Khalid Mukhtar

Word, like wind, cuts through you / Withers all but true you

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The Answering

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As I write this post, we are in session 3 of the Tafsir of Surah Al-Rahmān with Shaykh Amin at Darul Qasim College. During the first session – that was two Sundays ago – we came upon verse 13, the first instance of the oft-repeated ayah that is a hallmark of this surah:

فَبِأَىِّ ءَالَآءِ رَبِّكُمَا تُكَذِّبَانِ

Then which of your Lord’s favors will you (both) deny?

Shaykh Amin read it out loud, translated it and then proceeded to answer it in English:

“We don’t deny any of Your favors, Ya Rabbi,” he said. I thought to myself, “That’s interesting. The Shaykh answered the question.”

Verse 16 had the second instance of that ayah. Shaykh Amin once again read it out loud and again, he answered it: “We don’t deny any of Your favors, Ya Rabbi,” he said. This time, I confess that in the deepest recesses of my mind, I oh-so-shamelessly thought to myself, “Okay, this is sort of stupid.”

Verse 18. He did it again. “We don’t deny any of Your favors, Ya Rabbi,” he said. And I thought, “Hmm. Maybe I’m the stupid one. I better start listening closer.”

I only said this to myself because the one thing I have come to learn from attending these Tafsir sessions, the first of which I attended twenty-two years ago, is that nothing is accidental or haphazard in the mind of a mufassir. Not one thing. So I started listening… very closely.

The Shaykh did this for every single instance of فَبِأَىِّ ءَالَآءِ رَبِّكُمَا تُكَذِّبَانِ. “We don’t deny any of Your favors, Ya Rabbi,” he would say in response.

You may already have some idea as to why the Shaykh was doing this. I had a faint idea myself. But then, it is one thing to talk about how good a brand of ice cream is, and quite another to eat it. So, bear with me.

Through sessions 1, 2 and 3, which happened today, we waded through the earthly elements in the creation of man, the thaqalān that are mankind and jinnkind, the travels of Ibn Batuta, insights into the industry of mariners, the perpetual supplication of all creation to Allah, moods in the Arabic language, the hard-to-reach meaning of the word Sultān in the classical lughah, and much, much more, each worthy of analysis and reflection by those way more qualified than I. And each time the refrain (if I may loosely call it that) was articulated, the Shaykh said, “We don’t deny any of Your favors, Ya Rabbi.” It had now reached the point that I started to move my lips in sync with his response, much like one does when one hears their favorite song and knows exactly when to come in.

“We don’t deny any of Your favors, Ya Rabbi.”

Finally, the explanation arrived today. It came, as always, when least expected. It was delivered with the trademark nonchalance of the Shaykh, as if he were reminding you to add a pinch of salt to the stew, but it’s okay if you don’t do it. It came upon me like a wave I was waiting for, the one that does not just cool my ankles, but washes the space between my toes clean, so much so that no sand remains, and I can now walk away from the shore, a little.

Shaykh Amin said, and I quote him verbatim.

“Being intimidated is a favor also. That you’re left in awe. It prevents you from being stupid.”

Stupid? He was talking to me now. This was the nugget I was seeking. I understand I may be belaboring the obvious, so I have nothing but apologies to offer to those of you who think so, but for those who find therapy when they stare into the air, stay with me. I have more.

Consider the scenario of a parent who is speaking to their child curled up in their lap. “I bought you that toy. I got you that candy bar. I took you on the carousel. Round we spun. We had such fun. You know I gave you everything you asked for, right? So when I say go to bed, you have to go to bed.”

The child does not bother answering the rhetorical question, “You know I gave you everything you asked for, right?” That is because of the tone of the conversation and the fiber of the relationship at play.

Now, consider the scenario of a King, a sovereign, who is speaking to a soldier from the ranks. Not a general, but a First Lieutenant or maybe a Captain at most. The king is in his chamber, and his servant soldier is in his presence, keenly aware of all the king’s favors upon him.. The king’s back is to his servant. He is looking out a window. And he speaks as such. “I gave you your family, your home, your livelihood, your very rank. Which of my favors will you deny?”

