Speaking of oneself all the time—in other words, doing things to attract attention to oneself and impress others—is a weakness in character. Of course, there are times when one needs to express himself or herself. For instance, prayer is a time when one stands before God and pours out their inner feelings to Him. The human being is a masterpiece of the Creator; each human carries lines and patterns that indicate to the Artist Who created them. The human, in the words of Bediuzzaman, is an index of all existence. When we can deeply scrutinize the human, we can testify to how wonderful a creation they are, how unique they are with their reason, spirit, heart, willpower, conscience, and consciousness. What is expected of the human is to recognize the source of all these qualities, be grateful to Him, glorify His Majesty, and address Him in full awareness of being a servant. It is required of a servant that he or she acknowledges their position vis-à-vis the Divine and that all in their possession in fact belong to their true Owner. Expressing oneself to God with such consciousness is only commendable.

What is not commendable is when a person comes forward at every opportunity to draw attention to themselves with their posture, behavior, thoughts, and even with their prayer and worship, so they can attain others’ admiration. What actually a person does when he or she shows off with their virtues and qualifications is that they forget their real source and claim ownership of them. They are, as it were, confiscating what in fact belongs to God, whether they are aware of it or not.

Those who presumptuously chase admiration and applause always make all kinds of turns and twists, so the conversation circles around them. When they speak or write, they imply their self-proclaimed qualities, if they cannot do it directly. They would produce art just so to show others how art should look; when they write something, everybody should read and praise it—they would not welcome negative criticism. If they happen to mention the All-Glorified name of the Almighty, they’d still seek some credit out of it. When they lecture from the pulpit about God, what they are really after is to show how talented they are to the congregation. This is why they raise their voice; this is why they pound the pulpit as they speak. Their lifestyle, cars, homes, every object they use is a tool for them to speak about themselves. While doing so, they manage to camouflage their ostentation—sometimes even with an artificial humility.

These people sick with showing off always wish for others to speak about him or her, too. Their own efforts are not enough; they keep other people by their side to cheer for them; they can even build institutions for this. Conferences or books that do not mention their name have no value in their eyes.

These poor people are also very jealous. They are extremely disturbed when others are praised. They may say how much they admire somebody to his or her face, but behind their back, they conspire to humiliate them. They highlight others’ weak spots, so their value can shine brighter. They dig the ground around them, so they can stand taller. All such behavior leads nowhere but to disaster.

Subduing the ego and exercising willpower

Our best qualities are all from God. We might have an exceptional career, vast knowledge, sprawling wealth, and countless skills; we can have all of these only if we use what God blesses us with and if God opens the pathways for us. Besides, whether we are making the best of these blessings in the most efficient way possible is not an easy question to answer.

All these skills and qualities should be utilized not to speak about oneself but to speak about the One who gave them to us. Our voice, words, looks, and pose should pour out meanings about the Almighty. When we speak, we should speak words of Divine knowledge and love. Those who listen should grow in enthusiasm for and connection with God. Each of our speeches should be like a prayer about His uniqueness.

Saving oneself from this sickness is dependent on “reducing oneself to zero”—in other words, making humility one’s character. This is possible with self-discipline maintained for a long time. Humility is not easy to adopt into one’s nature, but one has to force themselves into it. This sickness of self-admiration is related to our willpower; so is the effort to prevent it. Only by exercising discipline can we change our character in the long run.

A true believer should bury underground all manifestations of self-admiration—bury them deep and put rocks on them. This is what mystical traditions are about. People in Sufi lodges used to be taught how to bring their carnal soul under control. Practices like spiritual retreats, fasting, and journeying on this path are meant to free people from traits of egotism and arrogance, so they can adorn with beautiful character—to make them follow the proofs of Divine knowledge (marifatullah) and thus come to know God and love Him (muhabbatullah). These practices helped them acknowledge that everything is from Him and realize His grandiosity versus how small they are.

