Possessions. The world around us teaches us that we each have our own money and our own houses within which we have our own rooms, and please no one enter without our own permission to do so. Here we sleep in our own bed and when we awake, we use our own bathroom and pray Fajr on our own prayer mat. Next, we will eat our own cereal and watch our own TV for the weather, get dressed accordingly in our own clothes and exit home into our own cars.  Maybe we’re students, so apply all of the above except that we might be taking public transport believing it's our own system and walking into class like that’s ours, too. Here things start to get tricky.

Now we spend our own days in our own minds with our own thoughts, sunken in our own dispositions and proudly standing by our own values. Who are we, you ask? Out pour our own identities.

I am a short, hijab-wearing Pakistani, Kashmiri girl, born in Saudi Arabia, raised in Canada, student of the Toronto District School Board, youngest child of a  family of five, currently attending the University of Toronto (repreSENT!), studying Russian, Italian and Linguistics who loves to laugh, eat in good company and spend time with the family.

By the way, I am Muslim. Maybe you guessed that from my hijab, or my cultural background. Well, now you know.

Possessions. The world around us is a constant reminder of everything we really do not own, and never can own, because the world around us is here only for a brief moment in time.  All those things that we cherish and take pride in, indeed everything, actually belongs to Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala and to Him we shall all return. Our money, cultures, and all that we bear in this life will avail us nothing when we meet death, for surely, there is no room for all of this in our graves. Surely, we will be left with nothing but the metaphysical; nothing but our book of deeds.  

Yet somehow, someplace, this message got lost in translation so that now we inherit the pointless, vain things of life and take second-hand ownership of the only thing that will bring eternal bliss- our Deen. We defend our soccer teams and cultural affiliations like nobody’s business, and what of our Islam? It’s an extracurricular activity. I am part of the MSA, what else do you want?

The Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad salAllahu alayhi wasalam is the most detailed documentation of any person in history, something even non-Muslims stand in awe of. For a mu’min, this is a tremendous glad tiding. We have, in our teachings, the ways and word of that being who Allah Ta’ala calls His Beloved. That man, whose flawless character turned hearts of stone into the best Muslims there will ever be. That Prophet, from whom billions of men and women have received wisdom beyond all age, race and social class. What we do with these teachings is something we will all be called to answer for.  Have no doubt about it. Whether we were born Muslim or guided thereafter, we have a covenant with Allah Ta’ala that will lead either to  our salvation or to our destruction. Here, the choice is ours.

Really, Islam is one thing we should want to put our names aaall over. For one thing, I believe, that most Muslims appreciate the importance of da’wah. Everything from comic depictions of the Prophet salAllahu Alayhi wasalam to poor representation on the interfaith grounds is a cause of distress to anyone with even an ounce of iman. The issues of our ummah are many, but we cannot reasonably expect to fight for our right to practice Islam, if we do not actually practice Islam. We cannot ask for truth and justice, if we are not truthful and just. In short, we cannot ask others to take Islam seriously, if we do not take it seriously ourselves. If we start to take ownership of our religion, we will earn back the respect that our predecessors, our Prophets (peace be upon them), and our religion itself, deserve. If we do not, we will continue to see the same troubles that face us now, and we will see much greater troubles in the hereafter.

So when we do decide what we are going to take full ownership of, it is my humble opinion that we choose our Deen. The same way we have been taught to be so protective, so possessive, so cautious of our ‘stuff’, we should be guarding our imaan. That means learning to leave sin no matter how great or small, because we can never know what our hearts will testify on the Day of Judgment. That means finding out how the Prophet alayhis salam lived and adhering to it with the conviction that there is no better way to live. That means taking on the pursuit of Islamic knowledge so that we know what is expected of us, so that we can say we truly took it upon ourselves to be Muslim and lived Islam.