Nafsiya Reflections: Me, Myself, and I

Sometimes it feels like we just want to be in a bubble. Especially nowadays, like in the west, Muslims are under pressure to fit in, because anything that doesn’t go with the crowd stands out like a red flag. Under pressure to fit in, or accept different groups. It’s difficult. Muslims searching for like minded communities so that their families may be accepted and protected or schools for their kids, that don’t push the LGBTQ ideology for instance. It’s crazy these days! May Allah protect all our brothers and sisters.

Muslims are finding themselves moving to other countries, Muslim countries. Immigrating so as to not keep living in a bubble, thinking they are going to be under some kind of shade of Islam, somehow. Knowing they may face tests in the infrastructure, cultural differences, even a different language, thinking things are not as bad. DEFINITELY the environment in some Muslim lands is better... but still they face issues, challenges, such as the dominant non-islamic cultural values, for example, how women are viewed, the nationalism taught in schools, corruption, or a sense of this non-Islamic unity. At the same time there are native Muslims in these lands who are striving to please Allah SWT. They set up schools, make groups for like minded communities, so that their families can find a sense of acceptance, protection and pride.

In both cases, creating the bubble or the protective layer is done with sincerity, wishing to protect our Deen, ideas and future generations....BUT if we examine this approach to the problems of a society that is not in line with the Islamic ideals of the individual's role, the Messenger Muhammad (saw)’s example is more than enough for us. He (saw) was with a band of people (the companions, ra) who were the cream of the whole Ummah... the best generation! The best khuluq (manners), the best iman (belief), the best neighbours, the best fathers, mothers, wives, husbands, sons... you get the jist. My question is... why didn’t he SAW stop there? Why wasn’t that bubble, with all those noble people enough? Why didn’t the Sahabah RA just stay in their homes, focusing on their families, and their selves?! Or their neighbors and communities?

See now we can clearly see, that Islam has been diluted and flavored with the secular way of thinking... Religion is for the self and for the home... So then we assume Islam as merely a religion, not a deen, a way of life in all areas, and then find ourselves struggling to contain those bubbles, those circles, struggling to contain our personal spheres. See, no matter how big the bubble, how thick that protective layer is... we will be affected by the outside world. And this is the crux! We cannot contain Islam to the individual sphere alone... We cannot go around pretending that that’s working! And I don’t have to tell you, it will never work! It can’t work. It makes no sense. And who wants to live in a bubble anyways!

You know, as Muslims the key to liberation and to finally put down our guards, is in our hands. We actually hold a solution to the problem of the society we all abhor and seek to escape. The comfort we feel with like minded people or the way we wish to secure our children, to protect our future generations... Imagine if the majority were like us?! Why do we not seek this change instead? Mirroring the life of our beloved Prophet SAW and his Companions RA, who worked to change the thoughts and the emotions of society and showed people how the Islamic system of governance is the only way an individual is truly able to live in contentment...

The Muslim cannot be an island, isolated, pushing away the outsiders... or living on a hill somewhere. He or she has to live with the people and guide them.

The Prophet (saw) and Sahabah (ra), despite their own personal struggles, as all humans have, they did not stop at this but they made their goal to change the society they were living in..this was through a struggle and in challenging the wrong ideas and presenting the correct ones. They kept striving till the word of truth was embodied in the first islamic state, in Madinah.

See, we have a mission beyond me, myself and I...

A mission... we hold as the predecessors of the Companions RA.

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