Grand Perspective: My Journey to the Grand Canyon

Bright Angel trail in the South Rim of the Grand Canyon

GRAND CANYON - December 20th, 2015

I was surprised. I came here with the intention of reviving my spirit, seeking my independence from humans, and reestablishing my surrender to my Creator, the Creator of this canyon.

As we approached the canyon on foot, seeing the tip of the 6,000ft high layers of sedimentary rocks, I was reminded of another feeling. I had a flashback to the first time I was approaching the inimitable House of God in Mecca, the Kaba. The excitement was similar, but not the same. I even made a joke to my best friend who travelled with me on this hopefully rejuvinating trip: have your first dua ready!

We walked closer, arm in arm, with big smiles and small giggles, awaiting the grand reveal.

And there it was.

The rest of the 6 million years of plate tectonics gone awry and the powerful erosion caused by insistent and stubborn water. It was quite amazing. I stood in silence for a few minutes, mumbling the words of praise that came to mind.

But my heart did not stir. I did not feel what I expected to feel. There was no elation. There was no spiritual ascension. There were no tears, and there was no urge to place my forehead on the ground in reaction to viewing this masterpiece.

I tried not to think too much about my heart's lack of reaction, since the first explanation that came to mind was that my heart was not as alive as it should be. That I am, perhaps, not as grateful to God as I should be. And that maybe my faith was not as strong as I'd hoped it was.

And so I brushed off these thoughts. Instead, I focused on taking in the magnificent beauty and grandeur of the creation of The Creator. I focused, instead, on worshipping anyway. 
I focused, instead, on giving God what He deserved but did not need.
On thanking Him.
Remembering Him.
Praying to Him.
Praising Him for creating a beautiful landscape and granting us eyes with vision to witness it. Reflecting on how His creation, and it's grandness, was only placed as an indicator, a reminder of how grand The Greatest is.

Kaibab Trail 

It was an uplifting experience, and far more real than the one I had expected. But I still wondered why my heart wouldn't stir at the sight of something like this. And it dawned on me slowly, and finally hit me at sunset on the next day.

We had discovered another hiking trail (to the right), another path with breathtaking beauty. One that echoes the ecosystem in the film Avatar. It was surreal, magnificent. And I couldn't imagine that this existed without our knowledge. The path carved into the wall of the canyon, and the enormity of the erosion was far more visible. And the sky was competing strongly with all of this. The sky.

The Sky

Kaibab Trail 

God mentions the sky many times in the Quran, and in the rules of how to recite the Quran (tajweed) we are supposed to elongate the vowel, which would make you linger on the word. For years, I had always wondered why. Why would God create the word for "sky" to be one that requires elongation?  I recently started looking more at the sky whenever I would find myself outside. If someone keeps repeating the name of something, and that something is nearby, your bound to eventually turn your attention to it. 

I looked at the sky, and I looked for the science of space, beyond our earth, beyond our sky, and realized how unfathomably small we are. And in contrast, God is unfathomably and infinitely larger. If God is so great, how can His promises not be true, how can there not be a heaven and hell beyond the scope of what is visible to the human eye. And that's when the sky grounded me, and the foundation of my iman (belief, faith). Whenever I needed a reminder of The Almighty, of His greatness, His all-capable nature, or His mercy, I would just look up.

Back to the Grand Canyon

Kaibab Trailhead at South Rim of the Grand Canyon

I found myself among fantastic rock formations and a phenomenal combination of many ecosystems in one place, all painting a portrait unmatched by any human creation or invention. And despite that, I was still looking to the sky. 

God has not assigned the Grand Canyon sanctity, holiness, or spiritual remedy in its air, to our knowledge. It is another creation that reminds you of Him, but has no holy quality in itself. This is why my heart didn't stir. This is why my eyes only became wet when I was praying to Him, vocalizing my awe of His creation to Him.

I travelled hundreds of miles seeking peace, ease, and upliftment. But all I had to do was look up. You don't technically need to leave your home to find Him, because He tells us two very important things:

و "هو الذي خلق السماوات والارض في ستة ايام ثم استوى على العرش يعلم ما يلج في الارض وما يخرج منها وما ينزل من السماء وما يعرج فيه وهو معكم اين ما كنتم والله بما تعملون بصير"ر 

It is He who created the heavens and earth in six days and then established Himself above the Throne. He knows what penetrates into the earth and what emerges from it and what descends from the heaven and what ascends therein; and He is with you wherever you are. And Allah , of what you do, is Seeing. [Quran: Al-Hadid, 57:4]

And the other, which really drives my spiritual journey home:

 " الا بذكر الله تطمئن القلوب "

Verily in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest. [Quran: Ar-Rad, 13:28]

Personal Gravity

In physics, we learn that when an object has forces acting on it, and when the forces all cancel themselves out, this results in the object remaining in one place without moving, it results in equilibrium.

Your personal gravity, the one that is pulling you down, be it sadness, difficulty, anxiety, loss, betrayal, pain, confusion, or any tribulation, is equivalent to how much strength is inside you.

This is not a reach, this is not an attempt to tie in your life with  science. This is connected to a verse that we often hear and recite, "God does not burden a soul except [with that within] its capacity." [Quran, Al-Baqara, 2:286] You will not be crushed down by calamity, by loss, by illness, because you have the strength to counter those forces.

The more hardship you have, the stronger you are. They key is in the fight. You have to have the fight. You can't wait for the power to kick in, you have to use those muscles to work against the tide that is trying to drown you. You must pick yourself up, limb by limb, thought by thought, prayer by prayer, and fight. No one else will fight this for you, and you have all the human capacity to do it.

When you feel that pressure, that hurricane, that gravity, push yourself, stand back up, cancel those forces with your own, even if it is against your will, even if you want to simply collapse and surrender, even if it seems impossible, and your efforts seems fruitless, or insincere. Even if you feel as if you are faking it, know that is it in these times that true strength emerges, when you don't have the will. Stand up. And say, "This is what strength is made of."

Wash

For the sake of Him
I write
I spill
I drill into my brain, to strain the locked thoughts, caged memories, to sift through swift blows and callous shows of pain and desperation


For the sake of Him
I pray
I stay
I fray all my pains into shards of ripened glass, weeping from negligence and piercing my innocence


For the sake of Him
I lift
I drift
I gift my deepest tunnels and gashes to show that your scars from the lashes are not isolated or negated, they are inflated microcosms of wars


For the sake of Him
I am grateful for these waves that made me cave on my stave, that gave me space to remove shame, to break my back and crush my knees, forcing forehead to forgo fleeting feeling of pride, and place it pleasurably on the ground He made us from


There is no sweetness like being broken in front of your Lord. The pain in that moment is worth a thousand years of joy. Deploy that heart, let it stretch to the heavens, and let it come back clean, washed, just like white cloth is washed of its impurities.


"Verily with hardship is ease." [Quran, Surat Ash-Sharh 94, Ayah 6]

Fighting for Strength

I now remember the times
The times when I would write
And I would have the excitement of my mom
Of my sisters
Eagerly waiting to hear something
They will hardly understand
But they listened
And reflected
And squinted their eyes in deep connection
With my words
Be they strong
Soft
Or weak
It didn't matter
Their minds were not restricted
They were not afraid of what they didn't understand
They listened
They responded
They applauded
They supported
And on I flew, and on I floated, and on I grew, and on they promoted
My creativity

now locked in a broken sieve
ideas not even generating
and when after years of tears
one emerges from the depths of an isolated mind
it is shot down
like a deer
without mercy
without thought

i am trying to understand my situation
i am trying to be patient
i am trying to be wise
i am trying to try
but how long can you use your cotton hammer
against a wall of steel
how long can you wait for permanence to change
how much am i supposed to accept
how strong am i
is this considered weak?
am i ungrateful?
am i giving in to satan's whispers?
what am i doing?
i don't know

what I do know
however
is that no matter the hardships
and fogginess
and lack of answers
of clarity
of love
He, He, will always have a better plan
He sees this, Al-Samee'
He knows, Al-'Aleem
He loves me more than I love myself
And so the solution
To all problems,
To mine, to hers, to his
Is to ask of Him
And take steps.
Lack of action is to linger
Don't linger
Lingering feels like death

All power and power to change are for Allah
He can give you even when you are alone
He can give you when you are surrounded by enemies
Trying to break you down
In every way
But if He is your source
That's good news.
Because there is no limit to what He can do.
Allahu Akbaru kabeera. (God is always greater)

