Ethical Lessons from the Quran, part 5

Ethical Lessons from the Quran, part 5

مَنِ اهۡتَدٰى فَاِنَّمَا يَهۡتَدِىۡ لِنَفۡسِهٖ ​ۚ وَمَنۡ ضَلَّ فَاِنَّمَا يَضِلُّ عَلَيۡهَا​ ؕ وَلَا تَزِرُ وَازِرَةٌ وِّزۡرَ اُخۡرٰى​ ؕ وَمَا كُنَّا مُعَذِّبِيۡنَ حَتّٰى نَبۡعَثَ رَسُوۡلًا‏  

17:15 “Whoever chooses to be guided, it is only for their own good.  And whoever chooses to stray, it is only to their own loss.  No soul will bear another’s burden.  And We would never punish a people until We have sent a messenger [to deliver the message].”

In the verse above, there are three main principles.  Let us study them in 3 parts.

PART 1

مَنِ اهۡتَدٰى فَاِنَّمَا يَهۡتَدِىۡ لِنَفۡسِهٖ ​ۚ وَمَنۡ ضَلَّ فَاِنَّمَا يَضِلُّ عَلَيۡهَا

“Whoever chooses to be guided, it is only for their own good.  And whoever chooses to stray, it is only to their own loss.

We have free will to choose, and if I choose to follow the right path, then that is for my own good.  Similarly, if I choose to stray, then I will be at loss.  

There are other verses in the Quran which says:

 مَن يَهْدِ ٱللَّهُ فَهُوَ ٱلْمُهْتَدِى ۖ وَمَن يُضْلِلْ فَأُو۟لَـٰٓئِكَ هُمُ ٱلْخَـٰسِرُونَ“Whomsoever God guides, he is rightly guided; and who He leads astray- they are the losers.”

1. How do we reconcile these two verses?  And there are a lot of verses in the Qur’an like this one.

It seems that there are verses that mention that God decides who He wants to guide, whereas some verses say that if I want to be guided, it is my decision.  How do we reconcile these two opposing viewpoints in such verses?

viewpoint #1: If God decides for me to be not guided, then it is not my responsibility.  In other words, I will be guided if only God wants me to be guided.

viewpoint #2: If I decide that I want to be guided, then it is my responsibility, and God creates guidance for me according to my choice.

For example, you want to grow tomatoes in your garden. In the Quran, God says that I am the One who grows the tomatoes for you.  Let’s think about this, one may say that if I do not plant the tomato seeds, then God cannot create the tomatoes for me.  When I till the Earth, sow the seeds and water it, do I add anything to the creation of the tomatoes?  Did I help God in this endeavor?  No. Although it seems that if I do not take the first step, then God does not create the result for me.  All my efforts are nothing but obeying the order of the universe, which is nothing but its Creator’s Will, and through this obedience I am praying to God to create the tomatoes for me. This is how I present my need to God and He responds to my need in this world. 

When the Quran talks, the main mission of the Quran is to introduce the Speaker (rabbul-alameen), the Lord of the worlds to me.  That is, God is introducing Himself, so He speaks from His perspective, as He says, I am creating it, you are not creating it.  It is an invitation for us to think about and be careful in our reasoning that we are not adding anything to the act of creating, rather we are asking the Creator of the universe to create the tomatoes.  Otherwise, how else are you going to ask for the tomatoes to be created?  The farmer’s actions and steps are his/her free will, and it is a form of presenting his request and petition to his/her Creator.

Let us take another example.  If I want to book a classroom in an institutional building, I must ask for permission from the administrators.  The administrators declare that they are the owner of the room, and they are the ones who will grant the room.   The administrator says that they can grant me request if I apply for the room.  When I do not apply for the room, then I do not get anything because the administrator has not received a request from me.  There are two relationships at play here.  1. From the administrator’s side, s/he is the authority to give it.  2. From my side, I am the one presenting my needs to the administrator.  When the administrator talks, s/he says that I am the authority.  When I talk, I must be aware that I am asking for the room as I am the needy one.  Similarly, the Author of the Quran speaks to us like the administrators.   

