Futuwa

Futuwa is the Muslim concept of putting others before yourself.
It can also be translated into chivalry.

When heard in colloquial circles, chivalry is understood as a noble and gallantry quality that knights used to possess when dealing with maidens and princesses.

But true Futuwa is not attached to self absorbency, nor is it a complete detachment from the self. The self is very much alive and kicking until our last breath. It is just that those who practise Futuwa, hear the self loudly, know it’s hiding spots, know how to draw out the utterness of it’s most base requests and quell it, so as to be of utter service to others instead.

So still, there is an underlying service of the self, indirectly.

By relinquishing the oft call to serve oneself, to put ones needs before others and engage in this myriad of current trending and disastrously ineffective and selfish mantras of putting ‘me’ first, be it in the way of self love, self care, self help, and instead taking the path of servitude to others through choice, through total and conviction filled devotion, one reaps the benefits without them knowing. They illicit indirect self care and very direct appreciation from others, be it manifest and pronounced or temporarily in passing from the receiver of help, albeit, the goal still is not to win appraisal, not to seek the rewards of recognition, but just to do, whatever it is one has to do for the sake of goodness and morality, for empathetic purpose and fulfilment of trust that we are endowed with by God.

The land, people, things, riches all do not belong to us, how can they when WE don’t even belong to us.

I see circles of talk steering people to this empathetic path, but it is not a new concept, just because someone has coined it with a new term or marketable name.

It is, and always will be Futuwa and it is married to Muslim doctrine, most especially Sufi doctrine where it is taught in simple yet very engrossing detail. The sheer and brutal honesty of the way it is taught by their masters does one of two things. It almost always smashes the idols of self worship inside ones self, but it either makes the receiver of the knowledge bow and submit their ego, placing it on to the altar of truth for sacrifice, or it blows their ego up to gigantic proportions in rejection of it. Still, they know the truth inside, it’s just their choice on what to do with it and it’s at that moment right there, where you know if you are self absorbed and selfish or truly selfless.

W.E.