Another Kind of Vertical Relationship
So far we have shown how the Quran and the our Nabi ﷺ call us to develop a mental habit of seeing past the horizontal relationships between asbāb to the direct vertical relationship: the relationship between Allah and each created thing.
But there is another kind of vertical relationship that we are called to form a Mental Habit about, and that is the indirect vertical relationship.
What is the Indirect Vertical Relationship?
The direct vertical relationship was between a seen sabab and Allah ﷻ. The indirect vertical relationship is between a seen sabab and an unseen sabab.
If you study the Quran and hadith, you will encounter many statements describing unseen realities. Why were we given this knowledge? It is an immense blessing, for to know reality as it is, is itself a means to know Allah. Repeatedly throughout the Quran and hadith, Allah and His Messenger ﷺ are constantly encouraging us to develop the Mental Habit of seeing the relationship between seen asbāb and unseen asbāb. If the first mental habit was about moving our minds from a seen sabab to Allah directly, this mental habit is about our minds moving from a seen sabab to an unseen sabab.
Let’s go over just a few examples.
Completing the Salah: A Mental Movement from Seen to Unseen
When we are done with our prayer, we say salams to our right and our left. The reason we do so is to say salam to our brothers, for example, if we are men praying in a jama’ah. But the other reason we do so is to greet the angels that are ever present with us. We are being called to remember the presence of angels with us and their roles in our lives, every day, minimally eleven times a day (sunnah/fard of fajr (2 sets of salams) + sunnah/fard/sunnah of dhuhr (3 sets of salams) + fard of asr (1 set) + fard/sunnah of maghrib (2 sets) + fard/sunnah/witr of isha (3 set) = 11).
The very act of completing our salah, the most essential act of devotion to Allah, is associated with a reminder of unseen asbāb (in this case, angels). The physical act (sabab) of moving our head and saying salam to our right and left results in, or should result in, a movement of the mind from the seen/physical sabab to unseen asbāb (angels).
Of course, if we pray the way we are supposed to, we are standing directly before “your Lord Unseen” as Allah refers to Himself in Surah Mulk, āyah 12. Our hearts and minds should be riveted by the presence of Allah. Be that as it may, the salams still serve as a reminder for us terribly forgetful human beings of the unseen presence of angels by our sides.
Angel Mika’il, Rain and the Upward Slide
Our beloved Nabi ﷺ has—out of Allah’s immense grace upon us—informed us of many instances of the relationship between the seen and the unseen: both involving angels as well as other unseen realities.
Angel Mika’il (a great, lofty unseen creation) is the angel (unseen sabab) responsible for bringing down rain (seen sabab). Our Nabi ﷺ informed us of this for a reason. This is not a trifling fact. He ﷺ informed us of this so that when we see the rain, we remember that a great creation of Allah, Angel Mika’il is behind this. The nature of becoming aware of the unseen creations of Allah is that they are like an “upward slide” to remembering Allah. All a child needs to do to get to the bottom of a hill is simply sit at upon a slide at the top of the hill. The slide will do the rest. Similarly, we have been blessed with much knowledge of unseen realities for the same reason, but in reverse—when we remember unseen creations like angels, our mind easily goes from such unseen realities “up” to Allah. So these unseen asbāb are like “upward slides” that easily allow our minds to move from seen sabab –> unseen sabab –> Musabbib al-Asbāb (The Creator of All Asbab)
This is why we refer to this Mental Habit as Seeing Indirect Vertical Relationships.
Fig 1: In the Mental Habit of Indirect Vertical Relationships, our minds move from the seen sabab to the unseen sabab to Allah Himself. Hence, indirect, because the mind has one vertical step “on the way up.”
Thus are we called to remember Angel Mika’il when we see rain—our minds are being conditioned to move from the seen sabab of rain to the unseen sabab Angel Mika’il.
Gatherings of Remembrance
Take a look at this hadith from Bukhari.
Abu Huraira reported: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “No people gather to remember Allah Almighty but that the angels surround them, cover them with mercy, send tranquility upon them, and mention them to Allah among those near to Him.”
Here we are informed of the unseen realities of angels and sakinah (translated as tranquility) – sakinah is also an unseen creation of Allah. It would have been sufficient for us to know that it is beneficial for us to gather to remember Allah. Yet, our Nabi ﷺ was given more detail than that and he conveyed this knowledge of the unseen to us. He informed us of reality as it is—angels gather, and they send another unseen creation upon us called sakinah… in other hadith it is mentioned that there are specific angels who move through the earth looking for gatherings of the remembrance of Allah, and that those gatherings appear as lights in a darkness like the stars appear to us in the night sky. They then go towards that gathering and call other angels to it as well… there’s a lot going on in the unseen! We are being shown the tip of the iceberg so to speak. We are being informed of this so that our minds move from the seen asbāb of humans gathering for remembrance to the unseen asbāb of angels and sakina—and then based on that choose to gather to remember Allah!
