opening shot - spectacular

The Prayers of Others

 

The path to the truth is a labour of the heart, not the mind.

Make your heart your primary guide, not your mind.

Meet the challenges and ultimately prevail over your nafs with your heart.

Knowing yourself will lead you to the Knowledge of God.

Maulana Rum (ra)

 

Naran!

 

A northern destination in Pakistan in the province I had yet to visit, KPK. When my table tennis tables in the park project ended with the launch on May 30th, I got an inkling what my friends said about how they felt after returning from the Haj. During it, even though every step was physically exhausting, one felt a rush during the trip. Then upon returning, there was total collapse. Some said it took them a month to recover.

 

Monday morning I woke up so exhausted I could hardly move. Thursday I left for Islamabad. Sunday was my trip up north, supposedly to relax for 6 nights. I was going alone. I chose to arrive in Naran on a Sunday and spend the week there so that the crowds would be less. Babusar was not open yet. It’s the road to Gilgit that everyone takes and once open, draws in countless crowds.

 

I had heard that the road to Naran itself was ok but one needed a Wrangler type of jeep once there to visit different areas. I had the itinerary planned. The first day was Lulusar Lake, then Saif ul Mulook, then Noori Top. The last needed a 2 hour hike. There were other incredible lakes in the area but as I found out later, no one swims in them. Which was different from Skardu where my friends and I swam in every lake we went to. But then KPK is also relatively a conservative province. I wondered if I would need to cover my head.

 

Google was slightly off on the time to reach there. Said 6 hours but it took us 7. My car is old and not a 4 by 4. I had heard and read that Naran was laid out in as ugly and mismanaged a way that a rural mountain town could be developed. I would feel myself getting angry when I came across those words. People were always so quickly calling another’s home ugly.

 

The drive to Naran was uneventful initially because it felt like I was driving to Nathiagali, the favoured destination of Lahoris because of its proximity. I had spent my time listening to music on my headphone in the backseat. When we finally came upon the town perched up on the side of a hill in the distance, my heart sank.

 

It was ugly indeed. I tried to ignore it and looked forward to the hotel being nice. That too was a disappointment. It wasn’t like they showed it on the website, a property on its own near the base of one of the mountains. In reality, it was nested amongst a large number of other hotels. My room had a decent view but not one that allowed me to take a shot that I usually take titling it, “A room with a view.”

 

By the time we arrived it was 4pm. I went just stood still outside the hotel like a dummy not knowing what to do and where to go. Heading into town just to explore it like I was told to do if I ever went to Karimabad in Hunza was not an option. Just then a young man who was part of the hotel staff came towards me. He must have been in his 20s. He had a thin beard and a sweet smile. His name was Bilal. I looked at him and presented my wish; Was there a spot one could walk to that was beautiful but without tourists?

 

“No people,” I said, knowing it was a tall order.

 

“Behind that hill,” he replied instantly, pointing to a not so high mound right in front of us.

 

I asked him if he could take me. When we walked up the short distance and turned the corner on the other side, I smiled. In front of me was a gorgeous meadow with stepped hills and mountains in the distance. A stream was flowing down from the snow-capped tops. I bent down to drink from it.

 

“This is clean right?” I asked.

 

“It’s the water with the cure of a hundred illnesses,” he said. “It comes from the roots of many different kinds of trees.”

 

I made a mental note to empty all the bottled water in my room and fill it with this water for my trip. When we went home I expected to sleep like a log but I didn’t. There was some work going on in the rooms next to mine and if there wasn’t drilling, there was hammering. The next day I woke up early to go to Lulusar.

 

Day Two – The Opening of Space

 

The drive was gorgeous. It took us 2 hours to reach the lake . I stopped every once in a while to take photos. The scenery was jaw-dropping beautiful. The lake itself, however, was an uneventful spot so I had the driver turn around and chose a spot in the valley which had a meadow in it. I lay down my blanket and cushions which I had brought from Lahore for my picnics and had some lunch. Then I decided to read a little.

 

I chose to begin with Al-Fath Ar-Rabbani, The Sublime Revelations, the book of Ghaus Pak’s (ra) sermons. In the page I was at, this is what I read;

 

“O Listener! Leave your false lusts and desires and busy yourself in remembrance of Allah. Let that leave your tongue which gives you benefit and keep yourself silent of the words which will bring you harm. If you decide to speak, then before you say anything, deliberate on it. Form an intent around it. Then use your tongue.

 

That is why it is said, the Jahil’s tongue, the tongue of the one ignorant, comes before their qalb, the seat of station within the heart that recognizes God. And the tongue of the Sahib e Aql, the one who reflects and deliberates, their tongue comes after the qalb i.e. it asks the qalb first, then it speaks.”

 

The words were deep and my trial of the moment was all about an uncontrollable tongue but in the moment I was so captivated by the surrounding beauty, I couldn’t focus. I decided to just pray and walk around instead, taking some of the best photos of my life in the warm afternoon light which made everything striking.

