Protect thy heart!

[Image Source]

The motivation for this post comes surprisingly, from a cartoon! which I was watching with my nephew the other day. It was basically an animated movie which showed a homeless and weak boy. Suddenly one day he was magically taken to a great Wizard who tells him that the boy has been chosen as the 'Protector of the World'. The boy was very surprised because he did not have the physical strength to become the protector of the world. The wizard told him the reason why the boy was chosen (This is the main point) The wizard said:

You were tried with all sorts of problems but you went through all those courageously and still managed to protect your heart! so the Lords have chosen you as the protector of the world! as you have the perseverance the protector of the world needs to have!

There was a connection with the verse:

اهْدِنَا الصِّرَاطَ الْمُسْتَقِيمَ

It is only 'isteqamat' or perseverance which can protect our heart and make us walk through problems happily! and hence be among the chosen ones!

Irreversable Steps towards Allah!

صِبْغَةَ اللَّهِ وَمَنْ أَحْسَنُ مِنَ اللَّهِ صِبْغَةً

[Al-baqarah:138]

This verse means that we should colour ourselves in HIS colour because its the best. When I read this verse it felt amazing, I dont know, I had read this before but it never struck me like it struck this time. Maybe its because this verse gives a new meaning to 'colour', and I love to play with colours. It was as if this was Allah's ultimate demand from us, the ultimate reason of life, the ultimate direction, The puropose of Islam i.e. that we colour our lives in His Colour. We make this our goal, our objective and reason to be and it ultimately becomes our strength. But its difficult to maintain His colour in the presence of so many tempting colours of the world! But we can pray & try for it! Though the colors of the world are tempting but their reality is nothing.
It is His colour that is explained in Quran and demonstrated in the life of the Prophet Muhammad S.A.W.W.

Because of all these reasons I tried to draw this whole concept, bring it to paper, express it somehow. Though the result was not as good, since I am not an artist and have no expertise in caligraphy, but I think I expressed it atleast. 

[Image Source]

Last Ramzan while I was sending people messages at the start of Ramzan, I though hard and prayed that May the effect  of Ramzan never wear off, May it last forever, May we move steps ahead towards Allah that are irreversable. For that we need to colour ourself in His Colour! Though its impossible to completely colour yourself  but atleast we should start moving in the right direction. Its a wonderful jouney, journey worth spending all your efforts for! So now is the time to take steps towards Allah before the final irreversible step i.e. death! To attain His colour should be the greater focus of life towrds which other intentions should be directed, thats what I have concluded so far. But we should that its a journey, it about knowing how to keep moving in the toughest of times, but again direction is very important, the direction should be towards Allah.

This way is not easy, it demands sacrifice of wishes and desires it demands a complete fanaa.

May Allah deepen HIS colour in our souls! AMEEN

I really want people to comment & share their thoughts even though my blog has very limited readers!

Modesty & The Internet

Image Source

Modesty in todays's world is not just the covering of the female, hiding behind a specifc dress. Because a Burqa or veil would be of no use if you are not modest at heart. So perdah or veil turns out to be and 'attitude' rather than a mere 'outfit'. So along with proper dressing we need to have the proper attitude as well.

First we need to understand the resons behind Islamic concept of chastity, modesty and perdah (Veil) It is all to stop the spread of immoralities. For women it offers protection rather than confinement. Today internet is also a place where we spend time and interact with people and we need to show our modesty here as well. I've often seen very inviting profile pictures, vulgur 'about me' sentence on the social media, and also not so acceptable status messages, cover photos and so on.

So we need to deepen our concepts of perdah and apply it to all places of influence. Especially for women, they should not be so easily avalaible, not for everyone to see and comment! I remember one of my friends very upset as she got a wide range of comments from unknown people in her facebook inbox, the day she put on her new profile picture, enventually she came to know she could actually disable this option of messages. So it must be realized that its a protection rather than confinement. So here are the rules I have set for myself: Keep my profiles everywhere private, & even if its public a very to-the-point and eligible content is shared. Which has no effect even if its public. I try not to make my profile a 'personal advert'! well that was the jist of it all!

'Haya' or 'Modesty' appears to be a forgotten value, seems to be losing its place. The words we used to avoid in the former days, today our conversations are never complete without them infact its 'trendy'. I wonder if it is because of western infulence or loss of Islamic values which is gradually making us immodest or 'bey-haya'.  

When I scroll down my Facebook home page, cover photos of my friends, the jokes and pictures being shared are not which I can see and share with my family. It sure is a pity.

