For Parents: Understanding the L.E.T.S. Phenomenon

The following is an excerpt from a magazine interview on parenting and popular media:

(Q) In your opinion, do you think that Reality TV featuring young children opens doors to pedophilia? (You would probably answer that "some may run the risk of doing so," so maybe you can elaborate on well-constructed shows that protect the dignity of children as compared to those that leverage on young children's vulnerability).

(A) This is a really difficult question to answer, because scientifically it is a bit difficult to make the claim that reality TV leads to pedophilia. That being said, however, I think there is a bigger issue at play and Reality TV is just one aspect of it. There has been an explosion in reported cases and incidents of pedophilia and sex crimes against children across the planet in recent decades. Now there are many possible factors that could be contributing to it, but one factor without a doubt is the explosion of what I like to call the L.E.T.S. phenomenon -- the Latest Expendable Teenage Superstar. This is the Britney Spears phenomenon; the young – too young, sexy, anorexic, paper cut-out superstar that is good for a few million in sales before they are discarded for the next, big upcoming LETS. I’m not sure if people in Malaysia heard the news, but the most recent controversy is over a new LETS named Miley Cyrus. She starts in the hit Disney Channel show Hannah Montana. This young woman is 15 years old and is now embroiled in ‘controversy’ over racy photos in a popular U.S. magazine named Vanity Fair, in which the young woman is seductively shown wrapped in a bed sheet. The thing about the LETS phenomenon is that the girls are getting younger and younger. The next big up and coming star is another 15 year-old named Selena Gomez, also a Disney product. The irony is that others like Britney, Christina Aguilera, Hillary Duff and Justin Timberlake are all former Disney products. Disney is becoming a major contributor to the LETS phenomenon. As we see, for many of them, like Britney, life gets pretty gruesome and by the time they are in their 20s many of them are burned out, on drugs, broke, divorced, etc.

The LETS phenomenon most definitely creates a very dangerous norm, that is, it not only objectifies woman more than they are already, but now involves teens as well, for these girls are only 15 years old! Fifteen year olds wrapped in bed sheets on the cover of magazines is as pretty close to exploitation as it gets. Soon it will be 14 year olds, then 13, then 12 -- the trend is getting younger and younger. So when does it become a ‘contributor’ to pedophilia? I don’t know, but again, look at the statement that they are making by using such young girls as sex symbols. Having a popular, half-naked 15 year old in seductive poses in adult magazines is not about selling children’s shows for Disney! It’s about the sickening reality of sexual attraction to very young women and girls, and when it becomes a norm and part of the culture, we can see what the results have been.

If you notice, many of the young, female music stars now are young and young-looking, which is what they are selling. They’re taking pretty, young girls and using their sexual allure to sell records, videos, and everything else. Of course, the bottom line is still about economics but it just shows the lengths they are willing to go now to sell – pushing the boundaries of what’s considered decent, ethical and acceptable. Being old is not cool and now, being 30 is old! That’s why we see older stars trying to desperately to appear young – the lengths people are going to in order to appear young is astounding. They are even injecting poison into their bodies and faces to attempt to slow down the aging process (e.g., Botox). Youth truly is king and getting old is very uncool. That is the message that Disney and others are constantly sending by plastering LETS across the TV’s and every other form of mass media.

The Problem with Negativity...

I just finished reading a post from a Muslim commenting (or lamenting) about politics in Malaysia. Though somewhat insightful and factual, much of the article, like too many we read today, was one-sided and negative. It made me reflect. Is all this negativity that we pre-occupy ourselves with getting us anywhere? Can it possibly lead to anything positive?

I have a good friend, a convert, who some look down upon because they say he's not a 'real' Muslim; after all, he converted to marry a Muslim woman. Even though he keeps up with his fardu 'ain and his other responsibilities, he doesn't look the way other more 'religious' Muslims look. The funny thing about my friend is that he has a heart of gold. He spends his days and nights working on scientific projects aimed at helping the Muslims and the world at-large improve their well-being through science-based development. He is a child of the 'atoms for peace' era where the dreams of the young people were to develop the entire world using science and technology, including nuclear energy. He's a holdover from that era and still believes that science and technology is the greatest weapon in the hands of those wanting to do good for ending poverty and other humanitarian crises. He puts his money where his mouth is. He is a freelancer who works with anyone who has the same goals and aspirations.

The interesting thing about my friend is that he doesn't get bogged down in the endless negativity plaguing the Muslim community, where everyone is a scholar, everyone is a critic and everyone has something to say but few actually DO anything to improve things. We have some brilliant critics in our midst. They spend hours on the web, blogging about how bad everyone else is, even their own countries, but couldn't tell you five good things they actually did in their lives. My friend has taught me an invaluable lesson and has reminded my about the importance of a unfettered, brilliant mind guided by a pure heart. This combination has the power to transform people and nations and is the greatest weapon against ignorance, greed, racism and every other evil out there. The Prophet (SAW) never spent a moment of his time talking about how bad his enemies were. He hated negativity and spoke about it in the following hadith: "Whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day should say something good or keep quiet."

My theory is that we spend so much time on the negative because we have little positive to offer. We lack ideas and the creative ability to envision a better future. We don't really believe in Allah's promise of success through surrender and trust in Him. We need to learn, acquire knowledge and act on it. We need to envision something better and take small steps to work towards it, without expecting all the worldly rewards that so many are selling themselves everyday to attain. My friend is an inspiration for what good ideas and good intentions combined can do towards helping the less fortunate and building a better world.

This has been a great reminder to myself -- shut up and do something, no matter how small, to improve this world. Until we act, nothing will change.

Knife Training with my Guru...

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Malaysia’s Young ‘Nuclear Ambassadors’

by Mohd Daniel Davis

June 4—Like an old general addressing his army before
an important battle, Prof. Noramly Muslim, father of
Malaysia’s 1970s civilian nuclear power program that
has never been enacted, gave us a crystal-clear mission.
“Malaysia hopes to have nuclear power by 2021.
You are now our ambassadors for nuclear power in this
country. I want you to be proactive and become opinionated
citizens who will speak up to the media by writing
to the newspapers and magazines when people come out
and attack nuclear power as unsafe. After this, I want
you to give advanced reasons rather than just layman
reasons for the usage of nuclear power in this country.”
Professor Noramly gave the the closing speech at the
2nd Nuclear Power and Engineering Summer School
program, held May 17-27, in collaboration with National
University of Malaysia (UKM) and the Korean
Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST).
In the 1970s, Noramly was the founding director general
of the Pusat Penyelidikan Atom Tun Ismail (PUSPATI),
now renamed the Nuclear Malaysia Agency.
Back then, Malaysia’s brightest students were sent overseas
for training in nuclear science and engineering.
This first generation of nuclear experts is now retiring.
Now, here we were, at the Nuclear Summer School,
a fresh generation of mostly young, under 35, working
professionals, who hope to further their studies at the
world’s top nuclear universities.

Three professors from KAIST, and one from the
Korean Institute of Nuclear Safety (KINS), were invited
to UKM to lecture on nuclear reactor design, fuel,
instrumentation, and radioactive waste management.
The program attracted numerous professionals from
Malaysia’s research and energy industry, including,
Tenaga Nasional Berhad (Malaysia’s main electricity
supplier), Nuclear Malaysia Agency (responsible for
handling Malaysia’s experimental reactor), Atomic Licensing
Board, and other government and private educational
institutions.

Malaysia, sandwiched between Thailand and Singapore,
has long prided itself as being a leader among developing
countries, demonstrating how to progress in a
multicultural society without racial conflict. In the
1970s, when oil prices were soaring, Malaysia initiated
its own civilian nuclear power plan under the umbrella
of President Eisenhower’s 1953 Atoms for Peace program.
Its first experimental nuclear reactor, Triga, was
built in the early 1980s. The 1-MW reactor has been primarily
used for isotope production for agricultural and
medical use, and research into radioactive applications
of fertilizers, crops, and the study of soil sedimentation.
Today, with no coal reserves, oil reserves expected
to last for only five more years, and natural gas a bit
longer, Malaysia is looking back wistfully at the shelved
nuclear program that Noramly and his colleagues initiated
nearly 40 years ago.

South Korea Leads the Way in SE Asia
Few could have believed that South Korea could
beat out the United States, France, and Japan last year for
a $20 billion contract to build state-of-the-art 1,400-MW
nuclear power plants in the United Arab Emirates by
2020. It was a first for the South Koreans. How could this
small Asian country have beaten traditional nuclear
heavyweights? South Korea has come a long way since
its first 563-MW Kori-1 reactor in 1978. It now has 20
nuclear power plants, which produce 40% of the nation’s
total electricity. This has sparked heightened interest in
other developing countries, especially, in Southeast Asia,
where Korean-built nuclear plants are cheaper. It costs
only $3 billion for the South Koreans to build a unit, while,
the cost for United States to build one will be $5-6 billion.
What about the doubts that many people express
about “nuclear waste”—fears which largely stem from
the hysteria of the anti-nuclear crowd and the mass
media hype about Chernobyl and Three Mile Island? I
am reminded of the powerful message that Prof. Jong
Kim of KAIST gave a year ago, during a public lecture
at UKM. South Korea initially had problems finding a
suitable place for the nuclear waste from their power
plants. Jong explained:

“In the end we simply asked any areas which wanted
to have the nuclear waste facility to submit their entries.
Four areas submitted their entries; the winner went to
the area with an 80% resident approval for building the
nuclear waste management facility. The technical aspect
of it had been solved long ago. It is relatively safe. If it
wasn’t safe why would South Korea build not only one
but 20 nuclear power plants? What is left for other
countries is only the political will power to do so. . . .”
To date, people who live in areas that operate a nuclear
power facility are healthy and happy, as is evident
in France, for example, where over 70% of the energy
is generated by nuclear power.

As a physics undergraduate, and the youngest “nuclear
ambassador” attending the summer school program,
I feel the following points needs to be addressed
with urgency:

• With nuclear power, the Malaysian monthly
household electricity bill will be reduced from the average
RM100-200 per month, to an average of only
RM40-50 per month. This is because nuclear power
plants can generate a stable base load of electricity 24
hours, 7 days a week, with shutdowns only every 18
months to service and re-fuel, during their 50-60 year
lifetime. Electricity generation using nuclear power
costs only $.39 per KW-hour versus $.54 for coal, $1.47
for natural gas, and $1.95 for oil.

• Nuclear power produces 10 grams per KW-hour
of CO2 (this figure, from the South Koreans, includes
uranium ore mining and nuclear plant construction),
against 991 grams per KW-hour of CO2 produced using
coal, and 782 grams of CO2 for oil. So for those worried
about CO2 emissions, nuclear has the least greenhouse
gas emission in the energy industry.

As young nuclear ambassadors, how then will we win
over other youth to take up nuclear as a career? We must
catch them in their final school years, and inspire
them with the future of a Nuclear Malaysia. But this will
not happen unless Malaysia makes a clear decision to go
nuclear. The youth are not stupid. They have seen their
parents’ generation, which answered the nuclear call in
the 1970s, rot in the government nuclear establishments,
without being allowed to produce a single kilowatt of
electricity or to launch hi tech industries as South
Korea has done. Until Malaysia makes a clear commitment
to go nuclear, the youth will boycott nuclear as
having no future in Malaysia.

Malaysia often brags about being the role model for
other developing countries. This is only partly true (with
its successful urbanization and some low-tech industries).
But it is impossible to live and raise a family on the
low salaries most young people receive, even as graduates,
without considerable financial assistance from their
parents. But, by partnering with South Korea in nuclear
power plants and other technologies, such as cars and
electronics, Malaysia can achieve the stated government
aim for a high-wage, hi-tech transformation of the economy.
South Korea stated loud and clear at the summer
school, that it is eager to work alongside Malaysia.
In the words of Prof. Kun Jai Lee, a senior professor
from KAIST, in his closing speech: “Korea will gladly
help Malaysia to build its first nuclear power plant.
Since your government has stated that it aspires to have
the first nuclear power plant by 2021, we don’t have
much time to waste!”

As Malaysia’s newly appointed “nuclear ambassadors,”
we were impressed. This is an offer from our
Asian technological “big brother,” which has proved to
the world its mastery in safely harnessing nuclear
power, that is simply too good to refuse. What on Earth
is stopping Malaysia from making the simple decision
to Go Nuclear? Half of Malaysia’s population, like me,
is under 23 years old. We want an answer and a future.

(From: Executive Intelligence Review - June 18, 2010)

Worship is for Al-Khalaq, the Endless Creator of All

The duty of the human being in this world is to responsibly care for the trust which we have been given: to have freewill, to exercise self-reflection, to worship and know one’s Lord, to live and work in harmony with the creation and to adopt one’s correct position to God and life. We are here to love, to appreciate, to learn and to move on. Worship is only for the Creator, not for the created. If you worship the created, then you will find yourself in loss, because whatever is created is going to change; it will disappear and die before your eyes. If you worship the Creator, you find yourself fixed on that which never changes or dies.