Megalomania

Sadly, people are not undergoing any such spiritual nurturing in our times. Egos are not purified, hearts are not cleansed. Carnal souls cannot be brought under control. Instead of taming them, many people make themselves the beast their carnal souls ride. This can be considered both at the individual and societal level. Such a sickness can easily spread among members of a nation or community which considers itself as a legendary group of heroes. Affiliation with a community, membership to a school of thought, an institution, a university, even to a profession can inflate people’s ego and make them see themselves as superior, sometimes without being aware of this situation. They always speak of their own legends and heroisms. This may reach a point where they become megalomaniac, but since everyone in the community is debilitated with the same sickness, none of them notices anything.

All these symptoms indicate the presence of a sickness in the soul. As our body gets sick, so can our soul. Sicknesses in the soul are more difficult to cure than in the body, demanding more time and effort. To heal them, people should consult both psychologists and spiritual teachers, who might be able to see with the light of faith and detect the weak points.

Every human is created with such gaps in their soul. These gaps can allow feelings like ostentation and pride to grow. These are testing items in the human condition. Yet, the sources of these feelings are in fact open to both goodness and evil. What we should do is to be cautious against inclinations towards the evil, to try to subdue what transpires as evil, and to work hard to channel all our potential to the good. Those who can reduce themselves to zero with the utmost of their willpower and purify their souls can master their existence in this life.

Safa, in the language of Islamic Sufism, signifies the state of a heart at peace because it has been purified of all kinds of things that contaminate it, such as sin, feelings of ven­geance, jealousy, and hatred, and suspicion of others. The verse (38:47), They were, in Our sight, among the perfectly purified, chosen ones, the truly good, which expresses the holiness and greatness of some Prophets, stresses purity in the greatest degree. The word mustafa, derived from safa, and which means pure essence, extract or the cream of something, is the special title used to express in particular the rank of our Prophet, due to his being the essence and cream of existence and the master of both worlds—this and the next. So, having a special distinction among all ranks and being a symbol of transcendence among the Proph­ets, it has always been a goal to which the Prophets and the puri­fied, saintly scholars have always aspired.

Purity originates from the purest and most blessed of sourc­es and reaches the pool of the human heart, from which it issues and flows into other hearts to enlighten them on new wavelengths according to the capacity and disposition of each and the requirements of time and conditions. It sheds light on the ways of the travelers to the Ultimate Truth so that they can follow them eas­ily. It purifies their hearts and equips them with sincerity, guid­ing them to the truth of Divinity, causing their spirits to move in ecstasy with the infinite pleasures of supplication and their hearts to move with love, zeal, and yearning for meeting with the All-Beloved. It is usually dealt with in three categories:

The first is purity of knowledge. It occurs when a traveler continues the journey under the guidance and in the light of the knowledge taught by the Messenger, upon him be peace and blessings. The Book and the Prophetic Sunna are followed strictly and with utmost care during the journey, the requirements of doing so being never neglected. With the good pleasure of God as the sole aim of the journey, the traveler faces all hardships and dif­ficulties, without ever losing the resolve to continue on the way.

In other words, purity of knowledge occurs when an initiate who is traveling under the guidance of the sun of Prophethood, puts heart, spirit, and reason under the command of this sun. Following him to the utmost possible in all thoughts, actions, and attitudes, the traveler is annihilated and revived in him, and appeals to his judgment to solve all the problems encountered. The traveler is honored with various favors to the extent of love and knowledge of the supreme goal—God—and zeal and yearn­ing to meet with Him in the footsteps of the pride of Messengers, upon him be peace and blessings. The author of the Gulshan-i Tawhid (“The Rose-Garden of Divine Oneness”)^[1] talks about this rank as follows:

Go and pursue such knowledge that
it can open your heart and solve all your problems.

By contrast, any knowledge that does not inspire in people the true aim of life and, in order to realize that aim, does not equip their sight with the necessary light, their will with strength, their spirits with love and zeal, and their hearts with the desire to reach the realms beyond the heavens, is not promising, even though it may not be a delusion or mere illusion.

