Musings of a Servant of Allah
Verily in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest. (13:28)Archive for Pensive
On accountability
Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds, for blessing me with another day of life on this Earth. May He bless me with the privilege of being one of His beloved slaves. Imagine that – Allah turning to the angels in the heavens, and telling them that He loves me. There is no greater honour. O Allah, let me be worthy of your love.
I spoke to my mother once, during one of my darker moods, and asked her this: “What’s the point anyway? Of all this? We’re all going to die anyhow.”
She smiled at me and said in her quiet, unassuming way, “Well…this is a very susah (difficult) state to get to, but the point is to want to reach Allah. And that is very beautiful.”
Yet again, she has the answer.
*
‘Rabb’ is by far one of the most poorly translated words in the Arabic language. It’s loosely translated as ‘Lord’, so ‘Rabb-el-alamin’ would mean ‘Lord of the World’….but the word has far more depth to that.
Rabb means Creator, Sustainer, one who raises us in degrees…one who is concerned for our well-being. He loves us more than we love ourselves.
Shaykh Nuh says that the one who sees reality for what it truly is, will measure his or her actions against the yardstick of eternity. Will this bring me closer to or further away from Allah?
Hence the title of this post. It’s all about accountability.
I want to live my life according to two cardinal rules:
1) Giving Allah His due
2) Giving everyone else (including myself) their due.
Easier said than done, no? Giving Allah His due means performing all my obligatory and recommended acts of worship with the intention of seeking His Countenance. Giving everyone else their due means acknowledging the rights of others upon me – including my own body parts. Muslims believe that on the Day of Judgement, our own body parts will speak against us, if we had sinned with them in this life.
It makes sense. Everything is on loan. Our bodies, souls, families, talents, wealth…..it’s all a test to see who will do good.
That which is on earth we have made but as a glittering show for the earth, in order that We may test them – as to which of them are best in conduct. [Chapter 18, verse 7]
Life, to me anyway, wouldn’t make sense any other way. Without an Afterlife and A Fair Judge…. too many souls are abandoned to the vagaries of fate. And life is cruel. There is far too much injustice and bloodshed on this Earth for this life to simply be it.
God will not wrong us in the least.
*
Shaykh Naeem has this fascinating concepts of many things in this world being reflections of the paradisial reality. How does one define reality, to begin with? Let’s check good ol’ Wikipedia:
Reality, in everyday usage, means “the state of things as they actually exist.” The term reality, in its widest sense, includes everything that is, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible. Reality in this sense may include both being and nothingness, whereas existence is often restricted to being (compare with nature).
So Muslims believe that this life is a temporary reality, whereas the afterlife is the eternal reality. The real reality, if you may. With that in mind, Allah, in His mercy, has ‘dropped hints’, so to speak. Clues that point to our Eternal Home.
Look at the ritual of Hajj, for example. Totally strange, at surface glance. Leaving the world behind, wearing simple garments, men shave their heads, and everyone circumambulates around this big black box (Kaa’ba) in the middle of the desert.
What I didn’t realise til very recently was the fact that 70,000 angles circumambulate around an equivalent black box (Baytul Makmur), in the heavens, every day, until the Day of Judgement.
Spine-tingling, isn’t it? We were all made for eternity. This world is just a pit stop. A tantalising, alluring pit stop for some…..and absolute hell hole for others. Personally, the former is far more useful as far as saving our souls is concerned! The more attached you are to this world, the easier it is to find God irrelevant. The more hardship you face, the easier it is to fall to your knees and beseech His help.
May Allah keep us steadfast and on the straight path.
The madness of fiction
Second day of freedom!
Feels strange, to say the least. I mean sure, technically I have Wednesday-Sunday off before the final 5 weeks at of full-time uni over at Westmead Hospital….and that could seem rather short, but it feels like practical infinity. I am grateful for every non-study moment which I have.
Stephanie Meyer’s books are great 
Been plowing through them over the past few days. Escapism via fiction is a fascinating kind of drug. Sci-fi/fantasy has that effect on me.
