This is gonna be oddly preachy, so you’re
gonna have to bear with me.
Around last month I had a thought about
religion. I was thinking about how when everything seems to go to shit, we turn to religion. When there’s no other answer to our questions of ‘why is this
happening?’, we suddenly speak of God. When death happens, we console ourselves
by saying that it has all been written. When things seem to be hopeless, we
hold on to the knowledge that God will never turn His back on us. We hold on to
heaven and hell, to rewards and punishment, to fate, to the hereafter, to God
and everything that is Godly. It feels rather selfish.
I remember listening to an ustaz or ustazah
saying that Allah does not need us to worship Him. Whether we do it or
not it doesn’t deter His Power, not even a lick of it, for He is Allah. He is
the Al-Mighty by right, not because people worship Him. We worship Him
because He is powerful. Our acts of obedience are a service to Him, but we
are the ones collecting the rewards for ourselves. Our acts of rebellion are a
disservice to Him, but we are the ones stacking up punishments for ourselves.
Whatever we do in this worldly life will come back for us in the hereafter.
That’s how weak we are because we
need to have God and worship Him in order to fulfil our selfish needs, but in
that selfishness we cannot even afford to be self-centred because there’s God,
there is a bigger picture that means so much more than our existence.
When I had this thought, I talked to a few friends
about it (cause I needed to make sure I wasn’t driving myself crazy) and they
had their fair share of things to say. One friend shared about this podcast by Mufti
Menk she listened to about Allah’s mercy to sinners. Sometimes when we commit
sins there comes a point when we think, “Will Allah forgive me? I have sinned
and repented and sinned again. Am I worthy of His forgiveness?” Mufti Menk said
that Allah’s mercy surpasses our sins and it is an insult to doubt Him because
no matter how many times we have succumbed to and committed sins it never takes
anything away from Him.
Our conversations then took a turn to the
question of ‘then why?’ Why did He create humans and give us a set of rules to
follow when whether we follow it or not, it doesn’t affect him? I don’t want to
get too deep into this because I know I’m not a knowledgeable person when it comes
to religious matters. What I have obtained from my conversations with my ustaz,
lecturers and some friends, it all boils down to the fact that Allah has the omnipotence
(qudrah) and will (iradah) to create the universe including humans and every
other creation. He can literally do anything and everything He wills. But because
of His mercy and justice towards us, He has given us guidelines to protect us
from the evil that is ourselves. He wants to protect us from sins, from hell,
from ourselves because He loves us and He never turns His back on us.
And while we’re on this topic, I wanna
share something that has helped me get through my bad days. Sometimes I wonder
if my dreams are too small and not enough, if I am wasting whatever resources
that I have for something so insignificant to the world. Because I never dreamed
of making that big of an impact. I just want to feel enough. Some people are like
that, while others may want something more, to be bigger, to reach higher and
if that’s how they want to live by, fine by me. But the question of ‘what if it’s
not enough? What else was I born to be?’ still haunts me from time to time. And
there’s already an answer for that. I was born to worship Allah. And if
in my years of life I have achieved nothing more than that, I suppose I have
done enough.
There are days when I question my self-worth
or even existence and one day it occurred to me. Allah wants me to live,
He has created me and He has willed me to breathe on His earth, what other
validation do I need? Is there something more significant to me than God? Surely
there shouldn’t be. Of all the possibilities of what could have happened, He still
chooses me to live today. If anything, that fact alone should be everything to
me.
One last thing; the most interesting thing
about seeing the different ways people choose to preach is that it shows how
Islam stands against the test of time. I’ve seen people using ‘modern approach’
to invite people to Islam and I guess that’s the beauty of religion. It’s about
the relationship that we have with God and that relationship exists everywhere,
in everything.
I think I’ve said more than enough for
today. Assalamualaikum.
-Nik.
Nik Fateen. An introvert trying to find home in a foreign space.