The Forceful Attraction
In preface to the first volume of "Khatam-e-Payambran "
about the Missions", we read as under-All the missions emerging amidst mankind, have neither been identical, nor their sphere of influence has been uniform.
One of these missions and systems may be mono-dimensional and might have proceeded only in one direction; at the time of its introduction it might have covered extensive surface, and might have allured millions as its followers, but subsequently we find its life span having been almost rolled off and itself put to oblivion. Yet another may be bi-dimensional, i.e. spreading in two directions, viz. covering a vast surface and also proceeding in future,its
impact being not only "spacious" but also "enduring".
While others have marched ahead multi-dimensionally.
They have commanded immense multitudes of humanity over vast lands and brought them under their influence, we find their imprints in every continent of the globe. They held the reins of time too, i.e. they could not be confined to one time or age. They have been at the climax of temporal authority for centuriestogether,
they have also spread their roots in the depths of human souls, controlled the very pulse of humanity and have ruled the inmost of human hearts. Such tri-dimensional missions are peculiar to the Apostolical line alone.
Which school of thought or philosophy can be cited in comparison to theworld's
major religions who have been ruling for thirty centuries, for twenty centuries or at least for fourteen centuries and their believers' conscience have been cleaving fast to them? Attractions are, likewise, sometimes mono-dimensional, sometimes bi-dimensional and at others tri-dimensional.
Ali's attraction is of the last category, it attracts immense multitude of men, is not confined to one century or two; it has rather been perpetuating in time and progressing in expansion. The fact of the matter is that it has been in luster throughout the centuries and ages, and has penetrated from surface to the depths of human minds and hearts so that even after centuries when man is put to reminiscence about Ali and listens to hymns of his glories, tears of joy come out of his eyes; and when they weep about his sufferings, the cries they wail would move the worst of Ali's enemies to tears. This is the most forceful attraction.
From here we deduce that men's attachment to religion is not shallow like the one's to matter. It is rather different attachment like which nothing else attaches to human soul.
Had Ali not had the complexion of God and had he not been a man of Allah, he must have been forgotten.
Human history bears traces of many a hero:-
Heroes of Oracles, heroes of learning and philosophy, heroes of power and dominion and heroes of battlefields; but man has either forgotten them all or has not taken notice of them. But to Ali, assassination could not render death; he rather emerged livelier. He himself says: "The accumulators of wealth are dead though breathing. The learned (scholars '-of divinity) would live as long as the time runs; their bodies have disappeared but their impressions survive on pages of human minds".
About himself, Ali says; "Look to my time in future when my merits, so far not recognised, will become manifest, and you will recognise me when you miss me and find another in my place".
My age is ignorant of worth My Yousaf is not for this market;I am disappointed of my old friends;My love is ablaze for a Moses;The Ocean of friends is silent like dew;My dew like a tide bears a storm;My hymns are from another world;This clarion-call is from another caravan;Many poets emerge after their deaths;They shut their eyes to open ours;They derived beauty from nothingness;From their graves they blossom like flowers;My Uman will not be contained by drain;Ocean beds are required for my storm;I have lightening hidden in my heart;The hill sand deserts are gateways to my exhibition;They have blessed me with the "spring of life";They have made me aware of "secret of life";The secret which I divulge has been divulged by none;Like my thought none has arranged even pearls;Old heaven told me this secret, from friends keep nothing concealed".
In fact Ali is like laws of nature which operate to infinity. He is source of generosity that never exhausts, rather becomes voluminous with the passage of every day. To quote Jabran Khalil Jabran: "He came in a time much earlier to his own". Some people are leaders for their own time, a few give lead to future also but gradually their leadership goes to oblivion. But Ali and a few others are guides and the leaders till eternity.
SHI'ITE FAITH: SCHOOL OF LOVE AND AFFECTION
Of all the great distinctions, which the Shi'ite faith enjoys among all the religions of the world, one is that its very basis and foundation lay in love. Since the lifetime of the Prophet himself when this religion was founded, it has been a source of love and fraternity; along with the Holy Prophet having said "Ali and his shi'ites are exultant", we find hosts of 13 men rallying around Ali -- fond, warm and devoted to him.Hence shi'ite faith, a religion of devotion and dedication.
