View
171
Download
4
Category
Tags:
Preview:
Citation preview
SEEING
AND BEING
SEEN By Gai Eaton
These precious talks on Islam, ninety in all, and each one a jewel
of less than 700 words, were written and delivered by Gai Eaton
for the Reflections and Words of Faith series of short Friday
broadcasts by the BBC between 1978 and 1996.
They provide a beautifully clear and accessible introduction to the
central tenets, principles and practices at the heart of Islam. As
such, they are not only a unique guide for non-Muslims, but also
an inspiring reminder to Muslims of the essence of the faith.
As yet unpublished, the Book Foundation is privileged to be able
to serialise these talks in printed form as a monthly offering, starting
with five talks delivered in October 1986.
Seeing and Being Seen (1)
by Gai Eaton
The Prophet made use of three terms to define our religion: first,
islam, meaning submission to God and to His law; then iman,
meaning faith in God and in what He has revealed to us, and
finally ihsan, which is usually translated as "excellence", in other
words "submission" and "faith" brought to their highest point,
perfected. And he defined ihsan in this way: It is to worship God as
though you saw Him; for, though you see Him not, yet He sees
you".
The Quran – the sacred Scripture of Islam – speaks again and
again of God as al-Basir, the All-Seeing, and also as al-Khabir, He
who is totally aware of everything. "Not a leaf falls but He knows it",
says the Quran; and "He knows the secret thoughts and what is
even more hidden".
So He sees us at every moment, and He sees into the most secret
recesses of our being. Now here, I think, we are on dangerous
ground. I have known people brought up in a Christian
environment who have turned against religion precisely because
they were taught, as children, that God is some sort of super-Spy.
They were told that a fearsome Old Man in the Sky sees everything
that they do; he was just waiting to catch them out when they
were naughty, and he would punish them even for those shameful
secret thoughts which they hardly dared acknowledge to
themselves. No wonder they rebelled against this. Most of us have
an impulse to duck when we come into a building and notice a
security camera pointing in our direction. Surely we have a right to
a bit of privacy?
This is not – I believe – the way Muslims understand God's all-seeing
presence. They find it reassuring, comforting. They are glad not to
be alone in an alien universe. They want to be understood, and
they know that they are understood. The sense of loneliness which
haunts many people, just below the threshold of everyday life,
cries out for love, friendship, companionship and is not easily
satisfied; cries out, in truth, for the divine Presence. In our personal
relationships in this world we seek to be understood, at least by the
people we love and by our friends; but also, perhaps, by our
enemies for, if only we could explain ourselves to them, they
would not be our enemies. Even if we are embarrassed to admit it,
we do look for the ideal lover, the ideal friend, even the
reconciled enemy.
What a relief, then, to discover that – in the only way it really
matters – we are totally understood because we are totally
known. What a relief also to be aware that there is one Person in
whose presence we no longer have to pretend or deceive or
protect ourselves. One of the Names given to God in the Quran is
"The Friend"; the Sufis – the "mystics" of Islam – have gone further
and dared to call Him "The Beloved". Whether we are Muslims or
Christians we know – or should know! – that our God is no tyrant,
and that He who made us as we are is in the best position to know
us and to forgive us. The Quran insists constantly upon the divine
Mercy; His Mercy, it tells us, "embraces all things" – and He can
hardly wait to forgive us for our sins and our stupidities. But He has
to wait, if only for a moment, to give us time to understand, in
other words to "repent" and to acknowledge, in the light of the
truth, that we have fallen short of what could reasonably be
expected of us. "Repentance" does not imply self-indulgent and
self-pitying guilt; it means turning back to God when we had
turned away from Him and admitting the simple truth of our
situation. As we turn – at the very moment at which we turn – He
turns to us, and the barriers which we had wilfully erected
between Him and us are dissolved. He was always there, waiting;
it is we who had made ourselves absent from Him. We have come
back where we always belonged. We are known, understood,
seen and forgiven.
(Broadcast by the BBC in October 1986 in the Reflections series of
short Friday talks)
Seeing and Being Seen (2)
by Gai Eaton
I talked last week about the Muslim's conviction – based upon
what the Quran teaches – that we are seen by God at every
moment of our lives and that even our most secret thoughts are
exposed to Him, which is one way of saying that we live constantly
in the divine Presence. It could even be said that awareness of this
Presence is at the very heart of the Islamic way of life. "When My
servants question thee concerning Me", says the Quran, which is –
for us – the Word of God revealed through Muhammad, "then
indeed I am close. I answer the prayer of the supplicant when he
cries unto Me. So let them hear My call, and let them trust in Me".
There are certain sayings of the Prophet, quite separate from the
Quranic revelation, in which God spoke directly through his
mouth. Let me quote to you one of the most important of these
inspired sayings: "I am with (my servant) when he makes mention
of Me. If he makes mention of Me to himself, I make mention of
him to Myself; and if he makes mention of Me in company, I make
mention of him in a better company than that; and if he draws
near to Me a hand's span, I draw near to him an arm's length; and
if he draws near to Me an arm's length, I draw near to him a
fathom's length; and if he comes to Me walking, I go to him
speedily".