Over time, verily the human being is in loss, except such as have faith and do righteous deeds and band together in the mutual enjoining of Truth, Patience and Constancy. (SURAH AL-ASR, HOLY QUR’AN 103)

- Sheikh Din Muhammad al-Dayemi

On true thankfulness...

[The Prophet] David (peace be upon him) once said:

"My God, how can I thank You, when my thankfulness to You is itself a blessing from among Your gracious favors?"

So Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) conveyed to him by way of inspiration: "Now you have thanked Me indeed!"


- Sheikh Abdul-Qadir al-Jilani (ra)


Too often, we look for Allah's blessings in the the form of reward, i.e. the products or outcomes of good deeds. What we too often fail to appreciate is that the real gifts of Allah are in being given the opportunity and means to do good. For example, rather than focusing on the reward we hope to receive by performing a good deed, we often overlook the fact that it is Allah who facilitated the entire situation to begin with! Thus, the real gift lies is in the desire, knowledge, opportunity and ability that we have been given to perform the act. When we are able to see in this manner, then gratitude to Allah takes on a new form: I don't hope for reward from fasting, but am grateful for even being given the opportunity and ability to fast; I don't hope for reward in praying, but am overwhelmed with gratitude and humility in being chosen by Allah to have the honor of bowing down to Him five times a day; I do not perform a service in hope of reward, but am awe-struck when I receive inspiration - seemingly from out of nowhere - to even want to do something good for someone. Thus, by being grateful for being given the opportunity to serve Allah is -- according to the great Sheikh -- the greater gratitude, if you will, that we should be striving and hoping for, insya-Allah...

A Muslim Response to 'Draw Muhammad Day'

A Muslim Response to 'Draw Muhammad Day'
By Nihad Awad

[Nihad Awad is national executive director for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil liberties organization. He may be contacted at: nawad@cair.com ]

I will be the first to defend anyone's right to express their opinion, no matter how offensive it may be to me. Our nation has prospered because Americans value and respect diversity.

But freedom of expression does not create an obligation to offend or to show disrespect to the religious beliefs or revered figures of others.

In reaction to the recent controversy over a depiction of Islam's Prophet Muhammad in an episode of Comedy Central's "South Park," a Seattle cartoonist apparently declared May 20th to be "Everybody Draw Muhammad Day."

I say "apparently" because cartoonist Molly Norris -- the creator of the cartoon showing many objects claiming to be a likeness of the prophet -- now says she never intended to launch "Draw Muhammad Day."

On her web site, she has since posted a statement that reads in part: "I did NOT 'declare' May 20 to be 'Everybody Draw Mohammed Day.'...The cartoon-poster, with a fake 'group' behind it, went viral and was taken seriously...The vitriol this 'day' has brought out, of people who only want to draw obscene images, is offensive to the Muslims who did nothing to endanger our right to expression in the first place...I apologize to people of Muslim faith and ask that this 'day' be called off."

Norris even visited a mosque at the invitation of the local Muslim community.

The creator of a Facebook page dedicated to the day also repudiated the "inflammatory posts" it inspired. He said, "I am aghast that so many people are posting deeply offensive pictures of the Prophet...Y'all go ahead if that's your bag, but count me out."

Despite the cartoonist's and the Facebook page creator's seemingly sincere attempts to distance themselves from the fake event, Muslim-bashers and Islamophobes made sure the call to "draw Muhammad" went viral on the Internet. They are hoping to offend Muslims, who are generally sensitive to created images of the Prophet Muhammad or any prophet.

[The majority of Muslims believe visual representations of all prophets are inappropriate in that they distract from God's message and could lead to a kind of idol worship, something forbidden in Islam.]

So how should Muslims and other Americans react to this latest attempt by hate-mongers to exploit the precious right of free speech and turn May 20 into a celebration of degradation and xenophobia?

Before I answer that question, it must first be made clear that American Muslims value freedom of speech and have no desire to inhibit the creative instincts of cartoonists, comedians or anyone else.

The mainstream American Muslim community, including my own organization, has also strongly repudiated the few members of an extremist fringe group who appeared to threaten the creators of "South Park." That group, the origins and makeup of which has been questioned by many Muslims, has absolutely no credibility within the American Muslim community.

I, like many Muslims, was astonished to see media outlets broadcasting the views of a few marginal individuals, while ignoring the hundreds of mosques and Muslim institutions that have representatives who could have offered a mainstream perspective.

Next, one must examine how the Prophet Muhammad himself reacted to personal insults.

Islamic traditions include a number of instances in which the Prophet had the opportunity to retaliate against those who abused him, but refrained from doing so. He said, "You do not do evil to those who do evil to you, but you deal with them with forgiveness and kindness."

Even when the prophet was in a position of power, he chose the path of kindness and mercy. When he returned to Mecca after years of exile and personal attacks, he did not take revenge on the people who had reviled him and abused and tortured his followers, but instead offered a general amnesty.

In the Quran, Islam’s revealed text, God states: "Invite (all) to the way of your Lord with wisdom and beautiful preaching, and argue with them in ways that are best and most gracious: for your Lord knows best who have strayed from His Path and who receive guidance." (16:125)

Another verse tells the prophet to "show forgiveness, speak for justice and avoid the ignorant." (7:199)

This is the guidance Muslims should follow as they express concern about an insulting depiction of the Prophet Muhammad, or of any other prophet of God.

Instead of reacting negatively to the bigoted call to support "Draw Muhammad Day," American Muslims -- and Muslims worldwide -- should use that and every other day as an opportunity to reach out to people of other faiths and beliefs to build bridges of understanding and respect.

The best and most productive response to bigoted campaigns like "Draw Muhammad Day" is more communication, not less communication -- including not restricting the free flow of ideas with measure like banning Facebook.

Research has shown that anti-Islam prejudice goes down when people interact with ordinary Muslims and have greater knowledge of Islam.

Therefore, the best reaction to those who would mock the Prophet Muhammad (or the religious symbols of any faith) might be a mosque open house for the local interfaith community, a community service activity organized by Muslims and involving people of other faiths, or a newspaper commentary describing the life, legacy and personal character of the prophet, which is the opposite of the calumny some people fabricate about him. This should be of concern to all decent and objective people.

We will all benefit if each of us -- whether Muslim, Jew, Christian, Buddhist, or Hindu -- exhibits the common human decency required by our respective faiths.

Developing the Muslim Self Through Martial Arts

Developing the Muslim Self Through Martial Arts

By Hwaa Irfan

Al-jihad al-akbar the greater jihad, is the inner battle; the invisible war towards self development and unity of mind, body and soul. Many Islamic scholars view this as the prime ambition in Islam, for without this inner jihad, man’s will over his personal and public life is meaningless as man’s physical tendencies and weaknesses cannot be overcome. The modern exterior of life created by man has added ugliness where the signs of Allah (SWT) through nature once added beauty, meditation and reflection. The Qur’an states:

{…Allah does not change the condition of a people until they change their own condition…} (Surat ul Ra’d 13:11).

However, before the external changes (political and social) can take place, the internal must transpire first; otherwise it is all short lived.

In the past for Chinese Muslims, the martial arts were a means to bring the innerjihad into a tangible method of self development.

Many reports have shown that the proper learning of martial arts has helped troubled youths claim and earn self-respect and understanding. The enemy within is thus tamed and understood.

“A man’s enemies can be of more benefit to him than his brothers, for they draw attention to his faults from which he can then turn away.” – Ali ibn Abi Talib

Mind-Body-Spirit Union

Martial arts is seemingly a physical art form that has undergone many transformations over the years making it appear to focus on defense and attack. Yet in its truest form, as in Islam, it uses the physical world of man to understand the non-physical world to create a mind-body-spirit union.

Christian educator and theosophist Rudolph Steiner once pointed out that a great debt was owed by western natural science to the spiritual stream of what he called ‘Arabism’. He argued that Western natural science was the product of the Christian Crusades and Muslim Holy War in a martial age. It was during the battle for Christendom in Northern Spain that the works of ibn Sina (Avicenna) and others’ overwhelming belief in the transcendence of Allah (SWT) affected and influenced such prominent Christian scientists of the times such as Roger Bacon. Crusaders perceived Muslims as having a spiritual power and sense of unity that moved them with elemental force.

Kung fu is part of our long history as Muslims in seeking to learn and develop within ourselves. The word “Kung fu” actually means the ‘mastery of a difficult task to a standard of excellence’. It is the origin of most of the Asiatic martial arts, but focuses on the development of the complete person mentally and physically. The art of energy management, however, is not confined to Chinese martial arts forms which Muslims have helped to develop and even originate as some might claim!

Energy as in the life force directed through the human energy field in Chinese is called chi and shan. In Islam it is nafas and ruh. Used in spiritual cultivation, the direction of the life force plays a different role – the inner jihad.

Islam and the Martial Arts

Muslims in Malaysia and Indonesia practice Muslim forms of martial arts like Silat. In China, where the Muslim place of worship is called Qing Zhen Si (Temples of Purity and Truth), Muslims have contributed to the development of chi kung and kung fu.

Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang was the founder of the famous Ming Dynasty, and although he never proclaimed to be a Muslim, his six most trusted commanders were. They were Chang Yuchan, Hu Dahai, Mu Ying, Lan Yu, Feng Sheng and Ding Dexing. They were all wushu (Chinese for martial arts) masters. As commanders they defeated rebellious activities including that of the Mongols. A significant number of Muslims died between 1644 –1911 AD in the attempt to restore the Ming Dynasty, which was instituted to bring harmony and fellowship amongst all the different groups of China.

The leaders of the Hui, a Muslim minority of five million, called on the people to learn wushu as a “holy practice in the struggle for survival and self-improvement.” During the Lesser Bairam (Eid ul Fitr) and the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) birthday, the Hui local mosques held wushu contests or exhibitions. The Chinese martial arts technique called “Tan Lui” (spring leg) was actually developed by a Hui Muslim named Chamir from Xingjiang during the Ming Dynasty (1368 –1644 AD).

Cha Kungfu is a Muslim technique from Northern Shaolin also named after a Muslim Kung Fu master – Cha Mi Er. Another Muslim master was Cheong Ho, an admiral of the Ming Dynasty.

The Baijiquan (8 extreme fists – rake hand) was first practiced by Wu Zhong, a Chinese Muslim from the Mong village in Kang country. In 1936, Zheng Wen Guang, a Muslim, attended the 11th Olympic Games as a specially invited member on the Chinese Wushu team.

This is a glimpse at what once was. Last August, China’s military completed a large-scale ‘exercise’ in the Muslim region of Xingjiang.

Not acknowledging our religion and the wealth that has been offered to us is a reflection of our inability to bring into focus the inner jihad, as we seek to develop understanding and further control over our lives.

This was orginally written in 2002…

Sources:

Boardman. Terry. “ ‘Asia’ and ‘The West’ at the End of the 20th. Century. 01/31/00. 1-9. Monju.pwp. 08/30/01.

Coralweb.net “Chinese Muslims Developed What We Now Call ‘Kung Fu’. 08/08/99.1-2. Coralweb.net. 08/16/01.

Geocities.com. “Answers to Readers Questions – August 2000. Pt.2”. 1-18. Wong Kiew Kit’s Home Page. Geocities.com. 08/30/01.

Haeri, Fadhlalla. “The Sayings & Wisdom of Imam ‘Ali”. Britain & N. Ireland. Muhammadi Trust & Zahra Publications. 1992.

Kabiling. Karen. “History of Chinese Muslims Discussed”. Spartan Daily. 03/15/01. 1-3. News. Webcom.com. 08/16/01.

Lohan.8k.com. “About Kung Fu”. 1-3. Kung Fu History. Lohan 8k.com. 08/30/01.

McGregor. Richard. “China Completes Military Exercises in Muslim Region”. 08/14/01. 1-2. Asia Pacific: News & Analysis/World. FT.COM. 08/20/01.

Stark. Michael, J. “Chinese Martial Arts and the Hui”. 01/06/97. Takalmakan.org. 08/16/01.

Xianging. Ma. “Han Chinese Muslims Developed Many Forms of Wushu”. Singapore News Forum. 07/01/01. Singapore. Asiaco.com. 08/16/01.

Zheng Dao Lo Martial Arts Academy “Zheng Dao Lo Martial Arts”. 1-4. Members.tripod.co.uk. 08/18/01

Muhammad Ali's Message to His Daughter

The following incident took place when Muhammad Ali's (KELAY) daughters arrived at his home wearing clothes that were not modest. Here is the story as told by one of his daughters:

When we finally arrived, the chauffeur escorted my younger sister, Laila, and me up to my father's suite. As usual, he was hiding behind the door waiting to scare us. We exchanged many hugs and kisses as we could possibly give in one day.

My father took a good look at us. Then he sat me down on his lap and said something that I will never forget. He looked me straight in the eyes and said, "Hana, everything that God made valuable in the world is covered and hard to get to. Where do you find diamonds? Deep down in the ground, covered and protected. Where do you find pearls? Deep down at the bottom of the ocean, covered up and protected in a beautiful shell. Where do you find gold? Way down in the mine, covered over with layers and layers of rock.
You've got to work hard to get to them."

