Pathways

The path to contentment is something that I have been pondering over for quite some time.

The last year has seen some large (and not so large) changes in my life and at times it has been so entirely overwhelming. I’ve found myself exhibiting an attitude of ungratefulness and it has disgusted me in my moments of clarity and reflection. I often felt that I was losing grip on the fundamentals, and as the “why?” reared its ugly and damaging head I was weak enough to take that path, but all it conspires to do is drag you lower than you have ever been before. Maybe it is only from the depths that people can really reassess things. But with every new change, new challenge, there are two paths, and the hole only gets deeper if you allow yourself to fall.

Upon hitting the bottom you realise two things:

1. Your own stupidity/recklessness/disregard/heedlessness has bought you to this place
2. Allah swt wants you to be there
   

And it is in two that you realise had you only been conscious of it sooner you would not have had to arrive at the place you are via one. However, Allah swt has placed us in the situations we are in because He knows, in his infinite wisdom, that it is the best thing for us.

You may feel like you’re drifting; your marriage has failed or has been slamming itself on the rocks for months, maybe years; you didn’t get the marks you wanted at uni – you didn’t even get in to uni; the guy you’ve been seeing who was meant to come propose never arrived on the doorstep – forget that you can’t even find a decent bloke; you can’t get pregnant and the inlaws are circling; you don’t know what to do with your life – and everything you want to do is out of the question; the sister you thought had your back stabbed it etc. Indeed it is our very human limitations, our bounded rationality, that prevents us from seeing beyond the pain of the moment and causes us to make decisions that only lengthen the fall. There is something in everything to learn from.

Patience – the favourite words of Shaykhs from all corners – is often maligned as “fake” advice. But it is only after weathering a storm made worse by none other than yourself, do you realise the virtue in patience. Patience is the only thing that breeds contentment. If you can be patient with your circumstance, accept what it is you have been dealt and play the cards with taqwa, only then will you find the burden easier to bear. And I’m not talking about the type of taqwa that requires the donning of a niqab and berating all and sundry about their kuffur-ways, I’m talking about the purest form of submission – the acknowledgement of Allah swt as the Soverign, the One, the Most Wise and Most Merciful, the Knower of All.

I once heard an incredibly wise man say that Allah swt tests us for two reasons:

1. We’ve strayed in some way and he wants us to remind us, to provide us with the opportunity to return to the path of righteousness and make amends
2. He is providing us a unique opportunity to provide for the Hereafter – a chance to raise our rank
   

Such opportunities can only be realised from a position of submission – it is only when we truly accept that Allah swt is the One, the All-Powerful in every manner conceivable, that we will be able to see our struggles for what they are – the opportunity to find contentment.