With the Tongue of Poverty – Abdur Rahman’s Corner
Peace, one and all…
In Attar’s Memorials of God’s Friends, beloved Dhu al-Nun al-Misri is reported to have said:
‘Let them seek what they need with the tongue of poverty, not the tongue of authority’.
Our innate nature is poverty, a kind of essential emptiness. Thus all of our demands, all of our claim-making, fill our hearts with so much unhelpful noise. Humanity labours under the illusion that it is somehow in charge of the world. As anyone who looks out on to the world of today can see, this is a deeply unhelpful delusion. Similarly, on an individual level, our sense of ownership, whether of our possessions, our faculties, or our very selves, holds us back from drawing closer to Divine reality. Our task is to empty our hearts, that they might be filled with Allah’s presence, and not to usurp the rights of God and others.
Thus, as Dhu al-Nun makes clear, change can only come from centering ourselves in our innate poverty, and seeking deep change in that place of need. Any authority we may hold in the world is limited, provisional and fleeting. Let us be honest with ourselves and God, then, approaching reality through our very need. When we ask with the tongue of authority, we’re not really asking, we’re demanding.
O my Allah! Ground me in my essential poverty, that this heart might be cleansed and healed through Your overflowing grace.
