Four men were praying on a beach facing the sea. Suddenly a great whale rose out of the water and crashed back into the sea creating an awesome scene before the men.
How do you think the men reacted? Did any of them maintain their khushu or did they all get distracted?
Throughout our history, the Muslim world has faced many crises and life changing events. And great Muslims and Mujaddids (revivalists) rose to the challenge by standing by their faith and principles, rather than allowing themselves to get diverted and swept away. But when we are faced with crises today, do we maintain khushu (in its broader sense) and stick to the guidance of our faith or get distracted?
I often find that when a crisis occurs in some part of the Ummah there are a set of reactions that occur among a large number of people.
One group are just plain shocked and do not know what to do (the ’shock and awe’ tack worked perhaps); another group (the armchair critics) start preaching to others about the crisis but do little themselves and don’t practice what they preach; another group do the same but also start pointing fingers at others, alleging hypocrisies, while forgetting to look at the weaknesses of themselves.
And finally there are those who don’t get involved in any of this but sit happily in their comfort zones in a deluded state of mind thinking that at least they are guided and on the right path.
I hope and pray we don’t lose our khushu and fall into any of these groups, in the midst of the endless list of challenges we face as a community, but alas for the four men, this is what happened:
When the whale rose, the first man said in shock: ‘wow, what a big whale!’. The second man turned to him angrily, also in the middle of his prayer and scolded: ‘hey, don’t you know you’re not supposed to talk in prayer?’. The third man then pointed his finger at the second and said: ‘Hang on, you yourself just spoke in prayer’. The fourth man, looking at the dire state of the other three said: ‘Alhamdulillah, at least I didn’t say a word!’
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