Urwati Al-Wusqa : Holy Quran : The strongest grip one can hold onto
Urwati Al-Wusqa is a Quranic term to describe Islamic faith, urwat means grip, something that holds another thing firmly and wusqa means something really strong both in the physical and spiritual sense, something that’s reliable.
This concept is mentioned in Holy Quran in two ayats and has occupied the minds of mufassirs for a long term, since they wanted to understand the deeper meanings of these two ayats.
Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from Error: whoever rejects evil and believes in Allah hath grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold, that never breaks. And Allah heareth and knoweth all things. (Al-Baqara 2/256)
Whoever submits his whole self to Allah, and is a doer of good, has grasped indeed the most trustworthy hand-hold: and with Allah rests the End and Decision of (all) affairs. (Loqman 31/22)
Here, the the 256th verse of Al-Baqara, the term “taghoot” is translated as evil, which is true but the term “taghoot” is open to different layers of semantic interpretation. Surely, “evil” is one of them, but apart from this unfortunate, fallen angel who is humankind’s adversary, taghoot can also attribute to “system designed to oppress believers”.
The linguistics roots of taghoot has connotations of “related to tyranny, rebellion, roguery”. Since the devil is one rogue rebel, he is considered as “one of the taghoot”. However any system or form that acts and harms mankind the in same fashion is considered as taghoot.
So, hereby we learn that negating an evil-system or simply objecting to man-made tyrannical rulings is the pre-requisite step to hold on this “the strongest grip”.
One can never truly believe in the Islamic faith without rejecting “other views” or “supplementary faiths”. There are no such things in Islam, one can not have both. In order to believe in the message declared to us by Prophet Muhammad(saw), denying the “evil system” is a must. Once a soul reached that level of awareness and mentality, he would be holding on this “urwati al-wuswa” since the remains of former belief system might still haunt the believer.
In order to prevent such draw back, “holding firmly” to “Holy Quran” is essential for believers.
Once such holding takes place, the believer should never forget that sooner or later, no matter what happens, in the end, he will win because of the “firmness” of the “grip” he has been holding to since Allah’s(j.j) grip is the strongest.
For centuries, man-made tyrannical systems has been proposed to mankind as alternative, we’ve seen myriad examples posing as “saviors of mankind”.
Every Muslims should know that many more centuries will go dust into the bins of history and many more evil system will emerge and will attempt to divert mankind but the strongest grip of Allah’s(j.j) will remain firm, therefore we should hold onto it.
Baris Tarimcioglu/islamoformation.com
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