Michael Sugich - Hearts Turn: Sinners, Seekers, Saints and the Road to Redemption

HEARTS TURN

Sinners, Seekers, Saints

& the Road to Redemption

Michael Sugich

Copyright 2019 Michael Sugich

All rights reserved

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic
or mechanical, including photocopying,
without the written permission
of the author.

ISBN 978-0-9893640-0-3

Cover designed by Mukhtar Sanders

Cover art by Maaida Noor

For Moulay Hachem al-Belghiti

who took me by the hand and turned my heart

And dedicated to the memory of

the poet Daniel Abdal Hayy Moore

&

the teacher Shaykh Yusuf Da Costa

AUTHORS NOTE

I have made considerable effort to be true to every narrative related on the following pages, to capture the voice of the protagonist and give context to the story being told. There were those who, for personal or professional reasons, asked to remain anonymous. Their stories are no less true, but their names have been changed.

In a certain sense this book has been inspired by the ancient biographies ( tabaqat ) and hagiographies of the saints, many of whom led less than exemplary lives before turning to God and taking the Path. I have included a number of stories from the ancient texts, which are identified by the symbol:

Know that knowledge is life, wisdom is a mirror, contentment a protective wall, hope a mediator and intercessor, remembrance [of God] a remedy, and repentance a cure.

Repentance is the signpost on the path, the leader of the kingdom, the key to the treasure, the intermediary that assists you to become united with God, the condition for being accepted to the Divine presence, and the secret of all happiness.

ABDULLAH ANSR OF HERAT

INTRODUCTION

WE ARE LIVING in dark, uncertain times, full of distraction, turmoil and violence that are either upon us, or impending. We see this turmoil every day on television, in movies, in the headlines, online. We cannot escape it. And, as Muslims, we are drifting, as if in a riptide, away out into an open notional sea of uncertainty, far from the heart of our belief. I have watched this trend, sometimes in the midst of it but mostly from the sidelines, and I have seen its impact on the hearts of believers. This book is a small attempt to ameliorate this insidious drift.

Since Signs on the Horizons was first published I have made several book tours that have put me in direct contact with many wonderful Muslims, with beautiful hearts and the best of intentions. They fill me with hope. Yet I have been astonished by a deep and prevailing insecurity and lack of confidence I hear from many. The influence of a stark and rigid, and frankly heretical, form of Islam, which focuses on externalities and equates sin with unbelief, has had a pervasive and dispiriting influence on the hearts and minds of Muslims around the world whether they subscribe to these doctrines or not. At the same time, many have been raised with a distorted understanding of their faith, or no understanding at all.

The late author Hassan (Gai) Eaton, may God have mercy on him, once told me that when he was working as an advisor at the Regents Park Mosque in London, he befriended a sincere and pious young Pakistani-British Muslim. The young man came to him in a terrible state. He said to him gravely, Sidi Hassan, Ive come here to tell you that I have to leave Islam and enter kufr (unbelief). Sidi Hassan was taken aback, to say the least. Why? he asked. The young man said, You see I grew up and was educated here in England. I have an advanced degree and a good job. But my parents have insisted that I marry a girl from their village back in Pakistan. She is an uneducated peasant girl. She cant even read or write. I simply cant marry her. And so I have to leave Islam.

Why on earth do you think you have to leave Islam? asked Sidi Hassan.

But of course I have to leave Islam, because I have disobeyed my parents. This is unbelief so I have become an unbeliever.

To say that this is taking filial piety to extremes is putting it mildly but what I find more disturbing than the young mans inherited misunderstanding is that he seems to have divorced basic human intelligence and common sense from his faith.

On a visit to Birmingham in the U.K. a friend of mine told me that he had attended a discourse in a local mosque where the imam told his congregation that whoever does not bend their toe while in the sitting position of the prayer, their prayer is not acceptable to God. This idiot has no place lecturing a congregation in a mosque, but Im afraid that this kind of gross ignorance and willful stupidity is more prevalent than any of us would like to believe.

I have spoken to many young people, particularly young Muslims who were born into the faith, who have (quite naturally) fallen prey to many of the temptations of modern life, or who have learned an ethnocentric interpretation of Islam that takes no account of the time and place we live in. For those who enter Islam from another faith or from no faith at all, exposure to a dysfunctional mainstream can have an unsettling impact on their new faith and practice and propel them to deviant versions of Islam that provide simplistic answers to subtle questions.

Today young Muslims read books about the perfection of the Messenger of God, peace be upon him, his Family and Companions and the ancient saints of Islam (the awwaleen ), may God be well pleased with them all, and feel, by comparison, doomed to perdition or, at best, inadequate to the spiritual path of Ihsan that forms the very heart of our faith. Most young people have lost touch with traditional teaching. They pick up where their parents left off, for better or for worse, or they are stuck with very, and sometimes grotesquely, imperfect teaching. They feel weak and unworthy, as if theyve stepped beyond the pale. Somehow in the process theyve lost sight of, or never understood, the fact that the purification of the heart is a process of continuous turning.

In English, 'repentance' is a forbidding word that suggests a puritanical finality. But in Arabic the term tawba is dynamic, meaning to turn or return. Al-Tawwab is one of the Names of God, the Oft-Returning. It is an active constant, an ongoing reality that renews every moment we are alive.

The saint Sahl ibn Abdullah al-Tustari, may God be well pleased with him, wrote, Tawba is a duty incumbent upon a human being every moment whether of the elect or common folk, whether obedient to God or disobedient.

According to the master Abu Ali al-Daqqaq, may God be well pleased with him, Repentance consists of three parts. Its beginning is tawba (repentance), its middle part is inaba (turning to God), and its end is awba (returning to God). And Imam al-Qushayri, may God be well pleased with him, comments on this saying, Whoever repents out of fear of [divine] punishment acquires a repentance ( tawba ). Whoever repents out of desire of [Divine] reward acquires turning to God ( inaba ). And whoever repents out of compliance with [divine] command, not out of desire of reward, nor out of fear of punishment ( awba ), acquires return to God.

The saint Rabia al-Adawiya prayed:

O God, if I worship You for fear of Hell, burn me in Hell,

And if I worship You in hope of Paradise,

Exclude me from Paradise.

But if I worship You for Your Own sake,

Grudge me not Your everlasting Beauty.

Of the saints, our master Sidi Muhammad ibn Al-Habib wrote:

So their Tawba is ongoing, for God and by God;

Their fear is veneration of His mightiness and awe.