Seeking Allah



                                               


My last blog post expressed my frustration about understanding humans and their motives. With this short story I strive to comprehend what it is that makes us what we are...

                                             

O prophet! Strive hard against the disbelievers and the hypocrites, and be harsh against them. Their abode is hell, and an evil destination it is.


"Here son, a Porsche for your 18th birthday. Isn’t it great?"
"Thanks Dad! This is the ultimate gift in the world."
"Well, can I take it for a spin, with my friends?"
"Yes, of course son. It’s yours, you can do whatever you want with it."
"Bye Dad, will I see you and mom for dinner tonight?"
"No son, I am off on a business trip to Prague and I am sorry but I don’t know what your mother’s plans are."
"Ok Dad. I am off. Bye!"

That’s how it had always been for Rashid. His parents never had time for him. His Dad was a jet setting billionaire million times over and it was always business for him. He took out time but only for himself and of course with other women. While his mom had tried at first to be a good wife and mom, she had given up a long time ago. His parents barely acknowledged each other’s existence. His mother kept herself occupied as a socialite and party girl who never had time for her only son.

He enjoyed all the benefits of being rich, not that he didn’t but as he grew up the world had taught him to be detached from all the trappings of a family life.  Rashid had no expectations, all he knew was that he existed one birthday to another, when his father gifted him these fabulous presents to make up for not ever being there. His parents competed with each other about who gave him the best gifts. But today his Mom had been missing since morning.

He had friends, loads of them actually. But inside he knew they were a part of his life for the money he could spend on drugs and booze and the parties he could arrange with all the money he had. He had no goal, no ambition, just himself, trying his best to exist as a normal teenager.

But today was going to be different. He had not lied to his father, he was meeting his friends but before that he had to meet someone else. He was going to meet his friends, but he was going to meet Abdul Raheem first. Thinking of Abdul put a smile on his face. Abdul had shown him the way, he had given Rashid a goal in life. He would prove to everyone that he too could do something in life and get out of his father’s shadow. And then maybe just maybe his parents would notice him. He had everything in life yet he craved for that one moment when he would leave his mark in the world.

He wasn’t scared, he knew this is what he was born for. It was in a café that he had first felt the call of Allah. Abdul was talking to a friend. “Allah is the light that will lead you to peace, tranquillity and serenity,” he was telling his friend. Rashid wasn’t a religious person. His family didn’t have time for religion or its teachings. But something in Abdul’s voice and words spread warmth and a sense of calmness in his whole body. He had never felt like this before. Even cocaine had never given him this kind of a rush ever.

Abdul was glancing at him, looking at the boy who kept staring at him with these sad little eyes. Abdul smiled and he and his friend walked over to him. That was just the beginning of a friendship and connection Rashid had craved for all his life.  Allah had given him a sign and Abdul was his messenger.

"The West needs to be taught a lesson. They are sinners who are now corrupting our world. Allah is with us.  We have to honour him and his teachings. We have been taught to strive and struggle for improvement as well as fight back to defend one's self, honour, assets and homeland. That Rashid is Jihad, the fight against evil, internal or external."
                                     
                                   

He smiled to himself as he realised today was his day, the day he would officially be a soldier in the Army of God. Abdul was waiting for him at the warehouse. He drove into the warehouse in his birthday gift. As he got out of the car, Abdul smiled and said “today you are a true Muslim, Allah wants you with him in this war. Martyrdom will take you to Allah and harmony and tranquillity will be yours at last.

Rashid was captivated at the sight of the jacket that Abdul was strapping him into while he had been speaking. He handed a remote control to him and said…"If they seek peace, then seek you peace and trust in God for He is the Hearer, the Knower." [Noble Quran 8:61]

Rashid smiled back, got into his brand new Porsche and drove off to the mall where his friends were waiting for him for he had invited them there for a birthday treat. Allah was waiting for him and he knew what he had to do to people who didn’t believe in him and opposed him. He parked his car and walked into the mall filled with thousands of shoppers, people who had been led astray and had to be shown the true path which would lead them to Allah.  


