Let me take you on a journey, to show you how Allah works in my life.
I attended my first spiritual retreat a year after starting my personal growth work. I was so ensconced in the cultural scientific view point regarding reality, “it’s not real if you can’t measure it” that I had to make a phone call to a friend who I knew attended spiritual retreats regularly, to help me get on the plane. I felt crazy flying out to Arizona, and then taking a two hour bus trip to Sedona, all on my own to sit with strangers and a spiritual teacher and take part in an intensive spiritual healing experience. Whatever that meant. How did I know I wasn’t going to be taken advantage of? I didn’t. My patient friend coaxed me onto my flight, reassuring me that I wasn’t crazy and that it would be okay. Allah Akbar
Needless to say, that moment of saying “yes” to Allah, stepping off the cliff of the known and safety, towards the unknown, hoping, praying and trusting Allah, totally changed my life. It completely shifted my understanding of reality. It is an understatement to share that I was rewarded generously for taking all those terrifying steps.
Insha’Allah, someday I will share my whole experience of that trip, though many will not believe me. In the meantime, I’d like to share one experience. We did a partnered exercise to witness our jewel.
In the Qur’an it is written:
[15:28-29] Behold! thy Lord said to the angels: "I am about to create man, from sounding clay from mud molded into shape; When I have fashioned him (in due proportion) and breathed into him of My spirit, fall ye down in obeisance unto him." (as translated by Yusuf Ali)
[15:28-29] Behold! thy Lord said to the angels: "I am about to create man, from sounding clay from mud molded into shape; When I have fashioned him (in due proportion) and breathed into him of My spirit, fall ye down in obeisance unto him." (as translated by Yusuf Ali)
[32:9] But He fashioned him in due proportion, and breathed into him something of His spirit. And He gave you (the faculties of) hearing and sight and feeling (and understanding): little thanks do ye give! (as translated by Yusuf Ali)
[32:9] But He fashioned him in due proportion, and breathed into him something of His spirit. And He gave you (the faculties of) hearing and sight and feeling (and understanding): little thanks do ye give! (as translated by Yusuf Ali)
In both cases, the word “Ruh” is used and is translated as Allah’s spirit. Whatever the inner meanings of these ayats, Allah breathed something of Himself into man and each of us inherit that something, “Ruh”, as part of being a human being. During this exercise to witness my jewel, Allah showed me, through my partner, that I was partly made up of a red jewel that represents love. What this said to me was that my inner being, perhaps my fitra, was strongly made up of love.
Allah showed me
I was partly made up of a red jewel that represents love.
Side note, that experience was the first time I felt deeply seen in my life. Up until that point in my life, I had rarely cried. I didn’t even feel safe to cry in front of therapeutic supporters. Yet, in the middle of the desert, sitting among a group of strangers and this strange new teacher, the sun began to set, the sky was beginning to turn red, and I just cried and cried and cried.
“Fear is always rooted in love.”
What about:
“Fear is the opposite of love”
or
“You can act from fear or act from love, but not both.” ?
Something of my make up is about love. That’s nice to know. So? Now what? Fast forward six years later:
I attended a Muslim community gathering. A knowledgeable sister was teaching about self advocacy and how that’s a form of self-love. She said something I’d never heard before. “Fear is always rooted in love”. Now I had heard “fear is the opposite of love” and I had heard when making a choice you can move in one of two directions, either towards love or towards fear: “you can act from fear or act from love but not both”. Those were Christian-based teachings and they had served me well in my personal growth work. In Islamic teachings, I had been taught that fear is the tool of shaitan. As a healer, I often use fear to track to a root of a spiritual issue. These teachings have also served me well. To suddenly be told “Fear is always rooted in love” was startling.
Could it be true?
Our teacher gave some examples. If we have a fear of loss of our job, there’s love for our job and our fear is rooted in that love. If we have fear for loss of a person in our life, loss of our reputation, loss of income, then those fears are rooted in our love for the person, the reputation, the income (or whatever those represent, such as income could represent security). Alhamdulillah, that does make sense.