My current thoughts are this – how do you balance being in this world, while not being completely consumed in this world? Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was with God, constantly, in that sense, while it can be a struggle for me to keep focused in prayer.
Ramadan is almost over. May Allah grant me and my loved ones the blessing of meeting the next. Death is something so remote from our minds, but do any of us, really have that guarantee of getting through tomorrow in one piece? Hm. Nobody does. But we live under false illusions that every day is just another day, when we’re really a step closer to Reality. We’re all on countdown. I forget that, too easily.
I’ve been feeling disconnected. Disjointed. Definitely time to amp up the acts of worship going again, especially in these last days of Ramadan.
May Allah keep us grounded and God-centered, while being on this Earth
Imam Ash-Shafiee would say, “Time is like a Sword. Cut it (wisely), before it cuts you!”
Do androids dream of electric sheep?
….who knows?
That book, written by the legendary Philip K. Dick, was loosely turned into one my favourite movies – Blade Runner.
Fantabulous movie. Will have to watch it again after Tuesday (eek! so close!). It raises some fascinating questions…the desire for these androids to want to become human – to desire humanity. Look at how we ravage each other and our planet. Why would anybody want to be human?
Or perhaps it is the fact that these androids have a preprogrammed lifespan of only 4 years, and cannot reproduce – these factors make them yearn for ‘immortality’, which in their eyes is humanity. Whereas immortality for us is literal never dying. But we will all die. That holds true, eternally.
Hm…
“It’s too bad she won’t live. But then again, who does?” – last line of the movie.
*
Speaking of the inevitability of death….how do you cope with that?
It’s surreal, almost. From what I’ve studied, I’ve learned that it doesn’t take very much for us to die. The human body is awash with intricacy…and all it takes is for one signficant malfunction for us to go ka-poop.
And then it’s over, red rover.
We’ve all been to funerals. Whether it funeral prayers, burials….just as birth is something we celebrate, death is something we mourn. No running away from our mortality. It’s the one guarantee in life. (That, and taxes)
Atheists believe that those of faith turn to religion to help us cope. Maybe. Some atheists believe that after death, there is nothingness. Those of the monotheistic tradition say au contraire! There is the Day of Reckoning, where all our deeds shall be paid in full. *insert religion ____ claiming that only their followers shall enter paradise, all else is doomed to hell* (personally, I believe that God is the one who judges, so no point debating matters of the Unseen)
“Have the courage to live. Anyone can die.”
Robert Cody
On knowing God
For too long, my practice of my faith was mechanical.
I had the outward trappings of the religious, conservative girl. From head to toe, I was every inch Ms Goody Two Shoes. But I didn’t know God. I didn’t love Him. Sure, I knew of Him and I knew I should love Him….yet the words on my tongue and the logic in my mind were not sinking into the recesses of my heart.
Two years ago, I underwent tremendous personal hardship. The kind of mental, emotional and spiritual agony which you would never wish upon your worst enemy. The end effect of these turbulent months was the most terrifying period of my life – the complete disentegration of self.
Everything I had held dear had been ripped away from me. I was broken, bleeding – a raw stump, open to assault. Every day felt like punishment. I was angry at God. I self-destructed, and would have continued, if it wasn’t for an old friend. She pulled me from the brink of destruction, dusted me off, made me face the reality that behaving like that was not helping my situation.
And so my healing began.
Forgiving myself proved to be the hardest part. I reconciled with my Creator by realising that He cared about me more than I ever did. I put things into perspective, accepting that certain decisions I made caused a lot of the heartache and headache. I forgave what was self-inflicted, and let go of what wasn’t.
End result? A much deeper, more spiritual connection with God. I see Him now, when I failed to, before. Every breath I take is Him sustaining me – I live by His will, and through His mercy.
And for this realisation alone, I am grateful for the suffering I endured.
“Peace unto you for that you persevered in patience! Now how excellent is the final home!”
[Chapter 13, verse 24]
Ramadan Kareem!
Helen Keller: Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.