 

When I reached the hotel, I looked forward to sleeping but for some reason it wasn’t meant to be. The construction workers were not only working in the rooms next to mine, they were also staying there. Being an extremely light sleeper, the smallest sound woke me up. I tossed and turned till Fajr, then just lay in bed with my eyes closed.

 

The hotel driver, Mushtaq, had told me that Saif ul Mulook was a hot stop for tourists so if I wanted pictures without humans in them, I would have to reach there by 8am at the latest, which meant leaving an hour before. It was only 8 km away but the road was so bad, it took that long to reach it. I had told my driver I would be down at 7am but when I couldn’t go back to sleep, I called the reception and told them I wanted to leave at 5 instead.

 

Day Three – Saif ul Mulook

 

My driver, Usman, who is in his 20s, chose to not join us. Like others in his generation, he opted for sleep instead. In the hours of the dawn, Mushtaq and I made our way up a mountain where essentially no part of the road was paved. When we reached the top, again we were met by hideous construction that actually blocked the first sight of the lake.

 

I felt robbed of a spectacular moment. The lake is considered to be one of the most beautiful in the country. Again everything I had read was coming true. The endless shops and restaurants that lined the path leading all the way to the lake was commercialism at its worst. Thankfully since it was dawn, they were all closed.

 

The driver knew a restaurant owner who opened his place so we could eat something. Other than him there was literally no one there. That part was phenomenal. After chowing down the egg and paratha, I walked down to the lake and just sat there for an hour doing my morning tasbeeh. It felt marvelous reading the verses in a serene place where I could walk around endlessly. Totally different from the experience inside my bedroom in Lahore.

 

I wanted to walk around the lake. The snowy mountains on the opposite bank looked inviting as hell but the restaurant owner had been discouraging. He kept offering a boat ride instead but I wasn’t interested in that.

 

Later I saw that the boats would only go around the periphery of half the lake and then return. They wouldn’t even cross the length of it. The lake is supposed to be extremely deep in the center but to not go over it on a boat made me think there was some superstition about crossing it.

 

While is sat staring at the lake, I saw a group of young men going in the direction of the trek around it. I decided I would go too. The sun was not out yet so it would be a while anyway before I got the shot of the lake I wanted in full light.

 

A young man who was waiting nearby to rent out a plastic mat to kids to slide in the snow told me going was not a problem at all and offered to go with me. The walk around the lake was cool. Literally also because there was large patches of hard ice every few feet. Walking through them wasn’t the easiest in my table tennis shoes which have no grip but it was beautiful. In an hour and a half I was back to my starting point with a range of excellent photos of the lake from the other side.

 

When I returned I saw the crowds of people that had arrived. The scene was no longer tranquil but bustling. By the time we drove back to the hotel it was 10. Hot water was only available till 11 so I asked Mushtaq to step on it. That’s a joke! Stepping on it meant an even bumpier ride. I was bouncing around in the front seat as it is. We had made a plan to go to Lalazar Meadows in the afternoon but I literally couldn’t move.

 

My body ached, I was tired from not sleeping. In that sense, the holiday was so far pretty nuts. Usually on a trip, the minute I’m out of Lahore I sleep deeply. On a whim I called my travel agent and told her I wanted to leave the next day. Noori Top was closed because of the ice. I told myself there was nothing left for me to do.

 

Upon my return to the hotel, my tiredness contributing to my sour mood, I started complaining to Bilal about having nowhere to go for the afternoon. He told me about the PTDC nearby.

 

“Sit by the river. It’s 5 minutes away,” he said. “Very pretty and quiet. You will like it.”

 

I grabbed my book and glasses, a peach, some water and got dropped there. The hotel itself looked like it was closed. There was a barrier with a lock on it at the entrance. I took my backpack and walked past it, telling my driver to wait for me outside on the main road.

 

The river was beautiful. The spot was quiet. I sat down and opened Al-Fath Ar-Rabbani again. My other spiritual trial had been learning patience for a while now and I had not stopped thinking about how hard it was. Of all things I had tried to inculcate, the level of difficulty was undeniably sky high.

 

Gratitude and patience, those are the two foundational pillars of spirituality. One is easy; gratitude. It comes naturally when good things happen. Then the expression of it, as instructed, is to be kind to others. Do something helpful for them. Those acts keep compounding joy, which is what the Greeks define as peace of mind. The practice of gratitude is addictive. There is no day one wants to left out of experiencing it. Not one!

 

Patience on the other hand only comes with trials and tests.

Then gratitude is expressed through other people. When you please them, they pray for you for all kinds of things you never ask for yourself. Patience is about the self. Sometimes the trial comes in the form of a human and other times it doesn’t.

 

Either way its about one’s own reaction at all times. Mindfulness becomes intensified to another level. Every emotion becomes deeply felt.

