Allah has created all the material things of this world and ordered us to use them. Allah is the One who put benefit or harm in all the material things of this world. Other than Allah cannot give benefit or harm. None can gives benefit or harm except Allah. Allah has made all the material things either to give benefit or harm to mankind. However, Allah can change the benefit into harm in the materials which we often see as giving benefit. Benefit or harm does not come from the material things themselves but it comes from Allah. We use materials that we believe can give us benefit and we do not use materials that we believe can gives us harm. We believes material things can give benefit or harm because we see with our own eyes, material things to give benefit or harm since the day we were born. We have been told to believe whatever we see as the truth. The common idiom being spoken by many of us is; “seeing is believing”. Whatever we see, we tend to believe it. Many are completely convinced, whatever they see is true. On the other hand, Allah tells us in the Quran, whatever we see is not true. What is the truth? The truth is everything that happens in this world, happen with the permission of Allah. The doer of everything is Allah and not the material things that we see. None can do except Allah. Even though, Allah is unseen but the doer of everything is Allah. Allah is the One that gives benefit and harm.
When we are hungry, Allah ordered us to eat. After we have taken the foods, our hunger will be satisfied. Our own experiences tell us that the foods are the one which satisfy our hunger. We see that the foods satisfy our hunger and not Allah. We tend to believe that foods can satisfy our hunger and whenever we are hungry, we immediately recall our past experience that foods are the one that satisfy our hunger and not Allah and we immediately look for food. Whenever we are hungry we think of foods and we make effort to find foods in order to satisfy our hunger. When we have found the food and we have eaten the food, our hunger immediately got satisfied. We have been experiencing this, since the day we were born and we tend to believe strongly in whatever we have experienced in the past. Our believe that foods can satisfy our hunger is strong in our heart and it becomes stronger as we get older. However the truth is not in whatever we see and experience, but the truth is in the unseen. The doer of everything is not the things that we see or experience but the doer of everything is the unseen Allah. The truth is “there is no God but Allah” and there is no one that can give benefit or harm but Allah. Good and bad comes from Allah. When we believe the doer is Allah, we believe in the unseen. We can see the material world with our eyes but we cannot see the unseen with our eyes. We can only see the unseen with the eyes of our heart. When our eyes are blind, we cannot see the material things of this world. But when the eyes of our heart are blind we cannot see the unseen. We will be able to see both the materials world as well the unseen world when neither the eyes nor the eyes of the heart are blind.
What causes our eyes to become blind? Our eyes are the most transparent part of our body. In other words light can pass into our body only through our eyes. Among the most transparent part of the eyes are the cornea, the lens and the vitreous. Cornea is the outermost part of the eyes and it is also the most sensitive part of the body. Whenever there is debris in the eyes, no matter how minute the debris is, immediately we feel pains and we will do something to remove the pain in our eyes. Our cornea is continuously being lubricated by a layer of fluid known as layer of tears and the layer of tears help the cornea to breathe and kill germs. When a person has a disease known as dry eyes, it means the cornea of the eyes are not sufficiently lubricated by the layers of the tears and the main symptoms of the disease is continuous pain, while reading or whenever the eyes are exposed to wind or bright light. When the cornea is dry, it can causes corneal opacity and corneal opacity will prevent light to pass into the eyes and a person with corneal opacity can become blind. Another most common cause of blindness is cataract. In cataract the lens of the eyes become opaque due to the oxidation of the lens’s protein inside the lens. Len’s protein oxidization is due to poor nutrition or excessive exposure to harmful rays. When the lens becomes opaque, it also prevents light from reaching the retina. When light cannot reach the retina of the eyes, the eyes become blind. Blindness due to cataract and corneal opacity can be cured by operation. Another cause of blindness is when the retina, the nerves of our eyes and the brain are damaged due to diseases such as diabetic, hypertension and glaucoma. Whenever the nerves of our eyes are no longer able to process the light that enters the eyes, we also become blind. When our eyes become blind we cannot see all the material things. In order to see the material things we need the physical light to be able to enter our eyes, and the light can be transmitted by our nervous system and analyses by our brain.
