Abdel Halim's Qareat Al-Fengan - The Cup Reader

You wouldn't be to blame if you grew up wondering why Abdel Halim gets the craze he does. Most of us did. He's just one of those "old singers our parents listen to and occasionally play a clip for at weddings". At first, there's nothing immediately captivating about his voice. It's deeper than most

But it's something I've experienced within my village. Repetitions of the same thought over and over again. In a larger group setting, people repeat the same joke going around almost to make sure it propagated through and through to everyone.

فبرغم جميع حرائقه، وبرغم جميع سوابقه

وبرغم الحزن الساكن فينا ليل نهار
وبرغم الريح وبرغم الجو الماطر والإعصار
الحب سيبقى يا ولدي أحلى الأقدار

But then you fall in love and suddenly it's all you wanna hear. I'm not talking about a passing love. I'm not talking about your middle school crush or the girl that was nice to you in high school. I'm talking about the girl skiddaddle skaddoddles, hops and jumps, skips being friends and jumps straight to that special place in your heart reserved for family.

I remember my Arabic teacher in elementary school, Mr Ayman - an interesting case of ferocious submission [^1] to the omnipresence of God, and subsequent affinity to reduce any phenomenon to the axiom of God[^2], which is easy to admire as a curious child seeking answers to everything, before you grow up and start to wonder what sequence of formative events in his life contrived to make him accept God as the answer to any and all questions[^3] - told us that it's our, sons of Adam, [^4] nature (فطرة) to love our family and parents and that it's only explicable, as these phenomenons tended to be, through God. [^5] We can disagree on this, but agree on the fact that we hold a special place for unconditional love in our heart reserved for family, although as many in our generation has discovered, it thankfully extends to chosen family as well. In that case, love, my dear reader, is but the pursuit of that person(s) that will fit, jigsaw puzzle style, that place in your heart. It's no wonder people in love often describe their hearts as being "full." And it's also no wonder that when you love someone, you stop wanting anything from them, and start to only care about the unconditional love that you want to give them. "True love is a love of giving, not a love of receiving" -some person on Pinterest.

بحياتك يا ولدي امرأةٌ عيناها سبحان المعبود

فمها مرسوم كالعنقود، ضحكتها أنغام وورود
والشعر الغجري المجنون يسافر في كل الدنيا
قد تغدو امرأة يا ولدي يهواها القلب هي الدنيا

But

[^1]: Words that you might not think can be used together, but in this case are exactly what I was looking for.

[^2]: I like this phrase a lot hehe. Ya boi proud of himself

[^3]: I really don't like this. Not only is it not me (I mean I think it's nature AND nurture so wtf?), but I'm also really mean and not curious to know about him. I'm grouping with a bunch of سلف and letting my prejudice against them affect my view of him, alone, independently, as a person, not as part of a school of thought. Note to self: Need to unpack and reflect here. Opportunity for growth ya 3abdo.

[^4]: I intentionally quoted the word (which is a normal arabic word) because I think it's important context in this case.

[^5]: Mind the inaccuracy of this observation - as some people in fact dislike their parents - as well as the correlation-causation fallacy that ascribes the unfound observation to an improper antecedent [^6]

[^6]: Ok I'm definitely a "smart-ass" wanna be, but this is actually how I think so so be it.