At times of uncertainty

There are parts in our paths that are plunged into darkness. We get filled with doubt and uncertainty. A friend of mine once asked, why is it that when people do things the wrong way, they get what they want but those who do it honestly, don’t? The question resonated with me and it took me a while to come up with an answer. I figured out that maybe our tests are different, uniquely-tailored. Maybe her test was to see all those people taking the wrong paths to what they desire, and see if she is going to be strong enough to stick to the right track, while their test is just to know the taste of these short-cuts and see if one day or another, they’re going to change.

Interesting enough, since I last saw her, she spoke to me telling me that the thing she was talking about; it had finally worked out, all praise is due to Allah (SWT).

So lately it has become easy to get me subdued. Blame it on the summer heat that has commenced with a fiery zeal after the spring showers or on all the horrific news headlines that are inundating my twitter time line, so I occasionally try to remind myself with this small poem I wrote once,

“I will not let anything get me down,
Whenever something starts to bother me
I imagine the wide expanse of sea and sky,
adorned by a glorious bleeding sun
I see the wide expanse of sand and sky
That show us how tiny we are in the wide scope of things
And I mutter
اللهم أرزقني حسن التوكل عليك”

 

 

This is a reminder to myself just in case I forgot.

Broken Promises

When I was in high school, I had a friend who told me, “Promise me that we’ll always keep in touch.”
My answer was pretty blunt and frank,” I don’t make promises.”
I think she got pissed off but I told her not to take it personally, it was a general rule I didn’t break back then. I didn’t make promises in fear of one day having to break them. And I’m glad I didn’t promise her because we grew up and grew apart, and oh well, that’s life.

It’s amazing the effect that broken promises have on children. Some grow up to believe that promises are made to be broken,while others grow up with such personal rules; not making promises lest they have to break them. It’s like they may have adults around them telling them, “We will,” and “okay, insha’Allah,” and “I promise you that…”

Then nothing materializes, and the adult hopes that the child forgets, when sometimes the child doesn’t really forget, but they find themselves continuously  in a series of daydreams taking pictures with mickeymouse by their side because of the parent’s promise to take them to DisneyLand. Then when it doesn’t happen, the disappointment is so immense that they turn into teenagers and stop trusting their parents or other adults in their lives.

But then again broken promises don’t end at childhood. They continue well towards young adulthood, especially when guys promise girls they’ll marry them only to bolt out the door at the closest exit sign, thinking that the girls should have seen it coming anyway. Then if asked, “why did you make such a promise?” They would justify it by saying, “I was just telling her what she wanted to hear.”

Then they grow up, and get married, and the husband promises to love, cherish and never cheat, blah blah blah, then one of them gets the shock of their lives when the vows get thrown into the garbage disposer because situations change, they’re always fighting over money issues or children issues, and they end up going their separate ways.

So basically, situations might change and people tend to break promises, because they make the promise at a mindset that is different from the mindset at which the promise is broken. So sometimes the best thing that somebody can do for you is not make you a promise. They’re guarding your heart from future pain and disappointment because they know that situations might change, and breaking the promise would be inevitable, so they’d rather not make it. They’re not really being cynical but realistic (but don’t all cynics say that anyway *hehehe*). Especially when they have a lifetime experience of broken promises and having to carry the broken wings of a fallen bird called Hope, trying to nurse it into health only to discover that it was actually dead.

 

• Hadeeth of the Day

• Narrated by Ibn Aamir: My mother called me once, whilst the Prophet (peace be upon him)
  was at our home and she said, “Come here, I will give you something.”  Thereupon the Prophet (peace be upon
  him) asked,  ”What did you want to give to him?”  She replied, “Dates.”  The Prophet then
  said, “Had you not given him anything, it would have been recorded as a lie.”
  دعتْني أُمي يومًا ورسولُ اللهِ صلى اللهُ عليه وسلم قاعدٌ في بيتِنا
  فقالتْ: ها تعالَ أُعطيكَ فقال لها رسولُ اللهِ صلَّى اللهُ عليهِ وسلَّمَ وما أردتِ أنْ تعطيهِ ؟
  قالتْ : أُعطيهِ تمرًا، فقال لها رسولُ اللهِ صلَّى اللهُ عليهِ وسلَّمَ :
  أما إنك لو لمْ تُعطيهِ شيئًا كُتبتْ عليكِ كَذِبةٌ
  الراوي: عبدالله بن عامر بن ربيعة المحدث:الألباني -
  المصدر: صحيح أبي داود – الصفحة أو الرقم: 4991
  خلاصة حكم المحدث: حسن

The Blessing of Islam

So recently I came across this article “Islam offers student new life in the UAE” that talks about how a student called Luis Garcia reverted to Islam while he was studying in University of Houston, then his parents cut him off and stopped sending him money. As the reporter wrote, “Just as he was beginning to despair, a friend called him and told him to meet an Emirati man at the local mosque. One week later, the Emirati told him everything had been arranged for him to move to the American University of Sharjah, where he would be fully sponsored by a sheikh.”

