Enough!

Background: A lot of stuff has been written and said on the subject of “to hijab or not to hijab” and how practicing Muslimahs are “oppressed”. For those who don’t know, social media suddenly erupted into a battle between the FEMEN activists who set out on the mission to “liberate” muslim women. In response, Muslim women did a counter-campaign with the hashtag #MuslimahPride depicting that they have a voice and don’t need “liberating”. Obviously, our very own homegrown liberals could not stay out of the action and came up with an article called “Thank You, Dear Muslimaat” which sarcastically ridiculed the #MuslimahPride campaign. In view of all this, I was compelled to break my hiatus from poetry, and felt the need to respond. Because, sometimes, enough is enough!  JazakAllah Khair to Br. Omer Chaudhry for helping me complete it! 

With a heavy heart I do relate,

The tale of a soul so sedate;

Society’s shackles bound her down,

While she was born to be crowned.

To live her life she longs to be free;

Governed not by fools but the Divine Decree.

While you blame her for bowing to the status quo,

What she truly wants, do you even know?

She’s tired of being told that she is “oppressed”,

Of being dictated how to dress to impress!

If being independent and free means killing her soul,

Then spare her from playing the “feminist” role.

She needs no soldier or knight in shining armour

To rescue her from society’s constructed tower.

A mind shining bright with the light of knowledge,

Longs not for approval or people who acknowledge.

What she needs is the freedom to practice her Deen,

So she rises to the status given to her of a Queen.

So cut the sarcasm with your “Dear Muslimaat”!

Your ideology from ours is way too apart.

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Don’t HATE, But APPRECIATE!

One of the main reasons of people, specifically Youth, not following Islam is that we people (and that includes all of us) are too quick to ridicule a person over the “little” good that he does. Let me explain what I mean.

There are 2 cases:

1st Case: 
A person (say X) is following a Sunnah, and another person (say Y) sees him and asks why are you doing this? When person X replies that he’s doing it because it’s Sunnah, instead of saying something like “ma sha Allah may Allah help us all follow more Sunnahs,” the usual reply is “But that (any other example) is also a Sunnah and you’re not following that. Why are you following this and not that?”

I mean seriously? If a person is following Sunnah A and not Sunnah B that does not mean that he should stop following Sunnah A too until he starts following Sunnah B! This doesn’t even make sense logically! 1 good is better than NO good!

2nd Case:
Person X is not doing something obligatory and when there comes a time to do something else that is also obligatory, person Y starts mocking him. An example is that person X does not get up for Fajr regularly, and he’s playing cricket and the Maghrib Azaan starts. Now he tells his teammates to go for prayer and they say no let’s finish the match first. If he insists that brothers it’s Salaah time we shouldn’t be playing cricket, Salaah is more important, they start mocking him that “oh you don’t wake up for Fajr and now you’re so worried about Maghrib?”
AGAIN, a seriously messed up logic. If a person is doing 1 wrong, that does not justify that you tell him to do ANOTHER wrong! That would NOT make things better but would only worsen the situation. 

This is present to some extent in all of us. When we’re doing something of OUR OWN interest, and our friend tells us to follow Islam at that time we would immediately start embarrassing him by reminding him of his shortcomings. That oh you don’t do this and you don’t do that why being so righteous right now? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let’s fear Allah in this regard. What if that person does a sin because of your words? What if he leaves a Sunnah or a FARD at that moment just because it suited YOUR DESIRES?
“And cooperate in righteousness and piety, but do not cooperate in sin and aggression. And fear Allah ; indeed, Allah is severe in penalty.”
Surah Al-Maeda, verse 2

May Allah help us all understand and implement this in our lives completely and bless the Messenger (SalAllaahu Alaiyhi Wasallam) who taught us the most beautiful of manners, Ameen.