Alliance with him is the school of love and devotion. Element of love operates with full vigor in Shiaism. History of Shiaism is the other name of biography of a ceaseless line of dedicated, selfless and venturesome devotees.
Ali is that very person from whom men never resiled even if he enforced Hadd (Punishment Prescribed by the Quran) on them and lashed them. Virtually in accordance with the rule of Shariat he cut off the hand of one of them, but nothing could impair their love with Ali. He himself says:
"Even if you find me striking a faithful with this sword so as to offend him, he will never show enmity towards me, and if I bestow the whole world on a hypocrite, so that he may become my friend, he will not accept me as his friend, because the Prophet has said: "Oh! Ali faithful will not become your enemy and the hypocrite will not make friends with you".
Ali is the scale and yardstick to measure the natures and temperaments. He who has a pious nature and sound temperament is never annoyed with him, let Ali's sword fall on him; and he who has a polluted nature will not associate with Ali, let Ali be kind towards him, because Ali is nothing but the Truth personified. There was a gentleman of distinction and faith from amongst the friends of Amir-ul-Momineen. Unfortunately he defaulted and the default involved corporeal punishment. Amir-ul-Momineen got his right palm cut off. Holding it in his left hand the convict went ahead bleeding, Ibn Kawa, a Kharijite rebel wanted to capitalize the situation for the benefit of his own band and to the detriment of Ali. Pretending pity, he approached the convict and said, "Who has chopped off your hand?" He said, "My hand has been cut off by the foremost of Prophet's successors, the leader of the brilliant of the doomsday, the nearest to Truth among the faithful, Ali-Ibn-Abi Talib, the Imam of guidance, the first to reach the beneficence of the heavens, the champion of the intrepid, revengeful against followers of the evil, the munificent in alms, the leader to the path of virtue and perfection, the oracle of truth and magnificence, the gallant Meccan and the magnanimous of the believers". Ibn Kawa said, "You be cursed, he chops your hand off and you praise him like this?" He said "Why should I not praise him while the fact is that his affinity is blended in my flesh and blood. By God, he did not remove my hand except as 'ordained by Allah". Such devotion and alliance as we find in the history of Ali and his friends, invite our attention to the phenomenon of love and devotion and its effects.
THE ALCHEMY OF LOVE
The poets of Persian describedevotion(
Ishque ) as alchemy: Alchemists believed that there is a matter in the universe with the name ' Ikseer ' or 'Kimia' which has the capacity to transmute the matters. They exhausted centuries to discover it. The poets borrowed this term and said that the real Alchemy, which has the potential to cause a change, is love and devotion, because devotion can change the nature. Devotion is absolute "Ikseer" and has the quality of alchemy, i.e., it transmutes one metal into another. Men are also of different metals like gold and silver. It is devotion which makes a cardiological organ the heart; if there is no love there is no heart, it is only a piece of mud and water that each heart which lacks pangs is not a heart, The melancholic heart is nothing but a handful of mud:
Oh! God give me a warm, enkindling bosom.
In that bosom a heart which should be all affectionate.
The vigor and strength are from the by-products of devotion; love generates vigor and makes a brave out of a coward.
A domestic hen, as long as it is all alone, collects the plumage on its back, walks leisurely, becomes restive for finding an insect to eat, flees away on a slight alarm and shows little resistance even against a child; but when this very fowl, has a brood, love and devotion get entered into its living figure and its habits are changed: It. drops down the plumage, collected on its back as an indication of preparedness and self-defense, assumes the warring position, so much so that its echo becomes more forceful and braver. Earlier, it would flee on apprehending a danger but now it would assault in case of such an apprehension and would lead a bold aggression; this is love that has made a daring animal out of a timid hen.