• That is, whoever chooses to be guided and presents the need that I want to be guided, then they are submitting the request to get guidance from the Creator.  The Creator of the universe is the only source of guidance, i.e. guidance can only come from the Lord of the universe, rabbul-alameen.  That is how rabbul-alameen decides who to choose to be guided, based on our choice of requesting to be guided.

We cannot read the Quran literally to the point of arguing that even if I have free will, God’s will overtakes my free will, so why bother then?!  That is not how to understand the Quran.

When we obey the order, we are obeying the will of the Establisher of the order, God.  In the example above, when I fill in the form for a room, I am obeying the rules of the administrator.  If I only shout saying “give a room!”, then I am not obeying the rules which is to fill in the form. They would never give me the room. Our choice is only following the way that the order of the universe is created.  My feelings are also created by the same Creator.  I am only obeying my Creator based on my feelings, and I am presenting my neediness that I cannot be guided unless you guide me O my Creator!  While I am presenting my order form, I am obeying the administrator.  While I am sowing the seed, I am obeying the Establisher of the order of the universe.  If I shout: “Give me tomatoes!”, or in a begging voice, like verbally praying only, then I am not obeying the order of the universe, and I will not get any tomatoes.  This is rebelling and disobeying authority. 

How can we seek guidance i.e. not go astray?  At the level of our existence, guidance means asking in a way that is appropriate to the way I am. This will be the way we should seek guidance from God by not contradicting my reality.  

How do I know that I am not contradicting my reality?  To understand these concepts of “not contradicting one’s reality and not going astray” as used by the Quran, I must see the purpose of the Quran i.e. Who is speaking in the Quran?  If someone does not believe in God, then s/he will look for answers within his/her human nature.  If I understand that my human nature is created, and I am in full interaction with the rest of the universe, then I can easily say that whoever created me must be the Creator of the universe for I am in full communication with the universe.  That is what the message of the Quran teaches us, the aspect of Divine unity or ahadeyyah in Arabic. My feelings correspond to what is out there in the universe.  Guidance means to use my consciousness and feelings by listening to what the universe tells me and informs me about the qualities of its Creator.  If my feelings connect themselves to the qualities of the Creator manifested in the universe, then I will not stray from the guided path.  This is very theoretical, but we must try to understand its meaning.  That is, if I connect my feelings to the source of their existence which is the source of existence of this universe, then this direct connection does not have any diversions.  It means, there is only Me and my Creator.  For example, my sense of love is directly connected to God’s quality of Lover (wadud).  

• If I use my sense of love to acknowledge the source of its existence, which is God’s love, then I am on the straight path (no diversions), in direct communication with God.

Let’s say that I go to the tree and pick up a mango.  When I say I love something, it is my feelings that love. In this example, my feelings love mangoes. I want to have it, eat it, get nourishment from it.  While I am eating it, and say that it is my sense of love, my need for nourishment, my taste for beauty, then I am not on the straight path.  We all want the best-looking mangoes.  If I say that the mango is created by the One who loves me, who knows my sense of love, my sense of beauty, and who knows my sense of taste, and He is giving it to me, then I am connecting directly with the source of existence of the mango, i.e. to be on the straight path.  I am connecting the Source of existence of the mango to my human side.  Although, I pick up the mango from the tree created by God.  

• If my understanding just sticks to the tree and not to its Creator, then I am diverting from the straight path (dalla).  
• If I do not acknowledge the tree which is also created by God together with the mango on its branch, then I cannot go anywhere and would be lost. I am expected to acknowledge that the tree and the mango at the same time needs to be created, and their creator must be the One who creates the universe.

