بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ
NOTE
: My
deepest gratitude by all means goes to Allah s.w.t for inspiring me to put all
these into words, and to The Muslim Heroes for organising the talk
“Desire” (28/4/2013) given by Brother Daood Butt, as well as the WAMY Student Club for
organising “Unlock your Heart” (29/4/2013) by Brother Daood Butt again with Sister Fadila
Grine. Whatever I’m going to talk about next is a glimpse of reflection on a
few things in my life, based on what I’ve learnt from these two talks including
all other talks I have attended like “Reclaim your Heart” given by Yasmin Mogahed and
the open circle conducted by Young Muslim Project, “Happily Ever After” given
by Sister Tasneem Ghouri, just to mention a few. And of course, my gratitude
goes to all these speakers, as well as to those who have helped me in
understanding this thing better, directly and indirectly. Jazakumullahu khairan
kathiran. It takes more than fortitude and faith for me to actually write about
this because whenever I come to this sort of thing, it flows directly from the
bottom of my heart, it just leaks. When you talk about what comes from your
heart, you cannot run from talking about you - your very own self. I almost
decided not to go on with publishing this, before my course mate told me this
one beautiful line : “Hey, it’s about sharing! And it is your method of daawah
that matters”. Indeed, it is all about
sharing and our method of daawah. So, never mind that then, let’s just share.
Let’s get inspired and inspire others, let’s give and take and learn from each
other, alright? Because sometimes an answer to you is also an answer to someone
else; if not to everyone, at least to one. And I believe “What comes from the
heart, touches the other heart”, InshaAllah. I am going to write on this into
two parts; Part 1 and Part 2.
Generally,
if you are Malaysians, we might have gone through the same track. We joined the
kindies when we were about 4 or 5 years old, and the primaries when were 7.
Next when we were 13, we went to high schools. Those were the places we went
five times a week, for approximately 12 years of our entire lives. We mixed
around, we made friends there. We learnt “A, B, C...” in the kindies up until
Chemistry in high schools. And today, here we are, in the universities. Here,
we are streamed into the lines of our choices, and now we are doing Engineering
or Dentistry and what not in our universities. Alhamdulillah. After all the
way, it is not easy to be here today. Imagining what the future holds, we feel
this kind of excitement along with a feeling of ease in the heart.
So
this is how our first 20 years of life go. We study hard and smart, we struggle
to score the highest possible marks that we can in the examinations. We strive to
score as many A’s and 4.0 CGPA in every semester. We join the societies and organisations
to widen our view of life
and to enrich our knowledge. Our maturity grows as time passes. And we begin to
see education as a great platform for stepping into the next level of life.
Next level, the level when we will be working and have our own family. Our own family. (Come on, don’t tell me you don’t talk about all this kind of things!) When
our educational side goes as the way it is, our personal and social life keeps
on moving. Along the way, we make friends, we mix around. We observe; we learn
from the surrounding and the people. And we do what our conscience of this age
demands us to do.
Also,
here is where our another ‘examination’ begins.
Brothers
and sisters, before you think I am about to reveal my main point of writing
this, let me first manage your expectation up front. To give you a clearer
view, I’ll give you an analogy. Imagine, you and your friends are left in your
own boats in the middle of the sea. All of you are given a task and expected to
prove equal to the task to the best of your abilities. The task is, to catch as
many fish that you can, without getting yourself drowned. So you struggle to
catch your fish, trying with all your might not to get drowned at the same
time. But in your journey in the ocean, no one has ever mentioned to you, some
fish are poisonous and dangerous. No one has ever told you, there are toxic
wastes in the sea which you have to be extra careful with, and that at one time
and another the storms may strike you. No
one says anything. You’re so extremely determined but yet you are so naive
and innocent too, you don’t know the nature of the fight.
So
you aim to catch fish, unaware of those coming in your way. It happens a few
times when you mistake the toxic waste for a fish, like the empty can for a
fish. Sometimes, the storms hit you so hard you are loosing your grip to your
boat, that you are almost drowned. And there are times, when you see some of
your friend catch the Lionfish and the Toadfish, you too want that fish - because
it appears to be beautiful in your eyes. Beautiful, but venomous, and you just
don’t know about it. All you know is to catch as many fish as you can. You
think your only test here is only to catch the fish, but the bitter truth is
that your test is bigger and more than just that. You also have to survive the
storms and you have to be able to resist the temptation of the false beauty and
attraction; you have to learn how to restrain your desire –or hawa, in the other word. And that is how I view our first
20 years of lives, specifically our teenage.
Our
years of youthful dalliance.
