Youth and Love
Love means strong liking.
Love means to love something a lot, to have a crush on somebody, not to be able to do without somebody, to think of him/her all the time, to laugh and cry together with him/her, to be happy and sad together with him/her and not to be able to be happy without him/her.
There is so much to say about love; we refer those who want to have more information to our book called "Youth and Love".
However, we will try to summarize the issue here.
First of all, it is necessary to state that there are a lot of beings that one can fall in love with: Allah, the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), saints of Allah, one's mother, father, son, daughter, spouse, etc.
However, we want to deal with the issue in terms of emotional relationship with the opposite gender, which interests young people more than the other aspects.
We are living in an age unprecedented in the history of the world. Events that normally happen in one thousand years happen in one day. The mischief, traps and tests of this century are so many that our young people should be very alert and conscious.
The first trap that is used in order to drive our young people away from Allah and the religion is the mischief of women. When we say mischief here, we mean a means of testing.
They do whatever they can in order to make women attractive. The most important activities in the world of music, sports, entertainment, fashion, media, ads and art focus on women.
Furthermore, instead of the lofty feelings and the valuable inner world of women, only their sexuality is emphasized.
Most of our young people, who are urged and provoked by newspapers, magazines, televisions, cinemas, etc, undergo great troubles and hesitation.
Opposite genders, who are directed toward the sexual aspect of each other through intense campaigns, are put under heavy pressure. In addition, since there exists a mixed social life in terms of gender, the problem doubles, triples, etc.
Young people who encounter the opposite gender at school, work, market, etc face complicated problems.
Our young people are made up of flesh and bones, not stones and iron; so, they cannot remain indifferent to so much pressure and provocation. Besides, they undergo the strongest and most intense period in terms of sexual desires.
However, on the other hand, there are religious beliefs, ethical rules and value judgments of the community customs and traditions.
Girl-boy relationships do not have unlimited freedom anywhere in the world. There are obstacles everywhere whether few or more.
The main problem starts at this point.
On the one hand, there are rules that one believes in that he has to obey willingly or unwillingly and that he cannot exceed. On the other hand, there are strong urges around him and powerful desires inside him.
Yes, the problem is great.
However, there is no need to be hopeless because our religion, which introduces solutions to all of our problems, guides us regarding this issue too. The Quran, which finds solutions to all of our problems, and our Prophet (pbuh) who enlighten us regarding the issue, too.
They show us how to preserve our religious beliefs without any contradiction and happiness; and they show us the ways of satisfying the feelings inside us.
First of all, our religion says this: "You are not you; your feelings do not belong to you. Act in accordance with the criteria imposed by the one that your feelings belong to."
Yes, we do not belong to us. We belong to our Lord, who created us out of nothing. He decorated the vast universe with beauties. He gave us love and created the beings that we would love.
Then, the first place to use this love is Allah, who gave us this feeling. If He had not created us, we would not have known love and the people we loved. The beauty, perfection and pleasantness in the things that we love come from His beauty, perfection and pleasantness. He is the beauty of the beauties that makes everything beautiful.
Then, we need to love Him, His beloved Messenger (pbuh) and the ones that he loves.
If we love Him, we will try to attain His consent. In order to attain His consent, we obey His orders and avoid His prohibitions.
Then, we will obey Allah's orders and prohibitions that He regards good for us regarding love as it is the case with every issue.
We will love what He asks us to love and will not love what He does not want us to love.
Thus, to love Allah and the Prophet (pbuh), to know Islam and to live in accordance with Islam will make us strong against the strong sexual motives. It will teach us that a feeling that we think to cover the whole world of us does not settle everything and that it is as important as its value.
Thus, it will be possible to learn the realities better. Then, the mind will replace emotions; the reality will replace dreams and the heart will replace the soul.
A young lover thinks that everything consists of his/her darling. His/her darling is in the center of everything. Life, love, happiness and peace move around him/her; it looks as if all beings serve him/her. It looks as if the world will stop turning, life will end and Doomsday will strike if one leaves his/her darling.
No, the reality is not like that. There are other and even more valuable things than him/her in life: beauties, happiness and peace! Life will not end when he/she does not exist. The world will go on moving; it will go on raining; birds will go on singing.
A young person who fills his feelings with belief and Islam will see this reality in the first place. He will give everything their due. He knows that his/her darling is not everything and that he/she is not unimportant, either. He/she believes that his/her darling has a certain value within legitimate boundaries.
A person who does not know these realities or knows but does not act in accordance with them falls in love with a person of the opposite gender. He/she is too young to get married. He/she will get married 5 or 10 years later. He/she has not finished his/her school yet. He/she has not known his/her darling very well yet. He/she acts upon a desire.
He/she suddenly finds himself/herself in the middle of a lot of problems. Besides, there are three important pains in such a love that Allah does not allow. As Badiuzzaman Said Nursi puts it, they are "the pains of jealousy, separation, and unreciprocated love".