Our teacher further explained, that our fear keeps love from expanding. If I fear losing my job, I can see how my fear can keep my love from expanding for that job. I start making decisions based on the fear, how to avoid losing my job, versus making decisions purely from the place of love for my job and doing the best work possible for the pure sake of love. Alhamdulillah, that also makes sense.
If we have a fear of loss of our job
there’s love for our job, or love for whatever our job represents. (some possible examples: power, prestige, provision, protection, stability, peace, drama, friendship, community, belonging, etc.)
Then last night and this morning I was listening to a podcast, Prophetic MenTality, season 1 episode 001 “Real Marriage Prep.” Shaykh Alauddin El Bakri, speaking to men, explains that we serve what we love and we lead by serving. If a man is responsible for various aspects of the household, he doesn’t take responsibility by bossing and ordering people around. A new husband doesn’t sit his new wife down and say “Hey, I’m your new manager” and you have to do what I say, or “I’m your new Dad” (hahaha and eeww!).
Instead, a new husband takes on the leadership role by serving, providing and protecting his family, as Prophet Muhammad (saws) exemplified. He ensures that those he serves are satisfied, their needs are naturally taken care of and met. In this way he organically takes on the leadership role, taking responsibility for his family’s wellbeing. This kind of service, to be authentic and not ultimately result in resentment, must be grounded in “self-less” love.
“Allah’s name is al-Wadud. What is the meaning of al-Wadud? Al-Wadud is the one who makes others love him or her because of how much he do[es] for them…Allah’s telling us indirectly you need to practice the love of giving, not only the love of taking.” (Shaykh Alauddin El Bakri, timestamp 50:23)
The stage has been set, the pieces are in place. Here’s the important step – the reflection step – where everything came together. I sat down this morning after breakfast, to sit with Allah, as I try to do every morning. I was crying before I knew it. Six years ago, I was given the gift of knowledge to witness that something of my heart and being was made up of a red jewel, love. I didn’t know any more of what it meant, nor could I accept it’s meaning at the time. I just knew it was true because when my partner was shown my jewels and shared what she’d seen with me, I felt seen for the first time and cried. A lot. In the context of “fear is rooted in love” and “one serves what one loves” for the first time I could see how much of my life choices were due to how much I love my parents. Part of my self identity entailed a belief that I was bad in various ways: a bad daughter, a bad sister, a bad wife etc. I could mitigate the guilt of being the bad whatever by the efforts I made as an adult to change, grow and mature. With this backdrop of information, gained in the previous 24 hours, I can see how each decision and turn I made in my life, was based on fear for those people I loved.
Previously, I never saw myself as a loving person. People told me they perceived me as loving, yet it never landed as part of my self identity. I couldn’t see it and couldn’t connect the dots in my heart. Yet, my service in the world, something I’ve always struggled to see as service, has been to those I love. Choices I made from fear, I made from fear rooted in people I loved. In 24 hours, with a gift of a moment, an exercise, given six years ago, Allah changed my whole sense of identity. In the span of an hour, I went from truly believing I was a bad person in various ways, to realigning with the truth of what Allah made in me, a loving being with a need to be a leader via service. In an hour, Allah flipped my self identity from something worldly-based, to something God-based, a reflection of Allah’s qualities, something more true and based on His Ruh, what He has truly created in each of us.
That’s how Allah works in my life sometimes. I love it when things come together like that. Like a big ocean wave hitting the shore. It can feel violent to an onlooker, but for someone as desperately thirsty as I have been, I desire and welcome it. It leaves me with a sense of Awe and Gratitude for Allah and His Love for me, His Patience with me, His careful Care for me and His continued Guidance for me.
May Allah permit each of us to witness His Love for us, His Patience with us, His deep Care for us, and His continued Guidance for each of us. Ameen.
Peace and Light,
Mariam-Saba
Podcast information: Prophetic MenTality [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCol5aRQkH5WqdkpOl2ZYKTA]
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