New Islamic Directions - Imam Zaid Shakir

What a Beautiful Day

By Imam Zaid on 21 October 2009
Category: Messages

Today was a beautiful day. After a period of days that brought howling winds and driving rain, the California autumn yielded to a bright, blue cloudless sky. The rain has transformed the vacant space to the side of our front yard into a lush carpet of soothing green grass. The stately row of tall Eucalyptus trees lying just beyond that grassy patch reached into that blue sky, the rain having freed its leaves from the stultifying dust of summer. It was as if they celebrating their liberation and their newfound vibrancy

Above the trees, even higher in the sky, floated a hawk, surveying the land below, land that was formerly an area of farms, orchards, nurseries, tree lines, meadows, and gardens is gradually becoming a sprawling sea of new subdivisions. However, enough open spaces remain for the hawk not to look out of place in his ancestral land.

In the background is a range of low, but majestic mountains. The highest peak, Mount Diablo was a sacred site to the Indians who originally inhabited this state. One of the lesser known crimes of the Spanish conquerors of California and other Western lands was to name any site the native people held sacred “Diablo” of Devil. However, silhouetted against the bright blue sky, that foul appellation, Devil’s Mountain, could not deny the ability of the scene to evoke thoughts of the Divine.

Watching the hawk effortlessly glide above the trees reminded me of the timelessness of truth. Truth like the hawk will prevail. Even if we destroy its habitat, poison its food, and drain all of the life-giving water, one day the hawk will return. For, ultimately, all it needs to survive is the blue sky. As long as there is a blue sky there will be hawks, eagles, doves, sparrows, -and truth.

Will there be humans? That is a question we need to begin thinking seriously about. For as our hubris pushes us deeper into our unrelenting assault on the natural world, we move further away from our true human nature, especially that part of us that can be so captivated by the beauty we see all around us. People may well survive, but stripped of our humanity, will we even recognize ourselves, to say nothing of the truth?

May God bless us all to appreciate the timeless gifts of beauty that He offers us each and every day.

…Surely, God is Beautiful and He loves beauty. Prophetic Hadith

comments

By anonymous on November 15, 2009 -- 12:26am

Ameen. What a lovely and inspiring post.

By wSaleem on January 8, 2010 -- 3:22pm

SubhanAllah. I always come back to read this. It’s really a beautiful piece.

By BacklinkProfile01 on May 11, 2010 -- 8:15pm

“May God bless us all to appreciate the timeless gifts of beauty that He offers us each and every day.”
====> I agree with you. We should thanks for what we receive everyday.:)
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Amen everyday is a great day to be alive.

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