Racial Traits, Spiritual Elevation and 'Dua'/ Prayer

We have already seen in the article “Racial Traits and Spiritual Elevation” there  is no such thing as spiritual superiority on the basis of racial traits. Racial traits are neutral in their essence; they can be used both for the good or for the bad. There is no single human trait which can be used for the good only or for the bad only. Human traits may be superior or inferior in terms of attaining worldly achievements, but they cannot be superior or inferior in terms of spiritual achievements. All human traits may be used to attain equal but distinct spiritual elevation or spiritual degradation. Every individual is distinct in his/her spiritual achievements because every individual is bestowed with distinct traits/emotions which provide the basis for spiritual elevations. No doubt Allah determines everything to be faced by human beings;  Allah  determines spiritual elevation/degradation on the basis of human deeds or Allah's will but not on the basis of race.

We know that human being is granted with various kinds of traits/emotions- pleasures and sorrows, liking and disliking, excitements and shocks, sadness and happiness, love and hate, affection and aversion, hope and frustration, trust and distrust, self-respect and lack of self-respect, courage and cowardliness, patience and impatience, resilience and lack of resilience, meanness and charity, mercy and cruelty, anger and joy, shallowness and profoundness etc. Out of these traits, every individual is granted by Allah with a fixed   composition/set of traits in terms of kind and magnitude/degree, which may vary from person to person. This fixed composition of traits/emotions is called ‘shakilah’. 

 Allah says: "Everyone acts according to his own disposition/ ‘shaakilah’: But your Lord knows best who it is that is best guided on the Way" (Isra-84).

 Once granted to human being, fixed composition of traits is never changed. (plz see my article ' Determined Psyche of Human Being'). Every person acts in his/her life according to this composition of traits he/she is bestowed upon. Actually traits are the basic tool through which a person is judged by Allah in this worldly life.  These human traits are neither good nor bad in their essence; it is the human choice of the situations, and kind and magnitude of these traits to manifest in those situations, which makes a human deed good or bad. A human deed based on each kind of traits (e.g. love or hate, anger or lack of anger, lust or lack of lust, courage or cowardliness etc) may be either good or bad, depending upon the situation chosen and the magnitude of trait to display in such situation. For instance lack of anger shown in a situation which requires anger to be shown would be a bad act; similarly showing anger in a situation which requires lack of anger to be shown would be a bad act. Similarly lesser degree of charity shown in a situation which requires greater degree of charity to be displayed would be a bad act; similarly greater degree of charity in a situation which requires lesser degree of charity to be shown would be a bad deed. (e.g. a Muslim cannot bequeath more than one third of his property through his will). 

 

It does not mean that all human races have been bestowed with equally good traits for worldly achievements; definitely some individuals/races are blessed with better traits than the other individuals/races. But such superiority of racial traits impacts only worldly achievements; it has nothing to do with level of spiritual elevations. As long as spiritual elevations are concerned, equal but distinct spiritual elevations may be achieved on the basis of every set of racial traits (every individual is distinct in his/her spiritual achievements because every individual is bestowed with distinct traits/emotions which provide the basis for spiritual elevations).  All kinds of traits (whether superior/inferior for worldly achievements) can be used to do the good or the bad deeds. There is no single human trait which can be used only for the good or only for the bad deed.

From the foregoing it is clear that there is no such thing as spiritual superiority on the basis of racial traits. But it does not mean that ‘dua’/prayer may not be made for piety/spiritual elevation of a person/group of persons/tribe. ‘Hazrat’ Zakria (a.s) prayed to have a pious son which was granted in the form of ‘Hazrat’ Yahya (a.s). Similarly ‘Hazrat Ibraheem' (a.s) prayed to have leaders (both spiritual and worldly) in his progeny; this prayer also has been granted. But what is to be appreciated is if a certain person/group of persons/tribe is pious due to ‘dua’/ prayer, it does not mean such person/group of persons/tribe has gained such piety due to some special traits/emotions. Actually any other person/ group may attain the equal but distinct level of spiritual elevation which has been attained by a particular person/group/tribe due to application of ‘dua’/prayer [But obviously prophet-hood cannot be attained by every person because prophet-hood is always by birth as per Allah’s Sunnah; and according to Allah’s law no prophet can come after our Nabi (s.a.w)]. In fact, ‘dua’/prayer means to invoke Allah’s special intervention to get the things done, which happen through application of Allah’s ‘Sunnah’/ natural laws. The natural law is that spiritual elevation has nothing to do with racial traits which are neutral in their essence and every trait/emotion can be used for the good and for the bad. Dua/ prayer is not to invoke violation of Allah’s laws; ‘dua’ is just to invoke Allah’s special intervention to get a thing which, of course, happens only through Allah’s laws/ natural laws.  
 People are tried by Allah through two ways: through 'khair'/good or through 'sher'/ bad. The people which are made pious due to 'Dua' are the people which are tried through 'khair'/good; such people have to prove themselves to be worthy of 'khair'/good they are granted with without their effort through 'Dua'; if such people tried through 'khaira' do not prove to be worthy of such 'khaira', that 'khaira' is taken away from them. Similarly if people tried through 'sher' prove to be not worthy of such 'sher', that 'sher' is taken away from them. Therefore we may conclude that a pious person/group of persons which are pious due to ‘Dua’/ prayer have not gained such piety due to any special traits/emotions. Piety is the result of interplay of human traits/emotions. These human traits are neither good nor bad in their essence; it is the human choice of the situations, and kind and magnitude/degree of these traits to manifest in those situations, which makes a human deed good or bad.