We
were being unwillingly thrust into a test we never expected, or if we did; we
were never ready and prepared. And yet, we were hoped to be worthy of this new
and unknown ‘examination’ which we never envisaged - not only worthy but also
to survive and excel. To excel
unprepared. It does not seem to me realistic – well, nor is it. But be that
as it may, because it is a fact. From kindies up until universities, we learnt
almost all fundamental knowledge in life from religion to ethics, from
philosophy until sciences but one thing : we never specifically learnt how to
deal with ourselves, when it comes to the matter of the heart and attraction,
desire and attachment. Putting it
bluntly, when it comes to love and relationship with the opposite gender. Ironic
our world sometimes isn’t it? The way we live with all this within our reach
but we can’t and shouldn’t even touch it.
And
most of us never knew about this until we touched it.
Never comes to our
knowledge that there is another ‘examination’ awaiting us. No one has ever
warned us when we mix with the friends of the opposite gender, we may become
attracted to them and vice versa. No one has ever told us how and what to do
when we feel like we ‘like’ or ‘love’ someone. Even further, it has never
occurred to us that this journey of ‘love’ is very much painful. Of course,
there are some who are exposed to the root of all these things. You know, how
to actually interact with friends of opposite gender like lowering the gaze and
such. However, some are not lucky enough to be exposed to it at an early age. Some are just not.
I
can still remember, the first time I thought I fell in love when I was 7 years
old. The truth is, I can vividly play it back in my mind how in one morning,
from the door where I was standing in my classroom, I saw this one new student
passed by me. When I saw him, the first thing I thought of and felt was “I like
him” and the feeling lasted until I entered secondary school –it took almost 6
years before the feeling disappeared. I cannot explain how and why it happened
because I truly did not know, I could just feel it without even knowing what
was actually happening. Come on, no one
talks about love to a small girl. It’s too ludicrous for words and sounds
so absurd. Yes, I know. But the truth is, there is a fine line between
absurdity and possibility. It is absurd, but possible. And it happens.
Since so, I began to explore on my own.
I’ll
give you an example, let’s take high school. ‘High school’, the name even suits
it, right? ‘High’, signifies a higher level of education for those aged between
13-17; for those who are expected to achieve a certain level of understanding
in life. ‘School’, the place where we learn. The place where we meet friends,
and have a life. High school was when we thought the world is ours, when we
were so eager to try this and that, but yet, the fact is that “you’re still in
school, dude.” Along the way, again, we mixed around with the friends of the opposite
gender as we did in our kindies and primaries. Only this time, there were
things we thought we knew and understood back then, but we actually did not. So
the exploration which started years before continued - with the understanding we thought we already had.
We
began to try and experience on our own what the society did although we did not
know whether or not it was a right thing to do. Even worse, we misjudged worse
as the good, and the wrong as the right thing. We began to attach ourselves to
the wrong attachment, everything surfaced to be so golden in our eyes - because
we thought we were sensible enough to judge things when the fact is that nobody
was really sensible at this age – that we tend to fall victim to our own desire. You know, when you’re crazy for
the fashion trend and you began to experiment with the latest fashion – even if
it included exposing your aurah. Or when you’re madly ‘in love’ with someone you
started to date them. You dated, you
loved unconditionally and innocently, and when it suddenly didn’t work out, you
suffered. I think, many of us used to experience this curve in our lives, at least once. Since my focus here is to talk about relationship, so now
i’m narrowing down my scope to that specififc piece.
If
you have gone through such curve in your life when you used to date someone, and
if you used to go through the battle of detaching yourself from it, then I
believe you might understand the nature and the pain of the struggle. It feels
like a bolt of pain is shooting through yourself, as if an arrow shot from a
bow is darting exactly towards your direction and the sharp, pointed head hits
you in the chest and penetrates right through your heart. The head of the arrow
leaves nothing but an aching pain, and nothing you can do at that moment other
than enduring the tingling and stinging pain surging into every inch of your
heart - with the very minimal courage you have at that moment. You are sinking,
the world around you too seems to sink. Am I right?
Now, I’m coming closer to my main point.
Brothers
and sisters, if you think I am only going to talk about the false attachment, I
am sorry for not living up to your expectation because the false attachment is
not my only concern – and it is not even my main concern – here. Now, let’s put
aside all the false attachment. Because, I’m about to invite you to dive in
another situation, with more tension and pressure. How about if, in one way or
another, you just don’t think it is a false attachment? Have you ever asked
this question to yourself?
“What
if, this attachment is not wrong?”
