Surat al-Hadid Tafsir¶

Please reflect for a moment on these excerpts from the publication "Beams of Illumination from the Divine Revelation" by Shaykh Fadhlalla:

The Eye of Ḥaqīqah and the Eye of Sharī’ah¶

Everything is divine. If we view everything with the vision of divinity within us, if we look through the eye of the Creator within us, we find that everything is perfect, and if we do not do this, then everything appears unjust. If we see things with a low, base vision of life we find that everything is imperfect. We are, however, given numerous opportunities to serve the highest ends and to polish ourselves. When we look through the eye of sharī‘ah, everything may appear to be in a dreadful state. Therefore, an opportunity is given to us according to our situation to serve, to do good, to help, to work, to improve others, and to uphold true Islamic values. If we look through the eye of the ḥaqīqah, then everything is perfect. There are transgressions, there are failings, and things may appear miserable, but everything is nevertheless in perfection. We are the barzakh (the inter-space, the meeting point) of both possibilities; we contain them both.

Knowledge Already Exists Within¶

Man’s purpose is to dispel ignorance. Knowledge already exists within. Knowledge is from Allah’s Attribute of al-‘Alīm, the Knower. This Attribute is never absent, so one’s task is simply to strip away ignorance. Divine knowledge (al-‘ilm al-ladunī) is already within us, and to arrive at it we must learn prescriptive outer knowledge and proper courtesy, which are all based on the prophetic practices of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).