My Own Inner Conflict
We all know what an “aha moment” is. A better word for this moment is: insight. It is defined as a sudden, conscious change in one’s representation of a stimulus, event, problem or situation. Today after a Sunday breakfast with two loved ones, I have an insight. An insight about my own inner conflict, that I have become most aware of since I have been studying Islam, Politics and Society.
Since December 2021 I have removed as many distractions as possible from my life, such as social media. Much earlier - since 2016 - I stopped watching television, listening to the radio and consuming news. Working in personal development for 7 years now - as a dialogue trainer for teams of companies and self-dialogue coach for individuals - I know the power of focus, inner peace and self awareness.
Reading many books and following (online) college classes about Islam, Politics and Society, and - the most valuable activity by far - exploring the Qur’an, have taken my self awareness to the highest level it has been so far. As a result, I am understanding my authenticity, I am willing to live more authentically and therefore I am being challenged more by my inner conflict - that seems to reside at the center of my self dialogue.
My inner conflict has always been there, maybe I’m born with it. It seems to reveal itself slowly but surely on a more deeper level the further I get in this journey I call my life. In different seasons of my life, I may have captured it in different words: moving from pleasing people to liberation from the opinion of others; moving from struggling with my Dutch identity to owning, respecting and loving my Moroccan roots; moving from ignorance and false perceptions to the true beauty of Islam.
My inner conflict has clearly a red thread: moving from fear to love. Many believe that there are only two primal emotions in the human being, love and fear, and that we cannot feel both at once. This way moving from fear to love becomes an opportunity, not just only to moments of crisis in life, but even in the smallest moments of life - specifically, in relationship with others.
This morning, when my two loved ones got into a discussion, I realised they both played out in front of me what is happening inside of me. I was observing my loved ones and each one of them was bringing forward a strong case for both the fear and love; in this season of my life my inner conflict is best verbalised as:
From the fear of being left out, unsupported and worked against in the Netherlands where many people still live in ignorance and with false perceptions of my Deen, Islam; to making the love of Allah - the origin of love, the creator of the universe, the singular God that is referred to in the Torah in Hebrew as “Elohim”, or spoken by Jesus in Aramaic as the strikingly similar “Allaha” - my only priority in life.
This past year in particular, I feel closer to resolving my inner conflict; I seem to move more easily from fear to love. At the same time, I realise there’s no resolution yet and after our lovely breakfast I am confronted with this lack of resolution. Life seems to be this continuous choice to move from fear to love. The crystal clear insight, that came to me is that in Islam there is a resolution for this inner conflict: when we move from dunyā - this physical world - to akhirah - the life when we are back to where we came from, to our creator, Allah.
Dunyā refers to the temporal world and its earthly concerns and possessions. In the Qur’an, dunyā refers to the life of this world from the moment we are born until the moment we die. It underscores the temporary and fleeting nature of the life of this world, as opposed to the eternal realm of the afterlife, known as akhirah. When a person dies their soul leaves the dunyā (this world), and thus begins the step towards the akhirah (afterlife) in which they live eternally in fear aka hell or in love aka heaven.
Although this past year I have learned many things about these four notions, this morning for the first time I seem to able to grasp dunyā, akhirah, hell and heaven. Life is dunyā and it confronts us with fear (hell) in order for us to master moving to love (heaven), so we get ready for akhirah; whether you believe in afterlife or not, we can agree that no one is able to escape death.
So “heaven” and “hell” are not polar components of a religious vision or just places where good and bad people go, but invitations to see life as it is and - for me personally - to get closer to resolving my inner conflict. An invitation to my next level of moving from fear to love.
June 25, 2023