Remember Me, I will remember you

Written by Waleed Wasti

Edited by Dania.

[فَاذْكُرُونِي أَذْكُرْكُمْ وَاشْكُرُوا لِي وَلَا تَكْفُرُونِ ]

So remember Me; I will remember you. And be grateful to Me and do not deny Me.

(Surah Al-Baqarah, ayat 152)

The ayah itself should be enough for instilling the much needed faith back in us; yet we are so blind sighted that we overlook its significance and beauty while we are engrossed in this world of ‘ours’. It does not befit our heedless behavior, our stubborn attitude, and our immoral character that God Almighty should remember us, but that is what He has promised to do in return, IF ONLY we remember Him. How glorious an opportunity this is which we continue to overlook, to be remembered by the Creator of all, the Master of all, the Eternal, and the Ever-present Himself!  

And lo, He then says that if we go one step ahead and love Allah (S.W.T), then not only would Allah love us but He would also order Hazrat Jibrail (A.S) and all the angels of the heavens to love us as well. Yet the love of this world continues to hold a bigger place in our hearts rather than the “ishq-e-haqiqi”, i.e. the love for Allah (S.W.T). We live our lives in heedlessness and just turn a blind eye towards everything that invites us to a religious ‘good’.

We give up prayers, humility, modesty, and any other quality, all in the vain desire to get the recognition and the love of the people. It’s ultimately them who we aim to please, no matter what sphere of life we are in. Our advancement in career depends on how big a social network we have, our respect in the society depends on the social class that we belong to, and obviously keeping a beard, for men, and wearing a hijab, for women, would be a hindrance in our way up the corporate ladder! And the funny thing is that people never realize that no matter what they do, they will never be able to completely please other people and yet we so easily waste away our lives in doing just that. This real-life example is also mentioned in the Holy Quran, by Allah, Himself:

Competition in [worldly] increase diverts you Until you visit the graveyards.

(Surah At-Takasur, ayats 1 and 2)

The very notion of remembering the Almighty Lord is sufficient enough in keeping us on the right track. If we remember Him often then we are more likely to stay away from evil and chances are that we would add more good deeds to our accounts rather than bad deeds. This remembrance would redefine our lives and open up avenues that we never would have imagined otherwise. 

The Prophet (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam) said, “Allah the Most High said, ‘I am as My servant thinks (expects) I am. I am with him when he mentions Me. If he mentions Me to himself, I mention him to Myself; and if he mentions Me in an assembly, I mention him in an assembly greater than it. If he draws near to Me a hand’s length, I draw near to him an arm’s length. And if he comes to Me walking, I go to him at speed.’”

[Sahih Al-Bukhari]

SubhanAllah!

A person only remembers someone often whom he or she loves. Often if the love is too great, it will even start defining a person’s life e.g. mothers often end up telling their friends or relatives about the stories of their kids, they often plan out their entire routines in accordance to the need of their kids and so on and so forth. This should be the case in our remembrance of Allah (S.W.T), we should remember Him throughout our lives.

All we need to do is get out of our comfort zones and develop a longing for Allah (S.W.T). We should realize the fact that ‘everything’ in this world that we have gotten has been due to the favors and blessings of Allah (S.W.T). Had God Almighty not been this generous then we could have been born in a poorer family, we could have been deprived of education, we could have not had the luxuries that we enjoy in our lives, and yes we could have been born in a Christian/Jewish/Hindu/Atheist family! We should take absolutely nothing for granted. 

فَبِأَيِّ آلَاءِ رَبِّكُمَا تُكَذِّبَانِ

So which of the favors of your Lord would you deny?

(Surah Rahman)

When wolves become shepherds.

This is an amazing lecture MashaAllah by Mohammad Al-Shareef, it is of seven parts. This is the first part, please do listen to the rest of the parts as well, they are all available on youtube.

Scheduling the sunnah way

What are your assets? Your money, your education, your intellect, your health,....., your time? Time is one of the most precious assets we have, yet it is often misused, mismanaged and not given its due importance. People claim to be very busy, when all they are doing with their time is finding newer and better ways of earning more and more; their primary and ultimate goal is earning as much as possible. However, we as Muslims and even as people with common sense should know that life and its purpose is much greater than just that. So lets learn the value of time and how to put it to its best use.

