Looking to the past for soul nourishment

I feel my life’s true purpose is to make a change in this world. Its injustices and suffering dawned upon me at the age of 13, and I’ve had a fire in my belly ever since.

Like many people though, at times I feel a bit lost.

I’ve been reflecting that perhaps it is enough to lead a decent, honest living and that there is no need to push myself to personal limits in trying to affect change (not that I often push myself to my limits, but that is my aspiration). Perhaps life is simply about being good; being prayerful, kind to family and friends, and earning an honest living. But although I respect people who lead this wholesome life, I try to resist wanting to resign myself to a ‘normal’ life, because for me that is not enough. To use the name of a charity in East London, I am a ‘restless being’. 

Sometimes we need to look to the past to reground ourselves as to what our life is all about. I recently read a poem I wrote at the tender age of 14. I marvel at its slight naivete, but it brings a smile to face. It is as if my gawky 14 year old self is traveling through time to give me a sermon and inspire me. She is telling me:

I am beginning to discover this world

It just makes me feel really sad,

Hatred, war and prejudice, 

How did it become this bad?

The answer to this is:

Power, greediness and envy

Our two world wars show this now,

You don’t know how sad it makes me.

But nuclear bombs the scariest things

Too destructive for our land to hold,

They’ll fall into the wrong hands one day,

And our world will all fall cold.

But I think there is hope for this disastrous thing,

By going on a march and protest,

We all have the power to change things,

Look forward and try our best.

Knowing your Lord

There is a an ancient phrase which states ‘He who knows himself, knows his Lord’. This phrase resonated with me after my first module on the MCB leadership course, which took place in the beautiful Denham Grove in Uxbridge this weekend. Mash’Allah, by the time the weekend was over I felt my inner life had experienced growth and insight.

 

True learning is more than the acquisition of rational, objective information and facts. In the plenary session, Dr Akbar aptly illustrated this to us; he made a fist with his hand and brought it to his chest, and touched his head with his other hand ‘Learning needs to take place here and here he said’. Indeed learning did take place in my heart. On more than one occasion I experienced moments of insight and of being deeply moved. This is what is known as experiential learning, and I believe was a form of tassawaf – The science of knowledge which deals with the purification of the qalb - the human heart. 

 

The weekend was made up by various exercises which fostered self-awareness. There is too much to say so I will only touch on some of it:

 

It is difficult to convey how we were moved by the experiential learning, but in a nutshell we shared our aspirations, stories and values with each other and thus gained further insight into the beautiful complexity which lies within all of us. Most critically, we fed back to one another on areas of improvement – this was done with the utmost sensitivity and respect. This is precisely the kind of exercise which distinguishes a life of faith – striving to be better people – from one where you are the ‘living dead’. A life where we can encourage, facilitate and inspire one another to work towards self-actualisation or ‘wholeness of being’. And this was the ethos of the weekend; the pursuit of personal development means to never be complacent about what you have achieved or become, it is about the yearning for further growth, and to soar to new heights.

 

On a previous post I spoke of the importance of sharing stories to be moved from one another. It is stories of leadership which move us to act and shake our very foundations – to inspire us from a state of placidity and inertia to one where we are moved to act in a spirit of amanah – the trust that Allah has bestowed upon us. Dr Akbar’s story in itself was an example of tenacity and vision ‘It took me 18 months to get the leadership course off the ground’. The course has now subsequently run for seven years and has gone from strength to strength. Here, stood an example before us of somebody who passionately believed in an idea, and rather than mere talk had made it happen. He reflected ‘I wish I could have done something like this at your age, but am glad that now you’re able to do it’. I wonder – what seeds will we cultivate for the future generations?

 

What made the weekend even sweeter was interacting and learning from Shia brothers and sisters. For the first time I was led in prayer by a Shia Imam.  On Saturday evening at 22:15, after our guest speaker had spoken, I found myself sitting cross-legged in an impromptu small group asking questions to another learned Shia brother. Our little intimate discussion went on went on for an hour, even after a day of intense learning. But I was encouraged to continue my sincere inquiry by the brother’s spirit of openness; I asked “Why do the Shia make their prostration on the clay tablet. Where does that  originate from?’. The brother replied that the Prophet prayed on soil due to humility. I learnt a lot in that hour; the knowledge we received was not the same as reading from a book; we were taught about Shia faith from living vessels of knowledge.

 

I am utterly impressed with the leadership programme. The MCB can be quite proud in the way it has brought Shia and Sunni together, and is thus exhibiting exactly the kind of leadership which British Muslim society needs. The weekend overall was remarkable.  The transformed way I felt is testimony to the thought, dedication and love that has gone into it.  At the beginning of the course, Dr Akbar said there was just one thing that he asked of the participants. No – It wasn’t to join the MCB (although that would be welcomed), neither was it to even serve the Muslim community in general – he said that he only thing he asked the participants is to serve their community whatever their background. Thus the MCB has exemplified the true lofty teaching and message of Islam, to serve humanity overall whether Muslim, non-Muslim or secular, because that indeed is true mercy, and becoming of a Muslim.