What are the things that we idolize in ourselves?
A Brief Description of the Question:
What are the things that we idolize in ourselves?
The Answer:
Anything except Allah that we become a slave of is an idol of our soul. That idol may sometimes be money, sometimes post, sometimes influence, sometimes fame, sometimes knowledge, sometimes physical beauty, sometimes nobility, sometimes academic career and sometimes wealth.
As a principle, anything that leads us away from our Lord or that becomes a partner in the love and respect that we have to show Him is a kind of idol.
As a principle, anything that leads us away from our Lord or that becomes a partner in the love and respect that we have to show Him is a kind of idol.
Actually, the loves and respects that are located in our heart as a reflection of our love and respect for Allah are like traffic signs that take us to Allah. Love of the Prophet, love of religion, love of the Quran, love of the saintly slaves of Allah, respect shown to them and love of one’s family are among those loves and respects.
To read and love the world as a divine letter of Allah and to see and love it as the field of the hereafter is not against the love of Allah; on the contrary, they are each a fountain of love that consolidates His love. They are each a reflection of the love of Allah.
Man comes to this ephemeral world with some feelings. The feelings that are inherent in him give vitality, action, color and meaning to the world life. However, if they are left uncontrolled and are not directed through religion, ethics, science and knowledge, that is, if they are not maintained in the legitimate area, they will bring about many harmful outcomes. At least, they may cause man to choose matter as an aim and idolize matter in a sense. They will direct all of a person’s desires, energy, thoughts and talents to that way.
If the mind, combined with the religion, turns our feelings and thoughts to the good, true and nice way, that is, to the legitimate way, and if it establishes the connection of servitude and divinity between the creature and the creator, man is saved from being a slave or a satellite of his feelings. Thus, he realizes that the bounties of the world are tools for the real life and that the real aim is to attain Allah as clean by using those tools in the way of divine consent.
In this framework, there are many lessons to be taken from the following verse: “Seest thou such a one as taketh for his god his own passion (or impulse)? Couldst thou be a disposer of affairs for him?” (al-Furqan, 25/43).
That verse, which summarizes and criticizes the mentality of the Makkan idolaters, includes very significant and illuminating lessons in the universal plan; it indicates a general weakness of the mankind. As a matter of fact, in every period of history, and even today, the main problem of man is to regard his bodily desires, material interests and ambitions of rank and post as more important than the light of the mind and wisdom, true and healthy thought, judging by the criteria of truth and justice and to arrange one’s life in accordance with those criteria.
That verse reveals very well the psychological mood of a person who tramples all of the unchangeable measures, known criteria and established principles with a very profound example. A person who is in such psychological mood surrenders to his desires, becomes the slave of his ambitions and worships his own self. If he clashes with his excessive ambition that he has turned into a god and that he has surrendered to, it means he will not comply with any criteria, will not know any limits and will not heed any rules of logic.
As for Islam, it wants to save man from the slavery of idols and his soul, the domination of the wrong beliefs and to make him a slave of Allah and to make him bow down in His land…
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