My loves, I hope you’re well.
This is inspired by the beautiful Agyeiwaa (@twerkgirlghana on Instagram – follow her!). We had a mini discussion about sending good vibes to those out there and hoping someone who needs it will catch it and I made a small comment about how important this is to me because one of the fundamental aspects of my faith is tawhid, Arabic for oneness.
With Islam being a strictly monotheistic religion, believing in the oneness of the Divine is a non-negotiable credence. Anything otherwise takes you out of the fold of Islam, and doing so is the only action or belief that does this. Growing up, I thought this was simply a boundary of religion, but it’s so much more than that.
As I embarked my spiritual journey, I found out about the law of unity, which is essentially oneness. The creator is one and the creation is one synchronistic wave of life. We have different organisms, different people, even different quantum realms, but essentially, we are all one, creations of Oneness and connected to this Oneness. Some people who talk about the law of unity also interpret this as being one with the creator, but that’s a different story altogether.
Knowing from my faith, fairy tales and all sorts of life lessons, I grew up believing that when you do good, it comes back to you. When you pray for others, the angels make the same prayer for you and when you give, you receive in abundance. No matter what our belief system is, we have all been cautioned about hurting others in case it comes back to you at some point in our lives.
Think about it. Almost 90 percent of all atoms are made up of hydrogen, an element which is present in all the fluids of the human body and can even be found in outer space. The Qur’an states that “the heavens and earth were joined together as one united piece and were then parted” (21:30), which means that even the angelic realm which we cannot physically access is part of this oneness.
The Qur’an also says that we as individuals were first created as one before being scattered into souls and beings.
“He created you from one soul. Then He made from it its mate, and He produced for you from the grazing livestock eight mates. He creates you in the wombs of your mothers, creation after creation, within three darknesses. That is Allah , your Lord; to Him belongs dominion. There is no deity except Him, so how are you averted?” — (39:6).
The lesson here is that while we are in separate bodies right now, not only were we created by the same source, we started out as one. This might explain why the hydrogen in our bodies can also be found in space.
Just how iron is at the centre of our earth at the core, iron is the centre of our bodies because it’s what our heart pumps blood to keep us alive, to which iron is an essential element of. This is in the same way, Surat al Hadid (the chapter of iron) is the 57th chapter out of 114 chapters of the Qur’an, with it being placed in the centre of the holy text.
You don’t have to be a believer to appreciate the synchronicity. It’s just there in its sweet manifestation of the universal concept of oneness and is one I am using because it resonates with me. It’s also an example that I view as the “heart” of my faith because as an atheist teenager, the story of iron was one that blew my mind and rocked my rational thought process.
Cue kindness and actions. If the ultimate law of the universe is oneness and we are all connected to the same divine source even though we are in different physical bodies, our actions bounce back to us because we only have one source managing the workings of everything and anything.
When we send love, we’re not actually sending it to something outside of the system in which we live. We are reflecting this love onto the universe that is ultimately within us and sending love to a person that was once the same soul as us. We may be physically parted, but whether you believe we were once one at the core, or are managed by one Divine source (or both), under tawhid, nothing we project to others enters into an abyss of nothingness. It comes from within and it returns to within.
Before we do anything, we say bismillah al Rahman al Rahim (in the name of God, the most Merciful and most Gracious). Al-Rahman (merciful) and al-Rahim (gracious are two of Allah’s 99 names. In Arabic, every word has a root and Rahman and Rahim have the same root word: rahm, which Arabic for womb.
Two of the most widely used names of Allah are rooted in a name for where life is created inside a woman’s body where the fetus is coddled in a bubble of safety, connection and unconditional love. As a woman, I can’t help but marvel at the sheer divinely appointed power and glory of feminine energy. No wonder patriarchy tries to suppress femininity in its corrupt pursuit of control.
So, if rahm is the root of al-Rahman and al-Rahim, we are all coddled in the same bubble of safety, connection and unconditional love. We are created with love (funnily enough, another one of Allah’s 99 names is al-Wadud, which means ‘the giver of love’), therefore when we send love, we receive more loving creation because love is a feeling that breeds creation in a physical and metaphysical sense.
(I have goosebumps right now)
Before I finish, I want to talk about overgiving. When we give from an empty cup and from the space of exhaustion, fear and anxiety, we produce more of that. Tawhid does not call for enmeshment and destroying your boundaries, nor does it call for manically giving just so you can recieve. It calls for mindfulness and surrender. When you fill your cup with love and give with love, you get love. When you empty your cup due to anxiety and give whatever you have inside, you get less until you ask for help and set a simple intention to operate from love. This is when your journey to awakening begins.
Know when you want for someone else what you want for yourself, you are a true believer, as said by the beloved Prophet Mohammed (PBUH). Also know that you must seek your right with honour, as also said by our final messenger. After all, he did tell us that a nation will not be sanctified if the weak cannot take their rights without surmounting obstacles. The balance is there.
Tawhid is an action and a belief, but it also reflects a system in which the Divine chose to fashion everything and anything. This is why healthy boundaries create healthy results, but also why we focus on the oneness via the Divine as opposed to enmeshment with creation in this earthly realm.
For me, knowing that there is connection and oneness everywhere helps to explain the workings of the realm that I’m navigating and helps to keep me mindful and aware, but the glorification of this magical system is something I owe the Creator. I do this as a duty every time I say Allahu Akbar (God is great), but it’s also a way to detach, release resistance and surrender as love, light and abundance effortlessly flow to me through the ultimate source energy.
You are one with your needs and desires, the boundaries you place and the love you send out to others. No good deed will go to waste. Internalising this protects you from lower vibrational emotions such as fear and envy because you know you are already one with everything you desire.
PS: I know this comes from a Muslim perspective, but I truly hope those who don’t follow the faith can too take from this ancient and divine wisdom.
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Twitter: @superknafeh
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