suicide, and the growing insanity
of mass shooters also hint at the
feeling of being walled in, and that
the attempts being made to stem
the growth of this disturbing new
phenomenon is hitting increasingly
dead ends. There is obviously a
feeling of captivity to something
that many are struggling with:
loneliness, depression, and spiritual
depravity.
Where this captivity has a
psychological and even physical
impact on the lives of others, for
us, the impact comes in the form of
a collective divine retribution. For
others, it can be rationalized, but
it doesn’t behoove believers who
possess the roadmap of life to lose
their way. For us, there is an urgency
to disconnect and keep the world
at a safe distance from our hearts.
The unwillingness to part with
smartphones, to reserve ten days,
at least once in a lifetime, and the
constant chatter of the world filling
our minds, spilling out of our lips,
and streaming through our dreams,
in our gatherings, in the masjid and
our homes, is destructive. The blessed
Prophet a forewarned of a time when
nations would annihilate us and even
connive with each other to bring total
destruction upon us. The Sahaba l
thought it was because the Umma
was short on people, but the blessed
Prophet a explained that the Umma
would be greater than the frothy
foam on the rollers and breakers of
the ocean. The problem was that the
Umma was afflicted with ‘love of the
dunya and fear of death’ (Abu Dawud;
fi Tada‘i al-Umami ‘ala al-Islam). ‘Love
of dunya’ referred to the intensity
of the Umma’s connection with the
dunya, while ‘fear of death’ was its
corollary, the fear of separating from
the world. It is the same sickness that
once afflicted Bani Israel, who coveted
immortality in a mortal world. “And
you will surely find them the most
greedy of people for life- even more
There is obviously a feeling of
captivity to something that many are
struggling with: loneliness, depression,
and spiritual depravity.
than those associate others with Allah.
One of them wishes that he could be
granted life a thousand years, but it
would not remove him in the least
from the coming punishment that
he should be granted life” (2:96).
One of the reasons we have come
to despise disengagement from the
world is the immediate sensory and
psychological stimulation worldly
engagement creates in our internal
system. This stimulation is not only
enjoyable, but also addictive to
the end that our language coined
the word ‘boredom’ to describe
a condition that is devoid of that
stimulation. Boredom, with its
negative connotation, is the notion
that constant engagement with
external stimuli is virtuous and that
life without it is stagnant. Receiving
phone calls or text messages while
praying is disturbing, but it also
effectively destroys the inner
quietude of a musalli because it calls
for engagement on some level. More
often, the musalli will reach into the
pocket before he/she reaches out to
make du‘a because the stimulation
that is produced by the call for
engagement is too addictive to ignore.
Worldly engagement focuses more on
the doing, a constant state of activity,
and vilifies the act of being, which
is, quite ironically, the base for all
doing. After all, if a person is nonexistent,
there is nothing he/she can
do. Solitude, to the contrary, extolls
being, which is the quintessential of
human life and minimizes doing.
Shakespeare once said, “To be, or
not to be, that is the question.” ‘Be,’
is also the Quranic imperative that
brought everything into existence,
not ‘do’. “When He decrees a matter,
He only says to it, ‘Be,’ and it is” (3:47).
Solitude transitions one out of the
doing mode and into the being mode.
It sharpens and magnifies all sense of
being, cancelling out external stimuli
the way a cameraman zooms in to
focus and create a tack sharp image of
an object.
Solitude creates a greater selfawareness
because it hones our sense
of being and makes us see our reality
crisp and clear. This can be rather
uncomfortable because it forces us
to face existential questions, such as,
death and existence, head-on. The
disconnection that solitude enforces
is necessary to build a relationship
with Allah, even if that solitude is not
accompanied with remembrance
of Allah or worship, i.e. solitude is
a virtue in itself. Islam advocates
the virtue of solitude as a way of
disconnecting to give us the ability
to think out of the box, to transcend
the transient world, and ultimately
strengthen our connection with Allah.
Islam even offers a virtual form of
solitude that does not necessitate
physical movement or seclusion of
any kind. The blessed Prophet a said,
“Frequently remember the thing
that destroys the desires, i.e. death”
(Tirmidhi). Frequent contemplation
of death diminishes all positivity
towards life, sensitizes us to our
self-existence and its annihilation
at the time of death, and, like
solitude, can perpetuate the state of
discontentment with the world. Even
if such a meditator does not become
a minimalist (who lives on the bare
12 May - June 2020 | AL-MADINAH