on overcoming addiction

are you an addict?

"Please answer yes or no to the following questions:

-Do you lose time from work due to your *insert activity here*?
-Is *insert activity here* making your home life unhappy?
-Do you *insert activity here* because you are shy with other people?
-Is *insert activity here* affecting your reputation?
-Have you ever felt remorse after *insert activity here* ?
-Have you gotten into financial difficulties as a result of your *insert activity here* ?
-Do you turn to lower companions and an inferior environment when *insert activity here*?
-Does your *insert activity here* make you careless of your family's welfare?
-Has your ambition decreased since *insert activity here* ?
-Do you crave a *insert activity here* at a definite time daily?
-Do you want a *insert activity here* the next morning?
-Does *insert activity here* cause you to have difficulty in sleeping?
-Has your efficiency decreased since *insert activity here* ?
-Is *insert activity here* jeopardizing your job or business?
-Do you *insert activity here* to escape from worries or troubles?
-Do you *insert activity here* alone?
-Do you *insert activity here* to build up your self-confidence?
-Have you ever been in a hospital or institution on account of *insert activity here* ?


If you answer yes to one question, it is a warning for potential addiction to that activity. If you answer yes to two questions, it is likely that you are an addict. If you answer yes to three questions, it can be assumed that you are addicted. Please contact us for a more comprehensive assessment."

This test was written at Johns Hopkins University to assess for alcoholism and drug addiction. But i think that it could equally apply to other forms of addiction, which i will describe later.

Why is this a crucial issue? because in my limited experience, one of the biggest hurdles for people starting off in D&T is overcoming addiction.


why are addictions dangerous? because:

1) an addiction to a creation will distract us from remembering the Creator. I've never seen a drug addict do this:

2) people with an addiction will feel reluctant to do D&T, because time spent doing D&T is time lost doing that addiction. And the addict will also suffer from the 'i-can't-do-it' syndrome

3) a caller to islam who has an addiction sets an erroneous example to the people he is calling.

4) even if you are not doing D&T, having an addiction is bad anyways. bad for your mental state, bad for your health, bad for your social relationships and so on.

But i want to put an emphasis point 1: if you are occupied with the creation, you will be distracted from the Creator. Throughout human history, people have rejected the call of their prophets because they did not want to break free from the things they love on Earth. The people of Nuh did not want to leave the addiction to their idols:

وَقَالُوا لَا تَذَرُنَّ آلِهَتَكُمْ وَلَا تَذَرُنَّ وَدًّا وَلَا سُوَاعًا وَلَا يَغُوثَ وَيَعُوقَ وَنَسْرًا
"And they have said: 'You shall not leave your gods, nor shall you leave Wadd, nor Suwâ', nor Yaghûth, nor Ya'ûq, nor Nasr (names of the idols); (Nuh :23)

The Quraisy also had addictions. They did not want to leave their addiction to idols, to power, to money, to all the bad habits that they had.

Today we also have addictions. The stone idols may be gone, only to be replaced by new forms of addiction : to games, to the TV, to obscene materials, to our own opinions, and so on. We know our own addictions.

The fact of the matter is : we love other things more than we love Allah.

As muslims, it is an obligation for us to leave these bad habits and clothe ourselves with the best of akhlaq. It is, to be frank, a hard thing to do, especially when we've spent the past 20 years in ignorance. I have friends who were compulsively addicted to p**n. Some were addicted to games. Others had more severe compulsions. But they offer some tips on breaking free : 

1. get to know Allah and the purpose of this life, and surrender to Him 

when a friend of mine understood his purpose, he didn't want to waste time anymore, and threw all his CDs into a bin. when you love Allah, breaking free is easy.

2. find good company

find people who are likely to be your neighbours in heaven.

3. keep yourself busy

we have lots to do: updating blogs, going to circles, memorising the quran, reading books of seerah, reading our school books, meeting people, catching up on news, blablabla..there's no 'idle time' in the dictionary of a muslim.

takdelah borak dakwah je sepanjang masa. lol. Only now our fun and entertainment serves a higher purpose : to call people to islam. No more fun just for the sake of fun.

