What makes the Spirit polluted?

Reality of the Spirit Breathed into Man

(Allah said to the angels): “So, when I have proportioned him (Adam) and breathed into him of my soul then fall down to him in prostration.” (Al-Hijr: 29) Commenting on this verse Syed Abu Al A’la Maududi writes that what Allah, SWT, breathed in Adam after his creation was actually reflection of His marvelous attributes. Spirit (soul) is actually the collection of the uppermost attributes like life, knowledge, power, will, choice, discretion etc. Spirit is a light image of Allah’s attributes which has lifted man so high that he became Khalifah and all the existing things including the angels prostrated themselves to him. The same subject we find in verse 9 of Surah As-Sajdah where Allah, SWT, says: “Then He proportioned him (Adam) and breathed into him from His (created) soul and made for you hearing (ears) and sight (eyes) and hearts (sources of intellect and knowledge). Little is the thanks you give.” With a bit more detail and clarity Syed Maududi gave his views on this verse that spirit does not mean only the life which makes the physical structure of the body vigorous and moving. It means the particular essence of sterling qualities of thinking and consciousness, wisdom and discretion, will and choice which makes man dissimilar and distinctive from the other earthly creatures. It makes him a being with the sense of self-importance of his being and personality and conscious that he is the owner of the status of khalifah. The affirmation that Allah breathed into man His soul is either because only He owns it and its credit goes to Him as the things are generally ascribed to their owners, or because all the qualities and characteristics of knowledge, thinking and contemplation, moral sense, intention, decision making and choice, created in man, actually have the imprint and reflection of Allah’s attributes on them. Their mainspring is not any composition of the matter but only Allah, the Exalted. The marvels of knowledge, wisdom, power and will are not from any ignorant, unacquainted and unwise source but are the bounties showered upon man by Allah, the Most Bountiful to employ them for

How the Spirit gets Polluted and Ravaged

1:  Heedlessness

One of the most significant dimensions of Spirituality is using all the qualities gifted to man according to the Will of his Creator to fulfill the aims and objectives for which man came into existence. Strength of the Spirituality depends on establishing a strong relation of servitude with our Creator, the Lord of the worlds through His worship and remembrance. Though what is breathed into the body is like an electric current rarified, light and delicate in its nature, but because the heart is focal point of this breath, so it has extraordinary significance in all the organs of human body. Eyes and ears, as sighting and hearing sources, closely linked with mental faculties work for heart. Thus the heart is a foremost mainstay in the inner system of human body.  In the verse 9 0f Surah As-Sajdah, referred above, just after the mention of breathing soul in man, Allah says: “And He gave you hearing (ears) and sight (eyes) and heart. Little is the thanks you give.” There are different other places also in the Quran making man realize how great the blessing of hearing and sighting and cognizance is and to what extent thankfulness is due on him for this blessing. Heart is abode of Spirit (Soul) and it does not want its abode sunk in darkness and desolation.

The Spirit is in peace and satisfaction only when the heart, as its abode, is radiant and flourishing with Iman (Faith). The heart blooms and flourishes by abundance of Zikr (remembrance) through worship while being covered with the dust of heedlessness it fails to receive the reflections of the Divine refulgence . This was why our Holy Prophet, be peace and blessings of Allah upon him, used to invoke: “O Allah! Blossom and shine our hearts with the light of Iman (Faith).” In heedlessness and forgetfulness due to getting lost in material life Iman shrinks as the cloth does and shrivels as the trees are dried and wrinkle. Revival and freshness of the heart depends on how much we keep remembrance of Allah fresh and mellow. The Messenger of Allah, while advising his companions once said: “Refresh your hearts.” And on the question how to refresh the hearts, he said: “Increase the remembrance with the words ‘Laa Ilaaha Illallah.’ (There is none to be worshiped but only Allah)[Tabrani, Hakim]   

2: Excessive Involvement in Material Activities

When the attributes and qualities bestowed upon man are surrendered to Shaitan or to the corrupt social milieu or are exhausted in lusting after temptations or they get used against the scheme and mission they are given for, the Spirituality is immensely lowered. Becoming excessively immersed in the material activities for the demands of life badly affects the endurance of spirit and thus Spirituality speedily gets dwindled and its bloom is tarnished. The Spirit gets exaltedness with the elevation of moral properties like compassion, generosity, sacrifice, mercy, justice, nobility and patience. Hayaa (modesty) is the loftiest of all these moral traits. Obscenity, impudence, gluttony, lustfulness and lasciviousness and greed are antagonists of Hayaa and in case they overcome Hayaa, they eventually prove deadly for the spirituality. Excessive want and activities for pleasures and enjoyment, slothfulness and inertia are the major factors which make the spirit wrinkled and withered.