He walked to where his friends were waiting for him, waving to him when they saw him coming towards them. He waved back and then put his hand in his pocket. He took out the remote control and pressed the button, with a smile on his face, with a calmness he had never felt before, with no dread. He could see Allah beckoning him… 

Comments

  1. Life is about our ability to remain objective in a very much subjective world. We all have varied perspectives rooted in our life experiences including our deprivations. All this makes our world look good or bad to us. Even the family of a thief or a corrupt politician loves him/her because they provide for them. At the same time we despise a strict teacher even though he is out there risking his reputation of no one liking him and continues with his best intentions to teach us important lessons.
    We curse even God when faced with tough situations for he landed us into those. While all the saints say, God will give you difficult situations so that you learn, it is his love for you and he is there to ensure that he holds your hand in those situations. I for one do not believe in God the way most do.
    All these are perspectives. Our subjective thoughts. It is also our subjective blindness. We fail to see the objectivity of any situation.
    The situations we are in are own creation. We may either choose to call names to a foul mouthed boss who penalises you for being late for work or choose to skip a late night serial that made us go to sleep late. We may blame it on the train that went slow or the traffic jam, or take an educated opinion of how much time it takes to office and keep a safe margin from that. We may reach early to the office and hate that only you reach early everyday and everyone else comes late or keep a plan for that time to clear trash from WhatsApp and Facebook. The choices are ours. In short we could be watching fun vedios on Facebook etc or making a change to our lives, is a choice we make everyday. Mostly wrongly.
    The terrorists and such ppl are not finding Allah or Jannat and we can be very objective about it. Humans by nature are blessed with survival instinct. We as a reflex cannot kill ourselves. There are handicapped people begging on the roadsides living the life of maggots and insects, yet they do not kill themselves. To be able to do what terrorists do one needs to be brainwashed. As armchair experts we may think of these people finding glory and allah or pity them for their situations like what your article suggests or tries to give their perspective and deprivations in life, the fact is that there are a plenty of people using very scientific techniques brainwashing them. And very objectively. Those are people who are at times better experts than all the militaries of the world combined in doing their job. Their strength? They look at things objectively. Their victims are those who tend to look at things subjectively. Aided by arm chair empathisers.
    When we think of such issues, we need to look at them objectively, without emotion. The last thoughts through any terrorist's mind are never about his deprivatoins in life. His thoughts are about killing others for they are depraved in their thoughts. Those are unbelievers.
    So let's not have any sympathies or empathy towards them. They are here to brainwash and kill your children. For their objectives. Even if we want to we cannot understand their thoughts for they are brainwashed.
    If you see people with such thoughts around us, we need to report rather than empathise.
    Who doesn't have a tough life? Everyone's is equally tough when we come to experience it. So there is no reason to have any empathy towards any terrorists because they had such bad lives.
    Like all religions say: improve the world by improving yourselves first. Alas, those
    Who call themselves religious are pretty much non believers in religious thought.
    My two pence writing from an IPad, forgive formatting and spelling mistakes.
    Love.

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  2. Well written article! Shows how a man becomes a terrorist, why he's willing to give up his own life for "jihad". I heard somewhere that every human being has 6 basic fundamental needs that keep her happy in life. Those six needs are:
    1. Certainty
    2. Variety/Uncertainty
    3. Significance
    4. Connection/Love
    5. Growth
    6. Contribution

    It is said that a person likes to do something that fulfills at least 3 or 4 needs at 8 or above on a scale of 1-10. Looking at it from a terrorist´s point of view:

    1. He is quite certain, specially people like Rashid, that he will feel the calmness and tranquility that he was looking for and that it will give him "jannat".
    2. Uncertainty: fulfills it at a level 10 since he's not sure what his fate will be or how many "people who have been led astray" be brought back to the right path.
    3. Of course, when he has the remote control to the lives of so many people, he is significant at a level 20.
    4. Connection: yes, he's going to be connected with Allah.
    5. Growth: growing from a mere human being to a martyr.
    6. Contribution: he's contributing in such a huge way to his religion.

    No wonder, he's a terrorist. Yes, a lot of it has to do with how his brain works. It has been conditioned to believe that he will go to heaven, that he would have contributed to show people the path of Allah and so on. Yours and my brains work differently because they have been conditioned in a different way. Change your conditioning, change your life.

    This article doesn't talk about the aftermath. What happens after the button has been pressed. Long long peace for Rashid, for sure, but what mayhem was caused to other people, the families of those who died. Does/did it really help Rashid´s religion? Did he really go to heaven after killing so many of God´s children. I don't think so.

    Well, we're all objective people and we need to use our own objectivity to understand what's right and what's not. The beauty of the article increased a 100 times by just leaving it beautifully vague. Keep up the good work.

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