Al Hadi “The Guide”
Are you eaten up by confusion? Do you feel that your mind fails to determine what is right and what is wrong? Have you been offered someday two jobs, and you are ignorant which one is the more proper to you? Does your mind filled with the decency of two girls, but you do not know whom you want to propose to marry? Are you exhausted from the so long journey of being lost and you are with strong desire to have Allah gifted you with the blessing of reaching the path of light and guidance? You are ready now to start a new phase with the name of Allah known as” The Guide”.
You need to have close knowledge to this great name. You want to take shelter in the Guide to cease in your mind the overwhelming confusion and to have you guided to the right path.
Shelter
The linguistic origin of the term “Guidance” has to do with the state of diversion as if guidance is to divert from the wrong path to the right path, from deviation to the righteousness and from temptation to awareness.
He is only the Exalted is capable to guide you to have guided from the path of astray to the path of guidance and from the path of temptation to the path of righteousness.
The Allah, Himself, guides you, He guides others to you!
Thus, objects essential to the set your life higher state of well-being are to guide to you: water is to land on your land on which you reside, food is to reach to the place where you live and air finds its path to your lunges.
He guides His entire creature in so many different ways with reference to themselves and their states:
The guidance of visually impaired people is to have him/her walking on the road, the guidance of the deaf is to understand the saying, the guidance of the elderly people is to reach to his final end … etc.;
The guidance of the child is to keep him/her away from harmful things.
The guidance of animals is to down root the righteous things for their lives deep inside the soul, so they become aware of their own benefits and the methods of having them done, the become aware of the harms and the methods to avoid them and they become aware of the risks and the methods to resist against them;
He guides those who are lost in deserts;
He guides those who read to reach their conclusion;
He guides discoverers to invent;
He guides hardworking people to reach the particulars of the target question;
He guides preachers to the proper method;
He guides fathers to find the ideal way of offering their sons/daughters advices;
It is not a coincidence!
Allah guides you to your destination and you believe it as a matter of chance. He guides you through a verse recited by you while praying. He guides you through a dream. He guides you through a passing advice. He guides you through a word you read in a book. He guides you while you are overwhelmed in contemplation. He guides you through an unprecedented glance while thinking. He guides you through set circumstance to have you on the path of righteousness. He guides you through fear. He guides you through love and He guides you through death!
Listening to the Holy Quran is the ideal original way to embrace guidance; the Holy Quran is a reason gifted by Allah to have all His slaves guided ; as the Holy Quran includes all reasons behind guidance and righteousness: the Almighty Allah says:
“Surely, this Quran guides to that which is most upright”
Thus, it is unbelievable to see a religious man acting in accordance with the codes stipulated in the Holy Quran is inflicted with perversity, deviation or retreat.
The story of Omar Ibn Al Khattab’s adoption of Islam is commonly known. Omar called in his sister with flames of anger apparent in his eyes, and when he started reading the holy words of the beginning of Surat Taha written down on a piece of paper held by her, his heart prostrated the greatness of Allah in the sacred place of faith, and his faith was unstoppable until his unfortunate death –May Allah be pleased with him-
Can you guess his feeling that moment? What is the certainty embraced by his heart at that moment? How many guiding stations included within the Holy Quran but our contemplation disregards the significance of such? How many guiding directions still unrecognized by our hearts?
No! – No!
Among the forms of guidance, there is a form represented in a dream in which you see yourself recovered from a disease, warning or guidance. It is said before that there was a patient who saw in his dream that his treatment is in (NO – NO), then, he went to a religious man (sheikh) to ask him for an interpretation, the religious man said that he did not know but he read the Holy Quran in full every two days. “Just give me awhile to find out a solution in the Holy Quran so as to interpret your dream” Sheikh said. After two days, Sheikh came to him and said: “your recovery is in olive oil, Allah Almighty says in Surat Al Nor (Illumination):
“lit from a blessed olive tree neither eastern nor western, the oil whereof almost gives light”
this is guidance by a dream.
Among forms of guidance which are similar to the guidance through dream is the deduction and induction of the meaning of a thing from its similar such as get recovery through performing prayers which have similar traits of the disease!!
A man came to a scholar complaining from edema which is a disease because of which liquids gathered in the body of a person and may lead to his death. The
scholar advises him to dig a well and to have it endowed, the man dag the well and he got recovered from his disease by Allah’s will.
The scholar figured out the a similarity between the blockage of liquids in the body and the blockage of water in the earth, then, he decided that the worship (digging the well) is similar to that kind of disease and the recovery may be patent in it.
One of my colleagues informed that he crushed his niece two years ago accidently by his car (Jeep) while he was going to pray, then her father took her immediately to the hospital. Death was so near to her. Doctors informed him that she would die by a percentage of 80%.
