"When life knocks you down to your knees, you're in the perfect position to pray."

At first, owing to the condition of Karachi and also of Pakistan, I thought I would write an article titled “We have done this to ourselves”, and in it I would highlight where we have gone wrong and how we can make an attempt to fix our crime. But the thing is that what is happening in Karachi is greater for myself or for any particular individual to comprehend to the fullest. But never the less I do know a few reasons why this is happening to us, one of them being ignorance and know that ignorance is never a bliss, never was and never will be.

One relative recently said that “hum pehle behis thay aur ab baybas hogaye hain”, and that made a lot of sense but I think that even though this is true in itself, what is also true that the reason we are “bebas” now IS because we were “behis pehle”. When we had the time to make the right decisions, we made the wrong ones. The politicians, the political parties and the people who rule us are not foreigners, they ARE Pakistanis; they ARE from amongst US, no matter what we may choose to call them, we still can’t deny this fact. And it is one sign of the Day of Judgment that the people who rule over a people will be of their caliber.

So if we are ruled by these people, who couldn’t care less about the blood being spilled in the streets and cities of Pakistan; then what is our state, what is our status and how are our morals? Our morals are defined by the morals that our rulers have.

Recently, after the media showed the images of the firing on the police officers, the blast in Peshawar and reports about the missing people in Pakistan, then Rehman Malik made a statement that the media is wrongly guiding the Pakistani public. Yes, these people expect us to be blind, to not see what is happening in our own country, in our own streets, in our own neighborhoods and what is happening to our own people!!!

But are they wrong in expecting that from us? Haven’t we done that for long enough to be expected to do just the same yet again? We have all been living our lives in our self constructed bubbles; not having an idea about, or rather “deliberately” not having an idea about, the condition of our people and I’m not just talking about Pakistanis here but I’m also talking about Muslims around the world. Palestine would have been an appropriate example but even that is a far-fetched one in our case, do we even care about the Muslims being killed in Kashmir? Apparently our government does care but only as long as it is promised to get Kashmir. But here’s the catch, the majority of the Kashmiris don’t even want to be joined with us, they instead want independence. But have we ever rose our voice to defend the rights of these Kashmiris; our neighbors, our brothers? Have we ever asked for their independence?

Maybe what you’re thinking right now is that our own condition isn’t of the like that we have any time to worry about others and that’s true but this wasn’t always the case. Furthermore, corruption, vice, fraud and all things wrong ARE common in our public. My aunt (khala) recently said that if I was a non-Muslim and if I didn’t know what Islam was actually about, I would have hated it, owing it to the image that Muslims have created of it. All kinds of corruption are common in our land, the land that was named “the ISLAMIC republic of PAKISTAN.” Pakistan meaning “the land of the pure”; there probably couldn’t have had been anything more ironic, both in the literal and figurative sense.

But despite ALL of this, I would still want to believe that there is hope, not because I am an optimist or because I have faith in our rulers but only because I have faith in God. I know that we deserve what we are going through right now, maybe not all of us, but at least most of us, however even THEN the Mercy of Allah is never limited. We need to change ourselves first, on an individual level then change the people around us (i.e. the people close to us) and we should, all the while, pray to Allah for forgiveness and for Him to make this land ACTUALLY the land of the pure and to bestow us with peace and harmony. This is the month of Ramadan, make as much duaa (supplication) as you possibly can, especially in the odd nights that have started from tonight, for Pakistan and its well-being and for our well-being, our protection and for the protection of our faith.

WE have put ourselves in this position but even now we can be saved because even though we are down on our knees, we are still in the perfect position to pray and to ask for forgiveness. Each and every single one of us needs to ask for forgiveness for any and all the limits that we have transgressed. May Allah see some good in us, when we can no longer see any..

JazakAllah.

Video Broadcast

Assalam-o-Alaikum,

This is a link of a video of Shaykh AbdulNasir Jangda and he breaks down the words we recite in namaz in order for us to In shaa Allah better understand what we are reciting in namaz. He gives very practical advice and it is a very nice lecture, so please do check it out:

Video Broadcast

Where tarawih was supposed to be this spiritual cleanser, it has been reduced to nothing but a ritual.

