‘Leave it for the Almighty’

Recently, I found more meaning for and in one of the principles of life that I uphold- never to cease learning, never to cease unlearning and never to stop relearning. I have long discovered that ignorance, like all other negative constructs in life, has value – without ignorance, knowledge loses its allure and charm. Is it not true that the first station of life that the knowledgeable has to traverse is that of ignorance, of that which must or should be known? The more we know, the more we discover how ignorant we are.

Thus, before I close my eyes every night, I listen to our forebears; I search for new illuminations. I attend ‘conferences’ of the Quran and the Hadith; I ‘participate’ in the caravan in search of new meanings of life; meanings that only the Quran can vouch for. Thus, a couple of days ago, I chanced upon one of the lectures by the late Egyptian cleric of note, Shaykh Abdulhamid Kishk. The lecture was titled- ‘Leave it for Him –the Almighty’. As usual, it was electric and electrifying; as expected, it was illuminating and enlightening. It was only after about five minutes that I got what I thought was one of the most profound messages that were embedded in his ministry. He said- ‘whoever wakes up in a day in grief and melancholy over his affairs in this world, such a person has woken up in anger against his Creator’.

I took a long pause to fully unpack the multiplexities of the meanings in the statement. It was deep. It was real, if not surreal. The latent meanings of the message soon crystallised when he quoted this tradition of the Prophet. Anas ibn Malik reported: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said- “Whoever is concerned about the Hereafter, Allah will place wealth in his heart, organize his affairs for him, and the bounties of this world will inevitably come to him. But whoever is concerned only about the world- the here and now- the Almighty will place poverty between his eyes, disorder his affairs, and he will get nothing of the world except that which was decreed for him.”

I then pondered the reality of life in which Nigerians live – the extreme lack and deprivation, the utter lack of pity and empathy on the part of those in power, the frustration that Nigerians go through daily to eke life from the periphery, from the margins. I could not but conclude that to wake up in Nigeria today and be happy is to be disconnected from reality. But again, I took another pause. The discernment soon came my way – that to be happy at dawn every day, to welcome the shine that accompanies the sun in the morning is not to forget yesterday with its failures and disappointments. On the contrary, it is to derive inspiration from the present in the hope that the power that brings the dawn into reality forever possesses the ability and capability to turn things around for the better. Indeed, if we were to enumerate His favours relative to our unfulfilled desires, we would be humbled by the incomparability of the former with the latter. Indeed, the very ability to bemoan the past is a favour that no money can buy- it is those who live who thrive; you have to be alive for your desires to fly.

But what about those attitudes or conditions that constantly becloud us from seeing these realities the way they are? Fear. Yes. Fear is key. Fear abutted by ignorance. Fear prevents us from seeing opportunities; it angers us to not recognise His favours over us. We are often afraid of what we lack the power to change. We are often afraid of ourselves. It is like a veil, just like anger. The latter usually purblinds us from seeing the truth of and about events.

Mention must be made of envy. We often use others to define who we are. As humans, we are quick to forget that everybody is in his or her lane. You cannot jump the queue; you cannot arrive at your destination ahead of your prescribed time. Envy no creature of the Almighty over favours presently given unto them. When yours eventually comes, it will take the shine off those you currently consider fortunate.

But wait a minute! Is it not true that to indulge in envy is to question the Almighty for distributing His favours the way He chooses? If you are reading this, it means your vision is alive and well. The irony of life is that the blind cannot even see what he can envy!

In other words, in those fleeting moments of envy, you are deploying a favour of the Almighty into acts that He is not pleased with. You are like the firewood that consumes itself based on the erroneous notion that it is destroying others!

If the above is true, truer it is that amongst us are those who are forever unwilling to ‘leave it for the Almighty’ simply because they cannot forgive others of their infirmities and inadequacies. Thus, whenever they are told to forgive and forget, they concur in the moment. But rest assured that in the next five years, they would recall the exact moment the other wronged them and how fatal the latter had been.

To close, in Surah al-Shuara, ayah 89, the Almighty says that those who shall enjoy eternal bliss shall be those who come to Him with hearts free of hate, iniquities and animus. I say, leave it all for Him before they leave you behind!