Website: www.aaiil.uk
Pairs of qualities
of the great teachers
Friday
Khutba by Dr Zahid Aziz,
for Lahore
Ahmadiyya UK, 19 May 2023
|
“By the sun and its brightness! And the moon when it borrows light from it! And the day when it exposes it to view! And the night when it draws a veil over it! And the heaven and its make! And the earth and its extension! And the soul and its perfection! — So He reveals to it its way of evil and its way of good; he is indeed successful who causes it to grow, and he indeed fails who buries it.” — ch. 91, v. 1–10 |
وَ
الشَّمۡسِ
وَ ضُحٰہَا ۪ۙ﴿۱﴾ وَ
الۡقَمَرِ
اِذَا تَلٰىہَا
۪ۙ﴿۲﴾ وَ
النَّہَارِ
اِذَا جَلّٰىہَا
۪ۙ﴿۳﴾ وَ الَّیۡلِ
اِذَا یَغۡشٰىہَا
۪ۙ﴿۴﴾ وَ
السَّمَآءِ
وَ مَا بَنٰہَا
۪ۙ﴿۵﴾ وَ الۡاَرۡضِ
وَ مَا طَحٰہَا
۪ۙ﴿۶﴾ وَ نَفۡسٍ
وَّ مَا سَوّٰىہَا
۪ۙ﴿۷﴾ فَاَلۡہَمَہَا
فُجُوۡرَہَا
وَ تَقۡوٰىہَا
۪ۙ﴿۸﴾ قَدۡ
اَفۡلَحَ
مَنۡ زَکّٰىہَا
۪ۙ﴿۹﴾ وَ قَدۡ
خَابَ مَنۡ
دَسّٰىہَا ﴿ؕ۱۰﴾ |
I have recited the first ten of the
fifteen verses of ch. 91 of the Holy Quran, which is entitled ‘The Sun’ from
its first word. The seventh verse refers to the perfection of the soul.
Therefore the first six verses mention certain natural phenomena which human
beings can observe, and we are meant to draw a conclusion from these about what
perfection a soul should reach. These perfections were illustrated in the
qualities and character of the Holy Prophet Muhammad. We notice that these
natural phenomena are mentioned here in pairs, and each pair consists of two
contrasting things: the sun and the moon, the day and the night, and the sky
and the earth.
The first verse refers to the sun and
its great brightness. The sun we see in the sky doesn’t seem to us very big,
but in fact you could fit 1,300,000 earths into the sun! We can see that it is
so bright that any other source of light or any star that we can see is
extremely dim in comparison. If starting from the earth you were to travel
further away from the sun, it will gradually appear less and less bright. But
it will still remain brighter than any star for a very long distance. Even if
you went 100,000 times away from the sun than the earth is, you would still see
the sun as brighter than any star. Similarly, the Holy Prophet Muhammad brought
such a powerful light of guidance in the world that all other lights faded in
comparison, whether it was the lights provided by earlier revelations from God
or the lights of knowledge discovered by human efforts. So the Holy Prophet
acted as the source of a great light.
The sun is then
contrasted with the moon in the verse: “And the moon when it borrows light from
it!” The words translated here by Maulana Muhammad Ali as “borrows light from
it” are talā-hā in Arabic. Talā means following
something in the sense of imitating it, or copying what it is doing. The word
used for reciting the Quran, tilāwat, also comes from this word talā,
because you follow its script when reading it. But the application of this word
to the Quran also indicates that you follow its teachings. There is a verse in
the Quran saying literally: “Those to whom We have given the Book, they do its tilāwat
as tilāwat ought to be done” (2:121) — یَتۡلُوۡنَہٗ
حَقَّ
تِلَاوَتِہٖ. Maulana
Muhammad Ali translates it as: “Those to whom We have given the Book follow it
as it ought to be followed”. Many other translators also translate it as
“follow” (for example, Muhammad Asad and also Abdel Haleem and Talal Itani of
recent times), although most have it as “recite it as it should be recited”.
Turning back to the verse about the
moon and our translation that the moon “borrows light from it”, there are some other
translators also who give a similar translation, that it “reflects the sun”.
Most translate it as meaning that the moon follows the sun in the sky. If we
apply this to the Holy Prophet Muhammad then he is the moon who takes his light
from Allah. In relation to the people, the Holy Prophet is like the sun, giving
them light. In relation to God, he is like the moon, borrowing its light from
God. This is also a model for everyone to follow. Everyone should be both a
teacher to people and a giver of knowledge to those who lack knowledge, and
still be a learner and recipient of knowledge from those who possess more
knowledge than him. In religious systems where there is a leader and he has
disciples or followers, the leader is regarded as the source or fount of all
knowledge, and the ordinary people are considered as mere followers. These
attitudes are not allowed by Islam. The leader should be looking to learn from
wherever he can find more knowledge, and the followers should have no
hesitation in teaching those who know less than them. The human soul does not
reach perfection unless it is both a learner and a teacher.
