Beyond Ethics: The Pinnacle of Divine Intimacy

🌼🔆🌼“Ethics: The Soul of Worship” “The Secret of Loving Entreaty”🌼🔆🌼

🔅🌹 “The True Face of Ethics” “The Secrets of the Highest Virtues” “The Qur’an and Ethics” A summary with supplementary reflections: “Commentary on Supplication 20 of al-Ṣaḥīfa al-Sajjādiyya” “Session 221” and … 1402.10.28 Ali Saei (Abdullah Meshkat) 110.141 (903) 🌹🔅

🌹🔅☘️ بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمنِ الرَّحيمِ ☘️🔅🌹

🔅🌼The mysteries of servitude lie in the highest virtues🌼🔅

🌻وَ هَبْ لِي مَعَالِيَ الْأَخْلَاق‏🌻

🌹A servant who is active and advancing toward ascent is one who must conquer the peaks of virtue one by one and attain the highest virtues.

🌹Virtue is the ladder to meeting God. The closer a person comes to the highest virtues, the nearer they draw to meeting their incomparable Beloved in the loftiest abode.

🌹Let us entrust both our outward form and our character to our Lord. O God, I entrust all that I have to You; adorn me with the highest virtues in both form and character.

🌹Worship without ethics has no meaning, for worship arises from ethics. Ethical worship and worshipful ethics are two equivalent expressions.

🔅🌼Worship without ethics is lifeless🌼🔅

🌹Through ethics we must reach worship, and through worship attain ethics. Yet the finest way to put it is this: ethics is worship, and worship is ethics.

🌹Worship minus ethics is worship minus worship. ʿAbdullāh is the servant adorned with the highest virtues.

🌹Prayer is ethics, and ethics is prayer. Prayer is truly prayer only when it becomes a person’s character, and the person’s soul becomes prayer. In that case, the person’s soul is transformed into prayer.

🌹Each act of worship is a virtue, like prayer, and must be blended with other virtues so that it may rest upon noble character.

🌹Worship is identical with ethics, and ethics with worship. Until prayer becomes a person’s character, it is not prayer in the true sense, but merely a performance of prayer. When prayer becomes ethics, the human soul itself is transformed into prayer, and the worshipper remains constantly at prayer until, in the end, they become one with prayer.

🌹Until fasting becomes a person’s character, they are not truly fasting; they are merely putting on a show of fasting. When fasting becomes their character, true fasting is realised, and they remain continually in a state of fasting—that is, they attain the station of perpetual fasting.

🌹The same is true of remembrance: if remembrance does not become a person’s character, they are not truly one who remembers God, but merely utter the words of remembrance. When remembrance becomes their character, they become one who truly remembers God, constantly. In a sense, the person themselves is transformed into prayer, fasting, and remembrance.

🔅🌼A person must become remembrance, prayer, and fasting🌼🔅

🌹The true worshipper’s spirit and soul are continually in prayer; that is, they are perpetually at prayer, until at last their very soul is transformed into prayer.

🌹A person’s self and soul must be transformed into fasting—that is, fasting must become their settled character. Fasting means remaining with God. When a person breaks their fast with God, God’s servant is always fasting.

🌹When God’s creation attains Godly character, it becomes ʿAbdullāh: its created nature rises toward perfection, and its character toward the highest virtues.

🌹The Qur’an is the wellspring of noble character. A person’s conduct and thoughts should be Qur’anic—or rather, they should themselves embody the Qur’an. We must bring the Qur’an, with all its inner meanings and interpretations, to life within our souls.

🌹When a person’s character is shaped by the Qur’an and the Prophet’s Household, they truly take flight toward the summit of the highest virtues.

🌹Our nourishment from the Qur’an and the Prophet’s Household must be complete, until our very being becomes the land of the Two Weighty Things.

🌹A believer’s thoughts and deeds must be Qur’anic, and ultimately their character must become Qur’anic, so that they may attain the highest virtues. The character of the Messenger of God was the Qur’an. He is a model for all humanity; therefore, by following his example, our character too must become Qur’anic.

🌹The character of believers, too, should be shaped by the Ahl al-Bayt; their very souls should become the Two Weighty Things, and their conduct should reflect them. This is the true meaning of the highest virtues.

