Ramadhan Reflections 10

"Do not seek destruction by your own hand" Quran 2: 195

Hassan's reflection

To be a pessimist, there are a thousand and one ways for us to slip off the path of good and end up in hell. As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. With all these ways of potentially slipping up, it is ridiculous for us to actively seek to destroy ourselves and our chance at paradise. Is love enough? Is love for Allah enough to get us to paradise? I think this ayat implies that perhaps it is not, that we need to follow the rules and requirements set out for us. Doesn’t this kind of go against the thinking of Sufism though? There are Christian Sufis, who would take on the belief that through love for Jesus there is salvation and this is all that is needed. Does this mean that Sufism is simply a way to get closer to the one spirit that controls us all and has created the world, which we Muslims call Allah and not a belief system at all

Suriya's reflection:

Dear Hassan,

I think the questions you ask will be answered for you to your satisfaction as you gain in understanding.

Allah gave us guidance in two forms, one is the personal guidance that calls to us from within our hearts which we hear when we learn how to by purifying our hearts with zikr prayers and good deeds until the portal of the heart opens into our consciousness. The other is a more formal and public revelation in the form of the holy books , the Torah , the Injil the Zabur and the Quran, probably the Vedas as well. Most of the books have been altered in some ways except the Quran. The prescriptions in these books are similar in general principles and specific in some matters that coincide with the evolution of humankind in thought. The Quran was a book before its time and many of the injunctions were not understood at the time of revelation which makes in necessary to understand the Quran in the light of human evolution in thought and consciousness. Sufis believe human thought expands and grows in time. As an example the concept of slavery was not only accepted but felt right at that point in time but the Quran made freeing slaves a deed of merit . In time , there are no more slaves in a Muslim community because of the injunction to free them. This was the ideal but the Quran simply set in place the ideal without forcing it on to a people not ready to accept it. The same goes for the place of women in society. It is sad that even today, women are not given their rightful place in most societies including Muslim ones because the spirit of the Quran is still not fully understood and the prescription as regards women not carried out with interpretations of injunctions still trapped in the past.
The maker and creator of the universe and humankind has given us prescriptions which when we follow will lead us to our own felicity in this world and in the hereafter. Ignoring these injunctions will lead to our own destruction , mental, emotional , physical and spiritual. A simple injunction like " Eat food that is good" is difficult to follow nowadays with so many traps laid by the profit oriented food industry with its food enhancers additives flavors and whatnots. A faithful obedience to this injunction which is in the Quran means we need to take very good care of what we eat, avoiding over processed , chemical laden polluted food. The same goes for all the other recommendations in the Quran. So, what it means to not destroy ourselves by our own hands is to heed the guidance given to us , to understand its true meaning in the light of our own realisations and not to follow blindly interpretations, even the ones by exalted human beings who are for the most part very right for their day and age. Ibn Arabi said that he was limited by the time he lived in. He was well aware of that and he said it himself.