Abaser - Al Khafid

I was the perfect one of my class.
I studied, planned ahead, eased exams and scored high.
Always. Every single time.
There never was ever a time where my efforts failed. Where my predictions fell short or where I felt the cause created by me would not lead me to my desired effect.

Everything seemed real. There was no struggle.

I was the perfect one of my class.
Until. I wasn't 

Something happened.
Somehow, my understanding fell short. I began lagging behind schedule. My efforts were half baked. My exams seemed difficult. I stopped easing my exams. Suddenly I wasn't too sure of my own results

There seemed to be something coming in between. In between my cause and the effect that I had anticipated. My cause was not leading to my desired effect.

It became me. Falling short. Being average. Failing. Not performing at par.

Everything seemed unreal. Except my struggle. There was struggle this time. And it was the only real thing.

I would often wonder. Marvel. At who I was. How I was the best of my class.

I suddenly began idealizing the best of me. Who I had been.

Al-Khafid. Diminishment. One of the names of God.

He often lowers us down, takes away our trust in our efforts to make us realise our dependence.

When I performed well, I did not quite know Him. Because my cause led to my effect. Led to misleading illusion of Independent Existence. Everything was illusionary that felt real because there was no struggle.

When I perfermed average, I did get to know Him. Because my cause did not lead to my effect. Instead, it led to shattering of illusions. Everything was Real because my struggle was Real.

His Realization was Real.

We come from Him and to Him we go.
Each moment of our heart is connected to Him.
Perhaps, while we sit guilty of performing less, He sits marvelling at our guilty.

In our guilt He hides His Love. In our ability to feel low and poor, lies His blessing.

In our ability to close our eyes and hope He isn't seeing us perform so bad lies His merciful  presence.

He lies in our failure to be our best in as much as He lies in our ascending to be the best.

Even our dark, our guilt, our running away from Him is meeting Him.

Because "we belong to Him and to Him we return".

So feel the joy at being an average. It was His mercy to lower you down and make you Realize of His Generosity.

In our ability to accept defeat and bow powerlessly, lies His Mercy.

Everything was real. There was no struggle. 
I was the perfect one of my class.
And then I wasn't.
And that was the best that had ever happened to me. For it led me to Him in a way never explored.
Never thought feeling away from Him was a way to meet Him

You you and you. Seriously.

I am so sad today.

While half of my newsfeed is celebrating Diwali and Halloween, while half of my whatsapp groups comprise of Muslims teaching how wrong the 'others' history is.

I am sitting here wishing I was not feeling as normal as I am.

They barged into a house. A private gathering. They killed a family.

I wish I could feel the pain.
I wish I could see.
I wish I could make you all see.
You, you and you.
The champions of SUSHI talks.
The rational activists who assume the responsibility of raising awareness about the 'right' and 'wrong' way of mourning.

The confused breed that pauses and selects which country it wants to feel more for. Syria Yemen or Iraq.

The herd. The blind. The lost. The mute. The dead. The you. The I.

I wish we were alive today to witness. To see. To mourn.

Hell with what is the right and the wrong way of mourning.
Hell with your religious and theological debates.

You know what? In a country where the Federal Capital has banned militant outfits chanting minority as kafirs, in a country where my newsfeed seems so calm despite what happened to today. In a country like this.  People ought better be long dead.

And you know what. We are.

There are no two kinds of Taliban today. There is only one. And they like trafficking in mistresses of ego. Now go be happy, your side of religion won today. You ask me which side? I say, the side where you passively receive, selectively mourn and move on. The side where you are home and don't feel a thing.

Imagine how dead we are. Now pause. And imagine just how dead of a generation will/are we raising. You talk about hatred and racism abroad? Hahah. Funny.

We are dead. And dead don't feel.

Grownups and boring dreams.

Zainab has recently learnt to express her joy more clearly. Each day, quite literally, she is learning something new and celebrating. Each time she bends down to pick an object or recognizes something with its name or walks an extra step. She pauses, looks at us, smiles broadly and claps.