 

As Tashu explained to me once, “We all have some trial that we have to face in life. For one person it could be material, another health, someone children (or lack of for all the above), and for someone else marriage.”

 

Learning how to react “correctly” to that which is a difficulty destined is excruciating. One is going through the ringer anyway. Then there is the weight of one’s own response layered on top of that. It is the latter that in fact yields one sinking or swimming. In order to be of the faith, patience is essential. Ghaus Pak (ra) routes the path in this way;

 

Tafseer e Jilani: If you are not grateful, how will you seek the Pleasure of Allah and surrender yourself to that which has been destined for you. Without that surrender and acceptance, how will you become patient? If there is no patience, how will you learn to negate your ego? Without the denial of your nafs, how will you become of the faithful?”

 

I was surprised myself at 50 that I had not been taught patience before. But I guess everything comes in its own time. I had never thought about it so I had never written about it. The only thing I had penned was in my book “Ali is to me as I am to God” about the timing of when to exercise the attribute and that was a few years ago.

 

Begin excerpt “Ali is to me as I am to God”

 

Like grace and dignity, patience is endowed by God Almighty. Still, it could be acquired and there were two ways; prayer and the art of a discipline heretofore unknown to me; accepting a difficulty in its first minute and not lamenting it. Timing was specified to the t both by the Quran and hadith.

 

وَبَشِّرِ الصَّابِرِينَ الَّذِينَ إِذَا أَصَابَتْهُم مُّصِيبَةٌ قَالُوا إِنَّا لِلَّهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ

أُولَٰئِكَ عَلَيْهِمْ صَلَوَاتٌ مِّن رَّبِّهِمْ وَرَحْمَةٌ ۖ وَأُولَٰئِكَ هُمُ الْمُهْتَدُونَ.

 

“Give good news to those who endure with patience. Those who say when calamity befalls them: 'Indeed we belong to Allah and indeed it is to Him we are to return.’ Such are the people upon whom there are blessings and mercy from Allah; and they are the ones that are rightly guided.”

 

Surat Al-Baqarah, Ayat 155-157

 

The hadith I read was as follows.

 

حَدَّثَنَا آدَمُ، ‏‏‏‏‏‏حَدَّثَنَا شُعْبَةُ، ‏‏‏‏‏‏حَدَّثَنَا ثَابِتٌ، ‏‏‏‏‏‏عَنْ أَنَسِ بْنِ مَالِكٍ رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُ،‏‏‏‏ قَالَ:‏‏‏‏

""مَرَّ النَّبِيُّ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ بِامْرَأَةٍ تَبْكِي عِنْدَ قَبْرٍ،‏‏‏‏

فَقَالَ:‏‏‏‏ اتَّقِي اللَّهَ وَاصْبِرِي،

‏‏‏‏‏‏قَالَتْ:‏‏‏‏ إِلَيْكَ عَنِّي فَإِنَّكَ لَمْ تُصَبْ بِمُصِيبَتِي وَلَمْ تَعْرِفْهُ، ‏‏‏‏‏‏فَقِيلَ لَهَا:‏‏‏‏

إِنَّهُ النَّبِيُّ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ، ‏‏‏‏‏‏فَأَتَتْ بَابَ النَّبِيِّ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ فَلَمْ تَجِدْ عِنْدَهُ بَوَّابِينَ،

‏‏‏‏‏‏فَقَالَتْ:‏‏‏‏ لَمْ أَعْرِفْكَ، ‏‏‏‏‏‏فَقَالَ:‏‏‏‏

إِنَّمَا الصَّبْرُ عِنْدَ الصَّدْمَةِ الْأُولَى"

 

‘As stated by Uns (ratu): The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was passing by a woman who was crying over a grave.

 

He said to her, “Be mindful and be patient (sabir).”

 

She replied (dismissively), “You don’t suffer from the tragedy I face.”

 

Then she was told that she had spoken such to the Prophet of God (peace be upon him). At once she came to his door outside which there were no guards and said, “I did not know who you were.”

 

And he said, “Indeed, patience is at the first stroke of the calamity.”’

 

My eyes went to the line “there were no guards” and it made me smile. The access was truly remarkable. I wished like I had endless times before I had been alive then. But what was even more striking was when patience had to be invoked;

 

“Indeed, patience is at the first stroke of the calamity.”’

 

How would one ever be able to do that? I guess that was the part about it having to be endowed.

 

My favourite part of the learning came the following week. There is a hadith about Hazrat Ume Salma (ratu) where it states that the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) recited a prayer and told those listening to invoke it in their time of distress.

 

“She said, ‘I heard the words from him and when my husband died, I started saying the prayer.’”

 

It was said that her marriage was a very happy one, her husband kind, loving and so upon his death she was deeply saddened. I read the hadith with my teacher in class.

 

“So what do you think happened,” Ustad Ahmed asked me as we went over it line by line, “when she started saying the prayer he had given?”