Love and devotion transforms the ugly and sluggish into handsome and smart. So much so that it makes a brilliant out of a stupid. The boy and the girl who in their single life never worried themselves about anything, unless it directly concerned them, but as soon as they enter into mutual attachment and organize a matrimonial life, each of them for the first time finds concerned with the fate of the other. At that time the canvas of their desires expands. And when they have become parents of a son, their whole nature is completely changed. That boy who was lazy and sluggish has now become smart and active, and that girl who would never rise from her bed even per force would now leap like lightning on hearing the cry of her cradle-rider. What is that power which has made both of them so sensitive? That is nothing but love and devotion. Devotion makes a generous out of a miser, a powerful and forbearing out of a weak and impatient.
This is because of devotion, that a selfish hen, which was always worried to collect grain for self preservation, as soon as it became of brood on finding a single grainit
calls the chickens to feast. Or to that mother, who till yesterday was a listless daughter always slumbering and eating, weak and irritant, love has now given her the strength to resist hunger, to forbear toil, to resign indolence, to be patient and forbearing and to withstand all the labours of being a mother.
In the parlance of poetry and literature, in chapters about the effects of love, we often enjoy one phenomenon and that is the intuition as bounty of love.
The nightingale has learnt to sing from bounty of flowers, otherwiseAll
this eloquence and lyric were never arranged in her beak.Although prima facie the bounty of flower is a factor external to the figure of nightingale yet in fact it is nothing but the power of love itself.
Do not think that Majnoon became Majnoon himself.
It was Laila's attraction which pulled him from the fish to the star.
Devotion awakens the latent potentialities and liberates the stifled and suppressed faculties, like splitting of an atom and discharge of atomic energy. Devotion is intuitive and emboldening. Many poets, philosophers and men of art are people of love and devotion hence powerful. Love gives perfection to soul and reveals marvelous latent potentialities. From the viewpoint of perception it is intuitive, and from the view point of qualities of sentiments it enhances the will power; and when it ascends to the climax, it performs wonders and miracles.
It purifies the soul from contamination and pollution, in other words, love is a purifier. Love, by washing away the beastly qualities arising out of selfishness, apathy and indifference like miserliness, parsimony, cowardice lethargy, arrogance and self-conceit; destroys and annihilates hatred and vindictiveness. No doubt, failure and deprivation may happen in love and it may generate problems and animosities.
Love makes bitterness sweet.
Love transmutes copper to gold.
If the love is relatable to spirit, it enlightens and enriches the soul; but if it is relatable to body, it would result in its deterioration and degeneration. The effect of spiritual love is just the converse of material love. Material love brings about pessimism, pale face, feeble limbs and defect in digestion and indisposition in muscles. Perhaps the consequences of material love are all destructive but this is not so in the case of spiritual love. Then what should the object of love be?and
how should one benefit from it? Leaving aside its social effects, the effect of spiritual love on individual is perhaps complimentary because it generates vigor, tenderness, unification and determination, and eliminates weakness, impurity, dissension and stupidity. It removes deviations that are called "intrigue" by the Quran, eradicates fraud and transmutes impostor to virtuous:-
The master soul annihilates the body, thereafter reconstructs it,Virtuous is the soul who for the sake of love and happiness, Gave away his home and hearth, property and wealth,He robbed his house of the precious treasure, and filled it with wealth more,He sucked away the water from the riverbed,Thereafter he inundated it with water and benefited from it,He pierced the skin with the spear, thereafter he spread a new layer,The perfect, who know the secret of quest,Are perplexed, intoxicated and enamored,Not so much perplexed as to turn back on him (beloved),Rather so perplexed as (to be) absorbed and lost in the loved one.
BREAKING THE BARRIER
Regardless of its kind, whether carnal (animal) biological (animal) or human, and regardless of the charms and qualities of the beloved, may be he is brave, gallant, efficient, scholarly or has moral values, and any other special merits or qualifications, love and devotion takes one out of selfishness. Selfishness is a limitation and a barrier, and loving another virtually breaks this barrier. Man remains weakling, timid, miser, jealous, malicious, intolerant, selfish and arrogant as long as he does not step out of himself. His soul has no spark and no brilliance, it lacks charm and anxiety, it is always cold and slumbering, but instantly he steps out of himself and breaks the barrier of "self", these evil characteristics also vanish away. Whosoever has torn off his garb while inlove,
becomes purged of greed and blemish!
