From: RCIRIT%DENVER@VAXF.Colorado.EDU (REMZI CIRIT)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: AL-MU'IZZ, AL-MUDHILL (God in Islam-11)
Date: 25 Dec 1992 19:29:50 -0600
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

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 AL-MU'IZZ, AL-MUDHILL

         He is the one who honots and the one who humiliates.
         In honor and humiliation there is the implication of rais-
         ing and lowering. The one who has honor has received a state
         of pride and dignity ('iz~ah). But this state of pride and
         dignity obtained from Allah, the One who Honors, is very
         different from the pride that man imagines he deserves
         (kibr). The pride and dignity of the one who is honored by
         Allah is not pride in himself, but respect paid to the honor
         given him, and to the One who gives honor.
         Indeed, he is still a human being. He needs to eat and
         drink--and he does that lawfully, and in good measure. For
         Allah, as part of the honor He has bestowed upon him, has
         given him the wisdom and joy of obtaining the necessities
         and enjoyments of this world with His good pleasure. Such a
         servant of Allah will not stray from Allah's permission and
         pleasure even if it means death for him, because within the
         gift of the Honorer to the honored is a safeguard against the
         disgrace of the divine gift.
         However, the honor that one attributes to oneself or that
         is attributed to one by other creatures of Allah is a curse that
         distorts one's reality, making one imagine that one is in a
         state other than one's own. Knowledge of oneself leads one
         to one's Lord. But imagining oneself to be other than one's
         real self leads one to the Devil. His feature is arrogance, the
         cause of his expulsion from Allah's presence. That was the
         first act of Allah in His manifestation of the Humiliator.
         Then there are those who have neither the dignity and
         honor awarded by Allah nor false pride that they make up
         themselves, but who are undignified, shameless and dis~
         graceful. Their hearts are on fire with the ambition of this
         world. No good comes from them to anything or anyone
         because they are selfish and stingy. There is no limit to the
         degree to which they will humble themselves to beg for the
         goods of this world. They are guilty of shirk, attributing
         equals to Allah, because they take those temporal hands that
         throw bones to them as their gods.
         The one who asks and hopes from Allah alone knows that
         all honor is His and can come only from Him. Those who
         think they are the fashioners of their own destinies and can
         get what they want by themselves, who seek the praise of
         creatures and are arrogant--these are the followers of the
         Devil. They will receive the punishment of the Devil, and
         will be expelled from the presence and the care of Allah.
         The ones who lower themselves and worship creatures,
         hoping to receive good from them, will be further humiliated
         by Allah, and tyrannized by those creatures whom they take
         for their temporal gods.

         'Abd al-Mu'izz is honored with the friendship of Allah,
         thus rising to the highest summit of honor and fortune, and
         appearing so to the whole creation.

         'Abd al-Mudhill is he who is made an example of degrada-
         tion. Often Allah manifests His attribute of abaser in His
         enemies.
fwd by Remzi cirit

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