He sits hunched over his laptop with a smile plastered over his bearded face. It is 1 am and his wife is sleeping peacefully after a tiring day of being a superwoman homemaker.He enthusiastically replies to her suggestive messages.He is a 40 year old father,a husband and a son yet he feels like a giddy teen as he chats to his ‘friend’ on Facebook after clicking like to one of her latest photoshopped selfies.
She keeps her phone locked from the eyes of her trusting husband. Once the kids are at school her alter ego takes control as she surrenders to her nafs and logs on to her favourite chat-phonexotic. Here she finds her daily fix of freedom and escapes into a world of exchanging erotic messages and images with unknown men and woman.She is a 37 year old mother, wife and daughter.
He rushes home from school barely looking at the divine spread his mother prepared for lunch as he runs upstairs to his room shutting the door behind him. He opens his Facebook, instagram, snapchat and Twitter accounts to see if the Love of his life replied to the compliments he gave her the night before. He is just a 15 year old boy and this ‘lover’he is obsessed over is a bored 30year old married woman.
She used to be an A grade student, studying hifz as well as completing her degree in psychology.She left a note telling her parents that she met a wonderful man online and is ready to make nikkah to him but they will never approve as he is a foreigner.That very same day she was found raped and mercilessly stabbed in a bush near her home.
Her eyes fixated at the glaring screen of her cellphone. She has so many friends she needs to ‘check up’ on. Her profile picture needs updating and her inbox is bursting with the latest gossip and trends from her friends. Her family life can wait, her 3year old daughter who is scrambling behind her for her attention can wait. Nothing is more important than her social media status.
These flames of darkness are engulfing our lives. Destroying sacred marriages and tearing families apart. Robbing our children of their childhood and innocence.Social media is a tool which can be used for your benefit yet when mixed with the whisperings of shaytaan it will destroy you and your family.
There used to be a time when families sat together,chatted and laughed till their tummies hurt.Played outdoor games and bonded over the simple pleasures in life. Today everybody seems to bond better with cyber friends than their own family.
Let us raise our hands and make dua to Allah to help us re focus our attention and energy back to him.To help us understand that our family is more important than the illusive world of social media and to protect us and our family from this type of fitnah. Ameen.
by Naadira Chhipa