“Ku membiarkan hatiku untuk merindui-Mu, Ku menghamparkan sakitku untuk tatapan Kamu, Bersama-Mu harapanku, Hilang dalam terang yang membutakanku, Aku lemah tanpa Kamu, Ku ingin-Mu dampingi ku, Aku fahami aku bukan terbaik untuk diri-Mu, Aku menunggu cinta dari-Mu, Agar ku sempurna, Dan mungkin hari yang satu, Terus ku tertunggu, Hanya satu…”

by Yasmin Mogahed

There is a time of night when the whole world transforms. During the day, chaos often takes over our lives. The responsibilities of work, school, and family dominate much of our attention. Other than the time we take for the five daily prayers, it is hard to also take time out to reflect or even relax. Many of us live our lives at such a fast pace, we may not even realize what we’re missing.

But there is a time of night when work ends, traffic sleeps, and silence is the only sound. At that time—while the world around us sleeps—there is One who remains awake and waits for us to call on Him. We are told in the hadith qudsi:

“Our Lord descends during the last third of each night to the lower heaven, and says: ‘Is there anyone who calls on Me that I may respond to him? Is there anyone who asks Me that I may give unto him? Is there anyone who requests My Forgiveness that I may forgive him?’” (Bukhari and Muslim)

One can only imagine what would happen if a king were to come to our door, offering to give us anything we want. One would think that any sane person would at least set their alarm for such a meeting. If we were told that at exactly one hour before dawn a check for $10,000,000 would be left at our doorstep, would we not wake up to take it?

Allah subhanahu wa ta`ala (exalted is He) has told us that at this time of night, just before dawn, He will come to His servants.  Imagine this. The Lord of the universe has offered us a sacred conversation with Him. That Lord waits for us to come speak with Him, and yet many of us leave Him waiting while we sleep in our beds. Allah (swt) comes to us and asks what we want from Him. The Creator of all things has told us that He will give us whatever we ask.

And yet we sleep.

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Oleh Ibnu Al-Maqdisi
Mukhtasar Minhajul Qasidin

KETAHUILAH bahawa cinta kepada Allah swt adalah tujuan utama daripada pelbagai macam kedudukan. Setelah mengenal cinta, maka muncul perasaan lain iaitu kerinduan, rasa senang dan redha. Sedangkan sebelum dia merasakan cinta itu tidak ada kedudukan lain melainkan perkara-perkara yang mengawali cinta seperti taubat, sabar, zuhud dan sebagainya.

Umat Islam sudah sepakat bahawa cinta kepada Allah swt dan Rasul-Nya saw merupakan kewajipan. Di antara dalil yang menjadi saksi tentang cinta ini adalah firman Allah swt :

“Allah mencintai mereka dan mereka pun mencintai-Nya.” (Al-Maidah : 54)

“Dan orang-orang yang beriman lebih cinta kepada Allah.” (Al-Baqarah : 165)

Ini merupakan dalil yang menguatkan cinta kepada Allah swt dan timbal balik dalam cinta itu.

Dalam hadith sahih disebutkan bahawa ada seorang lelaki bertanya tentang hari kiamat kepada Rasulullah saw. Baginda kembali bertanya: ‘Apakah yang sudah kamu siapkan untuk menghadapinya?’ Orang itu menjawab: ‘Wahai Rasulullah, aku tidak bersiap-siap untuk menghadapinya dengan banyaknya solat dan puasa, hanya aku mencintai Allah swt dan Rasul-Nya.’ Lalu Nabi saw bersabda: ‘Seseorang itu bersama orang yang dicintainya dan kamu bersama orang yang kamu cintai.” (Diriwayatkan Al-Bukhari dan Muslim)

Tiada kesenangan yang dirasakan orang-orang muslim setelah mereka masuk Islam seperti kesenangan mereka mendengar sabda baginda ini.

Diriwayatkan bahawa malaikat pencabut nyawa mendatangi Al-Khalil Ibrahim a.s. untuk mencabut nyawa beliau. Lalu beliau bertanya kepada malaikat itu: ‘Adakah engkau melihat kekasih yang mencabut nyawa kekasihnya?’ Lalu Allah swt mewahyukan kepada beliau: ‘Adakah engkau melihat seorang kekasih yang tidak suka berjumpa dengan kekasihnya?’ Lalu Ibrahim a.s. berkata kepada malaikat pencabut nyawa: ‘Wahai Malaikat maut, cabutlah sekarang juga!’

Al-Hassan Al-Basri rahimahullah berkata: “Siapa yang mengetahui Rabb-nya maka dia akan mencintai-Nya dan siapa yang mencintai selain Allah swt bukan kerana kaitannya dengan Allah swt maka yang demikian itu disebabkan kebodohan dan keterbatasannya mengetahui Allah swt. Sedangkan cinta kepada Rasulullah saw tidak akan muncul melainkan daripada cinta kepada Allah swt, begitu pula cinta kepada ulama dan orang-orang yang bertakwa. Orang yang dicintai kekasih juga patut untuk dicintai. Rasul yang dicintai Allah swt juga patut dicintai. Semua ini kembali kepada cinta yang pertama. Pada hakikatnya tidak ada sesuatu yang patut dicintai di mata orang-orang yang memiliki mata hati kecuali Allah swt semata.”

