What does being pulled from darkness into His Light look like?
Teaching from: Friday sermon of Shaykh Hamdi from 19th July, 2019.
Shaykh Hamdi began this Friday sermon by reminding us that the true power of the human lies within our bowing to God, with our hearts. To have our hearts submitted to God and attached to Him, exclusively – refusing to have our hearts attached to anything less than Him. This is what God calls us to in our dhikr [1] and litany of “Allahuakbar”, commonly translated as “God is the Greatest”. Shaykh Hamdi proceeded with the core message of the sermon, reminding us that our religion is something to experience and something to live rather than a list of things to do. He invited all of us in attendance to start coming to Friday prayers with a different approach. We should be coming to seek something more than mere information when listening to a sermon. Instead, we ought to be seeking transformation and an experiential level of ibadah [2]. We should be looking for something that transforms us, something that makes us better humans, something that makes us grow.
It is He, with the assistance of His angels, Who reaches to you to pull you out of the darkness and into His Light.”
Al – ‘Ahzab [Chapter 33, Verse 43]
We were reminded of the importance of remembering God much and were called to be invested in dhikr [1]. Shaykh Hamdi explained to us the relevance and benefits of dhikr, in quoting the verse above. Shaykh’s commentary on the meaning of this verse was that God uses His angels to reach to us – not because He is in need of them, but because we need them. God reaches to us and into us, to pull us out of the darkness and into His Light. But, what exactly is this darkness? It is the darkness of this material existence and the world of
1 + 1 = 2. Shaykh Hamdi emphasised that being pulled into the Light of God and into the world of 1 + 1 = 1 is a tangible experience. It is something you can taste. It is something you can witness the effects of and it is more than just a sweet feeling.
The more God takes us out of this darkness step-by-step, the more tolerant, loving, and kind we become. You will see the results of God pulling you out. You will see it within yourself. You will find more love in your heart for every human. You will find more kindness and more tolerance in your behaviour with every human being. We need to be looking for this spiritual transformation and we need to be looking within our hearts to see if we are being transformed. When you take a single step forward in the spiritual path, there is a huge difference. It is like a single candle in a huge dark room. The difference is tangible. We can bring to mind the image of God lighting candles, one-by-one, inside our hearts and inside that dark room within us. When we are progressing in the spiritual path, we will see it. You will see it in your ahklaq [3], in the way you see things, and in the way you behave with people. If it is always dark such that you cannot see anything, it means that you are blowing out all of the candles or you are not lighting the candles to begin with, e.g. with the remembrance of God. We need to be people who are looking to be transformed. We need to be attached to this and we need to be searching for it. We need to start coming to jumuah [4] because we want to learn something that will transform us. And beyond coming to jumuah to learn new information, we need to just live the experience. Live something with God.
There have been communities in the past who have witnessed things like food coming from the heavens and the splitting of the Red Sea, but witnessing such miracles did not help them to become better people. For some, these experiences did have a positive effect. Transformation happened for the ones who internalised these experiences and for the individuals who saw beyond 1 + 1 = 2. These people saw the Love of God for them in these experiences. They experienced the attention of God towards them in these moments. They drank from the cup of yaqin, certainty – whereby they had no doubts after this.
But, even if we read about all the scientific miracles of the Quran and witnessed miracles outside of ourselves everyday, it would not be enough to save us from doubt and it would not be enough to take us to that point of no return. The point of no return in our journey of faith is that point whereby whatever happens after this, you will not decrease. Your faith in God and trust in Him will not wane after you have reached this point. The point of no return is what we should be seeking. However, all of the experiences we have outside of us will not take us there. What will take us there is when we experience something within ourselves. That point where we know for certain, that God is actually with me and God is actually in my life. God gives us these opportunities to live something with Him. To drink a cup in His Presence. To witness a Smile. To get a Hug. To experience some Warmth. To experience some Closeness. Let us be looking for these moments and these experiences. God wants us to live with Him.
Live something with God. When you live a moment with God, they become momentums and anchors in the Divine experience. “
Shaykh Hamdi Ben Aissa
“We ask You, our Dear Lord – the One Who is closer to us than our own selves, to take us by the hand. To pull us and keep pulling us out of the darkness of our wrong paradigms, outside the darkness of our selfishness, outside the darkness of our egoism, and egotistical view of these cosmos, this universe, and this world. [Pull us out of] the darkness of arrogance and out of the darkness of claiming that we know better than You. Allow us to do much dhikr. Allow us to be invested in Your dhikr.
O’ Allah, You know that our hearts are infested with anger, infested with hatred, infested with wrong paradigms, infested with wrong thoughts.
Ya Arhamar Rahimin [5], ya Rabbil Alamin [6], we ask You to transform our hearts and make our hearts invested in Your Path and in Your dhikr. O’ Allah, put Your Love in our hearts. Put the love of Your Prophet in our hearts. Put the love of good people in our hearts. Put the love of God and good in our hearts. Make us people who believe in God, such that we do not believe we are God.”
Audio for Friday sermon available, here.
[1] The purpose of dhikr (remembrance of God) is to speak to the heart using the Words of God, which are the only Words capable of comforting the heart. Remembrance (dhikr) allows the heart to hear God’s message: I am Near, I am with you, I respond to you, you are not alone. Every single type of dhikr is simply for this purpose. Interestingly, we as humans often ignore this purpose of dhikr, and this is perhaps why we don’t do dhikr as much as we could. Don’t make dhikr just to reach a certain number or arrive at a state of ecstasy, or earn reward even. Understand that you need to make dhikr to receive comfort for your soul – to let your soul hear the Voice of God. Hear God telling you, “You are not alone, I am right here with you”. (Journey to Well-being: Healing, Hearing, Heading Forward by Shaykh Hamdi Ben Aissa and Anse Shehnaz Karim)
[2] Ibadah: expression of devotion to God while having the quality of being a seeker and servant of God.
[3] Ahklaq: character and moral character.
[4] Jumuah: Congregational prayer taking place each Friday. The day of gathering.
[5] Ar-Rahman is the One Who gives love to all, unconditionally. He is the One Closer to us than our own relatives and our own selves.
[6] Rabbil ‘alamin is the Lord of the multiverse and all the worlds.