The Mosque: The Heart of Submission

Chapter 6. Dignity

6. Dignity Humankind was created in ‘‘the fairest stature’’—that is, in supreme uprightness or verticality. As created beings, our original nature wholly reflects the will of God. At the core of our selves we open ourselves to a meeting with that will, which means that our original uprightness is the unity of two wills, the Divine and the human—an inner unity that cannot be abjured. As the principle of all that exists, it is also the inviolable. Thus joining ourselves to the inviolable is what makes us truly upright ; and our upright stature enables us to transcend our createdness and enter into a covenant with the Creator, thus realizing our original and supreme potential: And when thy Lord took from the Children of Adam, from their loins, their seed, and made them testify touching themselves, ‘‘Am I not your Lord?’’ They said, ‘‘Yes, we testify’’—lest you should say on the Day of Resurrection, ‘‘As for us, we were heedless of this.’’1 This testimony is a covenant based on trust. Its parties are the Complete Self, which is infinite, and the contingent self, which 22 / The Mosque realizes itself only in and with the Self. Whereas the Self undertakes to determine the outcome of this covenant, the freedom of the self, of humankind, is contingent. This freedom gives us four choices: to submit and believe (thus attaining sanctity); to ignore the knowledge at the center of our self (thus making the periphery central, and the center peripheral); to associate ourselves with the periphery (thus subordinating the world and others to ourselves); or to change our behavior depending on whom we are with (thus ignoring the fact that God is omnipresent: ‘‘Has thou not seen that God knows whatsoever is in the heavens, and whatsoever is in the earth? Three men conspire not secretly together, but He is the fourth of them, neither five men, but He is the sixth of them, neither fewer than that, neither more’’).2 The very question ‘‘Am I not your Lord?’’ implies a choice of answers : yes or no. In choosing to answer yes, we acknowledge that we are part of creation, and thus separate from the Complete. This separation , however, can be bridged by aligning our will with our knowledge and love for the Complete. Existence means that the Self reveals Itself relative to the non-Self. But saying no, turning toward the non-Self, warps the will away from the Self, reducing love to one or other of its components, and knowledge to narrow-mindedness. Whenever the link with the Self is broken, we forget our debt to It. And as we forget, we inevitably abandon ourselves to non-Self and descend to the lowest of the possible planes of existence. But whatever depths we sink to, when we return we turn away from non-Self. Whichever of the four possible choices we have made, the Spirit that God has breathed into us3 remains at our primal core, a core which contains both the Lord’s question and our answer. And our very freedom to say yes or no is what makes us beings of openness, of receptivity. Our primal center constantly offers us the opportunity to seek redemption through the ‘‘right religion,’’ the enduring debt4 which one can settle by returning to God: So set thy face to the debt, a man of pure faith—God’s original upon which He originated mankind. Dignity / 23 There is no changing God’s creation. That is the debt; but most men know it not— turning to Him.5 This debt, or religion, is present at the center of each individual. One of its expressions is the Lord’s question, and the answer that we give. The answer can be given through different teachings which follow different paths, but always involves submission to God, the possibility of calling out to Him by His Name which is central to our human status. Knowing His most beautiful names and using them to summon Him means finding self-realization in beauty. And ‘‘God’s original’’—the unalterable, inviolable and forbidden center—is the human heart, which in its oneness and sameness remains open to all the names and words which reveal the Hidden. Our answer ‘‘You are!’’ to God’s question echoes His ‘‘I am!’’ for both testify to the oneness of the human and the Divine will in the act...