Breaking the barrier of selfishness does not mean that one should sever all relations with one's personality, nor does it mean that man should so strive as to detach relations with his own person.
It does not mean that in order to get rid of selfishness man should sever the relations, which he has with himself. It does not mean that man should endeavour to dislike himself. The relation with oneself, which is named as "Love of Self" has not been misplaced as to be removed. The reformation and perfection of man does not presuppose that a tissue of redundance has been planted in man, and that these weeds and harmful elements should be removed from him. In other words the reformation of man does not lie in impairing him. It rather lies in complementing and supplementing him. The function assigned to man by nature is towards propagation, i.e. it lies in perfection and augmentation and not in reduction and elimination.
Combat with selfishness is combat with ego-centricism. The self should get expansion. This hedge drawn about ego, which wards off everything as alien, foreign and extraneous, which does not concern him as exclusively personal, must be removed. Personality should so expand as to embrace the whole mankind, rather the whole of nature. Hence combat with selfishness, combat with ego-centricism. As such, selfishness is nothing but limitation of aims and objects. Love rouses man's feelings and tendencies to advert to something external. It expands his personality and changes his outlook towards life. For this reason, love and affection is a great moral and instructive factor provided it is well guided and properly exploited.
CONSTRUCTIVE OR DESTRUCTIVE
When alliance with a person or a thing develops to extreme intensity so much so that it dominates man and becomes his absolute ruler, is called (Ishque). Love is climax of feelings and alliance.
However, it should not be understood that what has been so named is of one kind. It has got two absolutely different kinds. That which is said to bear good consequences is of one kind, but the other kind leads to absolutely harmful and negative consequences.
Human feelings have kinds and degrees. A part of them is for category of lust, particularly sexual lust. It is, for reasons, common to men and all animals. With this difference that, for peculiar and inexplicable reasons, it is found in incalculable proportion and intensity in man, whence it is called love. In animals it is not found to this extent. However, for its nature and kind it is nothing but fury. Reversion and turmoil of sex originates from sexual sources and ends therein. Its intensity and dissipation are concomitants, on the one end is indulgence in sexual intercourse particularly in youthful years, and on the other, i.e. with advance in years, is the diminution of satisfaction and potency or may be their total dissipation. A young man who, on seeing a pretty face and a curly hair, spontaneously shudders, and on touch of a soft hand instantly twists, must know that it is nothing but a material animal phenomenon. Such loves are quick to erupt and still quicker to fade away. It is not dependable or commendable. It is dangerous and humiliating. It yields benefits to man only when it is reinforced with virtue, continence and non-submission i.e., of itself the stimulant leads to no virtue. However, if it penetrates in a man, and is co-existent with virtue and continence and also the soul has withstood its pressure without submitting to it, it would invigorate and augment the soul.
Man has other feelings also which for their kind and nature are different to lust. It is better to call them affection or in the parlance of the Quran to describe them as 'respect' and 'compassion' Man, as long as he remains under the influence of his lust, does not step out of himself. He wants with intensity the person or the object of his attraction for himself. If he thinks of his beloved, he does so for finding opportunity for cohabitation and maximum satisfaction. It is obvious that conditions like this are neither complementary to nor reformative of human world nor do they purify man's soul. But when man submits to the influence of superior human affection, his beloved enjoys respect and prestige in his view and he wishes the beloved prosperity. He is ready to sacrifice himself for the beloved's object. Such affections bring about purity, rectitude, benevolence, tenderness and selflessness; contrary to this is the first category which gives rise to fury, savagery and debauchery. The love and affection of mother to the son are from this category. The love with and dedication to the saints, the divines, the country, and the ideologies are also from this category.
When the sentiments of this category reach the climax and perfection, they yield all those virtuous consequences that we have detailed above. This is the category, which lends grandeur, individuality and sublimity to the soul as against the first category, which is humiliating. Moreover, this category of love is durable and becomes more forceful and warmer by reunion, as against the first category which is short lived, and fruition is considered to be its grave.
