Million Miles

My ventilator. Read, comment and judge me not.

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Its been one long break from blogging. I'm done with exams and every other officiality on earth but still its hard to manage time for blogging. I remember there was a time, not so long ago, when my life revolved around blogging. But not anymore, its rather the other way round now. The way it should be; blogging revolves around my life. Its good to be busy with constructive activities that are actually contributing something to make me a better human being. I don't despice studies and I don't condem education but I just think that alot of times we go a little over board in emphasizing them.

Coming back to the post, I've been busy attending/housing a jamat from South Africa. They were seven ladies in total and masha'allah 4 of them were in their early twenties. It's just so pelasing to the eyes to see such young people spending their youth on strengthening their Iman. Its a blessing, honestly. To be aware and to have the realisation in our hearts of our true purpose in this world. Our true purpose is not to 'give up everything in the name of Allah' and walk out on everything and everyone. Although, it could mean altering our present life style. Its not about going to an extreme either; its about striking a balance, its about having that awareness in our hearts and acting accordingly. That is it basically. Unfortunetly, we're not even properly aware. How could we ever set things right when we don't know everything that we need to know? But even more importantly, we need more 'amal'. We need more action and we need more repetition. We've been studying about Islam ever since we started school. Everyday, all round the year. But how many of us have actually sat down with our head in our hands, thinking about it? Analysing it? Thinking of ways with which we can bring it in our lives? We hear about Islam, we hear about salah, we hear about being honest, we hear about encouraging others on good deeds, we hear about being generous, we hear about the greatness of Allah, but do we ever utter these words ourselves? Do we ever talk about Allah and His attributes? This kind of boring religious talk is left for the stoically emotionless moulvis and mullahs to do on the Friday khutbah or on a late night T.V program. Its associated with them. We consider these mualvis to be pious and honest and respectable but we never want to be like them. Why? Because the version of religion that they paint is...without fun, without any traces of excitement, basically without life. And we don't want to get into all that Holy stuff just as yet, because we're young and we're energetic and desperate to have 'fun'.

I believe that at the heart of all this religious talk lies the element of 'love'. Love comes naturally to all human beings. This is one of the most powerful emotion that can make a man touch all extremes. So it is through the love of Allah that we can truly gain an insight into our religion. The first step is to establish an extremely strong relationship with Allah; to submit ourselves totally at His command and to love Him the most. Because when we love somebody it becomes easier for us to follow his/her ways and wishes. We try our darnest to be close to him/her and associate ourselves with him/her in all ways possible. Similarly, if we love Allah then following His commandments would come naturally to us. We will be willing to make sacrifices for Him and we'd do everything according to His wishes. And that's basically what He wants from us. Now, how to attain that complete and strong bond with Allah? Since He is not apparent in any physical form, the only way we can achieve that is by talking about Him and His greatness. So the answer lies in repetition. And when we repeat this over and over again, there will come a point when we'll actually start loving Allah. We need to talk of Allah as often as we can and we need to follow His orders. If we follow a blend of these we wouldn't be needing any anything else to sustain our spirituality. And once the spirituality is fed, our hearts will be at peace.

I know my posts have taken a very sermon-like tone but these days I'm trying to get at something. I'm trying to make sense out of all this and for that I need to write out my thoughts and my perception of religion. You might not agree with me :)

posted by Niqabi at 11:37 AM

3 Comments:

Umar said...

so.. you're also a "tablighi"?

that makes two of us.

6:09 PM

Reza said...

Welcome back and a very thought provoking post there Niqabi. Indeed the reason we pray 5 times a day is cuz repitition after each namaz helps us in the zikr of Allah and also keeps us from wrongful acts. Good post:).

7:54 PM

Niqabi said...

DrPak: Thank you :) Nah insha'Allah I'm going to be regular

Umar: Ermm, yup:D Tablighi through and through!

Reza: Jazakallah loads for the appreciation :)

1:05 AM