In Search of a Deeper Islam: Entering the Prophetic Path

Bismillah al-Rahmān al-Rahīm

All praise is due to the One who is ‘a Being but not through the phenomenon of
being’; a Being that created in us consciousness and awareness and which gave us the
ability to reflect; that Being which is the originator of all causes and thus caused us to
be here in this time and at this moment. And salutations to His first creation: the
Light; the Intellect; the Pen and the Prophet, Muhammad (s) and his purified progeny.
May we be purified and forgiven so that we may meet them at the Pool of Kawthar.

The Prophetic way of being consists of four dimensions. The first three dimensions
pertain to this existence, and focus on the perfection of beautiful conduct, or ihsān.
The science of beautiful conduct itself is a vast realm of understanding, where the
Muslim continually realises, and realises again, the meaning of their own selves, as
they progress through ever more refined stages.
The fourth dimension pertains to the inner connection to that reality which is
absolutely transcendent, and without that inner connection we are in effect detached
from the One True Reality that illumines all lesser, darker realities; those lesser,
darker realities including ourselves. The prophetic path provides the means by which
we can maintain and strengthen the fourth dimension of our being; it offers a
doorway to that reality that underlies all of material existence; a reality that permeates
material existence and cuts through it. Standing on the prayer mat and engaging in
salah is an example of how this path offers us a means of ascension; by means of the
three dimensions of our earthly existence we are then able to turn, through our
intention, to the One True Reality, seeking it out with that transcendent aspect of
ourselves, in order that its light may illuminate us.
What the prophetic path teaches us, then, is not only what is necessary for
being a true servant of Allah (swt); it also teaches us how to develop a certain faculty
of perception which becomes the foundation of our entire being. It is by this faculty
of perception that we perceive the reality of tawhīd. This faculty of perception, as the
masters of the path have said, is what is called the eye of the heart. Some scholars
have said that the heart lies between the intellect and the soul, or the ‘aql and the nafs.
The heart is the centre of our being, not only physically but existentially, and if we are
firmly rooted in it, then we are able to enter the gateway of the prophetic path and
uncover the 70,000 veils that lie between us and Allah (swt).
In our world today, we are often prevented from exploring the depths of our
own being. Some people ask how they can come to know themselves more deeply; to
enhance their cognition and acuity; their ability to perceive what is revealed of reality.
It goes without saying that quality of contemplation rather than quantity of Qur’anic
chapters read; lectures attended; rak‘ats performed is the key, and perhaps it is quality
of contemplation that we have lost the ability to know and understand. Of course
there is the famous hadīth ‘one hour’s contemplation is worth seventy years of
prayer’, but how many of us take that seriously enough to practice it? Contemplation
is the heart of the prophetic path, just as the heart is the centre of our existence.
Contemplation should be at the heart of our worship in our endeavour to know
ourselves and that which created us.
 Why is the prophetic path universal? Because it is the path to our primordial
state of being, and it is in uncovering our primordial state of being that we begin to
realise the truth of our existence. As we know, the Holy Prophet (s) said that we are
all born Muslim, but that it is only our culture that makes us Jewish or Christian. We
can reflect upon this in a broader sense: any aspect of our culture that is not rooted in
and does not derive from our primordial way of being only serves to take us away
from that. The masters say that the heart is a mirror in which the Divine attributes are
reflected; they also say that the universe is a mirror which also reflects the Divine
attributes; in contemplating the attributes of the universe, we are able to realise the
Divine attributes; but let us think about this in a slightly different sense: when we
think about reflecting upon the universe, we are thinking about creation in its pristine
state, but what about the miniature universe that we have created for ourselves? What
about the world of values, images, messages and expectations which the societies
around us create – these values, images, messages and expectations arising from the
desires and anxieties of a society that is driven by the nafs? If we live in a
materialistic world, bombarded by advertisements appealing to our most basic,
unthinking desires; or disturbed by noise that is designed to entertain and distract; or
pressured by expectations of families and clans to conduct our lives in such a way as
to protect and preserve their social honour and prestige – what is it that creates this
materialistic world and what is it that keeps it going? It is created by those who know
the nature of the nafs rather well, and who seek to profit from it; and it is kept going
by those whose nature is seduced by it and who believe that it can offer them what
they need. It is a world in which we seek to survive, not through tawakkul, through
perfect trust, but through anxiously trying to serve the needs of our nafs, and it is
anxiety that obscures, like a cloud, the light of īmān and darkens the light in the heart.
This is why an increasingly commercialised world causes distress to the one
who is seeking the way back to a pure, authentic way of being. The pathway back to
that authenticity becomes a battle zone of aggressive distractions relentlessly dragging
the attention away from its state of contemplation. The delineations of the prophetic
path become obscured by a world that seeks to substitute authenticity with false
values, images, messages and expectations that have been generated by a culture
driven by the nafs. In order simply to enter the path one must sift through the debris
of the artificial universe which has been created around us and search out that
pathway of light, which seems to appear and then disappear; appear and then
disappear. Its light is like a voice which we strain our ears to hear; a voice which in
fact the heart yearns to hear. In the midst of a life of distractions and obligations, we
go to and fro in search of this beautiful voice, which, when heard, unravels all the
