Fearing and Hoping in Allah Alone

Whoever's reliance on Allah (swt) is sincere carries three marks — not marks of tawakkul as such, but of maturity in tawakkul; three stages of a person who makes proper tawakkul in Allah (swt). The first is that such a person neither hopes in, nor fears, anyone other than Allah (swt): no fear except Allah (swt), no hope in anyone else except in Allah (swt).

The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was once returning from a military expedition, a sariyyah, with his companions, and stopped for a rest; everyone lay down under some trees to rest. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) hung his sword on a tree. One of the mushrikīn, a non-Muslim, crept up while the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was sleeping, took the sword down and drew it, and said: "who is going to save you from me? I am going to kill you." Imagine standing in his shoes — no other weapon in hand, facing a disbeliever bent on killing him. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said, three times, with such awe in his voice: "Allah! Allah! Allah!" The man was struck with shock; the sword dropped from his hand. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) took hold of the sword and said: "who is going to save you from my hand now?" The man said: "have mercy on me, I beg you to forgive me." Look at the difference in attitude: one is a Muslim, and the one who controls life and death, who controls everything — thoughts, emotions, all of it — is Allah (swt): lā ḥawla wa lā quwwata illā billāh. Why worry, why carry such anxiety? In the same position, most, weak as they are, would be terrified — but the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) is showing that under any circumstance, a Muslim fears nothing but Allah (swt), and places hope in nothing but Him: there is only one life to lose — so be it: if it is taken, one becomes a shahīd; if it is spared, alḥamdulillāh, alḥamdulillāh.

There are hundreds, thousands of such accounts. Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqāṣ and Khālid ibn al-Walīd (may Allah be pleased with them) were at Qādisiyyah, in the battle against the Persian army of Rustam, and Khālid wrote to Rustam: do not judge us by our numbers — a thousand, perhaps three thousand, against thirty thousand — I am coming to you with a people who love to die as much as you love to live and never to die. When a person does not fear death, the number-one fear — the unwillingness to lose one's own life — is taken away, and a person willing to die with no concern for his own life becomes fearless: a ḥurr, one of the free, among those this religion calls aḥrār, who have already let go of the worldly fears people hold toward one another — "my boss is going to sack me from my job." If he does, Allah (swt) will open another door — provided nothing shifty, nothing unlawful, was done, and everything was done the right way when the job came to an end. That is not cause for an anxiety attack, for depression and stress, for two or three months of therapy with a psychologist over the loss of a job. Allah (swt) is the one who is in control.

The mark of this maturity is that such a person upholds the truth in the presence of those whom people usually fear or hope in — a government, the police, or a tyrant ruler, sulṭān al-jāʾir. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) says that the greatest mujāhid is the one who speaks the truth in the face of a tyrant ruler. Such a person does not care whether the tyrant kills him or not, because Allah (swt) is the one who controls everything, not anyone else. This is the first level of maturity in tawakkul.