How eyes of the heart become blind? Eyes of the heart become blind when our heart has the love of the material worlds. When our eyes see the material world, we perceive the material world as being able to give benefit or harm to us. When our eyes perceive the material world as being able to give benefit or harm, it means we have been deceived by our own eyes. The truth is none can give benefit or harm except Allah. All the material things that we see cannot give harm or benefit. Allah says in the Qur’an “our vision is deceiving”. What we see is not true. We see things are giving benefit and we see things are giving harm and we do not see that Allah is giving benefit or Allah is giving harm. When we tend to believe in whatever we see as true, we tend to believe that the one that gives benefit or harm is the material things that we see and not Allah. Because we believe material things are the ones that give benefit, we tend to love the material things. Because we believe some material things can give harm to us, we tend not to go near to them. Because all of us love money, we fear of losing money and we always want to have more and we do not want to spend our money. All of these are signs and symptoms of loving money. Why we love money? We love money because we believe with money; we can have all the things that we love, such as a bungalow, a Mercedes car, a beautiful wife or handsome husband and so on. We see with a lot of money we can buy all the luxurious things in life. We also see those who have a lot of money can buy all the expensive things, can travel oversea, can dine in expensive restaurant and can wear beautiful and expensive clothes. We do not see and understand when we have Allah, we can have all the expensive things in life. Allah says in Hadis Qudsi with approximate meaning; Make me as your aim. Make me as your purpose and make me as your lover. If you got me, you will have everything. Although this Hadis Qudsi is true but even Muslims do not want Allah but they want money.
When the love of money and material things in our heart is more than the love of Allah, then our heart is considered to be completely or partially blind. When in our heart there is only some love of money and material things, but the love of Allah is more than the love of the material things, then our heart is not considered blind. When our heart is either blind or partially blind, we cannot accept, transmit and understand the spiritual light. What is the spiritual light? Spiritual light is the words of Allah and the words of Prophet Muhammad SAW. Qur’an and Hadis are the spiritual light that can only be understood by the heart which is not blind. A heart is considered not blind when the heart has the love of Allah and His Prophet more than the love of the material things. One that has the sharpest vision of the heart in the entire mankind is our Prophet Muhammad SAW. Our Prophet Muhammad SAW has the heart full with the love of Allah and without the slightest love of this material world. Only the heart which is not blind can understand and practice the Quran and Hadis correctly. The heart which is completely or partially blind cannot understand and practice the Quran and the Hadis. Non-Muslims cannot understand completely the Quran and Hadis. Muslim with no iman also cannot understand the Quran. Muslims with weak iman also cannot understand the Quran. Only Muslims with iman that reaches the level Allah wants will understand and practice the Quran correctly.
Why our heart becomes blind? Our heart becomes blind because we love the material things. Our heart tends to loves the material things because with our eyes we see; the material things give us benefit. With our eyes we do not see Allah gives the benefit or harm. Although there are some Muslims who know that Allah is the One that gives harm or benefits but they are still at the stage of knowing but not at the stage of believing. Muslims who belongs to this group, still loves the material things more than they love Allah and their hearts are still considered to be blind. They will not understand the Quran and Hadis although they, maybe able to read and understand the meaning of the Quran simply because they have learned the language of the Quran. Because we believe in the things that we see, our hearts become blind. When our heart is blind, we love the material things more than we love Allah. We see the material things are giving benefit and we are not negating whatever we see. So we tend to believe in whatever we see as giving benefit to us. We do not love Allah because we do not see Allah as the One who gives benefit to us. We may know, Allah is giving benefit to us but in the heart we believe the material things are giving benefit to us. Because of this wrong believe, whenever we use any material things, we will use them because we think that they are giving benefit to us and not because it is the order of Allah and to please Allah. Similarly, we are running away from any material things that we believe can give us harm is because we think that the material things are giving harm to us and not because it is the order of Allah and to please Allah. When Allah orders us to do something that looks like non-beneficial by our eyes we refuse to do it. Because we believe in the things that we see with our eyes, we are willing to become disobedience to the orders of Allah. Allah says in the Quran with the approximate meaning; Alif Lam Mim, truly this is the book (Qur’an) without doubt is the guidance for those who are having the fear of Allah in their heart. Who believes in the unseen, who perform the obligatory prayers and who spent in charity of whatever we have given them. In order to become those who have fear of Allah in their hearts, we have to believe in the unseen and not to believe the things that we see with our eyes.
How to prevent our heart from becoming blind? In order to prevent our heart from becoming blind, we must counter whatever we see with the Great words given by Allah to the whole mankind. What is that Great words? That is the words given by Allah to all the Prophets and with that words, Allah has ordered all the Prophets to call the whole mankind. The same work given to all the Prophets is also given to all the umat of Prophet Muhammad SAW. The Great words or Kalimah given to all the Prophets and to all the umat of Prophet Muhammad SAW are; “there is no God except Allah” which also means; there is no one able to give benefit or harm and good or bad except Allah. Allah has given the umat of Prophet Muhammad SAW the work of calling peoples to the Great words as Allah has given to all the Prophets. If all the umat of Prophet Muhammad SAW call the entire mankind to this Kalimah, the whole umat will not have blind heart and the whole umat will become the best of umat who will call peoples to good and prevent peoples from evils.
Prof Dr Nasoha Saabin
May 2012
Integrative Holistic Wellness Centre