Warning : breaking free is not easy. It will probably take some time before we are purified. Just like drug addicts checking into rehab, we will probably relapse at some point. But remember the words of maher zain : "don't despair, and never lose hope..cause allah is always by your side.."

on being supermen. because being typical is too mainstream

D&T is fun.

Don't believe me? this is how my circle looks like :

We have physical nourishment

And spiritual nourishment.

Don't be jealous that i have awhsome circlemates who can cook steaks :p

Yesterday we talked about

SUPERHUMANS.

You know how when we were younger, we wanted to be like the Power Rangers? we wanted to have special powers, be like the Red Ranger and say 'Tyrannosaurus!' When i was in kindergarten, i had this cool Red Ranger watch with a battle game on it, and i would show it off to the other kids.

But as we grew older, we turned into 'average Mat' (the malay equivalent of 'average Joe')

The average Mat

- prays (even doing this makes him a 'better than average Mat')
- fasts in ramadhan
- goes into a cocoon and studies
- Goes out of the cocoon and finds work
- marries and brings up a family
- retires and lives on pension (until malaysia goes bankrupt in 2020)
- dies

Let's compare this to the life of an average caterpillar:

- praises Allah constantly (17 : 44)
- goes into a cocoon
- comes out of the cocoon and becomes a butterfly
- pollinates flowers to become fruits
- never goes on pension
- dies

So yeah, when we grow older all the spirit and the fire is taken out of us and we decide to become 'a typical muslim'. what is a typical muslim anyways?

nowadays, having a relationship before marriage is normal for most muslims. wasting time on the internet is normal. having an addiction (to movies, to games, to smoking) is normal. Its normal because society says so, not because Allah says so. If things go on like this, i wonder what 'normal' is in 10, 20 years.

So we should pose a question to ourselves :

Are we following the islam of society? or are we following the islam of Allah and His messenger?

Are we following the truth, or are we following our egos and our desires?

What was normal in the time of the prophet and the sahabah is now branded 'extremist'.

To be fair, things are not all that bad. If you post something about palestine on facebook, odds are a lot of people will 'like' that post. But palestine will not be free through slacktivism. (slacktivism = slacking + activism) It needs real work and real men like 'Umar and Salahuddeen. And real men like 'Umar and Salahuddeen were not built in one night. They underwent a long period of education and purification, and they sold themselves to the cause of islam. If they did something, it was for the purposes of da'wah. You could cut open their bodies and find the word 'Allah' in every single red blood cell. (2:138)

That is what we call superhuman. We don't need a million normal men who proclaim that they love Allah. We just need a few superhumans/renaissance men/SuperMats who commit themselves to the cause, and God willing, the world and all the butterflies in it will be safe.

on having the last laugh

I used to watch Spongebob Squarepants, and one of the things i remember most is the 'Fun Song' :

"F is for friends who do stuff together

U is for U and Me

N is for N-yone and N-ywhere at all

Down here in the deep blue sea"

Yesterday i accidentally switched to Facebook's Timeline, and i went all the way back to 2008 to do some, ehem, pruning.

So back to the Fun Song. Looking back to the year 2009 B.T (before tarbiyyah), i guess i had a lot of fun, in the way people normally think about fun. Playing games, hanging out, you know, all that stuff. 

(speaking about fun, i vividly remember the text message that pushed me into D&T: "biasalah tu, dah berseronok-seronok, siapa nak pergi program keagamaan!" -.-)

And people have this perception that when you enter D&T, fun is sucked away from you like teh o ais limau going down a straw on a hot day until you hear that 'shruuuushruuuu' sound. absolutely no fun left.

i beg to differ.