That is a rhetorical question. It needs no answer. The silence of the servant is answer enough. The king will resume his speech shortly. But the one act that would humble the servant more and raise his Lord even more in stature would be to answer although it is not needed, to show one’s haplessness before the master, to expose one’s sillinesses, to be not cool but rather the bumbling servant.

“I don’t deny any of your favors, my Lord.” is not speaking out of turn. It is embracing the apparent silliness with such profundity that it serves to add to the rhetorical dialog. Where the king says, “I am your Lord,” the servant replies, “I am your servant.”

Anyone who has grown up in the east has experienced this dynamic between “maalik” and “khaadim” – master and servant. The rest will have to take my word for it.

Of the two scenarios presented above, the former has a jamāli tone, while the latter has a jalāli tone. (This is also from session 3.) Surah Al-Rahman is predominantly jamāli but has its jalāli qualities. 

“It is (also) part of His Rahmaniyyah that the criminal will be found guilty and the sinner will be punished.”

In the oft-repeated refrain and Shaykh Amin’s reply to it, is a testament to the traditional art of tafsīr. The adab of a mufassir is built into his tafsīr. The purpose of the surah is to humble the reader. We must realize through the reading that each of us – a speck of humanity, shameless sinner, ungrateful servant, basking in worldly comforts we know we don’t deserve – each of us must be humble..

In being intimidated by فَبِأَىِّ ءَالَآءِ رَبِّكُمَا تُكَذِّبَانِ is all the rahmah we need. What better way to manifest that khashyah than unfailingly reply:

“We don’t deny any of Your favors, Ya Rabbi.”

The shuyukh of guidance saw (see) themselves as in perpetual need of Allah’s assistance. Their humility is not fake. But maybe WE should fake it till we make it in the absence of any other plan to save our souls.

May Allah cover our sins and guide us back home to Him where the journey ends and whence life begins.

Romancing the Kernel

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            There’s a pumpkin seed in my mouth. In fact, there are three.

            There was a time I used to be conscious of hulling them inside my mouth and extracting the coveted kernels using the apparatus of my tongue and teeth. I don’t think about it so much anymore.

            Did I mention I’m driving? I keep my hands on the wheel. I use the tip of my tongue to shelf two of the seeds into what I have come to call the attic, the elastic vestibule between my upper lip and teeth. The basement is empty for now.

            The first seed has been deposited at the center of my tongue. It is sitting there for me to taste, to feel, to get to know a little better. A mad twenty-second sequence is about to begin as I court this pepita. Allow me a brief detour to give you a taste of what I believe is the primary component of our complex apparatus.

            The human tongue. It comprises eight muscles divided into two groups of four each. The intrinsic muscles change the shape of the tongue while the extrinsic alter its position. Seven of these eight muscles are stimulated by the hypoglossal nerve that supplies the tongue with motor control, while only one is innervated by the vagus nerve, which communicates with the heart and stomach. This is a complex nexus of neural activity.

            It follows then that seven eighths of this beautiful musculature are actively employed when we speak, and a smaller fraction when we eat. You may wonder about speaking and eating at the same time. If we think about it, we find that we don’t do that well. Even when we do it well, we’re just doing it concurrently, interleaving moments of articulation and mastication so that at any given time, we’re either talking or eating. When we manage to do them both at the same time, we are said to choke.

            Daunted by the crazy complexities of tongue dynamics during speech, I have instead chosen to present the magnificence of this organ in all its muscular splendor by capturing the mechanics of something with which I am quite familiar: hulling a pumpkin seed. That is, without manual assistance.

