Sublime Realities - Return to Allah

Return to Allah

Tags: Return to Allah, Spiritual eye, Vision, Mi`raj, I, Hidden Treasure

Every wise person certainly knows that the subject of "Return to Allāh" is as difficult as it is necessary. Yet, in the illumination of the Noble Qur'ān and the light of Imamat, God willing, every difficulty can be eased. Thus, with this hope, it is humbly attempted to explain it through some examples in the following:

All creatures, or all things are in ranks and there is divine guidance according to the needs of every rank. Thus none of the minerals, vegetatives, animals and human beings are without Divine guidance, as it is said in verse (20:50): Mūsā said: Our Lord is He Who gave to everything of the world of command a material form in the world of creation, then guided it to the desired destination. That is, He made it return to the world of command. This universal law shows that a thing ultimately returns to its place or origin.
On the Day of Resurrection, all of the earlier and later generations, gather together in the personal world (56:49-50). But in this greatest gathering there will be two categories of people: those with the spiritual eye (basīrat) and those without the spiritual eye (17:72; 20:124). Those with the spiritual eye will have the vision of God and by the blessings of knowledge and the recognition of it, the greatest secret will be disclosed to them that both in azal and abad they have always been merged in the origin. Thus, return to God is in the form of knowledge.
In verse (6:103) God says: "The eyes attain Him not, but He attains the eyes." This does not mean that Divine vision is not possible, but it means that when God's sacred light touches someone's inner eye, he attains the Divine vision. That is, God out of His mercy, becomes his eye, as the Hadīth-i taqarrub (Tradition about Divine closeness) says that Allāh Himself does the work of the external and internal senses of His lover and this is the return to Allāh.
The real return is in this life itself, as the Holy Prophet practically did and showed and that is the event of mi`rāj, which is mentioned in the Qur'ān in various ways. Mi`rāj literally means "ladder, stairs", and the ladder is made up of ranks, i.e. the hudūd-i dīn (3:163; 32:5; 70:4;). Just as in a material example, if we see the law of progress from the past to the present and from villages to the cities, initially the ladders appear to be very ordinary and then we see the automatic ladders, called elevators or escalators, which lead the people to the top. In the same way, in the initial stages of spirituality one has to struggle hard, then gradually there is ease to the extent that eventually, the living ladders of God start to carry the travellers of spirituality.
The heavenly teaching of verse (89:27-30) is: "O you satisfied soul, return to your Lord well-pleased (with Him) and (He) well-pleased (with you); enter then among My (chosen) servants, enter then My paradise." Here by "Enter then among My chosen servants" means: Enter the personal world of My Prophets and Imams, who are My Paradise and also return to Me.
The human body cannot reach the exalted court of God, but it is his heart which, linked with true knowledge and good deed, reaches there. In order to achieve this goal, the good deed becomes a throne, on which sits a pure word consisting of knowledge, `ibādat and the reality of the heart and then they ascend to the Divine court and merge with the word and act of God. See verse (35:10).
To die the death of living martyrs before the physical death and to merge with the light is the return (57:12, 57:19; 66:8). It is that supreme bliss which is mentioned in the Qur'ān in different examples, as in verse (9:111) it is said that Allāh purchases from mu'mins their souls and their properties in return for which they will be given Paradise. Now, according to this decree, just as the physical jihād is obligatory and martyrdom possible, so also is the spiritual jihād obligatory and spiritual martyrdom possible.
No mu'min can doubt the fact that the Wise Qur'ān is not only in the external world, but also in the Guarded Tablet (85:21-22) in the form of spirit and spirituality and in a Hidden Book (56:75-80) as well, which can be touched only by the purified ones. In the light of the Qur'ān, who used to purify the mu'mins in the time of the Prophet and how? You will certainly say that it was the Prophet who used to purify them by teaching them knowledge, wisdom and through other means (2:151; 9:103; 62:2). And who can accomplish this extremely important work after the Holy Prophet? Is there nobody to do this work now? This special work can only be done by those whom God has purified together with His beloved Prophet in every respect for the purpose of accomplishing this work (33:33) and they are the Imams of the pure Ahl-i bayt, whose luminous representative is the Imam of the time. Thus as a result those mu'mins who are purified by them (Imams) become able to touch the Hidden Book, and are those who have returned.
Return is of two kinds: one is in the higher "I", which has already taken place in the rank of azal and the other is related to the lower "I" which has to be accomplished in this life time, otherwise, the return will not be willingly, but unwillingly (3:83).
When the sun is in the east or in the west, the shadow of a person extends far, but if it is exactly above the head, the shadow returns to its centre. This shows that the return of the lower "I" is not possible without closeness to the light.
God has extended the lower "I"'s of the people who are parts and shadows of the Single Soul, which when He wills, gather in the Perfect Man, then with great ease, He raises them to Himself by taking them in the fist of His hand (25:45-46). In this respect, there are three places for human beings. Firstly, they are spread in bodies, secondly, they are gathered in the Perfect Man in the form of particles and thirdly, they have become one in the light of intellect, which is the return, provided one observes it.
Study carefully verses (2:155-157) in the Wise Qur'ān, how extremely great is the return to Allāh and how difficult are its conditions. For instance, the trial of His servants by God: every kind of fear and hunger, loss of property and soul, dearth of fruits and to have patience and remember God in these and other such states and to say: We belong to God and to Him we have to return.
According to God everything is in a quantity (13:8), thus for return also, there is a specific quantity of knowledge, `ibādat and good deeds. Therefore, until a mu'min acquires that quantity, the command of "Be" cannot be applicable to him. If it is applied to him after fulfilling the conditions, then according to the Qur'ān, he becomes an amr (thing) among the umūr (pl. of amr). That is, a creature that is brought into existence from the word "Be", through ibdā` and it is only such creatures (umūr) who return to God (2:117; 3:109).
Every Perfect Man returns to God in this life, in the way that he completely experiences the spiritual death during this life time, which is full of secrets and after certain stages he finds himself in the world of oneness being annihilated in God at the place of intellect, in which there are all those manifestations of God, which are mentioned under the titles of azal, abad and Paradise. This means that those who are annihilated being immersed in the ocean of vision, surprisingly attain (eternal) survival in the Image of the Compassionate or the Face of God.
According to a sacred tradition, God was a hidden treasure, and we can say that this treasure is still hidden. That is, His veils are based on extremely difficult but extremely useful secrets. And he who recognises these great secrets, this treasure will belong to his "I" and to those like him. This is the gist and indication of that entire Hadīth, otherwise God would not have named His essence "treasure", while the treasure is not for itself, but for the benefit of others. This explanation is according to the meaning of "Allāhu's-Samad (Allāh is free from any kind of need)". Thus all His treasures or the sense in which He Himself is a treasure, everything is for His servants. This is the ultimate meaning of return.

Nasīr al-Dīn Nasīr Hunzā'ī,
London,
28th December, 1986.

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