Gratitude on being alone

Tonight, chatting with a friend brought me to a realisation of the immensity of my buying a house here, far away from my family.  

Truly, it is therefore only my feeling that this is the best place for me and in developing my relationship with God that I am not in panic mode.  To fully realise that if anything happens, I have no one to turn to other than Him because all my support system a.k.a. my family are back in Singapore.  A friend once reminded me that even if I were to be in Singapore, I might not be able to rely on my family.  But still there is that illusion and state of presumption that your family will always be there.  Being alone on the other hand makes clear that I have no one and is dependent on His mercy.  Thus I am grateful for the people He has sent my way thus far.

More than that, I am grateful for this chance to develop my relationship with Him further.  Blessings are also the means by which He tests us.  The blessing of owning my own place, I realise is a test for me. May I always be amongst those who are always grateful and draw ever closer to Him.

Ameen

Reflection on the phrase "Indeed, from God and to God is the return"

In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Dispenser of Grace

"Inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi raji'un" (From God and to Him is the return)

An often used phrase amongst Muslim.  Where I come from, they use it when someone passes away.  In other parts of the world, they use it when they lose something or when calamity strikes.

But tonight as it is the last night of my stay in Shahidah's house and the beginning of another chapter in my life - that of a house owner, of putting down roots - it takes on a different meaning to me.  I actually have had the house for the past month and actually officially moved my things on the day of Hajj...three weeks ago.  I have just been dragging my heels at actually moving physically.

But why do I mention the Hajj?  It is because last year there was a lesson I learned that I need to remind myself of as I embark on this new journey.  That lesson was that I am in this world as a traveller and the best and fastest way to travel is to travel lightly...only gather the provisions that I need.  From God, I came and I am journeying to Him.  This world pulls at me...to linger and just stay a little longer to enjoy the comfort of the known.  Just like I lingered these weeks in part due to the comfort of the known instead of braving the unknown.  To be a traveller, this past year has taught me that I cannot continue to stagnate and luxuriate in my comfort zone but take the brave step towards the Unknowable.

How, you can ask, can buying a house and putting roots down equate to taking another step in my journey back to God?  It is because this time, I am completely dependent on Him for my shelter.  No longer do I depend on my parents' love and kindness to shelter me in their house nor my housemates' kindness to share the burden nor my landlords'/landlady's kindness to rent out the place.  No, this time, I have to depend on God to provide me with my rezk (provision) to pay towards the shelter.  It was not made lightly - it was and still is scary because if anything happens, my house can be repossessed and I will be homeless.  Therefore, a trust in God is vital.

It is also a form of a challenge - a traveller should travel lightly...I always thought it meant that I should own as little as possible so that I don't become attach.  Even though I know of the story of the sufi 'student' who was living in poverty in order to renounce the world and who bade a guest to give his regards to his sheikh.  The guest found the sheikh living in a palace and was puzzled.  To be 'zuhud' does not mean that you renounce the world but that world has no hold on you.

Can I then, even as I set up and own my own house and put down roots, still be that traveller on whom the world (in the form of the house and the roots) has no hold on?  Can I make use of the house to be instead a vehicle to advance me onwards on my return journey?

Inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi raji'un now takes on a different meaning - that of an ongoing journey, a journey not in time or space but in that timelessness of the soul - a journey of experiences accumulated through each decision I take, exercising the only power that God has granted to me - my free will.  Each decision unfolds to a new experience which leads to a new understanding of my relationship with Him.  And as I stand on the brink of the next experience, the fruit of my decision to buy a house, I stand in wonder and in apprehension as to what new light will be shed on this relationship.  What I can be sure of is that the return to Him is constant and continuous...that every quantum of time, I am constantly returning to Him through the unfolding of the present.

Inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi raji'un.

On Homosexuality

This was something I wrote earlier last year at the end of my post on Surah Hud which discusses about the people of Prophet Lot, i.e. the people of Sodom.  I thought I would give this portion its own post because of what is happening in Singapore with the controversy regarding the lesbians and gay movement.

Regards,
Sid


On Homosexuality:


My first encounter with homosexuality is, typically, in books.  But then, I met a friend of a friend who was a homosexual.  He was a sweet man.  Since then, I have met and known several others who are just as kind and lovely.  It therefore troubled me regarding the stand of the various religions, particularly in my own religion, against homosexuality.  It also troubled me when I find around me people who are homophobic.  To my mind, there is little engagement within the Muslim community regarding this issue...we seem to prefer burying our heads in the sand than to acknowledge that there is an issue to be resolved.

It is quite a coincidence that while I am grappling to put down my thoughts in this blog, I read a statement by Pope Francis regarding homosexuals.  Let me quote them here:

Speaking to reporters on a flight back from Brazil, he reaffirmed the Roman Catholic Church's position that homosexual acts were sinful, but homosexual orientation was not.

"If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge them?"

"The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains this very well," Pope Francis said in a wide-ranging 80-minute long interview with Vatican journalists.

"It says they should not be marginalised because of this but that they must be integrated into society."

Many years ago, I attended a talk in Darul Arqam in Singapore and the speaker said something similar - that there must be a separation between the act and the person.  Based on my memory, he said that the person should not be ostracised but should be befriended and guided while in Islam, it is the act that is forbidden.

