The Sunday Guardian | December 15, 2024

According to a hadith “Be alert through the wisdom of the believer, because a believer sees by the light of God.” (Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith No. 3127)

In this hadith the wisdom of the believer means the wisdom of the realized person. It is a fact that one who has attained realization, becomes an unfettered person. He walks in the light of God, and no one has the power to extinguish the light of God.

One whose faith is at the level of maarifah to an extreme extent, becomes an aware person, in the sense that he experiences an intellectual awakening. He becomes a complex free soul. He develops the ability to discriminate between right and wrong (The Quran, 8:29). In this way his thinking becomes profound and he develops the ability to foresee things.

Realization of God endows the individual with the virtue of disinterestedness in worldly things. This is called zuhd (abstinence). It is a person of such virtue as has been described in a hadith thus: “He is a servant of God, who has no interest in worldly things. God having planted wisdom in his heart, he speaks words of wisdom. God has shown him the evils of this world, and the remedy for them. God leads him in peace and security to Paradise, which is the home of Peace.” (Shu‘ab al-Iman, al-Bayhaqi, Hadith No. 10050)

Source: Discovering God