FINDING STRENGTH
We do not have the power to turn back the waves of the sea or affect the celestial cycles. Humans have limited agency. Thus, we are powerless over many things and must turn them over to God.
But our day-to-day lives seldom reflect this truth. When we live as if we can effect change or control outcomes at will, our lives become unnecessarily complicated because we will repeatedly cross the God line. In this place, agency dissolves, and tension starts effervescing in our bodies.
Knowing the threshold of our power is the beginning of self-awareness.
Self-awareness is the first destination.
Passing the baton to God and trusting Him is the second destination and the birth of wisdom: “God will find a way out for those who are mindful of Him, and will provide for them from an unexpected source; God will be enough for those who put their trust in Him. God achieves His purpose; God has set a due measure for everything” [65:2-3], and “If anyone puts his trust in God, God is Mighty and Wise” [8:49].
SIGHTS OF BELONGING
In Islam, the centrality and sanctity of the family are fundamental building blocks to societal cohesion and flourishing. At its epicentre is the matriarch, the woman, the mother, the womb—rahim, mercy.
Today, the steady erosion and degradation of the family and the erasure of the family lineage threaten the stability of the home, atomising molecules, sundering relationships and making it tremendously complex to reconstitute sights of belonging.
Our beloved Prophet (s) teaches us that we do not keep family ties because the structure supports us. Rather, we maintain kinship because of its wombly origins—arham—mercy, which is what kinship is. Mercy is the glue that galvanises family and connects us to God, the Most Merciful: “The family of so-and-so (i.e., Abu Talib) are not my supporters. My supporter is Allah and the righteous believing people. But they (that family) have kinship (rahim) with whom I will maintain good the ties of kinship” [Riyadh al-Salihin 330].
Feelings. They’re elusive. However, I think most of us want it that way. Flight or fright serve us well and save us from the nuisance of pontificating or identifying the emotion or range of emotions we’re experiencing. This approach might benefit us in the immediate short-term. But its long-term harm far outweighs the discomfort of facing our fears and pain and understanding our inner workings.
To be shut off from our feelings is a defence mechanism with a cost too great to bear. The more we activate it, the number and unnatural we become, and alarmingly, the less human.
Repairing our relationships is the solution to reclaiming our emotions and thawing the frozen sea within us. And it begins with the one we have with ourselves.
Until next week, InshaAllah
Zaahied Sallie
Author of The Beloved Prophet – An Illustrated Biography in Rhyme
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