Earthly Life and its worthless pleasures (II)
Yes. There are pleasures in madness which none but the mad man knows. Talk of the wonders in our world; the world of the Almighty. Hardly are we prepared to acknowledge that insanity has its usefulness; that, in line with Aristotle, “no great mind ever existed without a touch of madness. Is it not an […]
Yes. There are pleasures in madness which none but the mad man knows. Talk of the wonders in our world; the world of the Almighty. Hardly are we prepared to acknowledge that insanity has its usefulness; that, in line with Aristotle, “no great mind ever existed without a touch of madness. Is it not an irony in our life that it is they who are mad that are chained; that it is equally they who become ‘mad’ in whose memory statues are erected!
Of pleasures I remember at least three typologies in Islamic hermeneutics; the typologies of pleasures in this world of yours; and mine. The first are pleasures that are precedent to pain; earthly pleasures that are inhibitive of eternal pleasures. The pleasures in iniquities, in fornication and adultery; the pleasure in alcoholism. (al-Ahqaaf 46:20).
The second are pleasures that are precedent to pain but are inhibitive of eternal pleasures. They are pleasures of the negligent; pleasures that earn no reward but ultimately deprive the former of healthy living here on earth. Examples include going to extremes in food consumption, drinking and copulation. These are pleasures that become pain for lack of moderation.
The third type of pleasure in your world and mine are actions commanded by the Almighty and His prophets in which lie real pleasures and for which the believer stand to gain reward here and in the hereafter. For example, in a tradition reported by Anas, the messenger of the Almighty is reported to have said: “…In your intercourse with your wife, there is reward.” They said, “O Messenger of the Almighty, would people earn reward for engaging in copulation despite the fact that it is a form of pleasure? He said, “Do you not see that if you do that in a unlawful way, will you not be punished for it? So if you do it in a lawful way, you will be rewarded.”
I later checked our heritage for possible insight into this important question. I travelled back to the glorious era of the great Umayyad ruler, Harun al-Rashid. Al-Rashid was a ruler who, unlike dealers of today, valued the companion of intellectuals and men of wisdom. He once sat on his throne and suddenly felt the need to take water. He thereafter requested a cup of water. But just before he put the cup on his mouth, one of the scholars in the palace pleaded with him to wait a minute. He then asked the Caliph: “what would happen if you were told you would only be able to drink this water if you offer half of your kingdom as ransom”. Al-Rashid looked the scholar in the eyes and said: “Yea! I would not mind that at all. I would be willing to stake half of my kingdom in order to take this water”. Some moments thereafter, the scholar requested for the attention of al-Rashid again: “Dear Caliph, what would happen if you were told that that water would not be allowed to pass out of your body unless you ransom yourself with the other half of your kingdom?” The Caliph then paused some moments and then said: “Yea! I wouldn’t think twice to ransom myself with the other half of my kingdom if that would guarantee my health”. The scholar then said: “Dear Caliph, what pleasure then lies in a world which does not worth more than half a cup of water?”
The moral in this sermon today is this: most things people yearn for in this world are in fact worthless when compared with what await us in the next; that this world is really like a piece of ice left out in the sun – it is destined to melt and vanish.
Brethren, one of the companions of al-Rasul once said: “If three most enjoyable things were not there, I could not bear to live in this world, even for a day: the joy of spending a hot summer noon in thirst (while fasting), the bliss of lying prostrate before the Almighty in the later part of the night (tahajjud) and the pleasure of sitting in company of the pious whose conversation is interspersed with wise sayings that are picked like fruits of one’s choice from a fruit-garden.”
“A man came to the Prophet (saws) and said, ‘Oh Messenger of the Almighty! Guide me to such an action, that when I do it, the Almighty will love me and the people will love me. He said, be detached from this world and then He will love you and do not be attracted to what people have and then the people will love you’’. The moment a man dies in our world two statements are usually uttered. People in the society would say: “What has he left behind?” and the angels would say: ‘What has he sent forward?’