Peace and Blessing,

Bismi’llah ar-Rahman, ar-Rahim

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate

People often wonder, “Why are there troubles in the world?”

You should know that in the deep way troubles are necessary.  What do I mean by this, “in the Deep Way?”

Two ways exist to look at our existence.  We can see with the outer vision.  This is looking with a very literal interpretation of what happens.  For example, we see a person who is angry and screaming at another person or we see a violent tornado that destroys a persons home.

When we look with the outer eye (the literal view) we first see someone one doing something bad and wrong. A person is angry and they are abusing someone else.  When we look with the outer eye, this is indeed true.  A person should not get angry and should not scream at someone else.

However, if we look with the inner eye, perhaps the person being screamed at needs this experience.  Perhaps Allah is testing them.  Maybe they are being trained to have compassion even when someone is doing something they don’t like.

What about the second example.  When we look with the outer eye at a tornado destroying someones home we see that as wrong, a tragedy.  Having your home destroyed cannot be good we say.  A person will be put into a difficult place.

Yet, once again if we look with the inner eye we once again can see that there could be something good come out of what might seem a tragedy.  Perhaps the person will turn to God more. Maybe they will have extreme thankfulness that their life was spared.  It could once again be a test from God.  Is the person too attached to the outer world, the dunya?

Muhammad al-Jamal writes in his Music of the Soul about the first example:

All the troubles in the world are necessary.  If there was no darkness, how could there be light.  If you did not see sadness, how could you see happiness.  Be courteous to everyone and see the face of God in every person but know that the people on the outside carrys two faces.  On the insde they carry the Face of God, but on the outside the face of the shaytain.  

Be polite with both faces, and when you see someone angry or shouting, know Who speaks with you. Everyone has put himself in his place and this is the station for that person. Be polite with him and give him mercy.

The Shaykh here is calling us to see everything that happens to us a blessing.  Not that we need to be yelled at or have our home destroyed, but that inside everything is the Face of Allah.  Allah uses the bad things that people make or the difficulties of the natural world- to ask us to look with the deep eye.

Don’t just look from the outside.  Look behind the outside to the deeper meaning that God is sending us.

The Holy Qur’an says that the believers will be tested:

Do people think that they will be left alone because they say: ‘We believe’, and will not be tested?  [29:1-3]

So you have to ask yourself, “What is the deep meaning behind what has happened to me?”

In this way you can see Allah’s Mercy in everything that happens.

peace and blessings,

Sufi Heart