🌻🔆Al-Ahzab: 21   لَقَدْ كانَ لَكُمْ في‏ رَسُولِ اللَّهِ أُسْوَةٌ حَسَنَةٌ لِمَنْ كانَ يَرْجُوا اللَّهَ وَ الْيَوْمَ الْآخِرَ وَ ذَكَرَ اللَّهَ كَثيراً

🔆Surely, in the Messenger of God you have an excellent example to follow—for those who look to God’s mercy and the Last Day and remember God often.

🌷🔆قَالَ‏ كَانَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ ص خُلُقُهُ‏  الْقُرْآنَ‏ قَوْلُهُ عَزَّ وَ جَلَ‏ خُذِ الْعَفْوَ وَ أْمُرْ بِالْعُرْفِ وَ أَعْرِضْ عَنِ الْجاهِلِينَ‏ ثُمَّ قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ ص هُوَ أَنْ تَصِلَ مَنْ قَطَعَكَ وَ تُعْطِيَ مَنْ حَرَمَكَ وَ تَعْفُوَ عَمَّنْ ظَلَمَك‏[1]

🌷🔆Imam al-Sadiq, peace be upon him: “The character of the Messenger of God, may God bless him and his family and grant them peace, was the Quran.” This is reflected in the words of Almighty God: “Adopt forgiveness, enjoin what is right, and turn away from the ignorant.”

🔅🌼 Character is religion, and religion is character 🌼🔅

🌹Ethics without religion is sheer immorality, and religion without ethics is sheer irreligion.

🌷🔆وَ فِي رِوَايَةِ أَبِي الْجَارُودِ عَنْ أَبِي جَعْفَرٍ ع‏ فِي قَوْلِهِ‏ وَ إِنَّكَ لَعَلى‏ خُلُقٍ‏ عَظِيمٍ‏ يَقُولُ عَلَى دِينٍ عَظِيمٍ‏ إِنَّا بَلَوْناهُمْ كَما بَلَوْنا أَصْحابَ الْجَنَّةِ إِنَّ أَهْلَ مَكَّةَ ابْتُلُوا بِالْجُوعِ كَمَا ابْتُلِيَ أَصْحَابُ الْجَنَّةِ- وَ هِيَ الْجَنَّةُ الَّتِي كَانَتْ فِي الدُّنْيَا وَ كَانَتْ فِي الْيَمَنِ يُقَالُ لَهَا الرِّضْوَانُ عَلَى تِسْعَةِ أَمْيَالٍ مِنْ صَنْعَاء[2]

🔆… Exalted character is none other than exalted religion.

🔅🌼Faith is the breath of noble character 🌼🔅

🌹Ethics draws breath through faith. Without faith, ethics dies.

🌷🔆قَالَ ابْنُ عَبْدِ الرَّحْمَنِ‏ قَامَ رَجُلٌ إِلَى عَلِيٍّ ع فَسَأَلَهُ عَنِ الْإِيمَانِ قَالَ الْإِيمَانُ عَلَى أَرْبَعَةِ دَعَائِمَ الصَّبْرِ وَ الْيَقِينِ وَ الْعَدْلِ وَ الْجُودِ وَ قَوْلُهُ عَزَّ وَ جَلَ‏ وَ إِنَّكَ لَعَلى‏ خُلُقٍ‏ عَظِيمٍ‏ قَالَ‏ الْإِيمَان‏[3]

🌷🔆Someone asked Imam Ali, peace be upon him, about faith. He replied, “Faith rests upon four pillars: patience, certainty, justice, and generosity.” And the words of God, who says: إِنَّکَ لَعَلی خُلُقٍ عَظِیمٍ This, too, is faith.

🔅🌼Certainty is the mark of noble character 🌼🔅

🌹Ethics flourishes through certainty. It is impossible to separate certainty from ethics.

