Alhassanain(p) Network for Heritage and Islamic Thought

The World and Worldliness

Renunciation in the Nahj al-balaghah

Of the frequent themes of the Nahj al-balaghah is strong warning against the dangers of worldliness. Our preceding discussion about zuhd (abstinence) and its aims also serves here to throw light on the meaning of worldliness; because, the zuhd which is strongly enjoined is the very opposite of the worldliness which is severely condemned.

To define and explain any one of them is to define and explain the other. However, in view of the tremendous emphasis laid in 'Ali's moral sermons upon the warning against the dangers of worldliness, we considered it appropriate to devote a separate chapter to this topic with a view to further explaining this concept so that all ambiguities are removed in this matter.

The first point to be investigated is why so much attention has been given to the concept of zuhd in the sayings and sermons of Amir al-Mu'minin, to the extent that no other issue has been so much emphasized by him, and neither the Holy Prophet (S) nor any of the other Imams (A) have spoken as recurringly about the deceptions of worldly life, its ephemeral and unenduring nature, the disloyalty of its slippery comforts, and the dangers of wealth, affluence, and immersion in and complete surrender to worldly pleasures and comforts.

The Danger Created by War Booty

This was not a matter of accident, rather it was something related to the conditions that came into existence during 'Ali's times, that is, during the days of the past caliphs and especially during the caliphate of 'Uthman. A series of serious dangers visited the world of Islam in the wake of the influx of huge quantities of wealth and riches. 'Ali (A) sensed its dangerous consequences and struggled against them.

This struggle is reflected in his practices and policies during the period of his caliphate, in the course of which he ultimately gave up his life. This struggle, at the ideological level, is also reflected in his sermons, letters, and sayings.

The Muslims were blessed with great victories in battles that diverted huge amounts of property and wealth into the Muslim world. However, instead of being utilized for public benefit or being distributed justly among the people, the wealth fell into the hands of a few individuals and an elite.

Especially during the days of 'Uthman, this imbalance became greatly pronounced. Persons who possessed nothing only a few years ago appropriated for their personal use fabulous amounts of wealth. This was the time when worldly tendencies gained strength in the Muslim society and the Muslim Ummah started on a course of moral decline and degeneration.

It was following the awareness of this great danger to society that 'Ali raised his cry of protest to warn the Ummah of Islam. Al-Mas'udi, writing about the days of 'Uthman, says:

'Uthman was a man of extraordinary generosity (of course, it was exercised at the cost of the public treasury). The government officials and the people followed his example. He was the first among the Caliphs to build a house made of stone and mortar with wooden doors made of teak and juniper, and amassed other properties, such as gardens, orchards, and springs, in al-Madinah.

When he died, there were 150,000 Dinars and a million Dirhams in cash with his treasurer and his property in Wadi al-Qura, Hunayn, and elsewhere was valued above 100,000 Dinars. His legacy consisted of a large number of horses and camels.

Then he writes:

During his reign, a group of his associates also hoarded similar amounts of wealth. Al-Zubayr ibn al-'Awwam built a house in Basrah which still stands intact in the year 332 H. [al-Mas'udi's own time]. It is also well known that he built similar houses in Egypt, Kufah, and Alexandria.

When al-Zubayr died he left 50,000 Dinars in cash, a thousand horses and thousands of other things. The house which Talhah ibn 'Abd Allah built of brick, mortar and teak in Kufah still exists and is known as 'Dar al-Talhatayn.'

Talhah's daily income from his properties in Iraq was one thousand Dinars. He had one thousand horses in his stables. A one-thirty-second (1/32) part of the wealth that he left at his death was estimated at 84,000 Dinars ...

Al-Mas'udi mentions similar amounts of wealth in the possession of Zayd ibn Thabit, Ya'la ibn 'Umayyah and others. Evidently, such huge amounts of wealth do not emerge from under the ground nor fall from the sky. Such immense riches are never amassed except by the side of extreme and horrifying poverty. That is why 'Ali (A), in sermon 129, after warning the people of the dangers of worldliness, says:

You live in a period when virtues recede and evils advance step by step, and the Satan becomes greedier in his eagerness to ruin human beings. Today his equipment has been reinforced, his traps are set in every place, and his prey comes easily.

Look around; you will see either a poor man hardly able to breathe in extreme poverty and penury, or a rich man who has transformed God's blessings into his own infidelity, or you will see a miser who makes stinginess in discharging the obligations imposed by God a means of increasing his own wealth, or you will find the rebellious whose unruly hearts are deaf to moral admonition.

Where are the virtuous, the righteous amongst you? Where are the free men and the magnanimous? Where are those who avoid every trace of deceit in their dealings and pursue piety and honesty in their ways?

The Intoxication of Affluence

Amir al-Mu'minin (A), in his utterances, has used the phrase sakarat al-ni'mah, meaning 'intoxication induced by comfort and affluence', which is inevitably followed by a vengeful disaster. In sermon 151 he warns them:

You, O people of Arabia, would be victims of calamities which are drawing near. Beware of the intoxication induced by affluence and fear the vengeful disaster which will follow it.

Then he describes the misfortunes caused by such immoderations. In sermon 187 he foretells the calamities that were to befall the Muslim society in future. He says:

This would happen when you would be intoxicated, not by drinking wine, but with wealth and affluence.

Yes, the flow of immense amounts of wealth into the domain of Islam and the unjust distribution of this wealth together with nepotism and partiality, infected the Islamic society with the disease of worldliness and the race for affluence.

'Ali (A) struggled to save the Islamic world from this grave danger, and was severely critical of those who were responsible for the infection to set in. He set an example of an altogether different life style in his own personal living, and, on attaining caliphate, he gave the top priority to the campaign against these dangers in his revolutionary programme.

The General Aspect of 'Ali's Warnings

This prologue was intended to throw light upon the particular aspect of the warnings of Amir al-Mu'minin (A) about worldliness as a specific reaction to a particular social phenomenon of his times. Yet, aside from this particular feature, there is a general aspect to 'Ali's words that is not confined to his own time and applies to all times and all people as an essential part of Islamic teaching.

This specific logic emanates from the teaching of the Holy Qur’an which is followed up in the sayings of the Holy Prophet (S), Amir al-Mu'minin (A) and the rest of Imams (A), as well as in the writings of great Muslim sages. However, it is a logic which needs a detailed analysis. In the present discussion, our concern will be more with the general aspect of the discourses of Amir al-Mu'minin (A) in the sense that in them 'Ali (A) addresses himself to all human beings of all times.

The Terminology of Every School

Every school of thought has a terminology which is specific to it. In order to understand the concepts and issues of a certain school, it is essential to be familiar with its terms. On the other hand, in order to understand its particular terminology, it is necessary, in the first place, to understand its general view of the universe, life and man: that is its weltanschauung.

Islam has a clear view of being and creation, and has a particular way of looking at man and human life. One of the fundamental principles of the Islamic world-outlook is the notion that there is no duality of any kind whatsoever in being; that is, the world of creation is not divisible into two domains of 'good' and 'evil'.

That is, it is not true that some existents are good and beautiful and should have been created, whereas some are evil and ugly and should not have been created but nevertheless exist. Such a view is regarded as kufr in the Islamic world-outlook, and is considered contrary to the principle of tawhid. In the view of Islam, the creation of all things is based on goodness, wisdom, and beauty:

Thou seest not in the creation of the All-merciful any imperfection ...(67:3)

He is the Knower of the unseen and the visible, the All-mighty, the All-compassionate, Who made good everything He created; (32:6-7)

Accordingly, Islam's condemnation of 'the world' does not apply to the world of creation. The Islamic world-outlook rests on the foundation of pure tawhid and lays great emphasis on the Unity of the Acting Principle; it does not admit the existence of any partner who would share God's sovereignty. Such a world-outlook can never be pessimistic. The idea of an evil world abounding in crookedness and wickedness is not an Islamic notion. Then why does it denounce 'the world'?

The 'World ' that is Condemned

Commonly it is said that attachment to the 'world' is condemned and disapproved by Islam. This is both true and false. If what is implied is an emotional attachment, it cannot be true; because, man, in relation to the total system of creation, has been created with a series of congenital emotional attachments and inclinations.

In addition, he does not acquire these inclinations, nor are they superfluous or incongruous. Even as in the human body there is no superfluous organ-not even a single nerve ending-so also there are no redundant congenital tendencies of attachment in his nature.

All innate human tendencies, and aptitudes have a purpose which is wise and sagacious. The Holy Qur’an regards such tendencies as the 'signs' of Divine Wisdom and the Creator's consummate design:

And of His signs is that He created for you, of yourselves, spouses, that you might repose in them, and He has set between you love and mercy (30:21)

These attachments and sentiments form a series of channels of communication between man and his world. Without them man would not be able to pursue the course of his development.

Consequently, it should be said that the Islamic world-outlook, even as it does not permit us to denounce and reject the world, it also does not allow us to regard the natural attachments and the channels of communication as superfluous, useless, and breakable, because such sentiments and tendencies are a part of the general pattern of creation.

In fact, the prophets (A) and the awliya' were endowed with these sentiments and emotions to a high degree of exuberance.

The truth is that what is implied by 'attachment to the world' are not these natural and innate inclinations; instead, what is meant is bondage to material and worldly affairs and total surrender to them, which leads to spiritual stagnation and inertia, deprives the human spirit of its freedom of movement and buoyancy, and makes it immobile and dead.

That is what Islam calls 'worldliness' and has severely campaigned against it as something contrary to the evolutionary system of creation. Not only this, Islam considers this struggle as being in tune with the laws of the evolutionary processes of creation. The expressions employed by the Qur’an in this regard are miraculous, as we shall explain in the following sections.

The Relation Between Man and the World

As made explicit in the last chapter, that which is regarded as disapprovable by the Qur’an and the Nahj al-balaighah is neither the world-in-itself, nor the natural and innate human urges and attachments. In the view of Islam, neither has the world been created without a purpose, nor has man strayed into it aimlessly.

There have been, and are, some schools of thought which view the world with pessimism. In their view, the existing order of the universe is far from being perfect. There have existed other schools which considered man's entry into the world of existence to be the result of some cosmic error, as if man had strayed into it.

According to them, man is a total stranger in this world with which he has no ties of consanguinity, and is a prisoner of existence. Like Joseph, he has been thrown into the black-hole of being by his evil brethren where he is confined and his every endeavour should be aimed at finding an exit from this abyss.

Obviously, when the relation of man to the world and nature is regarded as the one between a prison and its prisoner, and an abyss and one eptrapped in it, his ultimate aim cannot be anything but seeking 'deliverance'.

The Logic of Islam

But from the viewpoint of Islam, the relation of man to the world is not that of a prisoner with his prison; or that of one entrapped in a well with the well; rather it is the kind of relation that exists between a peasant and his farm1 , or a horse and the racecourse2 , or a merchant and the marketplace3 , or a devotee and his temple4 . The world, from the Islamic point of view, is a school for man, his training ground, and the place where he can acquire perfection.

There is an anecdote related in the Nahj al-balaghah of a man who condemned the world in Amir al-Mu'minin's presence. 'Ali (A) rebuked him for his confusing 'the world' which is condemned by Islam with the actual physical world and informed him about his error5 . Shaykh Farid al-Din 'Attar has rendered this incident into verse in his Musibat nameh:

In the presence of the Tiger of Providence,

A man denounced the world with vehemence.

“The world “, exclaimed Hayder, “is not to be blamed “.

Wretched are you, being far from wisdom.

The world, son, is a farm To be attended to day and night.

Whatsoever is of the honour and riches of faith,

An in all it is to be acquired from this world.

Tomorrow's fruit is the blooming of today's seed;

And one who is idle here, shall taste the bitter fruit of regret.

The world is the best place for you,

Where in you can prepare provision for the Hereafter.

Go into the world, but don 't get immersed in the ego.

And prepare yourself for the other world.

If you act thus, the world will suit you,

Hence befriend the world just for this aim.

Nasir Khusrow 'Alawi, justifiably considered a philosopher among the poets (Hakim al-shu'ara'), is one of the most profound and truly religious amongst Persian poets.

He has composed a eulogy about the world, simultaneously highlighting both the good and evil qualities of it, which is as much in conformity with the Islamic outlook as it is extraordinarily beautiful from artistic viewpoint. This eulogy appears in his collected poetical works (diwan), and is included in his book Jami' al-hitmatayn. He says:

O world, how apt and essential you are,

Even though you haven't been loyal to any.

Sick and wretched you appear to the afflicted eye,

Yet fine and healthy if one looks at your inside.

If sometimes you have broken a robust man or two,

Many a broken one you have joined and restored.

You are filthy to the unclean,

To the pure unstained.

If any one should blame you, say,

“You know me not. “

You have grown out of me.

If you are wise,

Why blame the tree of which you are a branch?

The Lord made me a path for your ascending journey,

And you have settled down on this lowly road.

God planted a tree from whose trunk you have grown;

If you grow out straight, you will be saved,

And if crooked, confined to the flames.

Yes, everyone burns crooked branches,

And asks not “Is it teak or walnut?”

You are the arrow of God aimed at His enemy,

Why have you hurt yourself with this weapon?

Now it is evident that man's relation to the world is similar to the one that exists between the farmer and his field of cultivation, between the merchant and the marketplace, between the devotee and the temple. It is not possible for man to alienate himself from the world or sever his ties with it or to develop a kind of relationship which is wholly negative.

There exists a design and intelligent planning behind every natural urge. Man has neither come to this world by cheating or fraud, nor should he go from here as an accused.

There is a general force of attraction and gravitation that encompasses the whole universe. All the particles in it attract each other according to a set pattern. This pattern of mutual attraction and absorption is determined by a judicious design. Moreover, the force of attraction and love is not confined to man alone. No particle in the universe is devoid of this power.

The difference, however, is that man, contrary to other things, is aware of his own leanings and inclinations.

Wahshi Kirmani says:

Every dancing particle is permeated with the same force of attraction

That draws it towards a certain specific goal.

It carries one Rower to the side of another,

And urges one spark to pursue the company of its likes,

From fire to wind, from water to dust,

From underneath the moon to the top of the heavens,

From flock to flock and from horde to horde,

You will observe this attraction in every moving thing

From heavenly spheres to the terrestrial bodies.

Accordingly, from the viewpoint of Islam the world is neither without a purpose nor is human being created by any error, nor are man's innate tendencies undesirable and evil. Then what is meant by “the world” that the Qur’an and the Nahj al-balaghah regard as undesirable and condemnable?

Before embarking on the issue, a few preliminary principles need to be clarified. It is characteristic of man that he is inherently an idealist and a lover of perfection. He is in the search of something with which he wants to develop a relationship closer than an ordinary attachment. In other words, he is by nature a devotee and a worshipper in search of something which is the ultimate object of his desire and the end of his entire being.

However, if he is not rightly guided, or not on his guard, his relation with things and inclination towards them is transformed into a relation of reliance and attachment, changing means into end and an association into bondage. As a result his spirit of mobility, freedom and capacity to quest are transformed into inertia, complacence and captivity.

This is what is undesirable and contrary to the perfection-seeking order of the world. It is a defect and a kind of non-being, not a merit or a positive mode of being. It is a dangerous malady and a disaster for man, and this is against which the Qur’an and the Nahj al-balaghah warn.

Without any doubt, Islam does not regard the material world and life in it-even if it involves the greatest material achievements-as a fitting goal of man's highest aspirations. This is because, firstly, in the Islamic world-outlook, this world is followed by the eternal and everlasting world of the Hereafter where conditions of life would be determined by the deeds, good or evil, of a person in this world. Secondly, the worth of a human being is too great to warrant his surrender to the slavery of and servitude to the material aspects of life.