He looked at me with serious eyes. "Your body is sacred. You're far more precious than diamonds and pearls, and you should be covered too."

Source: Taken from the book: More Than A Hero: Muhammad Ali's Life Lessons Through His Daughter's Eyes.

The Missing Link in the Education of Our Boys

April 27, 2010 at 1:08 pm (Education, Gender, Life, Self Development, Story Time for Adults)
Tags: U.S., gender, girls, schooling, factory education, boys, male, coed, unisex,coeducation, teachers, pupils, learning, curriculum, U.K., Hong Kong, E.U.

The Missing Link in the Education of Our Boys

By Hwaa Irfan

It has become generally accepted that the education of boys and girls in a mixed environment is far superior to single-sex education. With the 1994 European Community resolution ending single sex schools on the basis of sex discrimination, further moves by the European Union towards standardizing the curriculum of schools throughout Europe have been taking more entrenched steps to make this the norm through sex education despite long term research projects in the U.K. providing strong evidence towards a negative impact on boys academically. The reasons for this general acceptance may have more to do with the focus on gender equity when it comes to girls academically speaking, negating the socio-psychological implications on both genders, and that boys have needs to.

The U.S., has seen a renaissance in single sex education. Since 2004, 445 single-sex classes, and 95 single sex public schools have sprung up across the U.S in response to a change in federal law. One of those schools, the Public School in New York, returned to single sex education in 2009, in response to falling grades and increasing behavioral problems. Attending that school, Samuel Little’s son, Gavin is in his second year of single sex education at Public School. Little told New York Times:

“Before it was all about showing the girls who was toughest, and roughing and being cool” “Now I never hear a word from teachers about behavioral problems, and when he talks about school, he actually talking about work”.

One satisfied parent and son who have done what they have considered best for them despite coeducation being the main mode of education in the U.S. today. Coeducationalists continue to argue against single sex schools, often falling on the belief that single sex schools reinforces stereotypes. Certain things can be taken for granted, as long as the key element desired is in place. Advocates against single-sex education usually measure success of coeducation in the measureable terms of grades, losing oversight of the overall repercussions in the long term.

The coeducation movement began in 1890, when the call for mixed education was based on social reasons rather than academic ones. Brehony in his Coeducation: Perspectives and Debates in the Early Twentieth Century” argued that “… no record of cognitive outcome was ever presented”, and Carol Dyhouse in her “No Distinction of Sex? Women as British Universities 1870-1939 found that coeducation was for the benefit of boys not girls, out fear of homosexuality occurring in boys’ only schools. Dyhouse was referring to the resolutions of the Association of Headmistresses in 1905. That move was essentially a financial one, due to the difficulties of procuring endowments for girls/women’s education. The changes in the U.S. were at the forefront of this movement, influencing the move towards coeducation in the U.K via the Bryce Commission at a time when resources (qualified female teachers, and financial support) were limited for girls’ only schools.

The reasons for seeking coeducation at the turn of the 19th century, were simple ones, but the consequences were a little more complicated. Boys do behave differently under certain situations, and so do girls, but because of certain social movements, we are supposed to not acknowledge the truth of our lives. We consider children as products of our minds, neglecting their souls. We assume that through the narrow secular meaning of the word “education” that future generations will be less predisposed to acts of nature. To demonstrate, is the study from the University of Alabama, U.S. by Barton and Cohen “Classroom Gender Composition and Peer Relations”. There were 46 boys (5th and 6th graders) and 47 girls who had attended single sex schools in a study, along with 45 students who had attended coed. It was found that:

• Mutual friendships had improved for boys on changing to single sex classrooms • Aggressive behavior (both overt aggression and relational aggression) had increased for girls on moving to single sex classrooms • Victimization behavior increased for girls and not for boys on moving to single sex classrooms In the follow-up after first year transition into single sex classes, it was found that: • Boys continued to show an increase in establishing mutual friendships, but also overt aggression began to increase. • Negative behavior in girls’ classes increased within the 5th grade, but began to tail off in the 6 grade along with victimization.

It has been found that boys tend to lean towards overt aggression, which is more demonstrative and physical, whereas girls demonstrate a relational aggression which is based on the manipulation, intimidation, victimization of relations, and rejection. It is interesting to note that girls exhibited both overt and relational aggression after separating from coed classes, but tailed off what is considered “boys” behavior, and increased on what is considered “girls” behavior within single sex schools. Whereas for boys they were more likely to have peers amongst their own gender the longer they remained in single-sex classes.

This clearly demonstrates the effect of one gender upon the other, and vice versa. Transference is a psychological term that everyone is prone to. We are bound to transfer behaviors and feelings when in the presence of others. The cost of such exercise is prolific in our schools today in the form of school violence, and teenage pregnancies.

Impact on Boys

Concerns were raised as to the benefits of coeducation on male self concept as early as the first decade of 20th century. The concerns arose out of the fact that mixed schools had a larger female population than boys. Members of the British Mosely Education Commission (1903), compared American boys with English boys because coeducation in the U.K. was still in its infancy. Member of the Commission, C.J. Hamilton felt that coeducation “… no doubt softens the manners (some would say to the point of effeminacy) of the boy”. There was also concern that:

“The great preponderance of women teachers threatens the virility of the nations”.

The above might seem irrational, but even today one American headmaster based on his observations had the following to say in the report “Give Boys Their Space”:

“[When we switched to single-sex classrooms] the guys really came together. They worked, their guards came down, they revealed the really caring side of themselves. Once we removed the girls from the equation, all of this “I’m this big tough guy” stuff just completely disappeared. One time we had a coed lunch, and it was a disaster. We had guys talking loud, and girls acting sassy”

This confirms what members of the Bryce and Mosely Commission at the turn of the 20th century had expressed, and confirms the result from the Barton and Cohen study whereby the boys after transferring to single-sex classes had more mutual friends.

From an in-depth study “The Effects of Schooling on Gender Differences” in Hong Kong there were additional considerations to their findings. The cultural backdrop played a major role as Hong Kong is a traditional male oriented society that had been subject to the implementation of a Western education system, along with a single-sex education system that has a male (physical sciences, and Math) oriented and female (Arts and Social Sciences) oriented curriculum. Carried out over a period of years, with investigation of 45,000 secondary school students in Hong Kong, the authors Kam-cheung Wong, Raymond Lam, and Lai-ming Ho found that:

“…while boys performed better on average in SSPA (Single Sex Placement Allocations) when entering secondary schools in Hong Kong, five years later, the situation was reverse. Girls out performed in almost all subjects [coed]. The findings coincide with the results observed from studies in United Kingdom and Australia that girls did better than boys in all areas of the high school curriculum…”

The authors suggested, which is affirmed elsewhere that girls perform better than boys in coed. It is believed that the reason for this is that girls respond better to the systemized method of schooling, school work, and seeking advice from classmates and friends, however girls still did better in single-sex schools.
Bear in mind that this is reference to schooling (factory education) in general, as there are other factors that affect the success or lack thereof including the quality of teachers, the social background of the pupils, and the resources that are made available. The academic success of coeducation cannot be denied, as the resources offered to it allowed for girls to be educated like boys. Later one will find that although there are still some subjects like math and the physical sciences which are still male dominated, and the Arts, which is female dominated, within coed, which does not follow through in single-sex education, particularly for boys.

The State of Education for Boys Today

The American Academy for Educational Development in their 2005 “A Report in the Growing Crisis in Boys’ Education” found that:

• Boys were more likely to be referred to a school psychologist • Boys represented 70% of the students with learning disabilities • Boys represented 80% of the students with social and emotional disabilities • Boys (particularly minorities) represented 70% of school suspensions • Boys were behind 80% of the school violence, and were the main victims

The hype some feminists and pro-coeducationalists do cry. Clearly the research has centered on U.K., Germany, Belgium, the U.S, Sweden, and Australia that may have peculiarities pertaining to their system of coeducation, and given that adolescence is a cultural paradigm that is heightened or abated by the cultural context in which one lives, the facts bear out further. Additionally, some of the concerns would not have received much attention if boys did well academically, but did not so well on a personal level.

At a conference of the International Boys’ Schools Coalition that took place in the U.K. in 2010, a report was presented to headmasters of both private and state schools. In favor of boys schools, the findings were as follows:

• Boys in single sex schools were more likely to do cultural and artistic activities, which develops their emotional side, because they did not feel obliged to “perform” to stereotypes that called on them to “behave like a man” • Boys in single sex schools were more likely to express their emotions • That despite the stereotypes, boys are more emotional than girls • Boys performed badly in mixed schools because they are demoralized by their female counterparts when it comes to verbal and reading skills, because the left side of the brain develops faster in girls • Boys felt the need to be “cool” rather than studious in mixed schooling • That the British education system has become too focused on girls education • Boys learn best through touch, and hands-on experience, as they are more spatial, more impulsive, and more physical, so they need to walk around without being made to feel disruptive • “In the present sexualized atmosphere prevalent in mixed schools, boys feel coerced into acting like men before they understand themselves well enough to know what that means”

The 4-year project “Raising Boys Achievement” undertaken by the reputable University of Cambridge, U.K looking into the forces that undermine boys’ education took place in the U.K., from 2000 – 2004. Over 50 primary, secondary and special schools were explored for the following reasons as stated in the report:

“Rather more boys than girls fail to achieve level 4 in English national tests at the end of key stage 2; rather more boys than girls fail to achieve the 5A*-C benchmark grades in GCSE examinations taken at 16+. These patterns of academic achievement are evident in most schools in England”

The report rested firmly on the academic issues that have led to a gender gap, and how schools can overcome them through various teaching and classroom strategies, including mentoring. However, to consciously know what one is doing to eradicate a problem one has to understand all the dynamics at play, and in this situation that is the admittance, and applicable knowledge that how boys learn, and how girls learn differ, and what girls need, and what boys need differ too without falling into preconceived stereotypes which are void of the laws of nature! This means an evaluation on not only the school ethos, curriculum etc., but also on the maturity of the type and age of the teachers employed, and whether they are employed to do admin work (which has forced so many good teachers to leave), or to whether they are employed to teach.

However, back to the report “Raising Boys Achievement” the authors commented on the advantages of single sex schools as perceived by the teachers:

• “ The opportunity to use a variety of teaching strategies which were targeted to boys’ needs and interests”
• “Provision of a context in which teachers could challenge boys’ stereotypes more effectively”
• “The existence of an all-male environment which was more conducive to learning, with fewer distractions and less embarrassment, enabling boys to be more open and responsive in class, and able to concentrate and participate more”.

In the projects review of single sex education the researchers felt to do what many liberalists do as in the case of standardizing sex education, and that is to ask the opinion of those who wish to feel comfortable with their lower desires – in this case the students. Of course the students themselves would say that learning in a mixed environment is good for them, and so they did. However, there was a leaning towards learning in a single-sex setting.

Boys felt:

• “My hormones are not dancing to the beat of the night!’

• “It gives you a lot more confidence to answer questions in class because there is not so much pressure and embarrassment if you are wrong as there would be with girls about”.

Girls felt:

• “You don’t need to act as though you’re really cool, especially when you’re not
feeling as though you are!”

• “You feel braver and less embarrassed in offering answers, because there are no boys to make fun of you when you are wrong”.

As one headmaster to an American school pleaded in “Give Boys Their Space”

“When we switched to single-sex classrooms, the guys really came together. They worked, their guards came down, they revealed the really caring and nurturing side of themselves. Once we removed the girls from the equation, all of this, “I’m this big tough guy” stuff just completely disappeared. One time we had a coed lunch, and it was a disaster. We had guys talking loud and girls being extra sassy”.

Conclusion

It has to be noted that the above is a reflection of “factory education”/schooling, and cannot be said to represent all forms of mixed education today. The problem is though, a growing percentage of the global population is being force-fed through this system of education, which we all take to be quite normal, when the above studies only represent a small percentage of the studies researched for this article, which echo the same results. These studies not only reflect on the education of boys, but on the conduct of females in the presence of males. Boys today will be the colleagues, co-workers, husbands, fathers, and heads of family, organizations, and societies of tomorrow; and if they are hindered from going through their natural stages of development, then society as a whole will suffer. How many women complain about their men, and how many young male Muslims complain about the lack of male role models?

Islam advises a certain code of conduct between men and women in our daily lives, but it is to our own downfall if we allow ourselves to believe as those who defame Islam want us to believe, that Islam is “out of date”. It is far from out of date, but is always “in date” with the actual needs of the human heart, soul and mind as long as we “update” our knowledge of Islam.

If anything is to be learned, by the societies in which we live, it is and has been to ensure fair treatment and allocation of resources to both girls and boys, both men, and women, and both child and adult regardless of status, and ethnicity with generations in mind. We can no longer afford to neglect the needs of any member of society, and we must reflect on our role in that neglect.

Sources:

Albisetti, J. “Un-Learned Lessons from the New World? English Views of American Coeducation and Women Colleges c. 1865 – 1910” History of Education, 2000. Vol. 29: 5 p473 – 489. History Department, University of Kentucky.

