Love Story
I was reading Martin Ling (Abu Bakr Sirajuddin)'s Mohammad: his life from the earliest sources when I came across this paragraph, where Khadija, a rich and beautiful widow of Mecca (and a distant relative of Mohammad) offers herself to Mohammad, the merchant who, by now, is famous all over Mecca by the name of Al-Amin, The Truthful, The Trustworthy. Khadija is extremely impressed by Mohammad's honesty, his fair trade, plus by the stories her servant Maysarah, who accompanied Mohammad on a trade journey to Syria on Khadija's behalf, has told her. He has informed Khadija about the mysterious Christian monk, Nestor, and what he said to Maysarah when he saw Mohammad resting under a tree near his cell:
' "Who is the man beneath the tree?" asked the monk.
"He is man of (the tribe) Quraish," said Maysarah, adding by way of explanation: "of the people who have the guardianship of the Sanctuary (Ka'aba)."
"None other than a Prophet is sitting beneath that tree," said Nestor.'
Impressed by all this and, of course, the handsomeness of Mohammad (she was a woman after all!), Khadija arranges through a friend for Mohammad to acquiesce to the possibility of a marriage between herself and him, and when they finally meet to talk about the marriage, this is what she says to him:
' "Son of mine uncle, I love thee for thy kinship with me, and for that thou art ever in the centre, not being a partisan amongst the people for this or for that; and Iove thee for thy trustworthiness and for the beauty of thy character and for the truth of thy speech."
Then she offered herself in marriage to him, and they agreed that he should speak to his uncles and she would speak to her uncle.'
I've read many a love stories, seen many a romantic chick flicks, watched thousands of relationships make and break before my eyes, heard many a marriage oaths taken by Christian couples in their churches...and this is probably one of the most beautiful and innocent admissions and expressions and oaths of love I have ever come across. I read this, and twin tears simmered in my eyes before I was even aware of them.
I have, do, and will always think of true love and its meaning...of the purety of that moment when something electric happens between two people , when two people fall, or think they fall, in love with each other. I always imagine a huge shudder, a gigantic ripple going through the cosmos at that particular moment, disrupting all the wave forms and the entropy pulsating in the universe just right then,just for the briefest of moments...
...but what of the trials of love and the sacrifices and the honesty and the selflessness; the 'fana' (annihilation) in sufi love and the 'baqa' (eternalisation) therein; the physical, animal love, the pure,spiritual love; everything about this sacred emotion.
Let me not be fooled by love. Let me not taste of it if I can't immerse myself in it... just like the Pierian spring. Let me not love if I can't love simply, without complications, without thought, without purpose (as Robin Williams so eloquently puts it in "Patch Adams"). Let me love (when I do love anything or anyone) straight and purely, when I become so close to the beloved there's no difference between her and me.
I love you Allah mian -- at least I think I do. I love my parents, my brother and my sister. I love my friends at certain moments and love the moments with certain friends. I love the fact that the world is so strange and beautiful (since beauty cannot exist in perfection without strangeness as was well said by Edgar Allan Poe in my favourite story of his, Ligiea). I love the feelings that rise in my chest at certain sights regarding people and their environment. I love the sound of music and how the Aza'an is always called out in a certain scale of music that can be followed by the guitar despite what fundas might say. I love the feelings that waft over me when I read certain parts of history or about the glamour of mankind and Muslims in particular so many so years ago. I love the sight of the moon sitting up there like a lonely but radiant lover, all smile and no tears. I love the sight of stars sprinkled in the night sky as if Allah Mian smiled and spread the wealth, so to speak. I love myself for being able to feel this way (although I know that all my happiness and this feeling too will pass as old age and infirmity and other problems associated with the 'majaazi' surface). I love Iqbal, Rumi, Ghalib and what their poetry shows me. I love the hamds and naats Qari Waheed sings esp. that Hamd called "Allah-hoo". It stirs up mystic notions and images in my heart, and I don't give a rat's arse if a certain school of Islamic thought or theology says 'naats are haraam or forbidden'. I love all this and more...and I love knowing that even though I may die one day, my family may die, my friends (and my future soul-love) may die, we will have loved at least once and experiences this beautiful world even though it may have so many sore and rotten parts.
I love you all right now. Just having a moment as a friend said to me last night in an sms message, and I'm glad for it.
As T.S. Eliot said 'there are many visions and revisions that a minute may reverse."
Happy Ramadan (gosh, I'd forgotten that!)
