On the remembrance of God
“Again the cry ‘Labbayk, Allahumma labbayk!’ was raised – a
joyful cry of self-surrender and enthusiasm that swept from the tense,
white-garbed pilgrims on board over the water toward the land of their supreme
hopes. Their hopes and mine: for to me the sight of the coast of Arabia was
the climax of years of search.” (Road to
Mecca, Muhammad Asad)
(i) Whilst I was preparing for hajj,
my mum insisted that I read [a particular book] (1), and I had put it off for
some time due to the amount of other reading I had to do, and for some other
reasons, until one day, as I was putting something back onto a bookshelf, my
eye caught the gold letters on the dark chocolate spine of the English
translation of that very book. I thought to myself: I will flick through it quickly
as it’s in English, so that when she next asks me, I can truthfully answer that,
yes, in fact I had read it. I half-curled up on the sofa, in the manner of
someone not fully expecting to be there for long, but who has been caught out
by enough I-Don’t-Really-Want-To-Read-This-Properly books, enough times in her
life, to instinctively know that all books - perhaps only with the
exception of those in airports and train stations, lest one remain stranded
there forever - inherently deserve the reverence of at least a semi-comfortable
position. One can never really be sure what will happen once a book is opened, and therein lies the magic.
I started to read the first few pages of verses from the Qur’an, and then
ahadith, about hajj. It was, of course, similar to what I had read and heard
many times, so my gaze slipped easily over the pages, bypassing my heedless
heart. Until I came upon the hadith,
عَنْ سَهْلِ بْنِ سَعْدٍ ، قَالَ : قَالَ
رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ : " مَا مِنْ مُسْلِمٍ
يُلَبِّي إِلَّا لَبَّى مَنْ عَنْ يَمِينِهِ ، أَوْ عَنْ شِمَالِهِ مِنْ حَجَرٍ
أَوْ شَجَرٍ أَوْ مَدَرٍ ، حَتَّى تَنْقَطِعَ الْأَرْضُ مِنْ هَاهُنَا وَهَاهُنَا
" (2) And for some reason, only then, suddenly,
I was struck by the enormity of it all, more even than when I had read about
the reward of al-hajj al-mabrur, more even than when I had read of those freed
from the Fire on yawm Arafah, or how hard the day was on Shaytan. I kept
thinking about it for a long time – how is this? When I say ‘Labbayk, Allahumma
labbayk’, even the stones and trees will say that with me!? I will go there, to
that land, and I, and millions of others, will tell God that we are here, and
we will glorify Him, and all around us will be the very earth, the stones, and trees of the sacred land, repeating what we say? And then I went, to that land,
and I told God that I was here, and I glorified Him, and all around me, the
very earth, the stones, and trees repeated what I said.
(ii) The talbiyah is not something
that is said merely with the mouth, but rather, with every pore on every part
of the human body, indeed with the soul itself. It is the believer responding
to the call of her Creator. She is here; she knows that He is her Lord, that He
is One; she will praise Him and glorify Him. It is the embodiment in words of a
whole physical, mental, emotional, social, and above all, spiritual,
experience, and in such comprehensive yet succinct words, that they could only
be from God. How merciful is our Lord, that He even taught us how to remember
Him, how to call Him, how to glorify Him, in the words that He loves, and how
weak and utterly dependent we are, because even in that we depend upon Him. In
English, we often make du’a to go to hajj, to perform the hajj, but in many
other languages, the believers say, “Lord, invite me to Your House”, and only
now I understand this, and believe that it is more concordant with the
sentiment of the talbiyah. None will go there who is not invited, And when one
is invited, it behoves one to respond, to be mindful of the favour, and to say
with every step of the journey to Him: لَبَّيْكَ اللَّهُمَّ لَبَّيْكَ،
لَبَّيْكَ لاَ شَرِيْكَ لَكَ لَبَّيْكَ، إِنَّ الْحَمْدَ وَالنِّعْمَةَ لَكَ
وَالْمُلْكَ لاَشَرِيْكَ لَكَ
(iii) The talbiyah is a very
particular kind of dhikr. I remember reading about the grammar of it before I
went to hajj, (3) but it appeared as if the words were somehow dry and empty,
and I never really understood, felt, tasted, the words, until they resonated
within me when I first said them there, and it were as if I never knew the
words despite knowing the words. This knowing-and-not-knowing, or this
mostly-not-knowing, and then a-sudden-flash-of-knowing, just enough so that you can
recognise what it is to know and to not know, was perhaps one of the greatest
parts of the hajj for me, because so much of my life consisted of, still consists
of, knowing – or indeed, of the delusion of knowing – but not really knowing.
