Fangirling And Worship

I was listening to Haifa Younus’ session she had with Tamara Gray and I had to share one of the gems.

They were discussing verse 35 in Surah Ahzab. The verse that was revealed in response to Umm Salamah’s question to the Prophet (pbuh) about the lack of mention of females within the Quran.

Indeed, the Muslim men and Muslim women, the believing men and believing women, the obedient men and obedient women, the truthful men and truthful women, the patient men and patient women, the humble men and humble women, the charitable men and charitable women, the fasting men and fasting women, the men who guard their private parts and the women who do so, and the men who remember Allah often and the women who do so - for them Allah has prepared forgiveness and a great reward.

—

Gem 1

The first gem is the fact that Allah didn’t reveal a verse exclusively for women as His response. Because if He did, it would exclude women from the whole Quran except this one verse. But instead this verse refers to a list of 10 qualities in both men and women that make them successful. It shows clearly that women have been and will always be a part of this.

Gem 2

The second gem is the order of the wording. The qualities start from the Muslim man and women to the Mumin man and women to the Qanit man and woman and so forth. It’s beautiful because these are the ranks upwards.

One starts off by submitting to their Creator and fulfilling the 5 pillars of Islam. Then they raise their rank by becoming Mumins, and this is where they have belief in their heart and this is translated into their actions. Then they raise their rank higher to the level of the Qaniteen — those who are devout. These are those who are people of tahajjud, the people of voluntary fasts, etc. I just found it really cool how the qualities have been ordered in this way, where each following quality is almost a level up from the last one.

Favorite gem

The final and my favorite gem was more of a tangent to their conversation. They were discussing the meaning of Qantiun and how it’s difficult to translate to English. It’s sometimes translated as obedient, sometimes devout. But in our age the word ‘obedient tends to hold negative connotations and the word 'devout' seems a bit vague. So Tamara Gray goes on to explain what Qanit can mean in today’s context.

In two words, she compares it to being a hardcore fan.

There’s people who are huge fans of maybe a celebrity or an athlete. These are the people who travel just to get a glimpse of their celebrity. They’d eat the food the celebrity promotes, and wear the clothes they love. They are basically obsessed with anything and everything this celeb does.

They are so in love with this person’s that they are basically in devotion to them.

That is the type of relationship we need to reach to become a Qanit. It’s not the 'obedience' with the negative connotation, as though the rulings of the religion are things that are forced in you. It’s in fact the complete opposite.

It’s positive 'obedience' where you completely voluntarily want to do what He’s commanded because you love Him. You want to pray the extra salaah because you want to spend more time with Him. You want to dress this way because He wants you to. You want to do more good and stay away from sin for the simple reason that you absolutely love Him.

I thought this shift in mindset to how we approach our daily worship and our relationship with Allah was beautiful.

Honestly, the whole episode was beautiful. Do check it out here.

If you reached till the end of this reflection, thank you my friend. I appreciate it!

I hope we get to meet each other in my next post too. Until then, if you have any thoughts about what you’ve just read let me know (in the comments or any other way). I’d love to start a conversation!

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Until next time,

Thasneema 🌻