Barton, B.K. & Cohen. R. “Classroom Gender Composition and Children’s Peer Relations.” Child Study Journal. Vol. 34: 1. 2004. Department of Psychology. University of Alabama.

Froschl, M & Sprung, B “Raising and Educating Healthy Boys: A Report on the Growing Crisis in Boy’s Education” Academy for Educational Development.

Medina, J. “Boys and Girls Together, Taught Separately in School” New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/11education/11gender.html.

Smith, I. D. “Gender Differentiation: Gender Differences in Academic Achievement and Self Concept in Coeducational and Single-Sexed Schools”. Australian Research Council. Institutional Grants Scheme.
Williams, R. Single-Sex Schools Help Boys to Enjoy Arts, Study Says. Guardian.co.uk.

Wong, K. et al “The Effects of Schooling on Gender Differences” University of Hong Kong. 1997.
Younger, W. et al. Raising Boys Achievement. Department for Education and Science.

Perception

THE SITUATION

In Washington , DC , at a Metro Station, on a cold January morning in 2007, this man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, approximately 2,000 people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. After about 3 minutes, a middle-aged man noticed that there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds, and then he hurried on to meet his schedule.

About 4 minutes later:


The violinist received his first dollar. A woman threw money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk.


At 6 minutes:


A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.


At 10 minutes:

A 3-year old boy stopped, but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head the whole time. This action was repeated by several other children, but every parent - without exception - forced their children to move on quickly.


At 45 minutes:


The musician played continuously. Only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while. About 20 gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace. The man collected a total of $32.

After 1 hour:

He finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed and no one applauded. There was no recognition at all.

No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before, Joshua Bell sold-out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100 each to sit and listen to him play the same music.


This is a true story. Joshua Bell, playing incognito in the D.C. Metro Station, was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people's priorities.

This experiment raised several questions:

*In a common-place environment, at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty?

*If so, do we stop to appreciate it?

*Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?


One possible conclusion reached from this experiment could be this:

If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made . . .

How many other things are we missing as we rush through life?

Muslim Youth and Anger

Youth
The challenge of anger among young Muslims in America
By Abdul Malik Mujahid

In a Gallup survey last year, 26 percent of Muslim youth in the United States reported feeling angry as compared to 14 percent of Protestant youth and 18 percent of the general American population. They are angrier than their parents. This survey had 10 questions on mental health and almost all results when it came to young Muslims revealed that they were the least happy and the most angry.

It is important to note that this March 2009 report, entitled, “Muslim Americans: A National Portrait”, is not just any poll or survey. It is highly reliable since it compiles results of almost 500 Gallup surveys. The Gallup surveys America every day and for this report, they picked a year and a half worth of surveys and cross- tabulated the results among different faith groups between Muslims, Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Mormons and the general American population.

It is critical that all community leaders, Muslims and non-profit foundations, as well as our government, pay more attention to this demographic group and find effective ways to address its challenges.

My reaction: so stunned I had to meet with Gallup’s pollsters

Only 40 percent of Muslim youth surveyed by Gallup considered themselves to be “thriving” as compared to 61 percent of Protestants and 53 percent of the general U.S. population. That is the lowest level among all youth groups surveyed.

After reading the whole report, I was so concerned about the findings revealing the anger and frustration of our youth that I interviewed one of the report’s senior analysts for Radio Islam and met the other two in person to discuss these statistics.

I asked them what they thought would be the three major reasons for American Muslim youth’s lower level of happiness and higher level of anger. Unfortunately, Gallup did not ask those questions in their survey. But I found in their study and in other ones, some other information which might provide insight into this.

What young Muslims are facing in America

Islamophobia clearly seems to be playing a role in shaping the attitudes of young Muslims. According to one Zogby international poll, 75 percent of young Muslims said they or someone they know has been discriminated against. A Columbia University survey of Muslim students in New York public schools found that 28 percent had been stopped by police as a result of racial profiling and seven percent of them said they had been physically assaulted because of who they are.

This may explain why young Muslims are also the least likely to feel safe at night in their communities. According to the Gallup survey, only 59 percent of young Muslims responded yes to the question “do you feel safe walking alone at night in the city or the area in which you live” as compared to 70 percent of youth in the general U.S. population.

The Gallup survey found that young Muslims are also less likely to be employed. Sixty-seven percent as opposed to 79 percent of young Protestants who have jobs. Muslim youth were also the least likely youth group to report being satisfied with their jobs.

The human face of this pressure from Islamophobia can be found in cases like that of a Muslim girl featured on the NPR program “This American Life” in December 2006 (). The show detailed how she went from being a well-adjusted student to a pariah mocked by both fellow students and teachers for her faith This was at a school in an unnamed small town in the state of New York. As a result, she wanted to leave Islam. The crisis also resulted in her parents splitting up.

Harassment and discrimination are hardly news to older American Muslims, who have become accustomed to hearing or even experiencing it on a regular basis. The FBI has conducted more than 500,000 interviews of Muslims in America; American Muslim leaders, advocates and activists are routinely harassed when traveling, especially when returning home; mosques in America have been checked for nuclear bombs; a majority of Americans think very negatively of Islam and Muslims and 22 percent don’t even want a Muslim as their neighbor.

In addition, America’s wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, its heavy military presence in all but 19 of the world’s 195 countries and the deadly acts of terrorists have led to deep-seated animosity towards Islam and Muslims.

What had not been known on a quantitative level until the Gallup survey was how deeply this has all affected Muslim youth. It’s obvious that there has been a serious trickle down effect.

For instance, Muslim wages post-9/11 have gone down by 10 percent and scholars, counselors and community activists have reported that there are a higher number of mental health issues Muslims are grappling with. All of these factors affect youth in our community as well, who are not immune to their environment.

How young Muslims are responding to these pressures

Young Muslims are responding differently to these pressures. Forty seven percent of college-going young Muslims drink alcohol, while 16 percent engage in binge drinking; 29 percent of Muslim students in New York public schools sometimes use a non-Muslim name to get by. Some have changed their names to Christian names. A small number have joined urban gangs. Some have left Islam and some have become more religious.

These pressures and the resulting anger may explain why Muslim youth are the most disengaged among all the youth groups surveyed by Gallup when it comes to voting. Young Muslim Americans are the lowest percentage of any youth group registered to vote.

This marginalization of the community and alienation of its youth constitutes a breading ground for extremism, while proper engagement has only benefits for both Muslims and the United States in general.

The risk of rising extremism among young Muslims

When a Pew survey in May 2006 asked “can suicide bombings of civilian targets to defend Islam be justified?”, 69 percent of American Muslims, aged 18 to 29, said never; 26 percent said ever; 15 percent said often; 11 percent said rarely and 5 percent said they didn’t know.

These 31 percent who did not choose the “never” option are a real concern for this author, considering that in Islamic law, taking a civilian’s life is never justified. Period. To figure out who this particular subset of young Muslims is, we need to ask the following questions:

Are these Muslims driven by any ideology?

Have they accepted extremist interpretations?

Why have they come to this conclusion?

Were the Pew’s questions clear enough?

Were they thinking of a battlefield while answering these questions or of their neighborhoods?

No matter how we look at the data, these are serious numbers which require serious deliberation in our society, our Muslim communities, as well as for people concerned with peace and justice, our governments as well as those responsible for keeping our neighborhoods safe and healthy.

Muslim Americans are concerned about youth radicalism

It seems as if a good number of Muslims are concerned about this issue of youth and radicalism as well. A Pew survey question asked respondents “how concerned are you about the rise of Islamic extremism in the U.S.” Thirty-six percent said “very concerned” and 25 percent reported being “somewhat concerned”.

While this author has never been worried about Osama bin Laden having any appeal to Muslim Americans, I am not so sure about Anwar al-Awlaki. The latter is a U.S.-born citizen who has served as an Imam in three Masjids in America, and has reportedly been considered a balanced source of Islamic education through his audio cds for a number of years. His audio lectures have sold far more widely than the most popular American Muslim preacher, Hamza Yusuf. The fact that Al-Awlaki has reportedly condoned violence is the most authoritative challenge to date for the Muslim community in North America, despite the fact that he currently lives in Yemen.

The challenge of engagement: start with the schools and colleges

Almost 99 percent of Muslim children attend public schools. Only one percent attend an Islamic day school. About four percent attend some form of additional Islamic education like weekend schools which are mostly limited to 40 hours of instruction per year. Therefore, the place where almost all Muslim youth are found are in American schools, colleges, and universities.

Our schools, our foundations, and people in the field of youth development must urgently develop programs and devise strategies which focus on engaging Muslim youth positively.

The mainstream media must equate Islamophobia with racism

Considering that most youth over 50 hours a week consuming media, it is important that responsible media discuss the challenges of Islamophobia and demonization of Muslims in American society. We cannot have healthy children unless we improve the environment we are raising our children in.

Although many Muslim organizations are trying to reach out to the media, their efforts seem to have not had little impact on Islamophobia in society. The vilification of Muslims and Islam has become relentless. Muslims are consistently portrayed as “the other”, not part of the United States, and unworthy of tolerance. Millions of dollars are being spent on a focused program that emphasizes that Muslims are inherently violent, holding them responsible for WWI and WWII, along with recent conflicts.

Even organizations like The ADL (Anti-Defamation League) , which was established to fight hate, suggested that Islam’s declaration of faith, the Shahada, is an “expression of hate” that is “closely identified” with terrorism. They later apologized.

FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) has done an excellent job of documenting how Islamophobia is becoming mainstream. http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3648

Public policy must engage Muslims

While President Barack Obama has been reaching out to the Muslim world since he took office, it is critical that he engage Muslims at home first. America needs its Muslims, except that the only Muslim serving in the White House who helped the President with his speeches, is no longer working there.

The last presidential administration treated American Muslims as virtual enemies of the state, discouraged our civic involvement and suppressed our voices. We were isolated and essentially shunned. In this new era of change, however, it is vital to U.S. interests to engage American Muslims as partners in building relationships with the Muslim world. This is not only a matter of respect, but one of common interests.

American Muslims are a global village made up of diverse communities of African-Americans and immigrants from many nations. Among Muslims, they are one of the largest groups of highly educated professionals in the world.

Tens of thousands are physicians and surgeons. Others serve in higher education. Many proudly serve in the U.S. military. I personally know of at least six Muslims in Chicago who played critical roles in key Muslim governments. Many are directly connected with the ruling elites of the countries of their birth.

Part of the change that American Muslims hope for is to be valued as an asset by their country rather than viewed as suspects.

Muslims are not looking for handouts. We're simply striving for equal opportunity and inclusiveness. That will give a far better message to the Muslim world than speeches. This will send a far stronger message to Muslim youth in America than anything else.

The Muslim community must reallocate its resources for youth development

The Muslim community in the United States is a strong and self-reliant community. It is pouring in hundreds of millions of dollars every year in Islamic education. However, most of these funds are going into Islamic schools. This author is personally committed to Muslim schools. However, these institutions educate less than a one percent of Muslim students. The above described challenge requires our community to reallocate a substantial amount of its resources to reaching out to it’s youth in public schools and campuses for supplemental education, moral support and counseling.

Just looking at five campuses in Chicago, I noticed that Hillel chapters, which represent Jewish students, have more than 30 full-time staff including rabbis. However, there is not a single full-time or part-time staff member at Muslim organizations on campus, much less an Islamic scholar. We can learn a great deal from the Jewish community in the U.S. in their struggle to keep young Jews connected to their Jewish heritage and community.

Sound Vision intends to develop a great amount of content this year focused on topics like Islam in a pluralistic context and discussing objections to Islam. However, we and others who have been concerned about the challenges and frustrations of Muslim youth in America are unable to do much because of the absence of resources.

Please donate to Sound Vision and other institutions providing assistance to the 95% Muslim youth who are not connected with the Muslim community.

Generous Peace

Why does Allah allow suffering and evil? What is evil?

Suffering and Divine Wisdom

QUESTION

     Why does Allah allow suffering and evil? What is evil?

RESPONSE

     Sheikh al-'Alawi has said, "All the universe is Light, and the only thing that darkens it is the manifestation of the self in it." Sheikh 'Abd al-Rahman al-Shaghouri, who met Sheikh al-'Alawi, and related this to me, used to teach that the notions that affect our hearts come from one of four quarters. Notions of tawhid or the absolute Oneness of the Divine come from the All-merciful Himself; those of doing good come from the presence of the angels; those of lusts and desires come from the ego; and those of doubts in eternal truths come from the Devil.

     Now, all of these are ultimately from the first of them, as "Allah is the Creator of everything" (Qur'an 13:16), and the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) has said, "Verily the hearts of mankind, all of them, are between two fingers of the All-merciful like one single heart, which He turns whither He wills (Muslim (14), 4.2045: 2654. S). Imam Ghazali understood the 'hand' of Allah in this hadith as His omnipotence, through which the promptings of angels and devils, to do good or evil, move hearts like 'two fingers.' He says, "Allah accomplishes what He does [within hearts] by controlling angels and devils, both being under the power of His omnipotence in turning hearts over, just as your two fingers, for example, are wholly under your control in turning objects over" (Ihya' 'ulum al-din (4), 3.24).