One misconception amongst people is that they believe they’ll have freer time later on in life, a student will think “yaar vacations mein ye karun gi”, a person getting married will think “shaadi ke baad he ab karun gi” etc etc. But people fail to realize that with the passing away of time, time only gets less and less and less. SO VALUE FREE TIME, BEFORE YOU BECOME BUSY. You know how they say that an idle mind is a devil’s workshop; similarly think about what an idle day or rather idle days are for a devil, it’s literally like a devil’s field trip or something.

So how was the schedule of the Prophet (s.a.w.)? One of the characteristics of his schedule was that it revolved around salah and salah timings.

So the schedule starts from fajr;

      ·        A sahih hadith tells us that the reward of praying fajr, then sitting their doing dhikr and then subsequently praying the ishraq prayer receives the reward of a maqbool hajj and umrah. The masnoon way of praying ishraq is to pray 4 nafl.

(one thing to note however is that one cannot pray during the time of fajr to ishraq, and we can only do dhikr or tilawah etc.)

     ·        Then after praying ishraq, we can get started with our daily activities like going to college for students etc. Sleep isn’t an option after fajr, because sleeping after that time removes barakah from our activities. One may argue that they have enough barakah in their lives, but the point to realize here is that Allah being Ar-Rahman has put barakah in our lives despite our not following the sunnah way so imagine how much more barakah He’ll put if we follow the sunnah way. Also not sleeping during this time, increases our productivity and if we learn anything in this time, we are able to better retain it, this is even proven scientifically and medically.

     ·        The working time according to the sunnah lasts from the ishraq time to zawwal time. Just like the duration of fajr and ishraq, one cannot pray at the zawwal time either. There are a number of things, however, that one can do in this time e.g. we can take a 20-30 mins nap, start preparing for zuhr salah or eat.
     

     ·        Zawwal time ends with the azaan of zuhr prayer, so after praying the zuhr prayer again the question arises of what to do next? The time after zuhr prayer is also called a productive time, however if one wants then they can have a mid-day nap also known as qaylula in this time, it is permissible.

     ·        Then comes the asr prayer. Now the time after this can be thought of as a break. So there are again like a few options regarding what you can do in this time, some of them can be:

1.      Eat; this was one of the two meal times of the Prophet (s.a.w.),

2.      Meet with family, relatives, relax or exercise etc.,

3.      Do dhikr, now this is obviously the choice of people who even in their break remember and want to remember Allah.

     ·        And then right before maghrib, is a time for the qubooliat of duas.

     ·        Then is the time of maghrib to isha; we shouldn’t sleep in this time because its not recommended to sleep before isha. So in this time we can either do ibadat, we can spend time with our family or we can have dinner at this time as well. The awaabaein prayer can also be prayed at this time, its time is from after maghrib to isha, and the masnoon amount of nawafil in this namaz are 12 nawafil.

     ·        Then comes the question of when should isha be prayed? According to Islam the night starts after maghrib and goes on till fajr. And it is considered better to wait for the first one-third of night to pass away and to then pray isha; meaning that if maghrib is at 7.30 these days and fajr is at 4.15-ish am then it is “afzal” to pray isha at 10.30. However if a person feels that they’ll have better concentration if they pray earlier on or later on then that is allowed too.

     ·        Then what to do after isha? Ideally we should just go to sleep after isha. And it’s a sunnat to not to eat after isha.

     ·        Then after one goes to sleep, they should try to wake up for tahhajud. When we do wake up for tahhajud, we should try to make a lot of istighfar and send lots of durood to the Prophet(s.a.w.).

It is convenient to note here though that if a person is sleeping late as it is, e.g. most students stay up all night or till very late when they have to study for something, then they should pray tahhajud before sleeping, that is allowed too.

And last but not the least, the most afzal time for praying and making dua is in the last portion of the night, that is the time just before fajr.

Teaser for "scheduling the sunnah way".

So firstly, we need to realize why is it important for us to schedule through the sunnah method anyway. It is because our life is continuously slipping away; someone described this with the likeness of the melting away of ice. And we can better understand this phenomenon by looking at a person whose occupation is to sell ice hence his primary objective will obviously be to sell ice before it melts away. Similarly, our objective in this life should be to make good use of our lives before we cease to exist and one practical way of making the most of our time is to schedule through the sunnah way.

Many people like to use the phrase; “we’re just killing time”, when they pass their time watching movies or doing other entertaining yet useless activities. However, what they, or rather we all, fail to realize is that we are not killing time IN FACT time is killing us. However, morbid this may sound it is none the less true. We need to realize that shaitan is our open enemy and that his ultimate victory is when believers waste their time or rather “just kill” time.

