NO OTHER WAY
I have heard more than I care to remember people saying, “If I stopped smoking, I’m going to get fat.” As if smoking is the best way to keep a stable weight.
Unfortunately, to the detriment of my health and those around me, I trumpeted that sentiment once upon a time, too.
It’s faulty thinking—or, more accurately, not thinking.
Yes, there is a correlation between smoking and eating. Smoking affects hormones related to hunger and satiety, and smokers generally gain between 4 kgs and 5 kgs in the first year of kicking the habit.
Those who choose to continue for fear of gaining weight set up a false dichotomy. These are not the only permutations. Not smoking also reduces the risk of cancer, heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and other respiratory illnesses, fertility problems, a weakened immune system, and infections. These gains far outweigh the accumulation of kilos when you quit.
The Quran calls us repeatedly to reason, yet our argument lacks all sense.
Why?
Therein lies the answer. We have not asked the right question until now.
Our first consideration should be: “Why do I smoke?”
Allah uses terms in the Quran such as limādhā— why, ya’qilu—they understand/they reason, yatafakkarūn—they reflect, and yatadabbarūn— they contemplate. When we put on our thinking cap and turn on these cognitive processes, we engage in self-care.
Asking why will expand our scope of understanding and bring the shadows of our assumptions into the light. This route will allow for proper, ordered thinking and acting as we reason, reflect, and contemplate.
Everything we do at some level serves to solve a problem. Ultimately, smoking is not the problem, but the solution to a problem. Just as comfort eating, uncontrolled anger, alcohol abuse or any compulsive behaviour is. We must seek to understand what the behaviour is trying to resolve and why the issue exists.
When we kick a habit but don’t address the root cause, we will eventually substitute the object of our compulsion for a different one. Hence, a deep dive using the Quranic mental protocols is essential.
We may learn that smoking calms us. So, when we feel anxious, our nervous system will ask us to light up. But not everything causes us anxiety. Knowing the ones which do reveals the root cause of our stress and presents us with a healthier way to address it.
We can only transform when we become aware. But there is a caveat. Turning to anything other than God and His Prophet (s) has and never will be the solution for anything in life. Whatever else we choose may seem reasonable, even desirable in the moment. However, time will eventually unravel us and deposit us back to the poor state in which we were, but only now, farther into the future.
MERCIFUL ECONOMICS
We live in a dog-eat-dog world. And at the helm reside the plutocrats who set a capitalistic, individualistic, and ruthless agenda.
But the Prophet taught us merciful economics. One that will gain Allah’s grace. The Prophet (s) said, ‘May Allah’s mercy be on him who is lenient in his buying, selling, and demanding back his money’ [Bukhariy 2076].
Colonial cronyism is not only in full view but also in vogue.
Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Tony Blair are archetypal antagonists, unapologetically embracing their colonial heritage.
Trump, self-declared Master of the Universe and capitalist extroadinaire, is a genocidal novice, but understands that war undergirds capitalism’s future, and that Netanyahu and Blair are well educated in colonial and genocidal architecture, and are the right men to help him mine Gaza and rebuild it in the colonial image.
Colonialism emanates from a Faustian appetite, embodied by the insatiable hunger of these three narcissists. To them, nothing is sacred. The world and everything in it are but commodities reserved for their bents. Not even a razed Gaza, drenched in 390 cubic metres (65,000 dead according to official estimates, unofficial estimates set it at more than a cubic kilometre) of Palestinian blood from an ongoing Israeli genocide, can stave their desire to commodify the strip.
Colonialism was never over, was never post for the “wretched of the world”, but the imperial masters, learning from the best shadow operator, the Devil, cloaked it in a veneer of respectability. But veneers become brittle, crack, until they can no longer resist the truth. It’s a deluge now. Gaza has unmasked the lot, and even though expected, the obscenity is still jarring. The world watches like it’s just another reality TV show. Sickeningly, some cheer it on like the “Hunger Games”, and the extent of resistance from others is merely embarrassment or disgust at best. Even the Pope believes Trump’s “Gaza Plan” is pragmatic. Tells you all you need to know about the state of the human project. Or more aptly, the beastly project.
The cheerleaders among the melanin cast, or as in the vernacular of Malcolm X, “House Niggers”, hail from The House of Saud, and most of the Arab world, and Erdogan, once believed to be incorruptible, David Lammy, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, and their political ilk, are used to front for the Masters of the World.
The worst of the lot are the Arab oilers, fueling their futures by drilling Palestinian blood. They have altogether sold out, eagerly becoming signatories to the Faustian pact.
Until next week, InshaAllah
P.S. Remember to write weekly to the President
Zaahied Sallie
Author of The Beloved Prophet – An Illustrated Biography in Rhyme
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