3: Mischievousness and some popular Facades of Ruhaniyyat (Spiritualism)

Like most of the communities in the times of their moral, economic and social decline did, we also in our downfall resort to superstitions, exorcism, demon possession and the black arts. The term Ruhaniyyat is mostly exploited and apparently used as the opposite of Madiyyat (Materialism) but it is only a disguise. In fact it is another facet of Materialism. This type of ‘spiritual’ guides manipulate the term ‘Ruhaniyyat’ for their material gains and show their ‘expertise’ in sly and mysterious games of lunatic absorption. They push the society into meditation, sorcery, soothsaying (fortune telling), wizardry, spellbinding and incantation. Mostly they are ignorant and blockhead, even unable to recite a few verses of the Quran correctly but wickedly they prey on the innocent people for cheating them in the name of Ruhaniyyat.

 Many of the professional spiritual guides have their shops open in every town and city. The so-called experts of ‘Ruhaniyat’ dupe the ignorant and simple natured people, may they be illiterate or holding the degrees of the colleges and universities. These wicked ‘spiritual’ guides have nothing to do with moral uplift and religious understanding of the people. They have only the claim of having the power of casting out the evil spirits, tracing out the missing persons and lost things. They ensure a thriving business and an increasing income, success in getting jobs, guarantee the protection from the enemies and cure the childlessness and those who are in harrowing situations through muttering the spells taught and talismans and amulets given by them. Spiritualism has become an opiate, making the people idle and inactive and pushing them in inertia and retardation.

In South Asia, accession to the prominent Muslim saints’ is another form of exploitation of the innocent people. It has become a tradition that the descendants of the saints hold the charge and administration of the shrines of their forefathers. They are misunderstood to be the genuine heirs of their ancestors with the same level of knowledge, piety and virtues of their ancestors. Recourse of the devotees to them is in hope of deliverance from anxieties of their mundane life. Unfortunately most of them are ultra materialists. In the present set up, the top ruling figures and in the very influential leaders of political parties in Pakistan we find successors of the saints’ offices. Unfortunately, the prime minister, minister for promotion of trade and industry, chief minister of a province, former foreign minister, former minister of religious affairs (now in jail for corruption cases) and some others are ‘Ruhani Guides’ but awfully we have to admit that most of them are tainted with corruption and plundering. They lead luxurious and kingly lives.

Drowning in illiteracy, ignorance and religious unawareness and also facing the prickling psychological, social and economic problems, the people try to catch at these straws. What American intelligence forces did in the recent incident of killing of Osama bin Laden at Abotabad, in Pakistan, was an evidence of vulnerability of the country. In the condition of helplessness some of renowned intellectuals and columnists went to some ‘Ruhani’ personalities to get solace there when Imam Mehdi will appear to defeat the enemies of Islam or when the forces of nature will come in force to ruin the enemies of the Muslim Ummah. Such are the last resorts of the nations who lose their Faith and morality and economically and in military power become dependent on the others. This thinking is totally contrary to that which gets developed with the true and strong belief in Allah.

4: Asceticism

  We have one more ugly face of Ruhaniyyat in many of the Muslim countries.  It grows superstitious thinking stronger and causes an inertness or slowness in practical life, so it is thought to be the worst kind of religiosity proving a great danger for man’s spirit or soul. It is a religiosity taken from Christianity, Budhaism and Hinduism and blended with some of the Islamic rites and rituals. The Christian world under the Roman Empire from third century and even after invent of Islam and rise of the Arabs, this type of the religiosity had gained a great popularity. Hyperbole and extremism in monasticism introduced by so-called spiritual leaders of the Christianity had induced the wastefulness in the collective life.

During the 4^th century AD St. Jerome played significant role in making the Monasticism a momentous matter of that time. We can imagine the outgrowth of this phenomenon that the number of monks in the Easter Festival used to be not less than 50 thousands. Every chief monk had not less than 5 thousands monks under him. St. Serapion had ten thousands monks in his ‘spiritual’ command. Around the end of the 4^th century the number of the monks exceeded equal to the population of Egypt. Self torturing had deceitfully become an alluring practice of piety and virtue. St. Macarious kept on sleeping in the marsh to get more and more stung by the poisonous flies. He constantly used to have more than 40 kilo iron on his back. One of his disciple went beyond and kept on lifting the iron double of his guru. He willfully remained captive in a dry well for three years.