Hajj was arriving at the mirage, to learn that what I knew I did not in fact
know. This has reminded me of how one of the scholars described the similitude of
the people who study and debate about hadith for a long time, its isnad, its
men, their reliability, but then on determining its authenticity, leave without
benefitting from the hadith itself. They are like those who sit beneath the
mango tree, and discuss all its details, the varieties of mangoes, their season
and harvest, and yet at the final moment, they get up and walk away, without
ever tasting the mango. Their knowing did not benefit them ultimately, and they
did not truly know. The person who tasted the mango, even if he were the
illiterate child of the village who merely plucked it off the tree, knew more,
gained more, and is altogether more superior than the one who describes it in
the best language, and would be considered an expert on it, but has neither
tasted it, nor can he communicate that to another.
And then I say: there are people who
think mangoes are bought in the fruit aisles of Asda, (4) large, hard, and deep-red
coloured, from South America; and people who think mangoes are bought at
the local Asian shop, small, soft, mass-produced and artificially ripened, squashed into lurid coloured, cheap, cardboard boxes stacked in leaning piles. But what do they know, and what did I know?
For of course, a real mango is not a merely a fruit, or words; it is an
experience. It is the sunlight of a lazy summer afternoon streaming through the
kitchen window; the slightly warm, comfortingly firm, reassuring, weight in her
hand, perfectly sized, uniformly smooth; the rhythm of the knife that slices
fluidly, never jarring even slightly in hesitation, its ruthless competence a perfect mercy
in itself; and then, as she bites into a slice – oh – the first delight
of that sweet orange flesh; the trickle of thick, sticky syrup caught just in
time and hastily wiped with a finger; the slow, deep, intake of her breath
whilst time slows and the gleeful shouts of the children playing outside become
strangely distant; the momentary, involuntary closure of her eyes from pure joy
while the taste percolates into the very depths of her body; and then finally,
opening her eyes to catch the smiling glance of someone who understands exactly
what it feels like, and the happiness dances in their eyes.
Of course, real mangoes are tasted in
India, in the homeland. But home is not a land, and the land is not home, and
the homeland is carried in hearts. Real mangoes are also tasted in small terraced,
houses nestled within clouded hills, among those dark Satanic mills, until,
almost suddenly, it becomes a green and pleasant land. Every year, I ask my mum
why she bothers to pay a ridiculous amount of money and reserves a few boxes of
hand-picked organic mangoes from the orchards of family friends in a village in Surat. “They’re only mangoes”, I say, defiantly, “You can buy mangoes anywhere.” And she replies, “They are only mangoes, but between this and that is
the difference of the heavens and earth.” This, so elevated, sublime, divine:
illuminating all that is beneath it; this, tasted, savoured, enjoyed, and in
which we take delight. This, in the Sacred Homeland, and this, in our hearts.
This is the Remembrance of God.
