The Closeness of Allah (SWT) to his Servants…..
In the name of God, the Most Loving, the Most High,
وَنَحْنُ أَقْرَبُ إِلَيْهِ مِنْ حَبْلِ الْوَرِيدِ
[And We are nearer to him (the Believer) than his life-vein] (Surah 50 al-Qaf: Ayah 16)
Sometimes when life gets so down, the believer being the selfish being that it is, forgets the Rahma and Mercy which Allah our Creator has shown us throughout all our lives. Despite professing to be a Student of the Teachings of the Prophet (May Peace and Blessings be upon him) and Despite being a self-Professed Shia of the Ahlul Bayt (Alayhum as-Salaam) I constantly fall short of recognising the blessings of Allah (SWT) and in my greed and desire to understand his will constantly, I sometimes forget how he saved me from the darkness and from the path of ignorance. Today I began to recall a moment when this occured in my life recently, and how apparent the Mercy of God was…. I was just too blind to notice it.
It was the 6th of December, 2007…..
The Day before, I had undergone what I could realistically call “The Day of Hell” in my life.
(For those unfamiliar with this terminology, amongst my circle of friends both at High School and currently, we have all had one really crazily seemingly horrifying day in our lives, one in which for those without faith, suicide can often be contemplated, one of those days in which one thinks…..hmmm could anything get any worse. Note: I rejected this concept as being one which was crazy, but now after experiencing it….I fully believe in it!)
So, after surviving the Day of Hell with practically no sleep what so ever, I emerged into what I thought was going to be the Day of Hell two, I would be lying if I said my faith hadn’t been shaken ever so slightly by the Day of Hell but I am fallible and will unfortunately am prone to acting upon emotions often a time. Despite losing a degree of my faith or level of religiousity (often we Muslims refer to this as Imaan), I always knew deep down that my Lord would never burden me with a task that would be too much for me, and that all the great Prophets and Imams were all tested with the most trying of tasks in order to see how much their love for their lord could stand, what made us believers any different? All praise is due to him for never allowing to despair of his mercy.
So in my mind, I had lost everything that meant anything to me, well other than my relationship with the creator, and the Weather of the day reflected this. I found myself trapped in my room, staring at a blank computer screen with nothing to think about other than how hard life can be, how painful it can be and more importantly how difficult it must be for those without belief to survive in such a harsh world (note I know many will object that Religion serves as a crutch for us, but that is absolutely irrelevant to this story so I will ignore that). The day was dark, windy, cold and pouring down with rain… perhaps the tears which I would never allow to slip from my eyes had manifested themselves into the skies I thought, and perhaps the enviroment surrounding me was nothing but the way I was feeling inside deep down.
Being the sort of person who cannot stand isolation normally and cares not for rotting away in silence, allowing my inner broken self to be tarnished or ravaged anymore by my own worries and regrets, I allowed myself to leave my room finally, in hopes that I could some how allow the ethos of my friends and family to cheer me up.
So I arranged to meet my bro at a popular yemeni cafe just off edgeware road, I remember the train was so late that day and caused me to be delayed even further (yeah it contributed even more to my misery!) so when I arrived to find that the storm had intensified and the rain was getting harder and faster, I found the storm raging within myself had also intensified, I just hoped I wouldn’t taken it out on anyone else. So I arrived and tried my best to put on a happy face for my bro, but I couldn’t, I just wasn’t in the mood.
Just when I began to accept my fate, and accept everything that had happened on the day of Hell (I didn’t miraculously turn happy; rather I began to be content with everything), I began to recite dhikr of praise in the inside of my lips and my heart, realising that there was a reason for everything, and that regret and despair helped with nothing. After finally allowing myself to stop thinking about it, and allowed myself to thank him for the bounties he had bestowed upon me, thats when his Mercy descended, and I felt the sakinah had descended upon me….. minutes later, I would find out, everything that happened to me, was about to be undone, literally.
I can’t stop loving Allah (SWT) for he first loved me.