Kejelasan tentang masalah cinta ini kembali kepada beberapa sebab, iaitu :

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Syaikh Ibnu ‘Athaillah mengatakan :

“Janganlah pohonkan niat dan kepentinganmu kepada selain Allah. Sedangkan Allah Dzat Yang Maha Mulia tidak dapat dicapai hanya dengan angan-angan.”

Tidak kurang daripada 17 kali sehari dan semalam kita membaca surah al-Fatihah, yang salah satu ayatnya berbunyi :

Terjemahan : “Hanya kepada Engkau kami menyembah dan kepada Engkau kami mohon pertolongan.” (Surah al-Fatihah : 5)

Firman Allah di atas tentulah tidak ada maknanya kalau hanya sekadar dibaca dan dihafal sahaja, tetapi ia hendaklah kita amalkan dalam kehidupan kita sehari-hari. Dengan demikian amatlah tidak sesuai dengan apa yang kita ucapkan, apabila dalam menghadapi suatu keadaan dan keperluan, kita meminta pertolongan kepada selain daripada Allah Ta’ala

Allah Yang Maha Kaya dan Maha Pemurah, tidak pernah berkurangan dan tidak pula akan murka kepada hamba-Nya yang suka meminta kepada-Nya. Malahan Allah mencurahkan segala kasih dan sayang-Nya kepada hamba-hamba-Nya yang suka bermohon kepada-Nya.

Salah seorang penyair mengungkapkan sebagai berikut :

“Janganlah engkau memohonkan hajatmu kepada Bani Adam, tetapi bermohonlah kepada Allah yang pintu-Nya tidak pernah tertutup. Allah amat murka jika engkau meninggalkan permohonan kepada-Nya, sedangkan Bani Adam akan marah jika engkau sering meminta kepadanya.”

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by Yasmin Mogahed

There’s a strange sadness today. It’s not the kind that leaves you empty or lonely, or even wanting. It’s the still kind. The kind that comes from a certain level of understanding, even acceptance.

I looked at this photo today, and every time I did, I found tears fill my eyes. It was a sunset on the beach. Stunning. And above it the ayah: Rabanna ma khalaqta hatha batilan subhanak (our Lord You have not created all of this for nothing, subhanak.)

And that’s just it. All of this. The sadness, the accidents, the smiles, the peace, the pain, the love, the loss, and the sacrifice: it’s not for nothing. It is not without purpose. It’s not a mistake, some sort of oversight or a random course of events.

I looked at the image and suddenly I was filled with such a deep sense of nostalgia. For a time, I have no memory of.

“And [mention] when your Lord took from the children of Adam – from their loins – their descendants and made them testify of themselves, [saying to them], “Am I not your Lord?” They said, “Yes, we have testified.” [This] – lest you should say on the day of Resurrection, “Indeed, we were of this unaware.”” (Qur’an, 7:172)

I was overcome with the feeling of missing someone. Missing Him. Missing being with Him. Missing a time that was or will be. A time so certain, it is as if it already happened. That’s why when Allah talks about the hereafter in the Quran, He uses the past tense.

When you fall in love with a work of art, you’d die to meet the artist. I am a student of the galleries of Pacific sunsets, full moon rises on the ocean, the clouds from an airplane, autumn forests in Raleigh, first fallen snows.

And I’m dying to meet the artist.

“Some faces, that Day, will be radiant, looking at their Lord.” (Qur’an, 75:22-23)

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“Love is a serious mental disease.” At least that’s how Plato put it. And while anyone who’s ever been ‘in love’ might see some truth to this statement, there is a critical mistake made here. Love is not a mental disease. Desire is.

If being ‘in love’ means our lives are in pieces and we are completely broken, miserable, utterly consumed, hardly able to function, and willing to sacrifice everything, chances are it’s not love. Despite what we are taught in popular culture, true love is not supposed to make us like drug addicts.

And so, contrary to what we’ve grown up watching in movies, that type of all-consuming obsession is not love. It goes by a different name. It is hawa—the word used in the Quran to refer to one’s lower, vain desires and lusts. Allah describes the people who blindly follow these desires as those who are most astray:

“But if they answer you not, then know that they only follow their own lusts (hawa). And who is more astray than the one who follows his own lusts, without guidance from Allah?” (28: 50)

By choosing to submit to our hawa over the guidance of Allah, we are choosing to worship those desires. When our love for what we crave is stronger than our love for Allah, we have taken that which we crave as a lord. Allah says:

“Yet there are men who take (for worship) others besides Allah, as equal (with Allah): They love them as they should love Allah. But those of Faith are overflowing in their love for Allah.” (2:165)

If our ‘love’ for something makes us willing to give up our family, our dignity, our self-respect, our bodies, our sanity, our peace of mind, our deen, and even our Lord who created us from nothing, know that we are not ‘in love’. We are slaves.

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