A Kashf on ‘Divine Hug’

 

True devotees are a sign of Living Faith. Love of God drives them to respect and act upon Divine commands and prohibitions as they should be. For instance, they offer regular prayers at specified times of the day; they recite the Holy Qur’an at dawn. Moreover, they sincerely engage in remembrance of God all the time. In the pure quest for the grand favour and blessings of Divine nearness, they even wake up at night and pray as an extra offering of their own: in the long hours of the night prostrating before God and weeping in supplication, nurturing their souls even in a state of exhaustion. Like the Holy Qur’an notes, Allah Himself indicates the standards of readiness and rewards of sincerity: 

‘O you who are bearing a heavy responsibility, stand up in Prayer at night except a small portion thereof—Half of it, or make it a little less than that, or make it a little more than that—and recite the Qur’an slowly and thoughtfully.’ [73: 2-5]. 

‘O Ye who believe! Offer Tahajjud prayer in the latter part of the night. It may be that your Lord will raise you to a highly praised status.’ (17: 80) 

True devotion to God, or Divine Love, has beneficial consequences for the believer when God gazes at the heart of the sincere soul with forgiveness, mercy, kindness and indulgence. A famous Hadith-e-Qudsi reads as follows:  

Hazrat Abu Hurairah (ra) narrates that the Holy Prophet (sa) said: “Allah the Almighty says … ‘My servant can be close to Me through the things that I love and that I made obligatory upon him. By offering Nawafil, My servant gets so close to Me that I start loving him. When I make him a friend of Mine, I become the ears with which he hears, the eyes with which he sees, the hands with which he holds and the feet with which he walks. Thus, I fulfil all that he desires. If he begs of Me, I provide for him; if he seeks My protection, I grant him protection. (Sahih al-Bukhari, Kitabul Riqaq, Bab-ul-Tawazu)

Indeed, the pious men and women who are steeped in Divine waters and absorb themselves in Divine remembrance and sublime invocations- the special servants and friends of God; it is they who are blessed to partake in the subtle mysteries of this universe, and special signs of Divine nearness appear in and among their circle. Indeed, at the highest levels of this mystical journey, the believer will become alone with the Alone, almost 'lose' himself in God. With such depths of Faith in a Divinely-imbued servant, the blessings of the Islamic Way will be demonstrated- it is  as if the heaven and the earth are renewed through his presence and work for the sake of Allah (swt) as the new ‘Adam’, the ‘Khalifatullah’ of the era.

 

Today, Jamaat Ul Sahih Al Islam International with a Divinely-appointed ‘Khalifatullah’ [who speaks with the help of ‘Roohul Qudus’ at the head of the Jamaat] strives for the creation of a new heaven and earth; in its own humble and sincere way of pure devotion and submission to the Will and Decision of Allah (swt), it is a stunning example of the kind of Divine Manifestations that have had been witnessed through the centuries in different lands, with the advent of prophets and messengers and saints of God who strove to uphold the pristine truth about God through a correct appreciation of the eternal teachings of Faith, Alhamdulillah, Summa Alhamdulillah.   

 

Reproduced Below is a mystical experience of special Divine Nearness reported by none other than our Promised Messiah Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (as) of Qadian [1835-1908] in the previous era- at a time when Allah (swt) raised him as the commissioned one of the age to demonstrate the blessings and favours of the living religion of Islam:

 

‘In a vision I saw that I myself was God and believed myself to be such. [If someone sees in a dream that he has become God, the interpretation is that he has been guided to the right path. (Ta‘tirul-Anam fi Ta‘biril-Manam, by Ibn-e-Sirin of Egypt, page 9)]. I felt that I had no will or thought or action of my own left, and that I had become like a vessel with holes, or something which was being completely overpowered by something else that had absorbed it wholly so that its own being had completely disappeared. 

At that time, I saw that the spirit of Allah the Almighty had enveloped my soul and, covering my body, hid me completely in itself so that not a particle of me remained. I beheld my physical self as if all my limbs had become His, my eyes had become His eyes, my ears had become His ears and my tongue had become His tongue. My Lord seized me with such great force that I disappeared in Him and I felt that His power and strength was surging in me and His divinity was coursing through me. The camps of  the Lord of honour were set up all around my heart and the Lord of power ground down my ego so that there was no more of me nor any desire of mine left. My whole structure was demolished and only the structure of the Lord of the universe remained visible.

Divinity overcame me with such force that I was drawn to Him from the hair of my head to the nails of my toes. Then I became all kernel, which had no shell and became an oil which had no dregs. I was separated completely from my ego and I became like something which was not visible; or like a drop, which had become merged in the river so that the river comprehended it in its vastness. I no longer knew what I had been before or what my being was. Divinity coursed through my veins and muscles. I was completely lost to myself and God Almighty employed all my limbs for His purpose and took possession of me with such force that nothing could exceed it. Being so seized by Allah, I became non-existent. I believed that my limbs had become God’s limbs and I imagined that I had discarded my own being and had departed from my own existence and that no associate or claimant had remained as an obstruction. God Almighty entered wholly into my being and my anger and my gentleness, my bitterness and my sweetness and my movement and my inertness all became His. In this condition I said: We desire a new universe, a new heaven and a new earth. I then created the heaven and the earth in a mass without order or distinction and then, according to the divine will, I arranged and classified this mass. I felt that I had the power to create it. Then I created the lower heaven and said: ‘We have decorated the lower heaven with lamps.’

 

Then I said: We shall now create man from the essence of clay. Then my condition moved from vision towards the reception of revelation and my tongue uttered: ‘I determined to make a vicegerent so I created Adam. Then We created man in the best mould.’---[ Kitabul-Bariyyah, pp. 78–79, Ruhani Khaza’in, vol. 13, p. 103–105]

The Promised Messiah (as) also explained this vision elsewhere briefly: 

In a state of vision I saw that I had created a new earth and a new heaven and then I said: Now let us create man. At this the ignorant maulavis raised a cry: Watch now, this man claims to be God. Actually, the meaning of the vision was that God will bring about through me such a change as if the heaven and the earth had been renewed and true men will come into being. [ Chashma-e-Masihi, p. 58 footnote, Ruhani Khaza’in, vol. 20, pp. 375–376 footnote]