“Why is the girl next to me moving so much?”, “Ah! The wind finally blew!”, “Ouch! Was that even a mosquito?!”; these are few of the many thoughts that cross my mind while I stand trying to concentrate on the words being recited in the tarawih. It is (I am assuming) already clear that this effort of mine is a complete and utter lack of failure on my part, since all I can make of the words being recited is somewhat the like of the topic that I have chosen. I understand one word and then I am lost, then another word passes me by that I know of and then I am blank again and soon tarawih becomes this interesting jigsaw puzzle that I am vigorously trying to solve but I never end up solving it because I don’t have all the missing pieces!

Where tarawih was supposed to be this spiritual cleanser, it has been reduced to nothing but a ritual. We blank out the minute imam finishes reciting fatiha and then words make sense to us when he says Allah-o-Akbar till he finishes saying fatiha again. But why is our condition so?

Our condition is so; firstly because we don’t know Quranic Arabic. And if you’re thinking “Wait! We do have the translations”, then please think again because no amount of translations can make us understand the Quran the way we can if we were to know Arabic. Secondly try reading Iqbal’s or Faiz’s poetry in English; you really think it will have the same effect and the same richness that it has in urdu? No; translations take away all the flavor from the text because in the original text the words that our chosen have an impact and the way they are placed in a sentence has an impact but in a translation all that is left is the gist of the matter.

Now I’ll be going off the topic for a while but In shaa Allah only to highlight the importance of what’s being discussed here. How many of us have a particular taste in music? We all do, right? Some people like jazz, some like rock, some like hip-hop etc. etc., but how did we end up developing these tastes? (Don’t get me wrong here; this example is being used only to clarify the point, NOT to publicize music because we are not supposed to listen to music.) Did we just wake up one day with a thought that I am supposed to like rock so I will like rock music? No, but the fact of the matter is that we grew up listening to music; we listened to numerous artists and bands before we developed this taste. It took a whole lot of fine-tuning and exposure to get us to the taste that we have developed now. But think about it this way, how much exposure have we had to the Quran, its meaning and its significance? If something like music can require so much effort then imagine how much effort were we supposed to put in to understand the Quran.

Furthermore what is it that you like about a song? Probably the musical instruments being used in it and the voice of the singer but what else makes you enjoy listening to it? Don’t the lyrics of the song have an impact, doesn’t it matter how “relatable” the song is for you and the flow in which the lyrics are being said? It does have a huge impact, imagine if someone was just to say “I love the way you lie”, you’d probably think that that person needed some mental help, at the very least, but Eminem and Rihanna came up with a song about it and it was a super hit! Why was it so? It was so because of the way the words were placed, with the way they created a flow in it and other things like that. (Not an expert of music here.) But do you think we ever see or feel the flow of the words of the Quran? No because we have limited ourselves to translations and if you are one who feels the flow in a translation then congratulations because apparently you are one of a kind.

But coming back to the point, aren’t we literally like THE people of “FEEL”? (If there is such a thing that is) We choose the careers we “feel” we are good at and will enjoy, we do what we “feel” like doing, we say what we “feel” like saying, we eat what we “feel” like eating, so on and so forth but then why have we separated the feel factor from Quran? When a huge part of the Quran IS the way it impacts our hearts. If Quran was “just” a message of doing good and staying away from bad and having faith then do you honestly think that it would have made people like Hazrat Umar (R.A.) accept Islam after hearing just a few aayaat? Do you know that there were amongst the kufaar people whose eyes swelled up with tears from the beauty of Quran when they used to hear it being recited?  

These are things we need to think about and hence In shaa Allah bring about the necessary changes in our lives and actions but I started by talking about tarawih so I’ll end by talking about tarawih. There are two practical steps with which we can make our tarawih more than just a ritual; the first step is an immediate step and the second one is somewhat of a long term one. The first step is that before going to tarawih we can read the translation of the chapter/s of Quran that will be recited in the tarawih that day. (This step is more of what we call “jugarh lagana” in urdu but it will help nonetheless In shaa Allah.) However the second step is to get started in learning Arabic so that you can enjoy the Quran, understand what it means and FEEL what it says.

May Allah help all of us in implementing what we learn and may we all find avenues through which we can learn Arabic and In shaa Allah better understand the Quran. In fact if anyone would want to learn Arabic online then here is a link for it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h-Tss7e1iM&feature=related

This link is basically just part one of all the classes that have been put up on youtube, the instructor is awesome and the classes are for free. However he tackles everything extensively which is amazing cause it is most effective that way but that also means that the course will be long. However this is just one option, there are many other ways to learn Arabic, find the one that suits you the best.