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Out of curiosity, I later Googled the Islamic stance on premarital relationships.
The topic had always irked me. I always thought, "How is it possible to not have a relationship before marriage?"
And it had always angered me when people said"When you get married. . ."as if there was no option before that.
But something propelled me to type those words on my keyboard and click various Islamic links to long, educated articles.
I skimmed through most of them—partly because I already knew most of what they were saying and partly because the language was too fluffy and dramatic. I wanted a simple answer.
And I eventually found it.
After I read a certain article, I leaned back in contemplation. Because I had received the simplest answer of all. This article briefly explained the logistical reasons about how the structure of family was the makeup of society. But then it moved on to an incredibly personal relationship.
The relationship of the human and God.
This was another topic I had frequently shied away from because hearing about the depth of this relationship always made me feel guilty. Guilty that I wasn't able to form a relationship like that with God—that I was too haram and not pious enough.
But then I read something in the article that hit straight home. It said, "But why shouldn't a man or a woman have a relationship before marriage? Simple. To protect their hearts."
To protect their hearts.
The words echoed and bounced around in my skull, making a home in all its corners and crevices.
I had never thought about it like that. It was always "because relationships before marriage are haram."I had never heard something so gentle. Never something so personal.
To protect their hearts.
And of course it hit straight home. There was nothing about it that I didn't understand, to my own surprise.
My premarital relationship with Zunair had started off feeling sweet and happy—as the article detailed it would. But what had I always harbored in my heart?
Uncertainty.
This was the crux of the issue.
Premarital relationships held the highest level of uncertainty. Like standing at the very edge of the cliff, close enough to take a dive. Like standing at the corner of a steep, tall building knowing that even breathing may cause you to fall.
It was like this—that cliff and that building provided me with a false sense of security. Because I hadn't been looking at the ground I had the very real possibility of collapsing on.
I had my back turned to the edges.
In this way, my view was confined only to the vast patch of ground before the steep dive of the cliff and the expanse of the entire rooftop before thecorner of the tall building. My back was turned to the edges. My back was turned to the uncertainty and the steep dive I would fall helplessly into if I stepped even an inch back.
And what did God want? What did Allah want?
He wanted to protect me from this uncertainty.
He wanted me to turn around and see what I had been blind to before. The steep dive. And he wanted me to cower away from it. To protect myself.
But I had been a fool. Even while being so invested in Zunair, I kept trying to play off the undeniable uncertainty that met me every time he was around. Every time he whispered sweet nothings in my ear. Every time he kissed my hand. Every time he smiled at me in that way of his.
It loomed over my head like a constant gray cloud, but I had played it off as a mere shadow passing over the sun. I had reveled in the temporary comfort and exhilaration, paying the price early for the eventual uncertainty and gaping loss I would feel later.
God had only wanted to protect my heart.
And I had viciously laughed off His teachings, calling them backward and oppressive and senseless.
He had been trying to tell me this for a long time. He had urgently tried to make me understand by showing me that recurring dream, which I only understood when it became too late.
In that dream, I had been too scared to jump off the cliff. But someone had nudged me from behind, and suddenly I was falling with a kind of wild exhilaration and fear. God had been trying to tell me that I had to take the chances I was too afraid of taking—I had to trust Him and trust the fall and trust the uncertainty—in order to eventually grow my wings. In order for my heart to eventually beat for its vessel and its Creator.
And the other thing—the thing I had not noticed until that day I read the article on my laptop—was that I was falling into a cliff of uncertainty. It was the same cliff, the same darkness, but a different uncertainty.
Because on the one hand He wanted me to learn to trust Him despite my uncertainties in myself and in Him.
But on the other hand—He wanted me to see the danger behind consuming myself in the uncertainty of Zunair. Zunair, the large, gaping black hole at the bottom. The hole God pulled me out of before I spiraled helplessly into by allowing me to grow wings and fly heavenward.
