Falling

When I moved down to Cambridge in 1995 to work as a software tester for an IT company, I encountered a programmer who said he was quitting IT, heading off to work for the National Trust instead. The new-fangled email system and nascent internet were loading too many pressures on his shoulders and he could not wait to get out, to drive a tractor or something. The world has completely changed since then—in the course of my career I have only known this always-online world—but I can appreciate his sentiments perfectly. I often wish I could just turn off and disconnect. I sometimes think I might survive those old dreams of mine to disappear into the hills to live a subsistence lifestyle.

I mentioned my current feeling about the internet to my colleagues the other day and they all looked at me somewhat stunned. I have just got myself a job as a web application developer. ‘Don’t you think you might have chosen the wrong career path then?’ they asked me. Quite possibly.. I had just told them that I often think about cancelling my broadband internet connection, except that my wife now benefits from it greatly for staying in touch with family and friends overseas. ‘Okay, put it another way,’ I said, ‘I use the internet all the time, and that’s the problem.’ It wastes my time and worse.

I remember that feeling of relief we had after we disposed of our television six years ago. I can imagine such relief returning for me personally if I unplugged from this giant network. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with television: there is good in it as well as bad. The same is true of the internet. I am not condemning it as the ultimate source of evil. I am just saying I could live better without it, I think.

Today my heart is weighing heavy in my chest and I feel like I am burning up inside, and a memory keeps on recurring in my mind’s eye. A few years ago my wife and I holidayed in south Wales. One morning we were driving down hill along a private road. For a split second we freewheeled and I quickly lost control of the car. We hit a sharp rock and ripped one of the front tyres open. I managed to get the car back into gear, slow it down and regain control. But a minute on down the road, just round the bend, came a walker, rambling up the slope. I realised in that instant that I could have killed that man. The past few weeks I have been free wheeling (or free falling) just like that in my life. And now I see that walker, standing in my path. I think this pain in my chest is going to accompany me for a while now. I want to head for the hills and disappear.

Inverted Commas

Who is it that knows what is in the hearts except God?

Will you set yourself up as Judge? Do you claim to know what is in another’s heart? Will you place my faith in Inverted Commas too if I say something with which you disagree? I refer of course to an exchange in another thread. If you’re oblivious to it, you are blessed and need not trouble yourself with these words of mine. But if you are one who arrogates to him/herself the right to place another’s faith in Inverted Commas, I beg second thoughts.

Is any of us perfect? Do none of us make mistakes? When we become Muslim, whether as one who adopts a new faith or one who returns to the faith of his family, we do not suddenly becomes saints. Instead we struggle, slowly slowly to bring Islam to life in our lives, making numerous mistakes along the way. When in the early days of my Islam I demanded answers to uncomfortable questions as I acclimatised to my new faith, did brothers and sisters place my faith in Inverted Commas, or did they accommodate me patiently instead? When in the early days of my Islam I continued to drag my cultural baggage along behind me, did friends abandon me, or did they offer sincere advice?

No one living in these times could deny that there are hypocrites and agent-provocateurs amongst us, but who are you to judge who those people are? Who are you to say that the one who makes mistakes is the outsider? Who are you to say that the one who has opinions different from your own is not really your brother in Islam? And why must every convert to Islam face accusation and innuendo at the hands of her/his brothers and sisters? Can you perhaps appreciate the pain your words caused, as I can for words directed at another? It is not for you to judge what is in your sister’s heart. Indeed it is absolutely not for you to judge when all you know of her is tiny green text on a black screen. That is all I know of her and all I know of you.

When I became Muslim nearly a decade ago, there were those that claimed I only became Muslim because I was pressured into converting by ‘fundos‘ (what fundos?). There were others who set out to brief their friends on why they should not trust me, why they should be suspicious of my conversion for reasons x, y and z, that my shahada was just part of a game (as if the son of a priest and nephew of missionaries would play a game of so many sacrifices like that). Yes, I have been in the shoes of our sister whose faith you place in Inverted Commas. Fortunately I had around me others who advised me when I made mistakes, who shared with me alternative points of view when I seemed stuck on my own, who supported me in times of need.

May all of us grow in wisdom. A sinner was once promised paradise simply for showing kindness to a cat. Perchance God will have mercy on us too.

