled of those involved in the missionary activity in the cause of the Ahmadiyyah, and was influential in shaping their discourse. I read up on his biography, and on page 106, I found an interesting story, which not only showcases the vision of true scholars of the ummah such as Maulvi Abdul Qayyum, but also has lessons for all of us.

The story, retold here in English, goes like this.

When Hakeem Noor-ud-din was leaving Bhopal after studying for a while with a famous scholar of Hadith at the time, Maulvi Abdul Qayyum, he asked him for some advice. Knowing his student had not yet completed his studies, and perhaps anticipating what the future might hold for him, Maulvi Abdul Qayyum gave him the following, somewhat cryptic, advice in Urdu:

خدا نہ بننا اور رسول نہ بننا

Roughly translated, it means "Do not (ever) try to be God, nor a prophet."

Obviously flustered by such an outwardly outrageous statement, Noor-ud-din said that he did not understand the message behind such a statement. Not only that, he claimed that no one present in the audience, however august, could decipher the meaning behind the statement.

Seeing that the message had been missed, Maulvi Abdul Qayyum asked, “Whom do you consider God?” He meant: what quality, in Noor-ud-din’s mind, defined God? Noor-ud-din replied, “God is the One Who possesses the attribute ‘a Sovereign Doer of whatever He wills’” (referring to Qur’an 85:16). Maulvi sahib replied, “This is what I am referring to. If something that you desire does not come to fruition, do not become distressed. Ask your ego, ‘Are you God?’” In other words, why assume that everything you want is bound to happen?

Similarly, since a prophet gets direct commandments from God, he feels distressed when people disobey those, worrying for their well-being in this world and the Hereafter, and fearing that they might end up in the Fire. But if someone rejects your opinion, or disagrees with it, does that necessarily mean they will end up in the same Fire? So you need not take that personally.

It is not apparent that Hakeem Noor-ud-din benefited from this advice, but we can certainly benefit from it and learn to know ourselves, especially our limits and limitations.

Source note: The opening verse is Al-Buruj 85:16. The biographical anecdote is retold in English; the original post cites page 106 but does not identify the biography or edition.