We clap back. She remains impressed and beyond. Thriving with this unimaginable contagious level of energy and positivity and happiness and celebration.

She claps and celebrates to and with- Her little friends from playdates around, her grandparents that she fondly skypes with and her Baba and Mamma of course.

I looked at her while she clapped for the millionth time today while her Baba responded with equal energy I realized something.

As we grow older, we stop being impressed. Routine takes away our energy. We go out of sync with outlets that could reflect back or take in that sort of energy that we do have at times even as grownups.

As we grow older, one by one, we start realizing and seeing the other sides of our favorite authors, movies, songs or heroes. We suddenly realize not everyone seems to be as passionate about those particular quotes/people as you are.

We start university or work, make new friends who while retaining their own set of favorites, start offering criticism (often valid) on our dreams/ways/passions and whatever may have motivated us till now.

Back in my Alevels, I knew and felt allergic to cynics around me. Fast forward three years into university, and perhaps that is exactly what I had successfully turned into.

We hide away our embarrassing little things that once motivated us. We stop celebrating and cherishing and dreaming wild and crazy.

I mean come on, 2010, three year of my undergrad and my Finance Professor had actively defended my dream of becoming the CEO of Boeing one day (while the class just laughed away). Am I the CEO? Nope. Far from even working there. But that is, just yet.

Sounds so cliche. So typical. But that indeed is the hard reality. We.stop.dreaming. We brush away 'that funny song that once motivated me' under the carpet to sound and look mature, adult and synced with the world.

Bit by bit, moment by moment, we regress. Gradually, individually, collectively - we regress our passions, our dreams. With each bit of information broadening our spectrum, we start becoming less and less impressed.

We stop celebrating. We stop clapping.

I saw nothing but beauty.

When the granddaughter of the Last Prophet of Islam was brought into the court of the tyrant of that time(who had ordered the brutal killing of the Prophet's grandson and followers) she was asked what did she see while her family was being mercilessly slaughtered.

She smiled and began with a sermon that later became one of the most quoted political and social sermons. One that is often attributed as stirring the downfall of the oppresor's regime. She said she saw nothing but beauty (in what stood as one of the most brutal acts ever recorded in the history of humanity).

How could she even see nothing but beauty in such act of suffering.

How was she even standing so calmly in front of the tyrant just after losing her immediate family in the battle? What was this beauty that she saw.

Imagine a cup of pure water lying on the table with people sitting and walking around it. Now imagine somebody throwing a drop of oil in that cup of water. See how that drop floats but never diffuses into pure water. See how at least a few of us might stop to notice the change within water. See how we often notice the striking contrast of pure water and oil once the oil droplet tries invading the water.

That's beauty because it makes you stop and ponder.

Beauty is not when we win the battle outside. Beauty is when Right makes us stop and ponder about Humanity and ugliness of oppression. 

Beauty is not when we win the world outside. Beauty is when we struggle with the oppresor within.

Beauty is not when we claim to stand with the Right for the world to see. Beauty is when we stand with the Right within when the world does not see.

Beauty is the pain, the suffering of Living the Right each moment by rejecting the million wrongs of that second.

Beauty starts with the guilt, the silencing of our self within. It starts with the admission of wrong within. It starts with the surrendering of our selfish within. With not just knowing what is wrong but bravely trying to fight what is wrong is wrong.

For the oppression to be fought outside, it needs to be fought within first. For if our stand with the Right is making us happy by massaging our egos for power, validation and fame on individual, political and communal level then perhaps it is not Love and Beauty.

Perhaps, so when she said she saw nothing but beauty, she was not just addressing the tyrant of the time, she was addressing the tyrant in all of us within. Her words resonating through history to remind us of the battle within first. Of the much needed suffering we all get when we claim to Love. 

To live the suffering bravely. To fight the tyrant within so bravely that you stand with her. So much so that when the world steps out to sympathise with you, you smile and say, you tried seeing nothing but beauty.