بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّ حِيْمِ
In almost every Mosque, in every country of the world,
the Imam closes his Friday sermon with a reminder to the people with the
following verse of the Holy Qur’an. Allah says:
Verily, Allah orders, justice and refinement. (16:90)
Again He says:
Be just, that is closest to piety. (5:8)
To be just is a general, universal command; and it
incorporates many dimensions in a person’s life. One of these is justice to
oneself.
As the human personality is made up of two dimensions,
viz. the physical self i.e. the nafs, and the non-physical self, i.e. the ruh,
it is the duty of every person to take care to nurture both of them, by giving
to each one of them what is necessarily required to ensure that they grow
healthy and strong.
Because the nafs is the energy produced by the working
of the physical body, it thrives on the satisfaction of the physical desires.
The ruh, on the other hand, can be sustained with deeds and actions relating to
spirituality and exercises focusing on God-consciousness. The individual is
required to be just too both dimensions of the personality by engaging in
permissible physical and spiritual exercises which will result in true
representation of Allah here on earth.
The majority of human beings however, concentrate on
taking care of the physical self and some do not even think that they need to
sustain the spiritual. The unfortunate consequences of such a lifestyle will be
a materialistic outlook of life that will benefit the individually, to some
extent, materially and it will end with death.
As a representative of Allah here on earth, He wants
us to behave like Him in our own humble way. He says:
(Establish)
Allah’s handiwork according to the pattern on which He has made mankind; no
change (let there be) in the work by Allah; that is the Upright way, but a lot
of people do not understand. (30:30)
Behaving like
Allah means to cultivate some of the qualities of the Divine Attributes in our
physical lives. These include Glorifying His Holy Name and displaying
qualities, like compassion, forgiveness, etc. when relating with fellow human
beings.
In addition to the
physical manifestation of the Godly qualities in dealing with other human beings,
we are required to be just to our souls by keeping them polished, bright and
shining.
Many people spend
all their time and energy taking of the body, and completely neglect their
souls. They spend all their wealth in material things and forget that they must
send some for use in the next phase of life. They do not have time for worship,
taking care of the poor and needy, only do and eat what is halaal, etc. Such
people are neglecting the Qur’anic Command of being just to oneself.
Such people will regret
what they did and some of them will ultimately say:
The day when man
will see the deeds which his hands have sent forth; and the unbelievers will
say: Woe unto me, I wish I was never created. (78:40)
Transcript of discourse delivered by
Maulana Dr. Waffie Mohammed
