True effacement is to face God
“And who is better in religion than one who submits his face to Allah while being a muhsin and follows the religion of Abraham, inclining toward truth? And Allah took Abraham as an intimate friend.” (Quran 4:125)
It is interesting that the modality by which Allah urges us to submit to him is by our face (wajh) — not by our bodies (jism) or other words that denote the human being in his physical totality.
Perhaps this is because the “face” contains the essence of a person. We distinguish and remember others by their faces. Remove them, and we devolve into anonymous anthromorphs. Moreover, faces hint at the locus of the heart’s attention. When our Prophet (SAW) greeted a person he would turn his whole body, particularly his face, towards them, a testimony to the sincere concern he had for all of Creation.
By asking us to face Him, Allah aks us to submit the essence of our being to Him. Indeed, one cannot walk in a straight line — much less the sirat al-mustaqeem, the Straight path to God — if he is gyrating his face this way and that. Such is how Satan’s temptations seek to divert us from the path. Istiqama (straightness) is to keep your eyes on the prize — His Ethereal Light — whilst hearing the seductive Sirens of the world. Odysseus ordered his men to tie him down. But Allah has given us a more secure rope: His Noble Speech.
But what is it to be a muhsin, the one who enacts ihsan? In the famous Hadith, the angel Gabriel approaches the Prophet (SAW) and asks him “Tell me about ihsan” He replies: “To worship Allah as though you see Him; if you cannot see Him, then, verily, He sees you.” Moreover, Allah, too, describes Himself with the same word, wajh, elsewhere in the Quran: “The Face of your Lord shall endure” (Surah Rahman). Thus, the muhsin is, as it were, Face to face with Allah, beholding Him in every moment and step he takes. He constantly perceives the manifestations of the Divine Names in creation, while seeking to muster those same Divine qualities within his own person. “Verily, Allah created Adam in His image” (Hadith). The Divine image is not a physical form, but it are His metaphysical attributes (e.g. knowledge, seeing, etc.). To draw closer to Him is to embody His attributes to the extent humanly possible. Chief of them is mercy.
How can we expect to see Allah’s Face, if our faces are looking elsewhere (cough…our iPhones…cough)? The Single requires our singular attention and intention.
Such was the state of Abraham. “When his Lord said to him: “Submit.” He [Abraham] said: I submit to the Lord of the worlds.” (Surah Baqarah). May Allah make us of those who draw closer to Him and gaze upon His wajh on the Day of Reckoning — Ameen!