My nephew called my colleague, trying to remind him with the decency of faith, giving him an advice, advising him to slaughter a lamp as a sacrifice and giving its meal to the poor with the intention of having your daughter recovered! The father complied with the advice given by the nephew. Before the coming of dawn, the daughter got recovered and left the intensive care!!
Almighty Allah guided the nephew to see the compatibility between the meal given as charity and the crushed meal of the daughter, so the recovery is gifted by Allah as being more sincere to the reality than the expectations provided by the doctors!!
When it comes to guidance by a passing advice: it is said that there is a singer with a beautiful voice, then, one of the good people passed by him saying: what a beautiful voice! I wish you use it to recite the Holy Quran. Thus, the singer repented from that moment.
Guidance by the virtue of an advice is too wide and clear to be exemplified.
Allah may guide you through contemplation. The most obvious witnesses for such guidance are the story of our Master Ibrahim –peace be upon him- when the night over-shadowed him, he saw a star. The story is well-known, so there are contemplations in the miracles of the universe which were the reason behind the guidance and certainty of Ibrahim –peace be upon him.
A Burning Brand of Light
Allah in heaven sees His lost slaves, He sees mountains of those who are lost with their souls surrounding them, He lightens the night with a burning brand of light to have them seen the path to reach the final destination.
Allah does not guide you because you are son/daughter of someone, but because Allah wants that by His will: “He guides whoever to the right path”. Allah reconciles your heart by His precious will.
Allah may guide you but you do not duly observe the duties of this guidance by the virtue of thanking Allah and working accordingly, so Allah deprives you from such blessing: the same is applied to the man who was gifted by Allah by miraculous communications yet:
“…he withdraws himself from them, so Satan overtakes him, so he is of those who go astray”
Allah may guide you and you thank Him and work accordingly, then, Allah bestows upon you others forms of guidance then you thank Him and work accordingly and then Allah continues in gifting His blessings thirdly and fourthly to make your life a continuous integrated flows of gifts.
Those youths of the cave were all guided to be true believer; they were all guided to hold patiently on their faith; they were all guided to know the path of salvation, they were all guided to have their course of life paved for such salvation and they were all guided by preventing them from hearing for a number of years. Allah, Exalted, said:
“…surely they were youths who believed in their Lord and We increase them in guidance”.
A lost Compass
Amid the dark desert, you are definitely ignorant of the right direction and your ignorance means the absolute death because you are with no food and no camel. All of a sudden, you find yourself persistent to take a certain direction. You do not
know something about stars, your compass is lost, and your companions left you alone awaiting you with overwhelming desire in the last and final destination of life.
Now! Can tell me something about such feeling? What is the elegant equation set to be his sole savior? Why did it come on the ground? How was it so much accurate to such degree?
Allah, during this moment, sees the horror disorder in your heart. He was hearing the whisperings deep inside your heart and He knew death personified in a thirst crushing the self of yours. Thus, Allah ordered an internal flash to ignite to make you feel with the path and reach your destination peacefully.
Do not get so attached to the literal representation of the experiment. You might not live it, but you or any of our relatives undoubtedly lived near circumstances thereof. The question deemed of more paramount importance than all these details: who is the one who threw guidance in an anxious soul: a soul in need for a flash of hope?
He is the Guide, Exalted.
If you are watched by the eyes of carefulness
Then, sleep; all accidents are of nothing but sanctuary
Amid the harmonious integration between wind and your ship, wind is to be ordered to move northerly at that moment; as the rescuing island is located at your right direction and your sail will be crushed without the aid of such wind destined to be so by the Guide Exalted.
Ibn Taymaya drove himself away from houses with a crowded mind full of sayings with reference to the interpretation of certain verse from the Holy Quran. He read about it tens of ready-made interpretations. Yet, he was still stuck within the crowdedness of confusion. Then, he put his face in the dust with tear-dropping eyes, saying: “O Teacher of Dawood, teach me; O You who guided Suleiman to understand, make me understand”. Then, he returned with reasonable sayings deep inside his mentality shaped with divine guidance!
If you are not with Allah’s assistance gifted
Then, the first conclusion of your due diligence will be the resort
Then Allah guides you
The guidance of Almighty Allah is not exclusive to human beings; as He guides all creatures, Allah, the Exalted, said:
“He said that: Our Lord is He who gave to everything its creation, then guided it (to its goal)”
Sheikh Mohammed Ratib Al Nabolsy describes something relevant to the concept of guidance, saying: “salmons move from the shore of Pacific Ocean to downstream in America to lay its eggs and they return back. After months, small fish goes out of the eggs and heads directly to the place where their mothers are! Their mothers are hundreds of kilometers far from them! But they never miss their way, so who is the One who guides throughout their journey? He is the Guide, Exalted!
Someone saw a hedgehog eating a dead snake then it went to a grass to eat a leave from it, then moved back to the snake to take a bite and moved back again to the grass to take a bite. This person was desirous to know the secret of this grass, so he cut it. Then, the hedgehog came to eat a leave from the grass as usual, but it did not find the grass. The hedgehog stayed awhile and then it died.
