Straight

Straight (Istiqamah)

By Abdal Hakim Murad - Ramadan Moments 1

Opening

(Sunan at-Tirmidhi Hadith 3513)

"O Allah, You are Forgiving and Generous, You love forgiveness, so forgive us."

The Fundamental Hadith of Istiqamah

There's a well-known Quranic term which needs a careful definition, which is indicated in a number of ayat and hadith. A famous hadith in Sahih Muslim on Sufyan bin Abdullah, radhiyallahu anhu:

(Sahih Muslim Hadith 38)

"He said: I said, 'O Messenger of Allah, tell me something in Islam which, if I say it and follow it, I will not need to ask anyone else about it.' He said: 'Say: I believe in Allah, then go straight.'"

So it's a hadith in Sahih Muslim in which one of the Sahaba says to the Rasul, (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam), and he's asking for something very short and sweet: "Tell me something in Islam which, if I say it and follow it, I will not need to ask further." And he says: "Say, I believe in God and then go straight."

That's it. This is min jawami al-kalim one of the words, one of the phrases that kind of include all phrases, everything we need to know. And very often we find that the hadith of the Chosen One, (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam), are amazingly comprehensive in telling us everything in a few words.

The Two Elements: Belief and Istiqamah

So in this phrase, the Holy Prophet is indicating two things. Profess your belief in the Creator, the One, the Source, and the Place of Return - al-mabda' wal-ma'ad. Without that you are kind of floating in a void, without a beginning, without an end, without knowing your orientation, without a qibla - you are kind of nothing, nihilist. And then, استقم - follow istiqamah, go straight.

So it's a matter of statement (qala) and how you are (hala). You can't have the one without the other. Going straight is difficult unless you know where you're going to.

Saying "Allah" is not really very meaningful unless you act in accordance with the fact that the world has a direction. So this includes everything. It's like the two shahadahs: (لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا اللهُ، مُحَمَّدٌ رَسُولُ اللهِ - "No God but God.") What should I do about that? The Sunnah. Follow the Holy Prophet, (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa alihi wa sallam).

The Daily Prayer for Guidance

So this istiqamah, this going straight, which is what we pray for 27 times a day or more:

"Guide us to the straight path" - the upright path, the path of rectitude, the path that is the shortest line between two points - is of course where we go astray.

We go on other roads. We follow the subul. Maybe in English the word "crook" refers to the fact that somebody's gone crooked. We're not straight. We're not upright. As the Americans say, you're not a stand-up guy.

Human Nature and Creation

So we are created in أَحْسَنِ تَقْوِيمٍ :

"We have certainly created man in the best of forms."

Adam is an upright creature unlike any other creature. He is heavenward in his direction.

But at the same time we look this way and we look that way and it's tempting. The scenery of dunya is pretty appealing. In this time, in this month, that tap of temptations is turned off or turned down.

It's just a trickle. Maybe we look at things that we shouldn't look at. Maybe we think about things we shouldn't think about. Maybe we are not right with God. We're not mustaqim. But the benefit of this month is that it is easier for us to see the straight path in front of us because the distractions, the scenery is kind of monochrome.

The temptations, the possibilities are constrained, especially at this time when so many of us are in our homes. Istiqamah is easier by God's grace than it is when we're just kind of enjoying the pasture without

thinking about where we might be going.

Human Forgetfulness

So this istiqamah is important but we get distracted. That's our nature. It's said that the reason why man is called (إِنْسَانُ - insan) is that he is full of (نِسْيَانٌ - nisyan) - forgetfulness. It's one interpretation, poetic perhaps, of what the name of man means.

We forget. We remember and we forget. And we remember and we forget that Allah in his grace gives us lots of times and opportunities and days and months to go back to him.

And at a time when many are thinking about perhaps a near return to him, this becomes easier and this inabah, this turning back, becomes more real and more necessary and more yearned for.

The Prophet's Grey Hair

But it's still difficult. The Holy Prophet, (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam), was asked by Abu Bakr as-Siddiq: "Ya Rasulullah, I see that you're turning grey."

And he said: "I've been turned grey by the surah of Hud and its sisters" - the other surahs that begin with the same letters. And it is said one of the meanings of this is that it contains the phrase:

"Go straight, be a person of rectitude as you have been commanded."

This is directed to him, (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam). And so awe-inspiring is this command by the only one who has the right to give commands, and so catastrophic the possibility of just following impulse, that it turns him grey. He who was ma'soom, divinely secured from straying, nonetheless feels this fear.

Fear and Hope: The Two Wings

And the believer is between fear and hope. Fear and hope are like the two wings of the bird. If they're balanced, the bird travels, goes right, if you like, in a balanced way. So you have to have fear as well as hope.

Life is not just about enjoying the pasture. Life is all about having a direction. You're not always going to be in this field where you're munching the grass happily. You came in through a gate, you're going out through another gate.