(iv) I think that perhaps a person
who has not recited the takbeerat walking through the pedestrian tunnels on the
way to the jamaraat, has missed out on something great in life. I heard about it
beforehand, but truly, there is nothing equal to it. (5) I imagine it to be the
only thing that would be even remotely comparable to Fath Makkah in our time,
and I am grateful to God that I experienced it. I have always wondered what it
would have been like to have been standing at the top of the mountain with Abu
Sufyan and al Abbas radi Allahu anhuma, and watching the battalions of tribes pass. I am not quite
sure why I never imagined what it would have been like to be in a group myself
– in my mind, I was always watching. But here I was, part of it. I looked at
the flags of the different countries, imagined the journeys of these people, thought
about the preceding days and what we had undertaken, and as we all said together
joyously, الله أكبر ، الله أكبر ، لا إله إلا الله ، والله أكبر ، الله أكبر
، ولله الحمد, our words and hearts became inexplicably
intertwined – for we were grateful to God, and proclaimed His greatness for
what He guided us to. (6)
Although, of course, I was familiar
with the takbeerat, I never had any real emotional attachment to the words,
certainly I can never remember ever feeling
so completely that God is indeed the greatest, and there is none to be
worshipped except Him, and for Him is all praise and gratitude. I have never
spent Eid in a Muslim country, and I never experienced the joy of the believers
expressed so visibly, so verbally, until it was so resoundingly clear that one
could not remain unaware of it, even had they wished it. This was completely
new to me, and I hope that it shall remain etched
in my memory forever – the traces of the memory fill me with an excited happiness even
whilst I write this, and, as I pause to look up out of the window, the grey
slate roofs and grey sky look – if it is indeed possible – just slightly more
yellow, sunnier, than they did a few minutes ago.
“My brethren on the right and my
brethren on the left, all of them unknown to me but none a stranger: in the
tumultuous joy of our chase, we are one body in pursuit of one goal… Someone in
the surging host abandons his tribal cry for a cry of faith: ‘We are the
brethren of him who gives himself up to God!’ – and another joins in: ‘Allahu
akbar!’ – ‘God is the Greatest! – God alone is Great!’
… Amidst the din of the thousands
of rushing camels’ feet and the flapping of a hundred banners, their cry goes
up into a roar of triumph: ‘Allahu akbar!’
It flows in mighty waves over the heads of the thousands of galloping
men, over the wide plan, to all the ends of the earth: ‘Allahu akbar!’” (Road to Mecca, Muhammad Asad)
(v) There are two instances I
remember of walking to the jamaraat which highlighted to me that it is
important to do good, and also sometimes to do good publicly; to remember God,
and let your remembering Him remind others of Him. (7)
I was walking near three young men,
perhaps friends or relatives, who had obviously revised the takbeerat in
several different siyagh, and would work their way through a few different
versions, and each time they said لَا إلَهَ إلَّا اللَّهُ وَحْدَهُ صَدَقَ وَعْدَهُ
وَنَصَرَ عَبْدَهُ وَهَزَمَ الْأَحْزَابَ وَحْدَهُ their voices would rise
and rise, and swell above the crowd and they would look at each other, grinning.
I had also memorised a few different ones, but was lazy, and it was easy to
chant with the crowd. When I heard them, I consciously made an effort to try
the other forms of takbeerat I had learnt, and that was very helpful for me.
Most of us are either too scared or too lazy to do anything different that will
make us stand out, and we console ourselves that we are doing good anyway, but
those three men will have the reward not only of people following them, but of
ensuring that commendable practices do not die out, and people make du’a for
them still, without their even knowing it.
Another time when walking to the
jamarat, amongst the hordes of people, there was a particularly strident voice
that rose above the others, continuously reciting the takbeerat loudly.
Usually, there are peaks and troughs, someone will lead the call for a few
minutes, then there will be a lull, then someone else will pick up the baton,
and our voices will rest in between, and then at the first ‘La ilaha
illa-allah’ of the next person, everyone will join in until the sound swells to
fill the tunnel, and how sweet is the sheer joy of that call, hopeful and
triumphant. For a long time, there was just one voice reciting repeatedly
without a break, and for that reason, and because of something of the quality
of it, I thought it must a recording that somebody was playing. After a while,
as the crowd continued forwards and people shifted, I found myself able to see
where the voice was coming from, to my right. It was not a recording. It was
one man, a single man, with a megaphone, all that time. I really could not
understand how he had the energy or the voice to have continued with that all
this time. I thought, he must be riding the wave of some adrenaline-laced iman,
because surely that is not possible for a human being? Then I realised that he
must be getting the reward of all the people who followed his lead and recited
the takbeerat, all those who had tired and rested, and then joined him, all
those who stopped to talk and then joined him; his was the road we all
rejoined. Was that not worth his effort? There is a difference between the
people and this man: the people’s voices hoarsen in vain, and they will regret
it; this man’s voice hoarsens in the remembrance of God, and he shall not
regret it.
