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Dhikr, Polemics, Preferred Worships

Issue 340 » August 19, 2005 - Rajab 13, 1426

General

Living the Quran

Al-Ankabut (The Spider)
Chapter 29: Verse 45 (partial)

The Significance of Dhikr

"And the remembrance of Allah is the greatest deed without doubt."

The significance of dhikr lies in the fact that it is God's own chosen and recommended mode by which the muminun or Believers show gratitude for having been shown the straight path. In addition, it is indeed the surest way of attaining God's forgiveness and achieving the ultimate reward of Paradise.

The importance of dhikr then is not difficult to understand. It is dhikr that purifies your qalb or heart and makes it sound. And you can only attain salvation and true success by having a pure and sound heart.

The qalb or `heart' referred to here is not the pump in your breast that pushes blood around your body but rather the centre or locus of your personality which pumps out your desires and motivations and which makes you conduct yourself as you do. It is this qalb that lies at your centre and dictates your actions which is the key to your ultimate success.

If the heart is the key to ultimate salvation and success, it may, likewise, be the seat of much corruption and open doors to many evils. It may facilitate the corruption of political and economic activities and ultimately the social institutions of a society.

It is the heart, as the decider of our ultimate fate, that must then be the starting point of any tazkiya programme, to purify this heart and then summon it to the service of mankind.

Ibn al-Qayyim, one of the great scholars of Islam, states in his Kitab al Adhkar (The Book of Remembrance), that 'the heart which is devoid of the remembrance of Allah is a heart that is dead'; it is dead even and long before the body carrying the heart reaches its grave. Indeed, this living body that carries the heart is the heart's grave.

The purpose of tazkiya is to ensure that the heart never falls into a sorry state of being and that it is always alive with the remembrance of God.

Strive then, to fill all your moments, all your thoughts and all your actions with His remembrance. Recite tasbih or words of glorification and praise to punctuate all your actions and achievements.

Source:
"In The Early Hours" - Khurram Murad
Understanding the Prophet's Life

Avoid Polemics

The commands that Islam issued to keep the tongue safe from baseless and absurd things is to declare polemical discussion and controversial debating and to shut its doors upon Muslims, irrespective of whether the polemical debating is correct or otherwise.

It is so because here such conditions arise that a man tries to score a point and to overcome his opponent. As he wants to defeat his adversary by his talk, he takes the support of even dubious and unreliable things which can strengthen his argument, and he quotes such statements unhesitatingly which help him in his task. In such a gathering people give more Importance to winning than on expressing truth. This is likely to result in hatred and disturbances, in which clarification and satisfaction have no place.

Islam hates all these conditions and considers them a danger for the religion and morality.

The Prophet has said:

"He who has given up controversial discussion in senseless and false matters, for him there will be built a house in the lower section of the Paradise; and he who has corrected his morals, for him there will be built a house in the upper section of the Paradise." (Abu Daud)

In another tradition it is stated:

"After receiving guidance no community went astray and did not deviate from the path it was following, except when debaters turned them away from it." (Tirmizi)

When in the fields of religion, politics and other branches of learning the so called orators and expert writers come forward for indulging in polemics and debates, then the spirit of religion receives a setback. The face of politics, learning and sciences is disfigured. And possibly this helped in hastening the decline of our civilization and culture, in the formation of group of the schools of “Fiqh”, division of the Ummah on the sectarian basis and other diseases of disruption. In other matters of religion and worldly affairs also this controversial debating spread its poison.

Controversial debating is worlds away from pure, clean discussion, and sober and pleasant argumentation.

Source:
"Muslims Character" - Muhammad Al-Ghazali
Blindspot!

Preferred Worships

Ibn Al-Qayyim examined various opinions on which Ibadah (acts of worship) are better; are the best actions the ones that are the hardest to perform, or are the best actions those that are more beneficial?

He concluded that there is no such thing as an absolutely preferred worship but there are times when a particular worship is preferred the most.

For example, in times of famine, providing food is the best deed that brings a Muslim closer to Allah. When a Muslim country is invaded, fighting in defence is the best deed, followed by providing the fighters with weapons and money. When scholars die and there is nobody to succeed them, learning religion is the greatest act for which a Muslim may seek reward from Allah.

This is how deeds should be balanced against one another, according to their relevance and merits.

Source:
"Priorities of Islamic Movement in the Coming Phase" - Yusuf Al-Qaradawi