Voices of Islam (157 page)

Qushayri presents the different kinds of generosity as a progression, with each degree indicating a greater ability to put others before oneself. But in the daily struggle with our interactions with others, the reality seems to be that there are moments where one is capable of giving freely out of what one has and other moments where one can barely manage to act with basic decency. The moments when one prefers another to oneself are rare but defining. Caretakers are often given the advice to take care of themselves first, which is good advice. However, the difficulties of caring for the chronically ill are not fully addressed by this advice; something more is needed that acknowledges the burdens of seemingly unending demands and struggles and one’s feelings of inadequacy in trying to respond to them with at least a modicum of grace. The Sufi writings quoted above offer an elegant aesthetic for behavior, which accepts human weaknesses while pointing toward unexpected possibilities.

To return to the issue of the systems and organizations that exist for pro- viding care and distributing resources, it is hard to imagine a social structure that could function like ‘Attar’s madman. The levels of generosity that Qushayri mentions, however, suggest that the virtue of generosity can be realized in different ways at different times. It is possible to develop organiza- tional structures that encourage and foster responsiveness toward others; caring for the well-being of others cannot be forced, but it can be nurtured at all levels of a hierarchy and in all the nooks and crannies of bureaucracies. While organizational change works best when it is initiated and supported by those with the most power within the organization, it is also possible for any individual at any point in the system, including the petitioner in need, to choose to act with generosity. Every person who has power over another (and, if we take these stories to heart, there is no such thing as a person

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without power) has the choice to exercise that power for self-interest, for justice, or in gratuitous acts of generosity.

THE PRESENCE OF GOD

We began with an imaginary dialogue between God and humanity at the end of time, in which God asks the children of Adam why they did not care for Him when He was ill, hungry, and thirsty. Although from a strict Islamic theological viewpoint, such questions are improper—because God in Islam can never be ill, hungry, or thirsty and is far beyond the need for care—this story makes an important point. It addresses the common human problem of looking for God in the wrong places by suggesting moral localities in which the presence of God can be found. God locates His presence precisely at the point where the corporeal and emotional vulnerability of the human condition meets the anxious, greedy, and selfish human characteristics that so horrified the angels at the time of humanity’s creation. To turn away from the discomfort of the moments when one is asked to respond to the suffering of others is, in a sense, to turn away from the presence of God, thereby dimming one’s potential as a human being. As Sana’i says,

The person who does not turn his face towards the Real— Considers everything he has and knows as an idol.

As for one who turns away from the presence of the Real,

In reality,
32
I cannot say that this person is a human being.
33

In the face of suffering and in being asked to respond to the needs of others, the person of weak faith might ask, ‘‘Where is God?’’ However, for a Muslim, that is the wrong question to ask. When all is said and done, as Sana’i says:

You are you.

From this comes kindness and enmity.

You are you.

From this comes both faith and ingratitude.
34

NOTES

1. Quoted in William A. Graham’s
   Divine Word and Prophetic Word in Early Islam: A Reconsideration of the Sources, with Special Reference to the Divine Saying or
   Hadith Qudsi (The Hague: Mouton, 1977), 179–80. Graham notes the resemblance of this divine saying to Matthew 25:41–45 in the Bible. The translation here is Graham’s, with slight modifications.
   

   Caring for the Ill in Islam
   145
   

2. A
   hadith
   (pl.
   ahadith
   ) is a saying attributed to the Prophet Muhammad. A
   hadith qudsi
   is a saying attributed to Muhammad in which God Himself is said to have spoken.
   

3. Two excellent introductions to the history and thought of Sufism are Carl W. Ernst’s
   The Shambhala Guide to Sufism
   (Boston, Massachusetts: Shambhala, 1997) and Annemarie Schimmel’s
   Mystical Dimensions of Islam
   (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 1975).
   

4. This chapter relies heavily on conversations and experiences I have shared with others, of whom I would particularly like to acknowledge Tahira Sands, Leila Ispahany, Mohammad Mehdi Khorrami, and Samuel Conway.
   

