Dunya

“Is not the dunya cursed, and everything in it? It is so, except for the remembrance of God and what facilitates it.”

The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ

In its entirety, the Universe is the creation of the Almighty. Nothing is arbitrary or random. By His Mercy, He has tailor-made every moment of our lives as a means of awakening the recognition of Reality within us. The human who witnesses the Majesty present in every experience stands in awe at the astounding beauty that defines existence. The human who is initially unable and later unwilling to bear witness to the perfection of His Creation lives a life of challenge, angst, and turmoil, believing that the universe is his enemy, which reduces his existence to an an ultimately unsuccessful battle for survival. The Almighty has said in the Holy Qur’an:

We shall show them Our signs upon the horizons and within themselves till it becomes clear to them that it is the truth. (41:53).

Our spiritual evolution is facilitated by our adventures in this world, by the people that He brings into our lives, and by the constant fluctuation of ease and challenge that defines the human experience. As the Buddhists say, ‘the obstacle is the path’. Hence, it cannot be that our existence or the universe in which we exist is cursed, as without existence, we could not experience the bliss of knowing Him. Therefore, in order to understand the metaphysical significance of the Prophet’s ﷺ words, we must explore the meaning of the word dunya.

The dunya is not a physical location. Rather, it is a realm of existence produced by inaccurate perception. The dunya exists only in the mind of the one who does not recognise the Divinely Designed Perfection that is existence. The dunya is generated when the human being is oblivious to the Divine Shadow which is cast over all of creation. The dunya defines the endeavour in which the human seeks to provide for himself by his own ingenuity or ability, oblivious to or in rejection of the Divine Director who dictates the shape of all creation. Hence, the one who does recognise the Divine Beauty is cut off from peace, not because there is no peace, but because of his erroneous perception. Such a person is like one who sits petrified in the corner of a dark room, fearing the snake that shares the room with him, not thinking to turn on the light and reveal that the dangerous snake is actually a shoe lace. Could anyone be more cursed than the one who is so engrossed in a battle against a non-existent enemy that he is oblivious to the magnificence of the moment?

The inherently forgetful nature of humanity means that most of us live in the dunya. More often than not, our outlook on existence is passively inherited from our society, and unless we were blessed to be raised in proximity to awakened beings, our normative condition will be to perceive life as a struggle against arbitrariness, as a pathetic being attempting to hold his own against the overwhelmingly powerful universe. However, there is a solution to our malady: The ultimate vehicle for the amendment of perspective. When practised as a praxis of transformation, Islam is the path out of dunya. Every prescription made by the Almighty and His Beloved ﷺ is a vehicle that facilitates the transformation of inaccurate perception into clarity. The second sentence of the Prophet’s words quoted above point to the key for opening the door of Reality, which is the remembrance of God, a deeply spiritual and conscious process by which we rearrange our metaphysical system to more accurately reflect what truly is. The remembrance of God is not, however, the empty uttering of Arabic terms that we have little comprehension of. Rather, it is the conscious reformation of our outlook in order to bring it into line with Reality. It enables us to think and perceive differently. The Prophet ﷺ taught conscious living. We were instructed to recite deeply transformative phrases throughout the day as a means of sharpening our perception, reminding us of the Reality of existence at times when we are liable to forget. These phrases are designed to shine light into the uncomfortable corners of our lives, facilitating the recognition of the Truth, that He has created everything in existence as a means by which you can know Him.

Hence, the dunya is not our home. The Prophet ﷺ said that the dunya is a prison for the believer, indicating that inaccurate perception detains the human soul, and results in a toxic combination of resentment and anxiety. Existence is the means by which we come to experience His Majesty. It is neither cursed nor blameworthy. Rather, it is our reluctance to leave the dunya by means of transformative spiritual practice that is the curse. By means of the holistic application of the spiritual practices revealed by the Almighty to the Prophet, and by the gradual awakening of accurate perception that is their natural product, the human begins to see that the dunya is cursed, as it is merely a fictional product of a noxious, inaccurate outlook. And He knows best.