A Brief Reflection on Humility and Arrogance in Surah Night Journey (17)

"Do not strut arrogantly about the earth: you cannot break it open, nor match the mountains in height.  The evil of all these actions is hateful to your Lord.” (17:38)

I realized that I won’t serve myself, my children, or anyone else if I wear the mask of piety and perfection.  While I had good intentions, half of my life I have been lost, searching for the meaning of my life and existence, and finally, even if too late, I found God, with the grace of God.  Now, I understand what it means that without the grace of God nothing happens.  And in this light, the Quran makes so much sense to me, as it consistently reminds us of a strange notion: everything happens, good or bad, with God’s permission and grace:

“[Prophet], when you recite the Quran, We put an invisible barrier between you and those who do not believe in the life to come.  We have put covers on their hearts that prevent them from understanding it, and heaviness in their ears. When you mention your Lord in the Quran, and Him alone, they turn their backs and run away.  We know best the way they listen, when they listen to you and when they confer in secret, and these wrongdoers say, ‘You are only following a man who is bewitched.’  See what they think you are like! But they are lost and cannot find the right way.  They also say, ‘What? When we are turned to bones and dust, shall we really be raised up in a new act of creation?’  Say, ‘[Yes] even if you were [as hard as] stone, or iron, or any other substance you think hard to bring to life.’ Then they will say, ‘Who will bring us back?’ Say, ‘The One who created you the first time.’ Then they will shake their heads at you and say, ‘When will that be?’ Say, ‘It may well be very soon: it will be the Day when He calls you, and you answer by praising Him, and you think you have stayed [on earth] only a little while.’” (17:45-52)

Well, I was one of them whom God had covered my heart and set heaviness in my ear, not to understand the Quran.  This “being-covered” was rooted in my deep disbelief in revelations and my faith in sciences and human understanding to stand on its own: a fallacious belief and an idolatry that God repeatedly asks us to refrain from: not having faith in any god but God.  And the cover started to be removed when I begged God to show me the way, if there is any God.  This had been my supplication for a few years, and in this yearning, I was declaring a dead-end in the dominant philosophy and sciences and implicitly acknowledging that there ought to be a God, not out of wishful thinking, but existentially experiencing it in every fiber of my body, an experience that declared practically and implicitly God has been speaking to us in showing how our lives have become meaningless and in the whirlwind of principles of pleasure, power, and survival, and how all these philosophies are houses of sands. 

Then, and only then, God graciously removed the cover from my heart, even though still my ears were heavy.  It took ten years until I finally opened up fully to religions and to the Quran.  With God’s grace, I went through so many calamities to show me how and where I was lost and how to find my way out.  As the cure for vertigo is sometimes to induce harsher vertigos, as well for my deficient understanding and tainted heart for years of disbelief and worshipping this world of pleasure, humanism, and Marxism, God took me to the limit of my falling state to see clearly the precipice upon which I was standing.  Now, I understand that if we are prone to change, God’s grace might go through sufferings at points, without which the heaviness of our heart and ears will not be lifted.

“[Prophet], tell My servants to say what is best. [In arguing about religion and proving it as God has shown here. See 16: 125; 29: 46.] Satan sows discord among them: Satan is a sworn enemy of man.  Your Lord has the most knowledge about all of you: if God pleases He will have mercy on you, and if God pleases He will punish you. [Prophet], We did not send you to take charge of them.  Your Lord knows best about everyone in the heavens and the earth. We gave some prophets more than others: We gave David a book [of Psalms, See also 4: 163–6.] Say, ‘Call upon those you claim to be deities beside God: they have no power to remove or avert any harm from you.’ Those [angels] they pray to are themselves seeking a way to their Lord, even those who are closest to God. They hope for His mercy and fear His punishment.  The punishment of your Lord is much to be feared: there is no community [Of evildoers. See 18: 16; 7: 101.] We shall not destroy, or punish severely, before the Day of Resurrection– this is written in the Book. [God’s divine Record.]” (17:53-58)

I am so gracious for the warning signs that God sent me and the bitter medicine that I had to take for the remedy: the sufferings that God inflicted on me, which partly were nothing but the consequences of my own erroneous beliefs and actions, and partly God’s miraculous encountering me with the potential evils and devils of my thoughts and actions.  None of our sciences and philosophies, and none of our New Age stories, gods and goddesses, can guide us; none ever sent or can send us a scripture to respond to our inquires, and all herds us to following our whims and desires of power and pleasures.  I am grateful to God for awakening me to the Quran, not claiming I understand everything about it, but now that the veil upon my heart and ears are lifted, it is the great mercy and guidance from God to me and it opens my perception and vision to God and to the world.  I am so grateful for this seeing the dark side of my soul through God’s miraculous grace, for complete destruction and endless suffering in the world to come is worse.