Heart Attack

How I wish I had a pure heart. Yesterday I met somebody whose heart was so beautiful and pure, whose faith was so alive and so real. My own journey is difficult as I struggle with my nafs. I take one step forward and almost immediately fall two steps back. My sorrow for missed opportunities. So it was a month ago that I set out on my path of reform, insisting upon straightening myself and returning to my Lord. I held such hope as I sustained that new spirit and dedication. And yet here I am once more, broken again. I opened the door a crack and was overwhelmed by the torrent that spewed through. I think I know what I must do the pull myself out of this recurring rut, but I find it difficult to let go. I think I know what it is that is dragging me down, that is killing me, but it is made up of one hundred thousand words that have emerged over five years. I am extremely irritable at the moment, getting angry and upset for the tiniest reason. I say I don’t know what’s wrong with me at the moment, but I do. It’s my heart, my soul, crying out against me. Sitting in my Qur’an class this morning, I reminded myself what I must do. But by evening the resolve has dissipated and once more I cling to the same old same old. Was I really wrong in the past to hit the delete key and wipe out that first novel of mine? Was I perhaps not more in touch with my soul and its poisons than I have become ever since? What would be my loss today? One hundred thousand words, five years’ work and a longing? Would I be worse off? If not that, could I burn it all onto a CD and archive it for years to come when I have overcome the diseases of my heart? It is not the writing, but where the writing leads me. Away from my Lord. Thus it becomes worthless, an obstacle to my dreams. Ultimately it leads me back to this point, over and over again: miserable, irritable, angry, snappy, unpleasant. Far, far away from the noblest example that we all wish to emulate. And then where?

-oOo-

“By the sun and his brightness, and the moon when she follows him, and the day when it reveals him, and the night when it enshrouds him, and the heaven and Him Who built it, And the earth and Him Who spread it out, and a soul and Him Who perfected it and inspired it with awareness of what is wrong for it and what is right for it, he is indeed successful who purifies it, and he is indeed a failure who neglects it.”

Verily mankind is ungrateful

There is something wrong with me at the moment. I don’t know what it is, but my emotions are heightened, I am on edge, easily upset and completely inconsistent. I have been like this for two months now, swinging between the strangest misery and confused folly. The misery reveals itself in the tears that well up for no apparent reason from the tiniest seed. The folly in the quick humour which rises rapidly and then dies. I seem to be dissatisfied with myself. My heart aches, feeling heavy in my chest. On my return from Turkey I quizzed myself about my unhappiness and decided that I could change it by returning to the Smythian keyboard and reignite my “Copious Footnotes”. This lasted barely two weeks. It was followed by a yearning to start a cottage-industry publishing house called “The Othello Press”. I don’t know if this will lead anywhere. Then there was the “Blogistan” project, to which I contributed five articles before hurriedly retracting four of them again, turning my back on the site because of the melancholy which overcomes me. It is all ups and downs, backwards and forwards, proposals and withdrawals. At work I want to be a writer, then a graphic designer, next an IT trainer, then a communications officer; and now, just as I’m offered an interview for the latter, I’m resigned once more to my role. Perhaps tomorrow will bring a better day; maybe it will be good for me down the line. Perhaps it is not so bad.

Verily mankind is ungrateful. My first job after university was very comfortable. I earned a better salary then that I ever have since. It was located on a country estate outside Maidenhead, in converted stables between a lovely walled garden and a grand mansion with manicured grounds. The Chairman liked his fast cars but he was generous to us, keeping the fridge stocked up every week to provide his staff with free lunch. For some reason, though, I was dissatisfied. Dissatisfied despite a great wage for the simplest of graphic design work.

When the company downsized after the slump in the market following the attacks on the United States in September 2001 and I was out of a job, I started up my own business offering publishing services. This was a situation where I was in the position to do what I most love: creating beautiful books. Alas I was dissatisfied once more, even though I was given the opportunity to typeset challenging works such as “The History of the Qur’anic Text”. There had to be something better, I told myself, and so I moved onto new ground. I ended up as Office Manager in a busy training department. I was responsible for a team of administrators, got to produce newsletters and a directory of courses, develop the intranet and do many interesting things. Yet again I became dissatisfied and so the cycle started again.

What is it that drives me over the edge again and again? Why is it that I am never satisfied with what I have? Is my situation not better than the poor soul who sets up his table on a bridge over the Bosporus every evening in Istanbul to sell ice cold, bright yellow lemonade to hot and tired commuters? Indeed, is my situation not better than those dry, scorching days I spent administering an internet café in the summer of 2003, with the fumes of traffic numbing my brain? Or the days spent serving prickly Thai and unsophisticated Lebanese cuisine to three hundred customers over lunchtime off Berkley Square?

Perhaps it is pride. “I have an MPhil, you know?” Pride, which makes me think that the job I am doing is never good enough. “I don’t need an MPhil to do this job, do I?” Pride which gets in the way of an honest day’s work, making it seem worthless and you worthless as a result. I think it is. I think I am stumbling away from a path I once knew when I was younger and more devoted to treating a lump of flesh beneath my ribs.

One of the first books I was given to read when I became Muslim in 1998 was “The Purification of the Soul”. I think it is time that I returned to this work and others like it, recognising what it is that is creating this unease. My soul has been neglected as the smog and noise of a violent and political world obscure the reality of faith. Oh my Lord, put comfort back into my heart and do not let me die other than one who has earned Your pleasure. Take away this heaviness and ache in my chest and replace it with lightness and appreciation of the sweetness of all of Your blessings. Oh my Lord, let me return to You with a good heart. Amin.