Saturday, August 8, 2015

Futur

An uncle passed away yesterday. I could write of grief that is not mine but it feels like a transgression. So let us not speak of death.

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It has been nine months and the ever present parch remains. Ramadhan came, Ramadhan went and I? I did not do enough. I did not let myself feel the full heat of its white fire. I wanted to, I almost tried harder but I did not. I let myself idle in the heat and thirst. I did fast, I recite and I go to taraweeh... yet it was not with particular zeal. Something more was missing. 

What bothers me most is I did not (like I did last year), khatam the Qur'an, and that sealed my private failure. 

I know the sweetness of the Qur'an, I have tasted it and thus I know the bitterness of it's absence. 

Even the song has bled out of my recitation. 

Perhaps it is time for me to embrace this impending change heading my way. A life of hard work and service. Perhaps I will drown in anguish in my riling against it (as I always do, I quote myself "Change, on its advent do not sit well with me").

Perhaps it is for the best that I be faced with sickness, suffering and death as one is surrounded with at a hospital. I confess, I have never been a fan of hospitals. Too much grief under one roof. But it is for the best God-willing.

I have let myself rot in this idleness. Hard work and service should rouse me. I hope I shall have the strength to not rankle. 

One can lay down and pray for taqwa and yet do nothing to achieve it. I am one such person in my present condition. What do they call it? 

A state of Futur. A sudden break after a joining. An unmaking of a making. A stopping after progress. A sudden lack of movement after movement.

I should not fear struggle. To be a Muslim is to struggle. Islam is striving. A Muslim without jihad is a Muslim in wanting. I must surrender my apprehension and look upon the future with once again, the eyes of a student.

I will learn. For the act of learning is jihad, and the learner a mujahid. 

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