Wisdoms
- True love is unrelenting. William Shakespeare wrote:
Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. O no, it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; (Sonnet #116)
True love and the lover's state
I was listening to a khutba by Shaykh Hamza Yusuf entitled “Love Has Conditions (Part 1)” and thought I’d share bits of it in case you haven’t heard it (it’s available for free in the Multimedia - Audio section of zaytuna.org).
There are many people who claim to love Allah Ta’ala but saying you love and actually loving are two completely different things. In light of this, the following two points were mentioned and an excellent example was provided for each.
<li>The lover is obedient to the beloved:
There was a woman whom a man loved very much. This woman said to the man: "Tell me about the one who loves me. Don't detract and don't embellish, just tell me the truth."The man, who was a poet, gave her the following reply: “His state is such that if he thought he would die from thirst and you told him not to drink, he wouldn’t drink.”
And finally, here’s something I was inspired to write after those amazing examples above:
Love is like the root of a tree, firmly planted. It is not affected by the lush leaves of warm summer days nor the barren branches of cold winter nights.
May Allah make us among those who are obedient to Him and among those who love Him and His Messenger Muhammad (Allah bless him and grant him peace).
Sufficiency and fulfillment
In this day and age, people have little time to spend with their family, think about the way things were and reflect on the purpose of existence. Today’s busy lifestyle may give us more money than ever before but for some it’s eroding much of what our parents enjoyed, namely, a simple life, one in which people care about family relations and think about their community more than they think about themselves. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are probably still communities like that on this planet but they’re not as common as they should be and that is a sad thing indeed.
Many people are obsessed with money because they simply feel that with money they can buy things that will make them happy. They dream about the day when they have what they want and strive each day to come nearer to it. For some people this object is that brand new car for others those stylish designer shoes and for yet others that powerful computer. If they acquire the object of their desires they boast and rejoice only to later realize that their pursuit was in vain, for a few months later, another seemingly improved version of what they strived so hard to obtain is revealed. So then, the cycle repeats. Perhaps people obsessed with technology are more prone to this than others and it’s something that’s very hard to cleanse oneself of because it requires great changes in the way one sees this life. I pray that we gain appreciation for what we’ve been blessed with and realize that there are many people in the world who have much less than what we take for granted.
I remind myself and then you, oh reader, that our stay on this planet is brief. I’d like to end this post with a hikam (wise statement) from someone in the past by the name of Abu Hazim, translated by Shaykh Hamza Yusuf.
If you seek in this world what suffices you, then you should know the least of this world will suffice you and if you seek from this world what will fulfill you and you are not fulfilled by what suffices you, there's nothing in this world that will fulfill you.
It’s an amazing statement…think about it!