Learning to Love

Learning to Love - Ramadan Moments 4 by Abdal Hakim Murad

Opening

"Peace be upon you, and the mercy of Allah and His blessings."

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. May peace and blessings be upon the noblest of prophets and messengers, our master Muhammad, and upon his family and all his companions.

Main Khutbah

In this month, at this time of year, certain things become clearer.

The Heart as the Center of Being

The organism, even though it's, as the hadith says, it's the key to the well-being of all other parts of us.

(Sahih al-Bukhari Hadith 52)

"Indeed, in the body there is a piece of flesh which, when it is sound, the rest of us is sound. And when it's corrupt, the rest is corrupt, and it is the heart"

This heart, which is to do with consciousness, the I, the selfhood, is necessarily an enigma. It's easier to see outside than to see within.

There are divine horizons outside but within. And because we are outward-looking, and our جوارح our limbs and our senses are for experiencing the outside world, what is within is usually beyond our كن. That applies even to our physical organs.

There is the liver, I have a spleen, kidneys, stomach. They're doing their job. I usually don't give thanks for them, but they are there, miracles of divine technology, doing their job year after year, decade after decade.

And I only start grumbling when usually through my own abuse they start to malfunction, but I can't see them. They're within. But that's just the superficial within.

The Enigma of the Self

The real within is the I, the consciousness, the what I am the the self. And that is an enigma. (نَفْسٌ - nafs) بِرَمْزٍ عَمَادٍ - The self is a riddle.

But Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has created this self and the heart, which is somehow the place where the self is centered, to be an organ of perception. We perceive things. We learn things by heart.

The heart experiences emotions and turbulences, intuitions. The heart can even see through dreams aspects of another world. The heart is clearly essential to what makes us Bani Adam, not creatures of mud and clay and dirt, but angelic creatures to whom the very angels can bow down.

It's because of this I-ness, this self, this transcendence within, that we are worth anything at all. So we'd like to know what's going on there. And the companions ask the Holy Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) about the (روح - ruh).

The Divine Mystery of the Spirit

And he has to say, Allah tells him:

"Say: The spirit is of the divine command or the divine affair. It's God's business. And of knowledge you've been given but little"

So this most important part of us, the thing that we really are, is the thing we understand least. And most of our mistakes, if not all of them as human beings, is because we're not really focused, not really spiritually active. Other bits of us, impulses, half-digested memories, the longing for status, those other things pull us this way.

And this is a (رَدّق - radaq) a mud that pollutes the surface of what should be a pure lake, a mirror that reflects the light of heaven. And that's our state. But we have been, in this month, given the opportunity to calm down a bit.

Ramadan as Spiritual Retreat

This is a retreat. We are self-isolating. Even in normal times, there's a little bit of (اعتکاف - i'tikaf) in every Ramadan, we withhold our hands and therefore the heart is withheld from some (دُنْيَويّة - dunyawiyya) pleasures and distractions.

The devils are chained. The Holy Prophet says:

(Sahih al-Bukhari Hadith 2038)

"The Shaytan flows in the son of Adam along with the blood, so narrow [his passages] upon him with hunger"

That tends to break us.

Arrogance is less. We have less energy for stupid playing around. We become more serious, slightly broken, therefore more realistic and real human beings.

And at this time, the heart can start to function. Now Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has said that He has ennobled the descendants of Adam.

"And indeed, We have honoured the children of Adam"

And also has said that at the higher degree of what we are, He loves us.

Divine Love in Hadith an-Nawafil

This is in the Hadith an-Nawafil:

(Sahih al-Bukhari Hadith 6502)

"My slave draws nearer to me with optional acts until I love him"

God can love all of the mess that we represent, all of the missed opportunities, all of the inattentive moments, all of the waste, like a machine that's never really used for the right purpose or properly tuned or properly lubricated.

It's kind of abused. What a waste. It's like having a Formula One car and using it to pull a plough or something.

That's not what we're for. We abuse ourselves. But Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has said that there is this love.

The Prophet as Habibullah

And He has said that the name of the Holy Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) is Habibullah. And this is to be a particular quality of the Ummah of Islam.

Each Ummah has a particular fragrance, a particular wavelength, a particular modality of being alive in the spirit.