Another famous St. John worshiped in standing position. He strictly avoided giving a bow to his back or the knees for a moment for about three years. In case of feeling tiredness he took support of only a rock behind him. Just to exhibit their abstinence the mystic hermits liked to live without covering the secret parts of their bodies. Their extraordinarily grown hair was thought enough to conceal the secret parts of their bodies. They used to move like animals on both hands and legs. Instead of having homes to live in they preferred to abode in the caves, dry wells and graveyards. There was a group of monks who ate grass like the cattle. Purity of their body was thought against the asceticism. The more their asceticism improved the more their likening for the dirt and stink grew. Saint Anthony the Great deemed it a sin to wash his feet. Saint Abraham never let fall a drop of water on his face or any other part of his body.

The monks used to roam about in the streets in guise of the teachers and abducted the children to make them monks. Asceticism had become so popular that youngsters who readied themselves for monk-ism against the will of their parents were highly admired in the society. St. Ambrose was so notorious for abducting the children that fearing their children fall into his hands the mothers used to lock up their children in the houses. Silence not for some days but for decades was a sign of sainthood. Christian history of the fourth and fifth century is full of admiration for those who had chosen unwed life for them because celibacy was thought the highest moral value then.

Not only illicit, but marital relations also were considered to be a kind of unwholesomeness. Pleasure and enjoyment was tantamount to evil. St. Ammon, St. Abraham and St. Alexis and St. Nilus broke their marital link with their wives soon after but some of them on very first night of their marriage and got separated in the name of chastity and piety. A pleasant marital and religious life became a dissent matters in Christianity. For religious service it became necessary to discard spousal bonds.

This odious shape of religiosity was a fatal blow on the natural feelings of compassion, benevolence, loyalty and faithfulness in the family life. It repudiated the parental control over their children. The love, sacrifice and closeness of the siblings with each other was declared to be a hurdle in ‘spiritual’ headway. Imagine the callousness, the mothers restlessly suffered from the pain of the disunion of their sons who had resorted to extreme of monkhood and sainthood but their inordinate sense of ‘spiritualism’ did not allow them to even show a brief sight of their faces to their longing mothers.

This ascetic movement, starting from Egypt and then spread to Syria, Palestine and from Africa to Europe had negative impacts on the social and moral life of the societies. All the attributes of manly excellence were quelled. Truthfulness, generosity, bravery and pleasantry, all the exalted moral qualities disappeared. Family life got tottering. All the distinctive etiquettes came in eclipse. Rights of the parents, children and the wives became a forgotten subject. A lawful earning with hard work remained no more a high moral value. The Ascetic Movement brought the greatest miseries for the women as mothers and wives because they had lost all those who could be solicitous about their afflictions in absence of their husbands and sons. (‘Insani Dunya Par Musalmanon Ke Urooj o Zawal Ka Aser’) [How the Rise and Fall of the Muslims Affected the Mankind], a very scholarly work of late Syed Abu Al-Hasan Ali Nadvi and volume v of Tafhimul Quran, the famous commentary of the Quran by late Syed Abu Al A’la Maududi)

 Islam’s Stand about Asceticism

Islam is a natural system of life. It is completely in concord with the Divine Plan of creating man to play a vital and dynamic role in making this world and not destroying it. Islam forcefully rejects the philosophy of asceticism. Strife and struggle is its main requisite. The Messenger, be peace and blessings of Allah upon him, is reported to have said: “Rahbaniyyah of this (Muslim) Ummah is Jehad in the way of Allah.” (Ahmed, Abu Ya’la)  He said: “Do not be hard to your selves. A community invented this hardship and then Allah caught them harshly. The remainders of their Sawame’ (monasteries) and churches are still there as evidence.” (Abu Dawud) Struggle is life. The Prophet, SAW, said if anyone of you is holding a plant of date to plant it and in the meantime the end of this world happens, he should go ahead after planting that branch of date. Compassion and mercy, sympathy and cooperation in good and constructive matters are the lessons of Islam. Asceticism and monasticism is contrary to the scheme for which man took the role of vicegerent of Lord of this world.