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“Verily We create Man in the best conformation; and thereafter We reduce him to the lowest of the low, excepting only such as attain to faith and do good works: and theirs shall be a reward unending” [Quran 95: 4-6]

To reflect on humanity is to contemplate the great paradox of Man, who is created in the “best conformation” (Quran 95:4) but is also quite capable of sinking to the lowest depths. In Charles Le Gai Eaton’s case, the spiritual trajectory is reversed but its wondrous nature is not. How is it, one marvels, that a man whose very life started as a lie- a complex, multi-layered web of misinformation, deception and half-truths – became one of the most eloquent and passionate pilgrims on the path of the Ultimate Truth?

Attempting to describe Charles Le Gai Eaton, aka Hassan Abdul Hakeem, is no mean feat because he didn’t fit into the neat little boxes or labels we have so become accustomed to in recent years. His genius was that he ticked too many boxes: Writer, Intellectual, Humanist, Sufi, Orthodox, Traditional, Progressive, British… and above all, Muslim.

A searching soul

Gai Eaton was born in Switzerland in 1921 to a stubbornly agnostic mother and a man he thought, for sixteen years, was his uncle. His mother was mistress to a married and when she fell pregnant, concocted an elaborate deception that included inventing a husband (“Charles Eaton” – named after a Canadian department store) who died young and introducing Gai’s real father – Francis Errington – as his uncle. Even after Gai Eaton learned the truth when he was 16 and his mother married his real father, the charade continued as Gai Eaton didn’t let on to his father that he knew the truth.

Educated at the best schools, his quick, inquiring mind and searching soul led him to philosophy and the usual suspects – Nietzsche, Kant, Hegel – with whom he soon became disillusioned because “they were just speculating” and couldn’t provide him with the certainty for which he yearned. He moved on to Christian mysticism and from there to Eastern religions. Inspired by his experience and readings he published a book on the universality of spiritual revelation, called The Richest Vein in 1949. In 1951, he found his certainty in Islam and formally became a Muslim; but it wasn’t until several years later that Islam became more than just a nominal aspect of his life.

Islam and the destiny of Muslims

Gai Eaton was attracted to Islam’s embodiment of the Ultimate Truth and became Muslim, only to discover that Muslims, under onslaught from Secularism, Consumerism and a host of other modern and/or Western maladies, were fast abandoning the very same values and spiritual truths that would save them. This doesn’t mean that Eaton was a naïve convert who romanticized Muslims and longed for the bygone “Golden Age” of Islam; on the contrary he was extremely practical and probably more realistic than most on the challenges the Muslim community faced and the long, hard slog required to put us back on track.

What I find so remarkable about Eaton was his unwavering commitment to learn, to practice, to teach, to understand, to discover and to ultimately to live Islam in the best way that he could; without many of the distractions and pitfalls to which many of us become prey. He managed to avoid the temptation to “go native” and “Arabicize” himself in a bid for authenticity. He recognized, and rightfully so, that the beauty and strength of Islam came from its ability to encompass and integrate varied cultures and viewpoints and still retain its distinctive nature.

He gave voice to Muslim converts, who struggled to forge an identity that was both Islamic and true to their (usually) Western origin. He asked the questions that all Muslims, native or new, have asked and are asking at every turn and he did it so eruditely, so passionately and yet so humbly, that we could not but listen. Eaton showed us that Islam need not be an abstract ideology or social discourse.

Eaton’s books reveal an Islam that is a far cry from the totalitarian, hardline strain that is so attractive to young, impressionable Muslims struggling to define themselves and their faith in a hostile world. His works bring all of us back from whatever brink we find ourselves, and gently but inexorably remind us that Islam is first and foremost, a spiritual transformation that starts with the self.

Eaton’s rich legacy of works include Islam and the Destiny of Man, “Remembering God: Reflections on Islam” and his last, published just before his death on February 26 2010, “A Bad Beginning and the Path to Islam”.

“God is the light of the heavens and the earth. The parable of His light is, as it were, that of a niche containing a lamp; the lamp is [enclosed] in glass, the glass [shining] like a radiant star: [a lamp] lit from a blessed tree – an olive-tree that is neither of the east nor of the west; the oil whereof [is so bright that it] would well-nigh give light [off itself] even though fire had not touched it: light upon light! God guides unto His light unto him that wills [to be guided]; and [to this end] God propounds parables unto men, since God [alone] has full knowledge of all things.” Quran [24:35]

God’s light touched Charles Hassan Abdul Hakeem Le Gai Eaton, who in turn nurtured the spiritual glow in more hearts than anyone would ever know. Eaton may well have had a “bad beginning” but oh, what a glorious end it was!