“I wish I was in Love!”

As I was surfing through the channels a strange advertisement caught my attention regarding learning Italian. The ad showed a boy who was in love with an Italian celebrity and gets a single chance to meet her through a contest. Now because he is in love with her, he wants to learn Italian in order to converse with his beloved. Though a pretty simple and regular advertisement, it really poked me into thinking about the relationship that exists between lover and the beloved. It seemed strange to me how Allah (swt) has made this worldly love to show us what divine love is like. If this is the love a creation has for another creation - that it compelled a person to learn Italian over night then what an amazing thing would be the love of the Creator for His creation. Though it’s not an Islamic advertisement but it shows us that people irrespective of their caste, creed, nationality and gender understand the feeling and sentiments attached of this word and they understand that one would be ready to do anything for the beloved.

Yet it saddens me when I ponder over our relationship as Muslims with our Beloved. We as Muslims don’t learn the language in which the Beloved talks to us. People don’t learn Arabic and is probably way below in their priority list when love for Allah (swt) comes. We don’t want to learn the language in which the Beloved talks to His creation. Sadly yet honestly we are lazy people.

We claim to love, yes we do make claims but we aren't really lovers. But there are people who are lovers; though we are not one of them at least we can be in awe of them. At least we can say “Oh I wish I was in Love!”  People who are real lovers, will go to the end of the earth to meet their beloved. We find such great examples amongst the companions of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be upon Him). Hazrat Salman al-Farisi traveled all across the world just to meet the Prophet (PBUH). Because he was the lover of the Messenger (PBUH) he knew the signs of his prophet hood, so when he first came to the Prophet (PBUH), he brought the Messenger (PBUH) dates and said that it’s a sadaqa i.e. charity. Then he sat aside and watched the Prophet (PBUH) and the prophet (PBUH) didn’t eat from them. The next time when Hazrat Salman Farisi came to the Prophet (PBUH), he brought dates again and said that it’s a hadiya i.e. gift and then the Prophet (PBUH) ate a date from it. It was then Hazrat Salman Farisi became a Muslim. When we look at the example of Prophet’s (PBUH) wife Hazrat Maymuna (RA), it’s amazing to see that even after 30 years of marriage to the Prophet (PBUH), near her death; she wanted to go to the same place where she spent the first night with him and that is where she is buried!

These breathtaking incidences and several like these always remind me that this religion is about love. This journey is the journey of love. The Prophet (PBUH) could have used some other words but he used the word ‘love’ when he says, "If you do love Allah, follow me, Allah will love you". It is the sign of being in love that you follow the beloved and Allah’s beloved is Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). So let’s make a pledge to ourselves that we’ll try to be amongst the lovers and if not, them lets be amongst those who are in awe of them and exclaim, “I wish I was in Love!”

By : Ramsha Matin Dar