Reading such stories always make me think about how we take this religion for granted. We take it for granted that growing up, our parents might knock on the door every day, calling, “Salaah, Salaah.” We take it for granted that we live in a place where we don’t have to worry about the food that we eat. We take it for granted that when we go out, we don’t have to worry about where we’re going to pray. Even Mawaqif, the parking company who gave me a parking ticket as Eidiya this year,  and who are known for being brutal when it comes to illegal parking cut you some slack during prayer time.

So I guess today’s reminder is to take the time to truly appreciate being a born Muslim in a Muslim country, and saying alhamdullilah for the blessing of Islam. A lot of self-help books flood bookstores nowadays because people suffer this void in their lives which they cannot fill using the materialistic things they have gained. This void is what we would call “a hungry soul”. By inundating themselves with materialistic things, people tend to starve their spiritual side, and that’s when the sales for Prozac start hitting the roof; the same roof that some people might decide to jump off.

Also, the way the opportunity came to Luis to come to AUS reminded me of how whenever the concept of wasta (was6a) comes up, like when someone says, “I can’t find a job because I don’t have was6a,” my parents would always say that you may not have was6a but you do have the power of duaa and that’s more powerful.

So I would conclude with a message from Luis Garcia (now known as Luis Abd Al-Rahman) to the Muslim youth, ”I find really sad that many Muslims forget their values and principles as they actually want to stay as far as possible from them. Many young Muslims nowadays are anxious to live the life Hollywood has promoted for so many years, forgetting who they are, where they come from, and where they should be heading. Now, it isn’t my intentions to judge anyone. In fact, I’m totally against judging people’s behavior or decisions. The relationship between a Muslim and Allah is totally personal. However, I would like those people to remember that, unfortunately, every time they call themselves Muslims, they don’t only represent themselves, but Muslims in general. Very often, people who have no idea what Islam is, only have two sources to understand it from: what media shows, and what we, Muslims, show. So, would they like to show their religion?”

You can visit his website at http://abdalrahman.net/

Weekly Photo Challenge: Defining Home, a real challenge!

So the concept of home has always been a complicated one. Let’s start from the basic question that I usually get, “Are you Kenyan or Yemeni?”

Starting with my family, our cultural values are more Yemeni than they are Kenyan. Naturally, because we’re Arabs and not Africans – by blood. In addition to that, our skin color, looks, and dress code also reinforces the Arab label, that when strangers speak Swahili around us in the UAE, we end up grinning in delight for the perfect camouflage. But we do feel more Kenyan than Yemeni, because we never lived in Yemen. Whenever we check the news back ‘home’, we go to Daily Nation or East Standard.

Besides that, our passports claim we’re Kenyan. That means that worse goes to worse, if we need to return to our ‘home’ country for any reason, we’ll have to go back to Kenya. But the most important reason why we feel Kenyan is because of the diversity that Kenya enjoys. What makes Kenya special is how the different cultures have become so intertwined that Arabs cook Indian food, and Indians have African cousins. Despite that, tribalism is what runs the show in Kenya especially with the elections coming next month.

So yes, to answer the question, I coined the term “Kemeni” to represent people like us; Yemenis who come from Kenya and not Yemen. So that’s to answer the basic question.

But then when I really think about it, having lived outside of Kenya my whole life, I personally don’t really feel a sense of belonging whenever I go to Kenya. On the contrary, summers for me were just a compilation of one bad memory after another. I spent a lot of my summers as a teen sitting in a chair in what I call the laundryroom crying because of something that someone did to me. The laundryroom was nothing fancy. It was just an unbuilt room where people used to hang the clothes to dry especially when it was raining outside. This was the scene from the laundryroom but I outgrew that place, and it got so dusty that I couldn’t enjoy it anymore.So the good memories I have are those with my immediate family, and I don’t need to go to Kenya to see them. So I’ve always wondered if ‘home’ is defined more by the people (basically, your family) than by the geographic location?