The next pair of verses is as
follows: “And the day when it exposes it to view! And the night when it draws a
veil over it!” The words “exposes it to view” and “draws a veil over it” refer
to the world. In day time we see things around us exposed to view and at night
it is as if there is a veil over them. The “day” in the Quran stands for
working in the world and making a hard struggle and the “night” stands for
contentment of mind and turning to Allah in solitude, away from worldly
concerns. In the Quran the Holy Prophet is told to rise and pray during a part
of the night, and it goes on to say to him:
“Surely We shall
charge you with a weighty word (i.e. an important message to convey). The
rising (to pray) by night is surely the firmest way to tread and most effective
in speech. Truly you have by day prolonged occupation” (73:5–7).
During the day, the Holy Prophet was
busy in all kinds of work, “prolonged occupation”. He did his personal work,
his domestic work, work for the community, in fact labouring for his community
of followers, and preaching and teaching. These were his duties in relation to
the world around him. Although he of course prayed and led prayers during the
day, but in this he was constrained by his duties to the people around him and
the people’s convenience. At night he had the scope to devote himself and his
mind entirely to God. In God he sought solace, strength, comfort and reassurance.
Again, the human soul does not reach perfection unless it makes a hard struggle
in the world, for both worldly purposes and spiritual purposes, and also turns
to God. He is anxious to do his work as best he can, and yet he is tranquil that
he will succeed.
Looking at it another way, during the
day we earn things which are required for our physical and bodily needs. A part
of the night can then be devoted to activities which are required for our
spiritual well-being.
Then we move on to the last pair of
qualities: “And the heaven and its make! And the earth and its extension!” The
heaven is vast, above us, and the earth is vastly spread under us. This
indicates that we should have the highest aspirations and goals to achieve, and
yet still remain humble, realistic and, as they say, grounded in reality.
Having risen high, we must not become delusional. The Holy Prophet Muhammad had
the highest of aspirations, the goal of reforming the world. Yet he himself was
in the worldly sense an uneducated person. He achieved a great part of his
aspirations when Islam spread throughout Arabia and he became the ruler of the
whole country. Such a great achievement from humble beginnings would have
turned the mind of someone else in his place and created in him an inflated
sense of self-importance. Such a sense is now called hubris, meaning excessive
confidence in your own self and believing that you are all-powerful. Some
researchers in the field of medicine, psychiatry and human behaviour have made
a study of the behaviour of modern political leaders in the Western world. They
have concluded that a number of these high-achieving individuals fell victim to
hubris which distorted their personality.[1] According to a journal The
Psychiatrist, published by the Cambridge University Press, the first
characteristic of a leader displaying hubris is that he “sees the world as a
place for self-glorification through the use of power”.[2] Now the Quran mentions the Pharaoh
of the time of Moses as having what is now called hubris. The Quran tells us:
“And Pharaoh said: Chiefs, I know no god for you
besides myself; … And he was unjustly proud in the land” (28:38–39).
Let us compare this with the revelation
which came to the Holy Prophet when he was at the height of his success, with
people all over Arabia accepting Islam and acknowledging him as their leader
and as Messenger of God. It is a very short chapter, ch. 110, entitled ‘The
Help’:
“When Allah’s help and victory comes, and you (O
Prophet) see people entering the religion of Allah in companies, celebrate the
praise of your Lord and ask His protection (from weaknesses). Surely He
is ever Returning (to mercy).”
This tells the Holy Prophet that at
such an unprecedented time of victory, brought about by God’s help, with people
entering into his religion in massive numbers, he must first of all celebrate
the praise of His Lord. That means he must glorify God instead of indulging in
the self-glorification which is a symptom of hubris. Then he must remember his
own mortal frailties and ask God for protection that he might not fall prey to
any such human weakness in the time of his victory. Finally, he must hope for
mercy from God, which is always open and available.
Let me quote a British scholar,
Reginald Bosworth Smith, who wrote in 1874 about the success of the Holy
Prophet as follows:
“On the whole the wonder is to me not how much, but
how little, under different circumstances, Mohammed differed from himself. In
the shepherd of the desert, … in the reformer in the minority of one, … in the
acknowledged conqueror, in the equal of the Persian Chosroes and the Greek
Heraclius, we can still trace a substantial unity. … Power, as the saying is,
no doubt put the man to the test. It brought new temptations and therefore new
failures, from which the shepherd of the desert might have remained free. But
happy is the man who … can stand the test as well as did Mohammed.” (Mohammed
and Mohammedanism, p. 93–94).
So
may Allah enable us to follow the example of the Holy Prophet Muhammad and
develop and display the pairs of qualities mentioned in these verses, ameen.