13. ENIGMAS BAFFLING THE BEWILDERED
I have thought about the concept of duties that Allah ordained upon us and noticed that duties are of two categories; duties that are easy to fulfil and duties that are difficult to fulfil. The former includes the deeds performed by body limbs, though such acts differ in terms of the levels of easiness. For example, ablution (wudu) and prayer (salah) are easier to do than fasting, and fasting might be easier to do than charity (Zakah) for some people. The latter— that is the category of difficult duties— is of different levels of difficulties too as some acts are more difficult to do than other acts.
For instance, the process of observation and deducing through which a person comes to realize and acquire the knowledge about the Creator is more difficult to do by those whose materialism over powers them and easier to do by the people of sensibility and [sound] reasoning.
It is also found difficult to resist fanciful-desires (hawa), suppress the ‘self (nafs) and withhold the hands of one’s nature from acting according to what it favours. All this however is easy to do by the intelligent ones who anticipate the reward afterwards; even if it was difficult to do at the time.
The most difficult but considered the most amazing duty of all is that the sense of intellect (‘aql) is convinced that the wisdom (hikmah) of the Creator is factual and evident. Then, we see those whose lives are devoted to worship (ibadah) Him and learning the religious knowledge (ilm), suffer extreme poverty (faqr) to the extent that they may endure humiliation while seeking their provision from ignorant {jahil) people. The sinner fasiq), on the other hand, enjoys extreme wealth despite of his ignorance (Jahl).
Furthermore, we see how He creates the body to grow from being young to perfectly formed and strong, and then He ruins it, in the blink of an eye, to return it to being fragile and weak. We also notice how children endure pain until humans of all kinds feel merciful to them.
But then, we are told not to even doubt that He is the Most Merciful!
He informs us of the story of [Prophet] Musa (alayhi as-salam) and Pharaoh then commands us to believe that Allah, Exalted is He, misguided Pharaoh and that Adam was predestined to eat from the tree, but nevertheless we find that he was blamed for what he did in the verse:
“And Adam disobeyed His Lord.” [Taha (20): 121]
Such events and thoughts have caused confusion for some people that resulted in them disbelieving (kufr) and denying (taqthib) the truth. However, if they bothered to research about the wisdom of such things, they would have realized that these observations exist for the mind to submit to Allah [as the wisdom behind such events is beyond mind’s limit]. This is a principle [of a great importance] that assures safety (salama) and submission (taslim) if understood.
I ask Allah, Most High, to reveal to us the secret of the mysteries that have confused those who were misguided, for indeed, He is near (qarib) and answering (mujib).
(source: al-Hafiz Abu’l-Faraj ibn al-jawzl [d. 597AH] “CAPTURED THOUGHTS being” a translation of his masterpiece ‘Sayd al-K hatir)
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