In the Holy Quran alliance between wife and husband has been described as (respect) and (compassion). It has greatsignificance,
it gives indication towards human conjugal life's being superior to animals. It means that the factor of sex is not the only natural relationship between spouses. The real tie is to be found in virtue, rectitude and the unity of two souls: In other words, what unify the spouses are the love, respect, virtue and rectitude and not the lust which exists in animals as well.
Maulvi, in his own beautiful style, by creating distinction between lust and respect calls the former to be animal and latter to be human:
Fury and lust are attributes of animals,Love
and tenderness are human qualities;Such merits are (found) in man;Love is lacking in animals and it is for their deficiency.
Even the Philosophers of materialism could not deny this abstract condition in man, which for its being metaphysical is not consistent with their theory of man's being only a superior material animate.
Bertrand Russell in his Book "Marriage and Morals" says:-"Work of which the motive is solely pecuniary cannot have this value, but only work which embodies some kind of devotion, whether to persons, to things, or merely to a vision. And love itself is worthless when it is merely possessive; it is then on a level with work, which is merely pecuniary. In order to have the kind of value of which we are speaking, love must feel the ego of the beloved person as important as one's own ego, and must realize the other's feelings and wishes as though they wereone's
own".
Another point, which may be dealt with, and which does invite our attention, lies in our assertion that even sensual love may be beneficial when continence and virtue are its attendants, i.e., once inaccessibility and parting and then continence, virtue and piety bring such poignant grief and anguish, pressure and hardship to soul as yield good and beneficial results. It is in this context that the mystics say that "even carnal love may get transformed into spiritual love, i.e. love with God". This tradition has also been narrated in the same context: Whosoever fell in love, became reticent and practised continence till death, he had a martyr's end. This point should not be lost sight of that this sort of love with all the benefits that in the special circumstances it carries, is not commendable. It is in fact dangerous. Viewed from this aspect it is like a misery, which, if faced ungrudgingly and patiently by a man whom it befalls, is complementary and purifying for him; it ripens the raw and purifies the contaminated. But none would opt misery for himself so as to benefit from this instructive factor, nor on this pretexthe can
invent misery for others.
Russell elaborately writes on this subject:-
"To a man of sufficient energy, pain may be a valuable stimulus, and I do not deny that if we were all perfectly happy we should not exert ourselves to become happier. But I cannot admit that it is any part of the duty of human beings to provide others with pains on the off chance that it may prove fruitful. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, pain proves merely crushing. In the hundredth case it is better to trust to the natural shocks that flesh is hair to."
As we know that in teachings of Islam much has been devoted to the benefits and effects of miseries and hardships, and they have (at times) been described as an index of Divine bounty, but on this excuse no one has been allowed to cause misery tohimself
or to others.
There is yet another difference between love and misery, i.e. love is greater "adversary of wisdom" than any other factor is. Wherever it treads, it dislodges wisdom from authority.
For these reasons love and wisdom have been introduced as two rivals in saintly literature. The rivalry between the philosophers and the saints emanates from this very source, because the former place reliance on and seek confidence from the authority of wisdom while the latter do so from the force of love. In the saintly literature, in the field of this rivalry wisdom has always been recognised to have been dominated and overpowered. Sa'di says:
"The well wishers advise throwing bricks on the Ocean is useless.Anxiety has upper hand on patience Claim of wisdom over love is false
Another (poet) says:
"I think the scheme of wisdom in the course of love (is),"Like dew attempting script on an Ocean".
The power, which has assumed these proportions, snatches the reins of authority, and in the words of Maulvi "it pulls man from one side to the other as does the storm to a petal of grass".
How could something which according to Russell is "out of anarchic impulses" be commendable?
However, to be occasionally of good effects is one thing and to be commendable is the other.
From here it becomes clear that the objection and criticism of some Muslim jurists on some of the sages of Islam, who have introduced this moot in theology and have described its consequences and effects, are not appropriate because the former have (wrongly) thought that these sages believed that such a pursuit was desirable and commendable, while the fact remains that they have expressed their views only about useful consequences which it might yield if it is coupled with continence and virtue, without holding it to be desirable and commendable; just like miseries and hardships.
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Author: Ayatullah Murtadha Mutahhari
