"THE USE OF THE INTELLECT AS A MEANS TO SUBDUE APPETITES"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is related that when the husband of Rabi'a al-'Adawiyyah died, al-Hasan al-Basri and his companions asked for permission to visit her. She gave them permission to come in and let down a curtain and sat behind it. Al-Hasan and his companions said,
"Your husband has died. You should have someone to replace him."
"All right," she said, "but which of you has the most knowledge, so that I may marry him?"
"Al-Hasan al-Basri," they replied.
"If you can answer me four questions, I am yours," she said to al-Hasan.
"What do you say to this," she asked, "when I die and leave this world, will leave with belief or not?"
"That is a matter of the Unseen and none knows the Unseen except Allah."
"What about this, then? When I am put into the grave and Munkar and Nakir question me, will I be able to answer them or not?"
"That is a matter of the Unseen and none knows the Unseen except Allah," replied al-Hasan a second time.
"When people are gathered together on the Day of Rising and the books are distributed, will I be given my book in my right hand or my left hand?"
"That too is a matter of the Unseen and none knows the Unseen except Allah," came the reply again.
"When people are called: 'One group in the Garden and one group in Blaze!' which of the two groups will I be in?"
"That is a matter of the Unseen and none knows the Unseen except Allah," responded al-Hasan for the fourth and last time.
"How is it possible," she retorted, "for someone who is suffering the grief of ignorance about these four things to think of marriage?" "O Hasan," she continued, "in how many parts did Allah create the intellect?"
"In ten parts," he replied, "nine for men and one for women."
"O Hasan, in how many parts did Allah create appetite?"
"In ten parts: nine for women and one for men."
"O Hasan," she concluded, "I am able to contain nine part of appetite with one part of intellect whereas you cannot even guard one part of appetite with nine parts of intellect!" Thereupon al-Hasan wept and left her.

Because of its ability to keep the appetites in check, Islam is very much concerned with the intellect, nurturing it, developing it and giving it the greatest scope to evaluate things and their results with precise criteria. It should be used to distinguish the positive and negative sides of appetite using the criterion of the Shari'ah and to understand what its consequences will be in this world and the Next. It should know how to encourage the lower self to gain the pleasure of Allah and how to make it wary of anger of Allah so that it does not collapse under the pressure of impulses, appetites and desires and become lost in the oceans of this world. Out of His endless generosity the Almighty has prescribed various measures to safeguard the intellect and promote the development and expansion of its faculties.

Among these measures is Revelation itself. One of the functions of Revelation and the Message is to act as Allah's evidence against mankind. Left to itself, the intellect can misguide. Natural form (fitrah) on its own is also capable of deviation. The only safeguard for the intellect and natural form is to adopt the Revelation as their directing guide:

"We never punish until We have sent a Messenger." (17:15)

Therefore the intellect needs the Revelation to guide it and direct it and make it sound so that it can distinguish the bad from the good. Revelation protects the intellect from becoming lost in materialistic philosophies.

Another of the safeguards of the intellect is the prohibition of intoxicants. Many a man fritters away his intellectual abilities in satisfying his lower appetites and passing whims and this opens him up to misguidance, deviation and bad habits of all kinds which will disrupt first his own life, then the life of his family, and finally that of society as a whole. This is the root cause of Islam's prohibition of intoxicants of all sorts - alcohol, drugs, or any substance that has an effect on the brain, leading to altered states of consciousness or hallucinations. The Almighty says in His Noble Book:

"O you who believe! Wine and gambling and stone altars and divining arrows are disgusting things, part of the handiwork of Shaytan. Avoid them completely, so that perhaps you will be successful." (5:90)

Could there be any greater accomplishment than being awake and alert and perceiving where your steps are taking you and being able to truly evaluate their prospective benefit or harm for yourself in the world and the Next?

Another thing which Allah does in this respect is to invite the intellect to reflect deeply on existence. The purpose of this invitation is to free the intellect of the chains that shackle it and make it stumble under the pressure of all the needs and demands which hem it in. when man contemplates the universe, he is inevitably aware of the immensity of its Creator and His strength and this impels him to seek help and strength from Him to under take the task for which he was created. Such contemplation awakens him from the sleep of heedlessness and opens all his receptive senses and cognitive faculties:

"Truly in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the alternation of night and day there are signs for people of intelligence." (3:190)

"Have they not traveled in the land? Do they not have hearts with which to understand or ears with which to hear?" (22:46)

In all created existence there is nothing more noble than the human intellect and for this reason Allah honours it as it deserves. There is no deen which fulfils all the aspirations of the intellect and answers its questions as Islam does. This is only to be expected since the intellect is the supreme instrument of human perception and whenever it is polished, perception is increased and the results derived from its use are greater. A Bedouin possessing an unspoiled natural response to existence articulated this when people asked him, "Why do you believe in Muhammad?" His reply was: "Because what his deen orders leaves no scope for the intellect to say, 'If only he had ordered this.' Nor does what it forbids leave the intellect any scope to say, 'If only he had not forbidden that.' "