knots of our being; dissolves the darkness in which we find ourselves and silences the
noise that contrives to bar our way to the Divine. As the Qur’ān says ‘truth obliterates
falsehood’ (21:18), and indeed it is in the midst of this existential chaos that glimpses
of the light of the truth can be seen, and in the midst of this chaos, these glimpses still
have the power to show us the way.
It may be asked: why talk about entering the prophetic path, especially when it
seems that all of us have done so? Perhaps it could be said that entering the prophetic
path does not merely mean consciously affirming that lā ilāha illallah Muhammadan
rasūluLlah; entering the path in fact takes a lifetime, for this path is forever unfolding
before us. It takes courage and a clear resolution to embark upon it and to continue,
for embarking upon it also means being prepared for necessary losses: the falling
away of the situation in which we have been caught, and which has been created
around us by worldly values; the disruption, and we could even say destruction, of the
false realities which have made up our lives and which, for some time, we believed to
be true. The structure of our lives in which we have lived, perhaps uncomfortably,
but with which, nevertheless, we are familiar, is altered irrevocably and we face the
disconcerted consternation of those whom we are loath to hurt.
When the Divine light tears through the fabric of our lives and illuminates our
heart, awakening our consciousness, our intellect, and we come to realise without a
doubt that this Divine light must be the one and only basis of our lives, this also
means facing the consequences of beginning to live differently; it means facing the
consequences of thinking differently. In changing ourselves, we change our society.
We live in a world where, in most countries, the prophetic path has more or less been
abandoned – or we could say that those who are dedicated to living by it and
establishing its reality in this material realm are few. In living by the prophetic path,
we re-introduce it back into our society. In being connected to this gateway to the
eternal, we ourselves become the gateways to the eternal; in connecting to the One
Transcendent Reality through the fourth dimension of our being, we introduce this
connection into the material world. As the masters say, man is the barzakh between
heaven and earth; man is the bridge between these two; man is the point of
connection.
In entering the prophetic path, and endeavouring to go ever further into it, we
change the universe around us. How can we turn back the tide of a materialistic way
of life that virtually wipes out all knowledge of the Transcendent Reality, and all
means to that knowledge? We can look at the early Muslims, and see that although
their number was not great, what they did still had a profound and transformative
effect upon the world’s civilisation. History was changed forever, not only through
their determination, but through their allowing the overwhelming light of the Divine
to shine through their very being, for it is this Divine light which awakened them and
provided them with the inspiration necessary for cutting loose anything that might
prevent them from articulating and embodying the prophet path laid out before them
by the Lamp of Guidance, the Holy Prophet (s) himself.
We seek a deeper way of living Islam, particularly in this part of the world
where the vibrations of Islamic history are few; the air is dry; the atmosphere is
strangely empty; it does not resonate with dhikr; the roads of our cities are not
humming with the active remembrance of the Divine. We are often weighed down by
the weight of other people’s souls and we crave a universe that will enable us to
ascend. We long for that station of light where our soul is no longer burdened by the
darkness of a stultified society − a society that is essentially aimless, which exists for
no apparent purpose, other than for itself.
Yet in embarking on the prophetic path, with the aim of disappearing into that
sublime and sacred light, we must also be prepared for bitter battles with our own
selves. We ask ourselves: ‘How can I progress as a human being, along this path?’
Perhaps combatting the myriad distractions and the weight of other souls is easier
than combatting our own faults and desires, and perhaps the bitterest of battles is
letting go of that which comforts the nafs, but which harms it and obstructs its
progression towards Allah (swt). The bitterest of battles is to let go of that to which
the soul is attached. Severing such attachments can be equated with annihilating that
part of the soul, but as Imam al-Husayn (as) said ‘Death is better than dishonour.’
The one who treads the mighty prophetic path is the one who guards his honour, even
while a part of him is undergoing the experience of the death of a part of himself.
Tolerating such tests with patience can be likened to drinking a draft of the bitterest
medicine, and this is what we need to be prepared for, if we are to find a deeper Islam.
We know that Prophet Musa (as) asked to see Allah (swt); Allah (swt) showed him
the mountain in a state of annihilation and Prophet Musa (as) himself underwent
annihilation (7:143) This is what we must be prepared for if we are to really, truly
enter the prophetic path.
Travelling along the prophetic path is a process of continual and ongoing
surrender; an expanding of the awareness to the needs of those around us; a giving of
the self in order to overcome the self’s desire to take; it is reaching into the heart and
bringing out its compassion and by doing so softening the heart’s boundaries and over
coming any tendencies for it to constrict. A deeper Islam means renewing our
shahādatayn at each stage of the path so that we ourselves may be renewed again
through each new realisation that is revealed to us through our endeavours to embody
it. It is an ongoing journey into the soul; it is through concentration and
contemplation, mental detachment from the barrage of distractions, an enhancing of
one’s attachment to the One Reality that transcends all fleeting, inferior realities. It is
being prepared to transcend the limitations of ones self even against our desires to
remain within limits because of the illusory sense of safety that they provide. It is
therefore taking a step into the unknown with courage and trust in order to ascend and
return more perfectly to our fitra, our primordial state of being in which we witnessed
perfectly the oneness of the Divine.

Exeter, 17-03-10