From the pulpit

Faith is a 3-D Experience

Khutbah today May 20.2011. 17 Jumada II 1432

In the opening verse of Sura An-Nisaa’, Allah says: O mankind! Fear Allah. Who created you, from a single person, and from him, He (Allah), created his mate of similar nature, and from both spread (like seeds) countless men and women; Be conscious of Allah, through Whom you demand your mutual (rights) and (show reverence towards) the wombs (that bore you): for surely, Allah always watches over you.

My Dear Brothers and Sisters; how fortunate we are, to have faith, to have Iman. Without faith, people see the world in 2 dimensions only. They only see themselves and everything that’s out there, the natural world, the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms, earth, water, wind and fire. That’s all: just the human self and everything outside it.

People of faith, on the other hand, see themselves, and the created order, and Allah in a kind of triangulation. God, human beings and other creatures: this is really the true spiritual perspective. Allah created the world to serve us, and He created us to serve Him.  “I have not created jinn and human beings except for worshipping Me.” We serve Him by acknowledging Him with gratitude, and we take care of other people, animals, plants, the land, sea and air, in order to reciprocate His overflowing love and mercy towards us.

Brothers and sisters; once we understand this simple fact of a 3-dimensional perspective of life, some things become abundantly clear to us:

Firstly, there is this invisible but inseparable triangulation between me, my Lord and the rest of His creation. In our mind’s eye, we must live every moment in a state of awareness of this 3-dimensional reality.

Living with this awareness means that Allah not only watches over everything I do, but as long as I am aware of His presence, reminding my forgetful and infinitely distractible human nature of my total reliance on Him, He will be there to help me, to guide me and to protect me from harm.

My very awareness of Him actually brings him closer to me, “closer than our jugular vein,” says the Quran [ch50:16]. Knowing this becomes a tremendous source of inner peace for me, a source of security and tranquility...

Secondly, when I realize that I am an important part of this triangular matrix, God-man-and-universe, then logic drives me to answer the obvious question: what’s the plan? What’s the purpose?

Everyone makes plans. We plan our professional careers, our family plans, holidays, work and leisure times. We even plan for retirement and death. Believers plan. Non-believers also have plans. But their plans exclude the central Reality in all our lives: Allah said in the Quran that: “The unbelievers plot and plan, and Allah also plan, and Allah is the best of planners.” [Sura 8:v30]

Brothers and sisters; how wonderful is the gift of Iman, the gift of faith! Allah has given us this gift so that we can appreciate everything around us, not just superficially, but deeply, so that we understand the meaning of things. Other people, who have no faith, look only at the surface of things, and they see how things relate to each other, and how other things relate to them. But they miss out the vital 3rd Dimension: they miss out the One Who created everything, Allah.

The difference between those who believe and those who do not, is the difference between the 2 Arabic words, basar, and baseerah. Basar is to see, to have sight, and baseerah is to have insight, to understand the hidden meaning of things. Without faith, we are like people who are blind to the true meaning of things.

The Quran reminds us not to be like those who have eyes, but don’t see who have ears, but don’t hear. This is beautifully summed up in a rhetorical question, in Surat Al-Hajj (Chapter 22, Verse 46). “Do they not travel through the land, so that their hearts (and minds) may thus learn wisdom and their ears may thus learn to hear? Truly it is not their eyes that are blind, but their hearts which are in their breasts.”

If we really understand the 3-dimensional link between ourselves, Allah and His creatures, we won’t waste so much time on pointless amusements. We would be overwhelmed with gratitude to Allah for our good fortune.

We would be constantly looking for ways of expressing this gratitude in big and small acts of kindness and charity to others. Even if we tried to calculate how much we owe our Lord, we will realize that we can never repay Allah; we can never thank him enough, no matter how much we tried. The best we can do is to serve others as instruments of His mercy.

Remember, whatever fascinates you about this life, your sports, your hobbies, your loved ones, your nice car and your beautiful home, remember that Al-Jannah, Allah’s Garden, is better. Why not prepare yourself for where you’ll spend forever?

Why mess around with elusive pleasures now, when Allah has prepared delights for you, beyond your wildest imaginings that will endure for eternity? Behold, you prefer the life of this world, when the life to come is more beautiful, and longer lasting!” [Sura Al A’la 87:16-17]