In the Realm of Spirituality: The negation of self and assertion of Divine is the only way to moral uprightness
Book: Allah-O-Akbar (God is Great).
Author: Syed Habib.
Publisher: Shifa Publications, Zabarwan.
Year: 2010
Allah-O-Akbar is a self-published book by an erudite writer Syed Habib. The deep knowledge of the esteemed author about the realms of spirituality inform the book.
Syed Habib tries to find the answers of the questions which frequently perturb the truth seeker and he comes up with the sound answers quite magnificently. Not only this, each argument is supported outstandingly with the Quranic verses. The doctrine of Sufism is preached through the medium of Quran. Habib says:
Hazrat Junaid Baghdadi (God be pleased with him) who laid the foundations of mysticism or Sufism in Islam held that the ultimate concern of man is to enter the kingdom of God well-pleased and well-pleasing.
This return is achieved when the soul is at rest and is attended by all the spiritual blessings which in the Quran are metaphorically described as paradise. Some of these descriptions are: A garden whose width is that of the heavens and the earth.
[The Quran 89:27:30]
The general masses find Sufism a far-fetched concept. But Habib writes in simple words so that even a layman comprehends that Sufism is the essence of Islam. He doesn’t allow his discourse to fall in the quagmires of one-sided projection of mysticism but supplies us with the argumentation from western mystics like Louis Massingnon, Kenneth Cragg and so on.
The acknowledgement from the various mystics like Rabia Basra (RA), Shaikh Abdul Qadir Jeelani (RA), Mewlana Jallal Din Rumi (RA), Allama Iqbal (RA), Syed Hamadani (RA), Junaid Baghdadi (RA) and so on, is a delicious mystic feast. Besides, the splendid verses from renowned poets have blessed the book with an enigmatic lyricism.
As Habib strikes on the note of didactism in the book, the reader does not feel the want of escape from the drudgery of sermonizing but wants to listen and act because the advice is followed by a cool wisp of breeze which runs in the shape of couplet from Faiz Ahamd Faiz:
Greed has devoured all
The plaintiff, the jurist
The pleader, the judge
Where to go and why
To seek justice but how? [108]
The aesthetic dimension serves as the USP for the book. Almost all chapters begin with carefully chosen pieces of melodic verses. The chapter four “God man and the Spectacle” opens heralding the beauty of Divine which is taken from Yusuf and Zulaykha of Maulana Jami:
Each speck of matter did he constitute
A mirror, causing each one to reflect
The beauty of His visage. From the rose
Flashed forth His beauty and the nightingale
Beholding it, loved madly.[p. 118]
Again Habib Sahib astounds the reader with his minute observation which makes him to see Allah (SWT) in each and every spectacle of world as Blake saw it in a granule of sand. The Divine manifests Himself in almost all the dimensions of cosmos in the form of Beauty whether animate or inanimate. He establishes the affectionate bond of love between seeker and maker by addressing the former as lover and the latter as beloved.
"No one has power to assert ‘I’ unless it means standing upright and awareness to probe in order to expand in knowledgeability and consciousness".
The negation of self and assertion of Divine is the only way to moral uprightness and eternal bliss; this idea echoes throughout the book. The last chapter contains a message that Islam has placed woman respectfully in the society. It stresses that even in “modern jahiliyah”, female feticide is rampant and it is the need of the hour to understand that there had been great saints and mystics like Umm Haram, Rabia bint Ismail, Muadha al Adawiyya, Ishi Nili, Fakhr al-Nisa, Zainab Naisapuri, Aisha Bint Mohammad and so on.
The book ends at an instructive note:
"Those who love him [beloved Prophet] should follow his Sunnah and honour and revere womankind!"
Ms. Junaid Shabir is Research Scholar, English Department, Kashmir University
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