That is why 'Ali (A) so often points out that the world is a good place, but only for him who knows that it is not a permanent abode, but only a road or a caravanserai.

What a good abode it is for him who would not want to make it a home.6

This world indeed is a transit camp, whereas the Hereafter is a place of permanent abode. So take from the transit what you need for your destination.7

From the viewpoint of humanistic philosophies there is no doubt that everything which binds man to itself and immerses him completely within itself violates his human identity by making it inert and frozen. The process of human perfection knows no limit or end, and every halt, delay and bondage is injurious to it. As we find no reason to controvert this view, we accept it without any argument. However, there are two other points that need to be discussed here.

Firstly, does the Qur’an and following it the Nahj al-balaghah confirm such a relation between man and his world? Is it true that what the Qur’an condemns is attachment and bondage to the world when taken as the ultimate end of life, an attitude which retards man's movement towards perfection and represents inertness, stagnation, and non-being?

Does the Qur’an abstain from absolutely condemning worldly ties and sentiments so long as they do not become man's ultimate goal of life and stall his progress?

Secondly, if it is admitted that human attachment to beings other than himself causes bondage and servitude, and retards the development of human personality, does it make any difference if that being is God or something else?

The Qur’an negates every form of bondage and servitude and calls man to welcome every kind of spiritual and human freedom. It does not, however, condemn servitude to God; it does not invite man to liberate himself from God in order to acquire absolute freedom.

Instead, the invitation of the Qur’an is based on liberation from everything besides God and complete surrender to Him. It is based on the rejection of obedience to anything except Him and the acceptance of submission to Him.

The expression 'La ilaha illa Allah' (There is no god except Allah) is the foundation of the Islamic faith. It implies simultaneously a negation and an affirmation, a rejection and an acceptance, and kufr and iman.

It signifies the negation, the rejection, the renunciation, and the kufr in relation to the non-God, and the affirmation, the acceptance, the submission, and the iman in relation to God. The essential testimony required by Islam is neither just a 'Yes' nor merely a 'No'; it is a combination of both a 'Yes' and a 'No'.

If the needs of the growth of the human personality demand that man should liberate himself from every kind of bondage, servitude, and submissiveness to anything whatsoever, that he should revolt against everything that compromises his absolute freedom, that he ought to say 'No' to everything-as the Existentialists say-what difference does it make whether that thing is God or something else?

And if it is to be decided that man should renounce his freedom and adopt slavery, servitude and submission to something, what difference does it make, after all, whether it is God or something else?

Is there a difference between accepting God as the supreme ideal and accepting some other thing as the Summum Bonum? Does it mean that only God is such that servitude to Him is freedom in itself, and that losing oneself in Him is identical with the realization of one's self and the recovery of one's true identity and personality? And if this is true, what is the basis of this claim? How can it be justified?

In our opinion, here we arrive at one of the subtlest, most profound, and progressive teachings of Islam and one of the most glorious of human ideas. It is here that the sublimity of the logic of Islam and the insignificance and pettiness of other ideologies becomes evident. We shall answer these queries in the following sections.

'The World' in the Qur’an and the Nahj al-balaghah

In the last chapter we said that that which is execrable from the viewpoint of Islam in regard to man's relation with the world is that it should grow to the extent of becoming a malady and an affliction of the human soul.

It is the bondage and the enslaving attachment to the world against which Islam has waged an unrelenting struggle considering it as undesirable, not the mere relation and attachment with it. It is the life of captivity that is condemnable, not the life of freedom. The world is rejected as a goal and objective and not as a way or a means.

If the relation of man to the world develops into his servitude and subjugation, it leads to the negation and obliteration of all higher human values; man's worth lies in the greatness of his pursued ends and objectives.

Obviously, if, for instance, his ultimate objectives do not go beyond filling his belly to satisfaction, and if all his efforts and aspirations were to revolve around his stomach, his worth will not surpass that of his stomach. That is why 'Ali (A) says: “The worth of a man whose only aim is to stuff his belly is equal to that which is excreted from it.”

The question is what kind of relation is appropriate between the human being and the world and what form should it have.

In one kind of relation, his personality is effaced and sacrificed to things, and since the worth of anyone in pursuit of an objective is lower than the objective itself, he is, to use a Qur’anic expression, bound to sink to the level of 'the lowest of the low' (asfal al-safilin), becoming thereby the most abject, degenerate and the most contemptible creature in the world.

He, then, loses not only his higher values but also his human identity. In the other kind of relation the world and worldly things are sacrificed at the altar of his humanity and are used to serve man while he reclaims his higher ideals. That is why it has been said in a hadith-e qudsi:

O son of Adam! I have created everything for thy sake,

but I have created thee for My Own Self.

We have already cited two passages from the Nahj al-balaghah indicating its position in denouncing the degenerate and distorted kind of relationship between man and the world of nature that leads to man's servitude and bondage. Here we shall quote a few verses from the Qur’an to endorse this viewpoint, and return to the Nahj al-balaghah for further relevant references.

The Qur’anic verses relating to man and the world are of two kinds: the first group of verses is of an introductory nature; that is, it lays the ground for the second group of verses. In truth, the first group can be regarded as representing the major and the minor premises of a syllogism of which the second group constitutes the conclusion.

The first set of verses consists of those which emphasize the changeability, the inconstancy and the ephemeral nature of this world. In these verses the reality of material objects is depicted as being changeable, fleeting, and transitory. For instance, the world is compared to the vegetation that sprouts from the ground.

In the beginning it is green and flourishing but little by little turns yellow, shrivels, and ultimately dries up. Then the elements break it into bits and scatter it into the wind. Such is life in the present world.

Obviously, whether man should like it or not his physical life is not much more durable than that of the reed, and is subject to a similar fate. If man must base his outlook on reality and not on fancy and if it is only through the discovery of truth and not by flight of imagination and hallucinations that he can hope to attain felicity and true happiness, then he should not forget this truth.

This set of verses constitutes a kind of a background argument for denying the importance of material things as ultimate ideals worthy of man's adoration. These verses are followed immediately by the reminder that man should know that there exists another world which is eternal and everlasting.

Don't imagine that the present life is everything that there is; and since it is not worthy of man, do not conclude that life is futile and meaningless, they remind.

The second set of verses illuminates the solution to the problem of man's relation to the world. It can be clearly seen from these verses that the execrable form of relation is one that grows to the extent of becoming a bondage, requiring man's submission, willing surrender and servitude to the transitory things of the world. It is in these verses that the crux of the Qur’an's logic comes to light:

1. “Wealth and sons are the adornment of the worldly life; but the abiding things, the deeds of righteousness (which survive one's death and continue to benefit other people), are better with God in reward and better in hope.” (18:46)

This verse, as can be seen, speaks of the ultimate aspiration of man. His ultimate aspiration is the thing for which he lives and without which life has no meaning in his eyes.

2. “Surely those who look not to encounter Us and are well-pleased with the present life and are at rest in it, and those who are heedless of Our signs, those-their refuge is the Fire, for that they have been earning.” (10:7-8)

In this verse, that which is considered execrable is the absence of hope in the next life and the satisfaction and contentment with material things.

3. “So turn thou from him who turns away from Our remembrance, and desires only the present life. That is their attainment of knowledge ...” (53:29-30)

4. “And they rejoice in this world's life; and this world's life is nothing compared with the Hereafter but a temporary enjoyment.” (13:26)

5. “They know an outward part of the present life, but of the Hereafter they are heedless.” (30:7)

There are many other verses which have a similar meaning. In all of them the same theme recurs, that is the negation of the world as the goal and ideal of man's highest aspirations and the ultimate object of his desire, and the only source of his happiness and delight.

It is held that this form of relation between man and the world, instead of putting the world at man's disposal, sacrifices man to it and dispossesses him of his humanity.

In the Nahj al-balaghah as in the Qur’an we encounter a similar twofold argument. In the first set of statements the transitory nature of the world is depicted in profound, forceful metaphors, allegories and parables put in precise and elegant phrases which follow one another in an absorbing rhythm. In the second category, conclusions are drawn which are exactly the same as those derived by the Qur’an.

In Khutbah 32, people are at first divided into two categories: the worldly and the otherworldly. The worldly people are again divided into four groups.

In the first group are put those who are meek and tractable like sheep. They are the most innocuous of creatures, never seen to commit any overt injustice or aggression, or covert deceit or subversion. Not that they detest such things but because they lack the power and daring to carry them out.

To the second category belong those who possess both the power and the daring to carry out such ambitions. They muster their will to amass money and wealth, to acquire power and authority, or to occupy important posts and offices and do not stop short of any degree of perverseness.

Those belonging to the third group are wolves in the skins of sheep. They are slaves of the world in the garb of the otherworldly and the pious. They, sanctimoniously, hang their heads in affected humility, walk with the slow steps of a sage and dress like the devout. Through their hypocrisy they win the confidence of the people and become their most confident trustees.

To the fourth group belong those whose hearts burn regretfully with the fire of ambition but their feeling of inferiority has forced them to retire to seclusion. They put on the dress of piety and zuhd in order to conceal their deep sense of inferiority and dejection.

All the four kinds of people, regardless of the diverse degrees of their success and failure, are regarded by 'Ali ( A) to constitute, spiritually, a single class on account of their commonly shared attitude: worldliness.

Why? Because all of them have one common characteristic: they are like the unfortunate birds whom the world has made its prey one way or another. Captured, they enjoy no longer the freedom of flight. They are slaves and prisoners of the world.

In the same sermon, 'Ali (A) describes the qualities of the other-worldly, the opposite group, and says:

Evil is the barter of those who purchase this world at the cost of their souls.

In the eyes of 'Ali (A) the whole world with everything in it is too inferior to be the price of a man's humanity; hence it ends in the great loss of one who exchanges it for his human identity. Nasir Khusrow has the same theme in mind, when he says:

Never shall I fall an easy prey to the world,

For no more do its woes burden my heart.

In fact, I am the hunter and the world my prey,

Though once it did pursue me on its hunt.

Though many a man has fallen pierced by its arrows,

The world could not make me a target.

My soul flies over the world's tides,

And no more do I worry about its waves and tides.

This theme that one should never sacrifice one's humanity for anything in the world is a theme that recurs a lot in the sayings of the leaders of the Islamic faith. Amir al-Mu'minin 'Ali (A) in his famous will to al-'Imam al-Hasan (A) which is included in the section of Kutub (letters) in the Nahj al-balaghah, says:

Keep your self above every contemptible thing, because, whatever it should be, it is not worth the compromise of your self.

In the account of his life given in the Bihar al-'anwar, al-'Imam Ja'far al Sadiq (A) is reported to have said:

The price of my soul is (the good-pleasure of) its Lord The whole of creation doesn 't equal its worth.

In the Tuhaf al-'uqul, the following tradition is recorded:

Al-'Imam al-Sajjad (A) was asked, 'Who is the most important among people?' He replied, 'The one who does not regard the whole world to be equal to his worth.'

There are many traditions which deal with a similar theme, but we shall abstain from quoting more for the sake of brevity.

A close study of the Qur’an, the Nahj al-balaghah, and the sayings of other religious leaders, will reveal that Islam has not depreciated the world; rather it has elevated the station and worth of the human being as compared to it. For Islam, the world is for the sake of man and not the other way round. It aims to revive human values, not to disparage the world.

Freedom and Bondage

Our discussion about the meaning of 'worldliness' in the Nahj al-balaghah has become somewhat drawn out. However, one issue, which cannot be omitted, remains unanswered. We raised it earlier in the form of a question which we had promised to answer later.

The question was this: If attachment and bondage to anything is a kind of unhealthy condition that leads to abandonment of human values and cause stagnation, inertness, and inertia of the human personality, what difference does it make whether that thing is something material or spiritual, this worldly or otherworldly, or, as goes the saying, 'the Lord or the apple'?

It may be said that if the aim of Islam by prohibiting attachment and warning against bondage to temporal things is to safeguard the human being's identity and to rescue him from servitude and to protect him from stagnating and vegetating in life, it should have encouraged man to acquire absolute freedom and to consider every thing that compromises and confines it as kufr; for such is the standpoint of some modern schools of philosophy which consider freedom to be the essence of man's human identity.

These schools of thought equate man's human identity with his capacity to rebel and disobey every form of servitude and to assert his absolute freedom. Accordingly, every manner of bondage, confinement, and submission is, according to them, inconsistent with man's real identity and leads to self alienation.

They say that man realizes his true humanity only by refusing to submit and surrender. It is characteristic of attachment that the object of love absorbs man's attention and compromises his self-awareness.

This results in his forgetting his own self and, subsequently, this aware and free being called man, whose identity is summarized in his awareness and freedom, becomes a slavish creature devoid of freedom and self-awareness.

In forgetting his own identity, man also becomes oblivious of his human values. In this state of bondage and servitude he ceases to progress and edify his self and becomes stagnant and frozen at some point.

If Islam's philosophy of struggle against worldliness aims at the resurrection of human identity and personality, it should oppose every form of servitude and liberate man from every form of bondage. This, however, is not the case, for Islam, undeniably, advocates liberation from material for the sake of spiritual servitude. Freedom from the world is acquired for the sake of the fetters of the Hereafter and the apple is renounced for the sake of the Lord.

The 'urafa' who advise absolute freedom from attachments, however, do allow an exception. Hafiz says:

I am the slave of the magnanimity of him

Who is free of the taint of attachment to anything under the blue sky

Except the love of the moon-cheeked one,

The joy of whose love redeems all sorrows and woes.

Openly do I declare, and am delighted to proclaim,

I am the slave of Love and free from both the worlds.

Except for the Beloved’s Name inscribed on the slate of my heart,

The teacher did not teach me another word.

From the viewpoint of 'irfan, one must be free of both the worlds but should surrender totally to love. As Hafiz says, the tablet of the heart must be clean of every name except that of the Beloved. The heart should be cleansed of every attachment except the love of 'the moon-cheeked one', that is God, whose love brings redemption from all sorrows and woes.

However, from the viewpoint of the so-called humanistic philosophy freedom of the 'arif, being only relative, does not take us anywhere, because it is freedom from everything for total surrender and servitude to one being, whatever that may be. Servitude is after all servitude and bondage is bondage, regardless of the agent towards which it is directed.

This is the objection raised by the followers of modern humanistic philosophies. In order that the issues involved may be further illuminated, we are compelled to refer to certain philosophical issues.

First of all, one may point out that to assume that there exists a kind of human selfhood and identity and to insist that this identity should be safeguarded, in itself amounts to the negation of movement, progress and development of this selfhood, because, motion and change necessarily result in alienation from this selfhood.

This is because movement means becoming: that is, becoming something one is not; it implies continuous transcendence of selfhood and embracing of otherness. Obviously, if we accept this view, it is only by the means of immobility and stagnation that one can preserve his identity; for development necessitates self-alienation.

For this reason, some ancient philosophers defined motion in terms of otherness and self-estrangement. Accordingly, to assume that there exists a certain kind of human 'self' and to insist that this self should be safeguarded and protected from becoming 'non-self', and to speak of movement, progress, and evolution in the same breath, involves an unresolvable contradiction

Some, in order to free themselves from this contradiction, have said that man's identity lies in being devoid of any kind of 'self' whatsoever. Man, they say, is a creature absolutely undefined in his essence and free from any kind of limit, form, or essence.

