Lecture on Mukhtasar: External Purification is Followed by Internal Purification

In the Name of the God the Most Beneficent the Most Merciful

Firstly, we pray to the God the Most Merciful to guide us with His Mercy and Love. Guide us and lead us toward the straight path. Our Lord, open up for us the portals of wisdom and gather to us from the treasure of Your blessings, O the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful! 

Mukhtasar Manhaj al-Qasideen lecture notes and documents

The book begins with the chapter of purification. This is the first series on the book of the secret which could be learned in it the purification for the prayer service. It is about purification and the God had obliged it upon us. Whatever that we had done with our salat service, the development of salat service before the God. If it is viewed within the shari'ah (divine way) of the God, it touched the issue on how we understand things as a faithful Muslim.

A Muslim who accepts Islam as their nature, it is different from what others are up to. Maybe for others, it is enough with certain rituals. The first thing that we Muslim should understand, our faith is closely related to the noble prophet Muhammad s.a.w. The basis of our faith is tawheed, the Oneness of the God in every aspect. The right for the Divinity for the God, it only belongs to the God. None others have the right for worship except Him. We are confident and faithful that noble prophet Muhammad s.a.w, the messenger of the God is the seal of prophethood a sign of His Mercy to all of creatures. Everything which is transmitted through the messenger must be obeyed and accepted by us.

We accept Islam as our deen, law of life. Being a Muslim is not only about meditating and chanting holy words, performing salat service, and then we go to night club and being a General Relation Officer (GRO). Bukan kita menjadi Muslim beriman itu dengan meratib, sembahyang, selepas itu kita pergi ke kelab malam menjadi pegawai perhubungan awam, saudara-saudari kita. A Muslim is a person who accept the Islamic system, the Divine law which regulates ones life. Kita menerima nidzam perundangan kita, hukum kita yang diturunkan oleh Allah 'Azza wa Jalla.

Although the topic which is discussed is a little topic, but it shows how discreet must we be in order to be a faithful Muslim. We are Muslim in the entire place, not in certain place.

I had read few Jews forum and they also talked about this. But unfortunately, they also have many classifications of Jews like secular, orthodox, modern orthodox, ultra-orthodox, karaite-samaritan, nosrim and others.

There is no other way of life for a Muslim except for the Divine law is regulating his or her life. Try to understand Islam through the eyes of a Muslim. When we try to understand Islam through the view of other religion, way of life, or ideologies, we would have the separation of religion and daily life or what we call as secularism. We have to understand it just like a Muslim understood his or her religion.  When we separate life, we get the Heaven for the God, and earth for men society.

My humble opinion, Heaven and earth are both belongings of the God. The universe belongs to Him. The West have had been controlled by religious groups whom are dirty in their heart. They had tyrannized people but in the case of other continents, they should not see it within their view because Europeans or Westerners are not gods. Asia has long been a region which produces philosophy and different from aggressive Western world or Western Europe whom recently proposing for peace and claim it as their greatest invention, hehe. I do not blame Christianity which had been deeply rooted in Europe until it became an 'ancestral custom' with European features although most people today do not actually believe in the Christ. I know it was the fault of those people in the religious body or the Church. I am not blind. I can think like a Christian although I am not one. This is not about pluralism; we ourselves know and determine what our faith is. Not our mum or dad. Apart of it of course the God’s guidance and mercy Who determined what we are.

A faithful Muslim accepts the God’s system so everything must be based from the reference of the Quran and prophetic line traditions. Bukan sesuka hati menurut hawa nafsu. Not as what we like according to our own desire. 

