Episode 20 - You Won't Get Lost in the Crowd

Don't you love to have a friend who makes you feel special, as if you are the most important person to them and they won't be distracted by anyone else? Don't you feel the value of this friend in times of trouble? I think you've noticed that just sharing your worries with this understanding and caring friend makes you feel relieved and your burdens lighter.

I once asked my older brother: Do you have a quarter of an hour to talk to me about a problem? He replied: (I'm all yours)! These words overwhelmed me, and I found comfort in them.

That's how we are... we love to have someone who understands us and shares our pains and hopes with us. Just their presence is a source of comfort for us. What if they can solve our problems?! How much more at peace our hearts will be then...

On the other hand, you may feel lost when others compete with you for this friend's attention. You fear that they might distract them from you. Anyone who has many siblings competing for one father, a sister-in-law competing with you for one husband, or colleagues competing with you for one teacher may know this feeling. The father, husband, or teacher is no longer just yours or just yours alone... you may be forgotten or overlooked in the crowd of others.

Search your heart! Do you feel this way towards: Your Lord, Glorified and Exalted?!

I'm not asking about your intellectual convictions, for they reject that without a doubt... but a person may harbor in the depths of their feelings anxieties that cause them distress without knowing their source, including this anxiety... that you are lost before Allah in the crowd!

Here is a comforting and reassuring truth: Allah, Glorified and Exalted, is aware of you, close to you, knows your worries, hears your supplication, rejoices in your repentance, and manages your affairs... all this as if you were alone in this universe, with no one else sharing you, neither human nor jinn! Have you not seen His saying: {Your creation and your resurrection are but as a single soul. Indeed, Allah is Hearing and Seeing} [Luqman: 28]? Ibn Kathir said: (Hearing their words and seeing their deeds as if He hears and sees one soul). Similarly, in the Sacred Hadith: (O My servants, if the first of you and the last of you, and all of mankind and jinn, were to stand in one place and ask Me, and I were to give each one what he asks for, it would not decrease what I have, any more than a needle decreases the sea).

So glory be to Him who is not distracted by one supplicant over another, nor by one in need over another... {It is the same for you whether you whisper or speak aloud, or hide by night or go forth by day} [Ar-Ra'd: 10]... so no one is lost in the crowd with Him.

You won't get lost in the crowd... but you can imagine as if you are calling upon Allah alone and He hears you alone... and the meanings of some of His beautiful names are manifested in His lordship over you as if you were alone... so His mercy, closeness, forgiveness, kindness, generosity, patience, forgiveness, response, love, guidance, righteousness, mercy, provision, sufficiency, covering, gentleness, and giving will appear and will continue to appear in you as if you were alone in this universe. Therefore, you won't get lost in the crowd.

Notice how Allah, Glorified and Exalted, singled out the word (the caller) in His saying: {And when My servants ask you concerning Me, indeed I am near. I respond to the call of the caller when he calls upon Me} [Al-Baqarah: 186]... in this singling out, there is an indication of His attention to your supplication, which may not be present in the plural (the callers if they call upon Me). It is not a general response to the collective callers such that His response to most of them would suffice for responding to each of them individually... but He responds to your call as if you were alone, even if He is called by you at the same moment by billions, nay, countless, of humans, jinn, and angels.

Similarly, His saying: {Who responds to the distressed when he calls upon Him} [An-Naml: 62]... every distressed person as if he were alone... {And your Lord is not forgetful} [Maryam: 64]... Glorified be He, for this is His nature: {And nothing is hidden from your Lord, whether the weight of an atom or less or greater, but that it is in a clear record} [Yunus: 61]...

So call upon Allah, seek His help, find comfort in Him, and contemplate the effects of His names and attributes in yourself, and remember His companionship as if you were alone... And always remember: You won't get lost in the crowd.