Self-Liberation

We have seen in part I that, according to the Muslim tradition, God in His oneness (tawhid al-rububiyya) put into the heart of each human being an original breath, a natural longing (fitra) for the Transcendent, for Him. Muslim spirituality is the work the consciousness of the believer does on the self in order to be liberated from all forms of worship of things other than the Transcendent and to find the way to this original breath and its purity. This way toward the One (tawhid al-uluhiyya) is difficult and demanding, because human nature also tends to be drawn to the contingent realities of the world. Caught between longing for the Most High and the attraction of the world, the believer’s first experience of awareness is of facing an internal conflict. The choice is between liberating one’s self or losing one’s self and drowning in the vicissitudes of life. The Revelation tells us: “By the soul in the body (al-nafs) and what has balanced it (given it form) and inspired [both] its licentiousness and its intimate sense of God (its piety). He who purifies it will certainly be happy and he who corrupts it will certainly be lost (crushed).” Doubly inspired, consciousness is free and must make a choice: even though the appearance of faith seems beautiful and naturally attractive in its intimacy—“God has made you love faith and has beautified it in your heart” —this same intimacy may also drive one toward evil: “The soul in the body (al-nafs) certainly directs (commands you) to evil,” and the world calls one to follow the same way: “The love of desires and pleasures (sexuality, offspring, and money) have been beautified in human eyes.” Caught between these two currents, these two postulations, to use Baudelaire’s expression, conscience must make a decision and act. With the first deep awareness of the conflict, the need for constant effort must immediately be impressed on the consciousness of the believer. To return to God, to choose good, to turn one’s life to face the light, is a real jihad in the most absolute sense of the word: the effort that has as its aim to overcome the interior conflict in order to lead the being into peace.

Islamic teaching has given us concrete tools to help us succeed in this work on ourselves and to arrive at balance. In the West, as in the East, to lose them is the same as to lose oneself. Closeness to the Most High and liberation from all sorts of idolatry, whether material or nonmaterial, are not to be confused with maintaining “spiritualizing” emotions, disordered exiles where one may live “sometimes for a few hours,” or retreats “to try to get one’s bearings.” They have nothing to do with it. The daily requirements of Muslim practice give us the direction and the first steps along the way to this freedom. Awareness of the Presence and of the closeness of the Very Near One moves toward the center, the heart of the same community of faith, through the five daily meetings in prayer, the weekly gathering of that community of faith, the purifying tax on one’s possessions (zakat), the fasting for a full month of the year, and the making of the pilgrimage once in a lifetime (if one has the means). By meditating on these requirements, we discover that they really are demanding and operate on several levels: on the memory (for people are so inclined to forget); on the management of time (the daily rhythm of prayers and other practices throughout the year); on the individual and communal aspects of being before God (communal prayer, giving zakat, and so on); and on the division of efforts among the various elements that constitute the human being (heart, spirit, body, possessions). The “comprehensive character of the message of Islam,” of which we spoke in part I, is already etched in this elementary level of practice: to be with God is to come back to oneself, manage one’s time, control one’s love of possessions, develop concern for others, and know how to relativize attachment to one’s roots if they are a hindrance to faithfulness.

The lack of spirituality and inner balance that may be felt in the West as well as in the East is, according to Islamic teaching, completely natural if one lives far from the original spark, on the margins of one’s being, especially if one does not have a daily and holistic practice of faithfulness to the source. All the principles that we have referred to in part I are concentrated here to direct human beings and to urge them to engage concretely and regularly in the practice of this deep, responsible, and active spirituality. This is the surest way to become free of desires, however well nourished one may have become in one’s prisons or in the worship of the idols of ancient and modern times—money, sexuality, consumption, appearance, social status, power. There can be no worthy liberty without clear and constant effort.

But this is not all. At the heart of the West, whose rhythms of life and myriad opportunities for diversion may unsettle even the strongest determination, practice may become a mechanical ritual, lifeless and without spirituality. Memory repeats the invocations and prayers, the lips say the words, the body goes through the motions, the hand gives, but the soul is absent. The ritual is not enough: life must be liberated. The Revelation tells us that our existence should be a constant watchfulness, a continual reading of the Creator’s signs. Before our eyes, the natural practice of active spirituality comes through observing the universe and deeply contemplating its signs. “The sun and the moon move in calculated patterns, and the star and the tree bow down in worship.” The world speaks to the mind (the calculated patterns) as much as to the heart, to which it reveals its secrets (the bowing down of the elements). Malik Badri is right to point out that this exercise of contemplation works like therapy insofar as the Muslim does it in remembrance of God. In the same way, to read the written Revelation and to meditate on it are natural ways of arousing the consciousness and infusing it with continuous spiritual energy. So one must develop a way of reading the world to keep the breath alive in one: this exercise then passes into the heart of life, into the daily round cycle. We could say that we need to get used to the unusual, to the breaking point that gives meaning: it is through this breaking point that we move from habit to worship (min al-ada ila al-ibada).

So, at the magical moment of sunset: “In the creation of the heavens and the earth and the succession of nights and days there are signs for those who contemplate.” The remembrance of this sign, buried in habit, made the Prophet weep for a whole night.

The heart of the message of Islam is that a living spirituality comes at the price of willingly making the effort to come back to what is essential, to contemplate the world and to take the road back toward one’s self. In the daily practice, alongside the “book,” the Creator has given human beings a model in the person of the Prophet. “His character was the Qur’an,” said his wife, Aisha, and he was “like a Qur’an walking on earth.” He was the concrete embodiment of the teachings, and his tradition calls us to love him and live close to his memory, his life, his actions, and his silences. The intensity of spirituality can be measured by comparison with the intensity of the presence of the model in each person’s heart and life. In Europe and in North America, Islam is still the natural religion of the “books” and the model. It calls for a certain way of being in the world, of contemplating it, of being aware of one’s memory, of time, of one’s body, of one’s behavior and one’s actions, and trying as much as possible to live with God “as if one sees Him” and with the Prophet as if one were in his company.