The second rank in purity is purity of state. It occurs when the heart constantly beats with the awe of God and love of the truth. It expresses its excitement and anxiety in supplications and entreaties to the Almighty, removing feelings of loneliness and gloom that come between it and the truth, becoming a hill where the breezes of peace blow. Setting itself solely on God alongside all the other faculties, such as the emotions, consciousness, and perception, the heart flings all else except the Almighty into the abyss of nothingness, like a stone, in order that nothing should veil God from it.

When travelers on the way to God attain the state of purity and refinement, their hearts overflow with the manifestations of the truth of Divinity, their spirits are flooded with the love of truth, and enraptured with the real beauty of existence which they observe through the windows that have been opened in them. In this state, they turn to the Realm of the Holy Presence with the most enchanting of supplications voiced with the full force of their sincere feelings, feelings that have begun to speak instead of themselves. They unburden themselves, feel that God is turning to them, and taste the deepest of pleasures. It even happens that in this state they mention and invoke the Divine Names consid­ering the Divine Being Himself called by these Names, and the Divine Attributes in consideration of the All-Merciful (ar-Rah­man)—the primary attributive Title of the Supreme Being Which, like the Name Allah, can be used for Him exclusively. In the rising waves of their feelings, they sense the pleasure that the angels have in worshipping the Almighty, witness the self-pos­session of other spiritual beings, are enchanted with the myster­ies of the higher, incorporeal realms of existence and the beings that inhabit them, and feel as if they transcended the limits of humanity. In the following couplet, the author of al-Minhaj points to this spiritual state, which one who does not experience it cannot grasp:

Sometimes a person is dumbfounded in this state,
without being able to utter a word,
And sometimes only one who experiences it can know what state this is.

Purity of meeting with God, which is the third rank in purity, occurs when the worshipping servants become as nothing or, to put it in other words, feel and know annihilation of their own being, attributes, and actions in the Being, Attributes and Acts of the Necessarily Existent Being, and live immersed in observation of the blazing manifestations of God’s Existence and Knowledge. In other words, the pleasure that the worshipping servant feels in God’s service is combined with and melts away in the duties of servanthood due to His being the Lord (One Who creates, sus­tains, brings up, and protects), and the mysteries of existence become unveiled and come into view on all sides. The manifes­tations of God’s Existence and Knowledge that pour in complete­ly pervade the conscience, and the shadow of the truth, which will become visible in the other world, begins to be seen with the eye of the heart. To paraphrase the state, God declares concern­ing His servants whom He has made near to Him: He hears through Me, and sees through Me, and holds through Me, and walks through Me.^[2] So, such servants observe from their obser­vatories of heart and innermost faculties, such as the secret (sir), the private (khafi) and the more private (akhfa), the Realm of the Transcendental Manifestation of Divinity with some of its mys­teries, and the Realm of the Transcendental Manifestation of Divine Attributes and Names with some of its particularities, and the Realm of the Transcendental Manifestation of Divine Commands with some of its aspects, and the truths originating from the Divine Being. They know the substantial truth behind reali­ties that are evident to everybody, and acquires certainty in their knowledge, and their certainty rises to the degree of certainty that comes from direct experience (haqqu’l-yaqin) according to their capacity. Peculiarities vanish and particular natures melt away in the burning rays of His “Facial” Light, and only His Self-Subsis­tence is felt. In this rank, initiates, who have reached a state of pleasure that pervades the whole being, feel as if a drop has become an ocean, a particle the sun, and everything has turned into nothingness. They feel and know Him only, and begin and end with Him, and work by Him. They may go so far as to con­fuse His Being with His manifestations. Those who are not able to enlighten their feelings, consciousness, and faculties of per­ception with the light brought by God’s Messenger, may make mistakes or be confused in their comments. There are lots of beautiful words that those who have enjoyed this third rank of purity have uttered to express their state. What follows is only one of them:

You have seen the lights of the sun (that is,
you have burnt to ashes in the rays of the Divine “Facial” Light);
and now you no longer exist.
A drop is lost in the waves of the ocean, and you, being a drop,
have been lost in the ocean of mysteries.
You will no longer be able to find the drop.
Though it is not in the capacity of everyone to be lost,
those who are annihilated like me are not few.