وَاعْتَصِمُوا بِحَبْلِ اللَّهِ جَمِيعًا وَلَا تَفَرَّقُوا وَاذْكُرُوا نِعْمَتَ اللَّهِ عَلَيْكُمْ إِذْ كُنْتُمْ أَعْدَاءً فَأَلَّفَ بَيْنَ قُلُوبِكُمْ فَأَصْبَحْتُمْ بِنِعْمَتِهِ إِخْوَانًا وَكُنْتُمْ عَلَى شَفَا حُفْرَةٍ مِنَ النَّارِ فَأَنْقَذَكُمْ مِنْهَا كَذَلِكَ يُبَيِّنُ اللَّهُ لَكُمْ آيَاتِهِ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَهْتَدُونَ
And hold fast, all of you together, to the Rope of Allâh, and be not divided among yourselves, and remember Allâh's Favour on you, for you were enemies one to another but He joined your hearts together, so that, by His Grace, you became brethren (in Islâmic Faith), and you were on the brink of a pit of Fire, and He saved you from it. Thus Allâh makes His Ayât clear to you, that you may be guided. (Ali Imran : 103)

What could be more fun than being saved from the pits of Fire? ngeeheee

There's a lot of fun in doing D&T. There's the fun in being able to get closer to perfection as a slave every single day.

There's the fun in having friends who bring you to heaven, rather than away from it.

There's the fun in being part of a renaissance project to create a change in the whole system of humanity.

And this is just on earth.

There's also the fun of being able to eat as much as you want without getting full.

There's the fun of having a palace of your own.

There's the fun of having angels as our companions. Angels who are similar in age and voluptuous (this is their actual description, not kidding)

Compared to these everlasting fun stuff, my previous fun is, frankly speaking, a joke. imagine this conversation:

You : O Allah, give me more time, i promise to do good.

Allah : i gave you time before. What did you use it for?

You : err, ermmm..just, you know, harmless games and other stuff..not so bad, but i wish i had something to help me now..

"F is for Friends who dakwah together

U is for U and Me

N is for N-yone and N-ywhere at all

We're all into D&T!!!!"

*clapclapclap*

on 'komitmen tahap gaban'

Commitment.

It is attending a D&T conference in the weekend, when you have an assignment to submit on monday.

It is receiving a call saying 'can i talk to you now? i have a problem' at 12 midnight and getting out of your blanket.

It is being asked to go to a place you don't know, meeting people you haven't met, and saying 'no problem'.

It is disciplining yourself to read the quran everyday.

It is getting worried and restless when people stray from the teachings of the Prophet.

It is a vow to never stop improving.

It is a promise to Allah.

on the path of thorns

Knowing D&T is the best thing that ever happened in my life.

But if you expect D&T to be like this

Then do something else. But the irony is, why would you do something else, when D&T is the path of the prophets and the messengers and the companions and the 'ulama and the cool people like Malcolm X? Hah!

So the only option left is to keep on doing D&T while persevering and being patient.

This is what I learnt these past few weeks and past few days. D&T is not a path of roses. In a hadith, Rasulullah described the sirat (bridge) that we will all cross on judgement day. It is a very narrow bridge, there are hooks over it and these hooks will catch people and throw them into the hellfire below. Some will cross in the wink of an eye, some like lightning, some will survive with scratches, and so on.

When i thought about this hadith, it almost describes the condition of people on earth.

On earth, people who do God's commands are traversing a very challenging bridge. It is very hard to walk on, 'hooks' are waiting to snatch them, and below them is Hell. But those who are patient with this crossing on earth, will walk on the sirat like lightning, or a fast wind, or a fast horse. Otherwise, if we live life without hardship, without responsibilities, without committing ourselves to Allah's chosen way of life..

*shiver*

If you have problems before D&T, don't expect D&T to be an 'instant cure' for those problems. don't expect D&T to be filled with people who smell like roses all the time, or smile all the time, or can read our feelings, or always know the right things to say.

Especially when we're not angels ourselves.

I like this quote. "entering into a mosque and expecting everybody to be good, is like entering into a hospital and expecting everyone to be healthy."

We are all sick and currently receiving treatment. Treatment can be painful.

nevertheless, this path has its sweetness. And that sweetness is worth the pain.

Companions who support you and want the same things you do.

Knowing that you always have Allah.

and other things. I'll talk about that in another post insyaallah.