✽ O son of Adam

“Is there anyone as privledged as you, Oh son of Adam!? The only thing that is standing in your way is water and a quiet place for prayer. Whenever you like, all you have to do is purify yourself and you can enter upon your Lord, with no guards standing in your way and in no need of a translator.” – Bakr ibn Abdullah al-Muzani

✽Steadfastness

In the name of Allah, The Most Beneficial, The Most Merciful.

All praise is to Allah, Our Lord, Who Has permitted us to witness the month of ramadhaan in its entirety. A month in which we increased the performance of all ibaadahs, seeking His pleasure & His jannah, and as such, we gained a closer link to Him, alhamdulillah. Our most important goal now therefore, is how we can maintain this closeness & remain on an iman-high all through the coming months to come, in shaa Allah.

Below are some tips:
1. Dua: Indeed, without dua, the weapon of the believer, we are destined for failure. So make dua to Allah firstly to make you steadfast upon His deen & secondly to protect you against shaitan, whose every minute is spent in trying to mislead you.

2. Qur’an: whatever you do, do not neglect the Qur’an. It contains the speech of Allah, directives for us, on how to worship Him & live in this world. Let it be your daily bread & see how your life will change for the better.
*Make sure you read it with understanding though.

3. Salat: Allah (swt) said in a hadith qudsi: “Out of all the ways My servant gets closer to me, salaah is the dearest to Me (Bukhari). So perform your sunnah salats regularly & guard your daily salats by planning your daily activities around them and eagerly looking forward to them, a time in which we converse directly with The Sustainer of this world & the heavens as well.

4. Ablution: accumulation of sins as we know brings about a decrease in our eeman. Therefore, regular performing of ablution which washes off our sins will help in ensuring we maintain a high level of eeman in shaa Allah.

5. Zikr: meaning; the remembrance of Allah (swt) with our heart and tongue. Keep your tongue moistened with the remembrance of Allah while remembering Him in your heart for indeed it awakens the soul & increases the love of Allah in such a heart.

6. Truthfulness: One of the means of increasing our eeman is through being truthful for the prophet (saw) said truthfulness leads to piety and piety leads to jannah. Try your best to always abide by truthfulness, for it will prevent you from doing a lot of wrong.

7. Assess Yourself: Make a list of good deeds & characters that you want to accomplish and rate yourself on a scale of 10. Do this on a daily basis so that if you perform below the mark today, you would do better tomorrow. May Allah (swt) make it easy for all of us to continue on the path of guidance, ameen ya Rabb.

“(As for) those who say: Our Lord is Allah, then continue being steadfast, the angels descend upon them, saying: Fear not, nor be grieved, and receive good news of the garden which you were promised. We are your guardians in this world’s life and in the hereafter, and you shall have therein what your souls desire and you shall have therein what you ask for.” [41:30-31]

☆Qur’anic Gems☆ Day 29. Ramadhan 1435.

Surah Al-Muzzammil, Verse 20:
فَاقْرَءُوا مَا تَيَسَّرَ مِنْهُ وَأَقِيمُوا الصَّلَاةَ وَآتُوا الزَّكَاةَ وَأَقْرِضُوا اللَّهَ قَرْضًا حَسَنًا وَمَا تُقَدِّمُوا لِأَنفُسِكُم مِّنْ خَيْرٍ تَجِدُوهُ عِندَ اللَّهِ هُوَ خَيْرًا وَأَعْظَمَ أَجْرًا وَاسْتَغْفِرُوا اللَّهَ إِنَّ اللَّهَ غَفُورٌ رَّحِي
So recite (the Qur’an) as much as may be easy (for you), & perform As-Salat & give Zakat, & lend to Allah a goodly loan, & whatever good you send before you for yourselves, you will certainly find it with Allah, better & greater in reward. And seek Forgiveness of Allah. Verily, Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most-Merciful.

Allah (swt) being always The Most Merciful, encourages & guides us in the above verse with regards to those good deeds we should do to earn us great rewards.