 

I stared at the words on the page and looked up at him.

 

“She remarried?” I ventured a guess.

 

“Yes, she married again,” he said with a smile, “but whom did she marry?”

 

At first I was silent. How could I possibly know who she married so I kept looking at him waiting for him to inform me. He in turn said nothing waiting for my response. I looked down at the sheet again. Was the answer in the next line? I didn’t see it. Then something struck my mind and I looked up at him again. I knew my eyes had already widened before the words left my mouth.

 

“The Prophet (peace be upon him)?” I heard the amazement in my own voice, feeling dumbstruck.

 

“Yes,” Ustad Ahmed smiled pleased with my state of wonder, the hadith clearly having the effect he desired. “That is who she married next.”

 

I couldn’t speak. I just stared at him, then at the paper, then at him. I didn’t want to study any more that day. It was too much to take in, the power of the words rendering a result of that nature for someone. It was beyond belief.

 

”إِنَّا لِلّٰهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُوْنَ ، اَللّٰهُمَّ أْجُرْنِىْ فِىْ مُصِيْبَتِىْ وَأَخْلِفْ لِىْ خَيْرًا مِنْهَا۔“

 

“We belong to Allah and to Allah we return. Dear God, reward me for this calamity I face and grant me something better than it.”

 

The first line was only known to me and possibly most Muslims, at least of South Asian descent, as what is uttered upon hearing of someone’s passing. Never for any other occasion except death. Later I found that the prayer the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) uttered for his grandson, Imam Hussain (ratu), when it was revealed to him what would happen to him in Karbala, was similar.

 

“Dear God, Reward him for the calamity he faces and make him patient (saabir).”

 

We have a phrase in Urdu, “woh din aur aaj ka din” which is literally translated as “since that day and today”, I say that prayer of Hazrat Ume Salma (ratu) every single day. As one who does the dutied 5 most of the time and no more it was a new turn in my life in terms of worship, my first add-on so to speak. I was dying to know what would be my recompense for suffering I felt I had endured.

 

End excerpt “Ali is to me as I am to God”

 

In the days before the trip I had come upon a very interesting hadith. It didn’t have anything to do with this piece but I translated it anyway. Commanding respect in the world, attaining power, being considered generous were big thing in people’s lives these days. I had heard just before heading to Naran, where again I was cut off from phones and the internet, that Bezos was going to on board the virgin flight around the planet in July that his company was offering. The final bid for the fourth seat had been for $28 million.

 

I wondered if he died, would Amazon become different? But then I knew the answer was “No.” I had written about that in Min al Jinnati Wa Naas.

 

Begin excerpt:

 

“I had once asked Qari Sahib what it was exactly that Iblis had promised the Prophet Adam (as) when he lured him into doing that which was forbidden to him by God.

 

فَوَسْوَسَ إِلَيْهِ الشَّيْطَانُ قَالَ يَا آدَمُ هَلْ أَدُلُّكَ عَلَىٰ شَجَرَةِ الْخُلْدِ وَمُلْكٍ لَّا يَبْلَىٰ

 

Then whispered to him Shaitaan and he said, "O Adam! Shall I direct you to (the) tree (of) life eternal and a kingdom not (that will) deteriorate?" – Surah Taha, Verse 120

 

Eternal life! I had come across articles over recent years on the desire of billionaires to live longer; 150 to be exact.

 

Sep 2nd, 2015: “6 Billionaires who want to live forever” and the first line reads, “A growing number of tech moguls are trying to solve their biggest problem yet: Aging.” Who are they; Theil - Paypal, Ellison – Oracle, Larry Page – Alpahbet, Sergey Brin – Google, Zuckerburg – Facebook, Sean Parker – Napster.” Ellison’s quote; “Death has never made any sense to me. How can a person be there and then just vanish, just not be there?”

 

But perhaps many people not so rich want to live forever too. It was the second part of Iblis’ lure that I was interested in.

 

Ghaus Pak (ra) defines the kingdom without decline in a particular way: “It is a kingdom that will only grow. It will be forever and it will be the first of its kind, not coming from another. It will never be in decline nor will it be transferred to another.”

 

End excerpt

 

Every corporation’s obsession was about control being increasingly accumulated.

 

The Business Times, June 12th, 2021: “JPMorgan Chase & Co. - often a standard-setter for the industry - is ordering traders, bankers, financial advisers and even some branch employees to sift through years of text messages on personal devices and set aside any related to work, according to people with knowledge of the situation.

 

One recent internal notice seen by Bloomberg directed recipients to not only root through their standard messages, but also platforms such as WeChat and WhatsApp, back to the start of 2018, and then save those related to work until the company's legal department tells them otherwise. It notes that failure to comply could lead to "consequences" for violating the company's code of conduct.