In Islamic literature, why is daalleen defined as going astray when we recite the Fatiha prayers that mentions maghdub and daalleen (scholarship usually refers to Jewish and Christian theology evoking God’s anger and going astray).  The Christian theology pinpoints God as the Father and Jesus as the son.  Here, “Lord Jesus” in a way becomes the tree in our analogy above, which is to attribute any creative qualities to created beings. Then Jesus is regarded as to be the source of existence of the miracles which are, in fact, created by God. In our analogy, Jesus is the tree producing the mangoes which are the miracles attributed to Jesus.

2. Are we not proud of those who convert/revert to Islam and with the number of the population of the Muslims in the world?

We must congratulate people because they were successful in their path to fulfill the purpose of their existence.  Don’t you congratulate someone who gets an honor degree?!  We must be proud of people being successful in reaching the purpose of their existence. That is very human.

3. Do these kinds of verses relate to only converts/reverts?

No.  We must be thankful to God that I am on the right path, rather than being proud.  God wants your special treatment towards Him alone, i.e. I must be thankful to God, because guidance has now reached me.  This ability to acknowledge God is given to me by God.  For example, if you hurt yourself, do you feel pleased?  No.  If you are successful in your job, do you feel happy?  Yes.  This happiness is a sign that you are on the right track.

PART 2

وَلَا تَزِرُ وَازِرَةٌ وِّزۡرَ اُخۡرٰى

17:15 “…No soul will bear another’s burden…”

1. Can we blame a person because they are a member of a nation that is harming Muslims?

This is a very practical verse.  Can we blame a person because he is a member of a nation that is harming others? No.  That is why the Prophet was very careful when advising to only combat the people that are fighting you, not the other civilians who are there.  Does any nation follow such etiquettes nowadays?  No. Stereotyping and generalizing to a population is not a good thing to do, therefore we can never generalize these verses pinpointing to a particular group of people; that is not the aim of the Quran.  For example, I cannot say that people from town abc are always looking to fight.  We cannot pass judgments for a whole nation based on a few personal experiences.

2. If I am harmed by a member of a family, can I cut off my relationship with the other members of the same family?

Taking the example from above, we must be careful not to generalize our experiences to the whole family/nation.  In a practical sense, this is very difficult.

3. Can I blame a person completely because of their one bad characteristic?

Again, we cannot make judgments about people based on only one of their personality traits to be unpleasant.  If I read a book, and I do not agree with one paragraph, can I say that all the ideas of this author are wrong?  No. 

4. Can you give us some more examples of this, please?

Example 1: If a religious community treats you badly, can you reject the entire religion?  No.

Again, we should not blame the religion of the person.  Can we blame the religious theology that the person is malpracticing?  No.  However, if the person is misrepresenting theology, then the person is to be blamed.

Example 2: If a mosquito bites you, can you say that all mosquitoes are horrible?  No.  We cannot generalize such.

Example 3: If I find that my relationship with my Creator is strayed because of the shortcomings that I have, then I should not cut off myself with my Creator entirely because of one failure. Also, if God tells you to prostrate yourself before Him physically and mentally, and if a person is unable to do it physically, he can keep obeying God by fasting and giving to charity.

Practically it is useful to be a just person, and the lesson is that you must not block yourself from all the goodness because of a few bad events that you experienced.  There is a famous Sufi story, a man got married with a woman with a defected eye.  One of his friend’s tells the man that his wife has one eye blind.  The man replied that I only look at the functioning eye.  This is a delicate example, which is very difficult to apply in one’s life.

Next week, we will go over Part 3, the last part of the verse as below.

PART 3

وَمَا كُنَّا مُعَذِّبِيۡنَ حَتّٰى نَبۡعَثَ رَسُوۡلًا‏ 

17:15 “…And We would never punish a people until We have sent a messenger [to deliver the message].”

1. Do we have a messenger now in our society?
2. Is it enough to hear about “Islam” through the media?
3. What does “the message delivered to people” mean?
4. Have we, Muslims, really received the message of Islam?  Who is responsible for “delivering the message” and “receiving the message” nowadays?
5. Have you heard of “Hinduism”?  Is it enough for you to be responsible for accepting or rejecting it?
6. Whom can we call now “unbeliever”?