     From this, we may know that the question "Why does Allah allow suffering?" is itself created by Allah, though put into human hearts as an accusation against God by the Devil, the open foe of mankind, who has sworn to Allah, "Verily I will mislead all of them together, except for Your servants among them whom You have made wholly sincere" (Qur'an 15:39-40). That is, such promptings that appear in the heart are from the quarter of the infernal, but we are responsible for our own choices, since sincerity entails free choice. So perhaps the more telling answer to this question lies not in words, but in the ikhlas or sincerity towards the Divine that alone can avail against the Enemy who has put doubts into people's hearts, as a test from Allah.

1. THEODICY

The problem of suffering has been known in European philosophy since the time of Leibniz, who titled a book after it, as theodicy, from the Greek words theos (God) and dike (justice). The reader will find few other philsophical references below, however, despite the many Christian and Jewish philosophers who have treated the problem, among them Augustine, Maimonides, Aquinas, Spinoza, Hume, Mill, and a good number in the twentieth century. There is no comparable body of literature in the Taoist, Buddhist, or Hindu traditions, probably because most of their followers believe in reincarnation and the inexorable law of karman, which places the blame of suffering squarely on the sufferer for his own misdeeds in this or previous lives. Nor has it received much attention in Islam, because, I believe, Allah has anticipated the doubts of man in advance by answering them in the Qur'an and prophetic sunna. I have hence left unexplored the answers of philosophers and academics, to let the Divine speak for itself; and have elucidated revelation on the question as it has been understood by my mentor Sheikh 'Abd al-Rahman and other traditional scholars, together with my ordinary common sense about the lessons of life. Someone has asked me the above question, and I confine myself herein to what a human being needs to know about it.

     The force of the question, if we parse it logically, contains several premises:

(1) God is almighty.
(2) God is just and good.
(3) Someone just and good would not allow suffering and evil if he could prevent them, yet both exist in the world.
(4) Therefore God is either not almighty, or else not just and good.

     The conclusion is invalid not only because the premises are subtly flawed in ways we shall see below, and countered by many examples we shall provide, but also because the whole answer lies in the absolute perfection of Allah. The above inference presumes that mere words can explain the divine wisdom in suffering, while it can only be intuited by the light of Allah reflected in the heart. That is, while ordinary answers can be articulated by saying something, the answer to "Why does Allah allow suffering and evil," I apprehend, can only be intuited directly, by being something. The way our sheikh taught to change one's being was by three stages: knowledge ('ilm), practice ('amal), and the resultant spiritual state (hal). Words can only help impart knowledge, urge that it be practiced, and allude to or denote the resultant state-while this specific answer can only come about by traversing these three stages with one's existential choices. But by our verbally elucidating the aspects of them that are plain and ready to hand, perhaps Allah will help the reader travel the rest of the way and discover the answer within his own heart. We will take them in the order they normally occur.

2. KNOWLEDGE OF THE DIVINE

The requisite knowledge to understand the question at hand is the knowledge of Allah, who opens His revelation by saying, "In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful and Compassionate." According to Ibn al-'Arabi, this first verse is the predicate of a subject omitted in ellipse, as is frequent in the Qur'an, and its full meaning is "(The origin and appearance of the world are but) In [i.e. 'in virtue of, because of'] the Name of Allah, Most Merciful and Compassionate" (al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya (7), 1.102).

     These opening words convey the mysterious secret of all created being: that its reality lies in the larger context in which it is articulated and has its existence. The Most Merciful (al-Rahman) denotes the penetration of the divine mercy into everything in the cosmos, this world and the next, by bringing it out of the privation of non-being into the perfection of temporal being. It is a mighty mercy, and the ontological basis of our servanthood.

     The Most Compassionate (al-Rahim) is an intensive form of the previous name that denotes a qualitative leap in the magnitude of this mercy through a theophany to be fully manifest only in the next world, beyond death, for the sentient beings ('alamin) Allah loves, of mankind, jinn, angels, and any others. Its infinitude in degree is matched by its infinitude in time, or rather timelessness, extending as it does to eternity.

     How do they, though finite themselves, win unto infinitude? By being transformed and refined by a process of uplifting their possibilities through the pure grace and mercy of the Divine, signified by the Qur'anic verse immediately following the first: al-Hamdu li Llahi Rabbi l-'alamin, "All praise is Allah's, Lord of the worlds of beings." The word Rabb, very imperfectly rendered here as "Lord," was originally a masdar or verbal noun in the ancient Arabic language that denoted educating, raising, or uplifting, in the specific sense of taking something at the imperfect level it first was, then bringing it by degrees to the desired level of perfection; also connoting the love, tenderness, and solicitude with which this normally occurs. This verbal noun, like others in the Arabic tongue, came lexically to be applied to its doer by way of hyperbole, in view of the unceasingness and intensity with which the doer, Allah, does it-much as in English the word "justice," for example, denoting a particular course of legal procedure, came to be applied to the magistrate whose profession it was to effect it.

     The Rabb al-'alamin or "Lord of the worlds of beings" in this sense, uplifts His servants by directing their wills and lives to the larger contexts in which they are imbedded; away from attachment to things, or considering themselves things, or believing that things bring about happiness, to the meaning of things. What are things for?

     Our sheikh held that existent things were precious ('aziza) to Allah Most High, and were the manifestation of His attributes, and especially of His divine mercy and compassion, as the opening verse of the Qur'an indicates. The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, "When Allah created creation, He inscribed in His writ that He has made binding on Himself, it being reposited nigh to Him upon the very Throne: 'Verily My mercy surpasses My wrath'" (Bukhari (2), 9.147: 7404. S). So there is divine mercy and there is divine wrath, the former being of Allah's infinite beauty (jamal), the latter of His limitless majesty (jalal) and justice. He says, "My chastisement I but smite with whom I will, while My mercy encompasses everything: I shall inscribe it for those who show godfearingness, and pay the alms, and who in Our revealed signs are wholehearted believers" (Qur'an 7:156). That is, His mercy is prescribed for those willing to listen and follow.

     Suffering and evil we experience. But their significance lies not in making charges against God, but rather in liberation from them by attaining to limitless felicity with Him. It is to be attained not merely by Iman or 'knowing about Allah,' but by the 'amal or 'practice' appropriate to His divine autonomy, majesty, and beauty; namely servanthood ('ubudiyya). For where there is true knowledge of the Master, there is love; and where there is love, there is devoted service.

3. SERVANTHOOD

The significance of existent things, of our lives and our deaths, lies in the universe of actions they make possible. It is probably no coincidence that the great themes of English literature, particularly since the rise of atheism among intellectuals in the later nineteenth-century, have tended to coalesce into virtually a single theme: the alienation of man before his own meaninglessness. This is something unimaginable for a servant of Allah, except pathologically, in those far from God. For a servant is only meaningless outside of the context in which he exists, what he at bottom is, namely, his Master's, "who has created death and life to try you, as to which of you shall prove better in works" (Qur'an 67:1-2). The most tremendous of personal realities each of us faces, life and death themselves, are a test for something beyond them. The question of theodicy cannot be answered until we understand what.

     The larger picture tells a great deal. Stand for a moment in your mind's eye in the hallway of an institutional building, looking into one of the rooms from its open door. It is presently occupied by a group of young adults each sitting at a school desk, writing on a sheaf of papers, occasionally glancing up at the wall clock, but not looking or talking to one another. They are writing as fast as they are able. Yet this is but a superficial impression, incomprehensible to someone who has never heard of students sitting an examination. The reality of it lies in the larger setting around it. We are at a college of medicine, at a university, at the end of the semester. The reality of this in turn lies in the role of universities in general, the profession of practicing medicine in the larger societal and historical context in which the college has its being, and in a world economy that has focused the salaried energies of many human beings upon the enterprise on which the students in the room are embarked.

     Just now, one of them curls the fingers of her left hand around her right wrist and works it back and forth for a moment before she continues writing. She has writer's cramp, but knows it will be gone after the examination, like the coffee she has been drinking to excess for the previous week, the late hours she spent up studying with her classmates last night, and the stress hormones still coursing in her veins. What sense can possibly be made of the pains she is taking, until we understand that she intends to become a physician?

     Now, people are of two categories with respect to the meaning of this scenario, and indeed of anything: those who realize its significance, and those who do not. "Say: 'Are those who know and those who do not know equal?'" (Qur'an 39:9). On the one hand, the kafir, lexically denoting both a denier or 'unbeliever,' and not tangentially, an ingrate, literally "one who is covered over"-by his own selfishness, benightedness, and thinghood-regards things as primary, the very substrate of reality, the permanence of the world. Conversely, actions are ephemeral for him, in themselves vanishing, except as a means to more things, be they immaterial, such as fame, prestige, or power-or material, such as wealth, clothes, or property. For the kafir, where any aspiration exists beyond merely maximizing happiness and pleasure and avoiding sorrow and pain, the meaning of life is often no more than "to amount to something." As a bumper sticker I once saw read: "He who has the most toys when he dies wins."

     For the mu'min or believer, on the other hand, someone who has lifted his gaze to the horizons of infinity, the opposite view obtains: actions, specifically those which are for God alone, are what is permanent of this world, while things are ephemeral. "Every single thing is perishing," its Creator declares, "except His face" (Qur'an 28:88)-face being an Arabic metaphor for what is most distinctive of someone, the person himself; here, the Being of Allah, and by extension what is done purely and solely for Him and none besides.

     The cosmos, in macrocosm and microcosm, the infinity of sapience and sentience, of human experience within and without-exists to convey and denote the oneness (tawhid) of the Divine. "We shall show them Our signs, in the horizons and in themselves, until it is plain to them that it [this revelation] is the Truth" (Qur'an 41:53). The meaning of things thus lies outside of things, just as the meaning of a symbol lies in what it signifies, portends, and implies.

     What a life lived in servanthood to Allah discloses to the servant is his own larger context. The more he ascends in closeness to the Divine, the farther his horizons recede. Something comes to abide in a servant's heart, left there by directing his will towards Allah in work after work, year after year, until he has become Allah's, and Allah, in a sense, his. This relation is probably as unique for each of the awliya as the uniqueness of Allah Himself. It discloses to each, in his own measure, the wisdom and mercy of Allah in the interface between servant and world. The way of those close to Allah lies not merely in realizing that the world is ordered by the theophany of Allah's names, but in seeing therein the divine perfection. "Say: 'Are the blind and the sighted equal?'" (Qur'an 6:50).

4. THE CONTEXT OF THE DIVINE NAMES

Sheikh 'Abd al-Rahman taught that the divine names vie over existent things to manifest their implications in them. Consider the example of a young man from a good family, who falls in with bad company and drifts into their way of seeing and doing things, under the influence of the name al-Khafid, the Lowerer, and finally al-Mudhill, the Abaser, until the day comes when he can sink no lower and disgusts even himself. The name al-Tawwab or 'Relenter' deploys, he remembers how he was, sees what he has become, and finds himself ashamed before his Maker, to whom he repents. The days and weeks see him improve, under the implications of al-Rafi', He Who Raises. He seeks better company, unplugs from bad old ways, and passes into the sphere of al-Wadud, the Solicitous and Tender, to al-Karim, the All-generous, and so forth. The interactions of the names and their determinations are complex and interpenetrative. The name al-Musawwir, for example, the Bestower of Forms, the Fashioner, the Ingrainer, the Organizer, manifests its implications in all existents; while al-Warith, the Inheritor, remains after the implications of the former have been lifted from any particular existent and it has been annihilated, effaced, and dispersed. The name al-Muqaddim, the Advancer, makes one existent precede another, in works, in rank, or in time of appearance; while al-Mu'akhkhir, the Delayer, the Demoter, postpones existents and events until after others, or keeps them back, or lowers them. The name al-Wahhab, the Liberal, the Bountiful, the Giver, dispenses His bounties perpetually, freely, universally, and for nothing in return; while al-Mani', the Preventer, stops, denies, checks, and prevents attacks. The name al-Nafi', the Benefiter, promotes, helps, and does good to whomsoever He wills; while al-Darr, the Afflicter, damages, harms, and mars whomever He wills. The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said: "Verily, Allah has ninety-nine names. Whoever comprehends all of them shall enter paradise" (Tirmidhi (19), 5.532: 3508. S). The believer, the saint, the 'arif or knower of Allah directly and experientially-all know Allah in His manifestations and determinations, each according to his own illumination and consciousness of the Divine.

