attraction+muhabbat=ishq

mahreen said: "i believe that loving someone is not in ur hands...u just fall in love and wen u do u dont think about the pros and cons of it...once everything is done then only the reality hits you and most of the time it isnt in your favor..and then it is very painful and it hurts.." ... ahh ishq. i see it as the coming together of attraction and muhabbat. by attraction i mean the desire to be near to or possess. by muhabbat i mean the willingness to sacrifice for. sacrify time, energy, money, everything. i can have muhabbat for my family and my friends. muhabbat requires selflessness. Though both are translated into english as "love", they are not the same. Ishq requires an attraction. who we are attracted to is not in our hands. I may meet someone and feel it, or meet someone and not feel it. i think it can be physical or emotional. emotional attraction is situational. where i might become attracted to someone after sharing an experience, being in the same situation. or i might not. it would be an attraction that previously did not exist. either way. it's not in my control. i've seen this type of attraction bring together opposites, throwing the compatible character issue out the window.... now, when an attraction is combined with muhabbat.... when i am ready to give up all, sacrifice myself for the person i am attracted to. i think that is when Ishq happens. Passion! It is the most intense form of love two people can experience. And it can be onesided. in fact it often is. Yes, it is soo powerful that if it is disrupted or breaks down, It hurts. pain at its end is probably a way of knowing that you loved that person. pain seems to be common to all types of love. Such is also the case with muhabbat. muhabbat that has no element of attraction also hurts when it comes to an end.... most of the time Ishq seems to end badly. i think because we are human and we can become selfish at anytime. Selfishness and Ishq is a recipe for disaster. But Selflessness and Ishq. Wow!... I think its definitely true, that Ishq is not in our control. because attraction is not in our control. It can go as fast as it appears. But does that mean that a relationship must come to an end? I say no. If a relationship based on muhabbat exists. there can be shifts of sometimes Ishq, sometimes No Ishq. No Ishq in the beginning does not rule it out later. A loss of Ishq in the middle does not mean it won't return later. Anyone I've been attracted to at any point in my life is someone I still care for them in some form or another. Considering that irresponsible Ishq can become such a powerful destablizing force. I guess marriage was constructed to keep society stable. And unlike Catholic Christianity. I like to think that Islam allowed for divorce, due to cases when no attraction happened or too much selfishness kept muhabbat from developing.

attraction and compatibility

we've been lucky here in miami, the hurricanes bypass us. we got winds and rain, some people lost power. basically we got very very wet...

when it comes to love, what i believe must be done is not necessarily what i do. it's what i strive for. its my ideal picture. on a more human level there is still the element of attraction and compatibility. but nothing is clear to me. compatibility can mean having common personalities, having common experiences, having similar family background. i have many things in common with mahreen. but what if compatible people are complimentary to each other. in which case it has nothing to do with similar character traits. maybe we are complimentary to each other, i don't know. the science of compatibility is quite complicated. its more like an art. :-)