 

It's an open secret that many Wall Street denizens have been taking a certain forbidden liberty while working from home: Tapping text messages to colleagues and clients on smartphones untethered to workplace surveillance systems. Now some of them are panicking.”

 

So if Bezos did come back safely, what exactly would happen to his ego then? I couldn’t even imagine it.

 

It is narrated from Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him) that he said, “The one who wishes to be honoured, it is compulsory that he become conscious of Allah and stands in awe of Him. And the one who wants to be powerful, must then be reliant on Allah. And the one who desires to be deemed generous has to know that everything belongs to Allah and he has no control over his possessions.”

 

Ghaus Pak (ra) gave a sharha, explanation of the words;

 

“Honour lies in mindfulness (of Allah) and humiliation in disobedience. And the one who seeks strength in faith has to rely on Allah alone because tawakkul, reliance, makes the qalb, the seat of station of the Recognition of Allah, guided, steadfast and obedient. Reliance grants guidance and shows the heart signs. Relying on your own self will only render you weak and powerless.

 

When you depend on Allah alone, He will grant you power. You will be aided by Him. He will bestow upon you His Kindness, lutf, and you will become so strong that you will not care about what comes to you from the world or what is taken away. You will not care when people lavish their attention upon you or when they turn their faces.”

 

The last line was my goal; I had never been the object of people’s lavish attention. I was trained and prepared for it without feeling badly. But not caring when they turn their faces. For the life of me, I could not manage to be indifferent to that. Despite knowing that fear and expectation is what causes weakness of faith.

 

Which brings me to the first line at the river by the PTDC. And it was the mirror that made me see how I created my own obstacles and pain all at once;

 

“O Listener! If you seek success, then become in agreement with that which your Lord wishes for you and oppose your nafs. In obedience of Your Lord, be in agreement with it and in your state of sin, deny it.

 

Your nafs is the veil that blinds you from the recognition of people. People are the second veil which prevents you from recognizing God.

 

So as long as you stay bound by your nafs rendering yourself limited, you will not be able to recognize people and as long as you remain stuck with people, you will not recognize God.

 

Just as you stay with the world, you cannot be with the Afterlife. And while you are stuck with the Afterlife, you will not be able to see God. The Creator and the created cannot be gathered together. Like the world and the Afterlife cannot be gathered.

 

Your nafs will always command you to do that which is harmful and take you further away from your self. That is its nature. It will take it forever to command you to do that which your qalb wishes you to do. So fight it, for Allah has already told you that each nafs has in it goodness and evil.

 

وَنَفْسٍ وَمَا سَوَّاهَ

فَأَلْهَمَهَا فُجُورَهَا وَتَقْوَاهَ

قَدْ أَفْلَحَ مَن زَكَّاهَ

وَقَدْ خَابَ مَن دَسَّاهَ

 

Consider the human self, and how it is formed in accordance with what it is meant to be,

And Allah inspired it with the knowledge to distinguish between its wickedness and righteousness.

A happy state will he attain who causes it to grow in purity.

And truly lost is he, who corrupts it, burying it in darkness.

Surah Ash-Shams, Verse 8-10

 

I paused my reading, put the book down and just stared at the river gushing past.

 

“Your nafs is the veil that blinds you from recognition of people.”

 

When I returned, I called Qari Sahib to first translate the lines from the original Arabic, then understand what the word “recognize” used by Ghaus Pak (ra) for people meant in this context.

 

He said, “It is about negating your own self and your desires and giving preference to the other person. By being sensitive to them, taking care of them and remembering their feelings instead of just fixating on your own. Consider their rights, your duties and the context they are coming from.”

 

Then he cited the verse about the behaviour of the Ansar when Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him) emigrated to Medina;

 

وَيُؤْثِرُونَ عَلَىٰٓ أَنفُسِهِمْ وَلَوْ كَانَ بِهِمْ خَصَاصَةٌ ۚ

وَمَن يُوقَ شُحَّ نَفْسِهِۦ فَأُو۟لَـٰٓئِكَ هُمُ ٱلْمُفْلِحُونَ

 

They give them preference over themselves, even if they themselves are needy.

And whoever is spared from their own greed, they are the successful ones.

Surah Al-Hashr, Verse 9

 

While in Naran, I had contemplated the “recognition” to mean mere acceptance of people. Not wanting them to change or waiting for them to change, frustrating myself in that waiting and wanting. As circumstances altered so did people’s ways of coping with them. Hence nothing remained static. But acceptance often came with judgement and self-pity.

 

On the other hand, Qari Sahib’s spin changed everything. Now I saw that it was purely about my nafs limiting its kindness towards who I called my loved ones. I did not recognize people because my nafs, in the overt, expressed concern and disappointment and in the inner, a hard arrogance. I was so wound up by feeling “hurt” there was no way I would ever be able to give them preference over my wounded self.

 

“So as long as you stay bound by your nafs rendering yourself limited, you will not be able to recognize people and as long as you remain stuck with people, you will not recognize God.”

