10. Weigh Anchor
Dear Sister in Islam,
91. As human beings, you will want closure. It would be very nice if you could put all of your life episodes in individual boxes, wrap it up tidily, place a shiny red bow on top, and place it on a high shelf in your memory bank. Most likely that will never happen, no matter how much you may yearn for it.
Closure will most definitely not happen with a covert, overt, malignant, or other types of narcissist. Neither will they accept the wrong they did, nor will they offer you an apology, or attempt restorative justice. Instead, they will play the victim, even manufacture a few crocodile tears to gain sympathy, and generally act like they are the ones who were wronged. Don’t expect them to change. There is something terribly terribly wrong with their inner moral compass. Their human consciousness and capacity for empathy is almost nonexistent.
92. It’s going to be okay. The sacred scribes, ‘kiramen katibeen’, the angels on your shoulders, have recorded exactly what happened, immaterial of how it plays out here in this world. Truly, if there is a hard choice to be made, it is better to be the oppressed, rather than to be the oppressor. The oppressor will be held accountable for all of it. Remember that there is no veil between the supplications of the oppressed and Al-Lateef (The Subtle).
93. Mindfully and consciously choose faith, hope, gratitude, healing, contentment forgiveness and simplicity for you, for your children and for your loved ones in your voyage forward. They want to see you put your best foot forward and navigate through the storm to reach calmer waters.
94. You think you have all the time in the world to do what you need to do, to achieve what you want to achieve, to travel to the places you want to sojourn to and to make the changes to your life you want to make. You don’t. The time is now. The place is here. Weigh anchor and set sail with the tide before it’s too late. It’s better to know that you tried, whether you succeed or fail, than to regret one day when you are old and weary, that you never tried because you were afraid to step out of your comfort zone. Time waits for no man, woman or child.
95. Find something to do with your life that gives back to the world you live in; a meaningful purpose greater than yourself. There is great joy to be found in choosing a life of service to others. When you use your own pain and life experience to alleviate other people’s pain and mitigate their experience, it helps ease your own torment. You will feel a certain satisfaction that all that pain wasn’t in vain. These life lessons are to be shared, so that other people who are heading to the same rocks you unwarily crashed upon, have a light to help them navigate through those same treacherous waters.
96. Hurt people don’t hurt people. Hurt people help people because they don’t want another human being to feel the anguish that they themselves felt, or live through the agony that they themselves lived through. This is the prophetic way.
Even the Best of Creation, the Messenger of God,ﷺ, suffered through excruciating trials and tribulations. His life was full of trauma, from the day he was born as an orphan, to the day he passed away during the agonising pangs of death. He, ﷺ, is the Beloved of God but he too was tried and tested throughout his life. Yet, he always rose above his circumstances.
He, ﷺ, was good to the people who harmed him. He, ﷺ, never returned wrong with wrong. If someone raised their voice at him, he , ﷺ, lowered his. He, ﷺ, truly is a Mercy to Creation. If you study the prophetic seerah in depth, you will learn how he, ﷺ, took his trauma and pain and turned it into purpose. He was, is, and always will be the people’s Prophet, ﷺ.
Get to know the Beloved ﷺ through his seerah.
To know the Beloved, is to love the Beloved, ﷺ.
To love the Beloved, is to follow the Beloved ﷺ.
To follow the Beloved, is to be successful in this world and the next bi’iznillah.
“And We have not sent you, [O Muḥammad], except as a mercy to the worlds.” [Al-Anbiya/The Prophets: Verse 107]
Anas ibn Malik reported: The Messenger of Allah, ﷺ, said, “None of you have faith until I am more beloved to him than his children, his father, and all of the people.”
How do you love someone you don’t know? You can’t. That’s why you have to study the seerah. It is life changing. Knowing the Prophet, ﷺ, intimately brings the Qur’an to life, because now every ayat has context. As the Prophet’s, ﷺ, wife Aisha (RA) said, “Verily, the character of the Prophet, ﷺ, was the Quran.”
97. It is also vitally important to study the Attributes of God and to use those Attributes in your supplications. It is incredibly empowering to know who your Lord is. By knowing who He is, you learn more about why He commands you to live your life the way He has.
سُبْحَانَ اللَّهِ وَالْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ وَلاَ إِلَهَ إِلاَّ اللَّهُ وَاللَّهُ أَكْبَرُ وَلاَ حَوْلَ وَلاَ قُوَّةَ إِلاَّ بِاللَّ
“Glory to God, Praise to God, there is no God but God and there is no power or strength except from God”.
98. The loneliness can be debilitating but you are never really truly alone. You always have your Creator with you, closer than your own jugular vein.
Never forget the power of prayer and supplication in the last third of the night, when most of the world is silent and sleeping. Take your burdens to your prayer mat and hand them over to the One who can alleviate your hardship and grant you af’uw (forgiveness), aa’fiyah (well-being), and openings beyond your comprehension, imagination or dreams.
He is Al-Fattah. Not only does He open existing doors, He creates doors in front of you, where previously there was only a solid blank wall before you.
99. You didn’t fail at marriage. Your marriage failed you. No one goes into a marriage thinking they will divorce, unless they are committing green card fraud and plan to use and discard a spouse for that reason. There are many Muslims who do this and circumvent the laws of the land they live in for their personal gain. Please don't do this. Please don’t marry such people. Those who marry with sincerity, do so with a firm intention and long term commitment, with death do you part engraved in your heart.
100. Marriage is described as a firm covenant in Surah Nisa, Verse 21 (مِّيثَـٰقًا غَلِيظًۭا), which is made under Allah and His Messenger, ﷺ, based on the foundations of truth. It is no light matter. A marriage built on a foundation of lies is always going to be rotten at the core and the rot will spread over time and blacken everything in its path, causing widespread anguish.