A whole book could be written – in fact books have been written!
– by way of commentary on that saying, but let us consider just
one point. "I am with (my servant) when he makes mention of Me".
But isn't He always with us? Yes, of course He is. But are we aware
of the fact? Probably not, most of the time. That is why we behave
the way we do. We are busy, everyday life occupies our attention
to the exclusion of everything else. We forget; and the Quran
refers again and again to man's forgetfulness. But isn't there
something rather foolish and incompetent about people who
keep forgetting where they are and in Whose Presence they
stand, each day and every day? Well, perhaps if we
acknowledge our own foolishness and incompetence, we may
already have taken a step towards God. The next step is to do
something about it, and that is to "mention" Him, whether "in
ourselves" or "in company".
That might not seem to amount to very much, but – in Islam – it is
the key both to faith and to practice. The Arabic word dhikr has
two meanings: "mention" and "remembrance", and God tells us in
the Quran: "Remember Me, and I will remember thee!". What we
are doing when we "mention" His Name is reminding ourselves of
His Presence, waking up from the dream in which we live so much
of the time and recollecting where we are. This, you see, is simply
a matter of realism. If I am in London but, for some stupid reason, I
think that I am in Paris, then I'm likely to get everything wrong and
make a fool of myself. And if, as Islam teaches, everything that we
do and everything that we think is seen and known by God, then
to forget this is to forget where we are.
But this raises another point, with which I hope to deal in my next
talk. If we don't know where we are, then it's very likely that we
don't know who we are. And what could be worse than that?
There is a verse of the Quran which says: "They forget God,
therefore He has caused them to forget themselves". To
understand ourselves means to know ourselves in relation to
reality; it is to see ourselves as we are in the light of the truth. If we
have forgotten what the truth is and if we therefore live in a
fantasy world, we cannot even begin to know who we are. Self-
knowledge depends upon knowledge of the Presence of God.
(Broadcast by the BBC in October 1986 in the Reflections series of
short Friday talks)
Seeing and Being Seen (3)
by Gai Eaton
Last week I quoted to you a verse from the Quran which tells us
that, if we forget God, He makes us forget ourselves. Another way
of putting this, also derived from the Quran, is to say that He
leaves us to wander this world like blind men. The Book speaks of
those who have "hearts wherewith they understand not, and eyes
wherewith they see not, and ears wherewith they hear not", and it
compares such people to "cattle".
But let us consider, for the moment, one particular kind of
blindness: the inability to see or know or understand ourselves.
There is a line from a poem by the Scots poet, Robbie Burns which
has probably been quoted more often than any other line of
poetry. I can't do a Scots accent, but it goes like this: "Would the
good Lord the giftie gie' us to see ourselves as others see us".
Perhaps that should be taken with a grain of salt. If we could really
see ourselves as others see us, we would be in the position of
someone standing in front of a whole row of distorting mirrors,
each showing a different image; we might become so confused
that we would be paralysed. But supposing we change the poet's
words and say: "Would the good Lord the giftie gie' us to see
ourselves as He sees us"? That is quite a different matter.
What is it that makes us so unwilling to look at ourselves calmly and
objectively? Fear, I suppose, and defensiveness. If we were to
admit our weaknesses to ourselves we would – so we think – be
weakened in the face of the world and less able to cope with the
dangers and the problems that surround us; and, if we don't build
up our own "image", no one else is going to do it for us. Of what
use is a deflated balloon, even if there is a fierce-looking face
painted on it? We must blow the balloon up and present that
face to the world.
But there's a problem here. The more we try to live a lie, the more
vulnerable we become. We're afraid of being caught out by other
people; above all, we're afraid of being caught out by ourselves.
A lie always needs to be supported by further lies, and then by still
more lies, until we find that we have constructed a house of cards
that may be blown down at any moment. What happens then? A
nervous breakdown, perhaps, or what the psychiatrists call an
"identity crisis". Self-deception has its dangers, to say the least.
But, to be able to do without self-deception, we have to feel
secure, and, speaking as a Muslim, I believe, that this sense of
security can come about in only one way. That is from the
knowledge that, even here and now in this turbulent world, we
are living in the presence of God, who see us objectively, and yet
with mercy and loving-kindness. In that all-seeing Presence there is
no longer any point in lying or in pretending to be other than we
are. This, surely, is what we call "serenity"; to be oneself, to
recognise oneself, in the calm certainty that He sees us as we are
and accepts us as we are.
If we are aware of living in that Presence, then we are aware of
living face-to-face with the truth: a bright, clear light that
encompasses everything. In that light we are free, not only to see
ourselves, without false pride or false guilt, but also to look around
us, no longer hampered by tunnel-vision, and see things as they
really are. And what they are, in the Presence of God, is
something quite different to what they appear to be when we
consider them only in terms of self-interest – in the way cattle see
them. They have become symbols of what exists above and
beyond them; and that is what I want to discuss next week.