His essence lies in his being without any defined essence. Man is a creature devoid of a fixed nature and essential necessity. Any attempt to define, limit and confine him amounts to depriving him of his real self and identity.

Such a view may be aptly considered poetry and flight of imagination rather than a philosophy. The absolute absence of a fixed form and essence is possible in one of the two cases: Firstly, such a being should possess infinite perfection and pure and unlimited actuality; that is, it should be a being unlimited and unconfined, encompassing all times and places and predominant over all existents, such as the Being of the Creator.

For such a being, movement and growth are impossible; because motion and development involve overcoming of defects and imperfections, whereas such a being cannot possibly be supposed to possess any imperfection. Secondly, it may apply to a being devoid of every kind of actuality and merit. That is, it should be pure possibility and sheer potentiality, a neighbour of nothingness, existing only on the remotest frontiers of existence.

It should be devoid of any innate reality and essence though capable of assuming any form or essence Such a being, which itself absolutely undefined, is always associated with a definite being; though shapeless and colourless in itself, it exists in the protective shadow of a being possessing form, shape and colour. Such a being is what the philosophers call 'the primal matter'.

It occupies the lowest status in the hierarchy of existence and stands on the extremity of being, even as the Divine Essence, being absolute perfection, stands on the other extremity of existence-with the difference that the extremity occupied by the Divine Essence circumscribes all the contents of being. Man, like all other creatures, is situated somewhere between these two extremes and so cannot possibly lack any defined essence.

Admittedly, he is different from other creatures, but, unlike them, there is no limit to his movement towards perfection. Whereas other creatures remain confined to certain definite limits which they cannot transcend, there is no end to the possibilities of human development.

Man possesses a special kind of being. But contrary to the view of the philosophers who believe in the precedence of essence and reduce the being of every thing to its quiddity, and who deny the possibility of transcendence and essential change as being self-contradictory, and consider all changes to occur at the level of accidents, the existential nature of man, like that of any other material thing, is fluid, with the difference that its movement and fluidity know no final limits.

Some commentators of the Qur’an, in their explanations of the verse: “O people of Yathrib, there is no abiding here for you” (33:13), have generalized it to cover all humanity. They hold that man is a creature which does not move to certain and definite stage or halt; the further he moves the greater are the possibilities open to him.

Here we do not wish to indulge in discussing the legitimacy of imposing such interpretations on Qur’anic verses; we only intend to show that Muslim scholars have thought about man in such terms.

In the hadith about the Prophet's Ascension (al-mi'raj), Gabriel who accompanies the Prophet (S), at a certain point, gives up his journey declaring: “I will get burnt if I move an inch further”, while the Prophet (S) leaves him behind and moves further. This is an allusion to the truth mentioned above.

Also, as we know, there is a debate among Muslim scholars about the salawat (Benedictions) upon the Holy Prophet (S) and the Ahl al-Bayt, which we make as a prayer to God to shower greater blessings upon them.

Now the debate is whether the salawat is of any benefit to the Holy Prophet (S), who is the most perfect man. In other words, is there any possibility of ascension in the Prophet's station? Or does the salawat benefit only the person who pronounces it and beseeches God to bless the Prophet (S), a favour that has already been granted?

The late Sayyid 'Ali Khan opened this debate in his commentary on al-Sahifat al-kamilah. A group of theologians believe that the Holy Prophet (S) is always ascending and climbing higher in his station, and this movement is never halted.

Yes, such is the station of man. That which makes man such is not the absolute absence of a defined essence but a certain kind of essence which is ordinarily referred to as 'human nature' and other similar expressions.

Man does not have any ultimate limits but he has a path. The Qur’an lays great emphasis on what it calls the Straight Path, which is an unambiguous path before man. Man is not constrained by stages so as to be forced to stop at every stage in his journey. Instead there is an orbit in which he should move. This is the orbit of human perfection which is different from those of the animals. This means the movement in a specified orbit, a movement which is orderly not haphazard.

The Existentialist Viewpoint

Existentialism has been rightly criticized for its refusal to acknowledge any kind of determination or definition of the human nature, for its considering every determination (even in the form of path or orbit) as contrary to his humanity, and for its emphasis on his absolute freedom and capacity for rebellion; for this philosophy necessarily leads to the breakdown of social morality and the negation of the individual's commitments and responsibilities.

Does Evolution Involve Self-Alienation?

Now returning to what we said earlier, does movement and evolution necessitate alienation from one's self? Should every being, in order to remain itself, abstain from change and evolution? Does it mean that either man should retain his human identity or, if he chooses an evolutionary course, become something alien to his essence?

The answer is that the true evolution of anything is a movement towards the perfect state which conforms to its nature. In other words, the transformations during movement on the straight path of nature by no means necessitate any loss of specific identity.

That which constitutes the real self of a being is its existence, not its essence. Accordingly, any change in essence does not imply mutation of the 'self' into a 'non-self'. Mulla Sadra, who is the champion of this philosophy, holds that man does not have any definite essence; rather every developing being passing through the stages of its evolution is not a single species but a plurality of species.

The relation of an imperfect being with its ultimate stage of perfection is not a relation of otherness; rather it is a relation of the thing to itself. It is the relation of an imperfect self to the perfect self. A thing while evolving toward its perfect state is in movement from its self to its self. In a sense, it can be said to be in movement from the non-self towards its true self.

A seed that breaks the ground and sprouts leaves, and sends out branches and flowers, does not move from the self to the non-self. If it were aware of itself and aware of its ultimate evolution, it would not feel self alienated.

That is why the love of true perfection is the love of a higher self, and a praiseworthy love is in itself a desirable and praiseworthy egotism or self-love. Shaykh al-'Ishraq Shihab al-Din al-Suhrawardi has an elegant ruba'i on this subject:

Beware lest you lose the wisdom 's thread,

And lose your self for the sake of water and bread.

You are the traveller, the way, the destination,

Beware lest you lose the path from the self to the self.

On the basis of what has been said it can be surmised that there is a great difference between desiring God, the movement towards God, the love of God, the attachment and the servitude to God and submission to Him, and the love, the submission, and the servitude to other things. The servitude to God is freedom itself.

It is the only relation and tie which does not stagnate the human personality or make it inert and immobile. It is the only kind of worship which does not imply self-forgetfulness and self-alienation. Why? Because He is the Absolute Perfection and the Ultimate Goal and the Destination of all existents: 'And unto thy Lord will be the end of all things' (53:42).

Now we have reached a point from where we can proceed to explain the position of the Qur’an that forgetting God is forgetting one's own self and the separation from God is absolute annihilation.

Forgetting and Losing the Self

I remember that about eighteen years ago while discussing the exegesis of certain verses of the Holy Qur’an in a private gathering, for the first time the point struck me that the Qur’an very often employs typical expressions about a certain group of human beings, such as those who 'lose', 'forget', or 'sell' their selves. For instance, it says:

They have indeed lost their selves, and that which they were forging has gone astray from them. (7:53)

Say: 'Surely the losers are they who lose their selves and their families on the Day of Resurrection' (39:15)

Be not as those who forgot God, and so He caused them to forget their selves; those-they are the ungodly. (59:19)

The question might occur to a mind with a philosophic bent. Is it possible for a man to lose his self? The loss of anything necessitates two things: the loser and the thing lost. Now how is it possible for a human being to lose its self? Is it not self-contradictory?

Likewise, is it possible for a man to forget himself? A living human being is always immersed in itself and perceives everything as something other and additional to its own self; its attention is, before everything else, focussed on itself. Then what is meant by forgetting one's self?

Later I realized that this matter occupies a significant place in Islamic teachings, especially in the prayers and some traditions as well as in the writings of Muslim 'urafa'. It shows that often man mistakes 'non-self' as his self, regards that non-self as his real self. Then imagining the non-self to be his self, he treats the non-self and takes care of it as he would have treated and cared for his true self.

The true self, as a result, falls into neglect and oblivion, and occasionally under goes a metamorphosis. For instance, when man imagines his body to represent his total entity, all his endeavour revolves about his body, it means that he has forgotten his self conceiving the non-self to be his real self.

Such a man, in the words of Rumi, is like the one who owns a piece of land somewhere; he carries building materials and hires masons and workers to build a house for him; after much toil, the house is made ready for living; the doors and windows are painted, the floor is carpeted, curtains are hung and the house is furnished beautifully in every way; however, one day when he prepares to move into the new house, all of a sudden he realizes his mistake; to his dismay, he notes that instead of erecting the house on his own land, he has constructed it on a land that belongs to somebody else, while his own plot lies abandoned elsewhere:

Don 't build your house on the land of another,

Work for your own self and toil not for the stranger.

Who is the stranger except your own earthen frame?

On whose account are all your sorrows and woes?

So long as you nurse and pamper your body,

The soul would not prosper, nor would it become sturdy.

At another place Rumi says:

You, who have lost your self in a losing encounter,

Distinguishing not the other from your own true self;

At every shadow you are quick to exclaim,

“Ah! This is me!” By God it is not you!

Isolate yourself for a while from the crowd,

And immerse yourself to the neck in thought.

Indeed you shall find that you are one with the One,

Beautiful, serene, and blessed is your self.

Amir al-Mu'minin 'Ali (A) has a saying in this regard which is as profound as it is elegant:

I wonder at the man who searches for his lost things but doesn't care to recover his lost self.8

Losing oneself and forgetting oneself is not confined to man's error in recognizing his true identity and essence-such as the ordinary man's self-identification with the body, or the 'arif's occasional identification of himself with his barzakhi body.

We have said in the last chapter that actually every being in the natural course of its development moves from the self to the self; that is, it moves from a lower, weaker self to a self which is powerful and higher. Accordingly, the deviation of every existent from the path of its perfection and development is deviation from the self towards the non-self.

Man, more than any other creature, being endowed with a free will and freedom of choice, is subject to this deviation. By choosing a deviant objective as ultimate for himself, in reality he replaces his true self with the non-self, mistaking the non-self to be the self. It is on this basis that the human being's total immersion in material aspects of life has been regarded as condemnable.

Therefore, the adoption of devious goals and ends is one of the factors of self-alienation that leads man to forget his true self and finally to lose it.

Devious goals and objectives not only result in the disease of self loss; they lead ultimately to the metamorphosis of man's human essence, a metamorphosis that is determined by that particular devious goal.

A significant part of Islamic teachings is devoted to drive home the point that on the Day of Resurrection every human being shall be raised with the object of his love. Our traditions declare unequivocally:

Everyone, on the Day of Judgement shall be raised in the company of his object of love, whatever that should be, even if it is a stone.9

With attention to the indubitable and unequivocal Islamic teaching that on the Day of Judgement man would be raised in the form of what he acquired in this world, it becomes clear that the reason for a person's resurrection together with the objects of his love is that the love and attachment for that object make it the ultimate goal of the path of his becoming. However devious that objective may be, it causes the soul and the inner reality of a person to transform into that object.

This subject has been given great attention by Muslim sages and philosophers, who have made great many interesting observations in this regard. For brevity's sake, we shall quote only one ruba'i on this topic: The seeker of a mine of diamonds is himself a mine; The seeker of the spirit is himself the spirit; I will divulge the secret of this matter: You are whatever you seek, you are the object of your quest.

The Discovery of the Self and of God

The rediscovery of the self, in addition to the above two, requires to fulfil one more condition, and that is the realization and knowledge of the Cause of one's creation and existence. That is, it is impossible for man to recognize himself and know himself by viewing himself in separation from the Cause of his creation. The real Cause of every existent is prior to it and nearer to it than it is to itself:

And We are nearer to him than his jugular vein. (50:16) And know that God stands between a man and his heart. (8:24)

The Muslim mystics have laid great emphasis on the point that the knowledge of the self (ma'rifat al-nafs) and the knowledge of God (ma'rifat Allah) are not separate from one another. To experience the spirit, which according to the Qur’an is God's 'breath', is, to experience the Divine Essence. The Muslim mystics have raised severe objections against the statements of Muslim philosophers regarding the problem of self-knowledge and consider them to be inadequate.

Shaykh Mahmud al-Shabistari was sent a series of versified questions by someone from Khurasan. His poem Gulshan-e raz is the reply he gave to the questions. In one of the questions, the enquirer asks:

Who am I?

Inform me about my self.

What is meant by “Journey within thy self”?

The Shaykh's reply is elaborate. There he says:

Forms and spirits, from the same light are derived,

Reflected of mirror or beaming from the lamp.

I' the word is everywhere in all your speech.

It refers to the soul, the spirit. 'I' and 'You ',

are greater than the body and the spirit,

Which are together parts of the self.

Go then, my good man, first know well your self,

And remember: edema is different from robustness.10

Leave one of them to soar over the undulations of space and time,

Abandon the world to become a world in yourself.

A further elaboration of this theme will take us outside the scope of our present discussion. To be brief, it should be said that the gnosis of the self is inseparable from that of God. This is exactly the meaning of the famous saying of the Prophet (S), and the same theme recurs in the recorded statements of Imam 'Ali (A):

He who knows his self knows his Lord.

In the Nahj al-balaghah it is reported that Imam 'Ali (A) was asked by somebody: 'Have you seen your God?' Ali (A) replied: 'Would I worship what I have not seen?' Then he elaborated his answer thus:

He is not visible to the eyes but the hearts perceive Him through (the factual experience of) faith (iman).11

An interesting point that is implicit in the statements of the Qur’an is that man is in possession of himself as long as he 'possesses' God. Only through the remembrance of God does he remember his self and become fully aware of it, and to forget God is to neglect one's own self. Forgetting God is accompanied by self-forgetfulness:

Be not as those who forgot God, and so He caused them to forget their selves. (59:19)

Rumi, following his verses quoted above, says:

Even if the body should lie amidst fragrance and musk,

On death it will petrify and give out its stink.

So scent not the body, but perfume the soul with musk,

What is that musk except the Name of the Glorious Lord ?

Hafiz says:

Hafiz, if you desire presence,

do not be absent from Him.

If you desire His rendezuous,

abandon the world and forget it.

This shows why the remembrance of God is essential for the life of the heart; it awakens and illumines the heart and gives peace to the soul; it revives, purifies, refines, and humbles the human conscience and fills it with delight. How profound and beautiful are 'Ali's words in the Nahj al-balaghah where he says:

Certainly God Almighty has made His remembrance a means for cleaning and polishing the hearts. It makes them hear after deafness, see after blindness, and makes them submissive to guidance after being stubborn and resisting.

In all periods and times when there were no prophets, there were individuals to whom He whispered through their thoughts and spoke to them through their intellects. As a result they were enlightened with a light awakening their hearts, their vision and their hearing.12

Worship and the Rediscovery of the Self

There is so much that can be said about worship that if we were to be elaborate we would have to devote scores of chapters to this subject. Here we shall make a brief reference to the value of worship in the rediscovery of the self.

As much as the bondage to material matters and immersion in them severs man from his true self and induces self-alienation, worship helps him in recovering his own self. Worship awakens and arouses man from his spiritual slumber.

It rescues him from drowning in the sea of self-neglect and forgetfulness and saves his identity from being lapsed in the world of material things. It is in the mirror of worship and God's remembrance that man can observe himself as he really is and become aware of his failings and faults. It is in worship that he acquires the true perspective of being, life, space and time, like watching a city from a high mountain, and perceives the insignificance, pettiness and abjectness of his materialistic hopes, desires, and ambitions. It is in worship that a yearning is awakened in his heart to attain to the very core of being.

