Sharia and Tariqa Sides of the Quran(part one)

Hhdnat majzoobaalishah30

Dr. Nour Ali Tabandeh (majzoobalishah)

In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate

In  the  holy  Quran,  God  says:“Tell  them:  “I  f  you  love  Allah,  then  follow  me,  Allah will love you and forgive your faults. Allah is forgiving and merciful.”2

The  Prophet  had  two  sides: 

the  sharia;  announcing  the  rules  in  the  Quranic  verses revealed to him,

and

the tariqa; which means leading those who obeyed sharia rules to walking on the path of God if they deserved,

these two sides gathered together in the Prophet’s being. But after the Prophet, the 12 Imams were not sharia legislators, in other words, they did not legislate  sharia, but they expressed their opinion based on the existing laws, like when you have a sharia question  how  to  say  prayers;  what  to  do  if  we  get  distracted  and  confused  during  the  prayers, how to fast,  what things break the fast,  and so on. You can ask a jurisprudent or a sharia teacher these questions, they may give you an answer you do not like very much but you carry it out. For instance,  you  ask  a  sharia  teacher  that  how  many  of  forty  gold  coins  you  should  give  away  for  zakat (the Islamic donation), he may take one and say: “pay only this much for zakat”, but when you ask a mystic like Shibli3 what to do with these forty gold coins, he would want you to donateall of them and say: “Besides, bring one more gold coin, that one for zakat and the rest of them to punish you so as why you have not donated   them so far.” This is the difference between a shariateacher’s and a mystic’s order.

Now, the Prophet has to act like these two simultaneously and it is the most difficult task. The Quran addresses the Prophet: “You are only a warner; be aware that  there is  a  guide  for  every  generation”4, awarner means  someone  who  warns  against  punishment, misdeed and committing sins; saying, you just announce the laws and surely every generation will have its own guide. No doubt that the Prophet was also the guide for that nation, but here, God insists on telling the commandments only. The guides will excavate the guidance from the innermost parts of these commandments and move on toward the faith. In the above-mentioned verse: “Tell them if you love Allah …” both sharia and tariqa commandments have come together. The first phrase reads: “If you love Allah”and if you ask any  jurisprudent  what  it  means  to  love  God,  they  will  go:  God  cannot  be  loved,  He  must  be  worshipped. He who is a tariqa practitioner realizes“If you love Allah”. He understands what it means.  After  this  phrase,  God  wants  the  Prophet  to  say: “then  follow  me”,   as  such  Quranic  verses address the whole mankind and generally there are people among non-Muslims who love God, especially in Christianity in which Jesus (AS) paid a lot of attention to love and said all the time: “My religion is the religion of love”. Therefore Jesus said to his people: if you love Godthen follow me and put into practice whatever I say. Here, both sharia and tariqa are there. The above verse continues:“Allah will love you”; i f you follow me, then Allah will love you. 

This is a higher level; it is the greatest award for a lover to be loved by his beloved in return.The prophet elaborates mystical attitudes via Qudsi (holy) hadiths or some of his words. Take this Qudsi hadith for example which reads: When God loves a man, He will be their ears so that  they  hear  through  Him, He  will be  their  eyes  so  that  they  see  through  Him and He  will be their  tongue  so  that  they  speak  through  Him.5  It  means  God  owns  their  whole  being  by  one hundred  percent.  At  the  beginning  of  the  practice,  “If  you  love  Allah”seems  logical  since  the practitioner has  free  will.  This attitude  does  not  mean  they  are  not  practicing;  on  the  contrary,  they  are  on  the  way  and  have  reached  this  stage.  Just  like  the  story  of  Moses  and Khidr  when Moses made the first complaint. He was only paying attention to the regular laws and comparinghis action with that of Khidr’s and that,  in case the boat had been scuttled, they would have been sunk.  That  was  why  Khidr  said  to  him  “I  did  it”6.   In  the  second  stage,  Moses  was  payingattention to God and also himself, therefore Khidr said to him (suitable to Moses’s mood): “Wedid it”7.  But in the third stage, “Allah will love you”   takes place. God is behind whatever that takes  place  in  this  stage.  So,  Khidr  said:  “YourGod  did  it”8.Here,  the  God’s  lover  will  be  in  comfort  and  peace. 

