Labbayk?

Reading the Seerah, I would sometimes find myself imagining as if I was part of the People of Makkah. And then I would wonder, if I were to be called to the One God by Rasulullah SAW, would I have risen to it or dug my heels in?

My Self would always respond in affirmative. How silly would it be if I were to reject a message from a person everyone knows as the most trustworthy, calling to a message so pure? How could I ever choose a smattering of idols and the profane, over Allah and all things sacred? Of course, without a doubt, I would be of those who submit!

But it struck me recently that my Self was deceiving me. Painfully, I might add.

Sitting in a lecture on Fiqh at-Tahawwulat (Fiqh of the Signs of the End of Times), I found myself a skeptic. I raised my hand, hesitant*, “Isn’t it a little, well, far-fetched to say that these things you mentioned —for example, monster cartoons, the media, or the World Cup— are evil in nature? Waste of time, perhaps, but part of a real, dajjalic entity and strategy?”

The speaker, Ustazah Mariam, smiled warmly before answering*, “The reaction you feel now is from your nafs; arising because you have come to love these things, or find comfort in them, or even just accepted them as part of your environment because everyone else around you find them acceptable.

But think about this: When the Prophet SAW first brought the message to the Quraysh, he brought something new and unheard of to the people of that time. And your scholars right now too are bringing you an urgent message that starkly opposes the beliefs of the world you live in today.

Will you then submit to your nafs, or will you have your nafs submit to the call of the ‘ulama, who are the inheritors of the Prophets?”

I knew at that moment, that all these while, my nafs had silently but surely, overtaken me.

Thing is, in my imaginations, I had grossly underestimated the force of culture. I had never truly understood what it meant when the texts said that some of the Quraysh knew in their minds what Rasulullah SAW said was true, but they could not accept it because their nafs held them back.

To accept and affirm Rasulullah’s message meant they had to turn away from that which the nafs deem comfortable, to have to reconstruct what the intellect holds as Truth, to reject what family, community and society firmly hold as the standard, and to rewire an entire belief system.

To say Labbayk is to say la and bye to the only kind of life as they had known it. As we know it.

I too had overlooked the intense magnetic quality of culture. Perhaps I had recognized and lived this Truth a decade ago, while travelling and being surrounded by pockets of Islamic environments. (Of course, being heartbroken and wanting to prove myself must have also played a huge factor in the tight grip I had on my nafs.)

But returning home and being immersed once more in a western culture, sans heartbreak and now with a desperate need to escape from childhood traumas and insecurities, I didn’t realize what I had allowed myself to be pulled towards. It started with a little excuse, then another compromise, and before long my compass had lost its direction.

To flee to God when you have lost everything is one thing. But to turn to God when you have “everything” to lose? That’s a whole other matter. So how I would be if I was part of the People of Makkah? That is a question I would never take lightly to answer again.

May we be of those whom He calls to return to Him again and again, with every blink and every breath, and may we be of those who hear and answer that call each time, be it crawling, walking or running, fi kheyrin wa lutfin wa afiah.

*question and answer has been paraphrased and summarised