1) Haya – Modesty and Shyness!.) MY LEAP OF FAITH FOR YOU
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In the name of Allah, the Most-Merciful, the All-Compassionate
"May the Peace and Blessings of Allah be Upon You"
Bismillah Walhamdulillah Was Salaatu Was Salaam 'ala Rasulillah
As-Salaam Alaykum Wa-Rahmatullahi Wa-Barakaatuh
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1) Haya – Modesty and Shyness!
Narrated Abu As-Sawar Al-Adawi: ‘Imran bin Husain said, “The Prophet (peace be upon him) said, ‘Haya’ does not bring anything except good.” [Bukhari :: Book 8 :: Volume 73 :: Hadith 138]
This term “Haya” covers a large number of concepts, which are to be taken together; amongst them are shyness, self respect, modesty, bashfulness, punctiliousness and scruple, etc.
Narrated Abu Huraira: The Prophet (peace be upon him) said, “Faith (Belief) consists of more than sixty branches (i.e. parts). And Haya is a part of faith.” [ Bukhari :: Book 1 :: Volume 2 :: Hadith 8]
Narrated ‘Abdullah bin ‘Umar: The Prophet (peace be upon him) passed by a man who was admonishing his brother regarding Haya and was saying, “You are very shy, and I am afraid that might harm you.” On that, Allah’s Apostle (peace be upon him) said, “Leave him, for Haya is (a part) of Faith.” [Bukhari :: Book 8 :: Volume 73 :: Hadith 139]
Fahisha
The exact opposite or antonym of ‘haya’ is ‘Fahishah’ which means shamelessness, promiscuity, and brazenness. The height of shamelessness is to commit shameful or sinful act openly, exhort it through any medium, circulate it, or to reveal it.
ALLAH (SWT) Say’s: “Verily, those who like that Fahishah should be circulated among those who believe, they will have a painful torment in this world and in hereafter.”[Surah Noor, Chp 24: verse 19]
ALLAH (SWT) also Say’s: “Allah does not like that evil should be uttered in public except by him who has been wronged.” [Soorah an-Nisa, chp 4: verse 148]
The Messenger of Allah (salallahu alaihe wa-sallam) said:
“My entire nation is safe, except those who boast of their sins. Among them is a man who commits an (evil) act, and wakes up in the morning while Allah has kept his (sin) a secret, he says: “O friend, Last night I did this and that.” He goes to sleep while Allah has kept his (sin) a secret but he wakes up in the morning and uncovers what Allah has kept a secret!” [Saheeh al-Bukharee]
From among the teachings of Allah’s Messenger (salallahu alaihe wa-sallam) is to keep sins a secret matter. If someone commits a sinful act which is against the Commandments of Allah, or is against the moral character, then he should keep it a secret and seek forgiveness from Allah.
Abu Huraira reported: The Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) used to say while prostrating himself:
“O Lord, forgive me all my sins, small and great, first and last, open and secret.” [Muslim :: Book 4 : Hadi th 980]
and likewise there are many hadeeth wherein Prophet (SAW) exhorted us to seek sincere forgiveness from the deeds that are committed in secrecy.
Abu Sayeed al-Khudri (May Allah be pleased with him) reported that Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upoin him) said: The most wicked among the people in the eye of Allah on the Day of judgment is the men who goes to his wife and she comes to him, and then he divulges her secret to the people. [Muslim :: Book 8 : Hadith 3369]
Today, there are so many novel channels through which sins are propagated in the society; television programmes, movies, internet, books, magazines etc that glamourizes the crimes of others, illicit acts or relationships, and immorality in the name of entertainment, art, truth, fun, or creating awareness among the people. Crimes, which were previously considered as taboo are fast gaining social acceptance! It is therefore necessary for the Muslims to avoid all such avenues that would for sure lead to the destruction of our Muslim Ummah.
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2) MY LEAP OF FAITH FOR YOU (love and faith redefined)
"God has endeared faith to you and adorned it in your hearts" (49:7).
Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love … Albert Einstein.
Albert Einstein is not often cited for ideas outside the realm of science. But I recently came across an insightful statement formulated by him (the quotation above) that sparked a synapse somewhere in my mind about the relationship between religion and love.