✓Reciting the Qur’an: “Verily those who recite the Book of Allah & perform salah & spend in charity, secretely & openly, hope for a (sure) tradegain that will never perish” [35:29]

✓Salat: Allah (swt), in a hadith qudsi, bluntly declared how precious salat is to Him:
“Out of all the ways through which My servant gets closer to Me, salat is the dearest to me” [Bukhari]

✓Zakah & sadaqah:” Verily those who give sadaqat, men & women, & lend to Allah a goodly loan, it shall be increased in manifold (to their credit) & theirs shall be an honourable good reward”. [57:18]

And lastly, after doing all these, Allah (swt) tells us to ask forgiveness to earn His mercy, for indeed it is His mercy that can take us to paradise, not our good deeds alone. [Bukhari, Muslim]

May Allah (swt) make such excellent deeds our part of our daily routine, & may He grant us steadfastness in His performing plenty ibadahs (worship), after ramadan. ameen.

☆Qur’anic Gems☆ Day 28. Ramadhan 1435.

Surah Al-Hashr, Verse 9:
وَمَن يُوقَ شُحَّ نَفْسِهِ فَأُولَٰئِكَ هُمُ الْمُفْلِحُونَ

….. And whosoever is saved from his souls (own) covetousness, such are they who will be the successful.

Allah (swt) gave the inhabitants of madina this description, because, they gave” preference over themselves (to the emigrants), even though they were in need of that.[59:9] and they became the successful.

Covetousness of the soul refers to the the act of the soul of coveting (loving) things & actions that are inappropriate. This leads to giving preference to personal pleasure over Allahs pleasure. A lot of times, we do things that we are sure is wrong, or things that we doubt as regards to its appropriateness. The prophet (saw) said:
“seek a verdict from your heart. Virtue is that which your soul & body and heart feel satisfied with. Sin is that which troubles the soul & about which the heart is uneasy & confuses, even though people may give their legal opinion in its favour. [Muslim]

Things such as:
-Not doing work entrusted to us properly.
-looking at that man/woman in a wrong way
-doing what one’s husband dislikes
-Not following the proper (sunnah) way of doing things,
-and many more.

“There’s no doubt the soul, is indeed inclined to evil” [12:53] but that is why Allah (swt) gave us a mind to think and see clearly.

“But as for him who feared standing before his Lord, & restrained himself from impure evil desires, & lusts. Verily, paradise will be his abode.” [79:40-41]

We ask Allah (swt) to save us from our souls covetousness today & every other day as well. Ameen. May He also bring an end to all the suffering faced by muslims all over the world. Ameen.

☆Qur’anic Gems☆ Day 27. Ramadhan 1435.

Surah Al-Hadid, Verse 21:
سَابِقُوا إِلَىٰ مَغْفِرَةٍ مِّن رَّبِّكُمْ وَجَنَّةٍ عَرْضُهَا كَعَرْضِ السَّمَاءِ وَالْأَرْضِ أُعِدَّتْ لِلَّذِينَ آمَنُوا بِاللَّهِ وَرُسُلِهِ

Race one with another in hastening towards Forgiveness from your Lord (Allah), and towards Paradise, the width whereof is as the width of heaven and earth, prepared for those who believe in Allah and His Messengers…..

Allah tells us to gather all the energy we need, use all the momentum we have, and race with one another for His forgiveness, & His paradise, for that is indeed the supreme success.
And what better time for such a race than now?

Its the last 3/4 days of the best month of the year. Wherein lies days that are filled with His mercy and nights so blessed. A time wherein Allah’s mercy & forgiveness are at its peak! The prophet (saw) said:

“Whoever tries drawing nearer to Allah by performing any virtuous deed in this month, for him shall be such reward as if he had performed a far (obligatory observance) in any other time of the year. And whoever performs a far, for him shall be the reward of seventy in any other time of the year” [bn khuzaymah & Bayhaqi]

So whoever you are, wherever you may be, start sprinting to paradise now! Don’t let the other days of ramadan spoil these last few ones, its never too late, even an hour in ramadan is of great great importance. Keep your tongue moist with His remembrance! This is not a time for sleeping to ones content, rather it is a time to race and receive the best of prizes (jannah), in shaa Allah.

May Allah accept our all deeds, & answer all our duas, ameen.

☆Qur’anic Gems☆ Day 26. Ramadhan 1435.