(Broadcast by the BBC in October 1986 in the Reflections series of
short Friday talks)
Seeing and Being Seen (4)
by Gai Eaton
"Seeing and being seen" was what I had thought of calling this
series of "Reflections". So far I've talked mainly about "being seen",
being aware that we live in the Presence of God. But in every
aspect of religious life there's a kind of reciprocity between God
and man; there are two sides to every coin. There's a connection
between "seeing" and "being seen", as is clearly suggested by this
verse of the Quran: "We" – and this is God speaking through
revelation – "We shall show them Our signs on the horizons and
within themselves until it is evident to them that this is the truth. Are
they not, then, satisfied with their Lord in that He is the Witness over
all things?"
The fact that things point beyond themselves – but for which they
would be dead ends – is a recurrent theme of the Quran. "Truly",
the Book tells us, "in the heavens and the earth are signs for those
who believe; and in your own creation and in the animals He
scatters in the earth, are signs for people whose faith is sure; and in
the alternation of night and day and in the provision that God
sends down from the heavens, quickening the earth after her
death, and in the ordering of the winds, are signs for people of
understanding". Even the colours of this colourful world have
something to tell us; they have, says the Quran, "a message for
people who are aware". And then again:- "God does not disdain
to coin the similitude even of a gnat, or of something still
smaller….." Well, that is a fairly comprehensive list: the wind, the
rain, the animals – even a gnat – the plants, light and darkness;
you and me. In other words everything – every single thing, great
or small – points towards its Creator and says to us: "Don't look just
at me, look at Him who made me!"
One of the greatest philosophers of Islam, al-Ghazali, said that
everything we see here, and that includes ourselves, has two
faces; a face of its own and a face of God – or we could say, a
"sign" of God.
He adds that, so far as its own face is concerned, it is nothing; in
relation to the "face of God" it is being – it's real. Modern science
can tell us a lot about the "nothingness" of things, but their
meaning is beyond its range; and that is what really concerns us.
But how do we discover meaning? First through Revelation;
secondly through "seeing eyes". Revelation – and I'm thinking
particularly of the Quran – reminds us of what we so easily forget.
It says: "See! God is"; and then it explains all that follows from that
overwhelming fact. But what about "seeing eyes"? You and I can't
tell ourselves: "At midday, on the dot, I'll start to see the signs of
God in everything around me". That kind of vision is a gift, but we
can at least do something to fit ourselves to receive this gift, which
brings me back to what I said earlier about living in the divine
Presence. It is actually in our power to remind ourselves again and
again of this simple fact of life.
The Prophet was asked once what was the best cure for
forgetfulness – or for what the Quran calls "rust on the heart" – and
he said it was to think frequently of death and to remember God
constantly. You see, if we forget how soon we shall have to die,
and if we overlook the fact that everything around us is perishing
before our eyes, then we're living in a fantasy world. It is only when
we wake up to the truth that the perishable, once it is recognised
as such, points towards the Imperishable, and things lost in time
point towards the Timeless, that our vision pierces through surface
appearances. I spoke earlier of the "tunnel vision" of people who
forget these truths. Our religion convinces us that there is light at
the end of the tunnel; and that is all that really matters.
(Broadcast by the BBC in October 1986 in the Reflections series of
short Friday talks)
Seeing and Being Seen (5)
by Gai Eaton
I reminded you last week that everything around us is perishable,
here one moment and gone the next, and that we ourselves are
short-lived creatures. When the end comes, says the Quran, "you
will think that you tarried for no more than an hour". According to
another verse, God will ask us: "How long did you live on earth,
counting in years?". We will answer, in confusion: "We lived for a
day or a part thereof – ask those who can count!", because we
ourselves will have lost all sense of time. Then our Creator will ask:
"Did you think that We created you for no purpose and that you
would never come back to Us?"
That question seems to me to indicate a paradox. If we live for
such a short time, then does anything matter? Do we matter?
After all, the Quran tells us at one point that life is made up mainly
of trivialities, and the Hereafter "is better and more lasting". Let us
take a simple, everyday comparison. Suppose you find yourself
spending a few days in a strange place: you could, of course, say,
"I'm here such a short time, it doesn't matter what happens". But
then again, you might say the opposite, you might say: "I'll be
gone so soon, every moment I spend here is precious". And if you
knew that the rest of your life depended on what you did in those
few days, I think I can guess what you'd say. The Quran
emphasises life's brevity, but it speaks also of "a life long enough
for those who are prepared to take thought to do so"; to take
thought, to reflect, to see and to understand. That is the point. We
are given the time we need.
For Muslims, the Quran is God's final revelation, His last word. This is
why it conveys such a sense of urgency. Don't waste time – it
seems to tell us – you have none to spare! And a Muslim
philosopher wrote: "Neither eat nor drink nor sleep without
presence of heart and a seeing eye". In other words, remember
where you are and observe God's "signs" scattered all around you.
There are a thousand different ways in which this could be
illustrated. I could take examples of heroism and self-sacrifice, or
talk of saints whose utter devotion to God dazzles us. But
sometimes it's the small things that demonstrate most vividly what
it means to be constantly aware. So let me take a very humble
example of "presence of heart and a seeing eye".
