A DIVINE HUG
Loneliness has endowed the world with floundering mental health issues to the point where the United Kingdom, in 2018, was the first country to create a ‘Minister of Loneliness’ portfolio to combat the crisis.
Single living is not the only cause of loneliness.
Failure to bond meaningfully with another person due to emotional impediments is a leading factor. A person may never be alone but experience deep bouts of human detachment, which often stem from trauma, fear, parental neglect, or other underlying emotional issues.
We are social beings. Thus, developing and maintaining close relationships are vital for cognitive development and well-being.
Giving daily or regular hugs is a simple yet often neglected practice at home. The warm, loving embrace of another with whom we have a deep connection is a potent loneliness inhibitor, trust builder, mood alterer, and stress reducer.
When two people embrace, oxytocin, known as the ‘love hormone’, floods the brain, boosting positive emotions.
Considering the Divine’s embrace, it would be reasonable to assume it would deliver the most potent surge of oxytocin.
So, how can we hug God?
We can metaphorically hug the Divine by hugging the Quran in which He revealed the following verse: ‘We send down the Quran as a healing and mercy’ [17:82].
Proclaiming our love for the Quran while embracing and kissing it will engender a special healing bond. The following prayer may accompany this physical act of affection for God’s words.
‘O, Allah! I seek Your love as those whom You love. O, Allah! Make your love dearer to me than my soul, property, family, and even more precious than cold water (on a hot day)’ [Tirmidhiy from Abu al-Darda].
We can also modify this dua by adding, ‘O, Allah! Make your love, the love for the Prophet (s), the Quran and Islam dearer to me than … (add the one thing most beloved to you)’
Let’s endeavour to make hugging God’s Book a daily habit, earnestly hoping for Allah’s Kalām (speech) to lodge into every recess of our being, inform our lives, drive our health and become our closest companion.
Go on, spread health, give hugs!
THE BEST MATRIMONIAL CHARACTER ASSETS
The best assets for matrimony are not on a gift register, in some offshore account, or a wealth incubator.
It was not the Prophet’s wealth that attracted Sayyida Khadījah to him. She sought Muhammad’s hand when he was striving to earn a better livelihood but was not yet financially ready for marriage.
What Muhammad (s) lacked in fortune, he had a surplus in character, and her keen heart felt drawn by his (s) irresistible nature.
Nufaysah, Khadija’s representative, delivered the offer of marriage, and Muhammad (s) consented. She sent for him, after learning the glad tidings, and made a tender and poignant revelation for her choice: ‘Son of mine uncle, I love thee for thy kinship with me, and for that thou art ever in the centre, not being a partisan amongst the people for this or for that; and I love thee for thy trustworthiness and the beauty of thy character and the truth of thy speech.’ [Muhammad by Martin Lings]
This stunning address by our mother (Mother of the Believers) should provoke deep sentiment in the hearts of our sisters and daughters seeking matrimony and become their standard when choosing a partner.
Societal norms are not necessarily moral.
What may be taboo today may not be so tomorrow, as demonstrated by the constant flux of society’s values.
Today, many historical norms are considered immoral. Harmful ideologies such as colonialism and racism, once conventional, are now morally repugnant. This defect proves that societal values are not rooted in higher law.
One significant horror of our age, but still regarded as normative, is Zionism.
South Africa’s apartheid rule went unopposed for more than a decade until the international community’s pressure in 1962 forced the United Nations General Assembly to pass Resolution 1761, a non-binding resolution condemning South African apartheid policies. A year later, the UN’s Security Council passed Resolution 181, calling for a voluntary arms embargo against South Africa. But most Western countries reneged on imposing the embargo. Disgracefully, the United States and the United Kingdom implemented sanctions very late and only cut ties in the late 1980s.
Like Apartheid South Africa, Israel was born in the same year as an ethnostate with the same footprint, only more brutal.
Birds of a feather flock together, and both countries were in lockstep. Israel violated the UN arms embargo by secretly trading arms with South Africa.
Fortunately, local uprisings and a sustained international effort dismantled apartheid in South Africa in 1994. But the international community has shamefully turned a blind eye to Israel’s crimes of apartheid.
Zionism as an ideology is racist and exclusionary, and the way it excludes is through violence. However, the ideology is not yet taboo for the West.
Any law or ideology, religious or otherwise, that’s partial to those not of its way is evil.
The highest standard of justice is to stand for truth, even if it is against yourself.
Hopefully, Western norms will catch up soon and deliver Apartheid Israel the same blow it did South Africa.
Until next week, InshaAllah
Zaahied Sallie
Author of The Beloved Prophet – An Illustrated Biography in Rhyme
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