It has always drawn my attention… There is a signboard
at the entrances of Sufism education institutions, or somewhere visible,
written “Edep Ya Hu!”, meaning “O
Allah (swt), render us with decency!” In some signboards, this phrase is
written in Arabic scripts in Islamic calligraphy. What does "edep" (decency) mean? Why do sufis
attach particular importance to decency? Why so much emphasis is put on decency?
Yes, "edep"
mean a lot for a person… In fact, it is everything. "Edep" is a term that defines all divine virtues that makes a
man a mature human being, purifying him bad behaviors even worse than the
animals. It is the beauty of behaviors. It is the integration of the status of
the "heart and behavior" of the perfect human being. It is the
exaltedness of morality. It is the status of the human being who has achieved
the fifth dimension passing through divine training. This is also called "Morality
of Allah (swt)".
Edep (decency) is a condition of personality that emerges by a human
being’s passing through Allah (swt)’s training, by his acquiring morality from
Him and His distinguished messengers. The difference between people with and without decency is the difference
between a mature person and a raw and rough person. Decency transforms an
unkind, greedy, miser, selfish, hard and rude, impatient and untrustworthy
person who is always in a hurry and anxious for continuously pursuing the
desires of his ego, to a resigned, mature, caring, generous, just, benevolent,
patient, mild-mannered, earnest, frank and pleasant person who is not in a
hurry and anxious in his jobs. In short, a
person with edep is the “real human being”. That person is Allah (swt)’s
caliph on earth.
# Decency begin with obedience
Dear Readers, decency begin with obedience. Obedience
is a state of compliance and surrender. Obedience is being subject to others'
wishes, acting according to their desires and orders, surrendering and being
subject to them.
I am sure that as soon as you have read those lines a
reaction has emerged in you. I am sure that you have started to experience in
your souls the spiritual difficulties that will be faced by acting according to
others' wishes and orders. Imagining the things that annoy people in the real
world will also be annoying when imagined. In fact, for a person with a personality, most difficult thing to stand is to be
subject to others. Because having a personality means, in one sense, to
have opinion and will, to act according to one’s own desires and to be one’s
own master. On the other hand, when you
are dependent to others you may feel humiliated, low and injured in personality.
Therefore, many raw people get ill-tempered when they cannot do what they want
but have to act according to others' wishes. I stated it in one of my previous
articles that a good person and a bad person can be distinguished when that
person’s wishes are not fulfilled. Many people are quite fine as long as you
carry out their wishes, but once you disobey, they immediately take offence, go
cross with you, they start to look at you with an evil eye. They can even
develop a grudge against you; they hate you and use abusive language. The
reason for all these is injury of personality and forbidding or limitation of
being one’s own master.
Dear Readers; this
injury of personality, forbidding and limiting ones independence constitutes
the essence of the nafs (ego) training. The nafs-training is an education
of personality. More clearly, eliminating the human personality that entices a
person to do everything he wants and to be his own master, that cause him do
all those unsuitable deeds, and replacing it with a divine personality that is
subject to Allah (swt)’s will. Only after that a person can become a mature
person.
# A self-ordained person is a raw
human being
A self-ordained person whose demands were not
limited in any way in childhood period and whose whole wants were always
fulfilled is a raw human being. They try
to make everything that they want. They always want their desires and
demands to be satisfied. They never think of others. They begin to maturate
only when their wishes are restricted or when they are forced to obey others'
desires and wills. In our country (Turkey
Therefore, the basis of a good child training is
teaching the child decency, this is to say, refraining from acting according to
one’s own desires but taking into consideration other people’s needs, to teach
the child sharing with others and acting according to wishes of others from
time to time.
# Vanishing
Dear readers,
An intellectual person has thoughts, wishes and wills
different from the others. A person has a unique “personality” by achieving
these differences. However, this situation leads a person to be independent
from the others; subject to his servile desires and wishes make him has
trouble. Such a selfish personality will
be a misfortune both for the person and for the society, he lives in, if he
does not go through a divine training and acquire divine virtues. Look
around yourself and try to remember incidents that occur. Many sad events that
shake societies are all deeds of such selfish personalities. A human being can
only save himself, at fifth dimension, by leaving his selfish personality and
reach salvation by acquiring the new selfless personality proposed by Allah
(swt). A human being voluntarily resigning from his opinion and will, and
rendering his human personality become ineffective on his behavior is called
the one in "Fena" (vanishing)
position in Sufism. This is a spiritual vanishing.
"Fena" (vanishing) is
resigning from one’s own desires and wishes, in other words, from one’s own
personality (ego). After a person resigns from his own desires, assumes the
personality of the person whomever he is subject to; he unites his own
personality with that person’s personality because, the person is not acting
according to his own personality and desires but according to the wishes of the
person, he is subject to. In tasawwuf education, this is called "Fena" (nonexistence) stage.
# Three levels of "Fena"
stage
“Fena” position has three levels before a status of full
maturity is achieved:
In the first level person has to obey the wishes of
the Murshid-i Kamil to whom he is dependent and surrendered. This is called “Fena fish-Sheyh” situation, meaning
vanishing in Murshid-i Kamil. Dervish Yunus has expressed this state, as “We
became servants at Taptuk’s door..." At this stage, a person tries to
carry out all demands of the Sufi thinker.
Secondly, the person has to be subject to wishes of
Rasulullah, which is called “Fena
fir-Rasul” (vanishing in the Rasulullah). In this stage, a person considers
the way Rasulullah had lived and his deeds as an example and tries to abide by
his wishes exactly and try not to depart even one millimeter from wants of
Rasulullah.
Thirdly, a person has to surrender to proposals,
wishes and orders of Allah (swt), and that stage is called "Fena fillah", meaning vanishing in Allah (swt). A person
in this position tries to learn Allah (swt)’s all proposals, wishes, orders and
prohibitions in every detail and be subject to Allah (swt) and tries not to
depart even one millimeter from wishes of Allah (swt). A person at this stage
wants everything, says everything and does everything for the sake of Allah
(swt).
# Complete Surrender
Therefore, behavior of the person who is in a state of
complete surrender to Allah (swt) becomes completely in accordance with the way
Allah (swt) wishes. After this level all desires emanating from that humble servant
becomes Allah (swt)’s desire, all looks of him becomes a look with Allah
(swt)’s divine light, all deeds of him become a behavior that comply with the
morality of the Allah (swt) and his messengers. In other words, the virtues of almighty Allah begin to emerge in that
humble servant. Allah (swt) becomes that servant’s seeing eye, hearing
ears. Almighty Allah has expressed this state in a sacred hadith as follows:
“Among the things that bring My servant close to Me,
the ones I love best are the things that I have made fard. When My servant does
the supererogatory ibadat, he gets very close to Me so much so that I love him
very much. When I love him, I become his hearing ear, seeing eye, holding hand
and walking foot. I give him whatever he wishes. When he invokes Me for help, I
rescue him at once.”. (Bukhari,
Rikak, 38) [1]
Dear readers, a person gifted with this mercy of Allah
(swt) is now reached the peak in decency and maturity. Obviously, such a state
can be reached after a very tough self-training with the help of Allah (swt)
and not everyone can be endowed with it. Let Allah (swt) make us one of the
perfectly mature person whose life will be ended in this status. Let Allah
(swt) gift us the faith safety in our last breaths.
Be entrusted to Allah.
----------------------
[1] Huseyn Hilmi Isık, 2012. Advice for the Muslim. Hakikat Kitabevi
Publications No: 11, Fatih-Istanbul
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