It’s been a crazy past two years but alhamdulilah, I’ve learned so much. About myself, my deen, my Creator…and, most importantly, my purpose in life. A wise man told my brother: “The believer looks back on his/her life and knows that whatever happened, was for the best.” My initial reaction was bewilderment, because I thought…what if this believer had a really awful past, one fraught with major and minor sins? How could that possibly be a good thing?
“….But it is possible that you dislike a thing which is good for you, and that you love a thing which is bad for you. But God knows, and you know not.” [Chapter 2, verse 216]
Alhamdulilah, I realised that even falling into sin can be a blessing. It’s a wake-up call. A clear sign that something is wrong. A chance to fall prostrate before Allah Almighty, beg for His forgiveness, then recalibrate one’s inner compass.
We’re all creatures of direction. Left to our own devices, the human race self-destructs. Why? Nafs, shaytan, and this deceitful dunya. We think we’ll live forever….fool ourselves into believing that we’ll ‘get away with it’….sometimes fall into heedlessness and cause our bodies and souls enormous harm….yet shaytan makes doing the wrong thing oh-so-alluring, and makes doing the right thing seem insurmountably difficult. May Allah protect us from falling into the trap of the accursed one.
Our beloved Prophet (pbuh) was sent down as a mercy to mankind. He came down with a Divine instruction manual, and was a living, breathing example of the perfection of humanity. Everything he said and did was divinely inspired – he did not speak out of his own accord, to satisfy his own desires.
Just as the Battle of Badr (on the 17th day of Ramadan) was an astounding success because the Muslims followed the Prophet’s instructions, the Battle of Uhud was a horrific tragedy because a small group disobeyed his commands. Take that as an analogy for life. Follow the Beloved of Allah, and you shall reap the benefits in this life and the next, inshaAllah. Cast aside our Beloved Prophet’s warnings, and you shall inevitably meet the bitter fruits of your heedlessness. It’s only a matter of time.
The beautiful thing is this – Allah doesn’t need us. Whether or not we obey Him or disobey Him makes no difference to Him. He is Everlasting, and has always existed, and will continue to exist, even as we decay in our graves. SubhanAllah. There is none comparable unto Him. Such is His Majesty. Such is our fear of His punishment, and love of His reward.
May Allah keep us all on the straight path, let us live to see another Ramadan, and reunite us in gardens of bliss, where rivers flow.
Thoughts
You only get one shot at this life.
Just like salaat is a bridge from the finite to the Infinite…..our good acts are ways to reach Allah, insha’Allah.
Purify your intentions (i.e. do x y z for Allah’s sake alone) and write up a check-list for your Hereafter. So many of us have to-do lists for the dunya, when this world is temporary. Let’s change our focus and look ahead, to the real primary reality of the Afterlife.
Sample list of things to do:
- pray on time
- read Quran every day
- fast 3 days every month
- sponsor an orphan
- go to umrah
- go to Hajj
- be kinder to humanity in general!
- get rid of one blameworthy trait, replace it with a praiseworthy one
Sometimes we may think..oh *groan* lofty ideals, I’ll never be able to reach that on my own….well, that’s precisely the point. We can’t do this alone. This is why we look at our own human frailties, and glorify the Perfection of Allah. Ask Him for help, ask Him for strength, ask Him for constancy in your acts of good. There’s a point to doing these things – to reach the Divine, inshaAllah.
A scholar said: …”…the words ‘amal soleh’ have been translated into ‘good deeds’, when they really should be translated into ‘restorative deeds’.”
Think about it. We don’t know which one of our acts of worship are accepted by Allah. We won’t know until the Day of Judgement – and by that stage, it’s too late.
So, diversify! Branch out and do acts of worship which you’ve been putting off. Gaining Allah’s pleasure is the only thing really worth living for. Everything else is temporary.
And their Lord has accepted of them, and answered them: “Never will I suffer to be lost the work of any of you, be he male or female: You are members, one of another: Those who have left their homes, or been driven out therefrom, or suffered harm in My Cause, or fought or been slain, verily, I will blot out from them their iniquities, and admit them into Gardens with rivers flowing beneath, a reward from the presence of God, and from His presence is the best of rewards.” (Surah Al Imran 3:195)
The fallibility of being human
The fallibility of being human.
