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| Reward for a pleasant Islamic duty |
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| Abu_Atheek |
| 03/05/03 at 01:27:48 |
| [slm] [center]Reward for a pleasant Islamic duty [i]By Adil Salahi[/i][/center] We have so far highlighted the importance of fostering ties of kinship and treating relatives with kindness, compassion and understanding. We have pointed out that kinship is linguistically related to the divine attribute of mercy, compassion and grace. For this reason, God promises to maintain His bond with the person who fosters his own ties of kinship and to cut off the one who severs them. We spoke about the attitude of a person who rebuffs his kind relatives. The Prophet (peace be upon him) promises the rebuffed one support from God while his unkind relative will deeply regret his own attitude. The Prophet describes his regret as that of a person who has nothing to eat but burning ashes. However, all this is in the hereafter. While the reward and the punishment of the hereafter are, to a believer, very real, it is often the case that people tend to overlook them in favor of something which seems much more immediate, taking place in this present life. Endowed with a unique insight into the working of the human mind, the Prophet does not forget to tell us that fostering ties of kinship will yield for us some of its fruits in this world. Anas ibn Malik quotes the Prophet as saying: "Whoever loves to have an increase in his provisions and to live longer should foster his ties of kinship". This Hadith is related twice by Al-Bukhari in his Saheeh in almost identical words, but with different chains of reporting. It is also related by Muslim and Abu Dawood. Al-Bukhari also relates in his book Al-Adab Al-Mufrad the following Hadith on the authority of Abdullah ibn Umar who quotes the Prophet as saying: "Whoever fears his Lord and fosters his ties of kinship will live longer, have more wealth and will be loved by his family". Both Hadiths speak of material reward. It comes in the two things which are loved most by human beings - money and long life. To a Muslim, everything that he earns is given to him by God. It is not his work or his trade or his luck which gives him whatever money he may have. It is God who has enabled him to work and to go about his business. On the other hand, "luck" has no entry in the Islamic lexicon. Nothing just happens out of the blue. God states in the Qur'an: "We have created everything according to a definite measure". The idea of luck, then, does not come into it in any way. What these Hadiths tell us is that God will give us more provisions when we foster our ties of kinship. The Arabic term translated here as "provisions" is much more comprehensive in meaning. It means wealth, money and income, as well as whatever material things a person may earn. In other words, a person who is kind to his relatives and fosters his ties with them will enjoy a more comfortable living in this world. We have to remember that what the Prophet promises will come true. He does not say things of his own accord. His sayings are revelations given to him, and he expresses them in his own words. Any promise given by the Prophet, then, is a promise made by God. The other part of the reward expressed in these Hadiths is a longer life. This is expressed in the Hadith in a rather unusual way. It may be translated literally as: "Anyone who loves to have his trace delayed, etc." The term "trace" is used in classical Arabic to refer to one's life. In its more restricted use, trace refers to the marks a person leaves on the ground when he walks. If he dies, he cannot move and his feet leave no trace. The word is used to denote the end of one's life because it follows a person's age. When his age is over, he cannot leave any further trace. When his trace is delayed, then this means that his life is made longer. The term may also be used to denote how a person is remembered. Within the general context of our topic, this means that a person who fosters his ties of kinship will have goodly and dutiful children who will pray for him after his death. They will always remember him in their prayers and supplicate that God may forgive him his sins. It may also mean that God will bless him by not allowing his mind to deteriorate when he attains to old age. He may also bless his knowledge, offspring and his time so that he utilizes his time for what is beneficial to him and those around him. If he is further given the blessing of dutiful children he is indeed very happy. When they remember him after his death they will only remember his good actions and his kindness. All these are forms of "delayed trace" which also means a longer life. Whether we take the meaning of a longer life literally or figuratively, the Prophet's promise comes true. A question may be raised here that if our wealth and income and our lives in this world are predetermined, how is it that fostering our ties of kinship will give us an increase in both? In order to understand this we need to remember that certain angels carry out God's commands in respect to what He has determined for us. Some of these angels may have special tasks assigned to them. For example, the Angel of Death is the one charged with causing us to die at the moment appointed for each one of us. Angels do what God bids them without questioning. They do not know anything beyond what God has told them. God's knowledge, on the other hand, is complete, perfect, absolute. He may issue His command to the Angel of Death telling him that a person is allowed to live, say, 60 years if he is unkind to his relatives, but if he is kind to them and fosters his ties with them, he is allowed to live 70 years. The increase here is a real one to the Angel of Death. He does not know beforehand whether that person will be kind to his relatives or not. He carries out God's order according to what he sees of that person. On the other hand, God knows, even before that person comes into being, whether he will be kind or unkind to his relatives. Therefore, He knows exactly how long he will live on earth even before he is born. There is nothing which comes into God's knowledge as a result of any particular happening. The actual increase, then, is in relation to the Angel's knowledge and to our own knowledge. We should take the Prophet's promise literally because its effect on us is literal. If we are unkind to our relatives, our income may be at a certain level. But if we are kind to them, its level is higher. It is our action which brings us this increase in income. God knows beforehand what we will have. However, His knowledge does not interfere with our attitude and its results. The second Hadith quoted above adds another aspect of reward, namely, love by one's family. No one likes not to be loved by others. Nothing ensures that one is loved more than kindness. It is in the nature of human beings that they love those who are kind to them. It is only natural, therefore, that a kind relative will be dearly loved by all his relatives. The Hadiths which we have looked at so far tell us that he will also enjoy a happy life in the hereafter. That makes the reward too rich to be missed. [i]"Islam in Perspective" - Arab News - 01 May 1998[/i] |
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