A few years ago travellers in North Africa often stopped to stare at
rather a strange sight. They would see a man bend down, pick
something up from the road, put it for a moment to his forehead
and then place it safely on the nearest wall. What was it that this
man treated with such respect? Usually a crust of bread, dropped
by a passer-by; nothing more than that, but then our nourishment
comes from God. Or it might have been a scrap of paper with
writing on it, possibly the name of God. That too deserved better
than to be trodden underfoot.
What a small gesture, and yet – what a momentous
acknowledgement! An acknowledgement of the fact that the
sacred surrounds us and that we can never be too busy to
recognise it. And what is this recognition of the sacred if not a
practical sign of awareness that we live, every moment, in the
presence of God, amongst things which come from Him and
belong to Him – though we are allowed to borrow them, - things
which bear His signature upon them.
I mentioned earlier that, according to the Quran, "God disdains
not to coin the similitude even of a gnat"; so why not a crust of
bread, a scrap of paper? If He is indeed present with us, wherever
we may be – and the Quran tells us that this is so – then everything
is in his Presence. For those who have "hearts that understand and
eyes that see", things shine and glitter with a light that is not their
own. It is said that the Prophet used to pray: "Lord, increase me in
marvelling!"; and those who see do, indeed, marvel – and
increase throughout their lives in marvelling.
(Broadcast by the BBC in October 1986 in the Reflections series of
short Friday talks)
Beauty
by Gai Eaton
Talks #6-9: Beauty from Short Talks on Islam by Gai Eaton
(broadcast by the BBC between 1978 and 1996).
These precious talks on Islam, ninety in all, and each one a jewel
of less than 700 words, were written and delivered by Gai Eaton
for the Reflections and Words of Faith series of short Friday
broadcasts by the BBC between 1978 and 1996.
They provide a beautifully clear and accessible introduction to the
central tenets, principles and practices at the heart of Islam. As
such, they are not only a unique guide for non-Muslims, but also
an inspiring reminder to Muslims of the essence of the faith.
As yet unpublished, the Book Foundation is privileged to be able
to serialise these talks in printed form as a monthly offering.
Beauty (1)
by Gai Eaton
I returned the other day from a holiday in France, staying for a
while with friends in the South. They have bought an old
farmhouse, right up in the mountains, and rebuilt it with space for
a dozen or more people. Both husband and wife are trained
psychologists, and they hold courses for townspeople who've lost
all sense of purpose in their lives. They try to help people who are
not exactly sick, but who are empty, and I'm sure they do help
them. But I'm equally sure that the astonishing beauty of the
landscape in which that farmhouse is set also contributes to the
healing process, for healing is related to wholeness and, in such a
place as that, you begin to feel "whole", at home in the world
(because it's so beautiful) and at home in yourself.
Speaking as a Muslim, this is just what I would expect. The very
word "Islam" comes from a word meaning "peace". The most
basic principle of the religion is Unity:- first the unity of God, who is
One without equal, without associate, then the unity of His
creation in which every element, however tiny, has its place and
its function, and finally the unity achieved in every man and
woman once they know who they are and where they are going,
at peace with their Lord, at peace in the world, at peace with
themselves.
That peace is closely bound up with the awareness of beauty. In
one of his most famous sayings, the Prophet Muhammad told his
people: Allahu jamilun yuhibbu'l-jamal – "God is beautiful and He
loves beauty!". Now that is not a statement about feelings or
impressions. It is a statement about the nature of Reality. And
that, in turn, suggests something very important. It suggests that
ugliness – and, Yes!, there's plenty of that in the world in which we
live – is not on an equal footing with beauty. It's not one of a pair,
like hot and cold, black and white; it represents the spoiling of
beauty, the unmaking of what had been well made, the denial of
God or His seeming absence. You might compare it to a hole in
the pattern, a stain on the fabric, and it belongs to that class of
things which, so the Quran tells us, last for but a short time and are
then wiped away, while beauty endures. To know this is to possess
a sense of the sacred and so to be aware of the radiance that
illuminates unspoilt nature from within and which may be found
also in the things we make, when these are well and lovingly
made. The tragedy of modern man, in the midst of his riches and
his technological achievements, is that he has lost this sense of the
sacred and lives in a world drained of light.
No wonder the people who come to my friends' farmhouse need
help. They live in cities from which beauty has been banished as
an irrelevance, as though it were a luxury which we can do
without, and this is an environment in which it is difficult to believe
in God since it has been constructed in forgetfulness of Him; and –
in Islam – to forget God is the greatest sin, or the root of all other
sins. Those who have told us, over the past century, that "God is
dead" should have had the honesty to complete the sentence:-
"God is dead, therefore man is dead!" When nothing in our
surroundings reminds us of Him, then He does – in a sense – die in
our hearts, and all that makes life worth living dies with Him.
