Salaam and Greetings of Peace:
“When we recite the opening chapter of the Holy Qu’ran, these words are a conversation between the believer and his Lord. When the servant of God says: “In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful,” the Lord says: “My servant is calling Me.” And when he says: “Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds, the Beneficent, the Merciful,” the Lord says: “My servant knows Me and he praises me, for I love him and I overlook his faults.” When the believer says: “Master of the Day of Requital,” the Lord says: “My servant knows that he will come back to Me, and depends on My justice and forgiveness.”
The call to prayer consists of reciting four times, “Allah is greatest.” Twice, “I witness that there is no god but Allah.” Twice, “I witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.” Twice, “Come to salvation,” twice, “Come to felicity,” and again twice, “Allah is greatest.” Finally, at the end, the reciter says once, “There is no God but Allah. “
The reason that these phrases are repeated is that Muslims believe that every human being is born a Muslim (that is, born in submission to God) - in fact, everything created is created as a Muslim. Some have remembered their original submission to God, while others have not. The first repetition addresses those who realize their state. The second is to remind those who have forgotten.
- From Muhyiddin ibn al-’Arabi’s book, The Tree of Being, interpreted by Shaykh Tosun Bayrak.
Ya Haqq!
September 30, 2006 at 10:28 am
No. Every Human Being is born free, free to choose what they will believe or not believe.
September 30, 2006 at 10:43 am
The Sufis would say you are right, dear friend of the Latter Day Saints. They believe that you are born free to choose. However, once you are on the Sufi path, that choice slowly leads only to the realization that free will is the way the Hidden Treasure becomes known. At the end of the path, God willing, there no free will for the Sufi. There is nothing but Him.
Ya Haqq!
September 30, 2006 at 11:45 am
Salaam Brother Irving
Beautiful post- we are born into this world by Allah, and leave by only his will and not ours – everything in the heavans and earth submits to Him- whether we want to or not – the planets follow their orbits submittingly to ALLAH, we can’t even control most of our autonomic nervous system functions- such as when we sleep – our heart rate, breath rate, digestion, even our shadows submit to HU – this as we all know is covered in the infallible Quran – this is my response to post 1 of patriot – we as humans do and can choose between right and wrong – piety or sin, love or hate, but we are guided and always willingly or unwillingly submitting to the lone creator and nurturer of the universe – Alhamdulillah Rabbil Alameen!!
September 30, 2006 at 1:05 pm
Salaams Irving,
As usual brother, ma sha Allah, a beautiful and thoughtful post. With regards to post 1, it probably is more helpful to think of ‘muslim’ in this sense, that all people are born into this world pure, free and in their primordial state (fitrah in Arabic) and are thus following the universal order, which is to be in submission (islam) to God (and in this sense are muslim).
Irving, the first part of your post sounds very much like a hadith qudsi (see: http://www.quran.net/Hadees/40qudsi.htm Hadith Qudsi no. 8)
Ma’as salama,
Abdur Rahman
September 30, 2006 at 3:44 pm
Salaam Dear Brother Abdur Rahman:
Your words ring true, and I think that is the way al-Arabi saw it also. And thanks for the hadith reference. No doubt that is where he got his inspiration. Allah knows the Truth.
Ya Haqq!
October 1, 2006 at 6:25 pm
From today forward, I am happy to call myself Muslim, thanks to this wonderful post and insight.
Free will in the martial arts is never viewed using the term ‘free will,’ a term which I am very familiar with. From my martial arts perspective, free will is seen as choice: choosing, as Ali Ahdpour says, “between right and wrong – piety or sin, love or hate…”
However, in Jiu Jitsu we term it differently: we look to find the spot between right and wrong, between piety or sin, between strength and weakness. This striving for balance occurs either within myself or relative to my environment. Once, as a martial artist, balance is established (by arriving on the center point within), then I look to conduct harmony. This is the orginal harmony, referred to in many ways including the holy spirit, the life force, ki/chi/prana, universal energy, the place of darkness, no movement, the void, the empty mind.
When dealing with the nuances of free will, the term ‘centering’ has a cross-cultural impact, because centering implies that we are reaching for something that is in between versus reaching for something on either side of ‘and’ or ‘or’.
October 1, 2006 at 9:44 pm
Greetings of Peace Dear Brother Mark:
Thank you for the kind words, and for the lesson in martial arts balance :) As Rumi writes:
Beyond right, and beyond wrong
there is a field.
I will meet you there.
May we all meet in that field.
Ya Haqq!
October 2, 2006 at 5:23 am
The last paragraph is based on the follwing hadith:
Sahih Al-Bukhari Hadith 2.440 Narrated by Ibn Shihab
Abu Huraira, narrated that the Prophet said, “Every child is born with a true faith (i.e. to worship none but Allah Alone) but his parents convert him to Judaism or to Christianity or to Magainism, as an animal delivers a perfect baby animal. Do you find it mutilated?” Then Abu Huraira recited the holy verses: “The pure Allah’s Islamic nature (true faith i.e. to worship none but Allah Alone), with which He has created human beings.” (30.30).
October 3, 2006 at 6:06 am
JazakAllah for that post.
very interesting
October 6, 2006 at 2:13 pm
we are born free to remember. ;)
October 6, 2006 at 3:37 pm
Salaam Dear Shams:
Thank you for the comment, and for the kind words about Master of the Jinn on your Ghost blog :)
Ya Haqq!
October 7, 2006 at 11:50 am
it is wonderful.
i seek your kind permission to republish it in the blog, Inspirations and Creative Thoughts
saalams.
October 21, 2006 at 9:24 am
The Quran says: “When Allah saith: O Jesus, son of Mary! Remember My favour unto thee and unto thy mother; how I strengthened thee with the holy Spirit, so that thou spakest unto mankind in the cradle as in maturity; and how I taught thee the Scripture and Wisdom and the Torah and the Gospel; and how thou didst shape of clay as it were the likeness of a bird by My permission, and didst blow upon it and it was a bird by My permission, and thou didst heal him who was born blind and the leper by My permission; and how thou didst raise the dead by My permission; and how I restrained the Children of Israel from (harming) thee when thou camest unto them with clear proofs, and those of them who disbelieved exclaimed: This is naught else than mere magic;
And when I inspired the disciples, (saying): Believe in Me and in My messenger, they said: We believe. Bear witness that we have surrendered (unto Thee) “we are muslims”. (5:110-111)
translation by Pickthall
Alhamdolillah!!!
Even in the light of the most authentic Scripture, The Quran, this post conforms to the truth that all this transpired many centuries before Prophet Muhammad(SAW) was sent as our Last Prophet, the Quranic revelation and the formal religion called Islam.
May Allah(SWT) reward you brother for sharing this magnificient post!Ameen
sf
June 11, 2008 at 1:29 pm
While both you and I know that there is a deep esoteric meaning to Ibn al-Arabi’s words, I can totally imagine some Muslims using this to push for Islamic supremacism over other religions.
But then, c’est la vie. Profane people have been using sacred truths for personal gains since the beginning of human history.
August 24, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Greeting to all…
I agree with brother Ali, we’re bought in this world on Allah’s will and leave on his will. its true ppl can choose to follow the right path or the wrong, astrayed path. But you guys have to remeber that before you were bought in this world everything you would say or do was written so Allah knows what you were to become, say before you were born so in other words Allah the Al-mighty has the supreme power over all of us everything we say or do wouldn’t take place unless Allah willed.
-lucky-
March 7, 2009 at 9:58 pm
Without evidence, no non muslim on earth would believe every human was born a muslim:
the evidence:
http://www.islamcan.com/miracles/handmarks.shtml