            First, I spend a couple seconds tasting the seed. If I encounter the smallest hint of bitterness, which happens one in a hundred times, I jettison the defective seed into my cup of waste with my tongue immediately dislodging number two from the attic. But if it tastes fine, then the next step is to turn the seed over and lap up as much moisture as possible off the genioglossus, the largest fan-shaped muscle that constitutes the bulk of the tongue. Duly marinated, I next test the seed for crackability, first elongating my tongue to press it up against the inside of my teeth, with the longer edges of the seed lined up between my incisors. If I can’t peel off the hull, I shuttle it over to my right molars and lodge it between the jaws to wield even pressure, whatever it takes to engineer that first crack. There are no crunching motions here. Any irresponsible violence and the kernel and its hull will be mashed together into an indecomposable pulp. We don’t want that.

            If it still hasn’t given, then it’s time to swing the seed over to the left molars for the same treatment. All the while my tongue stands by, incessantly expanding, contracting, protruding, retracting through exertions of the superior and inferior longitudinal and transverse muscles. It’s like a live swiss army knife of sorts, switching between pick, press, mallet, scraper, vacuum cleaner, and crane. I run the seed by my incisors again, and this time the hull gives in to the persistent peeling. My tongue collaborates with my gums, squeezing down along the sealed edges to coax the kernel out of the opposite compromised edge, assisted by whichever tooth is down for it. The rest of the seed coat gradually tears away. The green treasure slides out.

            In the interest of efficient garbage disposal, I stash the empty husk in the basement and proceed to mash the kernel, thereby awakening the vagal neural pathways. But my tongue knows no rest. I find that the second seed has been fetched from the attic and deposited at the moist center even as I consume the first one with relish. There is a lot happening behind the scenes. Let us exit this tour now and get some air.

            We work hard in our quest for pleasure, be it in terms of health, wealth or the more rewarding pursuits of knowledge and understanding, the two brightest mile markers on the road to peace. We can’t afford to be rigid and set in our ways. We must be prepared to collaborate, to exercise intrinsic and extrinsic forces, change shape, expand, contract, twist, reach, exert pressure, and lavish love. The soft must work with the hard to produce whatever marvel of physics we may contrive to extract that prized kernel, preferably whole and untainted by husk parts.

            The Arabs call the kernel the lubb. It is the thing worth getting, the thing that matters, the essence that lies at the center. It holds the substance. It is the inner meaning. Men and women urged by the Divine to their highest intellectual calling and their most magnitudinous purpose are addressed as Ulul Albaab, the People of the Kernel.

            I will be on the road for fourteen more minutes. That means there is a pumpkin seed in my mouth. In fact, there are three.

Thought Masonry

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During the Tafsir of verses 12-13 of Surah Hujurāt this past Sunday, Shaykh Amin built his commentary, as is his wont, the way a seasoned brickmason builds a wall.

Every word in his preface was necessary. Like all Shaykh Amin lectures, the first few minutes transpired in preparation, background, context. While the uninitiated listened carefully and absorbed what they knew they would need in order to process what was yet to come, the students of Tafsir in the audience took in his method along with the content, much in the way a mason’s apprentice watches the master at work: Spread out the cement… Lay down the brick… Line it up… Knock it gently into place… Shave off the excess….

To me, a member of the former category, the entire process was fairly consistent with every other Shaykh Amin talk, the simple anatomy of which is anything but simplistic. Briefly put, it comprises a comprehensive laying down of all prerequisite knowledge. Once that is done, a clear, concise and sharp interpretation emerges from the built structure.

Like a professional mason, the scholar here takes his time with preparation that is critical to the insightful observations that follow. In this particular session, we heard things such as the following. 

  • Giving up on the ummah, and how that is the “greatest pollutant” amongst Muslims
  • Reading wahy and the destructive act of reading it in the language of human rights – wahy must be read in the context and language of wahy
  • the importance of including the Ākhirah during a reading of wahy 
  • The reason for human diversity, that we may recognize that we are different from each other

But I really just want to focus on one little point that the Shaykh raised in his commentary. He stated it quite plainly, and I would have missed it had I not paid close attention to his preface.

The prophet (S) dismantled the aristocracy of the Quraysh.