5. The translations of the Qur’an here are drawn from those of A.J. Arberry’s
   The Koran Interpreted
   (New York: Macmillan, 1975); Muhammad Asad’s
   The Message of the Qur’an
   (Gibraltar: Dar al-Andalus, 1984); and Abdalhaqq and Aisha Bewley’s
   The Noble Qur’an: A New Rendering of its Meaning in English
   (Norwich: Bookwork, 1999).
   

6. Farid al-Din ‘Attar,
   Musibatnama,
   8/4. Quoted in Helmut Ritter’s
   The Ocean of the Soul: Man, the World and God in the Stories of Farid al-Din ‘Attar,
   Translated from German by John O’Kane with Editorial Assistance of Bernd Radtke (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 255. I have made one slight change in O’Kane’s translation, substituting ‘‘madman’’ for the word ‘‘fool.’’ The Persian word is
   divaneh
   .
   

7. Patients’ Bill of Rights, New York State Hospital Code Section 405.7. This Bill of Rights is posted throughout hospitals in New York State.
   

8. Joseph A. Amato,
   Victims and Values: A History and a Theory of Suffering
   

   (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1990), 89.
   

9. The term ‘‘theodicy’’ was coined by the philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (d. 1716) to refer to ‘‘the attempt to demonstrate that divine justice remains uncompromised by the manifold evils of existence,’’ Eric L. Ormsby,
   Theodicy in Islamic Thought: The Dispute over Al-Ghazali’s ‘‘Best of All Possible Worlds’’
   (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1984), 3.
   

10. See, for example, Brian Hebblethwaite’s
    Evil, Suffering and Religion
    

    (London, U.K.: SPCK, 2000), 5–6.
    

11. Fyodor Dostoevsky,
    The Brothers Karamazov,
    translated and annotated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1990), 287 (Part II, Book V, Chapter 4).
    

12. Ahmad Ghazzali,
    Sawanih: Inspirations from the World of Pure Spirits,
    

    trans. Nasrollah Pourjavady (London, U.K.: KPI Limited, 1986), 44.
    

13. The word translated here as ‘‘trouble’’ is
    kabad.
    Muhammad Asad notes that it comprises the concepts of ‘‘pain,’’ ‘‘distress,’’ ‘‘hardship,’’ ‘‘toil,’’ and ‘‘trial’’ (
    The Message of the Qur’an,
    952 n.3). The word for liver,
    kabid,
    which comes from the same Arabic root, was considered the source of the passions and even enmity in pre- modern Arab culture. See E.W. Lane,
    Arabic-English Lexicon
    (Cambridge, U.K.: The Islamic Texts Society, 1984), 2:2584.
    

14. Munajat: The Intimate Prayers of Khwajah ‘Abd Allah Ansari,
    trans. Law- rence Morris and Rustam Sarfeh (New York: Khaneghah and Maktab of Maleknia Naseralishah, 1975), 39. The
    Munajat
    has also been translated into English in
    Ibn ‘Ata’ illah: The Book of Wisdom and Khwaja Abdullah Ansari: Intimate
    

    146
    Voices of Life: Family, Home, and Society
    

    Conversations,
    trans. Victor Danner and Wheeler M. Thackston (New York: Paulist Press, 1978).
    

15. Quoted in Ritter,
    The Ocean of the Soul
    , from
    Hilyat al-awliya’ wa-tabaqat al- asfi ’
    of Abu Nu‘aym Ahmad b. ‘Abd Allah al-Isbahani (d. 1038
    CE
    ), 10/270; and
    Sharh al-Hikam
    of Muhammad b. Ibrahim b. ‘Abbad al-Nafzi al-Rundi (d. 1390
    CE
    ), commentary on the text
    al-Hikam
    of Abu’l-Fadl Ahmad b. Muhammad Ibn ‘Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari (d. 1309
    CE
    ), 1/32.
    

16. Jalal al-Din al-Rumi,
    Mathnawi,
    6:1733–1735, trans. William C. Chittick in
    The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi
    (New York: State University of New York Press, 1983), 57.
    

