“It appears to me that the greatest treasure a man can possess is serenity” Gai Eaton
It has been said about Rene Guenon that no one who read him and understood him could ever remain the same. Guenon, known as Shaykh Abdul Wahed during the latter part of his life, was a French philosopher and mystic writer of the 20th century. At a time when the Muslim intellectual response to western ascendancy was characterised by imitation and apologia, Guenon delivered an uncompromising critique of the post-enlightenment order. Modern man’s reliance on rationality over intuition, outward action over inward contemplation and pragmatism over mysticism were universally misunderstood as characteristics of progress. Rather, the loss of tradition, proliferation of deviant practices and worship of material progress were portents of a “spiritual dark age” which was traditionally understood and predicted to precede the end of times. Guenon predicted that modernity’s assault on spirituality would prove its ultimate undoing. Like the great Christian mystic, he too believed that “truth was native to man.” To deny man the inward journey of searching for this truth was to deprive him of his lifeblood.
Certainly, modern society has achieved limited success in ushering the age of happiness it boldly proclaimed. Finally unhindered by ancient superstition and violent religion, having just unleashed the power of the steam engine and arrived on the verge of remarkable breakthroughs in science, technology, medicine and agriculture, history’s triumphant march was supposed to have reached its crescendo from the seventeenth century onwards. Man’s newfound sovereignty was to propel him to alleviate all misery, fulfil every aspiration and achieve happiness at an unprecedented scale. History, as was later remarked after the fall of the Berlin War, had in fact ended.
On closer inspection, our independence appears to have been less fulfilling than predicted. Freed from the material concerns of war, famine, disease and displacement that historically defined the business of living for our ancestors, we proceeded to dismantle the anchors used to organise human life and consciousness for three thousand years. In the place of God, family and community, we developed complex structures of individualism and progress; structures which carried an unlimited capacity to induce agitation over things that our forefathers would hardly have time to notice. Denied the possibility to lose ourselves in search for the truth, we lost ourselves in our insatiable want for more. The reverse correlation between progress and contentment thus providing a damning and paradoxical indictment of the current project.
According to the ulema, this age of alienation is precisely the time for which the final revelation has come to us. Upon the tumultuous sea of modernity, the Mohamadden way is designed to provide us with a kind of spiritual lifeboat. Not an instruction to prematurely withdraw to the shore in a monastic sense, but to transcend the violence of the sea whilst remaining very much a part of it. The development of a sound agenda to transcend this violence rather than merely withdraw from it represents a tremendous achievement in the history of Islam’s spiritual tradition, making it uniquely suited to the circumstances of the modern world.
Certainly, early Muslim piety revealed elements of a penitential contempt for worldly enterprise that was closer to primitive Christianity than the more moderate way of the Messenger of Allah (PBUH.) This initial contempt was likely influenced by early Muslim interaction with Christianity, disgust towards the lavish Ummayad caliphate and the understandable religious zest caused by such historic proximity to the final revelation. In time however, these more radical expressions of ascetism came to be moderated by the authentic Islamic image of the world as morally neutral abode. Islamic ascetism therefore came to be characterised not as a practice (in most cases) but an outlook. Complete rejection of the world was replaced by a healthy scepticism of its events and emotional detachment from its charms and pleasures. Zuhd was for the heart to be empty of what hands are empty of.
“You are free from what you have despaired of, you are a slave to that which you crave”
Modern psychology recognises that our feelings are caused by internal perception rather than external events. The crucial and oft-overlooked link between our emotional response and an outward occurrence is “thought.” Our instinct is to think with our feelings. The higher possibility, however, is to feel with our thoughts. If the host at a banquet is inattentive towards us, our instinct might cause us to feel immediate dejection. This response is not caused by the behaviour of the host, but rather, our perception of it. If we stop and think, we might conclude that the host’s attitude is merely caused by external factors. Or alternatively, even we were the cause, their attitude can hardly bring us any substantive harm in the grand scheme of things, and therefore might not be worth agitating over. Both responses, that is the instinctive feeling of dejection and the thoughtful indifference, are grounded in the same degree of temporal knowledge, but reflect varying degrees of deeper understanding. As a result, they taking our emotional response in diametrically opposite directions. At the core of the human condition therefore lies the ability to transform our relationship with external events by recognising the power of our thoughts and in doing so, radically changing how we experience the world. What Islam does is elevate this ability to feel with our thoughts to a higher plane, where the basis for our response does not require secular mental gymnastics, but is grounded in the permanence of Tawheed. Many verses of the Quran and hadith highlight this potential transformation, whereby knowledge, faith and understanding results in a state of “bliss.” According to the Quranic narrative, the hypocrite is wrought by doubts and anxiety, whereas the believer achieves peace and serenity.
