Seeing with the Light of Allah

Seeing with the Light of Allah

There is no right to be worshipped or unconditionally obeyed except for Him, and we bear witness that Muhammad ﷺ is his final messenger. We ask Allah to send his peace and blessings upon him, the prophets and messengers that came before him, his family and companions that served alongside him, and those that follow in his blessed path until the Day of Judgment. And we ask Allah to make us amongst them. Allahumma ameen.

Dear brothers and sisters, I want to stay a bit with the topic — at least for another two or three khutbas — of this idea of what we can perceive based upon what is presented to us, and how much we trust the faculties with which we are perceiving the world around us. Last week we talked about al-Dajjal and we talked about this idea of the ultimate deception and the ultimate distortion of reality, and where a person can no longer see beyond what is right in front of them. And the tragedy of that being compounded by a person trusting their own faculties to a point that they assign divinity to them.

I want to talk about this, insha'Allah, in an extended sense.

Two People Looking at the Same Thing

I want you to think about two people that are looking at the exact same thing and having the exact opposite reactions to it. Two people go to medical school. One person — as they study the detail of Allah's creation, as they study biology, as they study all of the miracles of birth, and all of the miracles of the functioning of the human body — they come out and they say, subhanAllah, how amazing is the creation of Allah! How merciful is Allah to have allowed us to function in the way that we do! How dependent are we on Allah with every single process in our bodies!

Another person goes to medical school and has the exact opposite reaction. Comes away and says the human body is incredible, human beings are amazing, look at how advanced medicine is — and attributes all of that to the creation as a means of rejecting the Creator.

The same thing is true when you look around at the universe around you. Some look at it and they see the signs of Allah, the signs of God, and that brings them closer to God. Others look at it and do not realize that they are coming to the most unintelligent conclusion — that all of this is from nothing — and they use that as a proof against God or the existence of God.

Then you look at the signs, the ayat of the Quran, divine revelation. Some read it and are moved by the first few verses that they hear and immediately perceive the divinity of these words, the words of Allah. Others approach the scripture with the intention to skew and to misinterpret and to debate and to argue, and so they find themselves in constant argumentation while the other person is absorbing the revelation with humility.

SubhanAllah, I remember once coming across this meme where you had a person standing in the middle of a garden, and everything around him in its beauty, and his thought bubble is: "Where is the proof of the existence of God? Where are his miracles?" — as if he's completely blinded to everything that is around him.

Now, is it that Allah has not already put enough out there? As one of the ulama mentioned: when the mushrikeen, when the disbelievers of Mecca, demanded that the Prophet split the moon as a proof, they didn't realize that the existence of the moon was already a proof for them. And the splitting of the moon was only an added hujjah, an added proof, against them. Why was it that they were not able to connect already to the obvious existence of a designer and a creator?

And that's why Imam Ibn Ata'illah rahimahullah says:

It's not that the truth is veiled. It's not that reality is veiled. It's that you are veiled from being able to see reality. The problem is not the inexistence of these things. The problem is the veil between you and this reality and this truth.

And in reality — you will see what you are looking for. You will see what you are looking for.

Sharpening the Spiritual Eye

One of my favorite statements from al-Hajj Malik al-Shabazz — Malcolm X rahimahullah ta'ala was what he wrote in September of 1964, when he decided to go to Umrah. Malcolm made one Hajj and he made an Umrah as well in September, but there were no cameras and no press and no reporting. And when he was asked why, he said: "I need to go sharpen my spiritual eye. I need to sharpen my spiritual eyes." So he went to Umrah in September.

What spiritual eye is he talking about? And what does this have to do with the entire scope of what prophetic vision is? When a person can see beyond — or when a person is blinded in the opposite sense — when Allah says:

It's not that the eyes go blind — there are people that can't see with their eyes but they can see — rather, it is the hearts that go blind. There are people that can fully see with their eyes but their hearts are blind. And there are people that can't see with their eyes but their hearts can see. And that is the eye that Allah is talking about: the vision of the heart, which refers to a sense of discernment, wisdom, guidance — the ability to perceive properly what is happening around you. And if that is blinded, then nothing makes sense and nothing yields any good.

And Allah of course tells us:

And whoever is blind in this life, then they will certainly be blind in the hereafter and completely astray. It's referring to a different type of blindness — when a person cannot see, when a person cannot perceive.

How the Heart Becomes Veiled

And you ask: why is that? How do I get to the point of being blinded to reality, where I can't perceive? I hear verses from the Quran and they don't move me. I'm sitting next to someone in a halaqah, a lecture, and that person is crying within three minutes and is clearly moved by it — I'm already falling asleep in five. One person is on their phone and cannot focus. The other person — just the words, just the ayat calling to be mindful of Allah — would move them. What is it about my heart? What is it about their heart? What is it that's not moving me anymore?