The Angel of the Mountains
In this excerpt of a hadith narrated in Bukhari, our Nabi ﷺ relays what happens after he was expelled from Ta’if:
“…I did not recover until I found myself in Qarn al-Tha‘alib. I raised my head and saw that I was being shaded by a cloud. I looked, and saw Jibreel in the cloud. He called me and said: ‘Allah has heard what your people said and how they responded to you. He has sent the Angel of the Mountains so that you can tell him to do to them whatever you want.’ The Angel of the Mountains called me and greeted me, then said: ‘O Muhammad, tell me what you want me to do. If you want, I can crush them between two mountains.’ “The Prophet ﷺ said: “All I hope for is that Allah will bring forth from their loins people who will worship Allah alone and not associate any partner with Him.”
Here we have the explicit mention of a magnificent creation of Allah that our Nabi ﷺ refers to as the “Angel of the Mountains”—who was willing to crush the people of Ta’if between the mountains at the command of the Prophet ﷺ. That would be a very physical event, and Allah knows best what form that would have taken, but the point here is simply to provide another example of another indirect vertical relationship—with the seen sabab of the mountain being associated the unseen sabab of the Angel of the Mountain.
Where Does Thunder Come From?
Here is another excerpt from a hadith.
Ibn ‘Abbas (may Allah be pleased with them both) said: The Jews came to Rasulullah ﷺ and asked him what thunder is.
Rasulullah ﷺ replied: ‘He is an angel among angels. He is responsible for clouds, he has with him swords of fire with which he moves the clouds where Allah wills.’1
It does not get clearer than that. Our Nabi ﷺ taught us that there is an angel responsible for thunder. So when your child asks “Mama, why does thunder happen?” What will be your first response? What will that child with his heart ready to take everything you say as completely true. Will you convey the results of hundreds of years of inquiry at the hands of man? Or will you convey what the our Nabi ﷺ informed us of? How do we understand the relationship between such an unseen reality and the conventional scientfic explanation? That will come later. For now, let’s stay focued on Mental Habits.
Regarldess, this is another clear example of our minds moving from a seen sabab to the unseen sabab.
Why Do Roosters Crow?
“When you hear the crowing of the rooster ask Allah [to give to you] from His generosity (faḍl), because it will have seen an angel.” (Bukhari, Muslim)
Again, we have been given knowledge from the Nabi ﷺ so that our minds move from the seen sabab (rooster crowing) to the unseen sabab (presence of angels), and we are thus advised to act accordingly—to make dua.
How about Jumu’ah? Anything Unseen Going on There?
Our Nabi ﷺ said, “When it is a Friday, the angels stand at the gate of the mosque and keep on writing the names of the persons coming to the mosque in succession according to their arrival. The example of the one who enters the mosque in the earliest hour is that of one offering a camel (in sacrifice). The one coming next is like one offering a cow and then a ram and then a chicken and then an egg respectively. When the Imam comes out (for Jumua prayer) they (i.e. angels) fold their papers and listen to the Khutba.” (Muslim)
Here we have the immense blessing of being informed by our Nabi (ﷺ) of the presence of angels at the doors of the masjid. We are even told they “fold their papers.” Just as we are seen creations of Allah with artifacts that we use to accomplish the commands of Allah, angels are also creations of Allah with artifacts that they use to accomplish the commands of Allah. It’s an entire world. An unseen world. An unseen world we are constantly being called to remember, be aware of and base real life decisions upon.
Again, we have been given knowledge that calls us to move our minds from the seen sabab (masjid doors) to the unseen sabab (angels) and to the unseen asbāb of their papers and pens.
Why Do We Line Up in Jama’ah?
How about this one? Did you know this is the reason we line up the way that we do in jama’ah?
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: “Will you not form your rows as the angels form their rows before their Lord?” We said: “How do the angels form their rows before their Lord?” He said: “They complete the first row and they stand close of one another in the line (leaving no gaps between one another).” (Muslim)
Again, we are so blessed to be informed with this special piece of knowledge from our Nabi ﷺ —that calls us to move our minds from the seen sabab (us, humans, lining up) to the unseen sabab of angels lining up and worshipping Allah! This is seeing the indirect vertical relationship.
Why Did Our Nabi ﷺ Tell Us to Wash Our Hands When Eating?
Here’s an important one. It’s sunnah to wash our hands before eating. But why? We will often hear Muslims speak of the wisdom of the sunnah in terms of hygiene and preventing the spread of infection. Some might even say, “Look! The Prophet ﷺ new about infection and washing hands centuries before Semmelweis!”
Indeed, the Prophet ﷺ may very well have known about such things, we do not know the extent of the knowledge that Allah blessed the Prophet ﷺ with, but we know that it was far more than any of us will ever attain in a million life times.
But!
