Yesterday, I went to the beach. As I sat watching the waves, I realized something strange. The ocean is so breathtakingly beautiful. But just as it is beautiful, it is also deadly. The same spellbinding waves, which we appreciate from the shore, can kill us if we enter them. Water, the same substance necessary to sustain life, can end life, drowning. And the same ocean that holds ships afloat can shatter those ships to pieces.
This worldly life, the dunya, is just like the ocean. And our hearts are the ships. We can use the ocean for our needs as a means to get to our final destination. But the ocean is only that: a means. It is means for seeking food of the sea. It is means to travel. It is means of seeking a higher purpose. But it is something we pass through, yet never think to remains in. Imagine what would happen if the ocean become our end- rather than just a means -Eventually we would drown.
As long as the ocean's water remains outside the ship, the ship will continue to float and be control. But when as soon as the water creeps into the ship - that is when the boat sinks. The same goes as the dunya enters our heart -that is when the heart taken hostage and become slave and the dunya start to control us. Detachment of dunya and akheerah is stated in the Qur'an:
"What is the life of this world but amusement and play? But verily the Home in the hereafter - that is life indeed, if they but knew" (29:64)
"Detachment is not that you should own nothing, but nothing should own you" (Saidina Ali R.A)..
The means of detachment as shown by the prophet is much deeper, not only about physical, but is the detachment of the heart.
[Yasmin Mogahed]
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