As to say, Jesus Christ, David a.s, and others are also a prophets of Islam so their tradition is also counted as prophetic tradition. Tradition like anointing our head with olive oil while performing penance is also sunnah for me. So the term Christ is not special at all for me because it is a Greek corruption in English rusty tongue for Hristos which means the Anointed one, haha. Fasting in alternate days is also a sunnah where David a.s performed that kind of fasting. I had received a flier from Christian organization based in Kuala Lumpur at my hostel and they are trying to proselytize even in the mosque. Quite aggressive I guess, because one of them had even approached me in the mosque. I know he is a proselytizer although he's just wearing normal cloth, pretending that he had previously know me but I am not angry. I just kept my silence and sat down for dzikr. I don't need their money and I do not even accept anything given by brethren in Islam except for those whom I know, like family. I would had myself baptized in church last time when I had some misunderstandings regarding Islam and Muslims but I didn't go for church. I went for Buddhist temples after listening to spiritual teachings before repenting myself and accepting the covenant of father Abraham a.s for his grandchildren. In simple word, I am not interested with those Christian organizations no matter how big money they have, haha. Money, big car, beautiful houses, western sounding names, 'friends' and many things actually do not attract me at all, sorry. I know about Christ teachings more than them. I have contacts with churches of eastern rites and frequently visiting churches though I think that many of my Malay compatriots would curse my face with accusations such as "tak beragama." This had been proven with some tests regarding people opinion, hehe.

Respective brothers and sisters in universities, just ignore proselytizer if you do not want to accept anything. Everything actually depends on our own choice not determined by others. I would like to express thanks to Pusat Islam USM for the herald before Friday sermon too though I had already been approached by a proselytizer. I won't report them and they do not have to worry. They are not even a threat to me because I have the God as my Friend. Just stop bringing shame to Jesus Christ. He is a noble figure for me. I will kick the ass of those who dare to bring disgrace to him and claiming that it is from him. I don’t care whether he is a god or not for others but he is one of my prophets which I have faith in through the seal of prophethood, Muhammad s.a.w.

So, how is taharah or purification is discussed in the Mukhtasar Manhaj al-Qaasideen? Sheikh Ahmad bin Abdul Rahman bin Quddaamah al-Muqaddis who is the writer of the book said, purification is divided into four levels...

I. Zaahir or External Purification which could be seen from physical filth anything which comes out from our body or from other. There are practices like ghusl or bathing, wudhu' or ablution, istinja’ or cleaning oneself from feces and others.

II. Our body parts are free from sins, errors, and vices, trying to avoid our body parts from committing vices and criminals. The honorable Imam al-Ghazali said that: "there is no greater ingratitude toward His Grace than using His grants to us to disobey Him and go against Him." For example of this kind of attitude, watching porn or what we called as eyes adultery. Noble prophet, Jesus Christ had also said that those who had seen such obscene thing should pluck out his eyes for it is better than all of body parts being tormented in the hell. I'm sorry, I can't remember the source for the notion. I read it somewhere. Maybe I should try to check it because Jesus Christ is a noble prophet and messenger of the God. He must be respected too.

III. Purification of the heart from disgusting matters. This is related to our characteristics.

IV. For those who are longing His Divine Love, purification of soul is important. We must purify ourselves and souls from whatever association to Him. The benchmark for this is the soul. Everything that we are worried of is only because of Him. Not because anything else. He is the Lord and Master of all creatures and universe. Our heart is only longing for His pleasure. So, this is what I always talk regarding polytheism. It is not really difficult to determine if we try to understand this part. Daily life always makes me afraid that I would associate Him with my carnal and worldly affairs.

A person who looks at things with his heart would understand all of the levels mentioned above. If we only purify ourselves at the first level, we would only take care about small matters. That makes doubt comes to our heart due to that, our understanding regarding purification is shallow. The religion is actually an easy matter for a faithful person because he or she lives with it. It becomes difficult because human character who only sees little things so he dwells only in physical matters. For example, a person only assumes that proper istinja’ is the only dimension of religion. From the report of ‘Umar r.a, there was the issue about people performing ablution with a vessel of a Nasraniyyah (Christian) lady and the issue had been prolonged into purification issue. So, people becoming so doubtful until they performed purifications more than what had been prescribed. They could only see physical matters but ignores the character. Human character becomes so foul and they had fallen into madzmumah characteristics.

