Shaykh Ali taught us Beauty, Beautifully

23 April 2006 10:26:00

Shaykh Ali taught us Beauty, Beautifully

Shaykh Ali taught us this. Brother Amir was telling us about it. He said this beauty thing is innate in us. However, it goes deeper than just that superficial thing, when you understand Tawheed. Once we were again, at the Park, walking through past the ducks lake, after Jumah at the Mosque (the mosque is Barking Mosque, the Park is Barking Park). He got us to notice the ducks. He said, now is the beauty in the image, that first level of sight and vision one has. The colour, the shape, the softness of the feel of its feathers? Well, you can get a duck in a picture. You can be given all that, with a dead duck. It still looks the same, feels the same and so forth. It’s the movement. The movement. But whats the basis of this movement? Because we can give you a robot that looks exactly like a duck.

It’s the LIFE behind the movement. The life makes that beauty come alive. And we can go further and look behind the life… but we shall stop there.

Brother Amir, at one Tuesday night at a small weekly gathering at his house, on a Tuesday Night. Someone I think also brought up the idea of beauty. Brother Amir said something along the lines of this.

Beauty is from Allah. The attraction to beauty is from Allah. The notice of that Beauty, is from Allah. But why? What does Allah want us to recognise? For Allah says clearly in the Koran, that He did not make man nor jinn but to Worship Him?

The first part of worship is to know. And in the Koran Allah says “Come to Know La Illaha Ill Allah”, which is what we are to do here, studying Tawheed and come to know.

So whats beauty got to do with Allah? Well, what things do we find beautiful? It is order, balance, symmetry and moderation; but also variety. With Tawheed, with knowledge of Allah and the unseen, you realise all is in order, in balance, symmetry and moderation. Rasul(saw) was in perfect order, balance and moderation. Rasul(saw) was also the most beautiful, twice as beautiful as Yusuf(as); hence why he would lower his gaze and sometimes cover his head.

It is for us to notice and search for order, moderation and balance, and be of such order, moderation and balance. It is disorder, chaos and extremes that we find ugly. So Allah dislikes disorder and disobedience. Allah is the Great Witness and the Great Artist. We, only see a tiny portion.

There is more to learn, but have patience and faith. I am here only to teach you the basics and guide you in them. From then on, well first let us make our first step and then take that first step, when from there we can see where else to go.