Deficiencies...
So alhumdulillah the semester has finally come to an end.This has to be the slackerest of slacker semesters in the history of slackerdom. I mean, I did nothing at all. I could have taken like 3 more classes and still had time to do homework and stuff cuz I didnt do anything until the last second. I can not allow myself to have another semester like this, cuz I cant afford to anymore.
So now that the semester is over, I finally have enough time to rant about what has been eating me up inside for the past month.
I need to develop thicker skin.
I have this OCD type of behavior when it comes to my being liked by anyone and everyone I come in contact with. I want everyone to love me and this is the only way I will feel comfortable. If someone has a problem with me, I tend to do anything I can to try and fix myself so that the person does not have any ill feeling towards me.
This was evident when we first made Gandaghee and premiered it at ISNA 2 summers ago.
After showing it, these two brothers walked up to the table where we were selling the DVDs outside the main hall, and made a scene. I was just walking by and my boy was selling the movies, and I saw the brothers pick up a copy and throw it down on the table.
"You all are worse than the kuffar!!! You are taking Islam and making fun of it! You need to burn all of these!!!"
I was utterly shocked.
I could not believe that my intentions would be questioned to such a degree that I would be grouped in a category worse than those who dont even believe in Allah. My boy who was selling the DVDs started to get a bit annoyed and started saying stuff back to them, but I just asked to guys to step aside and talk to me. I implored them to have a discussion with me about what they saw as problematic to such a degree, yet they refused and walked off.
Now you would think that me asking them to talk to me would have consoled me a bit, but it didnt. I then asked another brother to go find those brothers and find out who they are and to talk to em, and the brother did and came back to me saying that they had a convo with him and they almost retracted their statement. This was good enough to make me feel a bit better.
So what now?
I was playin basketball at the local masjid and I was guarding this young lookin kid who I didnt know. During the game its my habit to make ta'aaruf (getting to know?) with the peeps and I started a convo with the kid. Come to find out that he goes to my uni! Im in shock so I ask em if he comes to any MSA events cuz I never see him. He responds in the negative, and when I ask why not, he responds: Because the MSA is a bit fundi[mentalist].
"Fundi? Dude...Im the freakin president!"
Upon hearing this revelation the brother kinda looked embarrassed and the game continued. I didnt pay his comment any mind at the time, but then I began thinking about it.
"Do people think I am an extremist? Do I come off as an arrogant fundementalist who looks so intolerant to others who may be at different levels of Iman that people dont even wanna come around?"
I put that thought on the back burner and continued through the semester until, this time in a few less words, I was again implicated to be intolerant, unyielding and rigid in my interpretation of this deen and our practice of it in the daily life.
This really hurt me.
I try so hard to look at my heart in the mirror and to find my faults, and I try and rectify them, and Wallahi I have alot of faults and I am extremely hard on myself about them as to trying to straighten them all out. So when someone tells me something that I need to work on, then I take the naseehah with gratefulness cuz I indeed was looking at the same deficiency that had just been pointed out and I was in the process of fixing it.
But when I get blindsided by an accusation of sorts, a blanket label and characterization which I deed not foresee, then it hits me like a ton of bricks.
I really take to heart any criticizm that I recieve which I did not see coming, and this time was no different. I began doing some soul searching and 3rd person-ish investigations if you will, where I was analyzing my interaction with others in my life.
I know that the Prophet PBUH did not go around waving a stick at the Sahabah ra, beating them over the head with it to adjust them and redirect them onto the straight path, and this was the Prophet PBUH!! The one person who would have the right to be harsh, yet he was but a mercy to mankind and he proved it with his humble behavior PBUH.
Some may feel that now that they are into the deen, and are trying to straighten themselves out, that they now have the duty of pulling out the nahee the munkar police badge being the mutawwa' of the household and of the MSA and of the workplace. This is not dawah! This takes people away from the deen most of the time, ESPECIALLY with the household.
How could you possibly think you will 'discipline' your wife through harshness and supervision of all of her actions? Muhammed PBUH told us for a reason that women are delicate creatures which require gentleness, mildness and tenderness, and that a riteous wife is the greatest of all provision in this world. How could we treat such a gift with harshness? You must become the closest companion of your spouse and the greatest comfort for your spouse and the greatest confidant of your spouse if you want to develop a relationship of mutual growth and development of iman. You cant expect to force it upon her, that is just not going to work.
So since I was concerned with my own actions being not what they seemed to me, and because it was concievable to me that I had created a bubble around myself where I didnt really know how I was acting, I went to work and I asked em if I was forceful in my dawah or harsh to them in any way.
Then I asked my MSA friends who are around me most of the day and they also responded with the negatory response like my coworkers.
Finally I asked the one person I am around all the time and the one who is the beneficiary of anything Islamic that I know: My sis, and she responded with such a beautiful response.
She first laughed and gave me a kiss followed by an awww since I was really blown at being seen as something that I hope that im not. Then she told me that it should not matter what someone else thinks, especially someone who doesnt really know me. I should just pay it no attention, and that I shouldnt try and validate myself by trying to please everyone who may have a problem with me.
Cuz its obvious that if I was intolerant and rigid of things, then surely I wouldnt live in my home under my current conditions, I wouldnt have retained my old friends despite our differences in what we consider 'fun', and I would have been told my those close to me of my forceful nature before someone who doesnt even know me would assess me as indignant.
So what I have I learned?
1) I have alot of diseases in my heart
2) I need to develop thicker skin when it comes to criticizm from outsiders because I can not expect to be liked by everyone.
3) My sister is whom I can ask if I need to know what my deficiencies are. She knows me better than anyone
I want to also make clear that in no way am I bragging or anything like that. I have serious issues that I deal with day in and day out. I dealt with rigidness in the deen and some brothers who set for me the perfect example of balance of ikhlaaq and dawah showed me how to properly act. But what im saying is that you need to be a self accusing soul who constantly asks itself what its doing, where its going, and how its acting. This will result in knowing yourself in depth, and knowing your weaknesses and identifying them. My weaknesses are a plenty and I pray that Allah swt cleanses me of the diseases which occupy my heart. Just because this particular thing is not an issue that I have iA, does not mean that I dont have other really detrimental issues that I need to resolve if I wish to be in the Grace of ar Raheem.
posted by Iboo LaL @ 11:29 PM
Comments: 5