If the laws of gravity do not apply to love, that is, if human beings are not attracted by mere earthbound love, then I am left with two questions: First, if it's not love that brings two people together, than what does? Second, if love alone, or at least the popular conception of it, does not attract two individuals, than what does love pair-up with to bring human beings into each other's intimate spheres? So the questions can be distilled to a single inquiry: How do people fall in love?
Contrary to popular belief and Hollywood, falling in love does not happen spontaneously like a raging forest fire or something. How do I speak with such certainty when trashing the notion of romanticized love you say? Well, isn't it apparent? Look around you! When walking down the road, do you see people randomly bursting into passionate paroxysms? I mean, it’s not like your taking the subway one day and you engage the person next to you just like that. It takes time to develop real love.
So what does taking time mean anyway? Well, it means that usually your feeling of deep love will not present itself the moment you first meet someone. No. Love needs to be given a chance to be cultivated and grown by an extended relationship, which is where marriage comes in as an active mechanism that allows such a seedling to germinate and eventually grow tall.
The truth of the matter is that something else is required to get love going. Like an engine or a chemical reaction, some kind of catalyst is needed to jumpstart the lifelong development that love requires. What is this enigmatic catalyst? Well, let's turn to the seventh verse of the forty-ninth surah of the Quran, Al-Hujurat (look at the first excerpt above).
From this verse and many similar ayahs in the Quran, we learn that Allah has integrated faith into our very hearts. Many people would interpret the idea of faith being "adorned" in our hearts as a kind of symbolic statement, but the fact of the matter is that our hearts are physically tuned to reverberate to the sounds of faith, the feeling of pure wholesomeness that belief brings with it. Establishing a loving relationship not only requires visceral attraction (an earthly desire), but also a huge input of faith, which answers our opening questions.
Perhaps this is too simplistic of an answer for you? Let's get a bit empirical, shall we? From my observation, as well as many other Muslims, it seems as though there is a huge contrast in marriage patterns between modern-day Muslims (you and I) and the early Muslims (570 CE / 632 H). I often find myself thinking, perhaps a little optimistically, of how relatively easy marriage was accomplished in early Muslim communities (think Madinah and afterwards Makkah). Men and women were often wedded at relatively young ages and decisions of whether to marry or not were likewise relatively brief and punctual.
For example, it wasn't really that long after Ali proposed to marry Fatimah that marital requirement were met and arrangements were finalized. And mind you, these weren't cold, hard arrangements met with corporate speed, nor were they swooning over one another in a fashion akin to Romeo and Juliet. No, this man and this women made a mutual decision to love each other and that is a fact. They decided to put hands and plant a seed there and nurture it to something large and beautiful, and that something bloomed into a blossom of love and tenderness into eternity.
And so from our more empirical discourse, we can start to make connections. We can begin to understand Einstein's statement about love not being contained by worldly constriction or law (gravity). No. Love is a heavenly attribute, a gift that God has saturated our hearts with. And mingling with love in the core of our hearts is faith. So what is faith but love, and what is love but faith. They both originate from the same pulsing locus, that miraculous muscle, for lack of a more transcending word, that sets into motion our bodies and our senses. They are one expression, even as their Originator is One.
And so we must ask ourselves the crucial question: How do we fall into real love? How do you find that true inamorato(lover or beloved man), if you are a Muslimah, or inamorato if you are a Muslim, in the modern, urban, and lonely landscape that you live in? Well, keep on looking sugar ' cause you aren't going to find nobody if you keep looking for the rest of your allotted time in life.
You cannot float through life with a belief that one day your one true love will come waltzing through your bedroom door. No. On the contrary, if you want to love someone, then you have to make that decision to defy mere dunya-related gravity. You have to grasp the fact that because faith and love are, so to say, a package deal, when you make an authentic decision to love someone, you are making a leap of faith.