The statement is related to how racism and classism were built into the hierarchical structure of Makkan society. Even a free man like Bilal (R), in the eyes of the Makkan Quraysh, was not divested from his former state of being a slave. Apart from that, he was a black man. So when the prophet (S) asked Bilal (R) to stand atop the Ka’bah and give the Adhan, the Quraysh were appalled that “a slave” would summon them, the honored ones, “toward felicity and success”.

The word “dismantled” caught my attention in particular. In our fickle times of self-aggrandizing woke culture marked with destructive feel-good verbs such as smash, destroy, and burn, a word like dismantle stands out. It is a sophisticated word choice. Originally meant to remove a mantle or cloak, it has also come to mean to take something apart, usually without destroying its constituent parts.

The prophet (S) could have torn down the aristocracy. He could have smashed it to pieces by addressing the aristocrats and telling them they must give up their airs. Instead, the prophet (S) with the baseerah of his prophethood, recognized the parts that the Makkan aristocracy was built upon – essentially, they were attributes of honor, dignity and lineage. He saw these attributes, components if you will, as worthy of preservation, deserving of respect. The ugly monolith that had been built from these  components was not to be conflated with them. One does not cut one’s nose to spite one’s face. Hence, the need to dismantle, so that the components themselves are not discarded or belittled, but rather put to use. In fact, the prophet (S) gave authority to the Quraysh when he said, “Leaders are from the Quraysh.”

And what better way to begin that process by asking a former slave to ascend the revered house of God, and to shout out, even shout down at the city, from his elevated position: Come to Salaah. Come to Success.

What better way to tell the Makkan aristocracy, that when comes time to bow your head before your Creator, the choice of those who lead will be a function of their piety, not their social status.

And Allah knows best.

A Letter

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AsSalamu ‘alaykum. I make duaa for you and your family to have a fulfilling, productive Ramadan. 

We’re nearing the middle of this blessed month already. And here I am again asking for a sadaqah of 3 minutes of your precious time to read this message. My thanks in advance.

I wanted to share something I heard from Shaykh Amin quite recently. He talked about Surah Al-Naml, the chapter of The Ant. It was refreshing and energizing as always, and I made a note to myself to spend some time writing down what I heard. But here’s the take-away quote: 

All your power, all your military might, all your strategic thinking, all your planning – all of it – is subordinate to knowledge derived from revelation. 

Sulaymān ‘alayhisSalaam seals his profound observation, in the words of the Quran, with Hadha min Fadli Rabbiy.

This is the brand of knowledge that passes through the halls of Darul Qasim, or as one student observed to me recently, “bounces off its walls like electric charges.” This is a subtle brand of knowledge. Its acquisition is subtle. Its dispensation is subtle. Its custodians are subtle. Yet the vessel that bears it is an enormous ark of scholarship that has endured over time. The planks of this ark are solid timber, cut from giant trees that represent the knowledge of the sahabah. The planks are held together by nails forged from the iron will of the far-sighted tabi’een. And the individuals at the helm are scholars with their himmah as they toil to process their prophetic inheritance. 

This ark is built to weather storms – history bears witness to this. This ark is a blessing to those who give themselves to it, it is a refuge to those who board it, and it is hope for those who grab its lines and follow in its wake. It represents hope for anyone who wants to remain in the ummah of our Sayyid, our Rasūl, Muhammad SallAllahu ‘alayhi wa Sallam.

There are no shortcuts to this knowledge. It must be learned and dispensed with method and care. If our painfully recent history has shown us anything – whether it be the tragedy of the Sepetember 11 attacks with its hamstringing of the American Muslim psyche, or the foulness of the ISIS epidemic with the bodies and souls it shattered – it is that knowledge acquired without method and grounding in strong prerequisites is not only devoid of Nūr but infused with elements of nār. (That’s another Shaykh Amin gem.)

America is thirsty for this brand of knowledge. That may seem like a very pie-in-the-sky thing to say. But we couldn’t be more serious in these grim times. And the way we make this knowledge available is through academic discourse – that is how serious change comes about. We need to empower our institutions to bring real value to mainstream academia. This takes meticulous planning and money.

