NOHA WAL AWEEL - The Tale of Tears: To Cry and to Cry Out
WHEN Moula (TUS) sent the students of Jamea in India, Pakistan and Africa to encourage every household to do Noha and Aweel, it was daunting for both students and mumineen alike. How does one literally walk up to someone's house and say, "we're here to remember Imam Hussain and engage in Noha Aweel with you. We're here to make you cry". Some opened their doors willingly, some were hesitant, some were resistant, some were perplexed and some were confused. It is understandable; to make someone cry is far more difficult than making them laugh. People don't have an on/off switch where they readily switch from their daily routine to suddenly crying. It's almost impossible. Yet, the unthinkable became a reality.
PEOPLE realised that this was something which had nothing to do with any agenda; this was driven by pure love, a love for Imam Hussain and his Dai. Every student of Jamea will attest to the miracle, for that is what it was, that they experienced in their four day endeavour. But people had and still have questions and it is their right to ask them as long as their motivation is to understand and not challenge. This brief philosophical foray into that journey is a meagre and humble attempt to shed light on the subject.
IT seems forced and artificial to express grief when one does not truly feel it or understand it; one can be forgiven if the significance of Imam Hussain's sacrifice is not immediately apparent. Some might question 'What is Noha Aweel? Why do we cry on Imam Hussain in the first place? Why vocalise grief when we already cry? It seems unnatural...etc'. These are valid questions but the moral imperative is to try and understand, just as we must try to cry and cry out.
THERE is something innately human in expressing grief; it proves we feel and therefore we are alive in the truest sense. That very first moment in which we come into this world is defined by the vocal cries that signal the birth of a new soul and as those first breaths of oxygen permeate the alveoli of our lungs, that crying out becomes louder and louder, heralding the arrival of a human being. Nothing could be more natural than crying. A stillborn child does not cry and hence does not breathe. A neonate's first cry forces inhalation of that first breath and expands the hitherto rigid lungs. If it does not cry, it is stimulated to do so. Crying is proof of life.
THERE are many reasons why we weep, but one thing is evident; both extremes of joy and sadness, trigger our tear glands to produce tears. Even the vocal response to these extremes is somewhat similar. In other words, we feel and therefore we cry and cry out. Our ability to connect emotionally and so emphatically is what separates us from those lower on the mammalian pecking order.
IMAM Hussain's sacrifice is one without parallel. Irrespective of faith, it stirs the most hardened souls from the stupor of apathy. Happy are the eyes that shed tears for him and fortunate the heart that burns for him. One has to be positively cold-hearted to not be affected by it.
Pain is a symptom, not a cause. To feel pain is a symptom of our humanity as it acknowledges the cause of our mortality, its fragility and vulnerability.
AS we recount the tragedy of Kerbala, we are pained. We try and comprehend the sheer inhumanity of those who relished in depriving not just men of water, but innocent infants as they writhed in burning thirst in their cradles. We try to fathom what could drive the relentless squall of arrows and spears as they bore down on Imam Hussain. We try to grasp what possibly could compel the Yazidi scourge to march the wives, sisters and daughters of Ahle Bait over the mutilated bodies of Imam Hussain. As we relive all this, we are pained and that pain surges forth in the form of our cries and crying. Deep down, somewhere in our subconscious self, instinctively we know that somehow, all this happened because of us even if we don't understand. But remembering Imam Hussain is more than just heart; it is a function of both head and heart and we need to try and make sense of WHY Kerbala happened and WHY we must cry. Why? Because Noha and Aweel, crying and crying out, cannot just be emotional.
RASULULLAH (SAW) and Panjatan (AS) and every Imam and Dai have wept inconsolably on Imam Hussain. Rasulullah, the one who founded Islam, whose learning and knowledge are unequalled, whose every breath paved the path that makes us greater and better than what we are, layered himself with the dust of Kerbala as he descended from above to witness his grandson being slaughtered. From the very day Imam Hussain was born, Rasulullah wept for him, without inhibition or regard for 'propriety'. This cannot just be an act of a distraught grandfather. Rasulullah is no ordinary person. Every act of his and of Panjatan is one which, if emulated, brings one closer to salvation. We must understand the greater significance of it.
THEIR call, the call of Islam and Iman is one which is rooted in reason and logic. It elevates us to the pinnacle of intellectual existence. Their actions, by definition, cannot be devoid of reason. In trying to understand this, we begin to understand, that crying and crying out, is not only a mark of our humanity, but the penultimate reflection of rationality and reason.
Moula often recounts the reason why we took on human form. We 'fell' and we 'repented' through 'crying'. That act of repentance through crying – 'Nadam' - enabled us to seek a path back from whence we came.