And there is this verse in the Quran where Allah describes it:

Allah says: and We will turn away their hearts and their eyes because they refused to believe in it the first time they encountered it, and so We leave them in their transgression wandering blindly.

Now pay attention to the ayah. First and foremost, the heart is turned away and so the eyes are turned away as well. When the lens is messed up here, then the lens gets messed up here as well. And Allah says something very specific: because they refused to believe in it when it was made clear to them the first time. And so as a result of that they're left wandering blindly in their transgression.

What this is referring to is conscious rejection of Allah when you recognize it the first time. Obviously the most conscious rejection is when you realize that the truth is in front of you — the guidance is in front of you the first time — and you turn away from it. But there are other manifestations of that as well, that are not as severe, but that speak to the same concept. You're told that something is haram and you keep doing it. Conscious sinning — even if it's a minor sin. You consciously go to work every day and you know that there's something haram about your work. You consciously delay your prayers. Some conscious type of insistence upon sin.

And as a result of that, the light is being extinguished in your hearts. The sins extinguish the light of the heart. The constant engagement of a sin — in regards to your speech, your dress, your transactions, the treatment of your family, the engagement of a haram relationship — every time you're doing that, you're closing your eyes to what Allah has revealed to you. And you recognize it. And eventually what starts to happen is that the recognition starts to go away as well. So you don't even recognize it anymore. Other people recognize the bad manners of a person who is consistently foul, and that person no longer recognizes it anymore, because they engage it on a consistent basis.

And so Allah is saying here that you're unable to see anymore because of your rejection. If you insist upon rejection, then you're going to insist upon blindness of the heart.

The Dark Room: Light and the Heart

Think of this analogy: if you enter into a dark room and there are no lights in the room, it doesn't matter if you have fully functioning eyes — the layers of darkness are not going to be penetrated without light. So even if you can see, if you're sitting in a dark room you can't see anything. Your eyes are working but the layers of darkness are not allowing you to see anything. And so what do you have to do? Turn on the light. Open the window. See what you've been missing out on.

Now what happens is that some people want to stay in the dark — because what happens when you see the light for the first time? It hurts your eyes. Initially it's uncomfortable. The light can be very uncomfortable the first time that you see it, and some people would even have a tendency to turn it off, close the door, turn off the light. And that's what Allah speaks about.

I want you to think about two opposing ends of this phenomenon. One of them is the ayah of the rejecting heart:

That Allah seals their hearts as they insist upon turning away, and their hearing — they can no longer hear — and there is a veil that is placed on their eyes. That's one extreme.

The Hadith of the Loving Servant

Compare the ayah of the rejecting heart to the hadith of the loving servant, where the Prophet says that Allah has said:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 6502)

Whoever takes a beloved, chosen servant of mine as an enemy — then I have waged war on that person. And no servant comes closer to me with anything that is more beloved to me than the obligatory deeds. They act upon the obligations, and then after the obligations they keep on coming close to Allah with nawafil — with the voluntary good deeds as well. They give more charity, they pray more, they fast more, they do more and more and more and more, until they gain a special love from Allah. And if I love that person, I become the sight with which they see and the hearing with which they hear.

Compare the two — subhanAllah — on the opposite sides of that spectrum.

The Firasa of the Believer

And this is where you find the very famous narration:

(Reported by al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 3127 — a weak hadith, but its meaning is confirmed by authentic narrations)

Beware of the firasa — the insight — of the believer, for he sees with the light of Allah. It is a weak narration — a weak hadith from the Prophet — of which the meaning is authentic. And it's confirmed by another narration which is authentic, that the Prophet mentioned:

(Reported by al-Tabarani in al-Awsat — authenticated in meaning by the scholars)

There are people that know people around them — Allah has servants of His that can perceive things at a deeper level — because of that deep insight, an insight that is born of righteousness. The opposite of someone that's stubborn upon rejection. An insight that is born out of the willingness to constantly listen and obey and follow and grow and develop, and do more and more and more, and continue on that journey towards Allah no matter what obstacles are presenting themselves to you.

And what ends up happening is that they can see with the light of Allah. They have basira, they have firasa, they have insights. They have the ability — as Allah says:

There are signs for those people who have that insight — that deep ability to perceive and to see by the light of Allah.

Now it's not some secret equation. It's not something that you take a course for. It is literally an unrelenting pursuit of truth and the commitment to it when you discover it. That's all it is. An unrelenting pursuit of truth and the commitment to it when you discover it. And what ends up happening:

Those who strive in Our way, then We guide them to Our paths. And so Allah reveals more to you and more to you and more to you. It's also not when someone seeks to claim that they are "seeing things" and starts to undermine revelation or makes claims and starts to command something amongst the people — no — because this person is not using that unfolding reality and perception to gain control over people, but rather to gain closeness to Allah by following the way of the Prophet. So things become clearer. Reality becomes clearer to them. They're able to discern better. They have more wisdom. When they read the Quran, they take more from one ayah than another person takes from a hundred ayats, because they're listening deeply and carefully — not extracting new rulings, but extracting the deepest form of maw'idah, being admonished and being reminded by those verses.