🌷🔆 وَ إِنَّ الْمُوقِنِينَ لَعَلَى‏ خُلُقٍ‏ عَظِيمٍ‏ قَالَ اللَّهُ تَعَالَى- وَ اعْبُدْ رَبَّكَ حَتَّى يَأْتِيَكَ الْيَقِينُ‏ وَ أَدْنَى حَدِّ الْإِخْلَاصِ بَذْلُ الْعَبْدِ طَاقَتَهُ ثُمَّ لَا يَجْعَلُ لِعَمَلِهِ عِنْدَ اللَّهِ قَدْرا[4]

🔆Those who possess certainty are indeed of noble character…

🌹Ethics is the sum of all the forces of reason.

🔅🌼Islam is the soul of ethics 🌼🔅

🌷🔆عَنْ أَبِي جَعْفَرٍ ع‏ فِي قَوْلِ اللَّهِ عَزَّ وَ جَلَ‏ إِنَّكَ لَعَلى‏ خُلُقٍ‏ عَظِيمٍ‏ قَالَ‏ هُوَ الْإِسْلَامُ‏.

وَ رُوِيَ‏ أَنَّ الْخُلُقَ الْعَظِيمَ هُوَ الدِّينُ الْعَظِيمُ.[5]

🌷🔆Imam al-Baqir, peace be upon him—the verse refers to: إِنَّکَ لَعَلی خُلُقٍ عَظِیمٍ Islam.

🔆It has also been related that “noble character” refers to the great religion.

🔅🌼Let us adorn our worship 🌼🔅

🌹Let us embellish our worship with every kind of ornament. The fragrance of goodness should waft from both body and soul.

🌹The further we stray from the highest virtues, the more our celestial soul withers and the more our lowly, worldly frame grows corpulent.

🌹Our entire being must become goodness, faith, hope, and the like.

🌹Each day, let your prayer and supplication take on a fresh hue and a new grace. Begin by refining the spirit, then the body; pray and supplicate with a new fragrance, fresh colours and patterns, and new attire.

🔅🌼When reason departs, pure servitude departs with it.🌼🔅

🌹Let us beware of reason’s departure. When reason departs, a person’s sense of what is right is turned upside down.

🌹In the sleep of heedlessness, a person mistakes the delirium of falling for ascent, and wakes only after reaching the depths of Saqar.

🌹Drink from the cup of reason; the cup of ignorance traps a person in the nightmare of darkness.

🌹Perhaps the final battle between reason and ignorance is now being fought. We must rise up in reason’s ranks to combat ignorance and its forces.

🌹Today, heedless fools mistake a fall for flight and count moral decline as an achievement. Drunk on the delirium of their own downfall, they will not wake until they have plunged into the depths of Saqar.

🌹When values are turned upside down, people mistake descent for ascent and darkness for light.

🌻🔆Abasa: 24 فَلْيَنْظُرِ الْإِنْسانُ إِلى‏ طَعامِهِ

Noble qualities foster growth

🌷🔆فَقَالَ ع‏ إِنَّمَا بُعِثْتُ‏ لِأُتَمِّمَ‏ مَكَارِمَ الْأَخْلَاق‏[6]

🔆The Prophet of Islam said: “I was sent to perfect noble character.”

🌹Absorb as many noble qualities as you can, and nourish yourselves with knowledge.

🌹The greatest and fiercest battle between reason and ignorance is being fought in our time. We must lend our support to reason’s army. Whoever stands in reason’s ranks will surely stand beside God’s Proof on the day of his advent.

🌻 وَ اعْصِمْنِي مِنَ الْفَخْرِ 🌻

🔆O God, keep me from vanity;

🔅🌼Do not fashion an idol out of yourself.🌼🔅

🌹A boastful fool makes an idol of himself: he worships himself and calls on others to worship him. This kind of invitation is worse than begging.

🌹Boasting burns away one’s faith.

🌹Social media is Dajjal’s thriving marketplace for selling oneself.

🌹Social media is a world of delusion, where people while away their time begging in a marketplace of beggars.

🌹Parading one’s charms is, in a sense, a call for attention—a plea for attention—and, at a higher level, an invitation to worship.

🌹Boasting of one’s virtues debases them. The most sinister kind of boasting is to take pride in one’s faults, sins, vices, failings and ugliness.

🌹Whoever takes pride in this world turns their Hereafter to ashes. Whoever boasts of worldly things sees nothing beyond them and is blind to what lies beyond this world.