There will be a point in your life's path that will tumble down into a deep ravine, and until you decide to put your faith in an individual human being and take that scary leap of faith, you will not continue to move in a positive direction. So think about fighting gravity, think about taking love and faith seriously. Jump. (Courtesy: Al Jumuah Magazine)
Compiled, edited and adapted by Khalid Latif
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2) MY LEAP OF FAITH FOR YOU (love and faith redefined) "God has endeared faith to you and adorned it in your hearts" (49:7). Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love … Albert Einstein. Albert Einstein is not often cited for ideas outside the realm of science. But I recently came across an insightful statement formulated by him (the quotation above) that sparked a synapse somewhere in my mind about the relationship between religion and love. If the laws of gravity do not apply to love, that is, if human beings are not attracted by mere earthbound love, then I am left with two questions: First, if it's not love that brings two people together, than what does? Second, if love alone, or at least the popular conception of it, does not attract two individuals, than what does love pair-up with to bring human beings into each other's intimate spheres? So the questions can be distilled to a single inquiry: How do people fall in love? Contrary to popular belief and Hollywood, falling in love does not happen spontaneously like a raging forest fire or something. How do I speak with such certainty when trashing the notion of romanticized love you say? Well, isn't it apparent? Look around you! When walking down the road, do you see people randomly bursting into passionate paroxysms? I mean, it’s not like your taking the subway one day and you engage the person next to you just like that. It takes time to develop real love. So what does taking time mean anyway? Well, it means that usually your feeling of deep love will not present itself the moment you first meet someone. No. Love needs to be given a chance to be cultivated and grown by an extended relationship, which is where marriage comes in as an active mechanism that allows such a seedling to germinate and eventually grow tall. The truth of the matter is that something else is required to get love going. Like an engine or a chemical reaction, some kind of catalyst is needed to jumpstart the lifelong development that love requires. What is this enigmatic catalyst? Well, let's turn to the seventh verse of the forty-ninth surah of the Quran, Al-Hujurat (look at the first excerpt above). From this verse and many similar ayahs in the Quran, we learn that Allah has integrated faith into our very hearts. Many people would interpret the idea of faith being "adorned" in our hearts as a kind of symbolic statement, but the fact of the matter is that our hearts are physically tuned to reverberate to the sounds of faith, the feeling of pure wholesomeness that belief brings with it. Establishing a loving relationship not only requires visceral attraction (an earthly desire), but also a huge input of faith, which answers our opening questions. Perhaps this is too simplistic of an answer for you? Let's get a bit empirical, shall we? From my observation, as well as many other Muslims, it seems as though there is a huge contrast in marriage patterns between modern-day Muslims (you and I) and the early Muslims (570 CE / 632 H). I often find myself thinking, perhaps a little optimistically, of how relatively easy marriage was accomplished in early Muslim communities (think Madinah and afterwards Makkah). Men and women were often wedded at relatively young ages and decisions of whether to marry or not were likewise relatively brief and punctual. For example, it wasn't really that long after Ali proposed to marry Fatimah that marital requirement were met and arrangements were finalized. And mind you, these weren't cold, hard arrangements met with corporate speed, nor were they swooning over one another in a fashion akin to Romeo and Juliet. No, this man and this women made a mutual decision to love each other and that is a fact. They decided to put hands and plant a seed there and nurture it to something large and beautiful, and that something bloomed into a blossom of love and tenderness into eternity. And so from our more empirical discourse, we can start to make connections. We can begin to understand Einstein's statement about love not being contained by worldly constriction or law (gravity). No. Love is a heavenly attribute, a gift that God has saturated our hearts with. And mingling with love in the core of our hearts is faith. So what is faith but love, and what is love but faith. They both originate from the same pulsing locus, that miraculous muscle, for lack of a more transcending word, that sets into motion our bodies and our senses. They are one expression, even as their Originator is One. And so we must ask ourselves the crucial question: How do we fall into real love? How do you find that true inamorato(lover or beloved man), if you are a Muslimah, or inamorato if you are a Muslim, in the modern, urban, and lonely landscape that you live in? Well, keep on looking sugar ' cause you aren't going to find nobody if you keep looking for the rest of your allotted time in life. You cannot float through life with a belief that one day your one true love will come waltzing through your bedroom door. No. On the contrary, if you want to love someone, then you have to make that decision to defy mere dunya-related gravity. You have to grasp the fact that because faith and love are, so to say, a package deal, when you make an authentic decision to love someone, you are making a leap of faith. There will be a point in your life's path that will tumble down into a deep ravine, and until you decide to put your faith in an individual human being and take that scary leap of faith, you will not continue to move in a positive direction. So think about fighting gravity, think about taking love and faith seriously. Jump. (Courtesy: Al Jumuah Magazine) Compiled, edited and adapted by Khalid Latif |