(vi) In Makkah, I am always struck
by how close the mountains are. It may appear as if you are in a city, and then
all of a sudden you look up, or catch a glimpse between two tall buildings, and
there are the mountains. When I say mountains, it makes me smile a little,
because I am always thinking of the green-brown rolling hills of –shire, and
how they fill me with joyful awe. Sometimes, particularly in spring, before the
sun is setting, on my route home from work through several small villages
nestled in the hills, I slow down so I can look around better, and recite the beginning verses of surat al-Ra'd, and feel almost physically
breathless at God’s handiwork. But then there is Makkah, and its mountains – real mountains – and if my words fail me, then I can utter something incoherent
about great, enormous expanses of rock, constant, looming, immovable. I knew that they
would never embrace me like the green hills and their brown earth, softly
yielding; I knew that their craggy, harsh lines in the horizon would never compare
with the gentle undulations I was familiar with; I knew that they would always shock
me when I saw them suddenly, compelling me into awe, not coaxing me tenderly like
my hills did. As I walked back from the jamaraat, I would look at the mountains,
and wonder at what they had witnessed – they, who had been there even when
Ibrahim walked this land. Sometimes, I wanted just to stop and to stare at the
mountains, my mind strangely blank, but there were too many people, and never
the time, and I was pushed along.
There were two sets of verses I was
reminded of: the first is from al-Isra [17:44]:
تُسَبِّحُ لَهُ السَّمَاوَاتُ السَّبْعُ وَالْأَرْضُ وَمَن فِيهِنَّ ۚ
وَإِن مِّن شَيْءٍ إِلَّا يُسَبِّحُ بِحَمْدِهِ وَلَٰكِن لَّا تَفْقَهُونَ
تَسْبِيحَهُمْ ۗ إِنَّهُ كَانَ حَلِيمًا غَفُورًا -, and to know this was truly
humbling – to know that as we remembered God then, those who submitted, together, the
mountains around us did too, and they witnessed this every year; and to know
that we had been permitted, allowed the opportunity to voluntarily do something
so great that all the creation of God is constantly engaged in it!
The second set of verses were from
Taha [20:105-7] –
وَيَسْأَلُونَكَ
عَنِ الْجِبَالِ فَقُلْ يَنسِفُهَا رَبِّي نَسْفًا - فَيَذَرُهَا قَاعًا صَفْصَفًا - لَّا تَرَىٰ فِيهَا
عِوَجًا وَلَا أَمْتًا - When you look at a mountain, an
actual mountain, and then think of this, and all the other ayat that describe
mountains on the Day of Judgement (8), it is truly incomprehensible – it
reminds you that what is to come is beyond your wildest nightmare; it is
unfathomable to the human mind, and only Revelation can tell you of it. We read
the description of the Day of Judgement and it does not affect us. One of the
reasons we do not relate to the Qur’an, I feel, is because of how removed from
nature we are – you cannot even imagine what a mountain really is, you do not
know the stars, you have never looked at the sun and moon. Makkah’s mountains
remind you of the Day of Judgement – if you did not understand, then certainly
its people did when it was recited unto them, and they submitted. And those
that did not will have their actions go to waste. So let the mountain, and
everything else, remind you of Him, and submit willingly before you are compelled to submit.
The Covenant of Remembering God (p
139)
فَاذْكُرُونِي أَذْكُرْكُمْ وَاشْكُرُوا لِي وَلَا تَكْفُرُونِ
- 2:152
It is not enough to have the ka’bah,
and the Prophet s. as your Messenger; rather, what matters is what you do.