But those visitors to the farmhouse are fortunate. Not everyone
has such opportunities, to say the least. Of what use is it to
suggest to the majority of city dwellers that they should turn to the
empty spaces of virgin nature, where the sacred is nakedly
apparent and where souls are healed? Their lives are restricted to
the narrow streets in which no one has the time to say "Good day!"
and in which the roar of traffic drowns the human voice. Is there
no escape for them, no possibility of healing? God willing, I hope
to take up this point next week.
(Broadcast by the BBC in August 1987 in the Reflections series of
short Friday talks)
Beauty (2)
by Gai Eaton
I talked last week about the healing powers of unspoilt nature and
I talked about beauty – the seal of authenticity that God has
placed on His creation – but I had to admit that a vast number of
people in the world today are isolated from nature by an ugly
man-made environment from which they cannot escape. Thus is
that entirely true? Is anyone totally cut off from the good things
that God has given us? Surely not! But, while those who are lucky
enough to live in the midst of beauty need make no effort to
enjoy what they have been given, the rest of us have to get down
to work and teach ourselves to appreciate the gifts that come our
way. No one need make an effort to see God's presence in
mountains, rivers and forests, but to find joy in a single flower or to
feel respect for a crust of bread is a different matter. It requires
what is called – in Islam – the unceasing "remembrance of God",
and it requires an understanding of the simple fact that everything
created praises its Creator and reminds us of Him.
"Do you not see", asks the Quran, "that everything in the heavens
and all that is in the earth adores God, as do the sun and the
moon and the stars, and the hills and the trees and the beasts,
and many of mankind...?"
The tale is told of a Muslim Sufi Master who sent his youngest
disciple to gather flowers for the house. The young man was gone
a long time, and he finally returned with one miserable bloom in
his hand. The Master raised an eyebrow – perhaps both eyebrows
– and asked for an explanation. "When I went to pick the flowers",
said the disciple, "I found them all singing the praises of their Lord
and Creator, and I dared not interrupt them; but then I saw that
one had finished her song. This is the one that I have brought
you".
Until fairly recently, when the habits of modern life began to get a
real grip on the area, travelers in North Africa used often to be
struck by rather a puzzling sight. They would observe a man
walking down the street – going about his business – stop
suddenly, bend down, pick up a discarded crust of bread and,
after touching it to his forehead, place it safely on the nearest
wall.
What does that story tell us, and what is the significance of this act
of respect and gratitude for the nourishment God gives us – even
for a dry crust? Both the story and the action demonstrate, in the
first place, a true sense of the sacred and an awareness that this
sense of the sacred embraces all that God has made, all that He
has given for our sustenance or for our delight. Everything we see
when we open our eyes, everything we grasp when we hold out
our hands comes from Him and – when rightly used – reminds us of
Him. Muhammad used to pray: Oh my Lord, increase me in
marvelling!
But we also have to understand that everything in existence has
certain rights, and our own rights do not extend to misusing these
things, squandering them, exploiting them. I can imagine
someone saying: "This is really too much! Women's rights, animal
rights, even plant rights, and now you talk about the rights of sticks
and stones! Where will it end?" It has no end – that's the only
possible answer. We didn't make the world. You cannot, the
Quran tells us, even create a fly. And the Quran assures us also
that the whole universe is like a vast picture-book filled with the
"signs" of God, if only we have eyes to see and the sense to
understand. In other words, nothing is merely what it seems.
Appearances – as people so often tell us – are deceptive and, if
we float only on the surface of the world around us, then we are
indeed deceived. There is always more to it than that, and then
more and more, until you have plumbed the depths and found –
behind the seventy thousand veils of light and darkness, the face
of God.
(Broadcast by the BBC in August 1987 in the Reflections series of
short Friday talks)
Beauty (3)
by Gai Eaton
I said last week that, from the Muslim point of view, even the little
things which surround us or of which we make use in our daily lives
can serve to remind us of God and therefore deserve to be
treated with respect. These things form part of the material world,
and how often have you been told – how often have I been told –
that we are "too materialistic" in this modern age? If that means
simply that we are too greedy for material possessions, then it's a
fair criticism; but I'm going to suggest to you that – in one very
important sense – we are not materialistic enough. You and I –
unless we are either mystics or scientists – see the material world as
a solid, inert lump. We seldom bother to look beneath the
surface. For the Muslim mystic however it is a tapestry into which
the "signs" of God are woven. But how does the contemporary
physicist see it? He too is obliged to probe beneath the surface
and, the deeper he penetrates, the greater the mystery which
faces him. This solid table in front of me is, he says, a space in
which minute quanta of energy move at incredible speeds:
particles, he calls them but then he corrects himself and says that
they are waves which sometimes behave like particles – or
particles which sometimes behave like waves. It is all very
confusing, and so it should be, for it reminds us that nothing is as it
seems and that mystery surrounds our little enclosure of "common
sense".
Is this unsettling? If it is, then I am sure we need to be "unsettled".
Earlier in this series of "reflections" I spoke of those people who
have lost all sense of purpose, who live in a grey, monotonous
world and who need contact with the splendours of virgin nature
if they are to be healed. But what we have to understand – and
perhaps what they need to understand – is that their "grey" world
is an illusion. The fault is not in their surroundings but in themselves.
