Till Certainty Comes Unto Thee – Abdur Rahman’s Corner

Peace, one and all…

At the very end of Surah al-Hijr, the 15th chapter of the Quran, we read the following words:

‘And worship thy Lord, till certainty comes unto thee’.
(15:99, The Study Quran)

This beautiful verse can also be rendered as ‘and serve they Lord, till certainty comes unto thee’. There are several things that come to heart in this regard. Firstly, completion is a process. Worship, participate. Once we have established this deeply within ourselves, then the possibility of true certainty can open out. Worship until your heart becomes content and accepting of each new situation. Serve. Serve first, then seek yaqin. As certainty is a spiritual realisation rather than an intellectual concept, it can only be truly grasped through understanding and practice.

Many of the traditional commentators understand the certainty referred to in this verse as death. Death is perhaps the only certainty in life, which is why the Prophet (as) told us to ‘Frequently remember the destroyer of pleasures’ (Source).

Some sufi commentators understand this ayah to be a reference to ego-death, to fana. In other words, the message of this ayah is: ‘worship your Lord until you see with certainty your own non-existence’. When we are certain of truth, we also die to falsehood:

وَقُلْ جَآءَ ٱلْحَقُّ وَزَهَقَ ٱلْبَـٰطِلُ ۚ إِنَّ ٱلْبَـٰطِلَ كَانَ زَهُوقًۭا ٨١

And say, ‘The truth has come, and falsehood has passed away: falsehood is bound to pass away.’ (Quran 17:81)

When we die to all that is false, the heart sees only Allah. When we die to all that is false, we can see that there is none to converse with except Allah. Indeed, in death there is no longer a ‘I’ with which to see or speak. This is the reality of ‘Die before you die’.

And our last prayer is in praise of God, Lord of all the worlds