SECRETS OF DIVINE LOVE BY A. HELWA

SECRETS OF DIVINE LOVE

By looking at the picture of this book, I believe many of you know about it and it needs no introduction. This book so far has been criticized because the way the author words the message are controversial to an extend it may misdirect the readers. I have read many reviews suggesting to not read this one especially for readers who are lack of religious knowledge because the wording can be seen as if the author is just having fun with words. But I still wanted to suggest anybody out there who are curious to give this one a try, and if you find anything that spark your curiosity, do ask from those who are qualified to give you the answers, because so far, even after I finished reading it, all I can feel about the book are the author are trying to bring us to realize that our divine love is Allah and it is Him only. So far, I don’t feel like it is making me fall in love with the author, or about what the author mentioned, but throughout my reading, it only portrays Allah’s love.

The author attention is to bring everyone who believe Allah is their god to understand that being His servant is not just about committing to do all the basic things, but it is more than that. My favourite chapter from the book would be “Who Are You?” where the author talks in length about who are we as a human being and who are we as a Muslim. God does not create us just to let us have this life for no purpose. He created us with purposes and those purposes are: to be his servant and to be the caliph to the Earth, which of course requires us to learn and understand and to have a lot of knowledge about it in order for us to make action upon it. Some people may think it just the responsibility of the ustaz/ustazah to spread da’wah or talk about Islam, but that is the responsibility of every single person who call themselves a Muslim. But you know, because we often blinded by worldly matter, we forgot to search what our purpose as a Muslim. And this purpose has been written in the Quran in chapter 2, ayah 30 and chapter 51, ayah 56. Only those who think and take lessons will understand.

For me this is a very important matter for everyone especially Muslim to be very clear about their purpose and to act upon it. Because at the end of our life, Allah will ask us what we have done in this world, and whether we have fulfilled our purpose or otherwise. Hence, if we are still alive, I would like everyone, including myself to always make sure we perform our purpose as a Muslim. May Allah grant us jannatul Firdausi. Amin.

Other than that, I also love a topic from the book where the author explained that we as a Muslim always believe that Allah is our god and only Him, whom we should surrender our life to. But we never realized that we are surrendering our life to worldly matter, such as for money, fame, or position to an extend we are so obsessed with it, and we devote our whole life to it despite realizing that one day, those worldly matters will be gone forever. The one that we should devote, surrender, and obsessed with is Allah and Allah only because this obsession never dies. Allah will always be there even when the whole world is gone. We may not see that we have been working so hard to gain a lot of money because we want to achieve certain goals in our life. We may think that this is fine because we are not going against the teaching of Islam, but those goals are His, and He arranged those for us too. So logically, by speaking and analyzing this action with Iman, we can see that the action that we portrayed are useless. At the end of the day, we get tired for something that doesn't last. May God forbid. So, we should analyze our action and our desire, whether it is something useless or something that can bring us to Jannah.

There are many more things about the book that, for me are very beneficial for readers to reflect on. However, I would like to emphasize that this is more of self-help/motivational book. It is not a reference book. Therefore, if there are things that spark your curiosity especially about how Islam works, even for some Muslim out there who are striving to understand our religion more, get advice from qualified person, because reading alone doesn’t going to help you understand the real Islam.

Also, I respect everyone who disagree to encourage people to read it, because I totally understand your concern but to those who are still interested to read it, I’m not going to stop you as it is one of the most beautifully written books I ever read.

May God guide us. Amin.

8.7/10