Tajuk: Love in a HeadscarfPenulis: Shelina Zahra Janmohamed
Disyorkan untuk:
Semua muslimah - tak kira sudah, belum, akan atau tak nak berkahwin :P buku ni adalah tentang erti agama dan cinta.
Kisah yang dipaparkan adalah kisah benar tentang perjalanan penulis melalui detik2 pahit manis untuk mendirikan Baitul Muslim (Keluarga Muslim). Kalau dihayati (memang korang akan, insyaAllah :) ), korang akan rasa bersemangatnya penulis ni nak tegakkan sunnah RasuluLlah SAW. Bagi yang sudah berkahwin, mesti akan terkenang kembali macam mana rasanya melalui proses ni. Bagi yang belum atau akan berkahwin pulak, korang akan dapat kekuatan untuk bersabar dari catatan penulis. Sepanjang cerita, penulis ada melalui lebih dari 10 proses ta'aruf (pengenalan dengan calon pasangan). Bagi Husna, tu terlampau banyak! Tapi dia masih kuat dan tekad nak teruskan mencari. Walau bagaimanapun, bagi yang ada perasaan tak senang untuk bicara soal kahwin (ye, mungkin anda orangnya! ;) ), cuba paksa diri untuk mendalami coretan cinta penulis ni. Ia akan mengubah persepsi anda. Semoga berjaya!
Cerita ni bermula dengan tafsiran cinta oleh umum. Coretan penulis bermula dengan pengenalannya dengan calon suami pertama seawal umur 19 tahun, budaya masyarakat Asia Tengah. Penulis bersetuju untuk mengikut proses perkahwinan yang disusun oleh orang tengah, satu keputusan yang semakin kurang diminati oleh wanita zaman sekarang. Mungkin kerana niat ikhlasnya, Allah nak uji kekuatan iman penulis dengan cabaran demi cabaran setiap kali berjumpa dengan setiap bakal suaminya. Selepas berkali2 ditolak/menolak, akhirnya penulis ke Timur Tengah untuk menenangkan jiwanya. Di sanalah penulis mendapat hidayah Allah. Untuk pengakhiran cerita ni, korang akan tersentuh macam mana Allah takdirkan setiap kisah cinta seseorang. Kejayaan adalah perjalanan, bukan destinasi~ Selain dari tu, penulis ada jugak cerita macam mana cabarannya menjadi seorang muslimah British dan kepentingannya faham setiap tuntutan agama. Sebab dari situ, baru kita akan lihat keindahan Islam dan kehebatan syariat.
Apa yang disukai:
Ni buku yang terbaik yang Husna pernah baca yang mendefinisikan erti sebenar cinta dan agama yang kita cari. Kita selalu tenggelam dengan masalah hati dan akur dengan bisikan2 nafsu tapi sebenarnya hati kita memanggil2 cinta Allah, bukan cinta makhluk. SubahanaLlah! Sangat indah bila Allah SWT susun untuk penulis yang dia hanya akan jumpa calon suaminya bila dia betul2 kenal erti cinta kepada Allah. Jadi kepada anda yang masih tercari2, carilah dulu cinta Allah dengan ubudiyyah kepadaNya. Mungkin perlu explorasi jiwa ;)
Apa yang tak disukai:
Ada beberapa bahagian yang agak panjang penerangan dia, Husna tak dapat hadam apa yang penulis nak cuba sampaikan, huhu. Tu jelah.
Kata-kata menarik:
m/s 26
The Aunties asked, what would make knowing someone for 3 years rather than 3 intense meetings a better match? It was hard to disagree with them on this point ... The first offered danger, exclusion, risk, a defying of convention. The latter had been proven out by history and offered respectability, a place in society and a recognition of status and worth.
m/s 53
'When you first meet, he does his hair all slicked back and puts on his best aftershave. And she puts on makeup and smells oh-so-good. And you are both on your best behaviour, relaxed and showing only your good sides. And you both think "Aah! I'm in love", "he is so wonderful", "she is the one". Only when you wake up in the morning and you smell his breath and you see her with her hair standing on end like a jinn, only then can you know what love is.'
m/s 56
This love, mawaddah, was reserved for those in a comitted relationship and was a special gift for those who made that commitment.
m/s 59
'How you know he's the one' - Personality, quality of character and faith in God are key. That way you know they will always treat you right.
m/s 75
I needed a partner to acccompany me on this journey, and if I was to have a travelling companion, he would need to share the same map as me. How else would we journey on the same path?
