On talking

[akilanajmah]

I watched this khutba a few weeks ago and what struck me was the message that when bad things are going on, it isn't really that God is punishing you, but that He is trying to turn you toward Him so that you'll call out for His help. 

But the part that I was supposed to take with me was the part about not being silent about your pain. Brother Navaid says that evil flourishes when we're silent-- silent about our oppression, silent about or abuse, silent about our suffering. And in the moment it didn't hit me so hard but yes, when we suffer silently we're not especially stoic or whatever-- we're perpetuating stereotypes about certain types of behaviors expected of women. Especially WoC and we're not helping ourselves.

Whether it is confession to God (like the hadith that Khalid is fond of speaking of where, I paraphrase, there was a man of his people who was hiding a terrible sin and God said that until he confesses, there will be no rain and the guy never came forward but he prayed to God for forgiveness earnestly and when Ibrahim was like "Wait, we have rain, but no one came forward." And God was like "Oh, hey, I've always known his sin and I've been covering it for 40 years, it was between us. It was his confession, his unburdening himself to me that caused me to return the rain.) or to others, holding onto things silently isn't really the way to go about it. When we speak our pain we allow others to act as insturments of Allah to help,  we lighten our load and we take the favors bestowed upon us to others after our pain has subsided.

That's why evil favors silence. Keep your sexuality to yourself. Don't talk about that rape. Don't talk about that experience. Don't talk about how much you were hurt. Silence allows the oppression to flourish. We can pretend everything is fine and ignore our sole duty of pursuing justice for all those who are unjustly oppressed, for soothing them and ourselves.