But then I sit and think, that maybe it really doesn’t matter where home is as long as we do the basic thing that connects us to Allah (SWT) and that’s praying the five obligatory prayers. From a dusty airport archive room to a a stairwell landing to a tailor’s shop and a store’s fitting room, as long as we find that place to heed the call of prayers and pray to Allah (SWT), then we feel the tranquility that other people relate to being “at home”.

Scene from “The Laundryroom”

Lesson Learnt from a Bicycle Rider on a Highway

source: istockphoto.com

So the other day, I was watching the cars passing by on the main street under our house – a strange pastime of mine – and I saw a guy riding a bicycle on the highway. Cars kept on appearing from view and disappearing as they rounded the corner, and the guy was cycling at a very leisurely pace. I wondered how he felt moving at a snail’s pace in the dust  comparison with cars passing by at 100 kph at least.

But then again, can you compare the legpower of an average male with the horsepower of an engine? This guy made me see that sometimes in life, we really need to stop comparing ourselves to the people around us. Some may be prettier, smarter, have better jobs, or more friends, and we might be inclined to do preposterous things in an attempt to compete with them. But we need to remember that each one of us has a unique set of talents and qualities that makes us who we are.

Some might claim that comparing ourselves with others can be quite motivating, and it could be true to some extent, but at some point or another, frustration begins to set in, because wherever you are in life, someone will always be in a better position, and for every ounce of motivation we might get, we risk the chance of getting a pound of frustration, helplessness and worse of all, ingratitude and envy.

So sometimes it’s best for someone to make an inventory of their strengths and weaknesses, work hard to compete with himself, and be better than they were yesterday.

Hadeeth of the Day

عن أبي هريرة رضي الله عنه قال: قال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم : ”انظروا إلى من هو أسفل منكم. ولا تنظروا إلى من هو فوقكم؛ فهو أجدر أن لا تَزْدروا نعمة الله عليكم” متفق عليه.

Abu Hurayra reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, “Look at those who are lower than you and do not look at those who are higher than you. That is more likely to prevent you underestimating the blessing of Allah on you.” [Agreed upon]

Hadeeth translation source: http://www.sunnipath.com/library/Hadith/H0004P0055.aspx

Multiply Your Rewards

If someone told you that tomorrow you would be given the opportunity to double your salary, but you have to stay awake tonight to know how, would you even blink tonight? Even if you start feeling sleepy you’d iv the strongest coffee into your blood system, get yourself an energy drink, swallow energy bars, and maybe even keep your eyes open with clothes pegs.

Now where is this enthusiasm when you’re told to seek a night that is better than a thousand months; Laylat-ul-Qadar.

the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “Whoever spends the night of Laylat al-Qadr in prayer out of faith and in hope of reward, his previous sins will be forgiven.” (Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 1901; Muslim, 760).

قال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم: مَنْ قَامَ لَيْلَةَ الْقَدْرِ إِيمَانًا وَاحْتِسَابًا غُفِرَ لَهُ مَا تَقَدَّمَ مِنْ ذَنْبِهِ

So when is Lailat-ul-Qadr?

The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: “Seek it (Lailat-ul-Qadr) in the last ten (nights). If one of you shows slackness in the earlier part of Ramadan, let it not be weak to observe the last seven.”

“التمسوها في العشر الأواخر، فإن ضعف أحدكم أوعجز فلا يغلبن على السبع البواقي”. [Bukhari 2015, Muslim 1165]

So what do you do during the last ten nights?

The nights are long so don’t shorten them with excessive sleep. Fill your time with doing all sorts of good deeds;

1) The five obligatory prayers

2) Qiyyam ul-leil (or livening your nights with prayers).

3) Du’aa, especially saying;   اللهم إنك عفو تحب العفو فاعف عني

Allahumma innaka ‘affuwwun tuhibbul ‘afwa fa’fu ‘anni’ “

Meaning of the duaa is; O Allah You are The One Who pardons greatly, and loves to pardon, so pardon me.

Hadeeth where this duaa is mentioned;

Aisha radhiya Allahu `anha, that she said: “O Messenger of Allah! What if I knew which night Lailatul-Qadr was, then what should I say in it?” He said.- “Say.- (Allahumma innaka ‘affuwwun tuhibbul ‘afwa fa’fu ‘annee.)

فعن عائشة رضي الله عنها أنها قالت للنبي صلى الله عليه وسلم: “أرأيتَ إن وفقت ليلة القدر، ما أقول فيها؟ قال: قولي: اللهم إنك عفو تحب العفو فاعف عني

“

4) Performing I’tikaf; that means to seclude yourself in the masjid and put all your worldly matters aside. Check a proper source for how to do i’tikaf

5) Give out charity, and help in feeding other fasting Muslims to multiply your ajr insha’Allah. Just make sure you purify your intentions and make it for Allah’s sake.

