The Mosque: The Heart of Submission

Afterword

Afterword The mosque is a place where we meet the Supreme Being by expressing our submission and that of the world to Him. This submission, however, involves not only love and knowledge of the Supreme, but also a connection with the world as a whole. The mosque may be any place in all of existence. The mosque is our relationship with God; and since that relationship is based on trust, it can take many possible directions. In the incessant flux and reflux of the world, the mosque is where we grasp our highest potential. The whole of existence is a mosque, because we humans gather together all that is manifested and differentiated throughout the worlds. All phenomena, separately and together, have a face in time that is turned toward the Face of Eternity. All of existence vanishes before His Face, which means that all things prostrate themselves before Him, and the reality of every face lies in its reflection of the Face. The face that reflects and the Face that is reflected attest to Oneness, and thus reveal themselves to one another in their separateness and unity. Standing before the Face, the face surrenders to it in utter humility by casting itself to the ground, thus confirming its desire for unity, to be what the Face knows. The oneness of this dual gaze unites the 78 / Afterword submission of the heart with the heart of submission. And the Face is omnipresent: wherever the face turns, it sees only the Face. Only thus may Oneness be heard, seen and spoken. Eternal wisdom blazes at the center of each of God’s prophets. This wisdom can reveal the meaning of diversity and the harmony within it. It is both eternal concealment and constant revelation. Our human center cannot be exhausted of this wisdom, and thus we can never be wholly lost. If debt is our link with God, since we can have nothing other than what we have received, the heart of this debt is the debt of the heart— and the heart is the Throne of the Merciful, the Compassionate. Oneness manifests itself through submission to Oneness, through love and knowledge of Oneness. Our relationship with God is one of debt; and the debt is total. This debt makes us into both receiver and giver. In receiving from God and repaying Him, we enter into a conversation, becoming a listener who receives the Word and a speaker whose words merge into the Voice, leaving no enduring image. In entering into this conversation we recognize that our life is entirely received, and that our direction is determined by our Giver. Nothing in this conversation can be abridged, for there is nothing in or with us that has not been received. Our primal perfection demands a perfect goal: and this is none other than the call to God by the whole of creation, as the Voice commands : Say:‘‘My prayer, my ritual sacrifice, my living, my dying—all belongs to God, the Lord of all Being. No associate has He. Even so I have been commanded, and I am the first of those that submit.’’ (Qur’an, 6:162–63) For people to achieve self-realization in this way—through an ancestral nature that is one and the same, and with an individual responsibility to a God who is one and the same—depends on submission: Afterword / 79 on bringing our will as created beings into compliance with the Will of God as Creator. This act of coordination transcends all boundaries and rejects all gods but God. Self-realization is the potential of every individual, for it is guaranteed by the same underlying human nature. Our ancestral nature is contingent on nothing but God. Once this fact is recognized, the selfrealization of any individual includes all other individuals and peoples in the world. Our being ‘‘in’’ a mosque, and our ‘‘being’’ a mosque, expresses this potential—the potential to turn toward God, and away from every image and representation of God, at any stage on our journey . As the chosen, we can only measure and retain our presence in the mosque through righteousness. We may acknowledge or deny the fact that we are chosen, fulfil it or rebel against it, submit to it or evade it, depart from it or return to it. But however much we try, we can never reject our chosenness...