Wednesday, January 18, 2012

What choice have we got?


Bismillah.

I wish I had done what I thought would have been better for me to do. I wish I had gone to many more majlis ta'lim and was able to learn, practise and blog about what I learned, as usual. But lately I have been busy with other worldly duties and not to mention my own laghah (heedlessness). Whether I liked it or not, that was decreed for me.

Several years ago I fell into a severe spiritual dilemma, that I did not even want to work so that I could just go to the zawiya and do zikr and suluk. But apparently that was not good for me. We often have rigid ideas how Allah can be attained, how knowledge can be acquired, but in truth Allah teaches us in the way He knows best and sometimes it's not through the perceived "obedience" but through lack of it.

I learned from the wonderful and credible Ashrafiya website about Shaykh Ibrahim bin Adham being conscious of his worship and anxious about missing his supererogatory and obligatory duties. It was related that he then heard a voice from within himself: "O Ibrahim! Become Our slave (abd). By doing so you will find spiritual serenity. When We make you to oversleep then sleep. And when We command you to get up then rise. Between these two extremes you have no choice of your own."

Glory be to Allah who creates us and our actions. Subhanallahi 'amma yushrikun.

Poster credit: Reza Jamshidi/www.todayposters.com

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