One For All

You thought her life was perfect
But you didn't see the pain
You didn't see her trudging through the mud
And through the rain

You didn't feel the cobwebs
Formed from isolation
You didn't didn't hear her screams of panic
And desolation

All you saw were happy pictures
Painting endless scenes of serenity
As if parties, laughter, and food shots are
Some sort of remedy

And so you soaked it all in
Without ever considering
That you have never posted a photo
Of your ugly sobbing

You only show the world
The part that makes you look happy
If they tell you "you're life is perfect"
You know they're just wacky

Pray for her, and pray for you
Pray for all of us, to find what is true

When hands go up, they push away burdens
So ask of Him to ease what's hurting

For all

When They Make You Feel Like a Burden

You're stuck between a rock and a hard place. And for some reason everyone who you typically rely on simply can't help you, maybe because they too are going through something. Or maybe they can't handle being around someone who is going through hardship, and so they dip. Or maybe because, according to their tally, you have been asking for help too much. And maybe your source of pain is that no one is standing up for you, to protect and defend you.

Not too long ago, I was enduring severe trials. A very dear friend who knew of my struggle brought me a unique dua book with her from her travels. She promised me that this dua book was very special, and that I was going to love it.

I started reading the duas, and started getting into it, and the more I read, the more the world disappeared and it was just my Lord and my broken self. And then I came across a few lines, and I couldn't get passed them. My tears would not allow me to read them out loud, as I choked on my overflowing emotions. I read them again, through my tears. And again. And again. These lines were:

حَسْبِي اللهُ وَ كَفَى، سَمِعَ اللهُ لِمَن دعا، لَيسَ وَراءَ اللهُ مُنتَهى

Allah is sufficient for me, and He is enough [I don't need anyone/thing else]. Allah hears the person who asks of Him. There is no limit/barrier/end behind Allah.

حَسْبِي اللهُ وَ كَفَى
Allah is sufficient: in every single sense. This encompasses every attribute of our Master. He is the All-Seeing, so when someone belittles your pain because they don't know what you're going through, remember this name. He is All-Hearing, so we don't need to worry if someone twists your words around to get you in trouble at work or to create discord in your family. He is All-Knowing, which means if someone doubts your intentions behind your actions or words, that despite their questioning and lack of trust, He knows. He is the Most Forgiving, so if you wronged someone, and they are holding a grudge against you after you have genuinely tried to make amends and apologized, He is enough for that.


سَمِعَ اللهُ لِمَن دعا
"سَمِعَ" here is not just hearing, but more like "hearing you out." It's more than listening, it implies answering of the prayer, meaning He "heard you out so much" that He is going to answer your dua. He won't misunderstand you, or ignore you, or abandon you. So pray. And ask.


لَيسَ وَراءَ اللهُ مُنتَهى
And with Allah,there is no "مُنتَهى", there is no limit, there is no end to His provisions, there is literally no barrier behind Allah. His Mercy is limitless, and so are His capabilities. So when you pray to Allah, and you say this particular dua, simultaneously remember how many times humans have failed you, how many times people considered you a burden, took you for granted, put you to the side, and even downright ignored you. Allah is capable of taking care of every need you have, without it affecting His bounty even an ounce. You can start understanding this better by listing the things He has already given you. Example: the ability to see, to read this article, and to have a brain that allows you to understand these words. You didn't create your brain, nor did you choose your level of intelligence. So how can the One Who gave this to you without you even asking for it, NOT give you something you did ask for? He will. And there is no limit to what and how much He can give.


Why are these last two lines coupled? They are one invitation. It's as if the message is: Allah will listen to you and give you all you need based on what you say, and don't worry,He can fullfill that promise because there is no limit to His bounty. And bringing in the first line, this is enough for you. So pray, and ask, and keep praying and asking, even when you think you don't need to, or when you feel like you have asked too many times, keep asking, again and again.


Allah will never fail you. He is The only Truth (الحق), and He the Always Living (الحي), and therefore He can never fail you. Just reach out. And depend only on Him.


And when He does answer your prayer, and He certainly will, remember to be grateful to Him by recognizing that He is The Provider (الرزاق).


Oh Allah send Your blessings on our beloved Prophet Mohammad.

[Anything good in this article is from Him, any mistakes are due to my shortcomings.]