"It is not the eyes that grow blind," says the Quran in this context,
"but the hearts within the breasts that grow blind".
There is a story which crops up in several different traditions; I first
came across it in Hinduism, but then I discovered it again in a
Muslim book. It goes like this:- A man living at a certain address in
Baghdad (let's say "Baghdad" for convenience, but it could be
any city) has a vivid dream in which he learns that a vast treasure
is hidden under the floor of a certain house in Cairo. He sets out to
seek this treasure, and it's a hard journey; he gets mugged on the
way, he nearly drowns and he comes close to starvation, but in
the end he arrives at the address in Cairo. The owner of the house
says: "You've just caught me – I was about to set out for Baghdad,
for I dreamed the other night that a great treasure was hidden
under the floor of a certain house there". I think you can guess
whose house that is! The traveler returns home – no doubt getting
mugged again on the way – and, sure enough, the treasure is
under his own living-room. Did he make a wasted journey? The
moral of the story is that we sometimes have to venture out and
travel far in order to find the treasure which was always ours.
We have all that we need – you and I and anyone else you care
to name. That's one of the basic principles of the spiritual life. But
we need help, a great deal of help, to discover what we already
possess. That help comes, obviously, from God provided we ask
for it eagerly and in all sincerity. But, as Muslim, Jew and Christian
will agree, He uses many instruments, and in fact – in His hands –
anyone or anything can become an instrument of guidance: men
and women, the beauties of nature, true works of art, the little
things we handle each day – even sticks and stones. But we have
to do our part. We have to ask!
(Broadcast by the BBC in August 1987 in the Reflections series of
short Friday talks)
Beauty (4)
By Gai Eaton
In this series of short reflections I’ve been talking about beauty – its
healing properties – and about the praise which rises from every
created thing towards its Creator. "Have you not seen", asks the
Quran, "that God is He whom all in the heavens and the earth
praise, and the birds in their flight? He indeed knows the worship
and the praise of each, and God is aware of all that they do".
And the pious Muslim, when things go badly for him, says: "al-
hamdu lillahi 'ala kulli hal"; "Praise be to God under all
circumstances"; not just on the bright day, but on the dark one
too.
But what is really meant by this much abused word, "praise"? It
may have different meanings for different people, but – for the
Muslim, anyway – it suggests that what is given by God is
transmuted on earth into praise of the Giver, just as the falling rain
is transmuted into a vapour which returns to the clouds. Men and
women praise consciously when they are aware of the source of
their existence; sticks and stones praise by their very existence, for
existence is itself a miracle. According to the Quran, God "says
unto a thing 'Be!', and it is"; and however humble its situation here,
among the people of the earth or among the stones of the earth,
it is the direct product of God's command and therefore
participates, in some way, in the mystery of His being. This –
precisely – is why it can serve as a "reminder", inviting us to focus
our attention, not upon what has been made, but upon its Maker.
"He scatters His mercy", says the Quran, just as the rain is scattered
over the dry land, and we – you and I – take and use as much of
this as we may be capable of absorbing. Listen to the Quran
once again: "God sends down rain from the sky so that the valleys
flow according to their measure, and the flood bears away
swelling foam ... thus does God indicate the true and the false. As
for the foam, it passes away as scum upon the banks, while – as
for that which is of use to mankind – it remains in the earth".
But, in talking of beauty and praise, the healing powers of nature
and the meaning hidden in sticks and stones, have I left out
something important? What about the "do's" and "Don'ts" of
religion? They have, ultimately, one purpose, and that is to
establish harmony, balance, order within the individual personality
as also in society; the same harmony, balance and order visible in
creation as a whole, maintaining the birds in their flight, turning the
growing plant towards the life-giving sun, and bringing the fruit to
ripeness on the tree. In the disordered personality and in the
disordered society, the "Do's" and "Don'ts" may have to be
imposed, but those are conditions under which the equilibrium
inherent in creation has already been disturbed as happens when
people forget who they are and where they are going.
There is another word for equilibrium in the human domain, and
that is "sanity", bearing in mind its derivation from the Latin sanus,
which means neither more nor less than "healthy". Health is what
those unhappy townspeople (whom I mentioned in the first talk of
this series) are seeking when they take refuge with my friends in
the French mountains. Perhaps that is what we all seek, at the
level of the spirit as also at the bodily level? And "health",
understood in its deepest sense, relates to the most fundamental
principle of the religion of Islam. This is Tawhid: unity, unification,
wholeness, the inter-connectedness of every single thing from the
highest to the lowest; the Oneness of God reflected in the oneness
of being.
When we are aware of this unity, then we are at home wherever
we may find ourselves; when we forget it, we are isolated even in
the warmest embrace. It is then that we need help, and help in
offered through the thousand-and-one things we see and touch.
But we have to reach out, we have to ask. The answer comes
with the asking.
(Broadcast by the BBC in August 1987 in the Reflections series of
short Friday talks)
Islam, Nature and the Environment
by Gai Eaton
Talks #10-12: Islam, Nature and the Environment from Short Talks on
Islam (broadcast by the BBC between 1978 and 1996).