That’s all that needs to be said, but as usual, I feel compelled to explore the issue.
All it takes is a infarct in the right artery, and we’re toast, yet we all walk around like we own the place. Hilarious, ridiculous, and humbling, all at once.
Think about it. A knowledgeable man once said, “We live, so to speak, continually on the brink of annihilation, and yet are enabled to carry on our complex existences in comparative immunity.” We all wake up, albeit blearily, and mentally run-off an entire list of to-do’s for the day. To-do’s that inevitably flow on to tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that. Our continued existence seems assured – whether or not we’ll live long enough to complete x y z is never at the forefront of our minds. It’s only whether or not we’ll manage to accomplish those tasks – this consumes our fleeting existence. All it takes is a misstep, misjudgement, or somebody else’s misdemeanor, and we could be wheeled into the Emergency Ward of the nearest hospital. On a more macro level, imagine the havoc should a meteor strike! Or what would happen when plant Earth is inevitably sucked dry of her resources at the rate we’re going.
As far as people are concerned…the make-up, the hair straightening/curling/rebonding…who are we trying to kid? Ourselves? What are we trying to hide? The innate humanness that we can’t run away from? At the end of the day, no matter how glamorous you look, you have to go to the toilet at least twice a day to urinate, and to defecate. How sanitized…the
words we use to convey the icky reality of being finite. Of being human. Of having a body that is aging, as we speak. Every breath that we take signals a moment that will never return. We’re all on countdown.
Don’t even get me started on the superficiality of human relations. The endless ego games. The constant one-upping. The implicit
I-scratch-your-back-you-scratch-mine. The hanging out with the ‘it’ crowd. The subtle (or not so subtle) put-downs when one is not part of the air-brushed ‘elite’.
It never ends, til we end.
What does a soulless society have to offer the soul? Absolutely nothing. Left, right and center, we’re bombarded by message of buy buy buy, try try try, and never of we’ll all die die die – anyone who reeks of our inescapable mortality is shipped off to a nursing home, hidden away behind curtains. Living next to graveyards makes real estate prices drop. Nobody likes to be reminded that one day, that’ll be you. We deal with death so poorly, it’s a relief the dead can’t speak.
The mass media has become the most powerful weapon of mass distraction. Forget David Copperfield, the illusion is right here, before us. Turn on the idiot box, and buy into the 21st century’s biggest myth – that consumerism will make you happy. House isn’t big enough? Get another one. Car isn’t fast enough? Get another one. Wife isn’t pretty enough? Get another one. Husband
isn’t rich enough? Get another one.
There has to be more than this. This finite world. This temporary existence where too many people are wronged. We were all dealt different cards, and our lives unfold accordingly as a result of our choices, stemming from the circumstances we find ourselves in.
Spare me the small talk. Especially when it comes to relationships. Once, I would be the sad little girl who would pine endlessly when someone I knew got engaged/married. Now, I thank God for my freedom, and for the safety and comfort of my family. For the starry-eyed girls who are engaged, I wish them the best, and hope that they have enough patience to tide them over the
inevitable hardships. Two egos under one roof? How it ever works is beyond me. I pity the girl whose sole purpose in life is to find a man and have children. It’s a noble goal, but bump into the wrong man when you’re not strong enough to say no, and you’re setting yourself up for a lifetime of slavery in every sense of the word. Body, mind and soul. The children you bring into the world grow up witnessing the agony of two people who should never have married. People let you down. God, by virtue of His Perfection, will never let you down. His is the handhold that will never break.
For the girls who mould their self-worth according to the current guy they’re with….I offer them my deepest condolences. Honey, men come and go, but you stay. There’s no running away from you. Wherever you run to, you follow. Be used and abused, that’s your decision, but know that there is a better path. A harder one, only because it’s one you’re not familiar with.The path of self-hate, worthlessness and temporary gratification may be well-trodden, but it’s still bad for you. Find it in yourself to aspire for
higher things. You don’t need a man to sweep you off your feet. Pick the wrong one, and after the whirlwind courtship, be prepared for him to pulverize you into bloody pieces, all over the kitchen floor. Stand on your own two feet, meet the world on your own terms. You’re strong enough. You just don’t know it yet. Choose the shorter path to God.