I have always marvelled at the following words of the famous scientist of our age, Albert Einstein. What adds to my amazement is that he was a physicist and a mathematician, not a psychologist, theologian or philosopher. After dividing religion into three stages, he calls the third stage of religious experience as the one arising from 'cosmic religious feeling.' He describes this religious experience in these words:

The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims, and the sublimity and marvellous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. Individual existence impresses him as a sort of prison and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole.13

William James, writing about prayer, says:

The impulse to pray is a necessary consequence of the fact that whilst the innermost of the empirical selves of a man is a self of the social sort it yet can find its only adequate socius (its “great companion”) in an ideal world. Most men, either continually or occasionally, carry a reference to it in their breasts. The humblest outcast on this earth can feel himself to be real and valid by means of this higher recognition.14

Iqbal also has something profound to say about worship and prayer and their value for the rediscovery of the self. He writes:

Prayer as a means of spiritual illumination is a normal vital act by which the island of our personality suddenly discovers its situation in a larger whole of life.15

We conclude our discussion of this extensive subject right here.

Some Relevant Issues

Now that our discussion about the concept of the world in the Nahj al-balaghah is nearing its conclusion, I want to clarify some issues with attention to the principles discussed above.

The World Versus the Hereafter

Some Islamic traditions seem to imply that there exists a kind of conflict between the world and the Hereafter. For instance, it is stated that they are like 'two rival wives' who can never be reconciled, or it is said that they are like the East and the West: one cannot approach any one of them without moving farther from the other. How should one interpret these statements in order to reconcile them with what has been said above?

The answer is that, firstly, as has been expressly stated in most Islamic traditions, a reconciliation between winning the world and the Hereafter is not only possible but is a necessity of the Islamic creed. That which is impossible is their reconciliation as ultimate ends and goals.

The enjoyment of the good things of the world does not necessarily require deprivation from the blessings of the next world. That which deprives one of the rewards of the next life is a series of mortal sins, not the enjoyment of a wholesome, comfortable life and the availing of pure and lawful bounties provided by God.

Similarly, that which leads to deprivation in the world is not taqwa or righteous deeds or the endeavour for the Hereafter; a number of other factors are responsible for it.

Many prophets, Imams, and pious believers, whose virtuousness and piety are indubitable, have been among those who benefited greatly from the legitimate bounties of the world. Accordingly, even if it be assumed that the religious texts do imply irreconcilability between the enjoyment of the world and that of the Hereafter, they would not be acceptable because of the incontrovertible evidence to the contrary.

Secondly, if we scrutinize such traditions closely, an interesting point comes to the surface in whose light we observe no contradiction between them and the incontrovertible principles of Islam. But before that this point may be explained, we should examine three possible relationships between the world and the Hereafter:

1. The relation between enjoyment of the good things of the world and enjoyment of the rewards of the Hereafter.

2. The relation between the world as the ultimate goal and the Hereafter as such.

3. The relation between adoption of one of these as the ultimate goal with the enjoyment of the other.

There is no conflict whatsoever involved in the first case. Accordingly a reconciliation between the two is quite possible. The second case, however, involves a contradiction; for there is no possibility of reconciling these two opposite goals.

As to the third, it involves in turn two cases: first, the adoption of the world as the ultimate end and the enjoyment of the Hereafter; second, the adoption of the Hereafter as the ultimate goal and the enjoyment of the world. The first case involves a contradiction, whereas the second doesn't.

The Primary and the Secondary

The conflict between the adoption of either the world or the Hereafter as ultimate ends and the enjoyment of the other is the kind that exists between a perfect and an imperfect end. If the imperfect is made the ultimate goal, the perfect is necessarily missed; whereas if the perfect were one's end and goal, it would not necessarily preclude the imperfect.

The same is true of anything primary in relation to its secondaries. If something secondary were made the aim, it would result in deprivation from the primary. But if the primary is made the aim and goal, the secondary, being a corollary of the primary, is automatically included. This is most eloquently explained in Hikmah 269 of the Nahj al-balaghah:

There are two types of workers among the people of the world: (One type is represented by) the man who works in this world for this world and his involvement in the world makes him forget the Hereafter.

He is worried about those whom he shall leave behind (on death) lest poverty should strike them as if he were himself secure of it (in the Hereafter). So he spends his life for the (worldly) benefit of others. The other type of man works in the world for the sake of the Hereafter and secures his share of the world effortlessly. Thus he derives benefit from the both and comes to possess both the worlds. As a result he acquires honour before God, Who grants him whatever he asks of Him.

Rumi offers an interesting allegory. He compares the Hereafter and the world to a train of camels and the trail of dung that it leaves behind. If one's aim were to own the train of camels he would also have the camels' dung and wool. But if one wants only the dung and the wool, he will never come to acquire the train of camels and will always be collecting dung and wool of camels which belong to others.

Hanker you after faith for its pursuit yields

Beauty, wealth, honour, and good fortune.

Consider the Hereafter as a camel train;

The world is a trail of wool and dung in its rear.

If you want only the wool, you will never the camels own;

Yet if you own a camel train, isn 't its wool your own ?

That the relation of the world to the Hereafter is like that of a secondary thing to its primary; that worldliness, being a pursuit of the secondary, leads to deprivation from the benefits of the

Hereafter; and that other worldliness by itself ensures the benefits of the world, is a teaching that originates in the Qur’an. Verses 145-148 of the Surat Al 'Imran expressly, and verses 18 and 19 of the Surat al-'Isra' together with verse 20 of the Surat al-Shura implicitly present this view.

A Tradition

There is a well-known tradition found in the texts of hadith as well as other books and is also mentioned in the last will of al-'Imam al-Hasan al-Mujtaba (A). This is the text of the tradition:

In regard to the world be as if you were going to live for ever. With respect to the Hereafter be as if you were going to die tomorrow.16

This tradition has been highly controversial in that it has led to contradictory interpretations. Some interpret it as implying that one should deal with worldly matters with relaxed inattention and without hurry.

Whenever one is faced with an affair of worldly life, one should say to himself “There is still a lot of time, why hurry?” But when performing good deeds for the Hereafter, one should imagine as if he were not going to be alive after tomorrow and say to himself: “There isn't much time left; it is already too late.”

Others with the conviction that Islam would never recommend negligence and carelessness, which certainly has not been the practice of the leaders of the faith, have said that what is implied is that one should always approach the worldly affairs as if he were immortal, attend to them with attention and care, and not perform them in a perfunctory manner with the pretext that life is fleeting. Rather, they say, the works of the world should be done with firmness and great foresight and attention, as if one were going to live till the end of the world.

The rationale for this is that if one were to die, others will derive benefit from one's works. The affairs of the Hereafter, however, are in God's hand; so think of them as if you were going to die tomorrow and there is not much time left for anything .

As can be noticed, the first one of these two interpretations recommends negligence and lack of commitment towards the affairs of the world, whereas the second one advises a similar attitude towards the Hereafter. Obviously, none of these two interpretations can be regarded as acceptable.

In our opinion, this, one of the most subtle of traditions, consists of an invitation to action, care, and attention and avoidance of negligence and indifference, whether with respect to the worldly activities or those which relate to the Hereafter.

Suppose a person living in a house knows that sooner or later he will have to move to another house where he will stay permanently. However, he does not know the day, the month or the year when he shall have to make the shift. Such a man is in a state of dilemma with regard to matters relating to his present home and his plans about his future house.

If he knows that he will move tomorrow, he would not pay any attention to the repairs and upkeep of his present house, and attend only to matters concerning the planned Shift. But if he knows that he would not be shifting his residence for several years, he will act in an opposite manner; presently he will devote all his attention to the present house, knowing that there is much time left to deal with those relating to his future residence.

Now this person, in a state of doubt about the exact date of the shift, not knowing whether he will have to shift in near future or remain in his present house for years, meets a friend who wisely advises him to attend to the affairs of his present house as if he were to continue living there for a long time and not to neglect its upkeep.

As to the other house, the wise friend advises him to get it ready as if he were going to move tomorrow and have it furnished as soon as possible. This advice will have the consequence that it will make him adopt a serious and active attitude towards both his houses.

Suppose someone wants to start a work, like writing a book or founding an institution or taking up a project which requires years of pursuit. If such a person thinks that he will not live long enough to finish his work, he might desist from starting it.

That is why it is said that one must think that he will live for long. But the same person, from the point of view of repenting for his sins and compensating for the past excesses with regard to religious duties or the rights of the people he has transgressed-all of which require little time for their accomplishment given the will to do so-may keep on postponing them every day so that the promised tomorrow may never come.

In such cases, contrary to the first kind of attitude, to assume that one has still enough time and there is no reason to hasten, would result in negligence and delay in fulfilment of one's duties. Therefore, here one should assume that there isn't much time left.

Therefore, we see that in one case to assume that one has enough time encourages action and endeavour and the assumption that there is no time left would lead one to abstain from action and endeavour. In the other case, the result is quite the opposite.

Here, the assumption that one has still a lot of time leads to negligence and procastination, and the assumption that there isn't much time left leads to quick accomplishment of duties.

In the light of this, the hadith means to say that in regard to one kind of duties one should assume that he is going to live on and with respect to another kind suppose that not much remains of his life.

This interpretation is not baseless. There are several traditions which confirm the above interpretation. The reason that this tradition gave rise to controversy is that attention was not paid to such traditions.

Safinat al-bihar, under rifq, relates a tradition of the Holy Prophet (S) addressed to Jabir:

Indeed this (i.e. Islam) is a firm religion. So (do not make it hard on yourself but) act in it with mildness Cultivate like him who thinks he will never die and work (for the hereafter) like him who is afraid he will die tomorrow.

In volume XV of Bihar al-'anwar (the section on akhlaq, Bab 29), it is related from al-Kafi that the Holy Prophet (S) addressed 'Ali (A), saying:

This (Islam) is a firm religion So work like him who hopes to live for long and be cautious like him who is afraid that he would die tomorrow.17

That is, when commencing a useful project that requires a long time for its completion, assume that you will live long enough to complete it. However, in regard to matters which you might postpone thinking that you have enough time to handle them, assume that you shall die tomorrow, so that time is not wasted and delay is avoided.

In Nahj al-balaghah, it is related from the Holy Prophet (S) that he said:

Attend to the affairs of the world; but with respect to the Hereafter be such as if you were going to die tomorrow.

In the same book, the Prophet (S) is related as saying:

Work like the man who imagines that he will never die; and be cautious like him who knows he is going to die tomorrow.

In another tradition the Prophet (S) is reported to have said:

The mu'min is the most vexed of men, for he must attend to the affairs of the world as well as those of the Hereafter.

In Safinat al-bihar, under nafs, a hadith of al-'Imam Musa al-Kazim (A) is related from Tuhaf al-'uqul to the effect that:

He who abandons the world for his Hereafter or abandons his Hereafter for his world is not from us.

The above discussion on the whole confirms our interpretation of the hadith and also shows that this approach finds recurring echo in the teachings of the leaders of the Islamic faith.

Concluded; wal-hamdu lilla-h

Notes

1. This is a tradition of the Prophet (S).

2. This is in reference to a sentence from Nahj al-balaghah, Khutab, No. 28

3. This is in reference to a sentence from Nahj al-balaghah, Hikam, No. 131

4. This is in reference to a sentence from Nahj al-balaghah, Hikam, No. 131

5. Nahj al-balaghah, Hikam, No. 131

6. Ibid., Khutab, No. 223

7. Ibid, Khutab, No. 203

8. al Amudi, al Shurar wa al durar, vol. 4 p. 340

9. Safinat ul Bihar, under hubb

10. This reference to the famous words of Ibn al Arabi about one who imagines to have known the mysteries of the self through the statement of the philosophers.

11. Nahj al-balaghah, Khutab, No. 179

12. Ibid, Khutab, No. 222

13. A. Einstein, Ideas and Opinions (London 1973) based on Mein Weltbild; ed by Carl Seeling, p. 38

14. Muhammad Iqbal, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, Lahore 1971, p. 89

15. bid., p. 90

16. Wasail al Shiah, vol. 2 p. 535 (Bab No. 82, hadith No. 2)

17. Bihar al-'anwar volume XV, section on akhlaq, Bab 29

Moral Lectures and Aphorisms

Inimitable Moral Teaching

Moral and spiritual teachings constitute the greater part of the Nahj al-balaghah making up almost half of the book. More than anything else the fame of the Nahj al-balaghah is due to the sermons, exhortations, and aphorisms on ethical and moral subjects.

Aside from the moral teachings of the Qur’an and a number of the sermons and sayings of the Holy Prophet ('s), which are to be considered the source and antecedent of the Nahj al-balaghah, the teachings of the Nahj al-balaghah are without a match in the Arabic and Persian languages.

For more than a thousand years these sermons have played an influential role serving as a matchless source of inspiration, and yet retained their original power to quicken the heart, to sublimate emotions, and to bring tears to the eyes. It seems that as long as there remains any trace of humanity in the world, these sermons shall continue to exercise their original power and influence.

A Comparison

The literature of Arabic and Persian is replete with works containing spiritual and moral teachings of highest sublimity and elegance though mainly in the form of poetry. There is, for example, the famous qasidah by Abu al-Fath al-Busti (360-400/971-1010), which begins with the verse:

Worldly profit and achievement is loss,

And the gain unmarked by the seal of pure goodness.

There is also the elegiacal qasidah of Abu al-Hasan al-Tihami, which he wrote on the early death of his youthful son. It begins with these lines:

The law of fate governs the destiny of creation,

And this world is not a place to settle in.

Every one of these works is an everlasting masterpiece of its kind and shines like a star on the horizons of the Arabic literature of Islamic era, never to lose its freshness and charm.

In Persian, the Gulistan and the Bustan of Sa'di and his qasaid serve as an unusually attractive and effective means of moral advice and are masterpieces of their own kind. To give some examples, there are those famous verses of the Gulistan which start with the verse:

Every breath is a fraction of life gone,

And when I see, not much has remained of it.

Or in his qasa'id where he says:

O people, the world is not a place for leisure and repose;

To the wise man, the world is not worth the effort of acquiring it.

Or at another place where he says:

The world on water and life on wind do rest;

Salutes to the brave who do not tie their hearts to them.

And where he says:

Time and fortune are subject to endless change;

The wise man doesn't attach his heart to the world.

Sa'di's Bustan is full of profound and glowing spiritual advices, and, perhaps, is at its best in the ninth chapter on “Penitence and the Right Way”. The same is true of some portions of the Mathnawi of Rumi and works of all other Persian poets, from whom we shall not further quote any examples.

In Islamic literature, including the Arabic and the Persian, there exist excellent examples of spiritual counsels and aphorisms. This Islamic literary genre is not confined to these two languages, but is also found in Turkish, Urdu, and other languages, and a characteristic spirit pervades all of them. Anyone familiar with the Holy Qur’an, the sayings of the Holy Prophet ('s), Amir al-Mu'minin 'Ali ('a), the other Imams ('a), and Muslim saints of the first rank, can observe a characteristic spirit pervading all Persian literature containing spiritual counsel, which represents the spirit of Islam embodied in the Persian language and embellished with its charm and sweetness.

If an expert or a group of experts in Arabic and Persian literature acquainted with the works in all other languages that reflect the spirit of Islam, were to collect the masterpieces in the field of spiritual counsel, the extraordinary richness and maturity of the Islamic culture in lhis field will be revealed.

