Haqiqa

In the Islamic tradition, one’s intellectual and spiritual evolution and progress consists of three stages. For one, there is the “Sharia” which amounts essentially to a steadfast adherence to basic mores and norms that enhance and facilitate one’s intellectual and spiritual evolution and progress. Although hardliners emphasize the “Sharia” and interpret it in a manner which does not take into consideration its ultimate aim and purpose, the “Sharia” is merely a means to an end and it can be far more flexible, fluid, and laxed than what hardliners suggest. 

Second, there is the “Tariqa” or the “Path” and “Way” which is then guided and led by a combination of curiosity, knowledge, and a spiritual guide if one is fortunate enough to find one. Through the course of the “Tariqa,” one arrives at the realization that no matter how far one evolves and progresses along the path and way, one’s dependence and reliance on a spiritual guide never ceases. Reversion towards a spiritual guide and reliance on a spiritual guide are necessary conditions for any seeker of the truth, regardless of the extent of one’s intellectual and spiritual evolution and progress. And third, there is the “Haqiqa” or the fragment of knowledge and truth which is ultimate and can never be surpassed or superseded by any other fragment of knowledge and truth. 

Rumi encapsulates and states the “Haqiqa” in the following manner: 

A spirit that lives in this world

and does not wear the shirt of love, such an existence is a deep disgrace. 

Be foolishly in love, because love is all there is. 

Hence, it is love which is the natural and truthful human condition and state. Any condition and state other than love is a condition and state that is not the natural and truthful human condition and state and in reality is a condition and state that acts as a false “substitute” for the natural and truthful condition and state. As Rumi wrote: “Love and lover live in eternity. Other desires are substitutes for that way of being.” 

Moreover, the issue of ‘justice’ is one which cannot be replete or viable without accounting for the basic nature and truth of the human condition. Justice is a dimension or element of the overall good, and in turn, love is what encompasses and envelops the overall good. As the Muslims have argued, the most evident and manifest proof of ‘God-consciousness’ is to be just, and to be just serves as evidence and proof of conformity to the overall good which is then enveloped by the natural and truthful condition and state of love. 

Modern philosophy tries to tackle the issue of justice on the surface, but nothing real and substantial has come out of such appearances and surface actions. Moreover, as certain scholars have argued, justice is more a matter of “pragmatism” than anything else. In turn, pragmatism has a “prophetic” essence which is undergirded by the attainment and internalization of a natural and truthful condition and state. Without this natural and truthful condition and state, there cannot be justice, and as the saying goes: “No justice, no peace.” 

And as Amartya Sen argued, reasoning and indignation play a dual function and role in the advancement of the overall good, in the sense that reasoning and indignation not only play the function and role of resistance against injustice, but reason and indignation also play an important function and role in the ultimate advancement of justice. Thus, the armchair philosophizing and intellectualization of the most basic element or ingredient of peace and social order – namely, justice – is worthless if the natural condition and state which can enable the actions and words that are necessary and required for both resistance to injustice and the advancement of justice is absent and non-existent.