There is a covenant between the people and God. The Banu Israel had a covenant:
يَا بَنِي إِسْرَائِيلَ اذْكُرُوا نِعْمَتِيَ الَّتِي أَنْعَمْتُ عَلَيْكُمْ
وَأَوْفُوا بِعَهْدِي أُوفِ بِعَهْدِكُمْ
وَإِيَّايَ فَارْهَبُونِ - 2:40. They failed their covenant. Now this is the covenant between God and the Muslims - فَاذْكُرُونِي أَذْكُرْكُمْ – He will help you, support you, make you
successful, as long as you remember Him. And what is remembrance? It is the prayer. وَذَكَرَ اسْمَ رَبِّهِ
فَصَلَّىٰ - 87:15 . Then think, do we deserve help
from God? Have we upheld our part of the covenant?
In the world, there are many
attractions and distractions – relationships, property, wealth,
responsibilities, then how is it possible to remember God? This we must learn from Ibrahim. He had a family, responsibilities
etc. and yet despite all this, he managed to be an imam and the khalil of God.
There is a Persian saying, ‘Leave
everyone, but have some familiarity with them.’ i.e. leave everyone, come to
your Lord, then turn to the people according to God’s command. The real thing
which connects people is God’s command. You obey your parents, and care for family
and others because God commands you to do that. Before you remember your father, remember your Lord. Problems arise
because you want a direct relationship and connection, so then you become upset
if it doesn’t live up to your expectation. But if you go to God first, you
realise that this is God’s command so it is not important how other people
respond as long as you have behaved correctly.
(The more I think about this now, it
seems everything comes back to Ibrahim ‘alayh il-‘salam. This whole ritual of remembrance (9) – the hajj – is about Ibrahim; it is learning from Ibrahim how to remember God,
and worship Him in a way that befits Him; it is learning from Ibrahim the most
perfect form of remembrance: of the tongue, of the limbs, of the heart and
mind, as an individual and communally with the believers. It is the natural culmination
of all worship and submission.)
Toenotes
(1) S, you
know the book? :) Actually, bar the
small amount of weirdness, even some of the stories were good and I found them
beneficial. - also it reminded me of the lovely story of Hisham and Ali Zayn ul Abideen rahimahullah and Farazdaq which I hadn't heard for a long time.
(2) رواه الترمذي ( 828 ) وابن خزيمة والبيهقي بسند
صحيح .
(4) I always
remember how shocked I was when I first found out that lots of people at
school had never tasted a mango in their lives; I absolutely couldn’t believe
it. I think that was when I really understood that I wasn’t white. (Ok, that, and when we were taught how to wash dishes in school in Home Ec [aged
11-12yrs!! – they clearly knew nothing about the rampant child labour going on
in Asian households], and the absolute horror when I realised that white people
‘wash’ their dishes by putting them in a dirty plastic bowl with washing up
liquid and then take them out still soapy and stack them to dry [which is
essentially the crockery-cutlery equivalent of not doing istinjaa’ or even
worse, washing yourself with used toilet water])
(5) I
remembered a funny story when we were doing the takbeerat, with all the flags
and crowds of people, as I was thinking of how I was going to describe this to
non-Muslims back home. Someone I know had worked for [important international
agency] and spent some time in Iran many years ago. He spoke about it with
great fondness, and said despite how apparently dangerous it seemed to people
outside, with being advised not to travel there and foreigners leaving, he had
been treated with great hospitality and always felt welcomed and safe. The one
exception to this was once when he was in a public square, and he suddenly
found himself in a middle of a massive protest where everyone was shouting
‘Allahu akbar!’, and ‘Death to –!, Death to -!’ 'Allahu akbar!', until he suddenly felt slightly
out of place as a white, British man, and was desperately hoping everyone was too angry to notice him, or the British passport in his pocket! I remember laughing with
him at the time, and wondered how it could be that ‘Allahu akbar’ can be
viewed so differently by different people, and means so many different and
contradictory things. I feel hajj allowed me the opportunity to reclaim the
takbeer from what it had become, to what it really is.