Surah Al-Hujraat, Verse 13:
يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ إِنَّا خَلَقْنَاكُم مِّن ذَكَرٍ وَأُنثَىٰ وَجَعَلْنَاكُمْ شُعُوبًا وَقَبَائِلَ لِتَعَارَفُوا إِنَّ أَكْرَمَكُمْ عِندَ اللَّهِ أَتْقَاكُمْ إِنَّ اللَّهَ عَلِيمٌ خَبِيرٌ

O mankind! We have created you from a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know one another. Verily, the most honourable of you with Allah is that (believer) who has At-Taqwa (God- consciousness). Verily, Allah is All-Knowing, All-Aware.

We have been created & grouped into different tribes & nations, as Allah (swt) has said, for the sole purpose of identifying one another like it was done in the olden days, “son of so & so, from so & so tribe or clan. So some people from one tribe or nation might be more beautiful, more honourable, & sometimes even more smarter than others, but that is not the basis of classifying people’s value or honour in islam, as we do nowadays. Islam even frowns strongly at tribalism. Likewise, peoples honour doesn’t depend on their riches, or their profession.

Surely, he who has the most ‘God-consciousness’ is he who is most honoured, as Allah & His messenger both proclaimed.

“The most honourable among them with Allah (people) is the one with the most taqwa”. [Bukhari]

The level of our taqwa, therefore, should be our source of happiness, because in it lies our value as human beings. As Yasmin Mogahed puts it:

“Don’t let your source of fulfillment be anything other than your relationship with God. Don’t let your definition of success, failure or self worth be anything other than your position with Him”. [Reclaim your heart, page 19]

Similarly, he whose ‘taqwa’ increases the most in this blessed month has indeed surpassed us all, and will emerge 1st place at the end of the ramadan race. [2:183]

May Allah (swt) make us of those who live with the whole Qur’an, in heart and in mind, ameen.

☆Qur’anic Gems☆ Day 25. Ramadhan 1435.

Surah Ash-Shura, Verse 43:
وَلَمَن صَبَرَ وَغَفَرَ إِنَّ ذَٰلِكَ لَمِنْ عَزْمِ الْأُمُورِ
And verily, whosoever shows patience and forgives (the wrong done to him) that would truly be from the things recommended by Allah.

In a similar verse in the previous surah, Allah says; “the Good and the evil can never be equal”. Repel (the evil) with that which is best”. [41:34]

That is: the good deed will always be superior to the evil deed, therefore have patience, overlook & forgive, and continue to do good (to that person) for indeed you will be superior in the eyes of Your Lord.

Ibn abbas (ra) said about the above verse:”Allah commands the believer to be patient when they feel angry, to be forbearing when confronted with ignorance, and to forgive when mistreated”.

Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, used to say ” There is no better punishment for one who has disobeyed Allah with regard to you, than your obeying Allah with regard to him”.

Indeed it is considered that all the wrong man does, does it out ignorance of His Lord. So praise be to Allah that has counted us not among the ignorant, and treat the ignorance of the ignorant with patience. Surely “patience is the best gift a bel

May Allah (swt) increase us in all good, and gift us with more gems from His Glorious book, ameen.

Humble plea to please include our brothers & sisters in damboa, borno state in our duas, who have been subjected to severe torment by the so called boko haram sect, who have also taken over their village. The media might be silent, but our duas will be with them isA .

☆Qur’anic Gems☆ Day 24. Ramadhan 1435.

Surah Az-Zumar, Verse 49:
فَإِذَا مَسَّ الْإِنسَانَ ضُرٌّ دَعَانَا ثُمَّ إِذَا خَوَّلْنَاهُ نِعْمَةً مِّنَّا قَالَ إِنَّمَا أُوتِيتُهُ عَلَىٰ عِلْمٍ بَلْ هِيَ فِتْنَةٌ وَلَٰكِنَّ أَكْثَرَهُمْ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ

When harm touches man, he calls to Us (for help), then when We have changed it into a favour from Us, he says: “Only because of knowledge (that I possess) I obtained it.” Nay, it is only a trial, but most of them know not!

Allah describes the typical man who takes pride in what He has been given & boasts about things which he did not do…when,
-we become knowledgeable/skillful
-we acquire riches
-we have beauty
-we get beautiful spouses & children
-we pass a difficult exam
-we have good health…
We tend to think these things come to us because of who we are, because we deserve it which leads us to take pride in it.

