Fear Is The Cheapest Room In The House.....Hafiz Shirazi
By
Sumit Paul, New Age Islam
30 July
2022
"
Fear Is The Cheapest Room In The House. I'd Like To See You Living In Better
Conditions."
Hafiz
Shirazi
Hafiz Shirazi
----
The great
maverick Nietzsche wrote in his book, ' Thus Spoke Zarathustra ' - " The most overwhelmingly negative human
emotion is fear and it becomes all the more pronounced when it comes to god and
religion, both fabricated by humans. "
So very true.
It was our primitive ancestors' atavistic and often unfounded fear that
engendered god and all supernatural phenomena. Fear, esp. the fear of unknown,
is ingrained in human psyche. We've been constantly living in the penumbra of
fear since time immemorial. Josh Malihabadi aptly said, " Khauf Ke
Khauf Se Khaayaf Hai Ye Jahan/ Har Shakhs Khaufzada Hai Yahan " ( The
entire world is fearful of fear/ Every individual seems to be scared and
terrified here). We're so damn scared. It's because of this primary and
predominant emotion called fear that we accrue it to god and proudly say, we're
god-fearing! What rubbish! No one says that he or she's god-loving. Everyone
says that he's god-fearing as if you worship god/Allah out of fear. ' Where
there's fear, love cannot appear, ' wrote Jami.
Fear is an
offspring of incertitude. At times, it also leapfrogs to the extreme end of the
gamut of human emotions and becomes flippant. This is a mark of protest and an
attempt to come out of the suffocating dungeon of constantly fearful existence.
Have you ever thought as to why scores of Urdu poets (most of them being
Muslim) have been rather flippant with Allah and why at times, they addressed
Allah quite frivolously like in this couplet, " Mere Ek Sajde Ne Khuda
Banaya Hai Tujh Ko/Tujhe Kaun Poochhta Tha Meri Bandagi Se Pahle " (My
genuflecting before you made you the Almighty/ Who cared for you before I began
to worship you?).
Somewhere,
Muslim Urdu poets, esp. all Sufis, realized that this unnecessary fear, of the
Almighty and their earthly agents, Mullahs and Maulvies, was worming into the
collective thinking and religious consciousness of the Muslim Ummah
(community). Ergo, to bring the scared Muslims out of their perpetually fearful
existence, many poets and mystics, wrote poetry that dispelled and diluted the
fear of Allah and their worldly thekedar (contractors/custodians). Urdu poetry
is full of criticism of Zahid (a religious wise-man). Why? To belittle his
(Zahid's) fear and hegemony among the religiously-frightened and benighted
Muslim masses.
That's the
reason, the highly evolved Mansur-Al-Hallaj could proclaim ecstatically, "
I'm fearful of none/ I love Allah and Iblees as one, followed by his famous
proclamation, An-al-Haq (I'm the Truth). " Alas, the fearful Muslims
excoriated him for blasphemy. What the legendary mystic Mansur meant was that
he was neither fearful of Allah, nor of Iblees (shaitan). He loved both equally
because when Fear and Hatred (both are Siamese Twins) vanish, love reigns
supreme and mind you, love doesn't discriminate and is fearful of none.
Humans,
esp. devout humans, whether Hindus or Muslims, need to have that mystical
fearlessness in their interactions (sorry, dealings) with god, if at all this
dubious entity does exist!
---
A regular
columnist for New Age Islam, Sumit Paul is a researcher in comparative
religions, with special reference to Islam. He has contributed articles to
world's premier publications in several languages including Persian.
URL: https://newageislam.com/spiritual-meditations/fear-hafiz-shirazi-mansur-hallaj-/d/127606
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