Umar ibn al-Khattab: The Greatest Example

And so the greatest example of that is Umar ibn al-Khattab radiyallahu ta'ala anhu. When you look at Umar radiyallahu ta'ala anhu and the miracles that unfolded for him — these things that would happen for him — when Umar radiyallahu ta'ala anhu was standing on the minbar and he sees something happening thousands of miles away from him: Ya Sariya, al-jabal! — "O Sariya, the mountain!" — that was due to Umar radiyallahu ta'ala anhu's exerting himself in that pursuit of truth: an unrelenting pursuit of truth and then commitment to it when he found it. His deep pondering upon revelation.

When the Quran would come down and agree with Umar radiyallahu ta'ala anhu — it's because when Umar radiyallahu ta'ala anhu would hear the Quran being revealed, he would immediately absorb it and follow. He was in deep connection with the revelation of Allah.

His seeing of true dreams — not "I saw something and so the Day of Judgment is gonna happen in 2023" or "a strange star is gonna appear in the sky" or "the Prophet told me I'm the one and you should all go forth" — none of that. But true dreams for the believer: that's an added level of sight, an added level of vision.

And the Prophet said in a hadith in Sahih Muslim:

(Sahih Muslim, Hadith 2263)

When the end of times comes, a believer would hardly see a dream that isn't true. The righteous believer will see true dreams — dreams that give them insights, dreams that further expose the reality around them. And the most truthful of you in speech are the most truthful of you in the dreams that you will see.

More vision. A heart that can see. A heart that starts to transcend.

Three Levels of Sight by the Light of Allah

I want to end with two points. There are three levels of sight that the ulema mention with the light of Allah, and they're very easy to remember.

1. Seeing Through Deception

The first one is seeing through deception. A believer would see through the deception of the Dajjal by their iman — Allah would allow them to see that it is written across his forehead. There are things that the believer can see through by virtue of their minimal belief. And if you're not a deceiver, then Allah will give you the sidq — the truthfulness — to see through the deception of others.

2. Seeing Through Distraction

The second level is seeing through distraction — the distraction of the life of this world, the distraction of the material world from things that are more meaningful, from things that are more righteous, from things that are more real. How do you see through distraction? By the remembrance of Allah. Dhikr is the medicine to that. You constantly remember Allah so you see through distraction.

3. Seeing Through Dunya

And the third one is to actually see through the dunya — you see through this material world by placing your sights on the hereafter constantly. The Akhira is not some unknown abstract world that doesn't have any meaningful consequences to your everyday life in this dunya. Rather, you act as if you've already seen Jannah and Naar. You act as if you've already seen it all. Because it drives you consequentially. Obviously the effect and impact of seeing with your eyes is not like the impact of knowing it — but the consequence of it, in regards to abiding by the truth of revelation, is as if you have already seen paradise and hellfire. The longing that you have for Allah is as if you've already seen Him. The longing that you have for paradise is as if you've already seen it. So it creates that greater level of longing.

And this is where the Prophet said that ihsan is: that you worship Allah as if you can see Him, and if you cannot see Him, then you know that He sees you. And as Ibn al-Qayyim rahimahullah ta'ala said, the manifestation of that is:

That you come to Allah with your heart before your body — that before you even get to the prayer, your heart is already there, before your body has arrived. And you are focused as if there is no one else around you, nothing else around you. And that is something that we all strive for for the entirety of our lives: to have that level of focus in our prayers. May Allah grant us that ihsan, may Allah grant us that excellence. Allahumma ameen.

A New Sister Embraces Islam

Dear brothers and sisters — subhanAllah — as you find people that embrace the truth despite all of its consequences, I want you to think about people that put their families on the line because their families might reject them, that put entire lifestyles on the line — everything that they knew — because they've seen the light of that guidance on the line, and how Allah looks to that person.

And alhamdulillah rabbil alameen, we have another sister that is embracing Islam with us today, through very difficult obstacles and circumstances and many barriers — not necessarily hardship, but barriers that would be there. And that should be an inspiration and a reminder to all of us that when a person has a commitment to the truth, the consequences will be put in context of that pursuit, and the reward will be even greater.

May Allah grant her and all of us that reward. May Allah forgive us for our shortcomings. And may Allah grant us vision with our hearts and the ability to act upon that which He has given to us in the most loving and obedient of ways. Allahumma ameen. Alhamdulillah rabbil alameen. Allahumma ameen.