QURAN says, “Sa Nurehimbaayatena, filafaq, wafeanfasahum, hatayatabayana la hum, inulhaq.” “We (God) will show them our signs in Scriptures, in Afaq (Nature) and within themselves until it becomes clear that this Quran is the truth.” God in Scriptures. “The reading of Quran imbibes in a person a consciousness of Divine word and invocation of the name Allah. The reader becomes a part of the flow and an ebb, the verses become miraculous signs flowing to him from God and taking him back to God,” says Dhu-I-Nun.
God in Nature. The Mystics also see God in nature. Dhu-I-Nun finds the testimony to the Unity and incomparableness of God, in the voices of the beasts, the rustle of the trees, the splashing of water, the song of birds, and the whistling of the wind.” Rumi says, “The breeze at dawn has a secret to tell you, don’t go back to sleep.” Jami says, “From all Eternity, the beloved unveiled his beauty in the solitude of the unseen. He held up mirror to his own face. He displayed his loveliness to His own self. He created the verdant fields of time and space and life giving garden of the world, that every branch, leaf, and fruit might show forth his various perfections. The Cypress gave hint of his comely nature, the rose gave tidings of his beautiful countenance, where beauty peeped out love appeared beside it, where beauty dwelt in dark tresses, love came and found a heart entangled in their coils.” “These perfumes musk clove …. all from hyacinthine shadows of these tresses, you think you hear a nightingale song… no it is the voice of the rose,” says Fakur-ud-din Iraqi. Rumi says, “Oh my God our intoxicated eyes have blurred our vision. Our burdens have become heavy forgive us. You are hidden, yet Your light is more significant than the sunrise or sunset. You whose essence is hidden, while your gifts are manifest. You are like wind and we are like dust. The wind is hidden, but the dust in plainly seen. You are the invisible spring and we are the lush garden. All our movement is a continual profession of faith bearing witness to your eternal power.”
God in Your Heart. One can see Allah SubhanwaTallah in Scriptures, one can see Him in Nature, but to see Him inside your own heart is the grandest mystery of all. Rumi says, “He who knows his own soul, knows God.”This is the secret, which a great mystical poet found when he said, “There is a self in me, within myself.” The essence of Islamic mysticism is to know this unknown inner self. Those who reached it are tongue tied, because there are no words to describe it. Rumi went to Damascus and rubbed shoulders with the greatest mystics and scholars of his time and finally when the inner fire lit up, it burnt everything he knew as Jalal-ud-din. Maulana says, “Love is such a strong force that that it burns all creatures and their physical relations other than God.” He says, ‘The greatest secret is the heart of humanity, the same heart, when God’s trust was offered to the mountains and to the heavens, they all refused, but the humans took it on.’ God says,
“I cannot fit into heavens and earth, but the heart of my loving servant suffices me.” How to have a vibrant heart? Khalil Jabran says, “Why don’t you plead to God, wake up in the middle of the night and prostrate yourself twice. The heart is greater than the heavens and circling spheres. Why do you constrict it with thoughts and whispering doubts? Happy the ones whose eyes sleep and whose heart does not. Woe on the Ones whose eyes do not sleep, but heart does.” In a wonderful descriptive phrase reminiscent of how Nietzsche can startle his readers, Rumi says, “I grabbed reason by the ear and said, ‘Oh reason get out, today I am saved from you. Take your hands off me. Today I have attained insanity and held on it.”
Rumisays, “You created all this I, You We, They, just to play the game of adoration with your own self.” The intensity of love between the Creator and His creation has no limits and is everlasting. Abul Hassan Khurqani says, “If the love of God in the hearts of His friends were made manifest, it would fill the world with flood and fire.” Hajveri believes that man’s love of God is a quality, which manifests itself in the heart of the pious believer, in the form of veneration and magnification, so that he becomes restless and impatient in his desire to have vision of Him and cannot rest with anyone except Him.” How to get closer to God, Attar takes the same love and tenderness and puts it in the context of service. He narrates the story of two brothers who have an elderly mother, who is bed ridden and very sick. One brother takes care of her and the other spends most of his time in prayers.” One night the praying brother hears the voice of God, “For the sake of your brother, I have decided to grant both of you a place in heaven.” He says, “I am so grateful my Lord, but haven’t you got it wrong, for the sake of my prayers for you, you have decided to grant jannat to my brother.” He hears the voice of God again, “I know to whom I am talking. Your service to me is something for which I have no utility, but your mother needs looking after and it is the service, which your brother does even at the cost of neglecting his prayers and this matters to me the most.” The lesson one closet to God is closer to humanity.
—The writer is author of various books based in Rawalpindi.
