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Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places

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Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places
A_Stranger
07/03/03 at 18:55:37
 
[size=3]Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places[/size]
© The Muslim Link Paper

AUTHOR: Umm Amir


Toiling in a muggy truck stop somewhere in Idaho, the waitress dreamed of making it to Hollywood someday. Every person who walked into the place met her sweet innocent smile. Her co-waitresses and friends were often times comforted by her words considering her to be a good friend. This was so until one day, the truck stop crowd realized her miserable reality.

A man walked into the truck stop. All eyes turned as he introduced himself as some movie producer on his way to Hollywood. He was slick to the amateur eye, said to be casting for an upcoming film. He and the truck stop waitress hit it off quite well.

The moment he sweet-talked her into coming to Hollywood with him, she began to throw insults at those who were once in awe of her kindness and warmth- her truck stop friends. In the spirit of a sadistic chameleon, she snarled, slandered, backbit and ridiculed all of them. "Ya'll gonna rot here. Ya'll good-fa-nuthin' retards. Why I ain't workin' here no mo', I'm gonna be a star!" she said with her hands on her hips haughtily chewing her gum.

But, much to her dim-wittedness, Hollywood man was only a sham. He was never to be seen again.

Feeling abandoned, the truck stop waitress was stumped in this clammy hole in the wall. There she remained biting her nails, self-conscious and scared, waiting on tables in the midst of all the people she betrayed at a drop of a coin.

Wahb bin Munabih said, "The fool is just like a worn garment; if you mend it from one side it gets torn from another, and just like broken clay, it can neither be brought back together, nor made into clay again."

The Truck Stop Waitress Mentality
Godless individualistic societies neither cultivate nor introduce the virtue of having ghayrah (jealousy, honor, etc) for anyone other than the self. While having ghayrah for a spouse, a friend or a child is seen as a neurotic disorder, we are taught that ghayrah belongs only to the search for "my happiness."

One of the biggest setbacks of having been raised in such a society is that one is deprived of the ability to gain self-respect except by means of competing for material gain, academic achievement, or vying for a leadership position in a mob. Without the sense of ghayrah one is sure to betray. Without ghayrah we amount to people who "use" and people who are "used." The society places no value on self-respect and decency in and of itself gained through virtues of trustworthiness, wisdom, fortitude, generosity and patience. We are not taught to outweigh the harms and benefits of a decision, to withhold the tongue, and most of all to identify gratitude in whatever shape or form.

Thus, we have the truck stop waitress mentality as the product.

Even upon entering into Islam, with so little knowledge we all have in our deen, we cannot expect to be free from the negative effect of having been raised in dar ul kufr. Can we truly claim to be free from this truck stop mentality?

That Charlatan
The shaitan is ever yet so clever to tempt us. Often times he will use what we perceive as our strength and make it our weakness without us knowing it or with just justifying it.

Our intention to abide by the Qur'an and the Sunnah is a case in point. In the guise of "warning others" about misguided people in Islam, we pollute our ways by slandering, backbiting, using people, being used by other people, speaking without knowledge of what is to come( of wanting to belong to a mob, and so on.

With this we might even convince ourselves these actions are out of ghayrah for Allah. However, these are actions of great insecurities, of those who do not know how to gain self-respect, of those who truly do not follow the examples of the Prophet (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) when it comes to the method of delivering Allah's message. We can sweet-talk one minute and venomously betray the next. How is this from firm believing people who claim to be from the Sunnah? When the tide goes this way, we flow this way. When the fad goes the other way, we flow that way. All the while our actions and words chip away at our decency. We cannot claim to be people of exemplary behavior, yet champion the acts of indecent behavior.

We fall into this miserable trap because it appeals to our low desires of allowing us to do something we used to do before learning or entering into Islam- slandering, backbiting, and outright betrayal, which we "thought" was haram. All of which are ramifications of having been accustomed to a godless individualistic society.

