(art by by Ikram Hawramani)
Merciful and Compassionate God is All Seeing and All Hearing and He both encompasses the cosmos and is nearer to the Children of Adam than their own Adam’s apples, yet Satan places doubts in people’s minds to try and stop them praying to their Creator. Satan tricks them into thinking that just because God does not answer every prayer in ways that we can perceive in this life that they should give up praying to God, as they have ‘lost His favour ’, but in Truth God hears every single prayer (even those of great sinners) and He answers them in accordance with his ultimate Divine Wisdom taking into account a person’s true needs and what they deserve, but it is certain that in this life no one gains other than benefit from any well intentioned prayer to their Creator. In the Mathnavi Rumi told a parable that reveals and exposes one of the tricks that Satan uses against those who seek to journey towards their Lord.
One night a man called out ‘God!’
Until his lips grew sweet
from the mention of His Name.
Satan (who wished to stop this sincere worship) insinuated to the man why had he not received a response ‘I am here’ from his Lord, even after all this effort?
Falling for Satan’s trickery the man fell down asleep, feeling heart broken,
but in his sleep he dreamed of the wise,
timeless sage Khidr who questioned him;
‘Why have you stopped praising God?
Why have you changed your mind
about calling on him?’
The man explained that when he had called God he had experienced no ‘I am here’ in reply, so he had thought that he had been turned away.
Wise Khidr reassured the man,
explaining to him that
His call of ‘God’
had been God’s ‘I am here’
His fervent worship had been
God’s Message to him
His strivings to gain closeness to God
had been God’s way of drawing him near
His love and fear had been
the noose that had gained God’s favour
and thus it was that every of the man’s
‘Oh Lords’
Had been answered by many
‘I am “heres”’
God is the Master of all things, He is the one who opens up the path of goodness to the good hearted people (and sometimes closes it off to those who demonstrate wickedness). The very fact that the man had gained such love and longing for his Lord to call upon him in such a way, was in its self a blessing and an answer from God. Rumi would explain that although God’s ‘I am here’ couldn’t always be heard (to those with the spiritual development and sense to notice it) it can be sensed in every atom of the body.
Abdur Raheem
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