Reclaim your heart by Yasmin Mogahed

People Leave, but do they return? Part I

Leaving is hard. Losing is harder. So a few weeks ago I asked the question, 'Why do people have to leave each other?' The answer took me into some of my life's deepest realizations and struggles. However, it has also led me to wonder: After people leave, do they ever return? After something we love is taken from us, does it ever come back? Is loss permanent--or just a means for a higher purpose? Is loss the end itself, or a temporary cure for our heart's ailments?

There's something amazing about this life. The very same wordly attribute that causes us pain is also what gives us relief: Nothing here lasts. What does that mean? It means that the breathtakingly beautiful rose in my vase will wither tomorrow. It means that my youth will neglect me. But it also means that the sadness I feel today will change tomorrow. My pain will die. My laughter won't last forever--but neither will my tears. We say this life isn't perfect. And it isn't. It isn't perfectly good. And it isn't perfectly bad, either.

Allah (glorifies is He) tells us in a very profound ayah (verse): "Verily with hardships comes ease" (Qur'an, 94:5). Growing up I think I understood this ayah wrongly. I used to think, after hardship comes ease. In other words, I thought life wad made up of good times and bad times. After the bad times, comes the good times. I thought this as if life was either all good or all bad. But that is not what the ayah is saying. The ayah is saying WITH hardship comes ease. The ease is at the same time as the hardship. This means that nothing in this life is ever all bad (or all good). In everu bad situations we are in, there is always something to be grateful for. With hardship, Allah also gives us the strength and patience to bear it.

If we study the difficult times in our lives, we will see that they were also filled with much good. The question is--which do we choose to focus on? I think the trap we fall into is rooted in this false belief that this life can be perfect-- perfectly good or perfectly bad. However, that's not the nature of dunya (this life). That's the nature of the hereafter. The hereafter is saved for the perfection of things. Jannah (paradise) is perfectly and completely good. There is no bad in it. And Jahannam (hell---may Allah protect us) is perfectly and completely bad. There is no good in it.

By not truly understanding this reality, I myself would become consumed by the momentary circumstances of my life (whether good or bad). I experienced each situation in it's full intensity--as if it was ultimate or would never end. The way I was feeling at the moment transformed the whole world and everything in it. If I was happy in that moment, past and present, near and far, the entire universe was good for that moment. As if perfection could exist here. And the same happened with bad things. A negative state consumed everything. It became the whole world, past and present, the entire universe was bad for that moment. Because it became my entire universe, I could see nothing outside of it. Nothing existed for that moment.  If you wronged me today, it was because you no longer cared about me--not because this was one moment of a string of infinite moments which happen to be tinted that way, or feelings at that instant replaced context, because it replaced my entire vision of the world.

    I think in our experimental nature, some of us maybe especially susceptible to this. Perhaps that is the reason we can fall prey to the "I've never seen good from you" phenomenon which the prophet (peace be upon him) referred to in his hadith. Perhaps some of us say or feel this way because at that moment, experientially we really haven't seem good, because our feeling at that instant replaces, defines and becomes everything. Past and present becomes rolled up into one experimental moment.

   But the true realization that nothing is complete in this life transforms our experience of it. We suddenly stop being consumed by moments. In the understanding that nothing is limitless here, that nothing here is kamil (perfect, complete), Allah enables us to step outside of moments and see them for what they are: not universes, not reality, past and present, just that-- a single moment in a string of infinite moments....and they too shall pass.

   When I cry or lose or bruise, so long as I am still alive, nothing is ultimate. So long as there is still a tomorrow, a next moment, there is hope, there is change, and there I'd redemption. What is lost is not lost forever.

   So in answering the question whether what is lost comes back. I study the most beautiful examples. Did Yusuf return to his father? Did Musa return to his mother? Did Hajar return to Ibrahim? Did health, wealth and children return to Ayoub? From these stories we learn a powerful and beautiful lesson: what is taken by Allah is never lost. In fact, it is only what is with Allah that remains. Everything else vanishes. Allah (swt) says, "What is with you must vanish: what is with Allah will endure. And we will certainly bestow, on those who patiently persevere, their reward according to the best of their actions" (Qu'ran, 16:96)

   So, all that is with Allah, is never lost. In fact the prophet (peace be upon him) has said: "You will never give up a thing for the sake of Allah (swt), but that Allah will replace it for you with something that is better for you than it" (Ahmad) Did not Allah take the husband of Umm Salamah, only to replace him with the prophet (peace be upon him)?

   Sometimes Allah takes in order to give. But, its crucial to understand that His giving is not always in the form we think we want. He knows best what is best. Allah says, "...But it is possible that you dislike a thing which is good for you, and that you love a thing which is bad for you. But Allah knows, and you know not" (Qu'ran, 2:216)