Who is the One who guides this hedgehog to this grass in particular which has some characteristics deemed a good antibiotic to the poison inside the body of the snake? He is Almighty Allah.
A wolf attacked a deer and the deer bent over to have it horn deeply penetrated the neck of the wolf. Who has taught it that there is a sharp knife on the top of its head?
Who has taught it that such deed will be responsible for its survival? He is the Guide, Exalted.
During my childhood, I saw our cat and its new born kitties which crawl to it totally blinded then they put their heads in their bellies with a desire to search for its breasts with their mouths and then they start to drink milk. Who has taught these creatures absent experience and knowledge that by drinking that milk they will survive and failure of doing the same will lead to their death? He is the Guide, Exalted.
The Swamp
One of Allah’s greatest forms of guidance is to have all of His creatures returned back to Him, to have all of His lost slaves returned back to Him and to have His door of repentance opened for His slave whose souls are fainted during the autumn of karma.
One goes out during the cover of darkness of night to disobey the Lord of all lords. All of his senses are actively driven by a desire to reach the swamp of disobedience. Yet, Allah, at that crucial moment, ordered His guidance to reach his heart before his reach to the swamp, so all of his dark aspirations towards coming the sin is all of a sudden collapses, a terrible wave of consciousness shocks him ups and downs, everything around him flies over, a new feeling currently strikes the essence of the self, he looks to the other side which is not the side of the swamp but the side of the dome of the mosque and a new enlightened era is up to start with the Guide Exalted.
A Paper!
If Allah wants to guide you, He just throws a piece of paper in your way to be the reason behind your guide you to His the righteous path.
It is among the frequent rotation of narrative that a drunken man was reeling on the roads of the city. Then, the man saw with his shriveled up eyes a thrown a piece of paper written in which a name of Allah. His heart sank with sincere love and painful sadness. He said while crying: “a name of Allah on the ground!” He took the paper to his house to have it well cleaned and well perfumed and then he kissed it and put it on a high place. The man fell asleep to hear in his sleep a caller saying: “you put my name high, and I will with My Honor and My Glory have your name high.” Then, the man waked up with guidance filling heart in entirety and he was
transformed from a man with no objectives in this life into a good well-known man in the course of history.
If Allah wanted to guide you, He will have you heard a voice saying to you: “fear Allah then your heart will consciously awake.
It is a story narrated about one of the three men trapped in cave mentioned in the prophetic narration. This man was desirous to have an illegal affair with his niece but she refused. All of a sudden, the niece was forced due to the ups and downs of life to ask for an aid from him and the man blackmailed her to have his desire fulfilled. Yet, before he got his awful desire fulfilled, she told him: “fear Allah, and never defile my virginity when undue.” The man stood up with overwhelming fear. The words of “fear Allah” left not even a single lust in his heart without being uprooted.
Lifeline
You may be in the essence of amnesia, but Allah reminds you with Himself. You may be in the heart of your sin, but Allah awake you. You may be amid the swamp, but Allah purifies you. You may be in the bottom of the pit, but Allah throws a rope to rescue you.
Allah guides you with sincere divine love that fills your heart bottom up. Allah guides you with fear which unsettles your stability, with disease which abases your pride, with need that put your arrogance to the ground, with poverty which burdens your back or with emptiness which tortures your soul.
Allah shows you the way back to Him and to the path of lights. Allah makes you a frequent visitor of the mosque after taking a sight from a place far from it with a total deprivation from acquiring the mosque’s close guides. He teaches you the way to hold the Holy Quran in your hand after so long years of treating the Quran as a forsaken thing. Allah refreshes your tongue with saying His name after you were singing trivial songs.
You leave your home, heading directly to the mosque and all of a sudden you change your direction to another mosque. After praying, you hear a speech delivered by a preacher which may trigger a change to a well-established belief in you! A speech may trigger a change to your way of living or even your path of living.
The slave with his sensitive soul is capable of figuring out the guides given by Allah the Exalted, is capable of knowing that the whole universe has one Lord and is capable of knowing that Allah the Exalted may guides him by any means in the universe and He may mislead him –Allah forbids- by any means in the universe.
Allah the Exalted will not mislead anyone except for those who shut their hearts from the guidance and the religion of righteousness.
Hence, this life is subject to loss if guidance misses its way to you.
Do you remember the example of being lost in desert previously mentioned? Our state of being lost from His way, from mosque, from Allah is Great and from O Allah You are the Peace and from you peace is taken is more terrible than our state of being lost in desert and we will be in a more torturing alienation that the bird which missed its flock in the season of winter, then snows decided to eat up all of its flying dreams.
O Allah! Gift us with a divine of guidance that takes us away from the desert of loss to guide us to You and to guide us to a paradise, the extensiveness of which is as the heavens and the earth.