They  subconsciously fulfill  whatever  God  the  beloved  desires;  they  do as they are expected to by God; Allah will love you and forgive your faults. Allah is forgiving and merciful.”Since Allah does not love people with blemishes on their souls, if anybody happens to reach this level to be loved by God,  what He does is to remove those blemishes. It is said that an old woman said to the Prophet: “I hear you have said there are no old men or women in heaven”. “That is the truth” he said. The old woman cried: “There is no place for me then”. He replied: “If you  deserve  it,  you  will  become  young  again  and  then  enter  into  heaven”.  God  will remove  all  the blemishes; “and forgive your faults”, and this forgiving (ghofran)  means ignoring the sins based on compassion, unlike the rejecting or denial (kofran) which is based on hostility.  “He will forgive  your  faults.  Allah  is  forgiving  and  merciful.” He  is  bothforgiving  and  merciful. 

On  the  one  hand,  He  has  mercy  on  you  so  that  you  would  not  feel  ashamed  if  you  entered  somewhere and saw that nobody other than you had any stains, He would mercifully forgive you and remove your stains. The same meaning lies also in a different verse: “And we will remove whatever  of  ill-feeling  is  in  their  hearts”9. It  means  all  the  filthiness  and  uncleanness  will  be  removed from their hearts. Those believers who successfully pass the judgment and are supposed to  enter  into  the  heavens  will  be  purified.  It  is  said  that  there  are  many  gates  for  heaven;  in  essence,  there  is  no  door  such  as  usual  doors  in  our  home,  and  these  are  just  figurative  expressions  to  realize  the  idea.  Of  the doors  of  heaven are repentance,  love,  kindness, contribution, sacrifice and so on. These are the gates of heaven.

We will be washed and cleansed at the gates, so to speak. There is no room for dirt or filth in heavens. Any kind of uncleanness will  be  washed  away  and  then  everyone  will  get  along  well  as  if  they  are  blood  brothers  and sisters.  Since  God  is  merciful,  He  will  purify  those  who have  passed  these  stages.  There  is  no  doubt  that  those  who  pass  have  been  among  the  loved ones,  as  He  says:  “If  you  love  Allah”, “then follow me”, follow God then “He will love you”. He has annunciated everyone that if they follow the Prophet He has sent, He will love them. When it comes to this stage, God will never leave any stain remaining; He will remove them out of mercy and pardon. This is an abstract of the stages of walking towards God from the beginning until the end; Fana-e-fe-Allah(Extinction of the self in God). How much we succeed depends on God as He has said:
“there is no power and  will  but  God  Almighty”10,  whatever  we  do,  no  matter  good  or  evil,  is  determined  by  the will of God Almighty”.


1- A transcript of two speeches made by his  honorable Haj Dr. Nour Ali Tabandeh in the public Sufi gatherings made on Dec 30, 2001 and Jan 20, 2002 in order to reply to some questions.
2- The Quran, Al-e-Imran (The family of Imran)

3- Shaykh Abu Bakr Shibli (861 – 946) was an important Sufi of Persian descent, and a disciple of Junayd Baghdadi.
4- The Quran, Al-Rad (The Thunder),
5-  لا یزال الغبد یتقرب الی بالنوافل حتی احبه فاذا احببته کنت سمعه الذی یسمع به و بصره الذی یبصر به و لسانه الذی ینطق به
6-The Quran, Al-Kahf (The Cave), 79: “But the boat, it belonged to some poor men who worked onthe sea and I thought that I should damage it, and there was a king who seized every boat by force.
7- The Quran, Al-Kahf (The Cave), 81: “We did it so that their Lord might give them a better son instead of him in purity and nearer to having compassion”
8-  The  Quran,  Al-Kahf  (The  Cave),  82: “So  your  Lord  desired  that  they  should  attain  their  maturity  and  take  out their treasure, a mercy from your Lord, and I did not do it of my own accord.
9- The Quran, Al-Araf (The Heights(
لا حول و لا قوه الا بالله العلی العظیم   -10

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *