Eid Mubarak
For no matter what, we are bodies meant to Be.
Eid Mubarak to the world and the ummah within and without the world.
This is a time when we are called to remember to be grateful and to remember the call of what God asks of us.
Even when it feels impossible, perhaps especially then.
The same holiday where Muslims celebrate Allah (God) halting Abraham from sacrificing his son, we learn what it means to do the impossible with faith that we are doing the right thing.
Pounding heart in chest, and all.
Many believers (and to be quite honest, nonbelievers) the world over are currently and constantly deconstructing the worldly perception of the value of life, what it means for others, and also what it means within ourselves.
Question One for today, as we hold unaccountable levels of grief, and the weight of gratitude under that pain.
How many people are willing to sacrifice themselves for something larger than them, and how many are unwilling to sacrifice anything at all for even themselves?
When we are faced with the complicated nature of the human heart, we are often faced with the human mind first.
Aristotle discusses in length the relationship between the heart and the mind: 1
Aristotle distinguishes two kinds of akrasia: impetuosity (propeteia) and weakness (astheneia). The person who is weak goes through a process of deliberation and makes a choice; but rather than act in accordance with his reasoned choice, he acts under the influence of a passion. By contrast, the impetuous person does not go through a process of deliberation and does not make a reasoned choice; he simply acts under the influence of a passion. At the time of action, the impetuous person experiences no internal conflict. But once his act has been completed, he regrets what he has done. One could say that he deliberates, if deliberation were something that post-dated rather than preceded action; but the thought process he goes through after he acts comes too late to save him from error.
It is important to bear in mind that when Aristotle talks about impetuosity and weakness, he is discussing chronic conditions. The impetuous person is someone who acts emotionally and fails to deliberate not just once or twice but with some frequency; he makes this error more than most people do. Because of this pattern in his actions, we would be justified in saying of the impetuous person that had his passions not prevented him from doing so, he would have deliberated and chosen an action different from the one he did perform.
We must continue to be grateful for all that we have been given, even the heartbreaking truths that awaken us - but moreover, we must remember that to be grateful, truly grateful, is to act.
It is to move when we feel fear, it is to be when we feel impossible odds against us, and to continue when it feels as if there is no path forward.
For no matter what, we are bodies meant to Be.
For God breathed Their rūh (spirit) into us and said Be, and then we were.
If we are doing nothing, then we are nothing. We are not merely ungrateful, we are not Being, and that is simply put, impossible.
We are constantly reminded in the Qur’an that when we believe we are also to ‘do good.’ Both of these are not mutually exclusive, they are made mutually inclusive by both existing.
True belief, begets action. Action may beget belief, but for those that already believe, if we do not act - then there is no living testament to that belief.
Which means, if we are doing nothing, then we are doing the wrong thing. We are in fact doing the harm we feel explicitly called against.
Question Two for this auspicious day of our faith:
Ask of yourself, if you call yourself a believer, but do not act, are unwilling to sacrifice, unable to do - what is the bodily manifestation of that belief? Do you fear the world more than you fear the God that made that world?
Eid Mubarak, darlings.
May we be brave in the face of unaccountable odds, and may we learn that sacrifice is the biggest call to action that cleanses the human heart, and banishes the dispurity of evil from even the smallest corners of our souls.
Ameen.
https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2022/entries/aristotle-ethics/#Akra
eid mubarroq to u too, jackie. may allah accept all of our deeds. hv u read about uwais al-qarni.? his sacrifices was one of the GOAT. he put his mother above everything else.