A Sense of Belonging and Deserving
Do you know who I am?” “How could he talk to me like that?” All of us have heard or used these phrases or made similar statements. Due to our own inflated self image, we feel that we deserve to be treated with certain level of honor, respect, and reverence. Often times, this malady effects those people who appear to be very pious. Because Allah gave us the taufique to pray salat regularly, grow a beard, or wear hijab, we act as if we are Allah’s gift to mankind. We begin to expect certain treatment from others and sometimes regard them as lower than ourselves due to them not performing as many aamal as us.
What we fail to realize is that the taufique to do any good deed is solely through the Mercy of Allah Ta’ala and the barakah of our Mashaaikh. None of our kamal is from ourselves. If Allah wanted to he could snatch the ability to do any good deed away from us instantly.
Regarding oneself to be great is extremely dangerous. One of the duas that Nabi (Sallallahu alaihi wasallam) taught us was “Allahumaj ‘alnee fee ‘aynee sagheera wa fee ‘ayunin naasi kabeera.” Oh Allah make us small in our own eyes and large in the eyes of the people. If one considers themselves to be small, they would never expect anything from anyone.
The root cause of this feeling of superiority is the atom bomb of pride. Pride is so dangerous that the one having even an atom’s weight of it in their heart will not enter Jannah. The way of curing this disease is for us to humble ourselves in front of the people that we feel are not treating us according our status. We should go out of our way to go say Salaam first to these people, make dua for them and request duas from them, and to get gifts for them if possible. By lowering ourselves in front of the one’s we feel disrespected by, InshAllahu Ta’ala this disease will leave our hearts.
We are not deserving of a single ni’mat yet Allah Ta’ala created us as humans, then made us from the Ummat of Nabi (Sallallahu alaihi wasallam), then gave us concern for deen, and then gave us the ability do to good deeds. Rather than worry about what we deserve from the makhlooq, we should ponder over what level of love and obedience the Khaliq deserves from us, and focus on trying to fulfill His Rights.
Once Maulana Thanvi (Rahimahumullah) took an oath in the state of fasting that “I consider myself at present to be worst of all Muslims, and in terms of the future, worse than all humans.” If such a great man thought of himself in those terms, what right do we have to think of ourselves as so great?
Mitaana kya hai? Paana hai.
Paana kya hai? Mitaana hai.
Ref:annoor.wordpress.com
