Whatâs your definition of love?
Oh you've asked me the hardest question ever. For thousands of years people have tried to understand the meaning of love. Poets, Sufi mystics, the 16 years old boy who've fallen in love for the first time in life- everyone has a different definition of love. In fact love isn't a matter to explain, yet it explains everything. When love will happen to you, you'll understand. Rather I'll share some stories with you, some stories full of love:
1. The story of Mahmoud Darwish and his Israeli girlfriend Rita, about whom he wrote:
'I love you despite the nose of my tribe, my city and the chains of customs. But Iâm afraid if I sell everyone, you will sell me and Iâll return with disappointments.â
And when it was discovered that she was working for the Israeli Mossad intelligence, he said:
'I felt like my homeland was occupied again.â
He also wrote:
'Between Rita and my eyes, there is a rifle.â
'Maybe it wasnât important to you, Rita, but it was my heart!â
2. This is the love story of Khalil Gibran and May Ziadeh. The two poets expressed their mutual admiration by words written down on and exchanged through letters, weaving the most beautiful story of a pure love, far from formalities and physicalities. Once Gibran asked for a picture of May, and she told him, âImagine how I am,â so he said to her: 'I imagine your hair being short, wrapping your face.â May went to cut her long hair, took a picture and sent it to him, so he said to her, 'I see, my imagination was real.â
She said to him: 'Love was pure.â
After the death of Gibran, she was admitted to the psychiatric hospital, where she continued to suffer from her illness until she died.
3. A girl lived in front of the house where Faiz Sahib lived in Sialkot. Faiz was also in love with her, but one day when he returned from college, the girl was not there. Agha Nasir writes in his book that many years later, when Faiz became famous and returned to his hometown, the girl had also come from somewhere, her husband was also eager to meet Faiz. Faiz says that I met him, then the girl says to me, âHow beautiful is my husbandâ. Faiz wrote the poem Raqeeb se (To the vital) on this occasion.
4. Parveen Shakir fell passionately in love with him when she was still young. He was a bright young man all set to join civil service. When he did, his success and status added to the hurdles in their union. The greatest of which was that they belonged to different sects of religion. They finally grew apart. Parveen took it to her heart and expressed it in her poetry. Khushbu traces her evolution from a sentimental girl to a woman who has loved and lost. The young man in her life had left her mainly because he was a distinguished civil servant and could get proposal from a wealthier and resourceful family. Parveen took this humiliation to heart and shaped her life according to it. She herself cleared the civil service examinations with high distinction and was appointed to a post in Customs department, proving to him that she was no less talented and able.
After reading all these beautiful stories, you've fallen in love with love, right? But there is another story of love that's far more beautiful than all of these. That's the love of our Beloved Lord for us. He's the creator, sole owner of seven worlds and the King of all kings. And we're just His humble servants who disobey their own creator and sustainer again and again. Yet every time we're sad, He says, 'Don't be sad, I'm near.' Can you show me anything beautiful than this?