It is strange that so far as the works on spiritual counsel are concerned the Persian genius has mostly expressed itself in poetry; there is no such work of eminence in prose. All that exists of it in prose is in the form of short sayings, like the prose writings of the Gulistan-a part of which consists of spiritual counsels and is in itself a masterpiece-or the sayings ascribed to Khwajah 'Abd Allah al-'Ansari.

Of course, my own knowledge is inadequate, but as far as I know there does not exist in Persian prose any remarkable work, except for short sayings-not even a passage which is long enough to be counted as a short discourse, especially a discourse which was originally delivered extempore and later collected and recorded in writing.

There are discourses which have been related from Rumi or Sa'di, meant as oral moral advice to their followers; they also by no means possess the brilliance and charm of the poetic works of those masters, and definitely are not worth considering for a comparison with the discourses of the Nahj al-balaghah.

The same can be said about the writings which have reached us in the form of a treatise or letter, such as the Nasihat al-muluk by Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali, the Taziyaneh-ye suluk by Ahmad al-Ghazali, the latter being an elaborate epistle addressed to his follower and pupil 'Ayn al-Qudat al-Hamadan

Spiritual Counsel and Wisdom

Moral counsel, according to the Qur’an, is one of the three ways of invitation towards God (hikmah, maw'izah, al jidal al-hasan, i.e. wisdom, good admonition, and honourable debate, as mentioned in 16: 125).

The difference between hikmah (wisdom, philosophy) and maw'izah (spiritual and moral advice and admonition) lies in this that hikmah is for instruction and imparting knowledge, while maw'izah is meant for reminding. Hikmah is struggle against ignorance and maw'izah is struggle against negligence and indifference.

Hikmah deals with the intellect and maw'izah appeals to the heart. Hikmah educates, while maw'izah prepares the intellect for employment of its reserves. Hikmah is a lamp and maw'izah is an eye-opener.

Hikmah is for ratiocination, while maw'izah is for self-awakening. Hikmah is the language of the intellect, while maw'izah is the message for the spirit. Accordingly, the personality of the speaker plays an essential role in maw'izah, which is not the case with hikmah. In hikmah, two minds communicate in an impersonal manner But in maw'izah the situation is like the passage of an electric charge that flows from the speaker, who is at a higher potential, to the listener.

For this reason, it has been said of maw'izah that:

If it comes forth from the soul, then it necessarily alights upon the heart.

Otherwise it does not go beyond the listener's ears. It is about the quality of maw'izah that it is said:

The speeeh which originates from the heart enters another heart, and the words which originate from the tongue do not go beyond the ears.

It is true that the words that come from the heart, being the message of the soul, invade other hearts; but if they do not convey the message of the soul, are no more than empty literary devices, which do not go beyond the listener's ear-drum.

Maw'izah and Khitabah (Exhortation and Oratory)

Maw'izah also differs from khitabah (oratory, rhetoric). Although oratory also deals with emotions, but it seeks to stir and agitate them. Maw'izah on the other hand is intended to pacify emotions and it seeks to bring them under control. Oratory is effective when emotions are inert and stagnant; maw'izah is required when lusts and passions become unmanageable.

Oratory stirs the passion for power and glory, the feelings of honour, heroism, chivalry, manliness, patriotism, nobility, righteousness, virtue, and service; it is followed by movement and excitement. But maw'izah checks inappropriate passion and excitement.

Rhetoric and oratory snatch control from the hands of calculating reason, handing it over to tempestuous passions. But maw'izah appeases the tempests of passions and prepares the ground for calculation and foresight. Oratory draws one to the outside, and maw'izah makes him turn to his inner self.

Rhetoric and counsel are both necessary and essential, and the Nahj al-balaghah makes use of both of them. The main thing is to judge the right time for the use of each of them.

The impassioned speeches of Amir al-Mu'minin ('a) were delivered at a time when it was necessary to stir up passions and to build up a tempest to destroy an unjust and oppressive structure, such as at the time of the Battle of Siffin when 'Ali ('a) delivered a fiery speech before the engagement with Mu'awiyah's forces. Mu'awiyah's forces, arriving ahead of 'Ali's army, had taken control of the river bank and stopped the supply of water to 'Ali's camp.

At first 'Ali ('a) strived to abstain from resorting to force, desiring the problem to be solved through negotiation. But Mu'awiyah, who had some other designs, considering occupation of the river bank a victory for himself, refused every offer of negotiation.

When things became difficult for 'Ali's men, it was time when he should stir the emotions of his soldiers through a fiery speech, creating a tempest that would rout the enemy. This is how 'Ali ('a) addressed his companions:

They are eager that you should make them taste the flavour of battle. So you have two alternatives before you: either submit to disgrace and ignominy, or quench your swords in their blood and appease your thirst with water.

It is' death to survive through defeat and true life is to die for the sake of victory. Muawiyah is leading a handful of deluded insurgents and has deceived them by keeping them in the dark about the truth, with the result that their throats are the targets of your deadly arrows.1

These words flared their emotions, provoked their sense of honour, and made the blood surge in their veins. It was not yet sunset when 'Ali's companions seized the river bank and threw back Mu'awiyah's forces.

However, 'Ali's mawaiz were delivered in different conditions. During the days of the first three caliphs, and particularly during 'Uthman's rule, immeasurable amounts of wealth and booty won through consecutive victories flowed into Muslim hands.

Due to the absence of any careful programmes for correct utilization of that wealth, particularly due to the aristocratic, or rather tribal, rule during the reign of 'Uthman, moral corruption, worldliness, and love of comfort and luxury found their way into the Muslim society. Tribal rivalries were revived, and racial prejudice between Arabs and non-Arabs was added to it.

In that clamour for worldliness and mounting prejudices, rivalries, and greed for greater share of the war booty, the only cry of protest charged with spiritual exhortation was that of 'Ali ('a).

God willing, we shall discuss in coming chapters the various themes dealt with in 'Ali's mawa'iz, such as taqwa (God-fearing), worldliness, zuhd (abstinence), desires, the dread of death, the dreads of the Day of Judgement, the need to take lesson from the history of past nations and peoples, etc.

The Nahj al-balaghah's Recurring Themes

Out of the 241 fragments collected under the title 'Khutab' by al-Sayyid al-Radi (though not all of them are Khutab or sermons) about 86 can be classed as mawa'iz or at least contain a series of spiritual advices.

Some of them, however, are elaborate and lengthy, like the khutbah 176, which opens with the sentence (Avail of the Divine expositions), the khutbah named 'al-Qasi'ah; (which is the longest of the sermons of the Nahj al-balaghah), and the khutbah 93 (called khutbat al-muttaqin, the 'Sermon of the Pious').

Out of some seventy-nine passages that are classed as 'kutub' letters, (which not all of them are) about twenty-five, either completely or partially, consist of spiritual and moral teachings. Some of them are quite lengthy and elaborate-like letter 31, which constitutes 'Ali's advice to his son al-Imam al-Hasan al-Mujtaba ('a), and the lengthiest of all, except the famous directive sent to Malik al-'Ashtar. Another one is letter 45, the well-known epistle of 'Ali ('a) to Uthman ibn Hunayf, his governor in Basrah.

The Themes in Spiritual Advices

Various themes are found in the spiritual advices of the Nahj al-balaghah: taqwa (God-fearing); tawakkul (trust in God); sabr (patience, Fortitude); zuhd (abstinence); the renunciation of worldly pleasures and luxuries, the renunciation of inordinate desires and far-fetched hopes; the condemnation of injustice and prejudice, emphasis on mercy, love, helping of the oppressed and sympathy toward the weak; emphasis on the qualities of fortitude, courage, and strength; emphasis on unity and solidarity and condemnation of disunity; the invitation to take lesson from history; the invitation to thought, meditation, remembrance, and self-criticism; the reminders about the brevity of life and the swiftness of its pace; the remembrance of death; the hardships of death-throes; experiences of the life after death; the reminders of the dreadful events of the Day of Judgement, and so on.

These are some of the frequent themes of the spiritual advices of the Nahj al-balaghah.

Imam Ali's Logic

In order to understand this aspect of the Nahj al-balaghah, or, in other words, to understand 'Ali ('a) when he speaks as a moral and spiritual counsellor and to understand his didactic outlook, so as to draw benefit from that everflowing source, it is not enough to enumerate the various themes and topics dealt with by 'Ali ('a) in his discourses.

It is not sufficient merely to remark that 'Ali ('a) has spoken about taqwa, tawakkul or zuhd; rather, we must see what significance did he attribute to these words. We must uncover his didactic philosophy regarding the development of the human character and his perception of the human aspiration for piety, purity, freedom, and deliverance from spiritual servitude and thraldom.

As we know, these are words employed by all-in particular those who are wont to play the role of a moralist; but all individuals do not mean the same kind of things by these terms. Sometimes, the meanings one person attributes to these words are quite contrary to those meant by another, and naturally lead to conclusions which are quite opposite.

Consequently, it is essential to elaborate somewhat the specific meanings of these terms in 'Ali's vocabulary, starting with taqwa.

Taqwa

Taqwa is one of the most frequent motifs of the Nahj al-balaghah. In fact it would be hard to find another book which emphasizes this spiritual term to the extent of this book. Even in the Nahj al-balaghah, no other term or concept receives so much attention and stress as taqwa. What is taqwa?

Often it is thought that taqwa means piety and abstinence and so implies a negative attitude. In other words, it is maintained that the greater the amount of abstinence, withdrawal, and self-denial, the more perfect is one's taqwa.

According to this interpretation, taqwa is a concept divorced from active life; secondly it is a negative attitude; thirdly, it means that the more severely this negative attitude is exercised, the greater one's taqwa would be.

Accordingly, the sanctimonious professors of taqwa, in order to avoid its being tainted and to protect it from any blemish, withdraw from the bustle of life, keeping themselves away from involvement in any matter or affair of the world.

Undeniably, abstinence and caution exercised with discretion is an essential principle of wholesome living. For, in order to lead a healthy life, man is forced to negate and affirm, deny and posit, renounce and accept, avoid and welcome different things. It is through denial and negation that the positive in life can be realized. It is through renunciation and avoidance that concentration is given to action.

The principle of tawhid contained in the dictum la ilaha illa Allah is at the same time a negation as well as an affirmation. Without negation of everything other than God it is not possible to arrive at tawhid.

That is why rebellion and surrender, kufr (unbelief) and iman (belief), go together; that is, every surrender requires a rebellion and every faith (iman) calls for a denial and rejection (kufr), and every affirmation implies a negation. The Qur’an says:

“So whoever disbelieves in taghut and believes in God, has laid hold of the most firm bond ....” (2:256)

However, firstly, every denial, negation, rejection, and rebellion operates between the limits of two opposites; the negation of one thing implies movement towards its opposite; the rejection of the one marks the beginning of the acceptance of the other.

Accordingly, every healthy denial and rejection has both a direction and a goal, and is confined within certain definite limits. Therefore, a blind practice and purposeless attitude, which has neither direction nor a goal, nor is confined within any limits, is neither defensible nor of any spiritual worth.

Secondly, the meaning of taqwa in the Nahj al-balaghah is not synonymous with that of 'abstinence', even in its logically accepted sense discussed above. Taqwa, on the other hand, according to the Nahj al-balaghah, is a spiritual faculty which appears as a result of continued exercise and practice.

The healthy and rational forms of abstinence are, firstly, the preparatory causes for the emergence of that spiritual faculty; secondly, they are also its effects and outcome.

This faculty strengthens and vitalizes the soul, giving it a kind of immunity. A person who is devoid of this faculty, if he wants to keep himself free from sins, it is unavoidable for him to keep away from the causes of sin. Since society is never without these causes, inevitably he has to go into seclusion and isolate himself.

It follows from this argument that one should either remain pious by isolating himself from one's environment, or he should enter society and bid farewell to taqwa. Moreover, according to this logic, the more isolated and secluded a person's life is and the more he abstains from mixing with other people, the greater is his piety and taqwa in the eyes of the common people.

However, if the faculty of taqwa is cultivated inside a person's soul, it is no longer necessary for him to seclude himself from his environment. He can keep himself clean and uncorrupted without severing his relations with society.

The former kind of persons are like those who take refuge in mountains for fear of some plague or epidemic.

The second kind resemble those who acquire immunity and resistance through vaccination and so do not deem it necessary to leave the city and avoid contact with their townsfolk. On the other hand, they hasten to the aid of the suffering sick in order to save them. Sa'di is alluding to the first kind of pious in his Gulistan, when he says:

Saw I a sage in the mountains,

Happy in a cave, far from the world's tide.

Said I, “Why not to the city return,

And lighten your heart of this burden?”

He said, “The city abounds in tempting beauties,

And even elephants slip where mud is thick.”

The Nahj al-balaghah speaks of taqwa as a spiritual faculty acquired through exercise and assiduity, which on its emergence produces certain characteristic effects, one of which is the ability to abstain from sins with ease.

I guarantee the truth of my words and I am responsible for what I say. If similar events and experiences of the past serve as a lesson for a person, then taqwa prevents him from plunging recklessly into doubts2

Beware that sins are like unruly horses whose reins have been taken way and which plunge with their riders into hell-fire. But taqwa is like a trained steed whose reins are in the hands of its rider and enters with its rider into Paradise.3

In this sermon taqwa is described as a spiritual condition which results in control and command over one's self. It explains that the result of subjugation to desires and lusts and being devoid of taqwa degrades one's personality making it vulnerable to the cravings of the carnal self. In such a state, man is like a helpless rider without any power and control, whom his mount takes wherever it desires.

The essence of taqwa lies in possessing a spiritual personality endowed with will-power, and possessing mastery over the domain of one's self. A man with taqwa is like an expert horseman riding a well-trained horse and who with complete mastery and control drives his tractable steed in the direction of his choice.

Certainly the taqwa of God assists His awliya (friends) in abstaining from unlawful deeds and instils His fear into their hearts. As a result, their nights are passed in wakefulness and their days in thirst [on account of fasting].4

Here 'Ali ('a) makes it clear that taqwa is something which automatically leads to abstention from unlawful actions and to the fear of God, which are its necessary effects. Therefore, according to this view, taqwa is neither itself abstinence nor fear of God; rather, it is a sacred spiritual faculty of which these two are only consequences:

For indeed, today taqwa is a shield and a safeguard, and tomorrow (i.e. in the Hereafter) it shall be the path to Paradise.5

In khutbah 157, taqwa is compared to an invincible fortress built on heights which the enemy has no power to infiltrate. Throughout, the emphasis of the Imam ('a) lies on the spiritual and psychological aspect of taqwa and its effects upon human spirit involving the emergence of a dislike for sin and corruption and an inclination towards piety, purity, and virtue.

Further illustrations of this view can be cited from the Nahj al-balaghah, but it seems that the above quotations are sufficient.

Taqwa is Immunity not Restraint

We have already mentioned some of the various elements found in the spiritual advices (mawa'iz) of the Nahj al-balaghah. We began with taqwa and saw that taqwa, from the viewpoint of the Nahj al-balaghah, is a sublime spiritual faculty which is the cause of certain attractions and repulsions; i.e. attraction towards edifying spiritual values and repulsion towards degrading materialistic vices. The Nahj al-balaghah considers taqwa as a spiritual state that gives strength to human personality and makes man the master of his own self.

Taqwa as Immunity

The Nahj al-balaghah stresses that taqwa is for man a shield and a shelter, not a chain or a prison. There are many who do not distinguish between immunity and restraint, between security and confinement, and promptly advocate the destruction of the sanctuary of taqwa in the name of freedom and liberation from bonds and restraint.