A young lover never wants to leave his her darling. However, it is not possible. They may even split up completely due to some obstacles. Besides, 95% of those who love like that cannot marry the people they like. There is great pain and agony at the end of it.
Besides, a young man is jealous of his darling. He is not married; so he cannot protect her. His spirit remains in pain wondering where she is and how she is.
The main problem is "unreciprocated love". This situation sometimes occurs at the beginning. One party becomes crazy but the other party is not aware of the situation. The heart might not love. However, the loving party is obsessed with the feeling that he/she cannot do without him/her. His/her spirit is in agony.
Some lovers believe that it is not enough even if their love is answered. They always blame their darlings. They say that their darlings are insincere and that they do not love enough.
Unreciprocated love may occur years later. One of the lovers may stop loving one day. He/she may say that he/she will end this love due to any reason. It sometimes occurs due to the relatives or the pressure of the people around.
These three problems make our young people unhappy and uneasy. They suffer and shed tears every day. They start to do things that they have never done before in order to stop their agony. If their beliefs are weak, they start to take alcohol and drugs. After that, their friends are sad songs and tears. Nobody understands them and nobody listens to them. They become the most sorrowful people in the world.
There are young people who quit school or work; there are even some young people who commit suicide.
A great majority of the lovers that get married is unhappy because as the saying goes "Love is blind." They do not see the deficiencies and mistakes of each other. They believe that their darlings are the best people in the world. However, one's darling also has faults and deficiencies like everyone else. However, one can see them only when he/she gets married. When they are followed by the other problems of the world, arguments and quarrels start. According to the statistics, the highest rate of divorce is seen in marriages that young people base on imagination. The result is unhappiness or separation.
The best thing to do about the issue is to obey the criteria of our religion. The peace and happiness of the world depends on this.
Our religion introduced certain limitations related to relationships based on sexual feelings between opposite genders who are not married. The verses and hadiths regarding the issue were mentioned in the previous chapters.
All phases of relationships that are not based on the intention of marriage are full of sins and sorrow.
However, there is a problem here:
A young brother or sister arranges their life based on Islam. He/she obeys the orders of Allah, avoids His prohibitions and performs prayers regularly. The problem we have mentioned above exists. He/she tries to keep away from traps. However, he/she falls in love due to a momentary heedlessness or his/her good intentions.
Then, what will he do?
The first rule here is this:
No thought can make legitimate what Allah and His Messenger (pbuh) have rendered illegitimate.
Therefore, we need to apply the following conditions:
1- Our intention must be sincere. The aim must be to get married.
2- No prohibition of our religion - including, for instance, a man and a woman staying together in a closed place alone - must be violated.
3- The lover must be a person like what the Prophet (pbuh) advises; that is, a religious person. Thoughts like, "He/she will learn and practice the religion in the course of time" are nothing but the delusions of the soul.
4- Both parties should be at or near the age of marriage. An affair that started long before marriage will end up with lots of sins or separation.
5- The young people should be realistic not dreamy. Sentences like, "I will sacrifice the whole world for you", "When I am with you, all places are Paradise for me", "I will die for you" are unrealistic. When they get married, they will be forgotten. When people need money or things, beauty is not regarded to be so important. Therefore, it is necessary to have a good job and have enough money to maintain the family when you get married.
6- It is necessary to inform someone that you respect and trust about the situation and ask their advice.
7- Lastly, it is necessary to get married soon when you start such a relationship in order to make it a legitimate relationship. What we mean here is not to have the opinion that it is legitimate to have a religious marriage years before the official marriage. There may arise some drawbacks of religious marriages performed a long time before the official marriage. Some young people who perform a religious marriage and act freely split up since there is no binding thing. Such a situation can never be approved. What we mean by marriage is to get married.
To have the idea, "I can do something like that" when one sees the conditions above is wrong. The conditions above aim to save our young people from the problems and situations they are in with the least sins possible and to make the time period after that legitimate.
Our advice to young people is to have an idealistic spirit, to work very hard in order to spread the cause of Islam and to do their best for this eternal cause. It does not fit an enthusiastic young person who takes the Prophet (pbuh) as an example to drown in a drop of water not in an ocean.
However, we are human beings. If we face such a test, it is necessary to struggle and not to surrender; if it is not possible, it is necessary to get rid of the situation with the least harm.
It is necessary not to be sorrowful and not to be weary of life, not to abandon our duties and not even to think of committing suicide.
Since we have our Lord, we have everything. He definitely thinks of us more than us. It is necessary to surrender to Him and accept that whatever He preordained for us has some wisdom behind.
Do not worry. The world does not consist of your darling only. Life goes on despite everything; everything works for our happiness.
There is no need to make life unbearable.
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