In offices where communication is through messegners, people would often put up unreasonable things in their status messages, which in turn gives room to others to show unecessary frankness and indulge in   unecessary discussions. This should be avoided.

Hence there is a need to have a proper atitude because with the internet opportunities of all sorts of activities good and bad are multiplied!

Thank Allah to empower yourself!

Surah Luqman Verse 12:

"And We had certainly given Luqman wisdom [and said]. "Be greatfull to Allah." and whoever is greatful is greatful for [the benefit of] himself. And whoever denies[His favour]- then indeed, Allah is free of need and praiseworthy"

[Translation Source]

I just got to this verse once when i randomly opened the Quran, this verse made me think over the portion:

"whoever is greatful is greatful for [the benefit of] himself"

So it is us who need this thankfulness, Thankfulness or greatfulness to Allah is a multi-purpose activity, it has deep impact on our mind, heart & soul.

1. Keeps you positive
Like it or not, you have to metion all the good things that have happened to you when you're thanking Allah. This leaves us with so much positive thinking! So its like a psychotherapy and keeps us away from tentions and depressions. And once this becomes a habbit one can always find reasons to thank Allah in the most trying conditions.

2. Helps avoid self pity
Self-pity is fatal for a personality, once you start having pity on yourself (height of negativity) you'll visibly lose the potential to face a trial. Hopelessness is which would take over from then onwards, but a person thankful to Allah would never commit this crime called self-pity, because he knows there are plenty of reasons to thank!

3. Leaves you with positivity about future
It gives you a notion that since Allah has not abandoned you uptill now, He would definately not abandon you in future too!

4. Helpful in getting Allah's love... (Husn & Ehsaan)
This is the most important part I read in a book(have forgotten the name) that love has two reaosns: "Husn" (beauty) and "ehsaan"(favour) we can find both these in Allah! so when we'll be thinking & thanking about his favours we'll be guiding ourselves to his love! Also I'd like to make a point here that the more we interact with Allah (i.e. through 'Dua' prayers) the more we are to fall in love with Him.

So lets start thanking Him right away!

The Centripetal force in "Remembering God"

Image Source

The title of this post has two meanings, one is the centripetal force in this book called "Remembering God"(i.e. This book helps our journey towards the center: Allah) and the centripetal force in the remembrance of God (i.e. dhikar ).

First I would explain the concept of this centripetal force, as explained by Gai Eaton in this book and I so totally loved his way of explaining a simple concept.

He defines the center as God or Allah i.e. our origin and destination. The forces that take take us towards the center(centripetal) are remembrance of Allah and other religious traditions and rituals. On the other hand the forces that take us away from the center(centrifugal) (distract us in other words) are the love of this world, worldly desires and so on.

So the signal I took from this was that we should be having maximum of centripetal force in our lives to lower the impact of other distracting forces. The heart has been explained as a mirror in many saying of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W.W.) and time and again we are required to "polish" the mirror. Gai Eaton in this regard says that in today's world just polishing wont do, we need to scrub this mirror: Here is an excerpt:

"Among the complexities of modern life and the forgetfulness which they encourage, it may take more than polishing to offset the dimming of heart's vision. It needs to be well scrubbed if its inherent purity is to be restored and maintained."

Here I would like to add a personal though that every other thing and the love of things adds a layer of insensitivity on our heart, this insensitivity takes us away from Allah and his remembrance. Getting back to his book this is what he has to say regarding wealth and comforts of life:

"There is nothing inherently wrong with the comforts provided by the modern world, better hygiene better drainage, more convenient means of transport but these count for nothing if their sweet embrace encourages us to forget our origin and our end "

"Wealth if gained through legitimate means, is to be relished like any other gift from above but never squandered, the responsibilities which come with it are a heavy burden. Since the rich man is exposed to temptations which do not gather around the poor, he knows that his good fortune is also a test both profound and severe."

Other concepts worth sharing are:

"There is a 'hot' faith and a 'cold' one; the first is passionate, emotional rather than intellectual, while the second dwells in the mind rather than the breast and is a function of intellect. Ideally, these two go together, each supporting the other"

"Why are muslims commanded to pray five times a day, throughout their lives? To many who stand outside the community of Islam, this seems excessive. It is barely adequate. Prayer is the most effective weapon against the centrifugal force, against the tendency with each hour that passes, to slide downwards, away from the light; it is alo the 'polish' which removes rust from the heart. It halts the slide but only temporarily, which is why it has to be constantly repeated. "