If those who try to explain purity of meeting with God use words that suggest incarnation and union in order to convey their states and pleasures, they are apt to be confused in their interpretations. Therefore, they must immediately appeal to the light of Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, and correct their confusion. On the other hand, those who adopt an interpretation and attitude that arise from a spiritual state and pleasure simply as a thought system and philosophy, are clearly misguided and are regarded as being in rebellion against God until they enter the way of the Messenger and his Companions.

O God! Show us the truth as being true and enable us to fol­low it; show us falsehood as being false and enable us to refrain from it. O God! We ask You for Your forgiveness, and health, and approval. O God! Guide us to what You love and are pleased with. And bestow blessings and peace on our mas­ter Muhammad, the sun of guidance, and the means of happi­ness, and on his Family and Companions, all of them.

[1] Gulshan-i Tawhid is a Persian mathnawi belonging to Ibrahim Shahidi Dede. Ibrahim Shahidi Dede (1470–1550) was a Mevlevi shaykh who lived in Muğla, a province in Western Turkey. He wrote in Turkish and Persian. (Tr.)

[2] al-Hakim at-Tirmidhi, Nawadiru’l-Usul, 3:81; Ibn Kathir, Tafsiru’l-Qur’an, 2:580; Ibn Hajar, Fathu’l-Bari, 11:374.

The sad summary of the past year is that we humans are still very prone to violence be it in the Middle East or the American mid-west; the Nigerian countryside or Parisian cafés; at the workplace or at home. Deep down there are core human weaknesses inherited from Cain: jealousy, frustration, racism, “might is right,” etc. What is heartbreaking is that religion is being abused as a source of motivation in many acts of violence.

In the Middle East, the region’s map is being redrawn in favor of a power-hungry few. The situation seems clear to outsiders: the killers are Muslims (at least this is how they identify them- selves), the victims are overwhelmingly Muslims, and Islam is the root cause. What a win-win situation for the beneficiaries! Islam is being slaughtered at the hands of some cannibals, while millions of Muslims are being killed for no discernible reason – other than being the victims of a fight over the energy sources they happen to be living on.

Violence is not only a reality in the Middle East. Mass shootings in the US have almost be- come a daily item in the news, as an average of one mass murder takes place every day. Thou- sands of people are being killed or wounded. In fact, far more Americans are killed at home than at war. Age-old American problems, like racism, have played a role in some of the shootings, including the tragic massacre at a black church in Charleston. Women remain the overwhelming victims of mass murders (81% of the victims are women and children), and are also the major victims of violence in the home.

There’s no need to give further details on the scale of violence around the world. The solution is not easy, but it is also not as difficult as it appears. It is a matter of rephrasing our perspective, just as in Philip Clayton’s approach to science and religion. A renowned theologian and philosopher, Dr. Clayton offers to reformulate these two major concepts from “science or religion” to “science and religion” which can pave the way for “peacemakers” who “prioritize partnership over war” and will “develop constructive relationships.” Dr. Clayton’s three solutions can serve as a starting point in our efforts to solve all sorts of conflicts around the world.

The “Like Dissolves Like” piece in this issue speaks of a universal rule in which matters with only similar chemical properties can dissolve in the other to make a uniformity. Perhaps, this is a prescription to our global problems – if we humans can realize we have more similarities than differences, and that our concerns and interests are common, then we can dissolve in one another and become one global community.

The first step toward that level of awareness is self-interrogation. We must review our actions before blaming others. That is a new year’s resolution we can all agree on.