Whether you are looking to make an endowment, a one-time donation, or a recurring one, you couldn’t do better than to divert your wealth to Darul Qasim. May Allah make us all beneficiaries of his Fadl. May we all have a part in Sulaymān’s wisdom to recognize the source with Hadha min Fadli Rabbiy. This is where the quest begins.

Donate to Darul Qasim

Recalling an old poem

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In the last forty-eight hours, three instances of death have me thinking about this post from many years before.

On Cancer, Guns, and Hit ‘n Runs

The rough similarity of these three unrelated individuals to the three characters in my poem is uncanny to say the least. Reality bites.

Why The One Thing Suicide Bombing Cannot Be Is Islamic

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Let me begin with a definition of Islam.

Islam is…

I’ll give you a second to complete that sentence in your head.

If you said peace, then you’re likely getting your knowledge of Islam from main stream media and Muslims who really want to make Islam synonymous with the idea of peace. And that’s all very good.

The only problem with it is that it waters down the discourse of Islam as a religion followed by an individual for his/her individual salvation, that being the whole point of the Islamic faith.

From an Islam 101 standpoint, Islam does not mean peace. Islam can include a rich discussion of peace. Morphologically, it is very closely linked to the Arabic word for peace. That word is Salaam. In fact, it is so closely linked to Salaam that some say it may as well just mean Peace.

But the fact remains: Islam does not mean peace.

The word, Islam, is classified as a masdar in Arabic grammar. That is the equivalent of a gerund in English, i.e. a verbal noun. For instance, the verbal noun of “to sleep” is “sleeping”, as used in the sentence: “Sleeping is my favorite pastime.” Islam comes from the verb: As-la-ma.

Aslama means to submit. The gerund of Aslama is Islam. Hence Islam means submitting.

This works better than submission because submission has a quality of being a bit discrete, as in point-in-time. But submitting is a perpetual state of mind and soul. A Muslim (one who does the act of aslama) is always submitting.

Now let’s be honest here. To be in a state of perpetual submission is a rank attained by the prophets and the saints. That being said, perpetual submission is the gold standard.

It is the state in which the Muslim strives to be. It is the rope which the Muslim holds on to. When he or she loses grip (and that is expected), the Muslim struggles with regaining a hold. To a Muslim, Islam means submitting your everything to God. This includes the physical, mental, intellectual, and spiritual facets of submission.

As a Muslim, if you are afflicted with an illness in body or mind (or your spouse or child is), you submit to God’s will.

You do not resent your state.

You certainly do not argue with God.

If anything, you recognize that both difficulty and ease come from One indivisible God. That is why the Muslim draws close to the One who ultimately is the source of the affliction.

It gets better. You submit your body and your mind.

Not easy.

As a Muslim, if you apply your intellect and arrive at a conclusion that is in direct conflict with a tenet of the faith, or that is irreconcilable with a conclusive precept, you submit to God’s will. For instance, adopting intellectual recourse to “prove” that pork is acceptable for consumption by a Muslim would reflect a total lack of submission. This level of submission weighs hardest on scholars and thinkers. To submit your intellect is even harder.

The Muslim is ever submitting to Divine will and command. Sometimes, the word submitting tends to have a passive connotation, often times in the English language. It is worth noting that Islam is a state of active, deliberate and conscious submitting. It takes strength and, oddly, will to put one’s own will second to that of an unseen God.

My favorite story is that of the great wali (saint) Shaykh Abdul Qadir Jilani who once had a vision wherein he sensed a presence that claimed to be divine. It informed him that he had attained greatness and purity, and that he was absolved from having to perform his obligatory prayers any more. The Shaykh cursed the presence and sought refuge from the devil before he proceeded to make ablution and say his prayers.

Total submission.

What is permitted by God (halaal) is permitted. What is forbidden by God (haraam) is forbidden. And that is where submitting comes into the picture. If nothing were forbidden and everything were permitted, then there is nothing left to submit to begin with. And that is fine if it’s what you’re looking for, but it would be a different religion than Islam.

