Advice to a renegade Baha'i Incel on how to get over themselves
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On a reddit subreddit recently, someone (a 30-something Iranian-American male) I often interact with, who seems to exhibit all the traits and tendencies of an Incel, publicly admitted that due to their singlehood they regularly visit prostitutes for sex. This individual is a Baha'i but a renegade from the main Haifan organization. After the initial shock of the public admission wore off, I gave them this tailor-made prayer to recite:
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O God, guide Thy servant by Thy Vast Guidance unto Thy Straight Path and cleanse him from the filth of visiting prostitutes! Show him Thy Mercy and send to him a good woman who will love him and marry him! Indeed Thou art the Powerful, the Mighty, for verily Thou art the Tremendous, the Beloved!
اللَّهُمَّ أَرْشِدْ عَبْدَكَ بِهِدَايَتِكَ الْوَاسِعَةِ إِلَى صِرَاطِكَ الْمُسْتَقِيمِ وَأَطْهُرْهُ مِنْ رِذْيلَةِ زِيَارَةِ الْبَغَايَا، أُظْهِرْ لَهُ رَحْمَتَكَ وَأَرْسِلْ لَهُ امْرَأَةً طَيِّبَةً لِتَحْبَهِ وَيَتَزَوَّجَهِ، إِنَّكَ أَنْتَ الْقَدِيرُ الْعَظِيمُ وَإِنَّكَ أَنْتَ الْعَزِيزُالْمُحِبُّوبُ
18th of the month of the Gate in the 18th Luminous Year.
10th of the month of Perfection in the 176th Bayānic Year.
10th of Muḥarram 1445 AH
28 July 2023 CE.
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This was their response to the prayer:
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I will try saying this prayer.
I also made the following prayer for myself:
O God, give me strength to reform your religion and make it good, so that through your reformed religion I can acquire an attractive young wife.
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And my response to their response:
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You are going about this bassakwards and in so doing setting yourself up for further disappointment. First, as the saying goes, a good fisherman throws their net out wide. If you narrow yourself to just Baha'is - unitarian, haifan, reformed or otherwise - you are literally chasing after your own tail. I know where your attitude comes from, and it is something you need to shed completely if you are ever to have a hope in heck in attaining even a nominal form of happiness in that regard.
Your project is also not something that will reach a final goal - if at all - any time soon. It could even prove a fool's pipe-dream. Meanwhile father time is chasing after you and gets closer with each passing day.
The correct attitude is this:
And whosoever knows the preeminent worth of women and their mystery will not abstain from loving them. Rather in loving them is the perfection of the gnostic/knower! ~ Ibn ʿArabī (d. 1240), The Book of the Spiritual Conquests of Mecca (al-futūḥāt al-makkīyyah).
فمن عرف قدر النساء و سرهن لم يزهد في حبهن بل من كمال العارف حبهن
This means that a single man's quest for his female
compliment, counterpart and possible wife is part and parcel of his greater
spiritual journey to God - and without any label. Refer to the story of Shaykh Sanʿān in ʿAttār's Conference of the Birds for what this actually
means. Maybe the woman meant for you is not even a Baha'i. Maybe she is just
waiting for you to get your shit together. As long as you are trapped in your
own mind in the expectation that she must be a Baha'i, you are not only
limiting yourself and stopping an authentic and organic reality from flowering
into actuality, but are also the main impediment to God's own determination (taqdīr)
in your case because your expectations have become your veil from realizing the
very thing you seek. Because of it, you are frustrated, and this frustration
hurtles you into desperation to find momentary and fleeting physical pleasure
with hookers that is also draining your wallet as well as damaging you. In
other words, you are trapped inside the devil's own game. Until you realize
this and break this vicious circle/cycle in your own head, things will not move an
inch for you. God also helps those who help themselves.
In other words, if you were to make your religion in finding your wife without any labels attached thereunto rather than a reformed Bahaism, you would get there! But it would require serious internal work on your part and you would need to cross the abyss of the valley of the shadow of death in your own head in order to get There.
والنُّور على مَن اتّبع إشراقات الهُدى
