Tag: beauty

  • Where My Food Lies

    I believe that the primary source of my affirmation is what feeds my soul. It is pitiful however, that such food is rarely wholesome since what appeases my ego often enjoys precedence over what feeds my soul. I hear of the agony of the heart versus the struggles of the head and none of it makes sense to me. I wonder if these efforts at apportioning constraints to these fountains of angst is in fact a delusion in the making, and if the head and the heart work in perfect balance to create the perfect storm, either of rapture, or rupture.

    Everything is in perfect balance, but in our drive to sell products and rape the bank accounts of the unsuspecting, we’ve perpatuated the idea that balance is only achieved in wholesomeness. It isn’t. My level of despair has always been directly proprotional to my level of jubilation. When the one decreases, the other increases, and so it is with everything in life. To assume that there is a perfect balance that is achievable external to our own needs for affirmation is a lie that will result in horrible truths that face us when we’re taking our final breath.

    Balance is not something to be achieved, but rather something to be balanced. Only in living consciously and mindfully, are we able to determine what balance we want for ourselves rather than allowing someone else’s ideals to be projected on our lives. I do not seek the balance of a successful capitalist, nor do I seek the balance of an ascetic. But both the capitalist and the ascetic have a right to the balance that they have sought out in their lives. My balance is my own, and my source of affirmation has to be other than man if ever I am to free myself from the slavery of my ego.

    My life’s struggle has been to find balance, but unfortunately much of it has been wasted trying to acquire someone else’s balance without achieving the realisation of my own. Much life has been spent, but life is not spent yet, so with dogged determination I will continue to pursue a balance that feeds me not of this world, but one that makes me worthy of what bliss may lie beyond. This may sound naive or even ridiculous to those that see nothing beyond, but if I were to consider the potential of getting that wrong, and compare that to the peace and purpose that such a pursuit would afford me in this life, I would happily get it wrong, because in doing so, I would also get it right. My balance, that is.

  • Serenity

  • It takes a tortured soul to write about beauty because a beautiful soul has no need for such expression

    Zaid Ismail

  • Importance of Marriage

    ‘When someone with whose religion and character you are satisfied asks your daughter in marriage, accede to his request. If you do not do so, there will be temptation on Earth and extensive corruption.’

    said Allah’s Messenger (peace be upon him)

    [Tirmidhi, Nasa’i and Ibn Majah transmitted it.]

    Hadith – Al-Tirmidhi #3090, Narrated Abu Hurairah, r.a.

    (via muhammadkhairyfarhan)

    I can think of many families of the most noble of social circles that spit in the face of this Hadith, some of which even have multiple Ulama within their lineage, and who seek titles and social standing over strength of character when choosing partners for their daughters. 

  • toobaa:

    Our use of the phrase ‘The Dark Ages’ to cover the period from 699 to 1000 marks our undue concentration on Western Europe… From India to Spain, the brilliant civilisation of Islam flourished. What was lost to Christendom at this time was not lost to civilisation, but quite the contrary… 

    —- Bertrand Russel, History of Western Philosophy, 1948

    This is the kind of context that is usually missing, not only in the western media or other spheres of western influence, but it’s also almost entirely absent in the discussions of Muslims when they’re trying to explain the beauty and benefit that Islam has brought to this world. We’re so busy trying to justify our existence relative to every other religion that we become unconsciously apologetic. Worse still is that in the absence of the above realisation, we lose the very essence that made the Muslims respectable in the first place. When Muslims were sincere in establishing the principles and not just the rituals of Islam in their lives, we flourished in every sphere of science, medicine, physics, philosophy, etc. When we became ritualists focused on individual piety, we lost the plot…and have been searching for it ever since. 

    (Source: http://MattTheSamurai.deviantart.com/art/Fire-Masamune-91536135)

  • I always admire those that chose Islam later in life more than those that were born with it, not because I’m ungrateful for the blessing that Allah has bestowed on me by raising me in a Muslim home, but because there’s a wisdom and a value in making a conscious choice that I may never realise.

    To me, being born in a Muslim home was like receiving the gift of Islam. And like most gifts that are treasured, they’re seldom questioned, or appreciated for more than just being gifts. So the inherent value of the gift often escapes most of us. Islam is more a blessing than it is a gift. And blessings, to be appreciated, has to be understood and valued based on the realisation of what life would be like without such a blessing.

    Someone that was previously employed and now has no work to earn a living can relate to this. That job when it was available, no matter how tedious or trying, was a blessing. But the realisation of how much a blessing it was only dawns when it is no longer there.

    I think it’s the same with Islam. When we’ve had it with us all of our lives, it’s easy to take it for granted. And given how insular the Muslim community has become, it’s nearly impossible to witness the gravity of this blessing unless we venture outside our communities and engage with those that are godless. Witness the lack of purpose, the hopelessness, the depression and the destitution of a life without meaning, and then realising the true beauty and blessing of the gift of Islam becomes a tangible reality rather than a just a gift that we received but didn’t earn.

  • The human stain…

    Photo (c) Cynically Jaded