Worship can also be a choice, but in so far as our recognising our little worth or capability when it comes to changing the universal order, submission is inevitable.
Islam not a mere ‘ritualistic’ tradition or ‘belief-system’. To affiliate with Islam, one becomes called a ‘Muslim’, that is, to willingly submit to the Almighty – al-Istislām. While this is the case, submission is at once a universal inevitability.
From the atom to the cosmos, each obeys an order, functioning within precise and consistent laws. Likewise, whether we, as members of His system, accede to the Creator as His servants or not, whether the concept of there being a Creator in the first place satisfies some or aggravates others, all still recognise that we exist within these ‘laws’. Likewise, we must breathe, eat, move, procreate and ultimately fit within His Divine Order, far beyond our control, influence or escape.
Our position as creatures within a symbiotic, harmonious and precise order means we are inevitably slaves to it, at the mercy of its Originator, Owner and Governor. Rationally, we become slaves to Him, the Omnipotent Creator.
The oft-repeated question, ‘does the Almighty need us to submit to Him’, common in ‘Deistic’ circles becomes irrelevant as such a questioner might as well deny our reality as components within His domain. Being in need of He Who is without need, is, by circumstance (al-Hāl), submission.
Similarly, our seeing His domain as ‘worthy’ of our acquiescence is, by definition, worship. Worship can also be a choice, but in so far as our recognising our little worth or capability when it comes to changing the universal order, submission is inevitable.
This is what underpins the distinction between legislated (‘Shar’ee’) worship and universal (‘Kawny’) worship.
A Muslim is thus the one who submits to the inevitable and accepts the undeniable, living in accordance with reality. His visible, ritualistic practices are but the expressions of that submission. A choice for which he becomes closer to his Creator in this existence and the next. And it follows that to submit to the Greatest, is the greatest form of submission. This is why it is the most ‘liberating’ and fulfilling.
The submitter to the Creator feels no restrictions in this total submission; in fact, it is a feeling of relief and emancipation. The denier of that submission, instead, lives a lie, ‘blind’ to what is otherwise obvious, and enslavement in its most miserable and restrictive sense:
“…Those who follow My guidance will not go astray and will not be miserable. But if anyone turns away from My reminder, his life will be a dark and narrow one and on the Day of Rising We will gather him blind.”[1]
References:
[1] Al-Qur’an, 20:123-124.
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