Today our lesson in Kitab-ul-Assassi was about "Majnoon Layla". It's the real story of Qays and his uncle's daughter, Layla. They were born about two centuries after hijra (eight century common era) in the harsh landscape of the Hijazi desert. Qays and Layla as children worked as shepherds together until the time when Layla became of age and withdrew from her work as a shepherd. But by that time, without either of them realizing it, a deep and powerful love had sprung up between them.
When Layla started wearing hijab, Qays realized his love for her and wrote a poem praising her that became famous. But that was his greatest mistake: at that time, if a young man wrote a poem in praise of a woman, he would not be allowed to marry her because that would destroy her reputation among people. Qays begged his uncle to let him marry Layla, but to no avail. In the end, Layla married another man in order to protect her family's honour, despite the fact that she loved Qays also. Qays lost his mind and fled to the desert, and became known as "Majnoon Layla" (The Insane One of Layla) or simply "Majnoon" (The Crazy) (that translation is really bad, I know, but I don't really know if there is a word in English to describe majnoon; psychopath doesn't really cut it). Layla becomes sick and dies, and upon hearing the news of her death, Qays dies also.
I know some people would be astonished that I wrote about this story on the blog, but I think that's because today we don't really know what love is; we only know about lust. You can't imagine someone actually dying or wasting away because of love. I think it's because as Muslims, we've had to force ourselves to actually go completely the opposite way; we've made the entire subject of love as taboo and forbidden in order to protect ourselves from all the filth that we see around ourselves. And I think that's better than us falling into dangerous situations, but at the same time we've denied a part of ourselves that actually exists. Human beings have hearts, and are meant to love one another, but we have to ensure that our actions stay within the limits set by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
The story of Majnoon Layla in my opinion is more a story about society than anything else. When I was reading this story with my teacher, conflicting thoughts were running through my head. What's better? Is it better that Layla protected her family's honour, but caused Qays to go crazy? Or would it have been better that she marry him, but have to live with the stain on their honour? Personally, I think what Layla did is better, because otherwise we wouldn't have this story.
I also think that the whole story reinforces the concept of hijab. With hijab, there are far less chances of something like this happening, and that would save a lot of people from a lot of pain.
But I hope my analysis doesn't obscure the most important point of the story: love is the most powerful force in the universe. It can move mountains, cross deserts, and change fate.
I pray that Allah gives us his love, and the love of the people he loves, the love for the actions he loves.
5 comments:
wasalam my brother -
i really liked the qays and layla dars, so i wanted to offer a few notes:
1) i remember hamza yusuf once saying he went to a showing of majnoonu layla - "and because i was a bit majnoon that layla i somehow went..."
2) one of reasons that it wasnt allowed to marry a girl after one had written poetry about her is because an illicit relationship would be suspected. qays, like other poets, didnt write nice flowery love poetry about his feelings - he described layla's body, and her movements, . this, of course, would usually cause major outrage, and if the two got married afterwards ppl would naturally think that they had been engaged in an illicit relationship. so, its understandable the family would thereafter be averse to marrying them: for one, to do so would be to cast doubt on their daughter's honor, second they would lose their position (they were like the heads of the village), and third there was of course bad sentiment: the man had written intimate stuff about the daughter - im sure anyone would feel somewhat averse to a young man who wrote verses about your daughters form and then spread them all over the Arabian peninsula.
3) there's another story about qays thats quite famous: he would wander in the hills of mecca and wail and cry, which would raise the ire of those making tawaf. so a group went and dragged him down to the vicinty of the ka'aba and told him he had to make tawba immediately, and so he threw himself on the ka'aba and cried out "Oh Allah, i seek your forgiveness from every sin, except that of loving Layla, from which I cannot repent." so the people were like "okay, hes hopeless." and they left him. apparently he would go to her house and rub the walls and press himself to the stones, and when the people tried to tell him it was just a house, he replied "But i do this for the love and remembrance of the one in the house, not the stones themselves". funny fellow.
<< rayatu ghazalan yartay wusta rabwatin,
fa qultu ara layla tara't lana thuhran >>
for one consumed by love everything becomes a remembrance of the beloved.
i meant to write "didnt JUST write nice flowery love poetry"... i.e. he did do that, but he was famous for some other things, too.
Thanks Zacharia bhai for the comments. I really appreciate your opinion on the lessons in Kitab-ul-Assassi. After reading your comments I can understand the feelings of the Layla's qabeelah a lot more easily. Anyone would be angry if some strange young man wrote a poem about one of the women in your family.
"For the lover, everything becomes a remembrance of the beloved."
And I remember what I think is a Hadith, that Allah only sent down one-hundredth of his love down to earth, and the love was spread among all creation, even the animals. If only we understood that love surrrounds us. Our existence we owe to Al-Wudud.
~Ameer
There are one hundred parts of mercy. Allah has given only one part which is distributed among the jinn, humankind, animals and insects. It is because of this that they are kind to one another, show mercy to one another; it is because of it that a wild animal is kind to its young. But, Allah has kept ninety-nine parts of mercy with Him, which He will show to His servants on the Day of Resurrection. (Bukhari, Muslim.) - I don't think this is an exact translation, I can't find the Arabic at the moment.
ps - that wasn't written by me - i mean the first part before the quotations saying Bukhari and Muslim, i just copy pasted.
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