A perspective on the Signs of Al-Quran through the prism of the heart by Saeed Malik.
Excerpt
Like the oil in the kernel and the spark in the flint-stone
Your Lord is within. Wakeup if you can. Wakeup!
The Arabic Quran is not a mere book. It is God?s speech, living and transformational, directed to the spiritual heart. In every earnest heart it will awaken a quest and for every quest it offers its own pace and own mileposts. God beckons the heart to reflect, or as Rumi would say, ?sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment?
Had We revealed this Quran upon a mountain
you would see it humble itself and implode in awe of God
We propound such analogies so that they may reflect
Sincerity is single-heartedness. There cannot be duplicity of purpose or desire; one longing above all longings. The cleansed and emptied heart, places itself at the mercy of the beloved! Leave trepidation behind because this Beloved is the Fount of Mercy.
God is God and there is no other
Knower of the hidden and imperceptible {Ghaib} and the evident
The Source of Compassion {Rahman}, The Merciful {Raheem}
A mystical tryst, like no other is on offer. A drop of water is being called by the sea. Can the drop offer any terms of surrender? Can its journey end any other way?
God is God and there is no other
The Sovereign {Malik}, The Holy {Quddus}, The Source of Peace {As Salaam},
The Guardian of Faith {Mumin}, The Giver of Safety {Muhaimin}, The Almighty {Azeez}, The Compeller {Jabbar}, The Overwhelming {Muttakabir}
Exalted is God, above any partners they may associate (with Him).
The kaleidoscopic forms and colors of life are expressions of Divine Artistry, which moulds us, shapes us, and moves us. The heart is moved by beauty though it will need guidance and wisdom to discern between what is truly beautiful and what merely poses for beauty. True beauty flows from the Divine. The contemplation of this beauty in an expressed or silent form is the remembrance of God (Dhikr).
This is God, the Creator {Khaliq}, The Originator {Bari}, The Shaper {Mussawwir}
To Him refer the Most Beautiful Names
Celebrated by all there is in the Heavens and the earth
And He is boundless in Might {Azeez}, complete in Wisdom {Hakeem}
The ?Most Beautiful Names? (of God) are Arabic Names sprinkled throughout the Quran. They are often used to conclude a verse, imprinting the context with a contemplative residue. These Divine Names are also referred to as Divine Attributes. Sometimes a Name is used by itself and often it is used in juxtaposition with another Name (such as Barrun Raheem, Ghafoorul Raheem). Some of these Attributes are just shades apart (Al Khaliq, Al Bari, Al Musawwir) and some are ?opposites? such as AZ Zahir and AL Batin, Al Awwal and Al-Aakhir. Together, the union of shades and the union of opposites leave nothing out, enfolding all contemplation, phenomena and time, space and physicality. Contemplation of these names yields no vision. The imagination trying to tie God to a form is quickly frustrated; much like the eye probing the sky for its limit or imperfections withdraws unto itself tired, defeated and dazzled. Creation, leaving the Creator aside, is beyond imagination. How then to imagine the Creator? One cannot. No vision can comprehend God.
God transcends, time and magnitude. The magnitude of Al Kabeer and Al Wasi is not static, not physical and is limited by our own capacity. Contemplation of His Names will humble the mind and thus soften the heart. This is the Dhikr of God. The Dhikr of God challenges the false ?complacency of knowing? so that we make room for the Truth. It confronts the self so that it aligns to the Self. It expounds Unity, so that we may participate in It. Says, Rumi, the eloquent participant in Unity, there is no use being a swimmer when the ocean has no edges. It is time to let the ocean hold you, mould you and let it carry you; it is the ocean of Divine Guidance.
The journey of Dhikr is towards the Real, towards transcendence and towards the Source. Dhikr is also the pursuit of beauty as His are the most Beautiful Names. For some like Rumi, Dhikr exposes their separation from our Source, so that they long for re-union.
God is the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last, the Caring and the Stern, the Just and the Forgiving, the Conceiver and the Creator, the King and the Master, the Source and the Goal, the Giver and the Taker, the Forbearing and the Compeller. We seek refuge in God, in His Mercy and away from His Wrath. God is both near to us (by the attributes of Tasbih, (attributes in which we can participate in this life) and far from us (by attributes of Tanzih, attributes in which we can have no participation). The attributes of God convey both his Jamal (beauty and compassion) and Jalal (majesty and sternness). Said the Prophet, ?Peace of Faith (Emaan) reposes between fear and hope?.
The Divine Word ?Be? {Kun} is the singular and absolute cause of all causes. Within this Word is the knowledge of all that will be caused to happen and it is free of any impediments, including the impediment of time. All phenomena and time (the latter being the medium in which phenomena exists) flow from Kun. Each being (and its allotted time) is the Divine Word. Time circumscribes human life and knowledge and therefore serves as the medium in which human experience exists. Time is extraneous to the fulfillment of the Divine Command. Being and its knowledge is the Divine command ?Be?. The Divine knowledge is complete and has always been complete. Divine knowledge of the Day of Reckoning is as complete as the knowledge of the Day of Creation. Human experience and knowledge emanate from events, or simply said, events make news. With God events emanate from Knowledge.