Keep me in your duaas.

And since this blog is mostly read by females; a common question asked by women only – and its answer  – can be found here; http://islamqa.com/en/ref/26753/laylat%20qadr

and for the first point mentioned in the link, question 2564 (seems to be broken when I try to open it), but this is it; http://islamqa.com/en/ref/2564

Take a few minutes to check out this interesting video; How Merciful is Allah (SWT)

Attitude of Gratitude

Blink.
The first ten nights sprinted by.
Blink.
The next ten zoomed by.
And before we know it, the last ten days would have flown by in’shAllah.
Time is traveling so fast nowadays. The mid-ten days of Ramadan saw people relax a bit since the enthusiasm at the beginning of Ramadan began to burn out. But I hope any relaxation is only to recharge for the last ten nights.

I’ll probably post another note on Laylat-Ul-Qadr, but today I want to highlight an important thing; developing an attitude of gratitude in our lives. Think about it, we complain a lot in life. We complain about the weather and the traffic. We complain about the people in our lives. If there ever was a Barometer to measure the number of complaints in the atmosphere, it would probably blow up because of the collective complaining that we do as a society.

So it’s essential to develop an attitude of gratitude and make it our default state; during Ramadan and after Ramadan. It would work as a fortress against the Complaints pollution that we are surrounded by.

A few tips are as follows;

1) Start a gratitude journal – you can call it the “Alhamdullilah” journal. The concept has been around for quite some time, but it’s worth spreading. Your journal can be a physical notebook or virtual (the Evernote application on a smartphone), but the idea is to spend as little as five minutes a day recording the things that you appreciate in your life. Trust me, there are a lot of things that you should be grateful for.

2) Spread the gratitude attitude. Whenever somebody complains around you, don’t go with the normal, “I know. It’s sooo annoying.” Instead, respond with, “But look at the bright side. It’s better than…” Let them call you the “But Look at the Bright Side” person. It’s a label worth having.

3) Keep your tongue in a state of dhikr, continuously stating, “الحمد لله” when something good happens or “الحمد لله على كل حال” otherwise. Also remember (اللهم ما أصبح بي من نعمة أو بأحد من خلقك، فمنك وحدك لا شريك لك ، فلك الحمد والشكر), and, (اللهم إني أعوذ بك من زوال نعمتك ، وتحول عافيتك ، وفجأة نقمتك ، وجميع سخطك)

And the best thing is once you start working consciously on developing such an attitude, it becomes second-nature very quickly because there are just so much that we should be grateful for.

Hadeeth of the Day

عن عائشة رضي الله عنها قالت: (كان النبي صلى الله علية وسلم يقوم من الليل حتى تتفطر قدماه فقلت له : لم تصنع هذا يا رسول الله وقد غفر لك ما تقدم من ذنبك وما تأخر ؟ قال : أفلا أكون عبداً شكوراً؟) متفق عليه

The Prophet (peace be upon him) used to pray so much that his feet used to become edematous or swollen, and when he was asked as to why he prays so much, he would say, “Shall I not be a thankful slave (to Allah)?”

[Bukhari, Book 8, Volume 76, Hadith 478]

All images from various Facebook groups

Put Together Your In’shAllah List

Now that it’s Ramadan and we have very limited time to do everything we aspire to do, the best way to stop being overwhelmed is to write up an in’shAllah list (that’s my version of a to-do list) and should include everything that you would like to do this Ramadan. Examples could be;
1) To complete the Quraan at least once during Ramadan
2) To make it to Taraweeh every night
3) To give some money for charity

Now the thing to remember about your list is that the more specific you are the better. For instance, you can change point (3) to “To give 5% of my income to feed poor orphans.”

You can make up your own list and add as many things as possible. Your in’shAllah list could include special duaa’s that you want to remember whenever you pray at night. The idea is that if you actually take the time out to make up such a list, it’s more likely that you will not forget illa an yashaa2 Allah.

You can also have so many things that you would like to do but of course time could be a limiting factor so it helps if you actually divide your In’shAllah list into different sections and deciding which ones are high-priority, which ones are low-priority, and then focus on the high-priority tasks first.

Overall dream big. It’s better to aim for the moon and land among the stars than reach for the lamp-post and hit your head against it. This is a blessed month and so we should always make duaa that Allah (SWT) will bless our time so we would be able to fill it with good deeds.