According to what is called as rabbaniyah consideration, whatever that we physically look as clean could also be dirty inside. It is almost close to, 'don't judge a book by its cover' in English. Worship must be based from sound knowledge. It is not based from desire or whatever that we like to do. Some people perhaps view zuhud or modesty as marginalized behind while dirtiness and vices being regarded as beneficial or good. Munkar (evil) is viewed as ma'ruf (goodness), while ma'aruf being perceived by physical eyes based from nafs (carnal desire) as munkar. This era what can I say, urmm...   

continue....

What is Tauheed?

Bismillahirrahmaanirrahim!

In the name of God the Most Merciful, the Most Beneficent. We are still in saturday. Saturday is counted just after 'asr prayer time. Usually in thursday until fajr of sunday we use the time to memorize Quran and prayers so that our time could be used in a beneficial way. That time is what I mean by peaceful saturday. Some people do not understand the term but that is just how we refer to few things. We also may learn about Him and His teachings during these free times so we may become good Muslims and improving our submission to Him, may He help us.

Today we learn about what is tauheed? Tauheed is our arabic word from the root word ahad which means One. So, tauheed basically means Oneness and it refers to the Lord. Another word for it is monotheism. It is an ideology if it is according to politicial studies academician speech and I frankly hate their terms. Everyone in this world know that Allah is an arabic word used by people in arabic speaking and semitic area in reference to the Creator of the Universe. Other reference for Him is, He who is the King without crown. 

In this post, I would like to talk about this Oneness of God. In our syar'iah or the way of life, it is a sub-branch of 'aqidah (belief). 'Aqidah is the first component in the law of life. So, those who talk about secularism in Muslim community. The first thing to be noted is that we are not like western world. Some muslims becoming secular muslims when they believe that religion should be a separate part of human life differentiated with political entity. Eastern world is no west, and even there are christians in the east whom are the adherents of the church of the east, they are not like the french.

Eastern is as diverse as europe and complicated in different ways to europe or the States. It is the area where philosophies emereged since the Mesopotamia civilization. Persian, Greek, and Rome civilizations began to emerge just after Mesopotamian civilization in Semites' area.  

Please do not assume people around the world are the same when europe put this brand where it is promoting diversity in unity as it would show how silly is the brand when europeans do not walk the talk, and are no different from other bigots in the world but masking itself like uncivilized easterners according to european's perception. I am not anti-europe nor western world. 

I'm myself taking the course about european union and I learned about French Revolution when I was in my first degree. I could recall my class with my kamceng colleague and a close friend, Amir. He passed the paper but I didn't pass the paper because I don't really understand revolution at that time. But now, when I go through the previous notes and discussing it with friends online. I manage to understand those tricky reasons behind the French Revolution. Many reasons that could possibly being related to the revolution.

Back to tauheed. It is then simplified by the ulamas (religious science scholars) in the orthodox sunnah pillars of creed. We call it as arkaanul imaan and its meaning is as what we mentioned. Every Muslim regardless sunnah or shi'ite would profess that they believe in the One God which is Lord God. Shi'ite muslims have their conclusion for pillars of creed which are slightly different from sunnah muslims formulation because they have their ulamas and terms.  

Non-muslims too believing Him but some of them tend to take mediators for Him. I had once being an infidel where my 'aqidah is deflected due to environment and circumstances around so basically I understand how non-muslims religious thinking works. Some are taking their teachers as their mediator to be close to Him. Some may take angels as the mediators to be close to Him or asking this and that. Some personify His attributes to different personifications so that is why we can see many gods and goddess emerge to represent another entity which is Supreme but could not easily being achieved by their mind. Some may take money, positions, and others as their gods. Muslim ulamas too had differentiated this model of tauheed into two branches which are called as Uluhiyyah and Rubbubiyah. We would talk about this later according to our understanding from lectures, may He permits it.

In orthodox sunnah creed, the belief in Allah is concluded as the first pillar. It is the first condition to be a muslim. We profess that there is no gods but only the God. It is also concluded in our first pillar of Islam or arkaanul Islam. We recite this in our salaat during a postion called tasyahud (testimonial), and in each salaat we have twice tasyahuds. This matter has connection with creed and faith. Then, what does tauheed in Islam signifies? It signifies the Oneness of Lord God, without any partner, He is the Most Perfect, the Holiest, the Most Mighty, and the Most Just.

