an Ode for the Brokenhearted

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

 

 

 

if we found all our love and expectation, waiting within the grasp of our outstretched fingers,...while still we drew breath in this life of growing thorns and planted cinders,...how would our selves and our souls desire akhirah in its permanence, and seek to call that place as our destined Home? 

 

if our Rabb let our cups be fulled to brim, with every wish and longing that He hid in our DNA, then truly we'd never wanna leave here, truly we'd become as those whom this life has sated....and never look to find a brighter dawn because they were contented by the dimming light scattered across these meager days.

 

i do not say this as causation, that depth of loss and sorrow would directly bring His sanctuary closer to our fingers, but more of truth in correlation: the ones He breaks with His tests and catastrophes, are those He chooses to have brought closest to His presence, closest to finding all they seek. let me demonstrate by way of example, the first of our nation, the beloved Messenger of Allah (saw), and speak to that of what he faced, what he lost, that which was torn and ripped and pulled from the fabric of his life = of his first wife, of multiple infants and those lost at birth, of losing his uncle and dearest relatives who supported him through his early phases of life, of grandsons and family members whose untimely and grisly ends his Rabb had informed him of, of being cast out by his own people for telling them the most necessary of all truths, of being ridiculed and chastised for being who he always was (the Truthful One, al-Amin), of being lied against despite wanting khair and goodness and decency for all he met, this man, the most beautiful of all creation his Rabb would ever make...how broken was he? Yet...the only reason this man survives, is because of the will and support of his Creator, because he was given a purpose, a message, a Book, and none should ever, EVER think...that these trials meant his Rabb loved him any less. quite the opposite. Allah knew His slave before the slave existed, even if it was His favorite, His most beloved, and truly, our Rabb ensured that His slave would know precisely the temporal nature of this life, when He showed him exactly what akhirah was, of its delights and bliss to make complete of the Messenger (saw) everything that this dunya would appeared to have broken...it did not, because his Rabb would raise him, refashion him, and grant him everything he had lost, and utterly more than that in completion and perfection. 

 

so, if in sum i would have it restated, that i think He made Paradise but as respite and repayment, only (or rather, mainly) for the ones brokenhearted, the ones who knew they were incomplete, and lived patiently with this knowledge, while not seeking to overcome its implications, not trying to subvert the truth of His qadr's imposition (a tricky thing to learn, balancing effort alongside the right moment and measure of submission), but the truth is, all of us will perish from this earth, one day, sooner or later, and the most important knowledge then, that we hoped to have practiced with our fingers - was that we expected this to come, the meeting of each of us - with our end, that our Rabb was Allah, our deen as Islam, and our prophet as Muhammad (saw).  

 

~

 

in all the years i've lived, for all the things i've written, i have often found beauty in my sadness. that is part of why i never let certain things go, why i took them, kept them in my memory so deeply that these things became part of my blood, flowing in my veins and providing impetus for me to overcome any trial He would have me face. one who has been given everything and lost nothing, has no reason to seek ascendance, no inner compulsion, no inner flame to help light the way. we have struggled, and will keep on doing so, long as He wills us to live. you are always loved, have always been and will be. why do you think He'd have me give you the title of, Love of All Lifetimes? :P 

 

ya Rabb, ease for my beloved her road, whether in closeness or distance, no matter the weather she must endure, protect her heart, keep it beating, for always and Ever, ameen.