A clamour that scars…

The noise around me is loud, reverberating in my ears, causing me intense discomfort. When I scream for it to stop, my own shrill voice only hits my own already aching ears. Around me, pandemonium ensues, oblivious to my suffering.

 

“Stop. Please”, I whisper. This cannot go on. Yet I know it will, day after day after day, and I feel powerless to control it. Some days the noise is at a lower level and if I close my eyes and imagine I am in a beautiful garden somewhere way above the earth, I can almost pretend it doesn’t exist. Other days it can annihilate my soul with its deafening shrill.

 

What, my readers might ask, is this thunderous clamour that I discuss so apprehensively? If it makes any sense to you, it is my own shortcomings, my own follies and my own mistakes that haunt me, over and over and over.

 

It’s silly that I forget the simplest of things in such moments. Really, must I not remember that Allah hears and listens and sees when no one else can? Is Eman to be treated like a mere facility or convenience, adopted when it only seems easy? No—to the believer Eman is a lifeline. Governing every day, every feeling and every thought, growing like a tall and shady tree, the branches of which just seem to spread without stopping. And in context, Eman is something to hold on to when the noise gets too loud.

 

Verily, in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest. (Quran 13:28)