What is Taqwa

When taqwa is mentioned, it would be interpreted as fear of God. This is not so as taqwa does not mean fear. Taqwa towards God does not mean fear of God. Fear of God is one of the attributes of mahmudah which is embodied into the attributes of taqwa, but it is not considered as taqwa. Fear in Arabic language is khauf or khasha.

Taqwa originated from the term waqa-yaqi-wiqoyah which means to preserve. The proof statement is in the verse of the Quran as follows:

Meaning: “O you who have attained to faith! Ward off from yourselves and those who are close to you, that fire (of the Hereafter).” (At Tahrim: 6)

God has stipulated in the Quran with the kalimah ittaqu or yattaqi. Additional words to the basic kalimah waqa would alter the meaning. At this instance, ittaqullah means ‘one must take Allah as the One who cares/guards/protects’. God must be taken as the Protector’. God taken as the Fortress or stronghold. Once under God’s protection, within His Fortress or stronghold, negative or dangerous elements would not penetrate or break through. In other words, God is the wall, protection against evil.

The endeavours rendering Allah as the One who cares or protects or be the fortress are by implementing His commands both physically and spiritually. In other words, His commands are meant for developing the attributes of mahmudah. To accumulate and nurture the attributes of mahmudah are the endeavours rendering Allah as the One who cares or protects. To develop the attributes of mahmudah are the efforts towards taqwa.

Taqwa or wiqoyah have been misinterpreted and its intentions have been limited. It’s actually global and comprehensive, like a storage or warehouse for mahmudah (good attributes) consisting of all the attributes of mahmudah. It includes patience, acceptance (redha) , generosity, being loving and caring, charitable with forgiveness vice versa and many other good attributes. The entire mahmudah attributes are considered as taqwa. Thus taqwa meant a great deal. It provides security in this world and the Hereafter.

As such if we say ittaqullah, it would mean; ‘you must take Allah as the One who care for you’. Many of the Islamic terms have been misinterpreted and misused causing the loss of their bliss or barakah. When Islamic terms are in use, somehow there are no associated feelings or sense. For example the term ‘khalwat’ is an honourable word meant as one in a state of solitude with God. It is part of the practices of sufism. However, its interpretation has deviated from the original, now it is meant as the close proximity between man and woman who are not muhram. The same with the term ittaqullah. Every week on Fridays, the term is being called aloud at the mimbar of the mosque, but majority of the congregation (jamaah) could not sense anything. The blessedness or barakah of the term has gone as it has been misinterpreted.

To be someone with taqwa means to be one under God’s protection and care and staying within God’s fortress or stronghold. One is protected, immuned or untouched from external invasions.Someone with taqwa could be considered as one wearing the armour of steel or bulletproof jacket.

Taqwa is the spiritual attire. It is the rituals for the soul. Taqwa is an inner matter involving the rituals of the heart.When sincerely practised and performed, the attributes of mahmudah such as sincerity, just, truthfulness, loving and caring, gentleness, generous, tawadhuk, humbleness, tolerant, humanitarian, patience, redha, tawakal, giving priority to others, forgiveness, trustworthy, consistent, hard working, open heartedness, cooperative, sympathy, compassion and others, will submerge.

The person with taqwa is an extraordinary person as he has the attributes of malaikat. He is a godly person receiving assistance and protection from God with guaranteed security in this world and the Hereafter.

Shu’ur al Ilahiyyah

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It’s A Struggle To Be Righteous Towards GOD

04/05/2006

First Part

God commanded human beings to be righteous and virtuous towards Allah and amongst other human beings. But, human beings generally stress on honourable ethics during human interactions while righteousness towards God seen to be of no importance.It is right and proper to give the priority of righteousness towards God. When the righteousness with God is accomplished, automatically the righteousness among fellow mankind will be established.

Establishing and maintaining moral excellence with God is challenging. When the heart has no fear and love for God, this will prevent human beings from being righteous with God.The heart and soul unfamiliar with God preserve all the ill traits (mazmumah). For as long as the heart of human beings still uncleansed from the illness of jealousy, craziness for worldly gains, spitefulness, searching for glamour, self-centredness and self-assurance and various other ill traits of the heart, God will not be familiar to them, God will not be respected, adulated, glorified and honoured.

Evidence of the struggles to be righteous towards God are:

* God is the supreme love and extremely loyal companion protecting, providing our needs and guarding our security.God’s kindness towards us is significant. His Supremacy and Dominance over us boundless.

By right God should be the one we love and  aggrandize most. But only our mind is accepting this fact, while our impure heart polluted with the ill traits encouraging us to love and aggrandize the worldly matters. Indicating we are unrighteous towards God, the Most Kind.

* It is difficult to feel God’s existence and His utmost knowledge about us, to sense His existence and presence, to feel Him overseeing us endlessly, to feel Him listening to us relentlessly, to feel Him dominating us perpetually and various other feelings for God as He has commanded us to possses so that we are able to think of Him continously.