 

Even without Qari Sahib’s input which came later anyway, the lines were heavy. Reading them was enough. Thinking about them would have to happen another day. I decided to walk by the river and sit in the sun for a bit. Then I headed back to the hotel to pack crossing my fingers that I would sleep.

 

And for whatever reason, I finally did!

 

Day Four – Khanian

 

When I left Naran and reached Khanian in Kaghan, I breathed a sigh of relief. The hotel was again not what it seemed to be on the website but the room was beautiful and it was on a spot by itself on the bank of the river. It was still early, noonish. I decided to go for a walk nearby to see if I could find any grassy spots. There were none so I took my New Yorker and went to sit in the sun.

 

My reading was distracted. I kept thinking of the veil of not recognizing people and people veiling me from God.

 

Being stuck with people, making false associations of expectation with them, was my shirk (associating anything with God). Like I would imagine it is for most Muslims. We aren’t about to suddenly start bowing down before statues and fire. Yet, for the life of us, we cannot control our hopes and anxiety attached to other people.

 

I felt relieved that at least we weren’t finding faults with God.

 

Ghaus Pak (ra) says that that those who do, it is then not only with God that they create a conflict within themselves.

 

“When Allah sees you in this state of holding grudges against Him, then He makes you mabghoos, begrudged. And what enters next in your heart is bughs, holding grudges, for all His Friends as well.”

 

That’s pretty much the end of the story!

 

In my reading of his sermons, I had been marveling at how much emphasis Ghaus Pak (ra) placed on food. Staying away not only from that which is forbidden but also that which is mubah’, allowed. In other words, food was clearly a major desire of the nafs.

 

I always tell my friend’s children, the ones now in their 20s who decide to go vegan or vegetarian while abroad that they are going halal without even knowing it as such. That they were chosen to be obedient, even if it was unintentional on their part, by never ingesting that which I was unable to give up myself until two years ago. The majority of my vacations anywhere, but especially in Portland and New York, revolved around food, which may have been organic but it was never kosher. They always smiled when I said that, pleased at the accidental windfall.

 

I feel happily amazed at the goodness each generation brings with it that is entirely its own and quite unprecedented. The kids being kosher, the little ones otherwise plugged into their devices like sockets, yet fasting for days on end in Ramadan at ages as young as 10. That was certainly out of the question for my generation.

 

They were learning the practice of taqwa, restraint, much earlier than we did. We didn’t deny ourselves anything till we were much older. Granted we didn’t experience instant gratification either but still. We were trained to be obedient. They were being willfully so. And that was the obedience that is dearest to God, the one that comes willingly.

 

Without several hours of driving, the day at the hotel was passing ultra slowly so I decided to read Al-Fath Ar-Rabbani again. I knew I would come upon that which occupied my being entirely, sabr and indeed I did.

 

“The one who bears the difficulty of destined hardship silently, sip by sip, in a state of steadfastness, becomes Allah’s Beloved.

 

This is where Ghaus Pak (ra) explained the magic of patience;

“Allah places you in hardship precisely because He loves you. As you increase your obedience to His Orders and stay away from that which has been prohibited, His Love for you will also increase. And as you exercise patience on the hardships that come upon you from Him, you will gain qurb, closeness, with Him.

 

AA Friend of God says, ‘It is not acceptable to Allah that He hurts the one He loves. However, the difficulties are so that one is tested and the fruit they yield is becoming saabir, patient. (The beauty of sabr is that, when attained, a difficulty does not seem a difficulty).”

 

For someone like me who needs to at least be aware of the prize for spiritual struggle, I finally saw the brass ring; if I became patient, the difficulty would not even be a difficulty. It would become a blessing that is good for me.

 

عن صهيب قال رسولُ اللهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم:

عَجَبًا لأمرِ المؤمنِ إِنَّ أمْرَه كُلَّهُ لهُ خَيرٌ

وليسَ ذلكَ لأحَدٍ إلا للمُؤْمنِ

إِنْ أصَابتهُ سَرَّاءُ شَكَرَ فكانتْ خَيرًا لهُ

وإنْ أصَابتهُ ضَرَّاءُ صَبرَ فكانتْ خَيرًا لهُ

 

Said the Prophet of God (peace be upon him), “Amazing is the state of the Believer (Mo’min). In all his matters is goodness and this is for no one except the Believer. If happiness reaches him, he expresses gratitude so that is good for him. And if comes to him adversity, he is patient so that is good for him.”

 

For the umpteenth time, I remembered the words of Hazrat Rabia Basri (ra) who used to cry on the days she didn’t face a difficulty. She said on those days she felt like her Lord God forgot her. She was sad when she didn’t face a situation that tested her nature, her character, her behavior, her claim of love.

 

It’s so hard when one’s claim of love is tested. Everything becomes revealed in a single moment. What I realized from the words was that the people in my life who disappointed me were in fact going to be only avenues for reaching the exalted state of saabir as well. The trick was to detach but the detachment had to remain ingrained in love.