Regarding suicide bombing

It is ludicrous in the most unfunny way that given the above primer on Islam, an act that involves careful and deliberate planning to take one’s own life and with it the life of innocents, can in any way be associated with a religion that by its most intrinsic definition and self-defining name means submitting.

The act of planning and executing the destruction of one’s own life is in effect one saying to God:

You are Al-Mumit (The One Who Takes Life) but I will stand between you and your Divine attribute, and I will end my own life of my own free will. I will not submit my body and my mind to you.

To take the life of others along with your own life is in effect saying to God: You forbid the taking of innocent lives, but I have thought about this and after due deliberation, I have concluded that killing innocents is actually quite justifiable. And just to be more unsubmitting, I will take the life of others even as I take my own life of my own free will. I will not submit my intellect and my spirit to you.

Suicide bombing is the most glaring manifestation of everything that is the opposite of Islam. It comes from a flat-out unwillingness to submit to God’s will. The fact that the ideology driving and extolling this heinous act claims to be Islamic in any form is a great trial and tribulation. It is a trial for those who truly strive to submit their everything to God, actively and consciously. It is a tribulation for us all.

And God knows better.
Based on a recent reading of Mishkat Al-Masabih at Darul Qasim by Shaykh Mohammed Amin Kholwadia.

The Ghazali Children’s Project by Fons Vitae & Hamza Yusuf

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This is an awesome venture. Support this effort by the amazing Aisha Gray Henry and her team at Fons Vitae. I just did!

I would love this for my kids. Getting them exposed to the Ihya at a young age will help prepare their hearts to receive this knowledge more comprehensively in a classroom setting when they’re ready for it – one that immerses them in the great Imam’s magnum opus. I know Darul Qasim has this on their radar. This is such a great service by Fons Vitae and Shaykh Hamza Yusuf.

Here’s a poem I wrote some years back, inspired by a lecture delivered by Shaykh Amin in an Introductory Theology class at Darul Qasim in which he alluded to Imam Ghazali’s ingenious allegory for tauheed (divine unity).

THE ANT AND THE QUILL
Behind a generous well of ink,
There stood an ant so wee,
And nothing was around him that
Was littler than he.

He watched with great amazement as
A giant feather quill
Descended into blackness, then
Remained to drink its fill.

And thus the quill withdrew before
Returning for its sips,
Which made the ant to wonder what
Transpired tween the dips;

He ventured round the glassy well
And out his head did poke
To find the quill make strokes on what
Reminded him of oak,

And marveled at the written work,
Extolled the feather quill:
How utterly magnificent
Was its creative skill,

But as he watched, his eye did catch
Five fingers, slender, long
That grasped the feather quill with care:
A grasp so firm and strong,

And so the ant was overcome
With admiration true
For how the hand did wield the quill
To all its bidding do;

But short lived is such wonderment
For soon the ant did see
The subtle motions of an arm
That moved about so free.

The arm he traced to what he deemed
The body of a beast
With head and face that comely seemed
And noble at the least.

So turned he from the noble face,
Content he would not find
What underlay the vast of space
That leaves the seeing blind.

But man, unlike the ant, can see
Much more than just a face,
For knowledge of the intellect
Is with the human race;

The guided eye may even see
Beyond the intellect
Where inspiration is the light
That hearts of men reflect.

And so beside the inkwell of
Divine creation, we
Extol the means, but turn away
From what we cannot see.

But even did the little ant
Acknowledge with a sigh,
That all creation springs from One
Well hidden from the eye.

Classical Poetry Lives

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I was at the Rivulets 2015 Launch event earlier this afternoon. The Chicago Tribune covered it:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/naperville-sun/community/chi-ugc-article-naperville-writers-group-rivulets-27-launch-2015-10-01-story.html

I was asked to recite one of my submissions – On Riverside Walks, and that I did.