🔅🌼To take pride in delusions is to take pride in ignorance.🌼🔅

🌹Boasting of what one does not possess is pride in a mirage, in delusion. How vile it is to boast of having nothing: to take pride in what one lacks spiritually, in shamelessness, immodesty, or a lack of servitude to God.

🌹Whoever bows their head to the world loses sight of the heavens.

🌹Ignorant people turn their unfulfilled wishes into grounds for pride. Social media platforms are mirage-houses for this kind of vainglory.

🌹The end times are an age in which the objects of pride are turned upside down.

🌹The fierce competition to outdo one another in boasting today is a scourge that afflicts families and society.

🌹Pride in what one lacks, in suppressed and unfulfilled wishes—these are the chief ingredients of social media vainglory.

🌹Social media platforms are worlds of falsehood, lies and sleight of hand.

🌹On social media, it is remarkably easy to conceal the tricks of illusionists. Darkness can readily take the place of light.

🌻🔆Al-Ḥadīd: 20   اعْلَمُوا أَنَّمَا الْحَياةُ الدُّنْيا لَعِبٌ وَ لَهْوٌ وَ زينَةٌ وَ تَفاخُرٌ بَيْنَكُمْ وَ تَكاثُرٌ فِي الْأَمْوالِ وَ الْأَوْلادِ كَمَثَلِ غَيْثٍ أَعْجَبَ الْكُفَّارَ نَباتُهُ ثُمَّ يَهيجُ فَتَراهُ مُصْفَرًّا ثُمَّ يَكُونُ حُطاماً وَ فِي الْآخِرَةِ عَذابٌ شَديدٌ وَ مَغْفِرَةٌ مِنَ اللَّهِ وَ رِضْوانٌ وَ مَا الْحَياةُ الدُّنْيا إِلاَّ مَتاعُ الْغُرُورِ

🌻🔆Know that the life of this world is only play and amusement, show and vanity, boasting among yourselves, and rivalry in the increase of wealth and children. It is like rain whose growth delights the tillers; then it dries up, and you see it turn yellow; then it crumbles into straw. In the Hereafter there is severe punishment, or forgiveness and God’s good pleasure. The life of this world is nothing but the enjoyment of delusion.

🔅🌼When reason is blocked, filth and impurity become things to boast about.  🌼🔅

🌻🔆Yūnus: 100   وَ ما كانَ لِنَفْسٍ أَنْ تُؤْمِنَ إِلاَّ بِإِذْنِ اللَّهِ وَ يَجْعَلُ الرِّجْسَ عَلَى الَّذينَ لا يَعْقِلُونَ

🌻🔆Yet no one can believe except by God’s permission, and He lays defilement upon those who do not think.

🌻🔆Al-Ḥajj: 30   ذلِكَ وَ مَنْ يُعَظِّمْ حُرُماتِ اللَّهِ فَهُوَ خَيْرٌ لَهُ عِنْدَ رَبِّهِ وَ أُحِلَّتْ لَكُمُ الْأَنْعامُ إِلاَّ ما يُتْلى‏ عَلَيْكُمْ فَاجْتَنِبُوا الرِّجْسَ مِنَ الْأَوْثانِ وَ اجْتَنِبُوا قَوْلَ الزُّورِ

🌻🔆That is so. Whoever honours the sacred ordinances of God, it is better for him with his Lord. Livestock are lawful for you, except what has been recited to you as forbidden. So shun the impurity of idols and avoid false speech.

🌷🔆قَالَ قَالَ أَمِيرُ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ ع‏ عَجِبْتُ لِابْنِ آدَمَ أَوَّلُهُ‏ نُطْفَةٌ وَ آخِرُهُ جِيفَةٌ وَ هُوَ قَائِمٌ بَيْنَهُمَا وِعَاءً لِلْغَائِطِ ثُمَّ يَتَكَبَّر[7]

🔆Imam ʿAlī, peace be upon him: I marvel at the human being: his beginning is a drop of fluid, his end a corpse, and between them he is a storehouse of excrement—and yet he is arrogant!

