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Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Why My Faith in Allah is Blind

I have never seen, yet so many times desired to experience, how it feels to have a shoulder to cry on when I feel melancholic. When the thought that Allah is with everybody came to me, I expressed a wish to know if He could provide me with that shoulder or if He could lend me His own. It, perhaps, sounded too hilarious that I should ask Allah for a thing that may never happen and has never happened anytime even with the holy prophets. Nevertheless I was sure that I would be given what I had asked for.

That is my faith. To believe in that which seems too illogical; just because I desire it from my heart and know that it can in some way be a possible; though I know not the way – may be just in the dreamiest of my senses - is how my faith in Allah is. I know it’s blind. But why?

Because every time I have desired a thing of such kind, I have been subjugated by my faith to the extent of giving me a contentment equal to that which is derived, when that desire is fulfilled. The answer comes from within me. It lets me forget the need of a shoulder that arose. My faith satisfies me.

At times I find some restrictions put on me by my religion as unreasonable. I still go with them even while questioning them. I try to find the true reason behind that constraint put on me. I ask people I have put my trust in. Sometimes they don’t have an answer. I still go together with the discomfort of not having a justification of what I have been asked to do or not to do.

Then someday after I have forgotten my want for the reason, to my amazement, I find it. And I find it at a place I could have least expected. It tells me again that I can progress my life having to do things I do not know why I have been asked to do, or keep away from things I have been asked to keep away from. Because my faith, again blind, tells me that life will give me the answer and I have to take it. Because I know that every question I ask has an answer and every command given to me has a reason.

I came to know that music is not permitted for me. I asked why. I had different answers around me with one saying that music can make a mind weak and hollow. But science told me that music was good for my mind and also soul. The same source told me that it’s Satan who makes those scientists say such a thing in favor of listening to music. I didn’t find this answer satisfactory to the same brain I had in me.

I asked many people for an answer. I was ready to accept it without even having to know why. But still I kept looking. Then one find day I found it. Within myself! When we listen to music, we enjoy it. The enjoyment and cheer brings delight to our body and perhaps lets say even soul. It gets into out body. We start tapping our feet to the rhythm if not the beats. We like this and keep taking the pleasure. The enjoyment grows.

Then comes a time when we begin to have a feeling that the joy of tapping feet can be more enjoyed if some rapid movements are brought into the upper parts of the body too. Trunk, hips, belly, hands, shoulders, neck, head – all these moving. Rapidly. Fast. All together - to give a sense of joy beyond the music itself. A soothing feeling of being independent, powerful, a feeling that says we are doing something substantial, a new role being played, a feeling of traveling in a completely new world, and lost in this new world, not wanting to come back, not asking for any sense, not sure of what is happening around, not aware of anything that can be wrong and enjoying what seems to be called as dancing. Listening of music can lead a person to dance.

When a person dances, as I have tried to create a picture above, the person looses control over himself. It can be taken as similar to being drunk or intoxicated by some drug, or perhaps, seduced – all of which that can always lead to evil. We know these things are called evil and will lead to bigger evil. The evil comes when the person has lost control over him and has forgotten what is right and wrong. Dancing can, the way the above said evils do, leads to such evil. It starts with music.

Furthermore, listening to music takes us so deeply into to that it makes us loose the sense of time. It can force us to forget about our prayers. The harsher genres of music bring frustration in ones mind. It does several things including fooling people to believe in some feelings that may never ever exist in real, but just in dreams and mysticism. I had my answer why music should not be heard. I gave the answer to myself.

Even if I had not realized anything I have mentioned above, I would have still believed in the command that prohibits music. Blindly. Just because everything that has been commanded to me has in some way, till now, presented justifications that could satisfy me. So, if some order has no clear justification to it readily, it never means that it is unreasonable. The reason can be within me. This way, even the faith that seems to be blind is not blind. It has an answer that lies within me and all I need is to realize it and give it a form understood to me, a human being.

I would prefer calling my faith blind though I would continue to get answers, justifications and clarifications to all the doubts on Islam I have. This is because every day, several times I testify that there is none worthy of worship but Allah and that Muhammad (Sallallaho-Alaihe-Wa-Sallam) is Allah's worshipper and messenger. When I say I testify it, it also means that I swear on these words. It means that I bear a witness to the fact that there is none worthy of worship but Allah and that Muhammad (Sallallaho-Alaihe-Wa-Sallam) is Allah's worshipper and messenger.

Yes, I am a witness of this. I can bet my life on these words. I have felt Allah from within. I have conversed with Him. In several ways – through my prayers that were accepted, though the protection He has given me even before I could have thought of asking for it, to everything He has blessed me with for which I shall always be thankful to Him.

I have conversed with Allah when I cried in front of Him – when I was obscured with this world and didn’t know what to ask for, and just cried, not even knowing why I was crying, simply letting those tears roll down my cheeks about which I was not even aware of, sobbing, having hiccups that didn’t remind me of anything, simply crying, knowing only one things that Allah was looking at me and He knew what I wanted when I didn’t know what I was asking for. And after all this I felt that I have received from Him everything – things I have not asked for because I didn’t know what I had wanted. My heart spoke to Allah and told Him what it wanted and Allah granted it and pardoned it. I am a witness of this. I am a witness of the Kalima Shahadat. Do I still need to give a reason why my faith is blind? Or can I italicize this word - blind?

And should I loose my soul someday, which I always pray should never happen, I still have enough that can bring me back to correctness – The Holy Quran, the hadith, the grave of prophet Mohammed (Sallallaho-Alaihe-Wa-Sallam), the Holy mosques at Mecca and Medina, the existence of my own self, and the truth that can never cease to be the truth.

I have the memories of all my prayers that were accepted to perfection. I remember how late I was in realizing that everything I had asked for was granted to me in some way or the other. The way Allah has given me a perfect life itself is the biggest reason that I can do what He asked me to, blindly. I need not open my eyes to see where I am going as long as I let Allah hold my hands.

 
posted by xubayr at 1:15:00 PM | Permalink |


2 Comments:


  • At 1:22 PM, Blogger xubayr

    I have never said that I don't listen to music. Perhaps I listen to it more than many people I know. But I know it is wrong. I know it is a sin. I know I continue even when I know that I shouldn't.

    I have tried many a times to keep away from my ear-phones when I felt like listening to music. I have succeeded many times. I seek Allah's help. I seek His forgiveness.

     
  • At 1:56 PM, Anonymous Anonymous

    MashAllah zubair,you once again suceed in wrting what you exactly thought.

    To leave music is very much easy,but to continue without listening to music maybe a bot tough.But there are other ways to keep music away.

     


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