September 5th, 2008
Ramadaan: The Month of Love
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Alhamdulillâhi rabbil-’âlamîn was salâtu was salâmu ‘ala ashrifil anbiyâ wal-mursalîn nabîyina Muhammad wa ‘ala âlihi wa sahbihî ajma’în
To many of you reading this the title may seem absurd, and may have even caught you off-guard, as love generally is not associated with the month of worship and blessing. Yet, if we were to contemplate the actions that we partake during this blessed month we would see that the vast majority of them revolve around love, we are often people that just fail to reflect.
The first thing that is needed to actually conceptualize where I am coming from would be to understand what love really is, or at the very least how it is being defined in this treatise. We all know that love has many manifestations, degrees, and types. The way a child loves his or her parents is not the same as the way a woman may love her husband, and likewise, the way a person may love chocolate, per se, is not the same way a person would love his or her Lord (or at least we hope not).
However in all of these types of love there is a common and key theme, that of sacrifice and fulfilment. The more we love something, the more we are willing to sacrifice for it, and the more we will strive to fulfil the every command and wish of our beloved. This should not be misunderstood as sacrifice and fulfilment being the only components of love, but rather they are from amongst the essential components that make up love, along with longing and cherishing. And this is why we should see that love, along with hope and fear, is a pillar of our worship. Our worship will not be complete nor acceptable until it encompasses the right amounts of love, hope, and fear. After having comprehended this, we can see how shirk can be performed even in love, yet most of mankind knows not.
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