These precious talks on Islam, ninety in all, and each one a jewel
of less than 700 words, were written and delivered by Gai Eaton
for the Reflections and Words of Faith series of short Friday
broadcasts by the BBC between 1978 and 1996.
They provide a beautifully clear and accessible introduction to the
central tenets, principles and practices at the heart of Islam. As
such, they are not only a unique guide for non-Muslims, but also
an inspiring reminder to Muslims of the essence of the faith.
As yet unpublished, the Book Foundation is privileged to be able
to serialise these talks in printed form as a monthly offering.
Islam, Nature and the Environment (1)
The Whole Earth as a Mosque
by Gai Eaton
One of the oddest things about the people who reject what they
call "organised religion" in favour of strange cults is that they so
readily replace the profound with the superficial. The great
religions have a breadth and a depth which could never be
explored, even in a lifetime, whereas the cults, when their surface
glamour is scraped away, are empty and narrow. But it is
inevitable that the believers in the great Faiths find in them more
than they can absorb – dare one say more than they can use? –
and often neglect aspects of their religion which do not seem
immediately relevant to their lives. This, I believe, has been the
case with a majority of Muslims who have tended to
ignore what the Quran has to say about our environment and
regarding our obligations towards the animal creation.
The Quran speaks of the Day when the earth will "yield up her
burdens". She will then "tell her tales". "On that Day", we read,
"mankind will issue separately, to be shown their deeds. Whosever
has done an atom's weight of good will see it then, and
whosoever has done an atom's weight of ill will see it".
It might be said that we leave our fingerprints on everything that
we touch, and they remain in place long after we have gone on
our way. But this is only one side of the relationship we have with
everything around us, a relationship of reciprocity. We are not
insulated from our surroundings. We are, so to speak, porous and
soak up elements from what ever we see, hear or touch. When
we treat the natural world only as an object to be exploited and
conquered, we are damaging ourselves. Environmentalists
predict that our abuse of the earth will have disastrous
consequences for humanity as a whole, but that may be the least
of our worries. The consequences are on many different levels;
the higher the level, the more deadly they are likely to be. "Work
not confusion in the earth after the fair ordering thereof", says the
Quran.
The Muslim is assured that the whole earth is a mosque for him.
The walled buildings to which he is summoned to prayer are simply
a convenience. The fields, the forest and the desert are equally
fitting as places of prayer and therefore demand the same
respect that is accorded to a conventional mosque. To show
respect for everything that God has created is a part of faith, for
everything bears the imprint of His hand. The man or woman who
stands, bows and prostrates in the midst of nature is a member of
a universal congregation, joining in a universal prayer. "All that is
in the heavens and the earth glorifies God", says the Quran.
The beauties of the earth are, the Quran tells us, a "reminder to
mankind", a reminder to those who are disposed to remember
their origin and their end. For such as these, the natural world
sparkles with light. It is not some chance agglomeration of atoms,
unrelated to our innermost being. It gives, if we are receptive to
the gift, and it receives if we, in our turn, offer it the care which is its
right. The objective world around us and our human subjectivity
might be compared to two circles which intersect rather than
float, separate and divided, independently of each other. This is
implicit in the Islamic principle of Tawhid, the Oneness of God and
the unbroken unity of all that He has created. It is implicit also in
the word "cosmos" (as opposed to "universe", a neutral term that
implies nothing. The "cosmos" is, by definition, an ordered and
harmonious whole, in which the parts are inter-dependent. "No
man is an island", as the poet Donne said, and the human
creature - totally dependent on God, but dependent also upon
the environment - is for ever in the bonds of need and the net of
love.
(Broadcast by the BBC in December 1996 in the Words of Faith
series)
Islam, Nature and the Environment (2)
Rediscovering the Signs of God in Nature
by Gai Eaton
Last week I drew attention to the importance which the Quran
attaches to the environment, the natural world, as a "reminder"
which helps us to keep God always present in our awareness.
Nothing in our surroundings is quite what it seems, or rather nothing
is only what it seems, and, for the Muslim, it is a part of faith to look
upon all things with "seeing eyes". But to perceive, even dimly,
these inescapable "signs of God" requires a child's eye preserved
into maturity. The Prophet is reported to have prayed: "Lord,
increase me in marvelling!" This is how a child sees the world, fresh
from the Hand of God and full of wonders but, with the passage
of the years, the vision fades. Yet, in the words of the Quran, "It is
not the eyes that grow blind but the hearts within the breasts that
grow blind". Imbued with faith, the heart may still regain its sight,
its insight.
The loss of harmony between man and his environment is but an
aspect of the loss of harmony between man and his Creator.
Those who turn their backs on their Creator and forget Him can no
longer feel at home in creation. "God's Viceregent on earth", as
the Quran describes the man who truly fulfils his human function, is
then no longer the custodian of nature and has become a
stranger in the world, a stranger who cannot recognise the
landmarks or conform to the customs of this place.