So what is our challenge then, our challenge is to;

·        Use our idle time to do good deeds,

·        And to more efficiently act out on the first point, it is best if we make a schedule that allows us to do so.

You know how they say that an idle mind is a devil’s workshop; similarly think about what an idle day or rather idle days are for a devil, it’s literally like a devil’s field trip or something. Hence realize the importance of making a sunnah oriented or a sunnah centric schedule, the importance of this cannot be overemphasized as our time is our asset. It is that asset which will determine our ultimate outcome so the subject of time should not be taken lightly.

Al-Ghuraba

What is Al Ghuraba? Al ghuraba is an Arabic term which means “the strangers”. There is a hadith of the Prophet (s.a.w.), "Islam came as a strange religion and will leave as a strange religion, so glad tiding to the strangers." 

Now take out a few seconds and think about the condition of the Muslim Ummah in this time and age. How many people do you know who are following Islam the way it is supposed to be followed? As sad as it is, we not only don’t follow Islam the way it’s supposed to be followed but we don’t even follow it to the extent that we can rightfully be called as Muslims. I mean we can argue at length about how our salah lacks the khushoo that the prayers of the sahaba karaam and the pious people had, but then again how many of us even pray five times a day? The comparison is as bizarre as that of an ant and a mountain.

Lets look at it with yet another example. You know, there is one student who is like a full bright scholar, who gets no less than A grades and then on the other hand are students who study the subject just for the sake of it, heartlessly and forcefully, that even getting a passing grade is a big deal for them. And there is a further third category of students; the drop-outs, the students who don’t even bother to make an effort and who simply give up.

And SubhanAllah, most of us fall into the third category. That is our state! At least most of ours and so in this age to find a Muslim (I’m talking about an actual Muslim) is perhaps as rare as finding a black and white tv. And whenever people tend to go against the majority, they are dealt with as weirdos or strangers etc. And that is when we’re supposed to go back to the hadith of the Prophet (s.a.w.), "Islam came as a strange religion and will leave as a strange religion, so glad tiding to the strangers." Read the last part over and over again till it sinks in, “…so glad tiding to the strangers.” SubhanAllah, and this time it is not a sarcastic SubhanAllah either.

That should be motivation enough for us to do our best to be actual Ummatis of the Prophet (s.a.w.), to be true Muslims and to strive to attain the pleasure of Allah. Indeed Allah Himself has said that the greatest thing that a Momin should strive for is His pleasure. And why should we be afraid of other people’s reactions in following Islam to the fullest? When we know that people will always say what they have to and they’ll always have criticisms no matter what you’re doing. Plus at the end of the day it doesn’t matter what people say or what they don’t, we are not doing any of this for them anyway, we are doing it for Allah and for Allah alone.

But sometimes the fact that we practice Islam only for Allah and His pleasure is not enough for us and we are overtaken by worldly distractions, one thing that can help us at such a time is to remember death. This does not have a gloomy and dark meaning in any sense, its just that we should remind ourselves about the temporary nature of this life and about the nearness of death to keep ourselves in check. In fact, there is a saying of Hazrat Ali (R.A.) that a person’s death is so near to him that it can be understood by the like of two people running towards each other.

So please never lose hope in the mercy of Allah, and if you're having trouble in following Islam properly then pray to Allah for help. Recite astaghfar often, pray regularly and pray to Allah to join us amongst the strangers. Make it a habit to do dhikr frequently, pray for Allah’s hidayah and always make a sincere effort to practice and promote the deen. And always, always try to attain Allah’s pleasure, for it is only due to His blessings that we are where we are. Be grateful, be humble and be righteous.

May Allah find you all in good health. Please make dua for all of us.

JazakAllah.

Excerpt from an article: "Reviving Spirituality"

وَيَسْأَلُونَكَ عَنِ الرُّوحِ قُلِ الرُّوحُ مِنْ أَمْرِ رَبِّي وَمَا أُوتِيتُم مِّن الْعِلْمِ إِلاَّ قَلِيلاً

"And they ask you about the ruh. Say: The ruh is one of the commands of my Lord, and you are not given aught of knowledge but a little." 