Preventing infection was not the reason the Prophet ﷺ mentioned explicitly (and yes, they did have a concept of infection at that time, as there are hadith about plagues).
“I read in the Tawrah ‘Barakah in food lies in washing the hand after meals.’ I mentioned this to Nabi ﷺ and he said, ‘Barakah in food lies in washing the hand before and after eating.”2
Our Nabi ﷺ tells us that washing hands before and after the meals puts barakah in the food. What is barakah? When you have barakah in something, you get far more effect from it than what you physically should have. Barakah is actually a type of small “miracle” that happens to believers daily (or, at least should happen daily). Barakah in food means a small amount of food (that should have only been able to fill one person) satiates three, or four, or five people. I have personally been in gatherings where there was literally one dish, several people, and everybody ate to their fill, without anyone knowing how that happened. That’s called barakah. Barakah in time is when one sits down and writes (for example) and feels like they have been writing forever, and wrote three or four pages (which is a lot), but then realizes that they have only been at it for twnety minutes (no, that didn’t happen to me just now). Barakah is literally the presence of the unseen in our every day actions, affecting our every-day actions in very real ways.
This is what our Nabi ﷺ said is increased when we wash our hands before and after our meal. He was bringing our attention to a vertical, unseen relationship – moving our minds from the seen sabab (washing hands) to the unseen sabab (barakah), to Allah. Again, an indirect vertical relationship.
For us to come along and then make this sunnah all about the horizontal relationship between hand washing and hand hygiene certainly does not do justice to what we were taught.
(This does not mean washing hands does not clean our hands, nor does it mean that this is not a benefit of the sunnah—it is. All I am saying is: let’s take the specific words our Nabi ﷺ used seriously and think about them. How was the Prophet ﷺ trying to get us to see the world? What kind of Mental Habits did he want us to develop?
Many, Many Other Examples
Without listing them out in detail, other “mentions” in the Quran regarding moving the mind from seen-based thinking to unseen-based thinking include (though are not limited to):
- High amounts of wealth does not equate to high “amounts” of ultimate success or spiritual worth (only a purified unseen heart does). (Surah al-Shu’ara, 88)
- High numbers of children does not equate to high “amounts” of ultimate success or spiritual worth (only a purified unseen heart does) (Surah al-Shu’ara, 88)
- Small numbers have defeated large numbers due to taqwā
- Surah Baqarah, 249
- Surah Anfal, 65-66
- Surah Āle-Imran, 123-125
- Despite great numbers, they did not help (Surah Tawba, 25-26)
Numbers in our day represent how we understand the world. Mathematics is the “language” of natural science. All of the above verses relate to “amounts” or “numbers.” Let’s analyze them in terms of asbāb. Side A has one thousand soldiers and one thousand military vehicles (for example) – i.e. a lot of asbāb. Side B has fewer. Therefore, based on horizontal-asbāb logic, Side A should win. But when the unseen element of taqwā is involved, Allah negates this, or, more accurately, directs our attention to move from physical asbāb as represented by numbers to the unseen sabab of taqwā. Or reverse: we have fewer asbāb and they have a lot, therefore the others should win. Allah negates this as well. It all returns to the same concept—negation of the horizontal relationships between asbab and directing the believers’ attention to an unseen sabab which ultimately returns to Allah.
Hopefully, we have provided enough examples of the Mental Habit of Seeing the Indirect Vertical Relationship.
Mental Habits So Far
Mental Habit 1: Seeing Asbab – recognizing that all created things are in reality asbāb, means, by which we draw closer to Allah.
Mental Habit 2: Seeing the Unseen/Direct Vertical Relationships – moving the mind from seen asbāb directly to Allah, instead of only between horizontal asbāb.
Mental Habit 3: Seeing the Unseen/Indirect Vertical Relationships – moving the mind from seen asbāb to unseen asbāb to Allah, instead of only between horizontal asbāb.
There are more Mental Habits to come. But we think that’s good enough for now.
The Question
The question we would like to explore now is: does our current system of education encourage these Mental Habits? The answer, quite frankly, is no. It encourages nothing but the Mental Habit of the horizontal relationships between seen asbāb, conditioning us from a young age to (1) see only seen asbab, (2) become experts at seeing the horizontal asbab. To what degree is this really a problem, and is there anything that can be done about it?
Yes, it’s a problem. And yes, there’s a solution insha Allah. Keep reading!
FootNotes
- This is recorded by Imam Tirmidhi and Imam Ahmad (rahimahumallah).
(Sunan Tirmidhi, Hadith: 3117 & Musnad Ahmad, vol.1 pg.274)
Imam Tirmidhi (rahimahullah) has declared it as authentic (hasan sahih gharib). ↩︎ - (Sunan Tirmidhi, Hadith: 1846, Sunan Abi Dawud, Hadith: 3755, Musnad Ahmad, vol. 5 pg. 441) ↩︎