That which is common between a sanctuary and a prison is the existence of a barrier. Whereas the walls of a sanctuary avert dangers, the walls of a prison hinder the inmates from realizing their inner capacities and from benefiting from the bounties of life. 'Ali ('a) clarifies the difference between the two, where he says:

Let it be known to you, O servants of God, that taqwa is a formidable fortress, whereas impiety and corruption is a weak and indefensible enclosure that does not safeguard its people, and does not offer any protection to those who take refuge in it. Indeed, it is only with taqwa that the tentacles of sins and misdeeds can be severed.6

'Ali ('a), in this sublime advice, compares sins and evil deeds which are afflictions of the human soul to poisonous insects and reptiles, and suggests that the faculty of taqwa is an effective defence against them. In some of his discourses, he makes it clear that taqwa not only does not entail restraint and restriction or is an impediment to freedom, but on the other hand it is the source and fountainhead of all true freedoms. In khutbah 230, he says:

Taqwa is the key to guidance, the provision for the next world, the freedom from every kind of slavery, and the deliverance from every form of destruction.

The message is clear. Taqwa gives man spiritual freedom and liberates him from the chains of slavery and servitude to lusts and passions. It releases him from the bonds of envy, lust, and anger, and this expurgates society from all kinds of social bondages and servitudes.

Men who are not slaves of comfort, money, power, and glory, never surrender to the various forms of bondage which plague the human society.

The Nahj al-balaghah deals with the theme of taqwa and its various effects in many of its passages; but we don't consider it necessary to discuss all of them here. Our main objective here is to discover the meaning of taqwa from the point of view of the Nahj al-balaghah, so as to unearth the reason for so much emphasis that this book places on this concept.

Of the many effects of taqwa that have been pointed out, two are more important than the rest: firstly, the development of insight and clarity of vision; secondly, the capacity to solve problems and to weather difficulties and crises.

We have discussed this in detail elsewhere.7 Moreover, a discussion of these effects of taqwa here will take us beyond our present aim which is to clarify the true meaning of taqwa. It will not be out of place to call attention to certain profound remarks of the Nahj al-balaghah about the reciprocal relationship between the human being and taqwa.

A Reciprocal Commitment

In spite of the great emphasis laid by the Nahj al-balaghah on taqwa as a kind of guarantee and immunity against sin and temptation, it should be noticed that one must never neglect to safeguard and protect taqwa itself. Taqwa guards man, and man must safeguard his taqwa. This, as we shall presently explain, is not a vicious circle.

This reciprocal guarding of the one by the other is comparable to the one between a person and his clothes. A man takes care of his clothes and protects them from being spoiled or stolen, while the clothes in turn guard him against heat or cold. In fact the Holy Qur’an speaks of taqwa as a garment:

And the garment of taqwa -that is better. (7:26)

'Ali ('a), speaking about this relationship of mutual protection between a person and his tawqa', says:

Turn your sleep into wakefulness by the means of taqwa and spend your days in its company. Keep its consciousness alive in your hearts. With it wash away your sins and cure your ailments... Beware, guard your taqwa and place your self under its guard.8

At another place in the same sermon, 'Ali ('a) says:

O God's servants, I advise you to cultivate the taqwa of God. Indeed it is a right that God has over you and it is through it that you can have any right over God. You should beseech God's help for guarding it and seek its aid for [fulfilling your duty to] God.9

Zuhd and Piety

Another spiritual motif conspicuous in the teachings of the Nahj al-balaghah is zuhd, which after taqwa is the most recurring theme of the book. 'Zuhd' means renunciation of the 'world', and very often we encounter denunciation of the 'world', and invitation and exhortation to renounce it.

It appears to me that it forms one of the important themes of the Nahj al-balaghah, which needs to be elucidated and explained in the light of various aspects of 'Ali's approach.

We shall begin our discussion with the word 'zuhd' The words 'zuhd' and 'raghbah' (attraction, desire), if mentioned without reference to their objects, are opposite to each other. 'Zuhd' means indifference and avoidance, and 'raghbah ' means attraction, inclination, and desire.

Indifference can be of two kinds: involuntary and cultivated. A person is involuntarily indifferent towards a certain thing when by nature he does not have any desire for it, as in the case of a sick person who shows no desire either for food, or fruits, or anything else. Obviously, this kind of indifference and abstinence has nothing to do with the particular sense implied in 'zuhd '.

Another kind of indifference or abstinence is spiritual or intellectual; that is, things which are natural objects of desire are not considered the goal and objective by a human being in the course of his struggle for perfection and felicity.

The ultimate objective and goal may be something above mundane aims and sensual pleasures; either it may be to attain the sensuous pleasures of the Hereafter, or it may not belong to this kind of things.

It may be some high ethical and moral ideal, like honour, dignity, nobility, liberty, or it may belong to the spiritual sphere, like the remembrance of God, the love of God, and the desire to acquire nearness to Him.

Accordingly the zahid (i.e. one who practises zuhd) is someone whose interest transcends the sphere of material existence, and whose object of aspiration lies beyond the kind of things we have mentioned above. The indifference of a zahid originates in the sphere of his ideas, ideals, and hopes, not in his physiological makeup.

There are two places where we come across the definition of 'zuhd' in the Nahj al-balaghah. Both of them confirm the above interpretation of zuhd. 'Ali ('a), in khutba 81, says:

O people! zuhd means curtailing of hopes, thanking God for His blessings and bounties, and abstaining from that which He has forbidden.

In hikmah 439, he says:

All zuhd is summarized in two sentences of the Qur’an: God, the Most Exalted, says, So that you may not grieve for what escapes you, nor rejoice in what has come to you. [57:23] Whoever does not grieve over what he has lost and does not rejoice over what comes to him has acquired zuhd in both of its aspects.

Obviously when something does not occupy a significant position amongst one's objectives and ideals, or rather is not at all significant in the scheme of things which matter to him, its gain and loss do not make the slightest difference to him.

However, there are some points that need clarification. Is zuhd, or detachment from the world, on which the Nahj al-balaghah, following the Qur’anic teachings, puts so much emphasis, to be taken solely in an ethical and spiritual sense?

In other words, is zuhd purely a spiritual state, or does it possess practical implications also? That is, is zuhd spiritual abstinence only or is it accompanied by an abstinence in practical life also? Assuming that zuhd is to be applied in practice, is it limited to abstinence from unlawful things (muharramat), as pointed out in khutba 81, or does it include something more, as exemplified by the life of 'Ali ('a) and before him bythe life of the Holy Prophet ('s)?

Proceeding on the assumption that zuhd is not limited to-muharramat only and that it covers permissible things (mubahat) as well, one may ask: what is its underlying rationale and philosophy?

What is the use of an ascetic life that limits and confines life, rejecting its blessings and bounties? Is zuhd to be practised at all times or only under certain particular conditions? Is zuhd-in the sense of abstinence from even permissible things-basically in agreement with other Islamic teachings?

Apart from this, the basis of zuhd and renunciation of the world is the pursuit of supra-material objectives and ideals. What are they from the point of view of Islam? In particular, how does the Nahj al-balaghah describe them?

All these questions regarding zuhd, renunciation, and curtailing of hopes-themes which have so often been discussed in the Nahj al-balaghah-need to be clarified. We shall discuss these questions in the following pages and try to answer them.

Islamic Zuhd and Christian Asceticism

In the last section we said that zuhd, as defined by the Nahj al-balaghah, is a spiritual state that makes the zahid, on account of his spiritual and other worldly aspirations, indifferent towards the manifestations of material existence. This indifference is not confined to his heart, intellect, and feelings and is not limited to his conscience.

It also manifests itself on the practical level of life in the form of simplicity, contentment, and obstention from hedonistic urges and love of luxuries. A life of zuhd not only implies that a man should be free from attachment to the material aspects of life, but he should also practically abstain from indulgence in pleasures.

The zuhhad are those who in life are satisfied with the barest material necessities. 'Ali ('a) was a zahid, who was not only emotionally detached from the world but also indifferent to its pleasures and enjoyments. In other words, he had 'renounced' the 'world'.

Two Questions

Here, inevitably, two questions shall arise in the reader's mind. Firstly, as we know, Islam has opposed monasticism considering it to be an innovation of Christian priests and monks.10 The Prophet ('s) has stated in unequivocal terms that:

There is no monasticism (rahbaniyyah) in Islam.

Once when the Prophet ('s) was informed that some of his Companions had retired into seclusion renouncing everything and devoting all their time to worship and prayer in seclusion, he became very indignant.

He told them: “I, who am your prophet, am not such”. In this way, the Prophet ('s) made them to understand that Islam is a religion of life and society, not a monastic faith. Moreover, the comprehensive and multifaceted teachings of Islam in social, economic, political and moral spheres are based on reverence for life, not on its renunciation.

Apart from this, monasticism and renunciation of life are incompatible with the world-view of Islam and its optimistic outlook about the universe and creation. Unlike some other philosophies and creeds, Islam does not view the world and life in society with pessimism.

It does not divide all creation into ugly and beautiful, black and white, good and evil, proper and improper, right and wrong.

Now the second question may be stated in these words: “Aside from the fact that asceticism is the same as monasticism-which are both incompatible with the Islamic spirit-what is the philosophy underlying zuhd ?

Moreover, why should men be urged to practise zuhd? Why should man, seeing the limitless bounties of God and good things of life around him, be called upon to pass by the side of this delightful stream indifferently and without so much as wetting his feet?

Are the ascetic teachings found in Islam, on this basis, later innovations (bid'ah) introduced into Islam from other creeds like Christianity and Buddhism? And if this is correct, how are we to explain and interpret the teachings of the Nahj al-balaghah? How can we explain the indubitable details known about the Prophet's life and that of 'Ali ('a)?

The answer is that Islamic zuhd is different from Christian asceticism or monasticism. Asceticism is retreat from people and society and seclusion for the purpose of worship. According to it, the life and works of the world are separate from the works of the Here-after and the one is alien to the other. One should, of necessity, choose either one of the two.

One should either devote oneself to worship of God which shall bear fruits in the Hereafter, or take up the life of the world and benefit from its immediate pleasures. Accordingly, monasticism is opposed to life and social relationships. It requires with-drawal from people and negation of responsibility and commitment towards them.

On the other hand, zuhd in Islam, though it requires a simple and unaffected life-style and is based on abstention from luxuries and love of comforts and pleasures, operates in the very midst of life and social relations and is sociable. It draws inspiration, and proceeds, from the goal of better fulfilment of social responsibilities and duties.

The conception of zuhd in Islam is not something that would lead to asceticism, because a sharp distinction between this world and the next is nowhere drawn. From the viewpoint of Islam, this world and the next are not separable, not alien to each other. The relation of this world to the other is similar to that between the inward and outward sides of a single reality.

They are like the warp and woof of a single fabric. They are to each other as the soul to the body. Their relation-ship can be assumed to be something midway between unity and duality. The works of this world and those of the next are interrelated similarly. Their difference is that of quality, without being essential.

Accordingly, that which is harmful for the other world is also to one's detriment in the present world, and everything which is beneficial for the summum bonum of life in this world is also beneficial for life in the next world.

Therefore, if a certain work which is in accordance with the higher interests of life in this world is performed with motives that are devoid of the higher, supra-material, and transcendental elements, that work would be considered totally this-worldly and would not, as the Qur’an tells us, elevate man in his ascent towards God.

However, if a work or action is motivated by sublime aims and intentions and is executed with a higher vision that transcends the narrow limits of worldly life, the same work and action is considered 'other-worldly.'

The Islamic zuhd, as we said, is grounded in the very context and stream of life and gives a peculiar quality to living by emphasizing certain values in life. As affirmed by the Islamic texts, zuhd in Islam is based on three essential principles of the Islamic world-outlook.

The Three Essential Principles

1. Enjoyments derived from the physical, material, and natural means of life are not sufficient for man's happiness and felicity. A series of spiritual needs are inbuilt in the human nature, without whose satisfaction the enjoyment provided by material means of life is not enough to make man truly happy.

2. The individual's felicity and happiness is not separable from that of society. Since man is emotionally bound to his society, and carries within him a sense of responsibility towards it, his individual happiness cannot be independent of the prosperity and peace of his fellow men.

3. The soul, despite its fusion and a kind of unity with the body, has a reality of its own. It is a principle in addition to the body which constitutes another principle in itself. The soul is an independent source of pleasure and pain. Like the body, or rather even more than it, it stands in need of nourishment, training, growth, and development.

The soul, however, cannot dispense with the health and vigour of the body. At the same time, it is undeniable that total indulgence in physical pleasures and complete immersion into the delights of sensual experiences does not leave any opportunity for realizing the soul's unlimited possibilities. Therefore, there exists a kind of incompatibility between physical enjoyment and spiritual satisfaction. This is especially true if the attention and attachment to physical needs were carried to the very extreme of total immersion and absorption.

It is not true that all sorrow and grief are related to the soul and that all pleasures are derived from the body. In fact, the spiritual pleasures are much profounder, purer, and lasting than bodily pleasures. To sum up, one-sided attention to physical pleasures and material enjoyments finally results in compromising the total human happiness.

Therefore, if we want to make our lives happy, rich, pure, majestic, attractive, and beautiful, we cannot afford to ignore the spiritual aspects of our being.

With due attention to these principles, the meaning of zuhd in Islam becomes clear. The knowledge of these principles allows us to understand why Islam rejects monasticism but welcomes a form of asceticism which is rooted in the very heart of life and in the context of social existence. We shall explain the meaning of zuhd in Islamic texts on the basis of these three principles.

The Zahid and the Monk

We said that Islam encourages zuhd but condemns monasticism. Both the zahid and the ascetic monk seek abstinence from pleasures and enjoyments. But the monk evades life in society and the respon-sibilities and the duties it entails, regarding them as the low and mean facets of worldly existence, and takes refuge in mountains or monasteries.

On the other hand, the zahid accepts society with its norms, ideals, duties, and commitments. Both the zahid and the monk are otherworldly, but the zahid is a social otherworldly. Also their attitudes to abstinence from pleasures are not identical; the monk disdains hygiene and cleanliness and derides married life and procreation.

The zahid, on the contrary, considers hygiene and cleanliness, matrimony and parenthood to be a part of his duties. Both the zahid and the monk are ascetics, but whereas the 'world' renounced by the zahid is indulgence and immersion in pleasures, luxuries, and comforts (he rejects the attitude which considers them to be life's ultimate goal and objective), the 'world' renounced by the monk includes life's work and activity, and the duty and responsibility which go with social life.

That is why the zahid's zuhd operates in the midst of social life, and is, therefore, not only compatible with social responsibility and commitment but is moreover a very effective means of discharging them.

The difference between the zahid and the monk arises from two different world-outlooks. From the viewpoint of the monk, this world and the next are two different spheres, separate from and unrelated to each other. To him, happiness in this world is not only independent of happiness in the next but is incompatible with it.

He considers the two forms of happiness as irreconcilable contradictories. Naturally, that which leads to felicity and happiness in this world is considered different from the works and deeds which lead to success in the Hereafter. In other words, the means of acquiring happiness in this world and the next are regarded as being incompatible and contradictory.

It is imagined that a single work and action cannot simultaneously be a means for acquiring happiness in both the worlds.

But in the world-view of the zahid, the world and the Hereafter are interconnected. The world is a preamble to the Hereafter. It is a farm of which the Hereafter is the harvest. From the zahid's viewpoint, that which gives order, security, uprightness, prosperity, and flourish to life is application of other-worldly criteria to the life of this world.

