Picture Perfect : There Is No Victory Without Allah

We must remember not to allow our hearts to dive into the world and to pursue its meaningless treasures. The only treasure to seek is the translation of the stories written in our hearts, to unravel the meaning of who we are so that we may understand one beautiful wisdom that, “There is no victory without Allah”.

Each time we call upon the heart to guide us, the heart seeks its Lord, and each time we gain other than Allah the heart weeps. Not for what has been gained but what has been lost, the opportunity to find its Lord again. Everything besides Allah is dunya, it is all dunya and must all one day end, but the Face of our Lord must endure. This is what the early Muslims understood and that is why, no matter what, they stood proud and proclaimed, “There is no god but God”. There literally is ‘no god but God’. That God will not be found in things, and not even in the best of dreams. He is none of those things. Those things, even if they are noble dreams, are still His creations and will perish. Hence if we pursue those things for themselves then we are not seeking God.

There is a subtle yet vast difference between the idea of seeking Allah through His creation and seeking Him. The same idea may be applied to Muslim Lands where there are many people fighting for soil whist thinking they are fighting for Allah. Consequently it is a fight that will always result in defeat because the land already belongs to Allah, yet those hearts do not. The challenge is not to fight for what we already possess, but for what we do not, free hearts. Hearts free from occupation so that those hearts are free to worship Allah alone. It is Allah that we should be fighting for, but instead we find ourselves fighting for His creation. Locked in the grip of this unholy alliance, unless we break free our life is nothing more than wonderings of what could have been, what should have been. Defeat is contained in being unable to separate Allah from His creation. Victory is contained in being able to see Allah alone, free from His creation. And in that we find – it is better to have defeat with Allah than victory without Allah – “There is no victory without Allah.”