Masks

I look around and a feeling of despair takes over. A feeling compounded furthermore by my inability to alter my surroundings and instead having to simply sit back and watch the drama unfold. When I look around at my surroundings...I don't actually see my surroundings. I see masks. Facades. And then comes into focus  the ethereal billboard hovering in the air that says "Welcome to the masquerade."

It's a dress rehearsal everyday and everybody is playing a role. Dumb is the one refuses to jump into the band-fake-wagon. It's depressing; watching the human reduced to an entity that seeks refuge under layers of make-up, pretentions and sanctimony. We're so desperate to please the world.  So desperate to be accepted. So desperate to be "cool." Everything that we're doing to 'stand out' is only a step towards trying to 'fit in.'

Virtues of integrity and merit have been kissed goodbye. Who cares, when you can wrap up your deficiencies under fancy wrappers and some very sweet talk?

Never try to cover up what you lack by making an exaggerated show of what you have. This has been an unspoken dictum in my life for a very long time. I will speak about it today. I find it despicable, the idea of having to fake one's identity (and to lose it in the process.) What level of Munafiqat is that?! The idea of faking perfection…ridiculous! Excuse me for throwing the clichè in your face, but nobody's perfect. You'd mock and jeer, but clichès are clichès for just one reason: they work. In a world that is SO obsessed with perfection, do we not realize that it is only our imperfections that set us apart? Ignore that, and we're just an aggregate of some (perfect) flesh on some (perfect) bones- (perfectly) fit for the grave.

Hypocrisy scares me. The slow poison. The shrewd deviousness of it, the way it weaves into our lives; slowly, silently, gradually tightening it's grasp and choking our originality to death.

Am I the only one freaked out by this possibility? The possibility of not knowing who I am, of what I can do, of what I can be...

I steal another glance around me. Plastic smiles and steely laughter. Bright faces and dark souls. Solid words and shaky principles. Lots of style and little substance. Welcome to the masquerade.

“The only thing worse than a conformist is a fashionable conformist,” as Ayn Rand quite correctly pointed out. It’s okay to be weird. It’s okay to be awkward. It’s okay to be real. The only thing that’s definitely NOT okay is to stop being yourself. Whose favour do we seek to gain that way? No good comes out of moulding one’s self into society’s idea of perfect; the society is, after all, a bunch of real people trying extremely hard to be unreal.

I do not know if the rantings of a disappointed girl ever made any difference to the world, but necessity sometimes prevails over logic. The girl writing this feels trapped, and this is her SOS call:

Take the curtain-call, let the curtain fall. Let’s go behind the scenes, and embrace who we’ve always been.

Men of Truth

And mention in the Book [the story of Ibrahim] Indeed, he was a man of truth and a Prophet.

And mention in the Book, Ismaeel. Indeed, he was true to his promise, and he was a Messenger and a Prophet.

And mention in the Book, Idrees. Indeed, he was a man of truth and a Prophet.

[19; 41,54,56]

Ibrahim AS, Ismaeel AS, Idrees AS. The purest of people to have ever walked this Earth. So pure, that their stories were protected word for word and passed down for centuries for us to finally be able to inherit, read, understand and apply them. Their qualities, their trials and their tribulations have been documented and preserved untouched. These were the men whose examples were quoted to Mohammed SAWS in his periods of intense depression by his only mentor: Allah SWT. The experiences of these men was to act like balm for every wound Mohammed SAWS would have to endure, for the atrocities that would torment him, for every trial his ummat would face centuries later...

Ting-ding. Ummat, yes. You and I.

You and I inherited unimaginable (and untapped, as yet)  treasures. Take Ibrahim AS's story, for instance. A small boy, roughly 13, standing up to his father (an idol carver) and condemning idolatory itself!

"Yaa abati laa taAbudisshaitan!"

Such eloquence, such humility. Where did it come from? A grey-beard aged eighty? Nah. A little boy of thirteen.

From there he walked out. And from there began the most amazing quest of his life. The search for his Rabb. Born into a community of idolators, the idea of One Supreme Creator and Sustainer was a wholly new and sternly criticized concept. Yet, his Fitrah pulled him to it. The same soul that had responded with QAALU BALA SHAHIDNA some 50,000 years before man came into being, the soul that was his compass, the soul that had identified it's Rabb long before the mind could.

THAT was the man we know as Ibrahim Alayhissalam.

Disowned by family, exiled, catapulted into an inferno stoked for three days. Flag bearer of Deen e Hanifa. Recognized by Allah SWT as his best friend: Khaleelullah.

And yet, how did Allah SWT describe this man?

"And mention in the Book [the story of Ibrahim] Indeed, he was a man of truth and a Prophet."

Man of Truth. Siddiqan Nabiya.

Reformer. Activist. Pioneer. Prophet.

And yet, what character did Allah SWT choose to highlight about this man above everything else? Truthfulness. Trustworthiness.

Here's the lesson. For you and for me. Especially in a time where attributes of honesty and word-keeping are deemed passè. In a time where a lie here and a cover-up there is acceptable...is okay...is "light." Sad reality.

Allah SWT elevated Ibrahim AS's truthfulness beyond everything else. Beyond the integrity of his faith, beyond his humility, beyond his courage! THAT is the the stature of an honest human in the eyes of the All Seeing.

Upkeeping a person's trust, honesty in the time of adversity: little qualities most loved by Allah SWT. Little qualities most overlooked by you and me.

And this, is the sad story of this ummat. Of you and of me.