Your True Identity

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful, Most Compassionate
Assalaamu alaykum

Dear Friends

I pray that you are well.

Allah is Al-Malik, the King. Allah has complete control of creation, destiny, decreeing without need for anything, without being prevented from anything, without having a co-share in anything, conjoin with Majesty, the awesome Being who has complete control in anything. He is the absolute owner of everything.

Imam Kushayri said, "If He is the absolute owner, then what do you have? We have nothing. There is no other owner except Allah.

This is part of the idea of amanah (trust). Everything we have is His. Our brain, our souls, our limbs, our power, they are all His. He has given us control over them for a time. They are loans to us. Everything is His property. He gives them to us for a purpose. If we fulfill that purpose, we are, in truth, His vicegerent over what He has given us control of and we are, in truth, His slaves. And we would have fulfilled the trust. But if we violate these things and don't use them for what they are made for then we have been treacherous in this trust and that is the essence of accountability.

That's why in the Day of Judgment our limbs, which are working for us right now, they don't work for us anymore at that time. They go back to the real Owner. The Owner will give them power that they don't currently have. Our hands will be speaking, although as of yet there is no particular ability that we can see they would be able to speak.

The person will be astonished as to why his own hands, which he used to think an extension of himself, his identity, is now a witness against him. The person will address to the hands, "Why are you bringing witness against me. I thought we are one!" The hands will say, "Allah made us speak, the One who made everything to speak."

He is Malik al-Mulk, the Possessor of the Dominion. There is nothing that we own. The ownership of anything else is just figurative. It is not your hand.

Your identity is the soul inside your body, not how you look, how many degrees, recognitions and plaques hanging on your wall, how many trophies lining up your credenza, how many books you published and autographed, how many speaking engagements you have to turned down because of your popularity. You are what your soul is.

Someone was asked, "Do you have a Lord?"
He answered, "I am a slave, He is not my Lord that I can ascribe Him to me. Who am I that I can say He is mine as if I have some right to claim Him for mine. Rather He is The Lord and I am a bit of a nothing."

One of the rulers said to the righteous, "Ask me what you need."
The righteous said, "How can you say anything is yours when I have two slaves and you are their slaves."
The ruler asked, "Who are they?"
The righteous said, "Greed and Lust. I have overcome them and so they become my slaves, and they have overcome you, so you are their slaves. I have owned them and they have owned you. So how are you going to give me anything?"

May Allah purify our souls. Ameen. Please don't forget us in your night prayers. JazakAllahu khairan.

And Allah knows best.
Wassalaam