Turtles and Fish - mureed muraad

 

Turtles and Fish 

 mureed muraad

 The other day another epiphany struck me, when one of my friend mentioned that if a fish cannot live without water, how can a Muslim live without the love of Allah? It was a nice metaphor and it made sense at first, but it got me thinking, are we really like fish?

To me, there are a few gems that are perhaps like fish in water, ie Allah has blessed them with His love indefinitely from the start. But most of us, we’re more like baby sea turtles. If someone is familiar with these interesting reptiles, then you will know that the mother turtle lays her eggs in the sand away from the water, and then leave the eggs to return to the sea. And that’s that. The little babies that hatch from the eggs have to dig their own way out of the sand, sometimes taking almost a week, and from there onward they have to find their way to the water.

This reminded me a  Shaykh saheb explaining the difference between a muraad and a mureed. A muraad is a person who is sought, like the Prophet Muhammad , while a mureed is someone who seeks, like Moosa (AS). Similarly, the fish does not need to seek the water, as it’s already there from the beginning of its life. But, a turtle is born on dry land; it seeks the water as its survival depends upon it. The same way we who are mureed struggle through dry patches as we seek to instill within us the Love of Allah, but if we keep struggling bi Fadhlillah we will eventually reach the sea.