Also, one nice thing which he said which I sometimes think
about, was that when he first went to Iran, people on the street would stop to
stare at him, or seem to try to talk to him, and he would walk quickly past
them, averting his gaze, to avoid interacting with them. After some time, his
host, himself an important high-flying professional person, noticing this, asked
him why he did that, and he replied that he had travelled extensively and
worked in several ‘developing’ countries, and wanted to avoid interacting with
beggars as it always led to further problems. His host found this very
interesting, and asked him to just try interacting with someone on the street the
next time they wanted to speak to him. He did this reluctantly, and to his
surprise, they did not want to beg; in fact they wanted nothing from him;
rather they wanted to give to him. They wanted to welcome him, an obvious
foreigner, to their country, and thank him for the work he was doing. They
wanted him to come into the dingy back rooms of their shops, or to invite him back
to their simple homes, and they wanted to share cups of sweet tea and snacks
with him. He recalled this story with great humility, and even though I
disagreed with many of his views, I remembered this. The poor trader from Tehran
could do with his sincerity what we could not do with all the education and money
in the world: he could change the heart of a man.
(6) At the end of Road to Makkah, there is a lovely
description of the Bedouins returning from Arafah to Makkah, “with the tribal
banners on their high poles beating like drums in the wind, and their tribal
war cries tearing through the air” – read that.
(7) I’m always very conflicted about this. I think riyaa is
too great a risk to mess around with usually (unless you’re really important or
something), especially when you don’t have many good deeds anyway, but losing
the opportunity to exponentially multiply your rewards if other people see you
do good and are reminded is also not an easy sacrifice to make. One nice thing
about communal acts of worship is that even sit-on-the-fencers could
potentially safely stray into Camp 2 without risking too much?
(8) I thought to reference a couple, but there
are so many ayat specifically about this, it is really quite sobering - it
makes me ashamed that I never thought about it properly before.
· Al-Kahf وَيَوْمَ نُسَيِّرُ الْجِبَالَ وَتَرَى الْأَرْضَ بَارِزَةً وَحَشَرْنَاهُمْ فَلَمْ نُغَادِرْ مِنْهُمْ أَحَدًا - 18:47
· Al Naml وَتَرَى الْجِبَالَ تَحْسَبُهَا جَامِدَةً وَهِيَ تَمُرُّ مَرَّ السَّحَابِ ۚ صُنْعَ اللَّهِ الَّذِي أَتْقَنَ كُلَّ شَيْءٍ ۚ إِنَّهُ خَبِيرٌ بِمَا تَفْعَلُونَ - 27:88
· Al Tur وَتَسِيرُ الْجِبَالُ سَيْرًا - 52:10
· Al Waqi’ah وَبُسَّتِ الْجِبَالُ بَسًّا - 56:5فَكَانَتْ هَبَاءً مُّنبَثًّا - 56:6
· Al Haqqah وَحُمِلَتِ الْأَرْضُ وَالْجِبَالُ فَدُكَّتَا دَكَّةً وَاحِدَةً - 69:14
· Al Ma’arij وَتَكُونُ الْجِبَالُ كَالْعِهْنِ - 70:9
· Al Muzzammil يَوْمَ تَرْجُفُ الْأَرْضُ وَالْجِبَالُ وَكَانَتِ الْجِبَالُ كَثِيبًا مَّهِيلًا - 73:14
· Al Mursalat وَإِذَا الْجِبَالُ نُسِفَتْ - 77:10
· Al Naba وَسُيِّرَتِ الْجِبَالُ فَكَانَتْ سَرَابًا – 78:20
· Al Takwir وَإِذَا الْجِبَالُ سُيِّرَتْ –81:3
· Al Qari’ah وَتَكُونُ الْجِبَالُ كَالْعِهْنِ الْمَنفُوشِ - 101:5
(9) This just fortuitously came up in my podcasts yesterday - I always give him a hug in my mind when I hear him explain things in his really gentle way that just reminds you of God and makes you love him lots, jazahullahu kheyra.
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