Islams Reformers

love Allâhu ta’âlâ considering Him only as merciful, bountious and
not to fear His wrath and punishments means to consider Him
weak like a ruler who is unable to operate the law or like the
parents who spoil their children by doing what they wish. Those
who make progress in a path of tasawwuf, when they are suffused
in His attribute of Jalâl (Severity), can not think of the Divine
Mercy or of the love of Allâhu ta’âlâ, and when His attribute of
Jamâl (Beauty) surrounds them, they forget about the torture in
Hell and the fear of Allâhu ta’âlâ; in these states called ecstacy of
tasawwuf, they utter words slighting love or fear, respectively, but
when they recover, they repent for such words.
The âyats “Those who work should work for these very
happinesses!” (sûrat as-Sâffât, 61) and “Those who compete one
another should compete for this,” (sûrat al-Mutaffifîn, 26) order to
work willingly for the blessings in Paradise.
Ahmed Mithat, a so-called modernist reformer, in his book
Nizâ-i ’Ilm ve Dîn (The Disputes Between Knowledge and
Religion), tries to flout the belief in the Rising Day, which is a
fundamental of îmân, while he represents each of the blessings of
Paradise such as food, drinks and houris as concepts pleasing one’s
greed and materialistic desires. It is glaringly evident that the
religion reformers, whose sole concern in this worldly life is to run
after these pleasures, who castigate the Islamic scholars because
they do not state that the religious practices also should be
intended to attain these worldly pleasures, and who say that
people should devote themselves to worship in order to attain
these worldly pleasures, which, to them, are more attractive, more
delicious and more effective than anything else, expostulate about
the existence of these pleasures in Paradise for the purpose of
maligning the Sharî’at. Such unpleasant allusions to Islamic
scholars, who struggled to get Muslims absorbed in performing
’ibâdât in order that they might attain the blessings of Paradise
and escape punishment in Hell, have been seen so often. For
example, a Bektâshî said:
“Whenever a zâhid [1] mentions Paradise,
He talks about eating and drinking.”
Such words direct unplesant allusions to the eighteenth âyat of
[1] A person who has much zuhd, i.e. who has freed his heart from
whatever is worldly.
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