🔅🌼God is the one who delights in your pride; take pride in Him.  🌼🔅

🌹If all who boast were to reach tawḥīd, the world would flourish through “the pride of tawḥīd” and “tawḥīd in pride.”

🌹If we attain unity in our pride, we will have reached the highest form of pride.

🌹God alone welcomes your loving pride; take pride in your God.

🌹Take pride only in God, and with God.

🌹You are my pride.

🌷🔆فَأَنَا أَسْالُكَ- يَا سَيِّدِي وَ يَا مَوْلَايَ وَ يَا إِلَهِي وَ يَا قُوَّتِي وَ يَا رَجَائِي وَ يَا كَهْفِي وَ يَا رُكْنِي وَ يَا فَخْرِي‏، وَ يَا عُدَّتِي لِدِينِي وَ دُنْيَايَ وَ آخِرَتِي‏[8]

🌷🔆I beseech You: O my Master, O my Lord, O my God, O my strength, O my hope, O my refuge, O my pillar, O my source of pride, O my provision for my religion, my worldly life, and my Hereafter.

🌹If you wish to step into the realm of the infinite, then take pride in your God and with your God.

🌹O God, I would never sell my service to You at any price.

🌹I take pride in You alone; all creatures and all that exists are Your signs and handiwork. With all Your signs and works, I have come to Your threshold in pride.

🔅🌼If I do not take pride in You, I am no servant of Yours.  🌼🔅

🌷🔆 إِلَهِي كَفَى لِي عِزّاً أَنْ أَكُونَ لَكَ عَبْداً وَ كَفَى بِي‏ فَخْراً أَنْ تَكُونَ لِي رَبّاً أَنْتَ كَمَا أُحِبُّ فَاجْعَلْنِي كَمَا تُحِب‏[9]

🔆O my God, this honour is enough for me: I am Your servant. And this pride is enough for me: You are my Lord. You are as I love You to be, so make me as You love me to be.

🌷🔆 (ما رايت‏ شيئا الا و رأيت اللَّه قبله و بعده)[10]

🔆I have seen nothing without seeing God before it and after it.

🌹My God and Beloved, in You alone and through You alone do I take pride.

🌼Ali Saei (Abdullah Meshkat), 110.141 (903)🌼

[1] مجموعة ورام ؛ ج‏1 ؛ ص89  Warām ibn Abī Firās, Masʿūd ibn ʿĪsā, Maktabat Faqīh – Qom, first edition, 1410 AH.

[2] تفسير القمي ؛ ج‏2 ؛ ص382  Qummī, ʿAlī ibn Ibrāhīm, Dār al-Kitāb – Qom, third edition, 1404 AH.

[3] جامع الأخبار(للشعيري) ؛ ؛ ص36  Shuʿayrī, Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad, Ḥaydarī Press – Najaf, first edition, n.d.

[4] مصباح الشريعة ؛ ؛ ص37  Attributed to Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad (peace be upon him), Aʿlamī – Beirut, first edition, 1400 AH.

[5] معاني الأخبار ؛ النص ؛ ص188  Ibn Bābawayh, Islamic Publications Office affiliated with the Society of Seminary Teachers of Qom – Qom, first edition, 1403 AH.

[6] مكارم الأخلاق ؛ ؛ ص8  Ṭabarsī, Ḥasan ibn Faḍl, Sharīf Raḍī – Qom, fourth edition, 1412 AH / 1370 SH.

[7] علل الشرائع ؛ ج‏1 ؛ ص276  Ibn Bābawayh, Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī, Dāvarī Bookshop – Qom, first edition, 1385 SH / 1966 CE.

[8] الدروع الواقية ؛ ؛ ص251  Ibn Ṭāwūs, ʿAlī ibn Mūsā, Āl al-Bayt Foundation (peace be upon them) – Beirut, first edition, 1415 AH / 1995 CE.

[9] الخصال ؛ ج‏2 ؛ ص420  Ibn Bābawayh, Society of Seminary Teachers – Qom, first edition, 1362 SH.

[10] درخشان پرتوى از اصول كافى ؛ ج‏1 ؛ ص115  Kulaynī, Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb – Ḥusaynī Hamadānī Najafī, ʿIlmiyya Press of Qom – Qom, first edition, 1363 SH.