i have long thought of compiling the series of lecture notes on my experiences at Rihla 2006 with a blog...it was a short lived venture, where i slacked off in regards to posting. i have been going through some of my notes that i took in the summer of 2006 (August 2006) recently, and i have been trying to put together a completed note series for myself, based on the amazing lectures that i had the chance of attending.
Insha-Allah i plan to post all of my notes to the best of my ability (and it will force me to be consistent in the rewriting of my notes...thus allowing me to reflect on them). hopefully i can do this on a sectional basis, putting down my thoughts and feelings as i write out my notes (i was writing these as i was taking part in discussions and field trips during Rihla). this will..i hope starve off the sense of longing that i have to return to Rihla this year (i am not in a position to actually go again, though i would give almost anything to go back again). Rihla did change me, but as Askaa (a former Rihla-ite of 2005 told me before i even ventured out to Rihla), these changes manifest in different ways...it takes time to actually see them come out in a person.
Rihla was and always will be a high point in my life...u know when someone asks you to describe the perfect moment in your life (this actually came up once in a conversation with one of my friends)...i can always reply with a sense of longing and with absolute conviction...
"my perfect moment, in the short life of 24 that i have lead..is varied and vast, and will remain with me forever. it was a mix of many things, spiritual, emotional and an overwhelming sense of pure and unadulterated joy...i can not fix it down to one exact moment, rather it is a series of moment that occurred in short period of time. the most visual of moments was when i came upon the Ka'baa...in all its glory, after twelve years of being away from what i had breathed in for eleven years of my life...it was as if my heart ripped from my ribs, my eyes emptied of their tears, my mind cleared of its wanderings, my feet stilled in their movement, my hands moving of their own vocation, my head cleared of its longings, my ears filled with the words of 'Lab-baik, Allah huma Lab-baik', my eyes drank in the blackness of the Kiswah, my mouth voicing what coursed through my veins and called out from the depths of my soul...'Ya Habib, Ya Allah'. promptly after which i fell to the cool marble floor of the Masjid, on my knees, prostrated to the 'Creator of the Heavens and the Earth' and wept. "
this will forever be my perfect moment. i realize that many a people do not understand this as being the most perfect of moments in one's life, but it is always an objective thing to describe one's perfect moment. objectively, in this moment i felt the most at peace, the oneness i felt with my Creator was absolute...the longing to follow his laid down path is overwhelming...and the love i discovered for the Prophet is another thing in itself. i have reverence for these moments and i have converted them into a film strip in my mind, played at moments where i question myself and my sanity...these things (moments like these) keep me from falling into the dark abysmal pits that i create for myself.
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