Love Gone Wrong

The title of this post is no doubt misleading. I’ll have you know it has nothing to do with relationships but hopefully you’d be able to relate as you read along.

I’ve been asked a couple of times what love is and each time the question is asked, it is met with an awkward silence or a grudging ‘I don’t know’. It’s a tricky question because love takes different forms. What I do know about love on the other hand, is that it is directly connected and tied to what consumes your mind. In the absence of all your worries and responsibilities it’s what you spend the most time thinking about. Who do you want to talk to most of the time? Who do you want to be with most of the time? If you love someone you want to be with them. If you love something you want to have it; when you put it that way it is pretty simple.

Now if you were to ask any muslim do you love Allah they will reply with a firm of course I do, what kind of a question is that? But do you really? How often do you think about Him? Is it only when the time for prayer comes? When you’ve got some problems?

I shudder whenever I remember that my beloved Allah is watching my every move; something comforting and scary. When I’m asleep He’s awake listening to my every breath, controlling my heartbeat and aware of my every toss. He pays so much attention to me and He is always ready to jump in, and intervene in my matters whenever He sees that I need Him (whether or not I call upon him). That kind of a love is unreal. I love my rabb but the truth is I can never match His love, no one can and it adds to His greatness. If I were capable of loving that much it would probably kill me; my body will not be able to contain or bear its weight.

Another person I can say loves me to an extreme is my mother. She endured a lot of pain and had restless night because of me but even she can’t listen to me talk everyday for the rest of my life. She can’t watch over me every second without even thinking to blink just so she won’t miss a second of what has taken place; she has her own life to live.

That being said there’s a kind of shirk you can do that many forget. Shirk for those who don’t know is associating partners with Allah and it is the biggest sin in Islam.

Verily, Allah does not forgive associating anything with Him, but He forgives whatever is other than that (anything else) to whom He wills, and whoever sets up partners with Allah in worship, he has indeed invented a tremendous sin. [4:48]

What kind of shirk do I speak of? The shirk in love. There is something called this, I’m not making it up. You can be standing in front of the kaaba making sajdah and still be doing the shirk…it’s scary. The shirk of love happens when the love you have for your spouse, parents, kids, siblings is not based on the love you have for Allah. An example is that out of your love for your husband you do things for him that Allah hates. It’s more or less like a tug of war; something pulling you away from Him. Allah is not denying your love for anyone or anything in particular, but if the love turns you away from him then thats unacceptable.

Think about your love for books, news, movies or whatever it is you hold dear and you think you can’t do without it. It’s okay to love it but once you start thinking you can’t do without it, then there’s something very wrong with that love. Or when you start missing your prayers because it kept you up and made you forget. Get over it. Everything in this life is temporary, love it but love it to an extent and let your love for Allah and Jannah be beyond an extent.

If you love Allah more than anything, Allah will give you plenty and anything in this world because he knows that these things are nothing and that your love for him and his Jannah is more. When you love Allah it’s important you don’t misunderstand the relationship you have with him with the type you can have for another human being. You don’t get to decide the terms of the relationship. You don’t get to decide what obedience is. You don’t get to decide what worship is, what is acceptable or not. Allah is the one that will decide, you have no say.

Allah is the master and you are His slave. You know one of the things that put people off about islam? It’s the master-slave relationship; how we call God our master and we His servants. No one likes the idea of being enslaved to anything or rather when you think of slavery its sounds bad. An image pops into your head and you think of shackles and chains, being insignificant, oppression; the list is endless. With the Christian faith for example their relation with God is different from islam’s, they call God their Father and refer to themselves as His children. When you call someone your father or give them a parental figure the relationship you have with them comes across as ”more loving”. Master and slave/servant on the other hand (from the way they view it) comes across as ‘harsh, degrading, no love, just pure abuse’. This is a huge misconception people have about islam with regards to the relationship we have with our creator.

First and foremost we can never utter lies/ false statements about Allah; He has no children or a partner, He is far exalted and greater than what people ascribe to him. Secondly, when we call Allah our master and refer to ourselves as his slaves we are just acknowledging how mighty and supremely great He is and how we are nothing and completely powerless when it comes to Him. We are His slaves because we are wholly dependent on Him; our very existence and survival lies in His hands. It’s fact whether you like it or not, as muslims we know this and accept this and love it. As a matter of fact the love we have and receive from Him by merely acknowledging that He is our Master is far greater than the love that flows and can ever flow between a father and his kids.

We are talking about He who said in hadith qudsi “Take one step towards me, I will take ten steps towards you. Walk towards me, I will run towards you.” Subhanallah. What other way do we want Allah to show us that he loves us apart from the life he gave us? The splendid form he gave us? Spouses he created for us to find comfort in? The place He put us in is not just filled with sand/clay (that we are made of) but has oceans and mountains and holds many other treasures (known and unknown).

As humans we can only hope to receive the same level of love we give to others, but Allah gives WAY WAY more and what does he ask for? Bear in mind that He will never ask you to do or give something that’s not in your capacity/impossible for you to do. So when He does ask (knowing for a fact that we can give him whatever it is) but we don’t or try to, then there’s something infinitely wrong with us and we need to check ourself.

I pray Allah never stops loving/caring for us, and I pray we are people that succeed in doing the things that pleases Him the most. Ameen.

Have a splendid week ^.^