The Fitra Lessons 3/4 – Dr Umar Faruq Abd Allah
Dr Umar expounds further on the concept of the Fitra, how it ties to the Primordial Covenant, and how natural and easy it is to believe in Allah.
“Truly, Allah will say to the person of the People of the Fire whose punishment is the lightest: ‘If you had everything that is in the Earth will you pay it as a ransom to rid yourself of this punishment?’ The disbeliever will say: ‘Yes.’ Then Allah will say: ‘But what I asked of you when you were in the loins of Adam [peace be upon him] was much lighter than this. Namely, that you not associate anything with me. Yet your refused to do anything but associate others with me.’” (Bukhari)
Faith Is Easy
What this Hadith tells us is that it is easy to be a Muslim. It is easier to believe than it is to disbelieve. The Qur’an (Sura al Haqqa 69:41) says of the disbelievers in Makkah:
قَلِيلًا مَّا تُؤْمِنُونَ
[L]ittle do you believe.
This can be understood to mean that they did not believe at all. But some commentators say that, no, it means exactly what it says. That the disbelievers believed a little bit. That they could not go beyond that because of the fact that there are consequences they fear. They might fear for their jobs, careers, friends, and so on.
Truth Rings True to Our Nature
One sees this often with people. You present the truth to them. They accept it a little bit but then think “Uh oh, I‘ve got to get rid of this because it will lead to other things.”
That is also why one of the great signs of tawfiq, of success, is when we have the courage to say that “I will follow the truth.” Yet in the end, it is easy for us to be ourselves, and to believe is to be yourselves.
Allah took the primordial covenant in Na‘man, which is Wadi ‘Arafa. That dry valley we cross upon a long bridge to go from the Haram of Makkah to ‘Arafa. All of us who assemble there by the billions go back to the place you already know.
The Mother of All Towns
You are going back to Umm al Qura: The Mother of all Towns. To the place where the primordial covenant was taken. On that day we heard Allah’s Eternal Speech (Sura al A‘raf 7:172):
أَلَسْتُ بِرَبِّكُمْ
Am I not your Lord?
This Eternal Uncreated Speech connected you to the Infinite Knowledge of Allah. We all heard Him speak on that day. And all that we find beautiful – the glitter of jewelry, the playing of a flute, the song of a bird – we think of it as such because it reminds us, deep down, of the words of Allah on that day. “Am I not your Lord?”
We did not just hear Allah. We saw Him, directly. One on one. Just as we will in the Garden. For the greatest reward of the Garden is to see Allah. As He says in Sura al Qiyama:
وُجُوهٌ يَوْمَئِذٍ نَّاضِرَةٌ
إِلَىٰ رَبِّهَا نَاظِرَةٌFaces, on that Day, will be radiant
Looking at their Lord. (75:22-23)
Dr Umar Faruq Abd Allah taught a series of four lessons based on his book Al Iman Fitra during his visit to Cairo 23-27 February 2018. The lessons were originally recorded and posted online by The Qadriyya Association.
