For the Love of God - Part 2

(continuation of the last post)

I just realised that it was just yesterday when I blogged about love. Its sorta like a dejavu moment as the main theme of the conference was love. Haha.

 Anyway, getting back to Twins of Faith, the main buzz of the whole day was definitely lectures by Brother Nouman Ali Khan. I have been following his YouTube videos for a while now, so has my family members. And it was sort of surreal getting to finally hear him speak live. It kinda sort of feel like a fan meeting their favourite music band, but in this case, the music band is replaced by an ustadh. Haha. He talked about two topics - and to say the least, the hall was full up to the point, some people from outside the hall were not let in because of safety concerns. Thus, his popularity is self explanatory.

With his talk being entitled The Best of People, he started off his speech by saying that it is easy to point fingers at the ills of society and to get really passionate about politics and what they are or are not doing, but ultimately, yes although you have national pride across your chest, the best of societies do always start with the best of individuals.

And that requires nothing but balance. He paints a funny picture of brothers who are always at the masjid, volunteering their time and effort into making the society a better society - yet, their lives at home are in disarray. Despite times getting tough at home, it is the responsibility of the members of the family to first, settle their duties in the household. "Marriages is the key to a happy society." I have to agree with that statement, because I also agree with a similar one that states 'A happy wife is a happy life!' :) So to summarise, whatever happens at home is projected into the society. Chaos at home = chaos in the community. Thus, the advice given was to spend more time at home! Children need that extra time with their parents - to nurture the ability to carry an actual conversation with their parents that isn't filled with 'Yup, uhuh uhuhs' is beyond crucial. But I'll elaborate more on that later.

He then continued by saying that the next step up is finding balance between others. As I previously mentioned that whatever happens in the home is directly projected into society, sometimes at the masjid or other communal areas, there will be a selected few that will judge you the minute you walk into their presence - trying to accurately determine how far away you are from your deen and how deviant you are from the right path. Some of them might also say 'Stay away from them. They are the deviant group!' and this does nothing but divides the ummah, sometimes even leading Muslims to kill each other in the process. We are in no place to judge and God hates it when we do anything to divide ourselves up into mini sub-specialities. Yes, we can intellectually disagree with one another, but in no way is that a reason to stop loving and respecting one another.

Then, Brother Nouman broke it down for us by saying that it was really clear in the Quran what Allah guides us to do to become the best of people, and some of them include:

Taking care of your parents and family
This means, mothers giving daughter-in-laws room to freely wiggle and it also means having an actual relationship with that distant relative eventhough he/she might ridicule you. However, above all, the most important relationship is between the child and the parents. Brother Nouman mentioned about a son who told his father about his dream - something so minute and unimportant yet is important enough to be shared with his father.

But it does not go that way now in this era as parents are the least favourite place to unload for a child. Maybe the would open up to their mother but it would be followed by 'Don't tell this to dad ok?. Nouman's advice to this problem is for parent to take time to actually LISTEN to their children even if daughters are rambling on about how their hair clip fell out from their hair many times today. By not just responding by 'Yup, uhuh uhuh' all the time, but instead asking daughters about the predicament while genuinely acting interested actually is a sound investment for the future. Because if you don't make the time for them now, they won't make the time for you in the future. And if you don't listen to them now, they would do the same for you in the future.

Basically, to sum up, Brother Nouman expressed that yes, we as Muslims have big goals to memorize this juzu or to start up a Muslim charity, yet we tend to forget the most important fundamentals to this religion. Muslim people create an elaborate picture of a stereotypical good Muslim to the way they look, where they come from etc, that it puts people off even trying because it looks too hard. But the fact of the matter is, it is not hard - God has made it really easy for us, it is just that people get into the way. Remember your purpose - to be subservient to Allah - and God willing, you will not go astray for if your intentions are pure, He would make it easier for you.

Like a domino effect, small acts can move mountains so start with:

God --- Family --- Extended family --- Society

There is actually one more lecture that I would like to write about, but I'll save that for later. Till next time, God bless! :)