No affliction befalls in the earth or in yourselves but it is in a Book before We bring it into being. Indeed that is easy for God
It may be said that from the Divine perspective, before and after, cause and effect are coincident. To the human experience, which must exist and operate in time, this is paradoxical. Dhikr invites contemplation outside of this paradox, to a state of awareness (or understanding, if you will) in which the paradox begins to fade and disintegrate. Dhikr nurtures a ?supra logic? within which rests ?analytical logic??un-impaired, un-hindered, and fully reconciled. This is not mere polemics. Were it so then the science of Physics would not be any less polemical or baffling even to the scientist. Consider that we are all made of atoms, same as those that make up the wooden and plastic wares around us. Our atomic construct is no different than that of a table! And atoms too are mostly empty space. The nucleus of an atom, its solid core, is like a ball in a coliseum, far, far smaller than the empty space that forms its outer boundary. An indeterminate cloud is the outer non-substance of our physical ?form?. We and our world are a physical paradox. It should suffice, to stay clear of the pre-destination versus the free-will conundrum that while our physical existence flows from the Divine Word, our free-willed intentions (as they relate to our participation (sincere or otherwise) in the Divine Plan) are fully autonomous. Through our sincere participation in the Divine Plan we find ourselves inside the stated purpose of the Divine Word?Mercy. And yes, God does invite us to participate in the Divine Plan of beauty.
Anyone who fosters goodness and beauty,
We will add goodness and beauty to it
By skirting or fighting the Divine Plan we merely foster an illusion. A heart that does not consistently remind itself both of its dependence upon God and accountability to Him becomes the host of its own vanity and gratification. It lives in denial, hoisting more veils between itself and Reality. Our fixation on ourselves, fostered too by modern life?s insulation from Nature, is spiritually cancerous. Dhikr helps to scrub, renew and realign the heart, rolling up the veils that cloister it from true and abiding peace and harmony. One purpose of Dhikr is to move ones ?center? from the self to the Absolute Reference that is God. Without this Absolute Reference we are wayward and ill-prepared for the Return. Dhikr is an effort to approach and embrace Tawheed (Oneness)?an effort and a journey without limits and beyond words?perhaps akin to the journey of a rain-drop back to the sea.
God has absolute primacy over each of His attributes. ?There is no god but God? may be amplified to ?There is no god but Rahman? and-or ?There is no mercy except God?s Mercy.? Beauty, Power, Control, Mercy, Creativity and Forgiveness belong to God alone. God invites his deputy to participate in these attributes, in compliance (Islam), conscientiously (with Emaan) and with the purity of devotion (Ehsan). Dhikr is to discover our bond with God. A bond that is both universal and personal, within and outside of time, on earth and in heaven.
?Try to gain one moment in which you see only God in heaven and earth.?
According to a mystic tradition, ninety-nine Divine Names hold the key to a transformational spiritual awakening. The following list is compiled to present the Name in reference of a selected verse. The verses are trans-interpreted. Their rendering here, far from being sufficient, is intended to encourage the reader to seek and recite the Arabic Source. The Most Beautiful Names are the beads of a meditative rosary; Whisper often upon these beads. The Most Beautiful Names are also the breath-taking patterns of a spiritual kaleidoscope. Contemplate, because the kaleidoscope holds, for Adam and Eve on earth, the beauty of Paradise. The Prophet was reported to have said that the people in Paradise will have no regrets except for the regret of those moments on earth which passed without the Dhikr of Allah.
The musings of the author, alongside each Divine Name, are mere gravel at the starting point of the meditative path. God {Al Haadi} is the Guide. The Divine Attributes are ?pathways of the heart?. The journey of the heart is on wings. The Destination is within
Truly We have created man
And We know the whispers within his innermost being,
And We are closer to him than his jugular vein.
Kabir?s Doha. Jaise til mein tel hai, jyon chakmak mein aag; Tera Sain tujh mein hai, tu jaag sake to jaag
Al Quran 5921
Al Quran 5922
Al Quran 5923
Al Quran 5924
Tasbih and Tanzih are discussed in great depth in The Vision of Islam by Murata and Chittick
Hadith, Bukhari
Al Quran 5722
Al Quran 4223
The Vision of Islam by Murata and Chittick
Abu Yazid al-Bistami, translated and quoted in ?The Enlightened Mind? An anthology of Sacred Prose edited by Stephen Mitchell
The Sufi Book of Life, 99 Pathways of the Heart for the Modern Dervish, by Neil Douglas-Klotz
Al Quran 5016