17. When the Qur’an criticizes entire communities, it is such beliefs, attitudes, and actions that are being criticized. The terms ‘‘one who submits’’ (
    muslim
    ) and ‘‘one who is faithful’’ (
    mu’min
    ) are used to describe the adherents of several faiths. Similarly, Sufi writings are replete with references to the idolatry, hypocrisy, and infidelity that Sufis locate within themselves.
    

18. Shirk
    means to associate anything or anyone with the Absolute, which is God.
    

19. Lane,
    Arabic-English Lexicon
    , 2:2620.
    

20. Peter Lamborn Wilson and Nasrollah Pourjavady, trans.,
    The Drunken Universe: An Anthology of Persian Sufi Poetry
    (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Phanes Press, 1987), 65.
    

21. The Persian word translated as ‘‘humility,’’
    zari,
    also means ‘‘lamentation,’’ or ‘‘cry for help.’’
    

22. Hakim Sana’i,
    The Walled Garden of Truth,
    trans. David Pendlebury (New York: E.P.Dutton, 1976), 18. Pendlebury’s work is an abridgement and revised trans- lation of Major J. Stephenson’s translation and edited Persian text of
    The First Book of the Hadiqatu’l-Haqiqat
    (New York: Samuel Weiser, 1970). This selection from Sana’i appears on pages 42 (English translation) and 27 (Persian text) of Stephenson’s work.
    

23. The concept of ‘‘thinking well’’ (
    husn al-zann
    ) of people and of God is a common expression in Sufi writings. See Schimmel,
    Mystical Dimensions of Islam,
    118, 128.
    

24. Sana’i,
    The Walled Garden of Truth,
    trans. Pendlebury, 23; Stephenson,
    Hadiqatu’l-Haqiqat,
    English 59, Persian text 37. I have modifi Pendlebury’s translation here.
    

25. Ansari,
    Munajat,
    trans. Morris and Sarfeh, 45. I have made slight modifications in the translation. For the impoliteness of pointing out God’s part in the moral failings of human beings, see also
    The Mathnawi of Jalalu’ddin Rumi,
    Translated by Reynold A. Nicholson (London, U.K.: Luzac, 1972), 1:1488–1494.
    

26. Sana’i,
    The Walled Garden of Truth,
    trans. Pendlebury, 17. See also Sana’i,
    Hadiqatu’l-Haqiqat,
    trans. Stephenson, 37 (English translation) and 24 (Persian text).
    

27. Sana’i,
    The Walled Garden of Truth,
    trans. Pendlebury, 26. See also Sana’i,
    Hadiqatu’l-Haqiqat,
    trans. Stephenson, 63 (English translation) and 40 (Persian text).
    

28. Abu al-Qasim al-Qushayri,
    Sufi Book of Spiritual Ascent (Al-Risala al- Qushayriya
    ), trans. Rabia Teri Harris, ed., Laleh Bakhtiar (Chicago, Illinois: ABC
    

    Caring for the Ill in Islam
    147
    

    International Group, 1997), 231–232. There is another partial English translation of this work by Barbara R. von Schlegell,
    Principles of Sufi m
    (Berkeley: Mizan Press, 1992).
    

29. Al-Qushayri,
    Sufi Book of Spiritual Ascent,
    235. 30. Ibid., 240.
    

1. Farid al-Din ‘Attar,
   Ilahinama,
   14/20. Quoted in Ritter’s
   The Ocean of the Soul,
   254–255.
   

2. There is a play on words here, in repeating the word Sufis frequently use to refer to God, ‘‘the Real’’ (
   al-Haqq
   ) with the emphasis of the phrase ‘‘in reality’’ (
   bi-l-haqq
   ).
   

3. Sana’i,
   Hadiqatu’l-Haqiqat,
   trans. Stephenson, 29 (English translation) and 18 (Persian text). I have modified Stephenson’s translation here.
   

4. Sana’i,
   The Walled Garden of Truth,
   trans. Pendlebury, 19; and
   Hadiqatu’l- Haqiqat,
   trans. Stephenson, 43 (English translation) and 28 (Persian text). The trans- lation here is my own.
   

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