A lot of life is about acceptance, of taking things as they
are. One is faced with the challenge of making something of one’s life in this world
whilst at the same time realizing that a lot of what takes place in that life is beyond
our control. Things can and will go wrong, or at least they will seem wrong because what
we have in mind about what is right for us is different.
All too often we tend to look at others and at ourselves and
wonder why it is that someone has so much and some one has so little or why it is that
others have what we don’t have. We tend to forget that behind it all is reasoning;
reasoning we often won’t understand. At such times we should remember the misaq,
when we were told that; the Mola to whom we are giving our oath will raise some and lower
others; to some he will give and from others he will take away; “You won’t
contest this or raise any objection?”
Awliyaullah (s.a.) are so closely connected to Allah’s
will that they are able to submit to it without question in even the most challenging of
circumstances. In fact, they find their peace of mind in doing so. Today’s w`aaz,
with the zikr primarily of Ibrahim nabi (a.s.) gave many examples of such submission and
the remarkable barakat that was received in return.
When Ibrahim nabi was about to be launched into the fire,
Jibraeel (a.s.) came to him to ask if he needed his assistance. Ibrahim said,
“No”. Jibraeel then asked if he wanted Allah’s assistance and once again
and this time to his surprise, Ibrahim said, “No”. The fire into which he was
launched turned into a garden and Ibrahim nabi came away unscathed. Yet Jibraeel was
driven to ask why it was that Ibrahim had said that he had no need for assistance from
Allah. Not needing his own assistance was one thing but no need for Allah’s? To this
Ibrahim replied that if his being burned in the fire was Allah’s will then he had no
reason to question it. It is for this remarkable composure in the face of adversity and,
perhaps more strikingly, whilst having the opportunity at hand to deliver himself
from it that Ibrahim nabi is referred to as saleem-ul-qalb, ‘tranquil of
heart’.
For lessons of submission to Allah’s will we were
reminded today of the ayat of al-Qur’an;The literal meaning of this ayat refers to
the replacement of Ibrahim’s son, Ismail, with a sacrificial lamb when Ibrahim was
about to carry out the zabihat of his son in accordance with the instructions that
came to him in a dream. However, today, along with this, we were given several different
meanings for several different periods, from then until the present day era of Du`aat
Mutlaqeen.
When Ibrahim nabi had this dream he did not question the
instruction to sacrifice his son but instead asked Ismail what he felt. His son, too,
displayed the same acceptance for Allah’s will that his father did by saying that he
should do what he had been instructed to. Contrast this with the action of Ibliis who,
when all the angels did sajda to Adam (s.a.) when Allah instructed them to do so,
did not and was banished from Paradise as a result.
Similarly, when Imam Aamir (a.s.), the father of Imam Tayyeb
(a.s.), prepared for the onset of satr he left the rule of the Fatemid Empire in
the hands of Abdul-Majeed with the explicit instruction to hand it back to the Imam when
the time was right. In this capacity Abdul-Majeed was known as Wali-o-ehd-il-Muslimeen (a
post of entrustment) yet, within a short time he was calling himself Amir-ul-Mumineen,
a title reserved for the Imam.
Molana explained, that had Abdul-Majeed acted in accordance
with the instructions given to him by the Imam then the Empire would have flourished. As
it is, whilst the D`awat continued in the safe hands of Molatena Hurratul Maleka (a.s.)
and the Du`aat in the Yemen, the empire in Misr and North Africa under Abdul-Majeed, was
soon to collapse completely.
Molana Abdul-Muttalib (a.s.), Rasulallah’s grandfather,
had ten sons. For the birth of the tenth Molana Abdul-Muttalib had taken a vow to
sacrifice him. When the child was born however he did not have the heart to do so and drew
lots to sacrifice a number of camels instead. The lots were drawn in tens and it was not
until the number of camels reached 100 that they came in favour of sacrificing the camels.
Molana Abdul-Muttalib now redrew it a further ten times and only when all of them came in
favour of the camels did he accept the verdict and sacrifice them instead.
For Mohammed Rasulallah (s.a.) the acceptance of Allah’s
will was shown when he sacrificed his only surviving son, Ibrahim (a.s.), for the sake of
his grandson Husain. This he did because he knew that there was still to come a time when
an acceptance of Allah’s will by Husain would be the reason for the salvation of all
Mumineen.
The same Husain, by who’s will Allah gave seven children
to a Mumin who was to have had none; stood in the battlefield of Karbala with sword in
hand, the enemy to both sides running away in mortal fear and armies of angels ready to
vanquish them for him. Yet, instead of accepting the help of those angels he asked
Jibraeel, “But what is Allah’s wish?” Upon hearing that His wish was for
him to lay down his life, he sheathed his sword and dismounted.
So what of a Mumin and acceptance of the will of Allah? Well
that, of-course, is achieved through accepting the will of Allah’s Da`ii, our Aqa -
Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin (t.u.s). The Arabic word mola refers to the one to whom
we have submitted our will. We do this freely yet, having done so, must now remain true to
it in totality and not just sometimes, or somewhere, or when it is convenient.
Not only that, but just as Molana Abdul-Muttalib redrew the
lots ten times to confirm Allah’s wish it is necessary for us to continually check,
confirm, make sure and make an effort to find out what the will and pleasure of our Mola
is.
Only when we have subjugated our will to his will can we
truly say he is our Mola. And - whilst we may not always understand why it should be so,
the lessons of history tell us that submitting to the will of Allah and his Da`ii ensures
peace of mind, heart and soul; and deliverance both in this life - and in the next.
May Allah t`aala grant Aqamola eternal sehat and `aafiyat
and grant us the continued tawfiq by which we may remain worthy of the honour of
referring to him as our Mola.