     They are patent in the wondrous balance in the natural world between species, whose interests are inextricably intertwined by feeding, parasitism, symbiosis, and most dramatically perhaps, predation. On Isle Royale, for example, a forty-five-mile-long wilderness sanctuary separated by fourteen miles of open water of Lake Superior from the coast of Ontario, there were no moose until 1908, when a number of them swam across the channel to escape wolves on the mainland. By 1915, their numbers had increased to two hundred. The population, unhindered by natural enemies, kept steadily increasing until 1930, when they had eaten up so much of the vegetation on the island that they were starving in droves, emaciated and diseased. The eight hundred or so moose continued, miserably famished and ill, until the winter of 1948-49, when a pack of some twenty timber wolves came across the ice and began to prey on the herd. They were soon reduced to some six hundred, or thirty moose to each wolf, which is the natural balance between the two species in the wild. The outward ferocity of the wolves bringing down the individual moose and eating them, the inevitable fear and blood and suffering of the prey at the fangs of the predator, proved to be a divine mercy resulting in the recovery of the species as a whole on the isle. Within a few years, the herd was better fed and healthier than any time in the previous half century it had lived there (The Seven Mysteries of Life (13), 474-75).

     The particular significance here for theodicy is that the perfection of this world and the next lies in the totality of the myriad interpenetrative and interconnected modes, factors, and implications of these names. For each particular existent's "perfection" is only over others, which to that extent must be subject to some privation, whether experienced as pain, evil, or suffering. A "good job" for example, only exists in contradistinction to the less rewarding ways in which other people have to earn a living.

     Moreover, a certain complementarity imbues the very terms in which the perfection of particulars is construed. Thus triumph has no meaning without the possibility of ruin, or friendship without the possibility of enmity, peace without war, health without disease, safety without peril, might without abasement, or life without death. So privation and evil exist in order to elucidate their opposite, human felicity and perfection; not as any "absolute standard" to measure the Divine, which rather in its entirety measures them. Servanthood means that one accepts that they pertain to man, not to God. Imam Juwayni, Ghazali's sheikh in tenets of faith, expressed this by saying, "There is neither good nor evil in the actions of Allah Most Blessed and Exalted in respect to His divinity, for all actions are equal in respect to Him; while their levels but differ in respect to created servants (al-'Aqida al-Nizamiyya (11), 35-36).

     This supreme sovereignty of Allah is ultimately the reason why theodicy, if earnestly discussed by divines of other faiths, has far less relevance for Muslims. The ethos of Islam or 'submission to Allah' does not reduce the order of created being, with all its complexity, to pleasure or pain, joy or suffering, good or evil, for these refer to created individuals. It instead acknowledges that the universe is a larger context, a theater, an examination room, for human actions to mirror the degrees, shades, and nuances of the Creator's love or wrath. The theophany of Allah's love is in human tawfiq or 'divinely given success' in obeying Him. The theophany of His wrath is in human khidhlan or the 'divine abandonment' of a servant to his own pride and folly. There is no mystery as to which is which, because Allah has sent us messengers to make it plain, given us eyes and ears with which to apprehend their message, an intellect with which to understand it, and a life and death in which to realize it. Acting upon what one thus knows brings about an illuminatory hal or state in which the wisdom of suffering and privation is taken for granted, because the resultant qurb or nearness has transmuted the experience of them into tawfiq rather than khidhlan.

5. ACCEPTANCE OF ALLAH

A great part of man's tawfiq is wisdom, of which Allah has said, "He gives wisdom to whomever He wills, and whoever is given wisdom has been given tremendous good" (Qur'an 2:269). In its common acceptation, wisdom is associated with a farsighted comprehension of matters that resist the comprehension of the less farsighted. The scholars of Islam have defined it as "putting a thing in its true place," while Ghazali has called it simply "that which was brought by the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace)." Certainly recognizing the wisdom of Allah in everything is a part of these definitions, and in it lies the key to answering the question "Why does Allah allow suffering and evil?"

     Were we to ask such a question about a human being, it would be an inquiry about a motive, what moved him to allow such and such. But Allah is not moved by anything, for the very good reason that He is already perfect, not admitting of any increase in perfection such that seeking it should move Him to do something. Sanusi mentions in his celebrated creed that Allah's utter dissimilarity to created things obviates His "having motives, whether in actions or rulings" (al-Sanusiyya (1), 25). So "Why?" is logically meaningless as an inquiry into Allah's motives, though it is meaningful as an inquiry about such aspects of His divine wisdom that our own wisdom can comprehend. But if we do not comprehend, what then?

     Wisdom also means accepting God as God and man as man. No man can encompass more than an infinitesimal part of the knowledge of the whole, which alone would furnish a measure of its perfection and justice. Sir Walter Scott relates that Emperor Napoleon once felt that, as a world conqueror, it would not prove difficult for him to master a team of spirited horses attached to a coach, though he was normally driven by a coachman. He mounted the seat and took the whip, with Empress Josephine and others below as passengers, and took off driving the carriage, which he overturned, suffering a severe and dangerous fall. His sole observation afterwards was, "I believe every man should confine himself to his own trade" (Life of Napoleon (16), 9.238). As for theodicy, the only being capable of judging the perfection of God in creating everything is God. Man is but a part, and can know but part. Our very experience in life teaches us "Never call anything a misfortune until you have seen the end of it." Here a Muslim says, "Allah suffices us, and is the best to rely on" (Qur'an 3:173). These were never intended as mere words, but also a hal, born of nearness to Allah that has bequeathed entire trust in His wisdom.

     If all these conclusions seem like so many heresies in the present day, it is only because of the grip on modern minds of the "humanistic fallacy," first advanced by the Greek sophist Protagoras, who said: "Man is the measure of all things: of those that are, that they are; and of those that are not, that they are not" (History of Philosophy (3), 1.87). If in revealed truth God is the measure of man, in humanism as it has come to be understood in our times, man is the measure of all knowledge, values, and even God. To this fundamental error, raised by the modern day from an ancient sophistry to a world ethos, revelation replies: "It may haply be that you dislike something, and it is good for you; or haply be that you like something, and it is bad for you: And Allah knows, while you know not" (Qur'an 2:216).

6. THE DIVINE WISDOM IN SUFFERING AND EVIL
Theodicy fails not only because of the humanistic fallacy of making an infinite Divine analogous to the limitarily human, but also because its crucial premise "Someone just and good would not allow suffering and evil if he could prevent them," is contradicted by many examples of Allah's wisdom, justice, and goodness in creation that entail suffering and evil, of which the following are only those most plain after a little reflection.


The Next World


The value of one over infinity approaches zero. So too, the time one spends in this world pales to insignificance before eternity, where, in the next world, each of us will realize that in this one, "you bode but little" (Qur'an 23:113). Allah has placed the story of each particular human being, the creative theophany of the Rahman or Most Merciful, in the larger context of forever, the special theophany of the Rahim or All-compassionate to those who were His true servants in this world. The eternity of the afterlife furnishes the true measure and context of the transitory sufferings of this life, which are ephemeral in comparison.


     Rumi alludes to this "global answer" to suffering in his parable of the sapling in the midst of the leafless winter, shivering and muttering to itself about the misery of the biting wind and cold, unable to think why God should do such a thing to it. The answer finally comes in the form of the warm and verdant springtime. In the trajectory of a believer's life and afterlife, when springtime comes it lasts forever.


The Gulf Between the Here and the Hereafter


The significance of joys and sufferings in this world will dwindle to nothing before the next not only quantitatively, because of its eternity, but qualitatively because of its nature. The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said:

The person who had the most pleasing life in this world, of any of the people of hell, will be summoned on Resurrection Day and utterly plunged into the hellfire, then asked, "O human being, have you ever beheld any good at all; have you ever felt a single joy?" and he will say, "No by God, my Lord." And the most miserable sufferer in this world, of any of the people of paradise, will be summoned and utterly plunged into paradise, then asked, "O human being, have you ever seen any bad at all; have you ever experienced a single misery?" and he will say, "No by God, my Lord: I have never seen any bad or suffered a single misery" (Muslim(14), 4.2162: 2807. S).

They are not lying, but what their testimony means is that nothing in this world can even be called "joy" or "misery" compared with the next.


Joy and Suffering as Signs


Obversely, the joys and sufferings of this world, if they pale in the face of eternity, are tremendously evocative in human hearts of the realities of paradise and hell. Abu 'Ali al-Rudhabari used to say, "What He has made manifest of His blessings indicates what He yet conceals of His generosity." The experience of those with ma'rifa in this world is but a foretaste of the incommensurability of the beatific vision of God in the next. For its part, disease is a harrowing ordeal, especially psychologically, since most of us tend to identify closely with our bodies. Yet through its pain and travail we come to understand how little we could bear endless suffering, teaching us to implore Allah to spare us from the hellfire, thus serving as a means of our deliverance. As Ibn 'Ata Illah has said, "Whenever He loosens your tongue with a petition, know that He wants to give to you" (Hikam (8), 37: 102).


Prayer


Central to worship is supplicating the Worshipped. "Say, 'My Lord would not even concern Himself with you were it not for your supplication'" (Qur'an 25:77). Unlike friends, relatives, and virtually everyone else, Allah loves to be asked and dislikes not to be. The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, "Truly, supplication is what worship is," then he recited, "And your Lord says, 'Call on Me and I will answer you: Verily those too haughty to worship Me shall inevitably enter hell, utterly humiliated'" [40:60] (Ahmad (9), 4.271: 18.386. S). Moreover, as Poor Richard said, "Danger is sauce for prayers": if not for the problems, fears, inadequacies, and pain man faces, he would remain turned away from the door of the Divine generosity, and miss an enormous share of worship that benefits him in this world and the next.


Triumph over Suffering


Though well able to do so, Allah did not create all mankind in paradise to begin with, but rather willed to consummate their perfect and endless bliss with the knowledge that by His grace, they have triumphed over all suffering, limitation, and evil for all time. "Allah solemnly promises believers, men and women, luxuriant groves of paradise beneath which rivers flow, abiding therein; and surpassing fine dwellings in lush groves of Eden: And the merest of the supreme pleasure of Allah is far yet greater. That is the mighty triumph" (Qur'an 9:72). He could have created all souls on a beach as clams, contentedly filter-feeding from an endless peaceful sea. But to do so would be without any challenge, suffering, purification, or struggle, or any of the other realities that befit the distinctive humanness which Allah has made our special endowment.


Freedom


Much of the suffering and evil in this world comes of man's inhumanity to man, which Allah does not accept, but punishes, sometimes in this world and sometimes in the next. Man has no excuse for this, having been sent messengers teaching us decency and goodness. But man's gift of being able to decide and choose for himself how he may treat his fellow man, for good or for evil, is his freedom, a perfection which Allah in His wisdom has bestowed on each of us.


The Exaltedness of Human Choice


Allah has raised the stakes of human existence at once to the highest possible worth and the direst possible peril by the fact of Judgement Day, with its eternal consequences. Though man's life and works are finite, their consequences are infinite because man's determination, once he has made up his mind, is how he intends to act forever if he is able. The hardened atheist who dismisses God as a mindless superstition does not intend to ever believe and change, so when he dies, he is requited in the measure of his intention, forever, out of Allah's justice. The believer who loves Allah and acts accordingly does not intend to ever change, so when he dies, he too is requited in the measure of his intention, forever, out of Allah's mercy.


     Eternal hellfire is a harrowing chastisement; but forewarned is forearmed, and after revelation, it is only what its denizens have chosen for themselves: "Read your record: your own self suffices today as a reckoner against you" (Qur'an 17:14). The existential threat of a fire has stopped many an iniquitous wrong in this world from being inflicted upon others, though I have never heard of an intellectual discussion of ethics that did. Hell is a peril, but one that is a mercy for whoever makes sensible choices. Like the endless happiness of paradise, its effect is to exalt the worth of every moment of human life in this abode, out of Allah's wisdom.


Fear and Hope


Abu 'Ali al-Rudhabari said, "The most beneficial of certitude is that which exalts the Real in your eyes, makes everything beside Him dwindle in them, and instills fear and hope in your heart." Sheikh 'Abd al-Wakil used to say that fear and hope were the two wings of the believer, without which he could not ascend. Both evoke supplication, and Allah loves to be asked. Fear and hope, moreover, are obligatory. Imam Taqi al-Din al-Subki says:

The spiritual station (maqam) of every man is commensurate with his hal (state), and his hal with his knowledge of the Divine (ma'rifa). People vary immensely in this, no one being more perfect therein than the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), while people after him are each according to their own station, some possessed of much, some of little. Fear is obligatory: Allah Most High says, "Fear you Me, if you be true believers" [Qur'an 3:175], and He Most High says, "So let none of you fear men, but fear you Me" [5:44]. And hope is obligatory, because it is the opposite of despair, and despair is haram: Allah Most High says, "Verily none despairs of the relief sent by Allah but people of the unbelievers" [12:87], and He Most High says, "And who despairs of the mercy of his Lord but those utterly lost? [15:56]" (Fatawa al-Subki (18), 2.556).

     In the Sufi path, fear and hope must be realized by the traveller from the first. The possibilities of both suffering and liberation therefrom are integral to the ascending stages of the dhikr, in which fear (khawf) and hope (raja) are transmuted first, respectively, into awe (hayba) and intimate love (uns), then rigor (jalal) and beauty (jamal), and then extinction and finally subsistence in the Majestic (al-Jalil) and the Beauteous (al-Jamil) Himself. Fear and hope, in these successive stages, remain the two wings of the traveller, for those most in love with the Beloved remain the most fearful of offending Him and being expelled from His presence. As Abu Madyan said, "Presence with Him is paradise, and absence from Him is hell." The possibility of punishment and suffering remains a spur on the way of spiritual attainment, even at its highest degrees, until the traveller has both feet in paradise, and can see for himself the triumph of the transformations Allah has thereby wrought in him.


