End of Valentine Celebrations!! - Azara Feroz Sayed

Happy Valentines Day to all!!

Make sure you buy gifts for others too on this occassion and don't expect from others only - the part of growing in love - maturing in love - I would say is this realisation - I never bought a valentines gift and miss on the years that I could have sweetened for my sweetheart all the more - want to make sure this reminds you of buying a gift on your way home.

Am I a pessimist? I am looking at the end of the celebrations rather than celebrating the day - What I meant was the end of warm, cuddly ambience - thanks to Media, Retail - in the cold days post christmas - the stuffed toys, 'painting the town in red' - makes us feel warm in thinking about the love we have been blessed in our life.

I came over this song "Heaven/Where True Love Goes" by Yusuf Islam aka Cat Stevens - I hope you will like it too
http://wulfrunasufi.wordpress.com/2008/01/24/yusuf-islam-heaven-where-true-love-goes/ use this link for the video
http://www.metrolyrics.com/heavenwhere-true-love-goes-lyrics-yusuf-islam.html use this link for the lyrics

More on love...agapé is love stripped of expectation, in which the lover is humbled and disciplined before the beloved. The Arabic word for agapé is mahubb and it is fascinating for two reasons: one, because it comes from hub-in its feminine form. Two, because of the prefix ma.

Goodies:
Adding the letter 'mim' to the beginning of a word in Arabic means "one who is/does", "that which is/does", or "in a state of" the word that follows it.

a few interesting examples
Junun is mad and Majnun is "one who is mad" or "in a state of madness"
Baraka is a blessing and Mubarak is "one who is blessed" or "in a state of blessedness"
Islam is submission, and Muslim is "one who submits" or "in a state of submission".
Thus, mahubba is quite literally 'in love', but it is rarely used in an erotic sense

Trivia :
Since we know now that Majnun is ma + junun = one who is in a state of madness so what was Majnun's real name?

while we are talking about Majnun...a related tidbit on the love of Laila, Majnun, the mayor of the city thought that he should actually see with his own eyes the girl whom Majnun's love have made famous. When Laila was brought before him, he was astounded to see that she was just an ordinary girl without any extraordinary features, figure, or complexion. He said to her, You are no prettier than any other girl. She retorted, Keep quiet. You are not Majnun (Qais is his real name)!!


Implicit in mahubba is service; the lover puts the beloved at the center of the discourse, and submits to his/her demands. Author Fethullah Gulen describes mahubba as "obedience, devotion and unconditional submission" to the beloved, quoting Sufi saint Rabi'a al-Adawiya's couplet, "If you were truthful in your love, you would obey Him/for a lover obeys whom he loves."

While it is, again, primarily Sufis who have propagated the ideal of mahubba over the centuries, the word and the concept have roots in mainstream Islamic tradition: verse 3:31 of the Qur'an is sometimes called 'ayat ul'mahubba', and reads "Say: if you do love Allah, follow me, and Allah will love you." A hadith qudsi included in the Muwatta of Imam Malik is even more explicit: "God said, 'My love [mahubbati] necessarily belongs to those who love one another [mutahubinna] for My sake, sit together for My sake, visit one another for My sake, and give generously to one another for My sake'."

Have a blessed Valentine's day!!