All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.
― J.R.R. Tolkien
(via sohumanandflawed)
A husband and his wife were standing in front of a mirror The wife asked: “What do you see?” The husband smiled and said: “The rest of my life..”Allah subhana wa ta’ala has already written the names of your spouses for you. What you need to work on is your relationship with Allah. He will send her/him to you when you’re ready. It is only a matter of time!!
I find such statements very difficult to reconcile. My instinctive response is that it has to be a misinterpretation of the concept of taqdeer. It is based on the premise that a single partner has been intended for every single person. What then of those people that have married more than once and divorced more than once? It simply doesn’t add up. I love the idea of having that perfect person just waiting for the right time to walk into my life, but I know it doesn’t happen. I know this from experience on more than one occasion.
It reminds me of the following hadith:
One day Allah’s Messenger noticed a Bedouin leaving his camel without tying it. He asked the Bedouin, “Why don’t you tie down your camel?” The Bedouin answered, “I placed my trust in Allah.” At that, the Prophet, sal Allahu alayhi wa sallam, said, ” Tie your camel and place your trust in Allah” – Tirmidhi
To me, taqdeer is more than just having everything set out for us regardless of our actions or efforts. Maybe I’m completely off the mark, but the more I consider it the more I believe that the whole issue of taqdeer is very misunderstood. The above hadith is a prime example of this misunderstanding.
The fact that everything is pre-ordained I do not dispute. How it is pre-ordained is where the interpretations come into play, and again, as can be seen from the above hadith, it is not a predetermined outcome regardless of your actions. Within the context of the original post, what would you say to the person who has been married and after trying their hardest, ended up being divorced? Divorce, although hated, is halaal. So are we suggesting that even that is predetermined? If so, where does our accountability start and where does it stop?
Or perhaps we’ve got this entire perspective on taqdeer all wrong. Perhaps taqdeer comprises of rules and laws that determine the effect of every cause, or the reaction to every action. Perhaps, within this context, our limited free will allows us to choose the outcomes based on our choices, and the more informed our choices, the more predictable the outcome? In the absence of this relationship between cause and effect, our limited free will would be inconsequential, and subsequently, there would be no basis on which we are to be judged for what we do.
So isn’t this romantic idea of marital bliss and perfect partners really an over-simplification of divine decree?
Don’t confuse the actions of a martyr with those of a coward. There are many that profess to be martyrs, but in fact hide behind their fear as cowards by presenting their acts as selfless acts, when in fact it’s nothing more than spinelessness. I know of many that lament their inability to live according to their principles. Who with one breath despise the oppression of society and with the next uphold the repulsive social structures that feed such oppression.
We profess to uphold religious principles and moral high grounds until we’re faced with the reality of choosing between principles and daddy’s wealth, or principles and mummy’s acceptance, even though we know that both are steeped in cultural arrogance and societal bigotry. We embellish our profiles with elaborate degrees of knowledge, prestigious accreditations of piety and align with the most respected nobles of society, but succumb to the simple pressure of choosing between a life of comfort and acceptance, and a life of modesty and principles.
Being romantic in words and cowardly in action is easy. Both feeds an insatiable ego. The world will always be greater than our greatest aspirations if focused outwardly, but will fade from view the moment we seek to overcome the frailties within. I despise cowards, and cowardliness, especially when accompanied by a pretentious mourn for sympathy and understanding. Those that indulge the cowards are only appeasing their own need for such affirmation. That’s why a true martyr is rare, more rare than a coward ever will be.
I wear masks, and create elaborate façades hoping that no one will see through them, but keep praying that someone will.
Cynically Jaded (via cynicallyjade)
You could double the number of synaptic connections in a very simple neurocircuit as a result of experience and learning. The reason for that was that long-term memory alters the expression of genes in nerve cells, which is the cause of the growth of new synaptic connections. When you see that at the cellular level, you realize that the brain can change because of experience. It gives you a different feeling about how nature and nurture interact. They are not separate processes.
Eric R. Kandel, Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist.
A Quest to Understand How Memory Works.
(via storyseldomtold)
The fact that the brain changes because of experience, as I’ve mentioned in several of my previous posts on the subject, to me, confirms that our study of chemical imbalances to prove the prevalence of psychological disorders is focusing on the symptoms rather than the root cause. But it’s easier to be a victim to chemicals than a master of your thoughts.
…my parents had split up after a very long and disruptive marriage. They came from two different worlds. My father wanted to please his mother, and my mother wanted to please her father. Their commitment to these ideals made them stick it out for almost 28 years give or take a few years. That’s more than just a few of my lifetimes which in some ways is impressive by most counts, but in other ways it’s sad beyond belief. Being a family of six kids, plus my eldest brother that passed away when he was a precious six months old, and another miscarriage, it was a miracle that the stress and strain of all that responsibility, a low income, and a lack of real interaction between my parents allowed them to persevere for as long as they did.
They were both admirable in many ways. My mother was always striving, and still continues to strive to improve the quality of her life and of her family’s. She never backed down from a challenge to supplement my father’s income by doing more than her fair share of work from home. My father worked as a warehouse supervisor for a leading clothing wholesaler at the time. This in itself had its perks because we would often end up wearing the sample items of lines that they never brought into the South African market which automatically allowed us to be fashionably dressed at the lowest price. However, not all the clothing samples were fashionable, and not having much choice in what we were given to wear, it was sometimes embarrassing to be seen in some of the clothes that we received. But the important thing is that we were always neatly dressed and never went hungry. So despite my anger and disappointment at some of the events in my life relating to my parents or my relationship with my father, that is something that I’ll always be eternally grateful for.
Excerpt from Ramblings of a Madman. The book I never wrote.
I sometimes think that we need less religion and more faith. Less people and more humanity. I should stop before I turn this into an annoying post that goes on ad nauseum about clever comparisons of oh so enlightening opposites.
We probably need less cynics and more sincerity as well, I guess. But everyone’s trying to be a Rumi or Plato or Ghandi, and nobody tries to be themselves, because we’re all so focused on being unique individuals…just like everyone else. Hmmm, and we’re also always generalising our negative perceptions so that it doesn’t feel so bad to have them because we convince ourselves that everyone else is just as screwy in the head.
My thoughts are tiring. Almost as tiring as human nature. The fickleness and frailties of the human soul are no longer endearing to me. I now find it annoyingly cliched. Everyone is struggling. Everyone is in pain or distress or dis-ease. So much so, that a normal person that is truly optimistic and genuinely carefree is almost uplifting…almost, because I can’t help but wonder if they have all their faculties in good order to find reason to be this way in a world full of crap. Look at your dash and count how many posts has people using the words heart, soul, life, death and other similar philosophical triggers before you dismiss my cynicism as being that of a jaded old man.
Death to the cynics, dammit!