We perform our daily obligatory prayers five times a day.Officially, five times a day we are taken unintentionally to remember Him, but what are our thoughts during our solat?
And yet Allah has decreed in the Al Quran meaning:” Do perform solat to remember Me.”
One who remembers Allah will feel His existence and Allah in the know all about him, both his physical and spiritual aspects.Triggering the feelings of fear and apprehension towards God’s Supremacy. This describes as one who is righteous towards Allah.

If we fail to be righteous towards God during our official meet with Him i.e during our obligatory prayers, then during the other normal times, during our working hours,times we spent with the family, times we spent for entertainment, it is even difficult for us to remember Him.
This shows that our solat has not wither all the ill traits (mazmumah) preventing us to be righteous towards God. Showing off, self assurance, crazy for the world, arrogance, self centered, greed, miser, all the traits nesting inside the heart.

Sacrificing Our Feelings – A Form of JIHAD

08/08/2006

Human beings are creatures with emotions. When we mention emotions, these are feelings that are based in the spiritual heart and are trapped in the physical heart.

These emotions include love, hate, disgust, sympathy, anger, vengefulness, yearning, shame, pride, arrogance, fear, guilt and indecisiveness.

Emotions are part of the natural instinct or habits of human beings, are not easy to guide, discipline or manage because there are the positive and negative. The positive have to let free, while the negative have to be reined in.

Letting go of the positive is a sacrifice, as is the reining in of the negative. Sacrificing emotions is considered a type of struggle or jihad, which is spiritual jihad. In fact it is even greater than the sacrifice of physical things such as energy, wealth and even life.

Sacrifice of the physical will not happen unless one starts with sacrificing the spiritual. It is from the spiritual that the physical can occur. If one cannot even sacrifice the spiritual, then they would definitely not be able to sacrifice the physical. Truth be told, sacrifice the physical is but implementation of spiritual sacrifice. In other words, sacrificing the physical is the result of the spiritual sacrifice, which is sacrificing emotions.

In needs to be remembered that in order to obtain Allah Taala’s acceptance (keredhaan) sacrifices have to be made. Without sacrifice, there is no acceptance. Without sacrifice, it is all but fanciful daydreams and nonsense. Without sacrifice, there would be no success in this world or the next.

Sacrificing emotions is very difficult to do. It hurts a great deal and the burden of its challenge bears heavily. Here I present a few examples:

We love our husband. We love that he would just stay at home taking care of us. Would it be easy for us to sacrifice our love so that he would be able to go out and continue on his responsibility to struggle for God, until he has to leave the home for quite some time.

We love our husband. Would it be easy to sacrifice our love so that it may be shared with others by allowing our husband to marry another. So that our husband can share his love with others.

We are angry with someone. Can we sacrifice our anger until we are able to forgive or ask for forgiveness from that person? Willing to forgive or ask for forgiveness means that we are able to sacrifice our ego or pride.

We love our wealth and property. We can sacrifice our love for what we own by using it for Allah. That feeling would definitely torment us.

Sometimes we yearn to rest. We want to take it easy and just let our body rest a moment. Suddenly a guest or neighbour arrives who needs our help. Would we able to sacrifice our desire to rest by inviting our guest in respectfully or going to help out our neighbour in need?

We are constantly being tested in all sorts of ways, such as being poor, as well as suffering from accidents and natural disasters. Of course our heart would be trouble, for that would be our feelings at the time. If we cannot control or sacrifice our feelings, then of course we would be overcome with worry and distress. Our thoughts will be in so much of a mess that everything else in our lives will also be duly affected. Other people will also suffer in the process. But the problem itself is not solved, but may in fact lead to the forming of other problems. But if we can sacrifice this feeling of worry, then peace will come upon us. Our thoughts will become stable. Anything else that we need to do will not be affected. Others will not suffer either. In fact, by sacrificing these feelings will gain the sympathy and kindness of others.

If we are rich or knowledgeable or of a high status and powerful, naturally the feelings that we have will flourish. We will start to feel proud and arrogant. If we are unable to sacrifice these feelings, other people will get offended. Many will be suffer. Of course there will be other side effects, such as the inciting of hatred and trouble for the community. Then maybe there are those who hold grudges and cause trouble for the person. In the end both parties are become unsafe and suffer the consequences. But if the previously mentioned rich or powerful person had been able to sacrifice those negative emotions, the side effects would be good. The people would love and respect them, and give them their hearts. So everyone would benefit, gaining love and harmony. This is the advantage of sacrificing emotions.

Due to this, sacrificing feelings is the secret of all good things. It is from sacrificing such emotions that love, patience, sympathy, protectiveness, helpfulness, togetherness, tolerance and acceptance will arise. So, the sacrifice of emotions is a form of jihad, for here the nafs have to be battled against. Fighting nafs is greater than jihad on a battlefield.

Hence, the sacrifice of emotions is vital. If one is not willing to sacrifice their feelings, then they will never gain patience, let alone acceptance. If one is unable to sacrifice their emotions, they will be constantly angry and unwilling to compromise. It is this inability to sacrifice feelings that people are unable to help others, sympathise, unite and be harmonious.  So, the sacrifice of feelings is extremely important in the community lives between people.

So, constantly ask Allah for His hidayah and taufik so that we are able to sacrifice our feelings, so that all that we have will be able to be sacrificed for God.