And this is indicated in a number of hadiths where the founders of those Ummahs are named:

• Sayyiduna Ibrahim (عليه السلام) is Khalilullah
• Sayyiduna Musa (عليه السلام) is Kalimullah
• Sayyiduna Isa (عليه السلام) is Ruhullah
• Sayyiduna Nuh (عليه السلام) is Najiyullah
• Sayyiduna Muhammad (صلى الله عليه وسلم) is named in the hadith as Habibullah, God's beloved

Learning to Love the Forms of Islam

And there is a particular dimension to the inner life of Islam, the heart life of Islam that pertains to love. And in the month of Ramadan we start to taste this. At least we taste the love of the forms, the divine love for the forms of Islam which are prophetically gifted and which are beautiful.

The fast is a beautiful thing. The prayer is a beautiful thing. The zakat, the hajj, majestic and also beautiful.

Allah loves those actions. And we learn to love them as well. And the Holy Prophet says (صلى الله عليه وسلم):

(Sunan an-Nasa'i Hadith 3939)

"The delight of my eyes has been set in prayer"

To the extent that we progress and the ego stuff dies down, put back in its box, kicked away, and we become real and ourselves in this prophetic way, we really start to love the forms of Islam. And we love the prayer. (وَجُعِلَتْ قُرَّةُ عَيْنِي فِي الصَّلاةِ) That's a measure of our Iman.

He used to say (صلى الله عليه وسلم):

"Give us rest with it, O Bilal" - inviting him to give the Adhan

It is the prayer that allows us to relax, to detox, to be at ease, to be in a state of equilibrium, the inward reality of what the outward form of the prayer enacts. So this quality of mahabba, of love, is fundamental to our religion.

Love for Creation

And it is evinced by the Holy Qur'an's insistence again and again that we look at the wonders of the earth around us, this tafakkur:

"Indeed, in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the succession of night and day, are signs for people of understanding, of lub, insight, heart"

And this seeing them as signs means love. You see the Divine Creator and His genius, His workmanship in everything. You can't help but love it. Who doesn't love beauty? Love is the recognition of beauty and perfection.

So we are to love creation. We are to love:

"the diversity of your tongues and of your colours"

The (اختلاف - ikhtilaf) the diversity of creation, is beloved.

Love for Others as Divine Signs

So we are to be lovers of God's world and lovers of others in whom are not just the outward (آفاق - afaq).

"We shall show them our signs in the horizons and in themselves until it becomes clear to them that it is the truth"

Within themselves, in our inner (آفاق - afaq) seeing the miraculous, endless, unique, irreplaceable lovability of others, to see others with the (عَيْنُ الْمَحَبَّةِ - ayn al-mahabbah) that's the miracle and that is the gift of Iman.

Not just seeing other people as fellow citizens with rights and responsibilities in a kind of dull, cold, liberal social contract, but loving them as (شواهد - shawahid) witnesses, to the divine creative power.

Revering them, not because they are meat computers that will come to an end and will malfunction sooner or later, but because they contain the (قلب - qalb) because it is to them, their ancestor, that the angels bowed.

The Religion of Love

So this is the religion pre-eminently of (محبة - mahabbah) and the Qur'an is endlessly inviting us to remember God but also to think about the beauty in the world. And in the month of Ramadan, as we look out of the window and we see the clouds go by and as we hear the birdsong and we see the beauty of everything, we remember that He is indeed (حَبيبُ اللهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم) whose (شريعة - shari'a) has been brought in this form, which is a form of love.

"And those who have Iman have more, greater, stronger, more magnificent love for Allah"

Closing Dua

So we ask Allah (سبحانه وتعالى) to purify our hearts in this blessed fasting month, to give us the inner as well as the outward bodily reality of the fast, to purify the hearts so that we start to see the light that is in God's creation, to love the beauty that is in God's creation and in each other, to make us people of (تراحم - tarahum) of mutual mercy, of people who are a light for the worlds, to follow the one who is (أَسْوَةٌ حَسَنَةٌ - uswa hasana) an excellent example and to be an example for all nations as a true (أُمَّةً وَسَطًا - ummatan wasatan) so that we may be (شهَدَاء عَلَى الناس - shuhada 'ala al-nas) witnesses to mankind, in a world of fear and division and darkness and confusion and pestilence an (أُمّة - umma) that is a witness to something better, the (أمة - umma) of love of (محبة - mahabbah) the (أمة - umma) of Allah's beloved.