Last but not least, remember to keep your intentions pure for Allah’s sake.

عن أمير المؤمنين أبي حفص عمر بن الخطاب رضي الله عنه ، قال : سمعت رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم يقول : ( إنما الأعمال بالنيّات ، وإنما لكل امريء مانوى ، فمن كانت هجرته إلى الله ورسوله ، فهجرته إلى الله ورسوله ، ومن كانت هجرته لدنيا يصيبها ، أو امرأة ينكحها ، فهجرته إلى ما هاجر إليه ) رواه البخاري ومسلم في صحيحهما .

Narrated: Umar bin Al-Khattab
who said: I heard the Messenger of Allah (SAW), say: “Actions are (judged) by motives (niyyah), so each man will have what he intended. Thus, he whose migration (hijrah) was to Allah and His Messenger, his migration is to Allah and His Messenger; but he whose migration was for some worldly thing he might gain, or for a wife he might marry, his migration is to that for which he migrated.” [Al-Bukhari and Muslim]

اللهم بارك لنا في أعمارنا وأوقاتنا أرزاقنا

Image taken from flickr wwarby’s photostream

Charging Your Imaan

Have you ever counted how many chargers you have? Maybe you have a phone charger, a camera charger, an ipad charger…and that’s just at home. How many chargers do you keep in your car? Have you ever gone to a friend’s house and felt an itch to leave the moment your phone ran out of charge and there’s no suitable charger in their house?

Maybe your bundle of wires looks like this…

For the record, these wires contain earphones as well…but you get the picture!

The thing is, we have become so depended on technology nowadays that we constantly need some charger around or we start feeling empty inside. Question is, how many of us tend to feel empty inside despite the availability of technology? Let’s say we switch off every device we have, close the door to our room and interact with no living soul. How many of us hear voices in our heads asking us about where we’re headed in this life? Where we’re headed after this life?

With all of life’s glamorous distractions unfortunately we tend to forget about our mission in this life and that is to worship Allah (SWT) as best as we can. However, every year comes a month when we get a chance to elevate our spiritual being and that is the month of Ramadan. Muslims worldwide engage in various forms of worship from fasting to giving charity to taraweeh prayers as it is a blessed month.

It was narrated in the Hadeeth by Abu Huraira that Allah’s Messenger ( صلى الله عليه وسلم) said, “When the month of Ramadan starts, the gates of the heaven are opened and the gates of Hell are closed and the devils are chained.“ [Volume 31 from Sahih Al Bukhari]

So it is only wise for us to make the best use of this blessed month, and not waste time in idle talk, tv and internet-surfing. Maybe it would help if we stay away from our phone chargers for a while and concentrate instead on our soul chargers.

Taken from southernmuslimah.wordpress.com 

Keeping Your Cool

It’s that time of the semester when people are losing their heads because there’s so much to do and so little time to do it in. So here’s how to keep your cool during this time. Remember that life in this Dunya is not an ends in itself but a means to an end. So while other people can’t get enough of the Dunya, be one of those people who set their priorities straight and have religious obligations and family obligations above getting more money, status and power.

One day from now, what you’re worrying about will not matter much. Do you remember how much you got in your first calculus midterm? Not really, because that was too long ago. Besides, our rizq is set by Allah subhaanahu wa ta3ala, and though you have to take belasbaab, there’s a limit to how much you can do because in the end, you are only human.

Ask yourself, what’s the worse that could happen? If the answer is pretty bad, then tell yourself that you’ll cross that bridge when you reach it – if you reach it – because maybe nothing bad will happen. Maybe it’s just your overactive imagination setting negative scenarios for you. Maybe you’re just worrying over nothing. There’s a quote that says, “Worry is like a rocking chair – it gives you something to do but it doesn’t get you anywhere.”

In the case that you’re so overly pessimistic about the “worse that could happen,” then prepare yourself for it. If you think that you might lose your job soon, then start saving. And remind yourself that maybe there’s a better opportunity out there for you, and that your current lifestyle is stopping you from pursuing it. If the “worse thing that could happen” happens, then don’t spend so much time staring at a door that is closed, but instead search for opening doors. There’s a quote by Helen Keller that says, “When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”

Finally, keep “La3alahu kheir” your motto all the time. Your thesis is running but going nowhere? La3alahu kheir. Your exam went bad? La3alahu kheir. Your project file got corrupted three days before the deadline? La3alahu kheir.

That’s it for today.