When we pass an exam, we think we passed it because of ‘our own knowledge’. Subhanallah, not the knowledge, beauty, wealth, status or even our health, none of that can we claim to have acquired it ourselves, they are only gifts from Allah by which he tests us [21: 35] to see whether we will acknowledge them, be grateful to Him, & increase us in humbleness.

Then in reality, we really can’t take pride in anything we have or own. It is He alone that can & should be proud. He (swt) said in a hadith qudsi:
” Pride is My robe & majesty is My lower garment. So as for he who challenges Me (by adopting these qualities for himself) in one of these too, then I will cast him into hell fire” [muslim 2620, Ahmad 7335]

“He who has in his heart the weight of a mustard seed of pride shall not enter paradise”. [Muslim, sahih]

May Allah’s gift continue to be a source of humbleness for us, & may He make us understand more gems from His Qur’an, ameen.

☆Qur’anic Gems☆ Day 23. Ramadhan 1435.

Surah Sad, Verse 29:
كِتَابٌ أَنزَلْنَاهُ إِلَيْكَ مُبَارَكٌ لِّيَدَّبَّرُوا آيَاتِهِ وَلِيَتَذَكَّرَ أُولُو الْأَلْبَابِ

(This is) a Book (the Quran) which We have sent down to you, full of blessings that they may ponder over its Verses, and that men of understanding may remember.

This is a verse after my heart, for in it, certainly, are a lot of gems, all praise be to Allah.

Allah (swt) described the Qur’an firstly as “blessed”. The one who reads it receives a lot of blessing, just by listening to its recitation, we find such serenity in our hearts, and for each letter one recites, he/she gets 10 rewards mashaAllah.

Yes the Qur’an is indeed blessed, but is that the reason for sending it down? He (swt) said: “so that they may ponder over its verses” (38:29). So that we may reflect, think over & deeply comprehend the meaning of the message Our Lord Has sent down. And then be guided by it remembering & acting upon its commands.

The Qur’an is the muslims lifeguide not an ajrbank only (ajr=reward). Its the message from Our Lord The Most High. Won’t we be ashamed to go back to Him without understanding His message? Isn’t it time we stop reading the Qur’an with absent minds? Even the prophet (saw) will complain about on that day about how we treated the Qur’an after him:
“O my Lord! verily, my people deserted this Qur’an. (25:30)

O people of understanding, let’s make a resolution to start reading the Qur’an with understanding from today onwards, and indeed, in that is even a greater reward.

Far Astray

In the name of Allah, our Creator, the Most Beneficial, the Most Merciful.

FAR ASTRAY
A lot of times in the Qur’an, Allah (swt) uses the above term to describe the non-muslims; meaning they are far from guidance. A verse that indicates the severity of their straying off is such as the one below:

“And whoever assigns partners to Allah, it is as if he had fallen from the sky, and the birds had snatched him. Or the wind had thrown him to a far off place [22:31]

For most of us, these people who have strayed off so badly, are sadly our colleagues at work and school, our neighbours, our housemates (e.g maids), our blood relations and a times could be our siblings, that is to say people we meet and work with on a daily basis. If this people were to catch fire before our eyes will we watch them burn or would be try our possible best to put out the fire? Then what about the fire of eternity that they shall forever abide in? Unless they accept islam, and abide forever in the garden of bliss isA.

We need to share islam starting today because they might not see tomorrow. Our prophet (saw) used to persistently call people to islam, because he knew the severity of spending eternity in the fire, even though ultimate guidance is from Allah.

Give a copy of a quran or selected verses from the qur’an, share a cd’s of lecture by learned aalims, give flyers, tweet, talk to them, re-direct their questions to a learned aalim, give them websites they can check up, let’s try because this world is really a passing enjoyment.The prophet (saw) words were “for a person to be guided through you, is better than 100 camels”.

Indeed, islam is our most valuable treasure. That’s why the prophet saw and he’s companions used to make the dua: Alhamdulillah bi ni’imatil islam wa kafaa bil islami ni’ima. [All praise to Allah for the blessing of islam, and islam is enough a blessing]
May Allah guide those who deserve to be guided. Ameen.