Auron ka hai Payaam aur, mera Payaam aur hai, / Ishq key dardmand ka tarz-e-kalaam aur hai! (Iqbal)
I ask myself, wasn’t one of these two glorious attributes of God enough? I mean Arrahman and Arrahim? After all, one-hundredth of one part of God’s love and mercy feeds and sustains every manner and manifestation of love, mercy, compassion, caring, kindness, charity and tenderness on earth from whenever the world began to whenever it will end.
But no, a point had to be made, and made clearly and loudly – for all to know and to hear: the utter and infinite predominance of his Rahmat over all else! While his attributes are infinite in number and scope, he has himself obligated upon himself the attribute of Rahmah or love and mercy.
Ghalabat rahmatee ghadabee is not so much a proclamation of policy or purpose, which it undoubtedly is, as it is a verifiable empirical fact of everyday experience meticulously documented in the Qur’ān.
He says so himself in the Qur’ān: Kataba alaa nafsihir rahmah. Who but God could speak like that? And then reinforces that same message elsewhere with a very slight change. I am saying slight, otherwise it is a huge change: Kataba rabbukum alaa nafsihir rahmah.
Banee Aadam, children of Adam! Blessed are those among them hauled to the gates of the Qur’ān, where no one comes without an invitation and in which no one enters without required clearance. Where they are now welcome, in the royal presence of God’s word, in a manner that God’s Rahmat and his Karam saw befitting their true status.
Banee Aadam, children of Adam! They are the ones for whom God Almighty created everything on earth, and then put the heavens in place to complete the structure. And then to whom he made the angels prostrate thereafter!
Banee Aadam, children of Adam! How God Almighty has honored and exalted them! Wa laqad karramnaa banee Aadam!
What a place to be! What a welcome to have! And what a beginning indeed! As someone put it: Na Mi Danam Chi Manzil Bood Shab Jaayi Ki Man Budam. Paraphrase: I have no idea where I was last night!
SPREAD SALAAM!
And boy did we do it!
Assalaamu Alaikum! A Greeting from God! What a greeting!
If Islam had given us – and the world – nothing but this one little gift from God Almighty, it would have sufficed for our joy, success and felicity in this as well as in the next world.
For, that is who he is: Tabaarakallah Ahsanul Khaaliqeen! The one who showers the most wonderful gift after the most wonderful gift on us! And that is how comprehensive and profound this greeting of Salaam is that comes to us directly from him – Tahiyyatan Min ‘Indillah!
What a Rabb! What a master! And what glorious greetings! Unlike any that this world has known or will ever know!
And that is what Islam is: a derivative of that root of Salaam and Silm and Salm. And that is who the Muslims are!
Muslims are those who embody and personify Salaam – no matter how imperfectly so. They are the heralders, harbingers and spreaders of Salaam – no matter how sloppily or reluctantly, meagrely or half-heartedly.
Muslims are the spreaders of all kinds of goodness in this world – in word, deed and thought – on everyone and everything all around them!
Muslims are the ones commissioned by God Almighty, who is As-Salaam, to flood his universe with the message and blessings of his most glorious and blessed name As-Salaam.
Muslims are the walking, talking, living embodiment of that wonderful commandment from Allah’s beloved Rasul, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam: Afshus-Salaaam! Which means go forth and spread Salaam – to the four corners of the earth.
“Spread Salaam!” That is what the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, commanded us to do. And that precisely is what we Muslims, such as we are now and such as we have been in the past, have spent the past 1400 years of our life doing: Spreading Salaam!
LABBAIK, ALLAHUMMA LABBAIK!
Labbaik Allahumma Labbaik!
Yes, dear God Almighty! That we have done. We have spread Salaam throughout the length and breadth of your earth that you created for the children of Adam. Just like your beloved Rasul, Sallallahu Alaika wa Sallam, commanded us to do.
And we never stopped and we never looked back. Not then, not now.
We may or may not have done much else. Or done it right. But the Salaam part? We did a passing job on that. And you are our witness on that. Because you were there then. And you are here now. You watched us do it. It all happened and continues to happen before your ever-watchful eye.
You saw us and you heard us do it, as you continue to do, even though we ourselves may have been clueless about what we were doing. You saw and heard us fill your earth with Salaam. You were there then, you are there now.
Labbaika ya rasulallah, Labbiak! Sallallahu Alaika wa Sallam, Labbaik!
Yes, Muhammad, Nabiyyallah, yes, Sallallahu Alaika wa Sallam, we did take care of the Salaam part of your commandment. Just as the angels of Allah must have reported to you. That course we stayed, even though we may not have adhered with any great fidelity to a vast multitude of your most beautiful and life-giving Sunnat.
Just like we keep sending Salaam to you round the clock, and the angels keep brining that gift to you nonstop, from even the worst sinners among us, we also carried forward your mission of mercy and Rahmat to humanity and the worlds by spreading Salaam left, right and centre to everyone everywhere.
Following your command, we became the ultimate, and, what is more, the only Salaam People of the world. The only Salaamists this wretched world of ours can boast about to this day. Just like you told us to do.
Afshussalaam is what you said, blessed be your name and blessed be your word, and Afshussalaam is what we did, even some of the worst of us.
What is more, no one, but no one, other than us, does it. Or, in fact, did it, the way we do it. Not to this day.
That is proof positive, if proof were ever needed, of your Risaalat, that you indeed are God’s messenger to this world of ours and to all worlds, whatever and wherever they are. We sinners, such as we are, are proof that you are God’s Rasul on earth. Not that you needed proof, but our continuing to do it, 1400 years after your departure from this world, is as powerful and clinching a proof as there can be.
This old clock has not stopped ticking all these 1400 years, whereas all other clocks atrophied and died leaving behind nothing but shards and rusted shrapnel behind.