But, what happens when someone comes along to change all that? They say in the guise of the Qur'an and the Sunnah, we are now given justification to act as we did before Islam if not worse. If we did not have the truck stop waitress mentality in us, we would see it as falsehood. If not, then we will be swayed this way and that.

Considering we might see something that is not good, we have to realize that we might not have the knowledge on how to correct it with knowledge, because we simply do not understand the tools to even understand the tools to understand the issues at hand. As confusing as it is, we must admit our ignorance and polish our ability to think twice before we speak and to outweigh the harms and benefits of our actions as laypeople.

Actions of betrayal are not the ways of the prophet (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam). Narrated Ibn 'Umar: Rasulullah (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) said, "A flag will be fixed on the Day of Resurrection for every betrayer, and it will be announced (publicly in front of everybody), 'This is the betrayal so-and-so, the son of so-and-so." [Bukhari]

Actions of betrayal were not the ways of the Salaf either. Ibn Jawzi said in "Sayd al khatir" :

"I have met many mashaykh and the affair of one was different from that of the other, and their knowledge capacity were of varying levels. And the one whom I benefited from his company the most was the one who used to apply what he knew, even though there were those who were more knowledgeable than him.

I met a group from the people of hadith who memorized and knew a lot, however they would permit backbiting under the guise of jarh wa ta'deel (ed. "accreditation and disreputation", science of criticism of narrators), they would take monetary payment in return for narrating hadith, and they would be hasty in giving answers, even if they are wrong, lest their status diminishes.

I met Abdulwahab Al-Anmati, he used to be upon the methodology of the salaf. One would never hear backbiting in his gatherings nor would he take payment for teaching hadith. Whenever I read a hadith that contained in it a heart-softener, he used to cry continuously. I was very young at that time, (but) his crying affected my heart. He had the calm of those whose description we hear about from the narrations.

I met Abu Mansur Al-Jawaliqi, he was very quiet, very careful about what he said, precise, and scholarly. Sometimes he would be asked a question, which may seem easy; one that our young ones would rush to answer, however he would withhold from answering until he was certain. He used to fast a lot and remain quiet often.


Thus, I benefited from these two more than I benefited from the others, and I understood from this that: guiding people by one's action is more inspiring than doing so by words. So Allah, Allah, one should implement what he knows for it is indeed the greatest foundation. And the miskeen, the true miskeen is the one who wasted his life learning what he does not practice, thus he looses the pleasures of the dunyah and the goodies of the akhirah. (In addition to) Coming forth bankrupt (on the day of judgment) with strong evidences against himself."

If one has slandered or backbitten someone in front of you for any reason, he or she will return the same to you. Abu Hatim said "..it is a fact that those who associate with the wicked and sinnersa are never safe from their harm and gain a stained reputation among people."

Ibn Qudamah said "Do not befriend the wicked, because you might learn from their wickedness, and never expose your secrets to this type of people." (minhaj ul qasideen)

Al Fudhayl bin Iyad said "Associate with those who hve good behavior, for they will only call you to goodness, and accompanying them provides comfort. As for ill-mannered persons, they only call to evil." (Rawdhat al-Uqala)

Allah (azza wajall) says:

[center][i]"Show forgiveness, enjoin what is good, and turn away from the foolish (i.e. don't punish them). And if an evil whisper comes to you from Shaitan (Satan) then seek refuge with Allah. Verily, He is All-Hearer, All-Knower. Verily, those who are Al-Muttaqun (the pious - see V.2:2), when an evil thought comes to them from Shaitan (Satan), they remember (Allah), and (indeed) they then see (aright)." 7:199-200[/center][/i]

This is not to mean that we abandon ordaining the good and forbidding the evil. There must be balance in the life of the Muslim. We must honor Allah's deen but we must also at the same time give excuses to others without exceeding the limits. We should not let our attempt to have ghayrah cause us to leave justice and fairness in our dealings with others.

Allah (azza wajall) says:

[center][i]"Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and those who are with him are severe against disbelievers, and merciful among themselves." 48:29[/center][/i]



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