 

Otherwise, I have found the common practice of detachment to only breed indifference. Sometimes one feels we have detached from everyone but the tongue betrays us every single time. For unless it is kind, soft, gentle, it’s yet another farce.

 

Thankfully, the first step towards everything was now easy for me; admission of guilt with deep repentance. That happened for me on a daily basis, throughout the day on occasion. The tears wiped my slate clean, admittedly only for me to scribble on it sometimes minutes later. But the slate was wiped clean as if anew.

 

I realized that any spiritual change that does stick never comes through me but only through another’s prayer. The other being a Friend of God.

 

In the weeks I spent in Bagh e Jinnah constructing tables, towards the end I started going to a shrine in the park for a daily prayer. It had been on my mind since the beginning because it was shrine beloved to my mother but it didn’t come to pass until Shuggy Aunty asked me to take her there. I was elated of course. She had been praying two nafal as a hadya, gift, in the name of the person of the shrine, Hazrat Pir Sakhi Turat Murad Shah (ra), for 30 odd years.

 

I knew from prior experience that going to a shrine with her meant a certain kind of welcome because she was special to them. There weren’t a lot of people in the world sending them a gift of love every single night for decades. The most wonderful part of the shrine was that unlike most in Pakistan, women were allowed to enter the place where the blessed grave was. In our case, the city was in a lockdown so not only were we the only ones in the park but also the shrine.

 

Shuggy Aunty was talking to him the minute we entered the courtyard.

 

“Salam Alaikum Baba ji,” I heard her say happily as I followed her. I smiled. Her manner with the Saints was always child-like.

Inside we prayed Asr, then two nafal of hazari, marking our presence there. I prayed for love for everyone in the world. For light to dispel our heart’s darkness. For at least interspersed moments of happiness.

 

When we were leaving, Shuggy Aunty took a rose from amongst the ones strewn on top of the grave upon a chadar and said, “I’m taking this Baba Ji. I came after so many years. I want to take something back with me.”

 

A keepsake! In emulation, I picked up a rose as well and

repeated her words. I placed mine in Al-Fath Ar-Rabbani.

 

The word Turat in his name means “instant” as in prayers made there are answered by Allah instantly. Shuggy Aunty told me that the next time I saw her because she had asked for some help relating to a real estate deal she was closing that was being held up. I took her again the following week, she said she had to go four times and again whatever she asked for happened within a day.

 

After I heard that the second time, I started thinking about praying for something specific for myself as well. Sabr was the hurdle I could not seem to cross, the attribute I could not seem to imbue. The evidence of its manifestation of it for me was going to be the tongue. I thought about praying for silence but then got worried about becoming mute. I still had the tables to finish. I decided to word my request the way I usually do at a shrine, surrendering myself to the Friend of God.

 

“Please pray for me, Hazrat Sahib, for that which I need in my life for it to peaceful and for me to be good before my Lord.”

 

I mentioned a few other things I failed at miserably all the time too.

 

The tables got finished. I went to Islamabad. Once there, I discovered there was something new about me that was almost startling. Every time I thought something negative about someone, it wouldn’t stick.

 

If a thought came to my head from my nafs which wanted to whine and be critical about a person, I felt the thought leave my head but not enter my heart. It was like there was a shield around it. So when it emanated from my brain and traveled to it, upon arrival it was repelled which caused it to dissipate. It was startling. That is the best word to describe it.

 

When I noticed it happening, which wasn’t often because I don’t think negatively about most people anyway but do tend to ask myself unanswerable questions, I was taken aback. Those questions are a major drag because I start making up answers and they’re always all false. In any case, I arrived in Islamabad and with my headspace freed up simply by being in another city on a holiday, I began to see what was happening more clearly.

 

Mostly it would happen at night and I would lie in bed bewildered. Even my nafs, confused, started asking me weird questions.

 

“Who’s doing that? Me or you? Why can’t I think what I want for as long as I want to think it?”

 

I had no answer. It was so strange, I couldn’t even tell if I was happy about it. There wasn’t much time to dwell on it anyway.

 

A day later I headed for Naran and being alone meant I forgot about people anyway. I had wondered if it was happening because of a line from my speech at the launch;

 

“Today’s world is strange indeed in many ways. To me the strangest of all things is that people don’t have any expectation of another human being and feel proud about that. But only in their zahir, the overt being. In their batin, the inner, they feel tortured about the very same thing.

 

But if the goal is to be reliant only upon Allah and instead of finding flaws and fault in other human beings, to think of them in a good way, then the path is only one. And it is explained to me by Nabi Kareem (saw) in the following hadith;”

 

Then I read the hadith that I am totally obsessed with since my eyes came upon it.

 

“The Momin is the one who loves and is loved. And there is no goodness for the one who does not give love and receive love. The best amongst people is the one who gives others benefit.”