I often thought this was why the Quran was composed of poetry and poetic prose. Poetry is designed to inspire love, and Islam is about falling in love with the Creator of the Universe.
m/s 91
I'm only asking for something good, someone to be with and love, someone who will love me and bring me closer to You. Am I not ready to be married yet? Are there more things I need to learn? Or is my Prince not ready for me yet? What are those things I need to know, to experience before I find the one who will complete my soul?
m/s 92
The idea of marrying for the sake of social acceptability and status was slowly bleeding out of our system. This was sometimes misconstrued as rejecting marriage, rejecting culture, rejecting men. But this was far from the truth. We were still besotted with getting married but not for the title or status; instead it was far for companionship and love.
m/s 108
'You must look after your husband. I know people have different ideas today, but if you look after him, then he will look after you, remember that, even when it feels hard, even when you don't get what you want. Remember to say sorry, even if it not your fault. In fifty years time, who will remember if it was your mistake or his? You're on the same side, so does it matter if you apologise and he made the mistake? What he will remember is that he had a wife who loved him, and who he still cares about after so many years.'
m/s 133
You have to know where you've come from to know where you are going.
m/s 156
Wearing a headscarf didn't mean denying your physical femininity, it just meant celebrating it in the private sphere.
m/s 168
If someone was tied to literal or cultural ideas about Islam and being Muslim then we would never be able to improve the status quo. Instead, we had to create new possibilities, and to do that I needed someone who was magical enough to free himself of the preconceptions that held all of us back.
m/s 176
'If they really wanted me to stop wearing hijab, which they agree is something that a Muslim woman should do, then I think you should tell them that I will be happy to do so if they will take the responsibility of e giving up my prayers and my fasting in Ramadhan for a year as well.'
m/s 179
Just because that was how it had always been, it didn't mean that was how it would be.
m/s 184
Love was the spark that ignited the soul and love was also what sustained it.
m/s 192
We believed Islam held simple answers to the big questions of being a human being. It stated from a basic premise: that there is no god. Nothing except one unified divine entry. Some called it Nirvana. Some called it Enlightenment. Some called it Truth, or Justice, Yahweh, God or Love. As a Muslim, the Divine Being had all these names but was most commonly called Allah.
We had chosen Islam because we felt it made us free as human beings. We had chosen to be Muslims, not blindly, but because to us it made sense.
m/s 196
That is why romantic love seems so fulfilling to start with, because it reaches for another, deeper love. And that is why romantic love feels so empty as it run its course unless it is replaced by a more profound long-lasting love.
The desert needed the sky and the sky needed the desert, but they both had to be what they were themselves and not try to be the other. Each was beautiful in its own existence, but when connected together, they created a new holistic meaning.
m/s 197
Why faith was trying to tell me that if I found love for Him, that would create the love I searched for in a person.
(abridged from the Quranic verse) ... He created a pair for you ... I was ready.
m/s 199
God is Greater than anything you can imagine. Imagine anything and Allah is Greater, because anything you can imagine is imaginable only within the limits of your mind. God created mind. The Divine created your imagination. God was not limited. and could not be comprehended within the constraints of the mind.
m/s 200
Islamic wisdom stated the following: 'God cannot be contained anywhere in the universe, except in the heart of the believer.'
m/s 206
Someone who speaks from experience creates a resonance that someone who speaks only from book knowledge will never achieve ... That's why they say "practise what you preach" because that is the only way to have an impact.
m/s 216
A rejection would hurt but at least go away in the knowledge I had tried. I would have to find a way to recover from having been so close to the husband I had been searching for and then being turned away.
m/s 222
The fussy crow turns his nose up at the rich pickings and ends up sitting on the pile of dung.
m/s 249
I started to take an interest in people simply for who they were. Each person was a delicious moment to be savoured with respect for their humanity. There was no need to assess them as a potential suitor; instead I was more interested in seeing them as a window to a new world. I enjoyed getting to know people as human beings.
m/s 250
If the Divine could not be contained by the universe but was to be found in the heart of the human being, wasn't that the place to look for the Divine spark?
m/s 251
When science and the need to prove everything through fact alone dictated our social mores, it was most incredible that the least tangible, manageable or definable quality - Love - was the thing that created most tension, most excitement and most human togetherness.
m/s 253
In our rush to find perfect fairytale love, we seem to have forgotten that kind of gentle, unhurried love that grows over time and requires careful nurturing. Love reduced to romance is flighty and unfulfilling, and it has left us insecure, unnourished and unwhole. It only feeds our surface needs, not the inner hunger for a long term, stable, fulfilling love.
"ma'rifatuLlah - tak kenal [Allah], maka tak cinta [Allah]"
p/s: thanx to KakTeh and the whole gang who helped make this dream (getting my hands on this book) a reality :)