I was reading Martin Ling (Abu Bakr Sirajuddin)'s Mohammad: his life from the earliest sources when I came across this paragraph, where Khadija, a rich and beautiful widow of Mecca (and a distant relative of Mohammad) offers herself to Mohammad, the merchant who, by now, is famous all over Mecca by the name of Al-Amin, The Truthful, The Trustworthy. Khadija is extremely impressed by Mohammad's honesty, his fair trade, plus by the stories her servant Maysarah, who accompanied Mohammad on a trade journey to Syria on Khadija's behalf, has told her. He has informed Khadija about the mysterious Christian monk, Nestor, and what he said to Maysarah when he saw Mohammad resting under a tree near his cell:
' "Who is the man beneath the tree?" asked the monk.
"He is man of (the tribe) Quraish," said Maysarah, adding by way of explanation: "of the people who have the guardianship of the Sanctuary (Ka'aba)."
"None other than a Prophet is sitting beneath that tree," said Nestor.'
Impressed by all this and, of course, the handsomeness of Mohammad (she was a woman after all!), Khadija arranges through a friend for Mohammad to acquiesce to the possibility of a marriage between herself and him, and when they finally meet to talk about the marriage, this is what she says to him:
' "Son of mine uncle, I love thee for thy kinship with me, and for that thou art ever in the centre, not being a partisan amongst the people for this or for that; and Iove thee for thy trustworthiness and for the beauty of thy character and for the truth of thy speech."
Then she offered herself in marriage to him, and they agreed that he should speak to his uncles and she would speak to her uncle.'
I've read many a love stories, seen many a romantic chick flicks, watched thousands of relationships make and break before my eyes, heard many a marriage oaths taken by Christian couples in their churches...and this is probably one of the most beautiful and innocent admissions and expressions and oaths of love I have ever come across. I read this, and twin tears simmered in my eyes before I was even aware of them.
I have, do, and will always think of true love and its meaning...of the purety of that moment when something electric happens between two people , when two people fall, or think they fall, in love with each other. I always imagine a huge shudder, a gigantic ripple going through the cosmos at that particular moment, disrupting all the wave forms and the entropy pulsating in the universe just right then,just for the briefest of moments...
...but what of the trials of love and the sacrifices and the honesty and the selflessness; the 'fana' (annihilation) in sufi love and the 'baqa' (eternalisation) therein; the physical, animal love, the pure,spiritual love; everything about this sacred emotion.
Let me not be fooled by love. Let me not taste of it if I can't immerse myself in it... just like the Pierian spring. Let me not love if I can't love simply, without complications, without thought, without purpose (as Robin Williams so eloquently puts it in "Patch Adams"). Let me love (when I do love anything or anyone) straight and purely, when I become so close to the beloved there's no difference between her and me.
I love you Allah mian -- at least I think I do. I love my parents, my brother and my sister. I love my friends at certain moments and love the moments with certain friends. I love the fact that the world is so strange and beautiful (since beauty cannot exist in perfection without strangeness as was well said by Edgar Allan Poe in my favourite story of his, Ligiea). I love the feelings that rise in my chest at certain sights regarding people and their environment. I love the sound of music and how the Aza'an is always called out in a certain scale of music that can be followed by the guitar despite what fundas might say. I love the feelings that waft over me when I read certain parts of history or about the glamour of mankind and Muslims in particular so many so years ago. I love the sight of the moon sitting up there like a lonely but radiant lover, all smile and no tears. I love the sight of stars sprinkled in the night sky as if Allah Mian smiled and spread the wealth, so to speak. I love myself for being able to feel this way (although I know that all my happiness and this feeling too will pass as old age and infirmity and other problems associated with the 'majaazi' surface). I love Iqbal, Rumi, Ghalib and what their poetry shows me. I love the hamds and naats Qari Waheed sings esp. that Hamd called "Allah-hoo". It stirs up mystic notions and images in my heart, and I don't give a rat's arse if a certain school of Islamic thought or theology says 'naats are haraam or forbidden'. I love all this and more...and I love knowing that even though I may die one day, my family may die, my friends (and my future soul-love) may die, we will have loved at least once and experiences this beautiful world even though it may have so many sore and rotten parts.
I love you all right now. Just having a moment as a friend said to me last night in an sms message, and I'm glad for it.
As T.S. Eliot said 'there are many visions and revisions that a minute may reverse."
Happy Ramadan (gosh, I'd forgotten that!)
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