 

Badgumani is the word for when there is a negative thought attached to another person. The softer translation for it that Shuggy Aunty gave me when I asked her what it meant in English was “misunderstanding.” A misunderstanding about another person because of suspicion and doubt, mistrust. A sense of betrayal or an expectation of the worst.

 

In my next namaz in Naran, the dots were connected for me.

 

The first veil is that the nafs, the egoistic self, is either judging and berating people, silently or in voice or distrusting them. Holding grudges against them. What starts as a negative thought is then ultimately articulated by the tongue.

 

Bughs was not a small thing. One of the most powerful hadith Qudsi all Muslims are familiar with but for some reason never take seriously is this:

 

تُفْتَحُ أَبْوَابُ الْجَنَّةِ يَوْمَ الِاثْنَيْنِ، وَيَوْمَ الْخَمِيسِ،

فَيُغْفَرُ لِكُلِّ عَبْدٍ لَا يُشْرِكُ بِاللَّهِ شَيْئًا، إِلَّا رَجُلًا كَانَتْ بَيْنَهُ وَبَيْنَ أَخِيهِ شَحْنَاءُ،

فَيُقَالُ: (1) أَنْظِرُوا (2) هَذَيْنِ حَتَّى يَصْطَلِحَا، أَنْظِرُوا هَذَيْنِ حَتَّى يَصْطَلِحَا، أَنْظِرُوا هَذَيْنِ حَتَّى يَصْطَلِحَا"

 

“The gates of Paradise will be opened on Mondays and on Thursdays, and every servant (of Allah) who associates nothing with Allah will be forgiven, except for the man who has a grudge against his brother. (About them) it will be said: Delay these two until they are reconciled; delay these two until they are reconciled.

 

I didn’t even know the last part. “Delay theses two until they are reconciled.”

 

The tongue could never be controlled unless the thought was first controlled. But how is a thought controlled? For me the best I could do was identify it the second it appeared thanks again to Hazrat Sahel Tustari (ra);

 

“The heart’s determination can be coerced so that one can return to God, Mighty and Majestic is He, and place the dilemma before Him. Then a person should force on themselves and on their heart a state of rejection (of that sin) which should never leave them, for if they become inattentive to that state of rejection for just the blinking of the eye, it is to be feared that they will not remain safe from it."

 

I had been practicing that like a maniac since I read it. The ease it brought me was indescribable. And it made me hone in on the fact that the “sin” was the injustice I inflicted upon myself, causing distress, disturbance and pain. Through the line, any negative feeling I was harbouring against anyone disappeared within a couple of days, if not sooner.

 

For in any case, “that which I love cannot be made detestable to me.” I told every one of my friends about it. The key, like in all things spiritual, lay in the discipline of recognizing a thought and countering it instantly. Like patience, in the first moment of a calamity’s appearance.

 

The difference though was that my application was immediate only when I could possibly feel bad because of the thought. If it was instead just negative related to another person, who I may or may not really even interact with at all, I didn’t say Hazrat Tustari’s (ra) prayer of rejection and surrender. I indulged my opinion, basically back-biting in my own head.

 

Another vice Muslims ignore all too easily despite the Quran saying its like being a carnivore.

 

يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ ٱجْتَنِبُوا۟ كَثِيرًا مِّنَ ٱلظَّنِّ إِنَّ بَعْضَ ٱلظَّنِّ إِثْمٌ ۖ

وَلَا تَجَسَّسُوا۟ وَلَا يَغْتَب بَّعْضُكُم بَعْضًا ۚ أَ

يُحِبُّ أَحَدُكُمْ أَن يَأْكُلَ لَحْمَ أَخِيهِ مَيْتًا فَكَرِهْتُمُوهُ ۚ

وَٱتَّقُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ ۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ تَوَّابٌ رَّحِيمٌ

 

O you who attained to faith! Avoid much of assumption.

Indeed, some assumption is sin. And do not spy and do not backbite one another.

Would like one of you to eat the flesh of his dead brother? Nay, you would hate it.

So remain mindful of Allah. Indeed, Allah is Oft-Returning, Most Merciful.

Surah Al-Hujurat, Verse 12

 

I never felt badly enough doing that to make me exercise the discipline. So when the thought, which would otherwise remain for as long as I wanted it to, began being rejected by something inside me without my own volition, it was stupefying. Because literally someone else and something else was doing it. That someone I began to realize was a Friend of God and the something was his prayer for me to stop being badguman, a harbourer of doubt and distrust, a cradler of misunderstanding.

 

The words of Iqbal that Abida had painted for me on a giant canvas in my bedroom suddenly came to light;

 

پندار نیک گفتار نیک کردار نیک

 

Good thoughts, good speech, good character!

 

Part II cont'd at: www.flickr.com/photos/42093313@N00/51243161980/in/datepos...

Done