Today, whether we are Muslims or Christians – or of any other Faith
– we seem to have lost the key to the language of "signs", God's
language. That is dangerous, particularly for the Muslim for whom
the Quran must eventually become a partially closed book if its
constant references to the natural world as a tissue of "signs" no
longer coincide with his experience or touch his heart. Since
everything has to be spelled out nowadays, there are many who
will ask – "But what do these signs mean?" If they could be
expressed in words they would be redundant. They touch us at a
deeper level than articulate speech.
The Prophet Muhammad is reported to have said: "God is
beautiful and He loves beauty". To speak of the natural world is to
speak of beauty, whether we are receptive to it or not. And what
is this beauty if not an act of adoration? "Do you not see", asks the
Quran, "that everything in the heavens and all that is in the earth
pays adoration to God, as do the sun and the moon and the stars,
the hills and the trees and the beasts?" It is only too easy to see
this as a "poetic" statement, not to be taken quite literally. On the
contrary, for the believing Muslim this is – or should be – an
undeniable fact. When the Quran speaks, as it does on so many
occasions, of this universal and perpetual adoration, it is doing
neither more nor less than telling us what happens, the down-to-
earth reality of the situation. Our subjective awareness – or lack of
awareness – cannot alter the facts.
We did not make this world, we do not own it. You cannot, the
Quran reminds us, create even a fly. This vast picture-book, filled
with the "signs of God", is what it is. Appearances are, as we are
so often told, deceptive and, if we float only on the surface of our
world, we are indeed deceived. There is always more to it than
that, then more and still more until you have plumbed the depths
and found beyond all the veils – those "seventy thousand veils of
light and darkness", according to one of the Prophet's sayings –
the Face of God, the glory that lies hidden behind the things we
take for granted. Look, we are commanded, and then look
again, until you can see.
(Broadcast by the BBC in December 1996 in the Words of Faith
series)
Islam, Nature and the Environment (3)
Honouring the Animal Creation
by Gai Eaton
I mentioned in my first talk of this series that many Muslims seem to
have ignored the implications of what the Quran tells us about the
natural world and about the importance of the animal creation.
Not only the Quran. The recorded sayings of the Prophet, the
hadith literature, refer again and again to these aspects of the
Faith.
The good Muslim's life is lived in imitation of the Prophet
Muhammad's example, and it is in the ahadith that we find the
most uncompromising references to animal welfare. They have
grave implications for all who fall short in their care for the animals
in their charge. Not only are there the famous stories of the
woman condemned to hell for shutting up a cat till it died of
hunger and of the prostitute forgiven all her sins because she
gave water to a dog that was dying of thirst, but there are a
number of small incidents in the record which emphasise the
same principle. When the Prophet saw a donkey that had been
branded on its face, he cried out: "God curse the one who
branded it!" A man who was about to slaughter a goat for food
was severely reproached for letting the animal see him sharpening
his knife. A prophet of earlier times, so we are told, was scolded
by God Himself for burning an ant's nest because an ant had
stung him – "You have destroyed a community that glorified Me!"
and there is, according to another saying, a reward in Paradise for
whoever shows kindness to a creature with "a living heart".
The Quran tells us: "Your Lord inspired the bee, saying: Choose
dwellings in the hills and in the trees and in what is built; then eat
all manner of fruit and follow humbly the ways of your Lord made
smooth". In other words, follow your Shari'ah. Islam teaches that,
just as mankind has been given a Shari'ah, a path of righteousness
to be followed by all who believe in God and are obedient to
Him, so each of the non-human species has a path laid down for
it. And each of these "communities", as the Quran describes
them, has a particular relationship with its Lord. But the Lord is
One. Ours as well as theirs. There is, however, an important
difference here. The animals cannot diverge from their path.
They cannot "sin". Whereas mankind has been given the freedom
to choose between following the right way – the "straight path", as
it is called – or wandering off into a trackless wilderness.
Since we of the human community so readily trip and stumble on
our way, constantly tempted to go astray, we have in the animal
creation an example of perfect obedience to the divine Rule. If
we depart too far from the path laid down for us we do not
become, as some would have it, "like animals"; we fall below their
level. Free choice is our privilege, a very dangerous privilege if we
abuse it.
Were it not for the divine Mercy, scattered like rain throughout
creation, we would indeed be in a bad way, but what matters
most is that we should keep in mind what might be called the
Prime Directive of Islam: the constant "remembrance of God". Yet
we are by nature forgetful. The world presses upon us and makes
its demands. We are busy, all too busy. We are in haste, though
the Prophet said once that haste comes from Satan, slowness
(and patience) from God. So we are given reminders. The Quran
describes itself, precisely, as "a reminder to mankind". The "signs"
which abound in the natural world are similarly described, and
here we have the animals – wild and domesticated – saying to us,
in effect, "Remember!" There is one complaint we cannot make,
one excuse we cannot offer: we can never say – "We forgot to
remember God, and no one reminded us!" But if we do
remember and follow the path "made smooth for us", then we are
in step with the animals, the plants and the earth itself.
(Broadcast by the BBC in December 1996 in the Words of Faith
series)
Recommended