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!
Darvish 
No. Every Human Being is born free, free to choose what they will believe or not believe.
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!
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!!
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
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!
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’.
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!
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).
JazakAllah for that post.
very interesting
we are born free to remember. ;)
Salaam Dear Shams:
Thank you for the comment, and for the kind words about Master of the Jinn on your Ghost blog :)
Ya Haqq!
it is wonderful.
i seek your kind permission to republish it in the blog, Inspirations and Creative Thoughts
saalams.
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
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.
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-
Without evidence, no non muslim on earth would believe every human was born a muslim:
the evidence:
http://www.islamcan.com/miracles/handmarks.shtml
The author of this article said:
“in fact, everything created is created as a Muslim. Some have remembered their original submission to God, while others have not. ”
I assume the meaning adopted for “Muslim” in the sentence “in fact, everything created is created as a Muslim” doesn’t refer to intentionally submitting to God. It would refer to us human unintentionally submitting to God.
However, the next part of what you wrote: “Some have remembered their original submission to God, while others have not” implies that the meaning adopted for “Muslim” here refers to intentional submission, because if some people forgot their original submission, that means those who are post-pubescent and followed the kuffar way of their parents would no longer be intentionally submitting to God. However, this meaning if Muslim (intentional submission) can’t be used to the human beings while they are still babies/infants, because babies can’t choose to submit to Allah’s rules.
Rather, as Bilal Philips said:
“…the child’s body submits to the physical laws which Allah has put in nature.” (Dr. Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips – Fundamentals Of Tawheed – Internatiional Islamic Publishing House, 2005 – pp. 66).
If anyone here reading this isn’t a deviant (i.e. sufi) this article someone wrote will benefit: http://islamic-replies.ucoz.com/Is_Everyone_Born_Muslim.html
This deviant Sufi thanks you, brother Pumak, for the link was indeed informative :) As to what within us submits, our bodies truly, as they are part of nature and must submit to Allah’s natural laws governing life and death. But our souls, that ineffable presence within us that is both a part of Allah’s essence and connects us to all other creatures and the universe itself, that is always in submission to His will, and the struggle between the soul and nafs of the ego and free willfulness is the cause of most of humanities grief. On the Sufi path, or any mystical path, we slowly attain to patience, opening wide the doors of love for all to enter, and joyfully submit to the will of our Beloved.
Ya Haqq!