The essence of felicity and happiness in the other world lies in successful accomplishment of commitments and responsibilities of this world, performed with faith, piety, purity, and taqwa.

In truth, the zahid's concept of zuhd and the monk's rationale for his asceticism are incompatible and contradictory to each other. Basically, monasticism is a deviation introduced by men into the teachings of prophets, due to ignorance or vested interests. Now we shall explain the philosophy of zuhd in the light of the teachings of the Islamic texts.

Zuhd and Altruism

One of the ingredients of zuhd is altruism. Ithar (altruism) and atharah (egoism) are derived from the same root. Atharah means giving precedence to one's interests over those of others. In other words it implies monopolizing everything for oneself and depriving others. But Ithar means preferring others over oneself and bearing hardship for the comfort and good of others.

The zahid, by virtue of his simple, humble, and content living, is hard upon himself so that others may live in ease.

He sacrifices for the sake of the needy because with his sensitive heart which feels the pains of others he can relish the world's bounties only when there does not exist a single man oppressed by need. He derives greater satisfaction by feeding and clothing others and working for their ease than if he did those things for himself.

He endures deprivation, hunger, and pain, so that others may be well fed and live without hardships.

Ithar represents the most magestic and sublime manifestation of human greatness, and only very great human beings climb to its noble heights.

The Holy Qur’an refers to the episode of the self-sacrifice of 'Ali ('a) and his honoured family in the glorious verses of the Surat Hal ata. 'Ali, Fatimah, and their sons once gave away whatever they had-which was no more than a few loaves of bread-to the poor for the sake of God, and despite their own distress.

That is why this story circulated among the angels and a verse of the Qur’an was revealed in the praise of their act.

Once when the Holy Prophet ('s) came to visit Hadrat al-Zahra' ('s), observing that his daughter had put on a silver bracelet and hung a new curtain on the door, signs of unease appeared upon his face. Al-Zahra' ('a) was quick to discern the cause of her father's reaction.

When the Prophet ('s) left, without losing time, she took out her bracelet and removing the curtain from the door, sent them to be carried to the Prophet ('s) so that he might give them to the needy.

When al-Zahra's messenger brought them to the Prophet ('s) he looked at them with amazement. He was glad that his daughter had taken the hint and foregone her simplest luxuries for the benefit of others.

'The neighbours first', was the maxim in the household of 'Ali ('a) and Fatimah ('a). In khutbah 193, which describes the qualities of the pious, 'Ali ('a) says:

The man of [taqwa] subjects his own self to hardships so that the people may live in comfort.

The Holy Qur’an describes the Ansar (the Helpers), who in spite of their poverty welcomed the Muhajirun (the Emigrants) as their own brethren, giving them preference over their own selves, in these words:

They love whosoever has migrated to them, not finiding in their breasts any need for what they have been given, and prefer others above themselves, even though poverty be their lot (59:9)

Obviously, the altruistic ingredient of zuhd comes into play only under certain conditions. In an affluent society, altruism is less frequently required.

But in conditions where poverty and deprivation are prevalent-as in the society of al-Madinah during the Prophet's time-its need is greater. This is one of the secrets of the apparent difference of the life-styles of 'Ali ('a) and the Holy Prophet ('s) with the rest of the Imams ('a).

In any case, zuhd with its underlying altruistic motives has nothing in common with monasticism and escape from society; instead it is a product of man's gregarious instincts and a manifestation of his noblest feelings, which reinforce the social bonds between fellow human beings.

Sympathy and Kindness

The sympathy and the willingness to share the suffering of the needy and the deprived is another ingredient of zuhd. When the destitute witness the luxuries and comforts of the richer classes, their anguish is multiplied. To the hardships of poverty and destitution is added the stinging feeling of deprivation and backwardness in relation to others.

Man, by nature, cannot tolerate to remain a silent spectator while others who have no merit over him eat, drink, enjoy and relish freely at the cost of his deprivation. When society is divided into haves and have-nots, the man of God considers himself responsible.

In the first place, as Amir al-Mu'minin ('a) says, he should strive to change the situation which permits the gluttony of the rich oppressor and the hunger of the oppressed, in accordance with the covenant of God with the learned men of the Ummah.11 In the second place, he strives to ameliorate the state of affairs through altruism and self-sacrifice, by sharing whatever he possesses with the needy and the deprived.

But when he sees that the situation has deteriorated beyond reparation and it is practically impossible to alleviate the misery of the poor through sympathy, he practically shares their deprivation and tries to soothe their wounded hearts by adopting a life-style similar to that of the poor.

Sympathy with others and sharing their suffering is of essential importance especially in the case of the leaders of the Ummah on whom all eyes are fixed. 'Ali ('a), more than at any other time, lived a severely ascetic life during the days of his caliphate. He used to say:

Indeed God has made it obligatory for just leaders that they should maintain themselves at the level of the poor class so that they do not despair of their distress.12

Should I be content with being called 'Amir al-Mu'minin' while refusing to share the adversities of the times with the people? Or should I be an example to them in the distress of life?13

In the same letter (to 'Uthman ibn Hunayf) he says:

It is absolutely out of question that my desires should overpower me and my greed should lead me to relish choicest foods while in the Hijaz and Yamamah there may be some people who despair of even a single loaf of bread and who do not get a full meal. Shall I lie with a satiated belly while around me are those whose stomachs are hungry and whose livers are burning?14

At the same time, 'Ali ('a) would reproach anyone else for practising the same kind of asceticism in life. When faced with their objection as to why he himself practised it, he would reply, “I am not like you. The leaders have a different duty.” This approach of 'Ali ('a) can be observed in the conversation with 'Asim ibn Ziyad al-Harith.15

In volume IX of the Bihar al-'anwar, it has been related from al-Kafi that Amir al-Mu'minin ('a) said:

God has appointed me the leader of the people and made it my duty to adopt a way of living, in food and clothing, on a par with the poorest classes of society, so that, on the one hand, it may soothe the distress of the poor and, on the other, restrain the rich from revolting.16

An incident is related from the life of the great faqih Wahid Behbahani, may God be pleased with him. One day he observed one of his daughters-in-law wearing a garment made of a fabric usually worn by women of rich families of those days. He reproached his son (the late Aqa Muhammad Isma'il, the lady's husband) in that regard. The son recited this verse of the Qur’an in reply to his father's remarks:

“Say: 'Who has forbidden the ornament of God which He has brought forth for His servants, and the good things of His providing?” (7:32)

The father said: “I don't say that putting on good dress, eating good food, and making use of God's bounties is forbidden. Not at all. Such restrictions do not exist in Islam. However, there is one thing to be remembered. We are a family charged with the duty of the religious leadership of Muslims and have special responsibilities.

When the people of poor families see the rich live luxuriously, their frustration is aggravated. Their only consolation is that at least the 'Aqa's family' lives like they do. Now if we too adopt the life-styles of the rich, that will deprive them of their only consolation. However, we cannot practically change the present social condition, but let us not grudge at least this much of sympathy.”

As can be clearly seen, zuhd, which derives motivation from sympathy and readiness to share the sufferings of others, has nothing common with monastic asceticism. It is not based on escapism from society. The Islamic conception of zuhd is a means of alleviating the sufferings of society.

Zuhd and Freedom

Another ingredient of zuhd is love of freedom and independence. The union between zuhd and freedom is as primordial as it is indissoluble.

The dictates of need and exigency are the criteria of opportunists, whereas independence from want is characteristic of free men. The deepest aspiration of the free men unattached to the world is unencumbrance, buoyancy, absence of hindrance, and freedom of movement.

As a result they adopt zuhd and contentment so as to reduce their wants to a minimum, liberating their selves from the bondage of need, of things and persons.

The life of a human being, like that of any other animal, requires a series of natural and indispensable necessities, like air, shelter, bread, water, and clothing. Man cannot free himself entirely from attachment to such needs and other things such as light and heat so as to make himself, in philosophical terminology, “self-sustaining” (muktafi bidhatih).

However, there are a series of other wants which are not necessary and natural, but are imposed upon one in the course of one's life either by oneself, or by social and historical factors beyond his control, which nevertheless set limits upon his freedom.

Such constraints are not very dangerous as long as they are not transformed into inner needs, such as certain political constraints and compulsions. The most dangerous of compulsions are those which emerge as inner needs from within one's own self and shackle him.

The mechanism of these needs, which lead to inner weakness, impotence, and defeat, operates in such a way that when one turns to luxuries and comforts in order to add charm, delight, and glamour to one's life so as to feel more secure and strong in order to derive greater gratification from life, one is impelled to possess more and more things.

In the course of time one gets gradually accustomed to and engrossed in the means of one's comfort, luxury, and power. These habits gradually result in deeper attachment to and love for those things, and he is bound to them with invisible bonds, thus becoming helpless and impotent in front of them.

That is, the same thing which had once added charm and delight to his life later deprives his personality of its vigour, and the same thing which once made him feel powerful against nature now turns him into a helpless slave without a will of his own.

Man's inclination towards zuhd is rooted in his love of freedom. By nature he is disposed toward possession of things and their exploitation; but when he realizes that the things, to the very extent they make him outwardly powerful and successful, inwardly transform him into a weakling without will-power and a slave, he rebels against this slavery. This rebellion of man is what we call zuhd.

Our poets and sages have spoken a lot about freedom and liberation. Hafiz calls himself 'the slave of the magnanimity of him who is free of everything under the blue sky that carries any taint of attachment.' Among the trees, he admires the cypress which to him seems 'free of all woes.' What those great men meant by 'freedom' is freedom from attachment, freedom from being possessed, bewitched, and captivated by anything.

But freedom implies something greater than being devoid of attachments. The ties which make a man weak, helpless, dependent, and impotent are not only those which originate in the heart or emotional attachments; to these must be added the various bodily, physical and psychological conditionings and artificial appendages that are first acquired for adding charm and glory to life and for satisfaction of the lust for power and strength, later growing into a form of addiction or rather becoming a second nature.

These, while they may not involve one's emotional attachments, or may even be regarded by one as reprehensible, should be counted as even stronger means of human servitude and which may bring greater even degradation than emotional attachments.

Take the example of an enlightened 'arif with a heart free of worldly attachments, for whom, nevertheless, addiction to tea, tobacco or opium has become a second nature, or for whom abstention from foods to which he is accustomed may endanger his life. Can such a man lead a free existence?

Liberty from attachments is a necessary condition of freedom, but it is not sufficient in itself. Accustoming oneself to a minimum of the niceties of life and abstention from affluent living is another condition of freedom.

The first thing to strike Abu Sa'id al-Khudri, one of the honoured Companions, when describing the station of the Holy Prophet ('s), is:

The Prophet of God, may peace be upon him and his Household, could manage with the minimum necessities of life.

Is it a merit to be able to do with a minimum of means? If we take only the economic aspect into view, we should say that the Prophet's level of consumption was quite low. In this respect, therefore, the answer would be: “No, not at all; it is not a significant merit.”

But if viewed from a spiritual viewpoint, that is when examined by the criterion of freedom from worldly bondages, we have to admit that it is a great merit indeed. Because it is only by acquisition of this merit that a human being can live with any measure of unfettered freedom and unimpeded mobility, and participate in the incessant struggle of life with agility and vigour.

This matter is not restricted to habits involving the individual; binding oneself to social habits and customs, to modes and manners of dealing with people, the mesh of social connections and gatherings, adherence to styles and fashions in dress and demeanour-these and the like of these encumber life and deprive it of dynamism

Freedom of movement in the arena of life is like swimming; lesser the interference and incumbrance for the swimmer, the greater is his ability to move around in water. Too many attachments will not only deprive him of his mobility but bring the danger of drowning.

Athir al-Din Akhsikati (d. 577 or 579/1181 or 1183) says:

To cross the river of life, shed your robes;

Nakedness is a condition of keeping afloat.

Farrukhi Yazdi says:

Of nakedness the sage does not complain,

A sword of good steel would not rust without a sheath.

Baba Tahir has a ruba'i which though intended for some other purpose is nevertheless relevant here:

O heart, thy path is better when covered with thorns;

Thy track is better when stretched on heavens high;

Nay, if thou can strip the skin off thine flesh,

Do it, for the lighter thy burden the better it be.

Sa'di, too, relates a relevant fable in the chapter 7 of his Gulistan, although it also aims at some other purpose:

I saw a rich mans son squatting by the side of his father's grave, and bragging thus before a darwish's son: 'My father's tomb is constructed of rare stones. Inside, it is paved with marble with enlaid turquois. And look at the one of your father's! An unbaked brick or two was fetched, on which a handful of earth was thrown.'

The sage's son heard these remarks and replied: 'Yet before your father is able to budge under the pile of those stones, my father would have reached the paradise itself.'

These are allegories underlining the significance of lightness and freedom from bondages, which is the essential condition for dynamism, nobility, and nimbleness.

Leaps, movements, and struggles were achieved by individuals who were practically freer of bondages and attachments; that is, in some sense they were zahids. Gandhi, with his ascetic mode of life, brought the British imperialism to its knees.

Ya'qub Layth Saffar, in his own words, 'did not set aside his diet of bread and onions until he became a terror for the caliph.' In our own times, the Vietcongs were such an example. Their surprising power of resistance was drawn from what in Islamic idiom has been called 'lightness of provisions'. A Vietcong could sustain for days in his shelter with a handful of rice and continue his battle with the enemy.

Which leader, religious or political, living in luxury and comfort has brought about drastic upheavals in world history? Which monarch who founded a dynasty, having transferred power from another family to his own, has been a lover of luxuries and comforts?

'Ali ibn Abi Talib, may peace be upon him, was the freest of the world's free men. He was a free man in the complete sense of the word, because he was a zahid in the profoundest sense of the word. 'Ali ('a), in the Nahj al-balaghah, lays great emphasis on renunciation of worldly pleasures and comforts as a means of liberation. In one of the hikam (aphorisms), he says:

Greed is everlasting slavery.17

In a sermon he describes the zuhd of Jesus ('a), the son of Mary, in these words:

He was free of any abasing greed.18

At another place he says:

The world is a place of transit, not a place to abide. Its people fall into two categories: those who sell away their souls into slavery, and those who ransom their souls and liberate them.19

In a letter to 'Uthman ibn Hunayf, 'Ali ('a) is more explicit than elsewhere. Towards the end of the letter, addressing the world and its pleasures, he reveals to us the philosophy of zuhd and the secrets of renunciation:

O world! Get away from me! I have thrown thy reins on thy shoulders, have freed myself from thy claws, and released myself from thy snares Go, get thee away! By God, I shall not surrender to thee so that thou should abase me! I shall not follow thee tractably that thou may control me and lead me wherever thou willeth.

Yes. 'Ali's zuhd is a rebellion against abasement and indignity on account of pleasures. It is a rebellion against human weakness and impotence before the tyranny of desires. It is a defiance of servitude to the world and obsequiousness before its charms.

Zuhd And Spirituality

Zuhd, Love, and Worship

Another fountainhead of zuhd and renunciation of hedonism is the aspiration to avail of spiritual bounties. Presently we do not intend to undertake any argument to the effect that man and the universe possess an undeniable spiritual aspect. It is another story by itself.

It is evident that from a materialistic outlook of the world, the rejection of hedonism, materialism, and love of money and wealth as a prerequisite for acquisition of spiritual virtues is devoid of any meaning.

We have, here, nothing to say about the followers of materialism as a school of thought. At present, we address only those who have experienced the aroma of spirituality.