While we don't want to acknowledge it, but homosexuality and transgender issues have been there since time immemorial.  It is interesting to note that Muslim scholars in the past have tackled the issue as this paper suggested.  More than that, this paper discusses the nurture vs nature arguments put for in terms of homosexuality.
http://www.lamppostproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Islam-Homosexuality1.pdf

These are other writings from the Islamic perspective.

http://mohamedghilan.com/2013/05/06/religion-homosexuality-same-sex-marriage/

http://www.suhaibwebb.com/islam-studies/homosexual-wanting-to-embrace-islam-advice-from-ust-suhaib-webb/

I am still grappling with the issue...but for me, one thing is clear.  People, whether they are hetero- or homo-sexuals, women or men, disabled or otherwise, which ever religion or race, should be given equal rights in society - that of the basic human rights and should be treated with respect and compassion.

I will end with a quote from the first paper I cited above:

That being so, as a Muslim who has and will continue to encounter other Muslims
struggling with homosexual thoughts and urges, it is important for the Muslim
community to approach this topic with much more empathy and less prejudgment. Our
children are now growing up in a culture where homosexual encounters and public
discourse about gay acceptance is more normative. Though we try our best to insulate
them from what we deem to be corruptive forces, there is no doubt that we won’t be
able to protect them all the time. For that reason, it is important for us to understand
homosexual psychology and the theories surrounding its genesis. It is also important to
know this information, because many of us are expected to pastor to very diverse
populations. Imams, scholars, and jurists alike have and will continue to be visited by
Muslims who seek to become whole and/or to at least figure out ways to understand
their predicament. Just as harshness with alcoholics and drug addicts can alienate and
send them deeper into their addiction, it is important that those who know we have the
capacity for an uncustomary amount of compassion to be available for our brethren,
listen with an empathetic ear, and guard their secrets so they are able to achieve a
sense of fulfillment and fullness in their lives.

Isle of Skye in Photos

On Morality and Law - Selections from 'And God Knows The Soldiers' by Khaled M. Abou El Fadl

In the Name of God, the Most Gracious, the Dispenser of Grace.

I just finished reading the book 'And God Knows the Soldiers' by Khaled M. Abou El Fadl in its third edition.  Interestingly, it is the publication afterthoughts (the fifth chapter) which got me thinking the most.  So here, I'd like to share some snippets of the book which I thought was particularly striking.  For this particular post, I have chosen the topic which I call "Morality and Law".

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From pages 144 to 147 of 'And God Knows the Soldiers', third edition:

"Muslim jurists started out with the assumption that God desires for human beings to maximize what is beautiful in life.  For instance, we know that mercy, compassion, and justice are good because they are beautiful.  These values are good and beautiful either because God made them so or because they are inherently so.  In either case, God created laws, or sanctioned the laws, that define beauty in the created existence.  These laws of beauty are not created by the Shari'ah - Shari'ah, for instance, does not define whether a flower is beautiful or ugly.  Rather, the laws of beauty are respected, accessed, and sustained by Shari'ah.  Since the Shari'ah is the Way to God, and God is the epitome of beauty, Shari'ah must, by necessity, preserve and protect beauty.  Therefore, studying analyzing beauty (or the laws of beauty) is part and parcel of studying Shari'ah.  Put differently, figuring out the laws of beauty is a fundamental part of discovering the Shari'ah itself.  The purpose of Shari'ah, according to most jurists, is to achieve the welfare of the people (tahqiq masalih or manafi' al-ibad), because the well-being and happiness of the people are part of what is good and beautiful.  As I mentioned earlier, Muslim jurists differentiated between Shari'ah, which is goodness in the abstract or ideal sense, and fiqh, which interprets and implements the Shari'ah.  Put simply, Shari'ah is the ideal and fiqh is the concrete approximation of the ideal, and therefore, Shari'ah is perfect and immutable, but fiqh is not.  So for example, Ibn al-Qayyim (d. 751/1350) argues that it is impossible for the Shari'ah to result in an injustice, and if it does then that only means that the interpretation or positive regulations giving effect to the Shari'ah were flawed.  What Ibn al-Qayyim means is that if there is a flaw, this is not because the beautiful is deficient, but because the attempt to comprehend or implement the beautiful has failed.

This paradigm becomes meaningful when we consider the purpose of the law and the logic of legal change.  If the law mandates the abstention or performance of a certain act, we must ask, is compliance demanded for its own sake or for the sake of attaining certain results?  If the law mandates compliance for its own sake, then the purpose of the law must be intrinsically beautiful or beautiful by its nature (hasan bi dhatih), otherwise we must suspect that we misunderstood the law or its purposes.  If, on the other hand, the law mandates compliance in order to attain certain results, then the law, in this situation, is a means to an end and not an end in itself.  The end must be beautiful - whether the means are beautiful or not depends on whether it is able to achieve its ends or not.  This is called hasan li ghayr dhatih.  Therefore, in every evaluative step, we must ask, is the law the law for its own sake or for the sake of a higher end?  If it is the law for its own sake, the law cannot reflect the attributes of ugliness.  If the law is the law for the sake of a higher end, then we must make sure that the law is serving its purpose.

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Now, I think this is an interesting point to ponder:
Is the law in the service of morality (what is beautiful)?  Or is the law equated to morality itself or even defines morality?

What do you think?  In practice and in our lives, which weighs more for us?  The law or morality?