I also learned I was one of the four runners-up to the Founder’s Prize for Poetry for my submission, On Forgetting To Remember. And that was cool.

Given the above were both sonnets, I am happy to say <insert post title here>.

A good day overall.

Self-righteously Unhypocritical

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“That’s just how I feel, Mom. I can’t lie, I’m not a hypocrite.”

It was a very matter-of-fact statement, made in Aisle 5 at the grocery store somewhere between the baked beans and tomato paste. The speaker was a girl, probably thirteen, maybe fourteen years of age. Her mother instantly disconnected from her mentally, and the girl reciprocated. As they ambled down the aisle filling their cart, I could sense they were in their separate worlds. And pretty soon, I was in mine.

As a father of four, I fully expect to suffer that sort of rejoinder in the coming years. But what got me writing this article was the confidence and self-assurance with which we, adults and children alike, see ourselves above being hypocrites. We are quite vocal about not being hypocrites, are we not?

At first blush, that seems quite honorable. In fact, let me be clear. That is honorable. No one should want to be a hypocrite. Nothing good about being hypocritical. Hypocrisy is a universally despicable attribute, best not to have applied to yourself. But we know the world has its share of hypocrites. The trouble is we also seem to know we’re never among them.

So, okay…what on earth am I trying to say here?

Let’s look back a thousand years in time, at giants of men and women, people of substance, their bodies and souls flushed with a maturity that saw them shoulder responsibility the likes of which very few adults in today’s world can even relate to. I will consider only one example.

Umar. May God be pleased with him.

Umar the son of Al-Khattab was the second of the four rightly guided Caliphs, succeeding Abu Bakr. Let’s go back to a time before either of their Caliphates.

There was a time in Medina when the Messenger of God (God send His prayers upon him, and His blessings and peace) once enjoined upon a trusted companion, a man by the name of Hudhayfah, the confidential task of mentally recording a list of a dozen or so names of men who the prophet himself had categorized as hypocrites. These men were not to be called out or exposed on account of this knowledge, and Hudhayfah (God be pleased with him) was only to carry with him the knowledge of their names. The prophet had asked him not to disclose the names on that list to anyone. The men comprising the list were to be afforded the status of Muslims.

When Umar learned of Hudhayfah’s knowledge, he approached him and adjured him by God to inform him if he himself was among those named. Hudhayfah was torn between his calling to keep the list confidential and Umar’s unrelenting insistence. He finally informed Umar that he was not of the hypocrites, and then pressed Umar not to ask him again.

That’s right. Umar wanted to know if he was among the hypocrites.

Umar, of whom the Messenger (God be pleased with him) is reported to have said: When Umar walks down a path, the devil chooses to walk down a different path.

Umar, of whom the Messenger is reported to have said: If there were to be a prophet after me, it would be Umar.

And Umar was concerned that he may be counted among a dozen hypocrites, that too of the worst order of hypocrisy imaginable.

You know what really made Umar (God be pleased with him) NOT a hypocrite? I think it had much to do with the fact that he did not see himself immune to it. It does not take a genius to know the nature of hypocrisy. It is a subtle beast that creeps up on you. It finds you justifying your thinking and actions fully and logically (and scientifically, even). It is a little bit like madness in that the mad one is sure of his sanity, not doubting it for one moment. It is quite unlike madness in that hypocrisy must be satisfied and indulged for it to grow, and satisfy you back.

I am not saying that everyone who says they are not a hypocrite must be one. No. God forbid. All I am saying is that rather than thinking of ourselves as immune to it, we may be better off following the example of Umar and checking in on ourselves from time to time, entertaining the possibility that we just may be acting hypocritical. Entertaining that possibility may well be the weakest form of inoculation to protect against that disease of the heart.

I once heard Shaykh Amin Kholwadia say these words, and he is often heard repeating the idea many different ways:

As soon as you feel good about yourself, know that the devil has got you, because he is made from fire and he understands the nafs better than you.

That.

I wrote this some years ago, seems vaguely relevant.

Pleas