Understanding Suffering & Calamity: A Sufi Perspective

A sacred saying conveys, "The method of God, Glorious and Mighty, is to call worshippers to obedience toward Him by giving signs of His Bounty and constant forgiveness, so that they may return to Him through His Grace. If they do not return to Him, He makes them suffer afflictions and injuries so that they may return; this is because His goal, the Glorious and Mighty, is return of the slave to Him, whether willingly or unwillingly."

On the surface of the argument it might seem that we are, here, trying to make sense of the seemingly senseless. On delving a bit deeper into the structure and reality of existential phenomena, one would realize the relevance and stark veracity of the aforementioned words. In an attempt to understand the dynamics of change, vis a vis the ups and downs and vicissitudes of life compounded with the contrariness of existence with respect to the opposites that comprise the whole, we need to refer to some aspects of the knowledge of the Real. The life of the world is experienced through an interplay of opposing elements. For instance, we know life for we also experience death, night because we have seen the daylight, sorrow that is the lack of happiness, health that is the absence of disease, and mercy as against wrath. These apparent opposites infact complement each other and produce the fullness of experience.Life is neither a linear progression nor a one-dimensional scope of being; it is infact a multi-dimensional, holistic experience of Reality. We as human beings are the protagonists in this screen-play of existence, where the story develops through a very real working-relationship between the Producer and the actors. There is a Hadith Qudsi through which Allah informs, "I was a hidden treasure;I longed to be known and therefore I created creation". This establishes the primary objective of creation. Allah’s longing to be known. There is further evidence in the Holy Quran to support this idea, "And I [Allah] created not the jinn and mankind except that they should worship Me[alone]," 51:56. In order to worship Allah we need to know Him as well. Another verse of the Holy Quran describes the nature of the life of this world as nothing but play and amusement for a while. Yet another found repeatedly among the verses says "and surely your return is unto Us". This is to provide a basic back-drop to our discourse. Having seen that Allah created the human being for the purpose of His realization, we also understand that the life of the world is only a passage to the Goal. Just as an experiment needs the environment and provisions of a laboratory to be actuated, likewise the world is the laboratory for actualising realization.


This brings us to the second point in our discussion. The shahadah, "La ilaha illallah", "There is no God only Allah", is the summation of Real Knowledge. Here we become aware of the essential Unity of the Real Being. Religion says that know that the Lord, God is only One. By creating the universe, causes multiplicity to appear from unity. He displays the potentialities of existence implied by His own "names and attributes" "asma wa sifaat", in an infinite universe. Thereby, the creatures of this universe make manifest the nature of their Creator. All opposition and strife express the boundless range of God’s perfection. The richness of the Divine Reality can only appear outside of Itself in a domain of infinite differentiation. The contrasting and conflicting things of the world can, however, never achieve the stillness and peace of the Divine unless they return to the state of Oneness.

This brings us to yet another significant point in our observation i.e separation and union with the Divine. Distress is nothing but intensity of need. When we experience the lack of something that we need badly, we experience distress. The basic and most real need of the human being is God. When we are distant from Him, we do not know Him, then we are distraught and devastated. Actually, the veils that separate us from the Truth, make us believe that our distress is related to other various objects or situations. In reality it is the only one real tragedy that is alienation from the Real or God that underlies all other tragedies. What is called for here is a drastic shift in perspective. The point of reference is the Divine and not the human individual. We as human beings are auxiliaries as compared to the Real. We are the contingent beings related to the One True Existence. So infact there is no individual, separate existence; there is only a single, collective experience of consciousness. The so-called individual soul is just a fragment of the Universal Soul. When the individual consciousness re-aligns itself with the Universal Consciousness, which we may refer to as "Union", then there is true surrender and at this point all the opposition and strife converges into a transcendent Whole.

We now approach the cause and purpose of suffering. The archetypes of all plurality are reduced to the two Divine Attributes of "Beauty and Majesty" or "Mercy" and "Wrath". There is no pure mercy or pure wrath in the created domain. Whenever mercy displays it’s signs within creation, there will also be manifestations of wrath and vice versa. For instance the killing of a murderer would be an act of mercy for the potential victims, but the killing itself an act of wrath. In the world as we experience it, things pertaining to the external and material realms tend to manifest wrath more directly, whereas the closer we move to the spiritual world, the closer we come to the world of mercy. Maulana Rumi says, "This world is the house of God’s severity", which is to say that the other world is the House of God’s Gentleness. We, thus, understand that God’s wrath is associated with the world’s distance from God. This wrath too derives from God’s mercy and leads back to it. A famous Prophetic saying tells us that God’s mercy takes precedence over His wrath, which is to say that God’s essential nature is mercy and gentleness, and that wrath and severity pertain to the domain of created things.All things emanate from mercy and all will return to mercy in the end.

Afflictions are things that strike men whom God loves, for "of all men the most sorely tried are the prophets, after them the saints, then those who resemble them, closely or remotely." So in suffering one must not be downcast since this happens most often to people of sincerity and love, to cause them to go forward toward their Lord. By this suffering hearts are purified and transformed into pure substance. Lacking such encounters with reality, no one would reach the knowledge of God, for it is said, "if there were no arenas for souls, the runners would not be able to run their course." Ibn AtaIllah in his Hikam says, "In the variety of signs and changing states I came to recognize Thine intention in regard to me, that of showing me all things, so that there might be nothing in which I would not know Thee". In the same sense it is said by travelers on the Path, "It is in times of upheaval that men stand out from amongst men". The Quran says: Do the people reckon that they will be left in peace because they say "we believe", and that they will not be tried. When Hazrat Umar r.a was once asked "what do you wish?", he answered, "whatever God decides." And Hazrat Abdul Qadir Jillani said , "It is not my part, if trials come my way, to turn away from them, nor if I am flooded with joy, to abandon myself to it. For I am not one of those who, for the loss of one thing are consoled by another; I wish for nothing less than the All." Ibn AtaIllah again says in his Hikam, "May the pain of trial be lightened for you by the knowledge that it is He, be He exalted, who is trying you."

There is no doubt that for the men of God their best moment is the moment of distress, for this is what fosters their growth. Ibn AtaIllah also says, "The best of your moments is that in which you are aware of your distress and thrown back upon your own helplessness, it maybe that in distress you will find benefits that you have been unable to find either in prayer or in fasting." Some spiritual masters have gone as far as to say that satisfaction is a limitation, and distress as in "need" is a launching pad to success for it instigates the afflicted to go forward on the Path to His Lord.

From another point of view we observe that the knowledge of God turns trials aside from us, as it did for the prophets and the saints [upon them be peace and prayer]. God says in the Quran, "We said to the fire: O Fire be coolness and protection for Abraham. They set a trap for him, but we made them the losers and saved him." God also says, "And it is said to those who fear God: what did God bring down? They answer : that which is good" 16:30, and this inspite of the great trials that God brings down on them alone, out of love and attention for them. The Quran consoles by saying , "if ye have received a wound, be sure that the people received just such a wound before ye." However their knowledge of God and absorption in contemplating the infinity of His Essence makes them indifferent to good and evil. Their look is turned only upon their Lord; just as they see Him in rejoicing, so do they see Him in grief, since He it is at the same time the Cause of rejoicing and of punishment.

Ibn AtaIllah says, "When He gives He causes you to contemplate His Kindness and when He withholds He shows His Victorious Power "Qahr". He it is throughout Who makes Himself known to you and Who in His Mercy, comes closer to you."

Written by Naila Amat-un-Nur
13.10.2005