Punishment for Sin


Much of the suffering man experiences is requital for disobedience. Allah says, "Whatever misfortune befalls you is for what your very hands have earned, and He pardons much" (Qur'an 42:30)-which is the general rule, to which some of the headings discussed above and below contain exceptions. Scholars affirm that every ruling of Sacred Law has been revealed for our benefit, not Allah's. The effects of right and wrong are far more crucial in the next world, but as the above verse makes plain, they are also at least sometimes punished in this. For those Allah loves, the punishment turns them back to the path of tawfiq and obedience. For those with whom Allah is wroth, disobedience is punished by their committing other acts of disobedience. As the early mystic Muzayyin said, "One sin following another is punishment for the first, and one good deed after another is reward for the first."


     A sin that often brings unlooked-for misfortune in this world is revealing sins to others. Allah has commanded us to conceal all sins, except when that would lead to someone being harmed. The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) has said, "Whoever conceals the faults of a Muslim, Allah shall conceal his faults in this world and the next" (Muslim (14), 4.2074: 2699. S). This includes one's own. The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said: "All of my Umma shall be forgiven, except those who commit iniquities openly. Verily, open indecency includes a man committing an act by night, and then in the morning when Allah has concealed what he did, saying, "O So-and-so, last night I did such and such." He passed the night, his Lord having concealed what he did, and morning came, and he pulled aside the veil of Allah" (Bukhari (2), 8.24: 6069. S). In Islam, to mention a sin is itself a sin. How many a person has been unable to resist telling a friend or a spouse of the wickedness they did in their previous life, and Allah punished them with disgust and contempt in the other's heart that could never quite be forgotten! There is no baraka in the haram


     There are other sins palpably punished in this world before the next, such as pride, ill-treatment of parents, or oppressing others. The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, "Beware the prayer of the wronged, for there is no veil between it and Allah" (Bukhari (2), 3.169-70: 2448. S). Negligence too of our stewardship of the natural order is punished by a world in which we cannot eat, drink, or breathe without imbibing our own befoulment. "Corruption has appeared on land and sea through what people's hands have earned, to let them taste something of what they have done, that haply they may repent" (Qur'an 30:41).


The Example of the Patient


The innocent are sometimes tried with suffering in order to manifest their spiritual rank or inspire others by their example. The prophets, for example (upon whom be blessings and peace), were exemplars to mankind, and their suffering was greater than anyone else's-not to punish or purify them, for they were already without blemish, but in order to teach mankind patience and fortitude. The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) was asked, "Who amongst mankind is greatest in affliction?" and he replied: "The prophets, then those most like them, then those next most like them. A man is tried in the measure of his religion: if his religion is firm, his trial is great; while if there is flimsiness in his religion, he is tried according to his religion. Tribulation remains with the servant until it leaves him walking on the earth without a single error" (Tirmidhi (19), 4.601-2: 2398. S). Yet this is probably an elucidation of the exception, which is tribulation in the lives of the righteous, rather than the general case, which is their being preserved from it-for it is a sunna to ask Allah to be free of affliction. The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) told Abu Bakr, "Ask Allah for well-being (mu'afah), for no one was ever given anything, after certitude, that was better than well-being" (Ahmad (9), 1.3: 5. S).


The Example of Others


Man lives in a group, thinks and speaks in words and symbols bequeathed him by a group, and benefits from a larger polity of mankind both latitudinally, from the community of individuals and nations found today, and longitudinally, from the successive generations who have gone before, and left behind them the riches of culture and civilization down to our own times. All of us are educated not only by our own lives, but those of others, be they individuals, groups, or entire peoples. The refining and educating of Rabb al-'Alamin, 'Uplifter of the Worlds,' comprehends both individuals and collectivities. Allah teaches us by the object lesson of previous civilizations whom He warned by sending them guidance, and who scoffed, and who met with destruction, that as great as we may feel ourselves-whether as a nation, as makers of war, as a community of scientific explanation, as a civilization-"Who is mightier than we in power?" (Qur'an 41:15) were the famous last words of everyone who said them. "Or can they not have beheld that Allah who created them is mightier than they in power?" (41:15). Humility before omnipotence is mere realism, yet "man was ever the most disputatious of all things" (18:54), and without the object lesson of previous peoples, most would never understand it. There is no injustice in this, for "when Allah sends down a chastisement upon a people, the chastisement strikes whoever is among them; then they are raised up each according to his own works" (Bukhari (2), 9.71: 8108. S). The example of others whose pride and folly brought about their destruction is a powerful lesson not to follow their path, and hence a felicity and mercy for those willing to learn.


The Divine Bounty


The sufferings experienced by good people in this world are from the bounty of Allah, who benefits them thereby. The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, "No Muslim suffers weakness, illness, worry, sorrow, vexation, or gloom-even the thorn that pricks him-without Allah thereby expiating some of his misdeeds (Bukhari (2), 7.148-49: 5642. S). He once said of a Muslim's satisfaction with destiny in good times and bad, "A believer is like budding grain: wherever the wind blows, it sways; and when the wind stops, it re-straightens: he bends with affliction. And a wicked man is like a sturdy cedar, standing aloft until Allah breaks it asunder whenever He wills (ibid., 5644. S). The messenger of Allah also said, "Whomever Allah wants good for He afflicts somewhat" (ibid., 5645. S)-that is, because "Allah loves those who are truly patient" (Qur'an 3:146). For these reasons, the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) observed: "How wondrous is the matter of the believer, for all that happens to him is good: if good befalls him he shows gratitude, and it is best for him; and if ill befalls him he shows patience, and it is best for him" (Muslim (14), 4.2295: 2999. S).


     This bounty is often as manifest in groups as in individuals. In the natural world, consciousness of pain, if unpleasant to bear at an individual level, is evolutionarily beneficial and adaptive for individuals to possess in teaching them what to avoid. If the individual suffers to death, it prospers the species as a whole through natural selection. In the succession of nations and civilizations, there is a cultural selection of usages, institutions, and inventions-writing, for example-that are more beneficial and useful in at least some ways than prior ones. "And as for what benefits people, it remains in the earth" (Qur'an 13:17). When the innocent are abused and suffer, laws come into being. When maladies afflict them, new medicines are developed. Of the species which interact with their environment in complex ways, nature offers few examples that cannot experience pain. It is simply too advantageous.


Hardiness Through Variance


Hardiness increases through difference and adversity. Sidi 'Ali al-Jamal, the sheikh of Mawlay al-'Arabi al-Darqawi, says in his book:

Realize too that the wisdom [hikma, here the cause that makes something work the way it does] that underlies all beings, also underlies man, namely variations. Allah has made the well-being and preservation of man through variations; and Allah has made the detriment and destruction of man through his remaining in one condition rather than another. So too with all being; it and man are the same: thus it is in material things, and thus it is in immaterial things. For Allah Most High is wise and beautiful, and everything He has created is of unsurpassed wisdom and limitless beauty. Everything He has created for you, in yourself or in all being, you are utterly in need of; while He has said, "Yet still they are at odds" [Qur'an 11:118]. Variation is thus the means of the survival of man and the survival of all beings; and lack of variation the means of the destruction of man and of all beings. For this reason you can see that man, like all beings, as long as he varies his food, his words, what he hears, sees, or smells, his walk or his sitting, his moving his hand or letting it rest, his moving his groin or letting it rest-then he is increasing in health, both physically and spiritually. And as long as he remains statically fixed on one thing, without its opposite, corruption imbues him to the degree he remains fixated. So much so, that if he persists long enough in his fixity and remains with it, he atrophies and finally perishes. Whenever he says, "This is fitting," or "This is unfitting," he is ignorant of the wisdom of God, both in himself and others. This wisdom sums up the health of bodies, health of souls, and health of all beings. And so too it is with increase: there is not any except through variation. Or lessening: there is not any except through lack of variation-whether in all beings, or in man (Ma'ani al-insan (10), 181-81).

Stasis is not natural to human beings. Without sleep as well as wakefulness, hunger as well as satiation, pain as well as relief, poverty as well as riches, sadness as well as joy, man would not thrive in this world.


Stimulus for Spiritual Growth


The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, "Patience is a surpassing light" (Muslim (14), 1.203: 223), and some Sufis, such as the Malamatiyya or 'followers of the path of blame,' have considered patience with psychic pain, particularly that of the derision, censure, and scorn of others, a means of pruning away spiritual insincerity. The sheikhs of this school, Hamdun of Nishapur and others, noticed that the heart pays an inordinate amount of attention to what others think, and that love of others' regard is often a reason for insincerity with Allah. They found that breaking the ordinary habits of the mind, and the resultant helplessness and dismay at being left without anyone or anything to help-except God-was a means for opening up a door between the soul and the Divine. Mawlay al-'Arabi al-Darqawi methodically used this to precipitate the realization in his disciples that there was no recourse from Allah except to Him. When disciples took him as their sheikh, he had them give away everything they owned and then go door-to-door begging, particularly in neighborhoods where they were well known and would be certain to meet with insult and humiliation. It was very effective in breaking egos, and Darqawi filled North Africa with awliya and 'arifin. Ibn 'Ata Illah says, "Nothing pleads more for you than utter need; nor is anything swifter in bringing divine gifts than humiliation and want" (Hikam (8), 43: 129). I personally experienced something of the baraka of this when I moved to Jordan in 1980. I had been working at sea fishing for some years, and was big and I thought tough-until several years of chronic liver disease, never precisely identified, made me too weak to walk much farther than fifty yards without exhaustion. Few things ever benefited me more than this dark and distressing period, from which I finally realized that Allah alone was in control, and that "truly man has been created weak" (Qur'an 4:28). Abul Hasan al-Shadhili experienced this so often in his own path that he said, "By Allah, I have not seen triumph except in humiliation." Clearly in the mystic way, the dark night of the soul often precedes the dawn of illumination. Suffering is just part of the story.


Trial


Sufferings are a spiritual trial from Allah, who says, "We try you with evil and with good as a test; and unto Us shall you be returned" (Qur'an 21:35). Doubts about the mercy of Allah, despair at fate, the waswasa of the Devil in implanting the very question we are treating here in the heart and obfuscating the answer-all these sufferings are a test from Allah. Sufis say that people are of four categories in their tests:


     If one proves patient with the test and lives it out, it means that one is passing it. Allah says: "The patient shall be requited their wage wholly without reckoning" (Qur'an 39:10).


     If one benefits from the test by learning, changing, and gaining experience that will obviate similar tests in the future, this is characteristic of the dervish, whose way depends on benefiting from both his good and his evil. He benefits from his good by thanking Allah for it and not turning to look at it; he benefits from his evil by heartbrokenness, repentance, and never returning to it again. He benefits as well from the evil of others by changing it with his tongue, his hand, or by a prayer in his heart; and if unable to change it, he benefits by realizing that it is evil, which is rewarded by Allah as faith in what the prophets (upon whom be peace) have taught. A Sufi is a person who cannot not benefit as long as he is travelling the way.


     If one is well pleased with Allah for honoring one with the test, and aspires to succeed in winning His good pleasure, then the test means a spiritual increase, and means that one is of the awliya, and moreover on an exalted footing among them, for Allah's tests are seldom except in what one holds dearest, and are proportionately harder for those of higher rank. Shibli used to say, "Allah's raising the spiritual degrees of His servants is commensurate with their distress: had He poured upon the awliya an ant's weight of what He has poured upon the prophets, they would have melted away and been cut off."


     Finally, if one is bitter about the test and resentful over Allah's destining it, it means that one is failing, unless one turns one's back on the Devil and the self, and takes the way of repentance, and returns to one of the other categories.


The Suffering of Others


The sufferings of the innocent, such as from natural disasters, disease, or the inhumanity of others, are temporary, and shall be a source of triumph in the next life, the infinite sphere of Allah's name al-Rahim, the All-compassionate. Children who die find eternal bliss.


     In this world, the sufferings of the innocent are equally a trial for bystanders and onlookers, who are not innocent if they can do something to alleviate them. The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, "The believer is not someone who spends the night while his neighbor is hungry" (Mustadrak (5), 4.167. S). Scholars of Sacred Law mention that while some duties in Islam are of defined amount, such as the five daily prayers, fasting the month of Ramadan, the hajj once in a lifetime-others are equally obligatory but of undefined amount, such as cooperating with one another in good works, feeding the hungry, helping the distressed, or providing disaster relief. Someone who can help a sufferer by spending his money, his time, his influence, his advice, or if nothing else, his prayers, must. From Allah's wisdom, this too is of the trial of mankind "with good and evil, as a test" (Qur'an 21:35).