Let’s say if you’re in the middle of the ocean
again, you meet a friend - of the opposite gender - there. He or she helps you
to catch your fish, and at the same time helps you not to drown yourself. When
you sail perilously close to the wind, he or she reminds you to get back on the
track. When you are about to catch the wrong fish, he or she stops you and shows
you the right one. And, the person doesn’t only help you, but teaches you how
to see yourself in a different view and you finally realize how amazing you are
that you can actually survive in your journey in the sea despite all the
challenges. In fact, he or she also tells you one beautiful thing : “That you,
and I, the ocean and the storm, even all the creatures in the sea; we are all
under the control of the God.” You are alone, you just don’t know about so many
things, and when you get to know someone who helps you to understand things
from different shades of light, can you resist?
Do you get me?
Fine.
Let’s get back to our reality now.
You
see, as I said earlier, some of us are just not exposed to understand the limit
in the interaction between opposite gender at an early age. So, how about, if
in one of those days, be it in high school or in the university, suddenly a
relationship between you and a friend of the opposite gender eventually
develops – out of your control? You are both classmates or schoolmates or such;
you interact, you meet almost every day. It starts with your studies before you
both become close friends. And a strange feeling peacefully seeps into your
heart. Slowly, and smoothly. You
obviously don’t choose “Oh, I feel like I want to fall in love with this guy,
so let’s get to know him and make it happen!” It happens, and it grows,
without you can’t even think to choose the perfect time and the right person.
All of a sudden, you are like, “You know what, I feel like I love this guy, and
don’t ask me why because I can’t really tell. I can just feel it.”
And
the relationship has gone through a few phases, maybe quite a number of years,
that you both later get to know each other quite well. You know his or her good
as well as the bad side, and he or she also knows yours; it happens to be that
the things you found in him or her fit exactly the frame for the picture of
your dream future spouse. You both just don’t mind about the bad side, or
probably his or her strength is your weakness and vice versa, so you choose to help
each other instead. He or she takes the best out of you and boost it, and the
worst out of you and improve it –together! You become a better person than
before. Even more, it is not only the relationship between you with the person
that develops, also, a relationship between both of you with God - with the One
who Creates you both - starts to develop.
The
type of attachment I am trying to talk about is not the type that takes you far
from Allah and His Deen. It is also not the type that distracts your focus on
your studies, or puts a gap between you and your friends or between you and
your parents. Or, it used to be once but you both eventually learn from the
past and later, you both begin to improve and start to give a sense of purpose
to your relationship. You no longer date like others do, you start avoiding
long calls and such – together. In this case, this relationship “aims at
pleasing Allah, and aims for the Jannah”. It is not mainly based on hawa. You
and that person help each other to become a better person in the eyes of Allah,
you both even compete to attain His pleasure that you don’t think this
relationship is a false attachment. In this case, this relationship despite it
is unlawful, however, it has the potential - if it is given the chance - to be
a better relationship for the sake of Allah.
Then what do you do, if you face this kind of situation?
“Get
married then!” Yeah, that’s the thing –you just don’t think you can get married
now! “How about my studies then?” “Oh man, my parents surely are going to kill
me!” These are the most common reasons. You see, the reality is that, not
everyone can afford to get married at an early age. Well, you are preparing for it, but you’re just not yet there. Same
goes to the fact that not everyone cannot afford to get married at a young age,
some just can! Back to our discussion. So, how about this relationship? “But then, come on dude, that person is... Is...
Subhanallah, you can’t put it in words!” It’s not only his or her physical
appearance that attracts you, but on top of that, it’s the deen that amazes
you, the akhlaq and everything - that person comes in a package! So, should you
go on with it, or shouldn’t you? Not moving on would mean waiting. Waiting
until you both are physically, mentally and economically ready. And you wonder,
when is that? What if something comes in your way? How about if the person suddenly
falls for another person? What if things suddenly change?
In short, waiting for uncertainty.
You now begin to
question everything; what if this and how about that, how to do and what not to
do. You try to get to the bottom of everything. How do you deal with this kind
of thing? And you wonder, is this ‘love’ before marriage is recognised in
Islam? If “love for the sake of Allah” is recognised in the relationship
between married couples, is this kind recognised too? If it is, should you hold
on, give it a ‘pause’ and get married later when you are both ready? If it is
not, then how do you make this one recognised? Can it even be recognised? Or
should you let it go, and get detached from it? How can you let it go if you
are not even sure you’ll meet somebody someday again that fits the frame of
your dream future spouse? Above all, what is the mercy and wisdom behind this
thing? Why does Allah put you in this kind of situation, is He that cruel to
see you suffer? Has Islam, the most syumul and beautiful way of life ever said
anything about this?
What
will happen if you are put in this situation?
[To be continued] <3
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