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particular nature (fitrah). That fitrah is to recognize the
oneness of God and to actualize this truth in our lives.
Therefore, there is no calamity, no loss, no thing that will
cause more pain than putting something equal to God in
our lives or our hearts. Shirk on any level breaks the
human spirit like no worldly tragedy could. By making the
soul love, revere, or submit to something as it should only
God, you are contorting the soul into a position that it, by
its very nature, was never meant to be in. To see the
reality of this truth, one only has to look at what happens
to a person when they lose their object of worship.
On July 22, 2010, the Times of India reported that a 40-
year-old woman committed suicide in her home by
pouring kerosene over her body and setting herself on fire.
The police said it appeared that the suicide was an
“extreme step because she was unable to conceive a child
over 19 years of marriage”.
Only days earlier on July 16, police reported that a 22-
year-old Indian man “committed suicide after his
girlfriend left him”.
Most people could sympathize with the pain of these
people, and most would be heartbroken in the same
position. But if having a child or a particular person in our
life is our reason for being, something is terribly wrong. If
something finite, temporary and fading becomes the center
of our life, the raison d’etre (reason for existing), we will
surely break. The imperfect objects that we place at our
center will—by definition—fade, let us down, or pass
away. And our break will occur as soon as it does. What
happens if, while climbing a mountain, you hang on to a
twig to hold all your weight? Laws of physics tell us that
the twig, which was never created to carry such weight,
will break. Laws of gravity tell us that it is then that you
will most certainly fall. This is not a theory. It is a
certainty of the physical world. This reality is also a
certainty of the spiritual world, and we are told of this
truth in the Qur’an. Allah says:
“People, here is an illustration, so listen carefully: those
you call on beside God could not, even if they combined
all their forces, create a fly, and if a fly took something
away from them, they would not be able to retrieve it.
How feeble are the petitioners and how feeble are those
they petition!” (Qur’an,
22:73
)
The message of this ayah (verse) is deeply profound.
Every time you run after, seek, or petition something weak
or feeble (which, by definition, is everything other than
Allah), you too become weak or feeble. Even if you do
reach that which you seek, it will never be enough. You
will soon need to seek something else. You will never
reach true contentment or satisfaction. That is why we live
in a world of trade-ins and upgrades. Your phone, your
car, your computer, your woman, your man, can always be
traded in for a newer, better model.
However, there is a freedom from that slavery. When the
object upon which you place all your weight is unshaking,
unbreakable, and unending, you cannot fall. You cannot
break. Allah explains this truth to us in the Qur’an when
He says:
“There is no compulsion in religion: true guidance has
become distinct from error, so whoever rejects false gods
and believes in God has grasped the firmest hand-hold,
one that will never break. God is all hearing and all
knowing.” (Qur’an,
2:256
)
When what you hold on to is strong, you too become
strong, and with that strength comes the truest freedom. It
is of that freedom that Ibn Taymiyyah, may Allah have
mercy on him, said: “What can my enemies do to me? I
have in my breast both my heaven and my garden. If I
travel they are with me, never leaving me. Imprisonment
for me is a chance to be alone with my Lord. To be killed
is martyrdom and to be exiled from my land is a spiritual
journey.” (Ibn al-Qayyim, al-Wabil, p.69)
By making the one without flaw, end, or weakness the only
object of his worship, Ibn Taymiyyah described an escape
from the prison of this life. He described a believer whose
heart is free. It is a heart free of the shackles of servitude
to this life and everything in it. It is a heart that
understands that the only true tragedy is the compromise of
tawheed (the doctrine of the Oneness of God), that the only
insurmountable affliction is the worship of anyone or
anything other than the One worthy of worship. It is a heart
that understands that the only true prison is the prison of
replacing something with God. Whether that object is
one’s own desires, nafs (ego), wealth, job, spouse,
children, or the love of one’s life, that false deity will
entrap and enslave you if you make it ultimate. The pain of
that bondage will be greater, deeper, and longer lasting
than any other pain which could be inflicted by all the
tragedies of this life.
The experience of Prophet Yunus `alayhi sallatu wa
sallam (may Allah send his peace and blessings upon him)
is so crucial to internalize. When he was trapped in the
belly of the whale, he had only one way out: turning
completely to Allah, realizing Allah’s oneness and his
own human frailty. His du`a’ encapsulates this truth in
such a profound way: “There is no God but You, glory be
to You, I was wrong.” (Qur’an,
21:87
)
Many of us are also trapped inside the belly of the whale
of our own desires and objects of worship. It is our own
selves which we become enslaved to. And that
imprisonment is the result of putting anything where only
God should be in our hearts. In so doing we create the
worst and most painful of prisons; because while a
worldly prison can only take away what is temporary and
inherently imperfect, this spiritual prison takes away what
is ultimate, unending and perfect: Allah and our
relationship to Him.
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