The quintessential problem of the empath – not having clear enough boundaries. Last year was rocky. Plagued by my own paralyzing self-doubt, I lost myself, and moulded myself around all the wrong people. What others thought of me dictated what I thought of myself. I could not be alone, because being alone involved confronting the one thing I feared the most – my own self, and the consequences of my actions on my voiceless soul.
The opinions of others used to bother me, but not anymore. Liberating is the most appropriate word.
Cynical? Perhaps. Grounded? More so. Wiser? Definitely.
On a more positive note, through the generosity of God, the world is my oyster. I take this moment into my own hands, and mould it into the next building block of a promising future. I look forward to gaining my financial independence, to dreaming big about places to go and scholars to meet. I have no time for silly girls who pine for their Prince Charming. There is no Prince Charming. There is only Life, and we seize it by the day, roll with the punches, and do the best with what we have. Good moments spent productively unfold into good days, weeks, months, years…and I want to look back to a lifetime spent in wholesome, good, and spiritual pursuits. Mistakes are the best lessons, and part of the ebb and flow of the river of life.
One day, this stream of mine will come to an end, and I hope that the lives I have touched have sparked off their own sparkling tributaries. To those who have touched mine: I seek forgiveness from you in case I have wronged you, wish you the best in this life and the next, and hope to meet you in the presence of the Divine, where humanity will finally live in unending
bliss.
Be in this world as though…
It’s so easy to forget, that one day, all this will come to an end.
Everything before me, like my cluttered desk, my pile of books, the steady hum of my reliable PC…the presence of my family, my cats. The warmth of home.
The Beloved Prophet (pbuh) advised us to “Be in this world as though you are a traveller…” Such wisdom! Our souls were made for eternity. This world is but a testing ground, and our actions here will determine where we’ll spend the rest of eternity. Eternity. I can’t even fathom the beginning of forever.
I know that this life is temporary, on a cognitive level, but more often than not, it feels like life will never end. My world view often consists of surviving from hectic lecture to lecture, or from exam to exam! I wonder how I’m going to survive the next few years of medical school, where I’m going to do my internship, what I should specialise in – obstetrics? Psychiatry? Paediatrics? It’s difficult to see beyond the every day routine of waking up, getting ready for class, going through the motions, coming home, going to sleep, studying, studying some more, meeting up with friends, spending the weekends with family…
This attachment to the dunya/world is precisely why Allah, in his Infinite Wisdom, sent down Prophets. To guide those who cannot see. Despite what many humans may think – we’re so very limited in how we perceive reality. Left to our our devices, many of us may believe that this life is it. What the eye can see, and what the ear can hear is all there is to it. And when we die, we die. Zip. Nada. Zilch. Nothingness.
In spite of the myriad of scientific achievements and technological advancement, mankind as a whole hasn’t effectively dealt with crucial issues like death, and the existence of God. The rise of secularism and atheism is alarming. Religion is now associated with backwardness. Islam is now synonymous with terrorism. Once, it was unheard of to not believe in a Creator. Now, having firm belief in God can mean that you lack the logic to think for yourself!
We live in troubled times. Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was sent as a mercy to mankind, yet his message has been slurred, stereotyped, and labelled as dangerous. Whether the denizens of the globe like it or not, we’re all part of the Last Ummah – the Ummah of Muhamad (pbuh). This truly is the last age for humanity.
One could argue that I am Muslim because my parents are, but faith is something you can’t be born into. It’s something you have to cultivate, nurture, and protect. Actively engaging with the Qur’an, learning more about my Islamic roots, defining and refining my Muslim identity – these are crucial things which I need to do, everyday, to hold fast to the rope of Allah. It’s so easy to be swept up in the heedlessness of the dunya – easy, just turn on the radio, the TV, read those magazines, succumb to whatever feels good now. On the other hand, it’s an ongoing battle to keep my feet firmly planted on this earth, while having my eyes set firmly on the Akhirah.