That's the iron rule of life for Bani Adam and for every living thing. You came in through a gate, you're going out through another gate. So don't spend too much time just thinking this pasture and this joyful

munching is going to go on forever.

Ramadan and the Chaining of Devils

So this istiqamah is in a sense what makes us human beings and is the greatest miracle given the nature of our impulses. And in this month, the shayateen are suffidat, as the Holy Prophet says in the famous hadith:

(Sahih al-Bukhari Hadith 1899, Sahih Muslim Hadith 1079)

"When the month of Ramadan comes in, the doors of Paradise are opened, the doors of Hell are closed, and the devils are chained."

The devils are fastened and we are invited. And an angelic voice calls out:

(Sunan at-Tirmidhi Hadith 682)

"And in this month we can kind of all hear that voice saying: 'Oh you who seek good, arise, get on with it. And you who look for evil, desist.'"

The shayateen are chained and it's a little bit easier for us to get back on the straight path, to find our true direction.

The Two Impulses Within Us

But this is the nature of Bani Adam, that we have these two enormous impulses, just as we have these two enormous spiritual principles within us. There's the nafs, which is gravitational, animalistic, wants to go down, subject to the laws of gravity, and is interested in every possible way that the endorphin circuits of the brain might be tickled.

Any pleasure it'll be really interested in, like a dog that looks excitedly in the direction of anything that smells good. That's us. But there's also this ruh, this spirit, which is from the divine breathing in, in sufflation:

"The clay of Adam had the divine spirit breathed into it, and that has a divine home. And that's the istiqamah."

The lower self, the nafs, doesn't really have a direction, it goes this way and that, just like any instinctual creature. It goes for wherever the pleasure seems to be greater. The goat goes for whatever looks tastiest. That's us.

But the istiqamah, the uprightness, which is directed and oriented and secured by this vertical dimension, which is from the (وَنَفَخْنَا فِيهِ مِن رُّوحِنَا - wanafakhna fihi min ruhina) is to go straight, straight to the exit of the field, beyond which there is true delight:

"Ongoing blessing and delight."

So we have these two dimensions within us.

Umar's Teaching on Istiqamah

The one which is going this way and that. And Sayyiduna Umar ibn Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him, on the minbar once was talking about istiqamah, this going straight. And he said it means:

(Various classical sources)

"Not weaving like foxes."

You probably haven't been fox hunting, but the fox moves this way and that. It doesn't run straight, it goes this way and that, and because it's a fearful creature that wants to avoid the pursuing dogs or the huntsman's gun. It's a foxy creature.

The ego is like that. Slimy, wants to get out of difficulties, wants to tell fibs in order to extricate itself. It twists and turns. It's devious. But the spirit, what we truly are, the ruh, which remembers the day of alastu bi rabbikum, just wants to go straight back, straight for the light. If the light is there and seen and felt, why go this way or that? Straight back.

And this is istiqamah.

The Journey of Life

So in this blessed month, as we travel from the first day of the fast to the day of the Eid, moving like all human beings, always and forever in one direction, that's a journey that is maqhoor, something that is absolutely constraining us and we can do nothing about it. Even though we wish: "Oh, if only it was this time yesterday and I hadn't said this to him."

We often make these futile hindsight lamentations. No, we head in one direction only and we don't revisit a single moment, a single virtue, a single life, fault, vice of our lives. Straight.

Straight for the grave. Straight for the entrance to the unknown. Straight back to the Lord.

Following the Prophet's Footsteps

Back to God. All things return. And let that return for us be not trying to escape it, but rather to welcome that return and to find in putting our faltering and frail feet directly in the footsteps of the Chosen One, (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam), whose march to his Lord was absolutely straight and beautiful.

Shining. Those footprints still shine for us. Flowers grow where he stepped.

To go exactly in that way, to follow the sunnah, to avoid all reprehensible innovations and deviations and the ahwa, the temptations of the ego, that's a great thing.

The Command in Surat Hud

So let this Ramadan be for us and for this ummah and for a fearful, penitent world, inshallah, a time of return, ma'ad, that is going straight, not resisting what is beautiful, not following what is dark within ourselves, but let us be a people who hear this command in Surat Hud:

"Go straight as you have been commanded" a commandment directed to all of Bani Adam.

Let us remember the monstrousness of stepping off that path because we think we know a better way. And let us remember the great grandeur and dignity and beauty of those who stay on the straight path and go as quickly as they can towards the acceptance of their Lord's decree, whatever it might be.

Closing Dua

So may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make us people who receive forgiveness and blessings and uprightness and going straight, and inshallah discerning with the eye of the heart the luminousness of our final destination so that there is no temptation to step off the path to the left or to the right, inshallah.

(Traditional Islamic closing)