“Nothing prevents Us from sending miraculous signs, except the fact that previous peoples denied them. We gave the people of Thamud the she-camel as a clear sign, yet they maltreated it. We send signs only to give warning. [Prophet], We have told you that your Lord knows all about human beings. The vision We showed you [The vision he was shown on the Night Journey.] was only a test for people, as was the cursed tree [mentioned] in the Quran. [ Said to refer to the tree of Zaqqum in Hell (see 56: 52; 44: 43–6). The eater will curse its fruits (Razi). Both the vision and the tree in Hell were objects of derision for the disbelievers.] We warn them, but this only increases their insolence.” (17:59-60)

I can see now with eyes wide open.  The way I look at my hands, face, body has changed. Before this, I looked at myself as a desperate cycle of birth and death and all meanings and spiritual growth were self-creation and self-interpretation of a hedonistic-nihilistic self.  The way I look at other humans and species has changed.  It is not anymore a groundless humanism, a covert or overt nihilism.  Our self-understanding based on self-sufficiency of reason can’t ground our humanism, at most it can be grounded in our biology, which indeed it means if my instincts tell me to be cruel and selfish, when the going gets tough, it is as well okay that my altruism and humanism shatter into nepotism and selfishness.  We can’t see that the manifestation of a deep divine empathy and mercy is our ethical-spiritual quest and direction.  If we deny its divine ground, we won’t find the courage and motivation to take the steep path of kindness, self-rectification and purification, because the monkey of survival or power is standing now at the end line of evolution.   I know now for sure that my ethical-spiritual direction is worthwhile the devotion.  That I ought to resist the temptation of transgression for my pleasures or survival alone.  I am well aware that it is easy to think that we are caring or altruistic, but if I see that I live only this one life and this is the only world (a contingent one too) that exists, following my exclusive pleasure and survival, when the going gets tough, even with transgressing and hurting others, is the most possible course of action that may follow. Not strange that so many atheist humanists, liberals, socialists, and Marxists and hypocrite theists who didn’t have a firm God-consciousness were seemingly ready to die but at the same time couldn’t resist pleasures of bodies and violated each other when the need called, and there was no other way to calm the cravings and the desire for satisfaction. 

I know now that in the steep path of my ethical-spiritual endeavor, I ought to seek to make myself better, realistically beneficent in oneness in thoughts, words, deeds, body and soul, and my endeavors and strife worthwhile it, because this is not the only life that I will live and I am not left on my own, abandoned and forsaken.  This world is not contingent.  God is the source of Being, and God’s mercy and guidance have come to me through scriptures.  And one lesson they emphasize is this: you ought not to see yourself better than those whose heart is concealed to you and is beyond your judgment and to be careful, very careful with your comportment in the world.  Even if now and then you make false evaluations and mistakes, you have no choice but to judge and evaluate, because you ought to ethically-spiritually improve yourself to a sense of betterment, paradoxically enough, so that you don’t see yourself as better than anyone, but awakened to the poverty of your existence as a privilege not a right, and to see clearly that the gift of life is granted to you by God and is not your entitlement.  So, in complete existential awareness of one’s dependent origination, one learns in absolute nothingness of contentment how to surrender to God, and in the humility and faith in this absolute trust in God, Scriptures promise us the gift of eternal subsistence. 

God woke me from my slumber to the inconvenience and subsequently ecstasy of truth and love; however, I could see that imprint of my past beliefs and actions on my body and the scars in my soul take time to heal, but I shouldn’t lose hope and I shouldn’t compete and ask for what I do not deserve, or I do not deserve yet.  If we listen to the story of Satan in the Quran, the most striking thing is the fact that God sees greatness and growth— in terms of virtues— in places that might seem low to us, but it is not low to God—the Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent.  It keeps and kept me wondering for a long time— and I haven’t yet fathomed it—that God speaks to weak creatures like us and holds us warmer and greater than so many others, and among us to those whom we might consider low: an illiterate person such as the Prophet, the poor and destitute.  Or for example, “[w]hile the Prophet was speaking to some disbelieving notables, hoping to convert them, a blind Muslim man came up to learn from him, but in his eagerness to attract the disbelievers to Islam, the Prophet frowned at him. And God sent these verses: ‘He frowned and turned away, when the blind man came to him––for all you know, he might have grown in spirit, or taken note of something useful to him.  For the self-satisfied one you go out of your way––though you are not to be blamed for his lack of spiritual growth––but from the one who has come to you full of eagerness and awe you allow yourself to be distracted.  No indeed! This [Quran] is a lesson from which those who wish to be taught should learn, [written] on honored, exalted, pure pages, by the hands of noble and virtuous scribes.” (80:1-13) 

