Infinite Ink

Playing Wisely

"Laghw" means a useless activity, one that doesn't benefit you in this world or in the hereafter. For most of us our laghw is Internet related, or at least related to one screen or another.

Today I want to touch upon what brand of laghw I've been involved in lately. For the past two days I have been listening to nasheeds. I discovered music-free tunes (or tracks with sound effects or human voices in the background) and got hooked. I spent hours making a playlist and listening to audio on repeat. Hours.

While I was listening to stuff like Kamal Uddin and Dawud Wharnsby and feeling what I thought was "happy", suddenly I realised that I was actually just being entertained. Sure, they recited "SubhanAllah" and "Bismillah" and "La ilaha illallah", but I wasn't repeating along with them with the intention of remembering Allah. I was just caught up in the sound. OK, I'll be a little less harsh with myself: the soundtracks left me humming the tunes to myself and since they contained the phrases I mentioned, I was reminded to actually make some real supplications. It sure beat remembering a catchy musical song and trying to get it out of my head, oh yes. But had I replaced one mindless noise with another?

No, I think. While I admit that I went overboard (ever since I left listening to music I am not used to my ears being plugged in for so long), I think if I limit the nasheeds, it's OK. The real thing is making time to listen to Quran. That is truly beneficial. What scares me is that I can very easily trap myself into nasheed-world and omit listening to Quran from my audio diet. The solution is actually quite simple: don't just listen to Quran, but make a whole Quran program. First you listen to the audio, then you recite it yourself, then you look up the translation, then the explanation, then you listen to it again, memorise it, recite it in prayer, and add those verses of Quran to your mind, to your heart, to your life and to your book of deeds.

That's my goal, anyway, and I pray that I achieve it, because I don't want to close myself into a world of just being entertained with the limited entertainments of this world. Yeah, have fun and all that, but play well and play wisely, too.

How do you fight laghw?