For, anybody who has smelled its fragrance knows that as long as one does not liberate oneself from the bondage of desire, as long as the infant soul is not weaned away from the breasts of nature, and as long as the material aspects of life are seen as not being the ultimate end of life and are seen as means, the domain of the heart is not ready for the emergence of chaste emotions, majestic thoughts, and angelic feelings.

That is why, it is said, that zuhd is the essential condition for exuberance of gnosis and is inalienably linked with it.

The worship of God, in its real sense, that is, ardour of love and zeal of devotion and service in the way of God, His constant presence in thoughts and His remembrance, the sense of delight and ecstasy in His adoration and worship-it is not at all compatible with self-adoration, hedonist attitude, and being captured by the glamour and charm of material things.

The need of zuhd is not characteristic solely of the worship of God; rather, every kind of love and adoration, whether it pertains to one's country, creed, conviction, or something else, calls for some kind of zuhd and indifference towards material aspects of life.

It is characteristic of love and adoration, as opposed to knowledge, science or philosophy, that they have to deal with the heart and as such do not tolerate any rivals. Nothing prevents a scientist or a philosopher who is enslaved to money and wealth from devoting and concentrating his intellectual powers, when necessary, on the study of the problems of philosophy, logic, physics, or mathematics.

But it is not possible, at the same time, that his heart should be full to the brim with love, especially love of a spiritual nature, such as for humanity, or his religion and creed. Certainly, it cannot burn with the light of Divine love nor can it receive an enlightenment or inspiration of a Divine sort.

Consequently, the essential condition for reception of spiritual grace and realization of authentic humanhood is purging the temple of the heart from every trace of materialistic attachments and exterminating from the Ka'bah of the heart all the idols of gold and silver and destroying them.

As we have said before, we should not be led to misinterpret freedom from the bondage of gold and silver, and indifference towards what these metals can be exchanged for, as monastic asceticism which is an attempt to evade responsibility and commitment.

Instead, it is only in the light of such zuhd that responsibility and commitment reacquire their real significance and are no longer empty words without content and hollow claims. The personality of 'Ali, upon whom be peace, is a glorious example of it. In him zuhd and commitment were combined together.

While he was a zahid who had renounced the world, at the same time, he had a heart that was most sensitive to the demands of social responsibility. On the one hand he used to say:

What has 'Ali to do with perishable niceties and short-lived pleasures.20

On the other hand, a small injustice or the sight of someone in distress was enough to snatch sleep from his eyes at nights. He was ready to go to bed with an empty stomach lest someone in his dominion might have remained hungry:

Shall I stuff my belly with delicious foods while in the Hijaz and Yamamah there may be people who have no hope of getting a loaf of bread or a full meal?21

There was a direct relation between that zuhd of his and this sensitiveness. Since 'Ali ('a) was a zahid, indifferent to the world and unselfish, with a heart that overflowed with the exuberance of the love of God, he looked at the world, from the minutest particle to the greatest star, as a unit entrusted with responsibility and duty.

That is why he was so sensitive towards the matters of social rights. Had he been a hedonist devoted to his own interests, he would never have been the responsible and committed person that he was.

The Islamic traditions are eloquent in regard to this philosophy of zuhd and the Nahj al-balaghah lays particular emphasis upon it. In a hadith, it is related from al-Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq ('a) that he said:

All hearts that harbour doubt or entertain shirk shall be inauthentic; that is why they adopted zuhd so that hearts may be emptied and made ready for the Hereafter.22

As can be seen from this tradition, every kind of hedonism and attachment to pleasures is considered shirk and contrary to the worship of the One God. Mawlana (Rumi) describes the zuhd of the 'arif in these words:

Zuhd means taking pains while sowing; Mystic knowledge (ma'rifah) is (care during) its cultivation; The 'arif is the soul of the Law and the spirit of taqwa; For mystic knowledge is the fruit of the labours of zuhd.

Abu 'Ali Ibn Sina, in the ninth namat of his al-'Isharat, which he devotes to the description of various stations of the mystics (maqamat al-'arifin), differentiates between the zuhd of the 'arif and that of the non-'arif. He writes:

The zahids who have no knowledge of the philosophy of zuhd, make a certain deal in their imagination: they barter the goods of the world for the goods of the Hereafter. They forego the enjoyments of the world in order that they may enjoy the pleasures of the Hereafter.

In other words, they abstain here in order to indulge there. But an aware zahid, acquainted with the philosophy of zuhd, practises it because of his unwillingness to engage his inner self with anything other than God. Such a man, out of his self-respect, regards anything other than God to be unworthy of attention and servitude.

In another section of the same book where he discusses spiritual discipline, Ibn Sina says:

This training has three ends in view. First, removal of impediments from the path towards God; second, subjugation of the earnal self (al-nafs al-'ammarah) to the contented self (al-nafs al-mutma'innah), third, refinement of the inward (batin).

Then he proceeds to mention the effective means of realization of these three ends. He tells us that true zuhd helps in achieving the first of these objectives, that is, removal of impediments, the non-God, from the way.

The Contradiction Between the World and the Hereafter:

The problem of the conflict between the world and the Hereafter and the contradiction between them as two opposite poles, such as the north and the south, which are such that proximity to the one means remoteness from the other-is related to the world of human heart, conscience, human attachment, love and worship. God has not given two hearts to man:

God has not assigned to any man two hearts within his breast. (33:4)

With one heart one cannot choose two beloveds. That is why once when questioned about his old and worn-out clothes, 'Ali ('a) replied:

These make the heart humble, subdue the self, and induce the believers to follow it as an example.23

That is, those who have no new clothes to wear are not ashamed to put on old and worn-out dress. They no longer feel humiliation on their account for they see that their leader himself hasn't put on any better. Then 'Ali ('a) goes on to add that the world and the Hereafter are like two irreconcilable enemies.

They are two divergent paths. Anyone who loves the world and chooses its bondage is, by nature, led to loathe the Hereafter and detest everything that is related to it. The world and the Hereafter are like the east and the west, the north and the south. Anyone who approaches the one gets farther from the other. They are like two wives.

In one of his epistles, he writes:

I swear by God that, God willing, I shall so discipline my own self that it would rejoice to have a single loaf of bread for eating and be content with only salt to season it. (In prayer) I shall empty my eyes of tears until they become like dried up springs.

The cattle fill their stomachs on the pasture and lie down to repose. The goats graze, devour green herbs, and enter their enclosures. Should 'Ali in a similar manner swallow whatever he ean lay his hands on and lie down to doze'? Congratulations! For, if he does that' after long years he has chosen to follow the wild grazing animals and the cattle led out to pasture.24

Then he goes on to add:

Happy is the man who fulfils his duties to God and overcomes hardships like a mill grinding the grain, who allows himself no sleep at nights and when it overpowers him lies down on the ground with his hand for a pillow.

He is accompanied by those who keep their eyes awake in fear of the Day of Judgement, whose bodies are ever away from their beds, whose lips constantly hum in the Lord's remembrance, whose sins have been erased by prolonged supplications for forgiveness. They are the party of Allah; why surely Allah's party-they are the prosperers. (58:22)25

The two passages quoted above completely illustrate the relation-ship between zuhd and spirituality.

To sum up, one has to choose one of the two paths; either to drink, eat, browse and hanker after sensual pleasures in utter indifference to the secrets of the spirit, to avoid the agonies of love and its tears, to speak not of enlightenment and progress, not to take a step beyond the threshold of bestiality; or to resolve on a journey into the valley of authentic humanhood, towards the effulgence and-exuberance of Divine grace which descends upon chaste hearts and enlightened souls.

Zuhd: Minimum of Intake for Maximum Output

Some days ago I was in Isfahan on a visit for a few days. During it, in a gathering of the learned, a discussion started about zuhd. The various aspects of it were scrutinized in the light of the multifaceted teachings of Islam.

Everyone wanted to find a comprehensive and articulate definition of zuhd. Among them a learned high school teacher,26 who (I later came to know, that he was writing a treatise on the subject, the manuscript of which he showed me later) suggested a wonderfully eloquent definition of zuhd. He said:

Islamic zuhd is minimizing the intake and maximizing the output.

This definition fascinated me and I saw that it was in conformity with my own earlier understanding and the conclusions that I have drawn in the foregoing chapters. Here I, with the permission of that learned man, making a little amendment in his definition, would say:

Zuhd in Islam means drawing a minimum of intake for the sake of maximizing the output.

That is, there exists a relation between drawing as little as possible of material benefits of life on the one hand and aiming at maximizing one's output on the other.

Human 'outputs', whether in the sphere of the actualization of one's potentialities, whether on the level of emotion and morality, or from the point of view of individuals role in social co-operation and mutual help, or from the aspect of realizing spiritual edification and refinement, all in all have a converse relationship to his intake of material benefits.

It is a human characteristic that the greater one's enjoyment of material benefits and indulgence in such things as pleasures, luxuries, and affluence, the greater is one's weakness, indignity, impotence, sterility, and impoverishment.

Conversely, abstinence from indulgent and extravagant enjoyment of nature-of course, within definite limits-refines and purifies human nature and invigorates and strengthens two of the highest of all human powers: thought and will .

It is true only of animals that greater benefit from the possibilities provided by nature contributes to their animal development and perfection. Even in animals it is not applicable when we consider what is called the 'merit' desirable in a beast. For example, sheep and cattle which are reared for obtaining greater amount of meat, milk, or fleece should be given greater attention and care and fed well. However, this is not true of a race horse.

It is impossible for a common stable horse to show any good performance in a race. The horse which has to run and win races is given days or rather months of training with a controlled diet until its body becomes lean and nimble, shedding all its excessive fat so that it can acquire the desirable agility and speed or the 'excellence' of which it is capable.

Zuhd is also an exercise and discipline for man. But it is the exercise of the soul. Through zuhd the soul is disciplined; shedding all excessive appendages, and becoming, as a result, light, agile, and nimble, it takes an easy flight into the skies of spiritual merits.

Incidentally, 'Ali ('a) also describes taqwa and zuhd as 'exercise' and practice. The word riyadah originally meant exercising horses intended for racing. Physical exercise is also called riyadah. 'Ali ('a) says:

Indeed, as to my self, I shall exercise it and discipline it through taqwa.27

What about plant life? Like animals that which may be, loosely speaking, called the merit of a tree or shrub is its capacity to thrive with a minimum amount of nourishment from nature. 'Ali ('a), also, makes an allusion to this point in one of his letters to his governors. In that letter, after describing his own ascetic life-style, characterized by a minimum of consumption, 'Ali ('a) encourages him to emulate it. He says:

I can already anticipate your criticism. Someone might say that if this is what the son of Abu Talib eats then weakness should have made him unfit for an encounter with the enemy's warriors. Remember the untended tree that thrives in the harsh conditions of the desert-its wood is firm and tough; even the fire lit from it is more enduring and fierce.

This law, which applies to all living things, is more effective in the case of man because of the various characteristics special to him which are summed up under the term 'human personality'.28

The word 'zuhd', despite its sublime human meaning, has suffered an evil fate, and is fiercely denounced particularly in our own times. Sometimes, the term is advertently or otherwise misinterpreted; some-times it is equated with sanctimoniousness and show of piety; at other times, it is considered equivalent to monasticism and ascetic seclusion.

Everybody is free to coin terms of his own with any meaning of his own choice. But no one has the right to condemn any concept or term by imparting to it a wrong and misconceived meaning and sense. In its system of ethics and education, Islam has used a certain term, zuhd. The Nahj al-balaghah and the Islamic tradition are replete with it.

Before we make any judgement about zuhd in Islam, first, before everything, we must understand its Islamic connotation. The meaning of zuhd in Islam is what we have tried to explain, and the philosophy behind it is what we have discussed in the light of Islamic texts. If anyone finds any fault with this meaning and philosophy, let him inform me so that I too might be benefited.

What school of thought and what kind of logic can justify monasticism? What school of thought can recommend and justify the worship of money, consumerism, love of goods, lust for position, or-to use an expression which includes them all-worldliness?

Is it possible for man to be the slave and prisoner of material things-or in the words of Amir al-Mu'minin 'Ali ('a), 'the slave of the world and the slave of him who exercises control over it'-and yet speak of 'human personality'?

Here, it would not be out of place to cite the views of a Marxist writer about the relation between love of money and human personality. In a useful and concise book regarding capitalist and Marxist economies, he points out the moral consequences of the power of money for society. He writes:

The extraordinary power of 'gold' over our contemporary society is something deeply detested by men of sensitive nature. Men in search of truth have always expressed their strong aversion towards this filthy metal, and consider it to be the main cause of corruption in contemporary society. However, those little round pieces of a shining yellow metal called 'gold' are really not to be blamed.

The power and domination of money as a general manifestation of power and authority of things over man is the essential characteristic of a disorderly economy based on barter and exchange. In the same way as the uncivilized man of ancient times adored and worshipped idols made by his own hands, the contemporary man also worships the product of his own labour, and his life is overwhelmed by the power of things he has made with his own hands.

In order that the worship of consumer goods and the worship of money, which is the filthiest form evolved of idolatry, may be completely eradicated, the social causes which brought them into existence should be eliminated and the society should be so organized that the power and authority of the little coins of this yellow brilliant metal would be thoroughly obliterated.

In such an organization of society, things will no more wield their present power over human beings. On the other hand, man's power and predominance over things shall be absolute and according to a preconceived scheme. Then worship of money and things shall give their place to honour and reverence for the human personality.

We agree with the author that the power of things over man, and in particular the authority of money, is opposed to the demands of human dignity and nobility, and is as condemnable as idolatry. However, we do not agree with his suggested exclusive prescription for solution of this problem.

Here we are not concerned with the question whether collective ownership is preferable from a social or economic point of view. Nevertheless, morally speaking, this suggestion, instead of redeeming society's spirit of honesty, eliminates right away the very object of honesty!

Man can reclaim his identity only by liberating himself from the power of money and by bringing money under his own control. True human personality can emerge when the danger of money and goods remains possible without overcoming man, who is not ruled by them but rules them. This kind of personality is what Islam calls zuhd.

In the educational system of Islam, man regains his personality without the need to obliterate the right of property. Those who are trained in the school of Islamic teachings are equipped with the power of zuhd. They strip money and goods of their power and subjugate them to their own authority.

Notes

1. Nahj al-balaghah, Khutab, No. 51 pp. 88-89

2. Ibid., Khutab 16

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid., Khutab 114

5. Ibid., Khutab 191

6. Ibid., Khutab 157

7. See Guftar e mah, vol. I, the second speech

8. Ibid., Khutab 191

9. Ibid.,

10. Bihar al Anwar, vol. XV Bab al nahy an al rahbaniyyah wa al siyahah. Rumi in the sixth part of his Mathnawi, refers to this tradition in the story of the bird and the hunter.

11. This is a reference to to Khutab No. 3 p. 50

12. Ibid,. Khutab 209

13. Ibid., Khutab 45

14. Ibid.,

15. Ibid., Khutab 209

16. Bihar al-anwar (Tabriz)(Vol IX. p. 758)

17. Nahj al-balaghah, Hikam,No. 103

18. Ibid, Khutab, No. 160

19. Ibid, Khutab, No. 133

20. Ibid, Khutab, No. 224

21. Ibid, Kutub, No. 45

22. al Kulayni, al Kafi, vol. III p 194-5

23. Nahj al-balaghah, Hikam, No. 103

24. Ibid., Kutub, No. 45

25. Ibid., 420

26. The person referred here is Akbar Parwarish

27. Ibid., Kutub 45

28. Usul e Iqtisad e Nuhsin, “Shakl e arzish e pul”.