Getting Real


Our Maker has warned man against attaching his heart to this world, on the tongue of His prophets (upon whom be blessings and peace) in the revelations of all previous ages and peoples, and in this one, saying, "Nor is the present life except a divertment and frivolity; and truly the Final Abode is the life unperishing, if they but knew" (Qur'an 29:64). 'Abdullah ibn 'Umar said, "The Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace) took me by the shoulders and said, 'Be in this world as though you were a stranger, or a traveller down the road'" (Bukhari (2), 8.110: 6416).


     Setting one's hopes upon something that must vanish is a lack of reality. Like lightbulbs, which manufacturers are capable of making a perfect vacuum in which the filament would never oxidize and hence the lamp never need a replacement, but in which they leave a trace of oxygen so that more bulbs will need to be consumed in the future-this world has purposely been designed by its Creator to fall short of human expectations. This is of the lutf or 'all-subtle loving-kindness' of al-Latif, the All-knowing and All-solicitous towards His servants. If the pain, disappointment, and sordidness of this world were less patent, people would forget the infinite beauty of the Beloved and the abode of His limitless largesse. Ibn 'Ata Illah says, "He knew you would not take mere advice, so He has made you taste of its flavor, to make it easier for you to leave it" (Hikam (8) 62: 230).


Turning to the Creator


Sufferings are often caused by other people, as Allah says, "And We have made some of you a trial for others: Will you prove patient?" (Qur'an 25:20). Allah tries the poor person by seeing the rich person and wondering why he is not like him, tries the ill by seeing the well, tries the lowly by seeing the noble, tries wives with husbands, and husbands with wives, tries parents with children, and children with parents, tries teachers with students who go bad. All of these tests apprise those tested that what they really want is not in the hands of other people to give, but only in Allah's. Ibn 'Ata Illah said, "He has only made annoyance appear at their hands so that you might not rest contented with them. He wants to make you tired of everything, so that you may not be distracted from Him by anything" (Hikam (8), 63: 235). This is the point of all our pain and disappointment, whether from ourselves or others: that it be a means to Allah. As Sheikh al-Buzidi said, "Everything you want is found in the Entity of God."


Gratitude for Blessings


At the personal level, suffering teaches man to thank God for his blessings. Ibn 'Ata Illah says, "Whoever does not appreciate the value of blessings by having them, will appreciate it by losing them" (Hikam (8), 56: 199), and said, "Whoever is unthankful for blessings has made himself liable to lose them, while whoever shows gratitude for them has fastened them with their true tethers" (ibid., 29: 64). It is related that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) once "asked his family for something to eat with his bread, and they said, 'We have nothing but vinegar.' He asked for some and started eating with it, saying, 'What a splendid sauce vinegar is! What a splendid sauce vinegar is!'" (Muslim (14) 3.1622: 2052. S)-thereby teaching us not only to show tact and graciousness in all circumstances, but also the sunna of exalting even the least blessings. The latter was his inevitable practice, not out of naïtér ignorance of greater blessings, but because every nor blessing, if we think about it for a moment, presupposes in order to be enjoyed a multitude of major blessings such as health, life, security, time, and liberty; as well as freedom from pain, want, oppression, injury, and a thousand other misfortunes. That is, from a more concrete viewpoint, there are really no minor blessings. Without privation we would not count our blessings, which makes privation, for most of us, itself a blessing.


Perfection of Gnosis


By suffering, loss, and privation, Allah perfects the 'arif's experiential knowledge of the Divine. For knowing the One entails not only knowing Him in His entity (dhat), but in His names and attributes, in His rulings, which order and hierarchize the relations between existent things, and in His actions, of which the world and all it contains are the most palpable.


     The ma'rifa of the Sufis is at the upper limit of an entire continuum of Iman or faith, and like it, is disparate in degree among those it is given to. Abul Hasan al-Shadhili in his Grand Litany used to pray for "vast gnosis" (ma'rifa wasi'a), not to suggest that it was ever anything but vast, but to acknowledge the gulf between human knowledge, however sublime, and Allah's own perfect knowledge of Himself. Sheikh 'Abd al-Rahman too in this sense used to say, with Ibn al-'Arabi, that "no one knows God but God." Yet Abul Hasan's asking for "vast knowledge" also directs others to strive to expand their ma'rifa higher into this infinite gulf. One of the most telling means of doing so is firmness in beholding the Divine at the moment of trial. Ibn 'Ajiba spurs mystically inclined readers to use it by saying, "As for him who knows [Allah] in the divine beauty, but not in the divine rigor and majesty, or when given to, but not when withheld from, or in triumph but not in humiliation, in health but not in illness, in well-being but not affliction, in wealth but not poverty, in ease but not hardship-such a person is a liar" (Iqadh al-himam (6), 489).


     The last word is perhaps something of a hyperbole, for when Allah tries someone, even a servant who has ma'rifa, it is the nature of a divine test to push the individual to the very limit of his capacities. Otherwise it would not be a test. In Dr. Marcel Carret's ministrations to Sheikh al-'Alawi as he lay in the extremity of dying, for example, when he lost consciousness, the doctor injected him with a stimulant that brought him back from that far perimeter. The sheikh awoke with a reproof on his lips for holding him back from his Beloved. Carret writes:


. . . He opened his eyes, and looked at me reproachfully.
"Why did you do that?" he said. "You should have let me go. There is no point in keeping me back. What is the good?"
"If I am at your side," I answered, "it is because God willed it so. And if He willed it so, it was in order that I might do my duty by you as your doctor."
"Very well," he said. "In sha' Allah" (if God wills) (A Sufi Saint (12), 31).


At that moment of wrenching separation after closeness, and in an extremity of physical weakness, Sheikh al-'Alawi's opacity at beholding the doctor, who was after all merely a means of effecting the divine will, was succeeded by a higher degree of recognition, expanding his knowledge of the Divine. As Ibn 'Ata Illah says, "My Lord, I realize from the diversity of phenomenal vestiges, and the transformations of successive stages, that what You want of me is to reveal Yourself to me in everything, so that I may not be ignorant of You in anything" (Munajat (8), 82: 11).


Lack of Progress in the Spiritual Path


Spiritual sufferings include those of murids whose suluk has stalled. When early in my tariqa I once complained to Sheikh 'Abd al-Rahman about my occasional lows of dispiritedness, he told me, "Allah makes spiritual expansion (bast) and contraction (qabd) alternate in the human heart as night alternates with day, until Allah makes you only with Him." Longer than such swings are the periods of spiritual dryness that sometimes set in after the beginning of a disciple's path, as a test from Allah of his genuineness. Anyone can be a servant when it is easy, but who shall be a servant when it is not? True servanthood means tawakkul or reliance on Allah and continuing in one's servitude come what may. As Ibrahim al-Dasuqi said, "Whomever Allah tries, let him bear it patiently, for He has only tried him in order to exalt him-or be rid of him."
     But when spiritual progress is held up at great length, the disciple may well face a basic obstacle such as pride, or lack of contentment, or ruh-pollution through internalizing the views, goals, or character of those who are spiritually dead. Such obstacles may remain unaddressed for years through "putting a good face on them" and not returning to the sheikh. In such a case, the pain caused by lack of progress is a message from God to the murid that he has an attitude problem, and should return to the basics. A tariqa consists not only of a disciple, but a teacher by whose guidance the disciple accomplishes his journey when he has adab and perseverance. Suffering is a gift from Allah when it brings one back to the way of success; and is often the harbinger of divine increase, as Ibn 'Ata Illah says: "Intense needs that appear are the feast-days of disciples" (Hikam (8), 52: 174).

Alienation from Allah

Another more common spiritual suffering is alienation from Allah because of sin. The wisdom therein is that one repent and renew one's closeness to Allah. Ibn 'Ata Illah says, "How many a sin that brought humiliation and need was better than an act of worship that brought triumph and haughtiness" (ibid., 36: 96). In this sense the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, "By Him in whose hand is my soul, if you all did not sin, Allah would do away with you and bring a people who sinned and asked Allah's forgiveness, and He forgave (Muslim (14), 4.2106: 2749. S). When sin is unfollowed by repentance, the divine wisdom therein is an object lesson to others through the individual's destruction and perdition, depending on which divine names it manifests, such as the Avenger, the Humiliator, or other.

IN fine, the manifestations of divine wisdom in suffering are many. Most sufferings teach us disattachment from all but Allah. Some, like those of the prophets and saints, inspire us with a sense of the spiritual exaltedness of the sufferer and his fortitude. Some show us the magnitude of the divine blessing of relief after distress. All reveal to those with wisdom the immensity of the divine perfection, beauty, sovereignty, and justice, "yet none remember but those clearest of mind" (Qur'an 2:269). Even a little wisdom shows the nullity of the idea that "someone just and good would not allow suffering and evil if he could prevent them." To even suggest this shows a profound lack of realism about human nature that could hardly be expected from someone who had lived any length of time in this world and dealt with people, let alone someone who created them.
7. CONCLUSIONS: THE NATURE OF EVIL To summarize everything we have said, the foregoing aspects of divine wisdom are disclosed by an existential attitude (hal) of entire trust in Allah whose mark is husn al-dhann bi Llah, or always thinking the best of Allah. Those who possess it do not make up hypothetical situations and then tax Allah with them, but confine themselves to concrete events they know have happened, and the particulars of which are fully known by them. "Suffering" in general is such a hypostatized, abstract reality, for the suffering of the part may well entail the benefit of the whole, or one of the many other aspects of wisdom we have mentioned.


     Let us return for a moment to the syllogism with which we began:


(1) God is almighty.
(2) God is just and good.
(3) Someone just and good would not allow suffering and evil if he could prevent them, yet both exist in the world.
(4) Therefore God is either not almighty, or else not just and good.


From our knowledge of tawhid, the divine oneness and uniqueness, it is plain why the conclusion "Therefore God is either not almighty, or else not just and good" does not follow from these premises; namely, because their key terms just and good are equivocal: they are used in premise (2) as they apply to one order of being, that of the Divine; while in premise (3) are used both as they apply to the Divine, and as they apply to an entirely distinct order of being, that of man-of whom it is usually true that that "someone just and good would not allow suffering and evil if he could prevent them"-yet not always even then, since someone just and good might well choose the "lesser of two evils," or impose temporary suffering by say, surgery, to effect a cure, or for innumerable other ethically valid reasons. And our twenty or so examples in the previous section have shown how much less the first assertion of premise (3) applies to God.


     We have seen that the autonomy of Allah, His supreme perfection in Himself, and the fact that man is not a co-sharer (sharik) in it, entail a number of consequences:


     First, Allah's goodness, justice, mercy, and other attributes are only graspable by us to the degree that our all-too-human understanding can absorb the light of what He has revealed to us about them in the Qur'an and the sunna of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace). As Abul Hasan al-Shadhili said in his Litany of Light:

I cannot reckon Your praise, You are but as You have praised Yourself: Indeed, You are too majestic even for praises, which are but accidents indicating Your generosity that You have bestowed upon us on the tongue of Your messenger so we may worship You with them in our own measure, not in Yours (Awrad al-Tariqa al-Shadhiliyya (17), 38).

     Secondly, Allah's justice is intrinsically different from human justice. "Morally accountable" means nothing more or less than "answerable to Allah." It is meaningless to ask whether He is just, because His judgement is what justice is. "He is not answerable for aught that He does, but rather they are answerable" (Qur'an 21:23).


     Third, because of the limited and fragmentary nature of our knowledge about the past, present, and future, to say nothing of the details of the cosmos, our own motives, those of others, the parts of others' lives we see not, and above all eternity-through which alone the consequences of the present will become transparent to comprehension-suffering and evil remain at least to some degree opaque in this life. Their full knowledge, if we are realistic about the limits of our own, must be consigned to their Creator.


     Fourth, because Allah is the primary reality, and the particulars imperfectly known to us derive from Him alone, His own perfection entails that from the perspective of omniscience, the world is perfect, while it only seems imperfect, evil, and filled with needless suffering from a human point of view that is limitary and incomplete.


     In other words, reality in its entirety, the true concrete, is the infinity of Allah and His limitless perfection. The 'arifin or those who know Allah directly and experientially, men such as Imam Ghazali, Mawlana Rumi, Sheikh al-'Alawi, or Sheikh 'Abd al-Rahman (Allah be well pleased with them), have traversed the path to Him and realized this perfection by beholding its Source, saying with 'Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi, "My eye at anything besides Your beauty does not gaze" (Diwan (15), 1.246). Their spiritual vantage-point revealed to them the radical affirmation of everything that is from God, and they have said with one voice, as the Prophet himself (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, "All the creation of Allah Mighty and Majestic is goodly" (Ahmad (9), 4.390: 19475. S), or as our sheikh used to express it: "Were any of you to encompass the Unseen in knowledge, he would not choose anything but what is." For all that is only exists through Allah's perfected disposal over His own sovereignty: He does what he wills, and rules as He ordains. The obvious question for man is: Why not strive to win His eternal favor and bliss, rather than His eternal wrath and punishment?


     Finally, from all this we can understand the nature of evil, and that it is inimical to man, not God. Evil is rebellion against the Divine that is not followed by repentance.
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MMVIII © N. Keller