The Search for the Sound of the Soul

This night has me thoughtful, thinking about the last few days, weeks and months and their impact on me. As I searched through my mind, heart and soul, asking desperately to tell me what it wants, and turning to call to God. I remembered listening to a talk by Nouman Ali Khan last week or so and decided to revisit it. It was titled “The search for the sound of the Soul”, where he talked at the MSA National. His talk truly resonated with me and reflected things that I had been both fighting with and thinking about.

For a while now I have just been going through the motions of being Muslim, praying five times a day, reading the Quran whenever I could,  fasted whenever I remembered it was a Monday or Thursday and that the Prophet saw. liked to fast and encouraged to fast on those days. But inside I guess I was dying, my heart and soul being defiled with the filth of the outside and the effect it had on my mind, and my Nafs. Over the last few months I’ve had a cycle of revivals and sudden deaths if you will to the point that I’m tired, simply tired of this cycle. This is a jihad, I know that.

Ustadh Nouman mentioned that many of us at the moment have a hollow image of what Islam is, we look at the outward and forget the inward. Our fitrah our natural disposition as we were created by Allah swt. is under constant attack, and I’m afraid that at least in one aspect mine is dying away. Unfortunately I know that I’m not the only one in this situation. That does not comfort me it tells me that the efforts of those that wish to stamp out our fitrah have been somewhat of a success.

I think of the things that I, with the permission of Allah, would like to have in the future. Such as a family, but am afraid, with our fitrah being under constant attack. How am I going to raise my kids, if I already struggle massively listening for that sound of my Soul?

I love kids, my family can attest to that and I’m honestly afraid for them. I ask myself, how I can regain my fitrah and how I can preserve the fitrah of my far in the future children. How am I going to explain to them the world around us? How am I going to explain away those 4 letter words Bro Nouman talked about? I had a try at this conversation with my little sister and I feel that I failed massively. How am I going to face Allah and try to justify my failures and sins, how I used my time and if I did justice to the reason of my creation, my purpose. Do I even now what I’m good at, I really don’t, so how am I going to use the thing I’m good at in the way of Allah?

On that note a week of thinking ahead,

may Allah swt. forgive us and help us. Amin.