Strangers

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

None are familiar and none have the potential to be more than strangers. What can we say of another? This and that, the trivial and frivolous. Favourite this or that, inclined to and repulsed by. All ineffectual details that make the mundane, the every day, seem more familiar, more controlled, more owned. Deeply buried is the heart in random details. Can its flavour ever be shared?

Of utmost importance is how little we know of our own selves. Occasional discoveries are made from time to time on our own. Sometimes we embrace the boxes that others put us in, other times we reject them, and yet other times we respond with indifference. The box of another's musings need not our attention when the framing of our own introspective attempts are obscure and distant.

Who are you?

Really, who are you?

From dust to dust, what is there to boast about in between? What is worth claiming in the short interval of our worldly sojourn? We are all strangers to each other and more severely to ourselves. There are none to diagnose this vagueness, and perhaps that's the point entirely.

For what can a stranger be praised? Nothing. A random act of friendliness or kindness is praised, but the stranger himself is not, in essence. We, too, have nothing in ourselves worth crediting because we can't know that what we find in ourselves is truly from us and truly a part of us. But we can know, and must know, that what we find in ourselves and around us is by Allah's will, grace, and generosity.

Our strangeness points directly to Allah's sole existence. Only does He truly exist. That is to say, only is His existence worthy while ours is entirely dependent on Him. Only He has definite characteristics. Only He is without need, and only He can be praised. And really, only by Him can we know, in truth, who we are and what purpose our beings serve.

We are foremost heedless of our covenant. بلى Distracted by pointless information, we miss the very point of our existence.

May we be guided to renew this covenant in mind, body, and spirit. May our actions, thoughts, and words be adorned with sincerity and humility, and may they be proof of our servitude. Ameen.

اللهم إنا نسألك رضاك والجنة، ونعوذ بك من سخطك والنار
آمين
****

Imam Ahmad narrated from Anas bin Malik who narrated from the Prophet صلى الله عليه و سلم, saying:

يُقَالُ لِلرَّجُلِ مِنْ أَهْلِ النَّارٍ يَوْمَ القِيَامَةِ: أ رَأيْتَ لَوْ كَانَ لَكَ مَا عَلَى الأرْضِ مِنْ شَيْءٍ أ كُنْتَ مُفْتَدِيًا بِهِ؟ قَالَ: فَيَقُولُ: نَعَمْ، فَيَقُولُ: قَدْ أرَدْتُ مِنْكَ مَا هُوَ أهْوَنَ مِنْ ذَلِكَ، قَدْ أخَذتُ عَلَيْكَ فِي ظَهْر آدَمَ ألَّا تُشْركَ بِي شَيْئاً فَأبَيْتَ إِلَّا أنْ تُشْركَ بِي

It will be said to a person from the People of Hell on the Day of Judgement: "If you had all that is on the earth, would you have ransomed yourself by it (from what you are in)? He will answer "Yes." Allah will say, "I had wanted from you something less than that. I took the covenant when you were in the loin of Adam, that you should not associate with Me anything. However, you persisted in joining associates with Me."

[Al Bukhari 334 and Ahmad 3/127]