The pursuit of this serenity is effectively all of Islam. It is a necessary consequence of Tawheed, the most fundamental tenant of Islamic creed. In Islamic theology, God does not simply set off the cosmic clock at the beginning of time and turn His back on creation like some eighteenth-century deity, leaving it to endlessly agitate and speculate over complex structures of cause and effect or “natural laws.” Rather, God remains. He is the Al-Wasi (The Omnipresent) and Al-Jabbar (The Omnipotent.) He is not just Al-Khaliq (The Creator) but Al-Khalaq (The Supreme Creator), constantly creating reality in every moment. There is nothing that happens in this realm, to us and around us, that is not the direct consequence of His Divine will. The Quran states:
“It was not you ˹believers˺ who killed them, but it was Allah Who did so. Nor was it you ˹O Prophet˺ who threw ˹a handful of sand at the disbelievers˺,1 but it was Allah Who did so, rendering the believers a great favour. Surely Allah is All-Hearing, All-Knowing.”
This is not to deny causality, or the importance of taking the asbab (means) and carrying out the required effort to complete legitimate works, which is constantly impressed upon the Muslim. Rather, it is to accept that causality only proceeds according to the will of the One who has ultimate agency. That action does entail result, but the result, be it victory or defeat, is determined by Him. The idea of causality-bound human sovereignty is therefore an absurdity from the traditional perspective. To believe that our actions have intrinsic force is to cut ourselves off from the source of actual power, and therefore fundamentally disempowering. The recognition of human emptiness and our absolute reliance on Divine Mercy has the opposite effect. Under the solidity of this theology, Islam becomes a source of assurance, relaxation and serenity. A reality that is created by God leaves no room for alternatives. It cannot be affected or altered. The correct relationship with this reality, therefore, is to unconditionally place one’s trust in God’s plan. To not do so would be an accusation against Divine wisdom, a criticism of Divine mercy, and akin to having a bad opinion of God. To do so is achieve freedom from the weighty anchors of anxiety and grief, emotions which are grounded in an inability to accept the Creator’s designs. It is for man to have no strings of hope or hopelessness stretching out before him, entangling his soul either way, in a direct mistrust of providential care. From the Quranic perspective, the highest stage of man’s ethical progress is reached when he becomes absolutely free from fear and grief, entering the elect who will be awarded paradise without accountability. Napoleon, perhaps understood this better than most modern Muslims do, stating as he did “my master is the nature of things.”
Traditional Islamic societies were characterised by this virtue of reliance known as tawakul. Islam’s greatest poet, Maulana Rumi, lived during the Mongol invasions of Central Asia, losing many companions and family members to the violence of the horde. Yet, the Maulana’s Masanvi, a six-volume work, bears no recollection of this. The poet that suffered a thousand cuts from history’s most brutal conquest did not write a single verse of lament. Instead, he wrote of divine incomprehensibility when contemplated by the deficient human intellect. Of the Ant’s complaint of the intricate patterns of design on a carpet mosque, as it struggles to comprehend them as anything beyond a meaningless obstacle course. The human being however sees the craft, the beauty and therefore the meaning behind them. He is invited to see the same in God’s plan, for just like the ant, he is inherently limited in his ability to fathom the higher realms of logic reflected in God’s will.
It should be borne in mind that understanding the intellectual basis (which this discussion is focused on) for a state does not necessarily promise its experience. The intellect may comprehend a theory of philosophy without the heart ever being truly penetrated by it. The fulfilling of a state therefore requires His grace and providential guidance, which is not achieved through discursive cognition, but bestowed in the form of intuition. However, although He singles out for His rahma whom He wills, man can make himself a more viable candidate for this mercy by exercising restrain against the whisperings of the nafs, the animalistic proclivity to immediate gratification through the lower desires of the self. This interaction between effort and reward provides meaning to our obedience, which is not to some arbitrary Divine tyrant, but a merciful Lord who invites us to the abode of peace, only forbidding that which keeps from it, and ultimately from Him.