As well, Iblis (Satan) fell exactly at the point where it found itself greater than human beings, mortals made of clay.  Arrogance, to see oneself better, to strive to become better, to hope to be accepted by God or ranked higher by God, and to be jealous and feel and show malice to others, even to have faith in God or zealously being harsh on those who are not and need help, unless spiritual cancer takes over in them, all of these opposite characteristics are superimposed upon each other: our weakness is posited in our strength.  While I ought to see that whatever I think, say, and do register in my body/soul, and the more I violate my conscience and commit shameful and blameworthy thoughts/words/deeds the more I create a chasm in my body/soul, so I ought to seek God’s approval by doing good, simultaneously I will fall if I become jealous to others and capriciously see myself better than others.  These two are conditioned by each other, and I can’t erase the former in the fear of being afflicted by the latter.  This is the quest of good and evil, set in our own very soul, the point of transformation for which I strive is where I do my best without seeing myself the best, having hope and surrender completely to God’s judgement.  Thus, given this heaviness of self-complacency and arrogance in our soul, the constant warnings of the Quran, to keep us on our toes and alert, makes sense.

“When We said to the angels, ‘Bow down before Adam,’ they all bowed down, but not Iblis. He retorted, ‘Why should I bow down to someone You have created out of clay?’ and [then] said, ‘You see this being You have honored above me? If You reprieve me until the Day of Resurrection, I will lead all but a few of his descendants by the nose.’ God said, ‘Go away! Hell will be your reward, and the reward of any of them who follow you– an ample reward.  Rouse whichever of them you can with your voice, muster your cavalry and infantry against them, share their wealth and their children with them, and make promises to them– Satan promises them nothing but delusion– but you will have no authority over My [true] servants: Your Lord can take care of them well enough.’” (17:61-65)

“[People], it is your Lord who makes ships go smoothly for you on the sea so that you can seek His bounty: He is most merciful towards you. When you get into distress at sea, those you pray to besides Him desert you, but when He brings you back safe to land you turn away: man is ever ungrateful. Can you be sure that God will not have you swallowed up into the earth when you are back on land, or that He will not send a sandstorm against you? Then you will find no one to protect you. Or can you be sure that He will not send you back out to sea, and send a violent storm against you to drown you for being so ungrateful? You will find no helper against Us there. We have honored the children of Adam and carried them by land and sea; We have provided good sustenance for them and favored them specially above many of those We have created.”

“On the Day when We summon each community, along with its leader [See 16: 89.] those who are given their record in their right hand will read it [with pleasure]. But no one will be wronged in the least: those who were blind in this life will be blind [spiritual blindness] in the Hereafter, and even further off the path. [Prophet], the disbelievers tried to tempt you away from what We revealed to you, so that you would invent some other revelation and attribute it to Us and then they would have taken you as a friend. If We had not made you stand firm, you would almost have inclined a little towards them. In that case, We would have made you taste a double punishment in this life, and a double punishment after death and then you would have found no one to help you against Us. They planned to scare you off the land, but they would not have lasted for more than a little while after you. Such was Our way with the messengers We sent before you, and you will find no change in Our ways.”

“So, perform the regular prayers in the period from the time the sun is past its zenith till the darkness of the night, and [recite] the Quran at dawn– dawn recitation is always witnessed ––and during the night wake up and pray, as an extra offering of your own, so that your Lord may raise you to a [highly] praised status. Say, ‘My Lord, make me go in truthfully, and come out truthfully, and grant me supporting authority from You.’ And say, ‘The truth has come, and falsehood has passed away: falsehood is bound to pass away.’”

“We send down the Quran as healing and mercy to those who believe; as for those who disbelieve, it only increases their loss. When We favor man he turns arrogantly to one side, but when harm touches him, he falls into despair. Say, ‘Everyone does things their own way, but your Lord is fully aware of who follows the best-guided path.’” (17:66-84)