WHEN we repented then, we gave in completely. There were no conditions, nothing to be considered, it was the purest expression of the self, just as the newborn's first cries are. Hence the call to Noha and Aweel is a harking back to the prior and purest version of ourselves. It seems logical then that repentance must become manifest here, in these lives which we have been gifted with. But we continue to sin. The mistakes, the vices that plagued us in the earliest part of our existence, torment us till the end of our days and they need to be atoned for. That debt has to be cleared and despite us perpetrating them, we are too petty in all that we do and think, our self-righteous egos too blinding to let us see the error of our ways.
THE collective human race, from the beginning of time till the end, is incapable of knowing, realising and acknowledging its wrongs, let alone atoning for them. As the principle of justice stands, someone needs to pay the price. There can be no automatic vindication. So, through the immense love that saturated Imam Hussain, he took on a colossal undertaking to absolve humanity, past, present and future of those sins.
HENCE Kerbala ceases to be yet another tragedy in the annals of historical atrocities. It is a transcendent event that out-measures time and space.
Thus, when Moula calls us to crying and to cry out, it is a return to the most natural state of all, the beginning. As your tears fall and your cries reverberate, you strip away everything until there is nothing left but your humanity. No inhibition, nothing to hold you back, who is looking, who is not, you become true to yourself. You become one with yourself, just as nature intended. You dispel with propriety and civility as dictated by 'society', shunning artificial constructs of 'etiquette' as you understand what now needs to be done. You begin to have an honest conversation with your soul, just like that child that cries out in need – in need of sustenance, in need of being cleansed, in need of ridding itself of pain. It is being honest. And it is a pure cry, unadulterated by any hidden agenda or ulterior motive.
YET, there is no incongruence between crying like a child and rationality, for as we now understand, it is purely logical and at the same time, our cries tell a tale of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition and of unspeakable love. They speak more eloquently than a thousand tongues. We need to tell that tale and hear it, through our tears and our cries of 'Aah!' Each eye then, becomes an ocean, and from within its depths there flows an infinite sorrow, for as the sheer breadth and scale of Imam Hussain's sacrifice begins to bear, we begin to understand our shortcomings, our failings and we repent in the way we did once before. We undertake to change, to change for the better, to try and do justice to Imam Hussain even though what we owe him can never be repaid. We embark on a journey of introspection, of understanding ourselves in ways which were impossible before. But all that is only possible when we cry and cry out.
BURHANUDDIN Moula (RA) once said that to shed a tear reflected something much more profound. A tear is not merely a drop of salty water; it was our acknowledgement of who we are and more importantly, our willingness to say 'Na'am' -'Yes' - as we do in Misaaq. Crying then becomes the equivalent to Misaaq, the sacred oath we swear that makes a mumin a mumin. We don't silently say 'Na'am' in Misaaq. Anyone who was fortunate to hear Burhanuddin Moula recite the text of the Misaaq, will remember him emphasising again and again, 'Zor si Na'am kaho!" – to resoundingly articulate our willingness to love and accept Moula and all that he represents through a single syllable. Yet, that word has the power to bind us in a holy contract with Allah, guaranteeing salvation if fulfilled.
WHAT Mufaddal Moula (TUS) is doing is nothing different. His call to Noha Aweel is precisely a summoning to the fundamental tenets and articles of faith that have been enshrined in the Misaaq and are so central to our identity. Misaaq is valid only when given with the purest of heart. Perhaps one might not fully grasp the finer details of Misaaq, just as one might not fully appreciate the concept of Noha Aweel. But it is not coercion that drives us to give Misaaq, but rather a trusting love that we know will yield answers in time.
HE doesn't want us to 'silently' acknowledge what Imam Hussain did for us; he wants to see and hear the strength of our conviction resonate through us by crying and crying out for him. To do so acknowledges not just Kerbala, but all that Imam Hussain stood for, the universal principles and values which mark our humanity.
WE need to feel and understand all this with every fibre of our beings, from deep within and it is Noha and Aweel that enables us to do so.
Yes, it is an abstract and difficult concept to grasp, but this is the quintessential rationalisation of Imam Hussain's sacrifice. We then understand how for just one tear, we are rewarded with paradise for there is a sacredness in tears and in our cries. They are not a mark of weakness, but of power - the power to release us from the confines of mortality and propel us upwards.
MAY we all find the strength and fortitude to feel and understand the sacrifice of Imam Hussain, so that we can at least try and repay that debt through our tear-filled cries of 'Aah'. Our humanity demands it. Our humanity depends on it. Ameen
Abde Syedna TUS
Adnan Abidali
Aljamea Tus Saifiyah, Nairobi
Disclaimer: All views and opinions expressed here, are wholly of the author and should not be attributed to any organisation or institute.
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