How do we perceive faith as muslims? We must have pure confidence in our soul and professing in our heart and orally the testimonial that there is no gods but only the God, and verbally display it with our acts. So from here we may proceed to arkaanul imaan or the pillars of creed.

The pillars of creed consists of six conclusion about the belief of a muslim which are:    

1. We believe in the only God without any partners nor mediators to pray to Him, Allah.

2. We believe in angels and each muslim must at least aware or recognize ten angels.

3. We believe in prophets and messengers appointed by Allah to teach his servants which are humans, each muslim must at least know 25 of the main prophets from Adam (as) to Muhammad (saw) with four of them are called as ulul 'azmi (prophets and messengers of God with great determination and preserverance).

4. We believe in celestial scriptures which are the scrolls given to our father Ibrahim (Abraham), the torah revealed to Musa (Moses), the zabur (psalmer) revealed to Dawud (David) the ewungal or injil (gospel) revealed in the heart of Isa the son of Maryam (Jesus), and the Quran as the conclusion of all scriptures revealed to prophet of this nation of the period near the end revealed in the heart and soul of our beloved prophet Muhammad (saw).

5. We believe in the Day promised by Lord God, which is also known as the Akhirat. Akhirat means the End which would happen just after the Resurrection or Yom al-Qiyamah.

6. We believe in the Qada' and Qadar. Qada' means the good divine pre-destination and Qadar means the evil divine pre-destination. Everything is in His wisdom.

So, this is how tauheed is related to the pillars of creed. We also touched some point of arkaanul islam which are also related to the tauheed. In Islam, there is also jinayat (criminal) component. A person who is known as muslim bounds to the Islamic way of life so this is the point that could not easily be understood by non-muslims.

A person who violates any component in the way of life would have to face consequences in criminal law. When a person violating his 'aqidah by being an apostate, he or she is also violating the law of life. Islam is the religion of nations and it builds up a society. It has nothing to do with fascism. Fascism was created by westerners and they became paranoid and obsessed with their own terms.

I wonder why people including some muslims who think that they are modernized when they followed others' way of life could easily understand civil law but when it comes to celestial law, it is different thing? I am aware that europe had banished death penalty because it is inhuman, but the United States which is among advanced countries still practising it. Till now, how many persons being killed by Syari'ah court? There is not any country with majority muslim population and with leaders identified as muslim in this world executing the way of life.  

In Malaysia nobody was killed because of apostacy. Instead, many had also won their case like the case of Lina Joy. In southern part of Thailand dominated by muslim malays, there are also remote cases of apostacy such as the case of Im Daoloth around 1960's who embraced buddhism to get incentives from central government as he was a government servant. He wasn't killed by syariah court but died in natural way.

A person who understands his or her own religion would never doing something out of ignorance. A bigot in the opposite showing their ignorance when they talk like they were tyrannized because their real god is not the God but others which only they could decipher who it is or who they are. This is just my personal opinion. As a person dependant to the God, I know where is my level and I am a lowly creature of Him. Not to persuade nor forcing anyone into Islam. I would also like to express gratitude if brothers and sisters in faith could help me correcting the notes about pillars of faith for everyone's benefit. And Allah knows well! 

Allahumma salli 'ala muhammad wa 'ala aali muhammad kamaa sallai-ta 'ala ibrahim, wa 'ala aali ibrahim. Allahumma baarik 'ala muhammad wa 'ala aali muhammad, kamaa barak-ta 'ala aali ibrahim wa 'ala aali ibrahim. Lord God our God be in connection with our prophet muhammad (saw) and his family, as You had been in connection with our father ibrahim (as) and his family. O Lord our God, please bless our prophet muhammad (saw) and his family as You had blessed our father ibrahim (as) and his family. May Allah guide us to the straight path. May there be light from His guidance in our life. Please forgive me my sins if I wrote something wrong, dear Lord. Sealed with prayers for peace and love.