Sadia Dehlvi

Imam Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of Prophet Mohammad said, “God has distinguished the human race by the diversity of its limitations, and appearances. He has manifested this creation in the wisest of forms, and given to its original nature in accordance with what he intended and innovated”.
The Quran calls God “The Fatir”, meaning the originator, one who split the heavens and the earth causing distinct things to exist. Fitrah, is commonly translated as the primordial nature of human beings. The holy book says, “Set thy face to the religion as one with the primordial faith (fitrah) of God according to which He bought people forth (30:31)”. This verse connects human beings with the nature they are endowed at birth and they enter into a trust with their Lord.
Physically, we all may be different, but each one of us is born with a blueprint of Divine laws, which if untarnished allows us to recognise the reality of God. In a famous Hadith, saying, the prophet said, “every child is born according to fitrah”. This translates as born inclined to faith, with an intuitive awareness of Divine purpose and a nature built to receive Prophetic messages. However, as we begin our life in the clutter of this world, the innate nature gets filled with debris distorting their natural disposition.
Islam is not a faith that came with Prophet Mohammad, but with first Prophet Adam. Differing with Christian traditions, Islam does not believe in the concept that man is corrupt by nature and born with the “original sin” resulting from Adam’s wrongdoing, or that Adam bought upon himself a permanent state of sin that can only be redeemed by the sacrificial blood of Christ.
In Islamic scriptures both Adam and Eve fell into error, but immediately turned in repentance to Allah, who forgave them. Adam, slipped, just like all of us do, but in contrast he made a mistake just once. Adam and Eve then became watchful of their actions ensuring they were in accordance with God’s commands. There is no blemish passed on to their progeny, for the Quran clearly states that, “no soul bears the burden of another soul”. According to Muslim traditions, the migration of Adam and Eve to the earth was part of Allah’s divine plan without which God would not have been able to put Adam as his vice-regent on the earth. After the forgiveness, God appointed Adam as a prophet.
If we lived up to our father Adam, and mother Eve, we would have nothing to fear. Adam’s entry into the earth is a sign that God’s mercy takes precedence over his wrath, and that his guidance overcomes the misguidance of Satan.
However, this does not negate the existence of base instincts among humans. Ailments of the heart are part of the Adamic potential, and we must know about human nature in order to be protected one has to learn to distinguish what comes from the heart and what comes from one’s emotions, desires, fears and imagination. Awareness of the passions of the lower self, their causes and how to remove them is an obligation on every sane adult human being.
We have to remember that we came from “One Reality”, and our physical existence is just a shadow, which we have to transcend and discover the permanent and timeless. The fitrah has to be and cultivated to maintain this inclination to faith and purity of the heart.
The sound heart is one free from character defects and spiritual blemishes. Rectifying the heart is a life long process, and if human beings truly follow their hearts, we can never go wrong for the spiritual heart is centred in the physical one, containing a Divine echo.

— Sadia Dehlvi is a Delhi-based writer and author of Sufism: The Heart of Islam. She can be contacted at sadiafeedback@gmail.com