The Transformative Nature of Islam

Author: Abdul Haqq Bewley As for him who overstepped the bounds and preferred the life of the dunya, the Blazing Fire will be his refuge. But as for him who feared the Station of his Lord and forbade the lower self its appetites, the Garden will be his refuge. (79:37-40) That is because Allah would never change a blessing He has conferred on a people until they had changed what was in themselves. Allah is All-Hearing, All-Knowing. (8:54) The second ayat is repeated twice in the Qur'an and is usually quoted in the context of improvement, in other words: Allah will not make things better for us until we better ourselves. But in fact, although it clearly can mean this, the meaning both times it is used appears to be the opposite: that Allah will not make things worse for us unless we change for the worse. The change can be in both directions. The important thing to grasp from the ayat is that everything in existence is in a state of constant change and that this also applies to Muslims both as individuals and communities. Islam is a dynamic, it is a process, it is an organic patterning. It is not a fixed, solid structure, a rigid legal framework which you somehow get hold of and fit yourself into. It is vital to understand this if we want Islam to spread and become fully established and implemented in the world again. Islam is all about change, about growth, about transformation on the one hand or, and we seek refuge with Allah from it happening, the opposite of this, about stasis, shrinkage and deterioration. When someone becomes Muslim, they change. The change can be seen in their faces. Their lives are transformed. This is absolutely inevitable and if it does not happen, it means that they have not really become Muslim, their Islam has not "taken". The transformation is the result of the heart's exposure to the Muhammadan light and when we speak of the heart it must be understood that we are not speaking in any way figuratively. There is in the breast of every human being an organ of perception which is our access point to the subtle worlds of meaning, angelic energy and Divine power which interpenetrate with this world of physical appearances which we inhabit. The root meaning of the Arabic word for heart, qalb, is turn over, change, transform, convert, transmute. Becoming Muslim entails turning one's heart upside down, so that instead of facing downwards towards the opaque density of the dunya, it faces upwards towards the subtle worlds of the spiritual realities, towards the potential of your own perfectibility as a human being whose highest possibility is the Muhammadan light itself Although we commonly talk about inward and outward it must be understood that there is no hard and fast line between them; they are interpenetrating realms. Therefore so-called inward transformation inevitably manifests itself outwardly, so that being Muslim involves our lives in inexorable and irreversible change. What happens is that we begin to take on the Muhammadan form. This connects with the ayat in Sura Ali 'Imran: Say, 'If you love Allah, then follow me and Allah will love you' (3:31) Being Muslim means being drawn to all those things that the Prophet, salla'Llahu 'alayhi wa sallam, did and taught his Companions to do. First the basic practices of the deen and gradually those qualities of character, such as taqwa, generosity, fortitude, courtesy and other virtues, which found their perfection in the Messenger of Allah, salla'Llahu 'alayhi wa sallam, and inseparable from this is the desire to share the invaluable gift of Islam we have been given with as many other people as possible. A word of warning here for the many Muslims who do treat their deen as a rigid structure, as a series of outward actions they impose on themselves and others without true inward acquiescence and submission. Doing this inevitably leads to a split in their being which almost always results in periodic acts of self-gratification of the most repugnant kind and in extreme cases to madness. And warning also for those who say that they are Muslims inwardly while refusing to take on the obligations of the Shari'a. Their lack of outward transformation shows that they are deluding themselves in a most dangerous way and putting their ultimate fate in the gravest jeopardy. There is never any room for complacency. Being a Muslim means being willing to undergo a never ending process of self-transformation. The transformation process is endless because perfection belongs to Allah alone and is a goal which can always be approached but never attained, but we can never give up trying. There can be no such thing as sitting back and saying to yourself, 'That's it. That's as far as I can go. I've done as much as I can do.' If you settle for the status quo it means you are losing your deen. As we have said Islam is a dynamic; there is no such thing as stasis. If you are not going forwards, you are going backwards. If you are not gaining ground, you are losing ground. You are in fact giving the lie to Allah's great blessing to you by not taking it on to the full. He himself says of such a state: We will lead them, step by step, into destruction from where they do not know. (7:182) We seek refuge with our Lord from that and ask Him to give us success in drawing closer to Him and in following His Messenger inwardly and outwardly and in establishing His deen and the sunna of His Messenger within ourselves and round about us. Source: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/ABewley/transkhutba.html Khutba: Friday 23rd June 2000