[Al-Israa, 17:85]

The concept of spirituality can only refer to two matters, the reality of the created i.e. Who created all the creation and the relationship between the Creator and the created, or/and it can be the ruh, translated often as 'soul'.  Islam enables us to reach spiritual highs by worshipping God; as we earn the joy of closeness to Him, His friendship and His love, and hence progress through the stages of perfection in our character. Spirituality requires 4 things:

1. Faith that Allah alone is the Master; seeking His pleasure is the aim of all endeavors; and His commands alone are the commands that are to be obeyed. 

2. Obedience which makes the man give up his independence and accept subservience to Allah.

3. Taqwa; the state of readiness to undertake all that Allah has commanded and lastly,

4. Godliness. Man should not only avoid evil, for it displeases his Lord, but should also use all his powers to eradicate it from the face of the earth.

These concepts enable Muslims to put their complete faith in God and to let their actions be governed by a greater truth and objective. Their objective is to please God and to them the world is nothing more than a field full of opportunities to perform acts that please Allah.

Occasionally, people pray their salah without ever thinking about the words they are reciting and with these words having no impact upon them. This prayer cannot then be described as spiritual because it has become robot-like. It is just the same as eating a certain meal, or going on a train, as there is no link to the purpose of life. A Muslim is he who does actions to seek the pleasure of Allah and to draw nearer to Him.

There was once an incident of a pious man who on hearing that there’ll be no farz salah in heaven, cried with real tears and proclaimed that it was enough for him that he was given a musalah so that he could pray on it and that would be his heaven. SubhanAllah. That was the serenity and pleasure the souls of these great men received on worshipping Allah.

We should all strive to attain such spirituality and to work towards strengthening our imaan and becoming people of taqwa, for it is only then that we will rid ourselves of a spiritual void which people feel even after attaining all forms of worldly pleasures.

Love of God the Almighty gives life to the Heart and sustains the soul. If the heart loses this love, then the loss it suffers is more severe than that of the eye when it is deprived of its sight and the ear when it is deprived of its hearing.

A sage from the early days of Islam (Abdullah ibn al-Mubarak) recited:
You disobey God,
and yet you still claim to love Him.
By God, such behavior is disgusting,
by any standard!
You would have obeyed Him had your love been true.
For the lover is always obedient to the Beloved!

The purpose of this life is the worship and friendship of God. This life is a test for us: will we turn to God, or will we forget Him? This is where life’s struggle has to begin.

Pakistan ka matlab kia? La Illaha Illallah?

This was one of the slogans used by our great grandfathers, and perhaps their fathers as well, at the heart of the partition and making of Pakistan but somehow down the line these words got lost in time itself. Or perhaps we lost sight of their essence and were left wandering around in this now sad and corrupt land.

To say Pakistan is the land of the pure, is like turning a blind eye to everything that Pakistan stands for in this time. This does not imply that Pakistan is completely deprived of people who do good but simply that as a nation we are sadly a lost cause. With like a thousand different sects each fighting for their own version of Islam, we have forgot that there is only one version of Islam and that is the version our Prophet (S.A.W.) preached us.

To start off by naming who is on the right way or who is astray is not my job nor is it anybody else’s. Our job is only to correct ourselves and the people under our influence, the blame game has been going on for too long and it is about time it stopped. The question now is where did we go wrong? I have heard stories about my own great grandfather both maternal and paternal that depict personalities I have rarely had the fortune to witness. They were people of taqwa and their faces shined with “noor”, and these are just a few of their qualities that I have found out through what I have been told about them.

But what happened from their onward? Who does the blame go to for us being so divided, so corrupt, so distressed, so selfish..? Is it the fault of our parents, our schooling or what? I believe that it was a combination of factors which can be used to explain the condition of our society now and not just one factor alone. However, the fact that most of us have went so far away from our religion is the biggest factor for our distress. A man wouldn’t steal if he knew that his rizk has already been written for him and by no unfair means that he uses will his rizk increase except by Allah’s own wish, poverty would be an unknown and unheard of concept if everyone paid their due zakat and if people were always conscious of Allah and had faith then our society would be rid off of corruption.

So what do we do now? Or what is it that we CAN do now?

We need to reignite our souls and reignite the slogan! Understand and feel the essence of these words: laillahailAllah. There is no such thing as “Pakistan sab se pehle”, there is only “Islam sab se pehle”. Had Islam not been the common factor between punjabis, sindhis, muhajirs, pathans, balochis and siraikis then there wouldn’t have had been any struggle, any will or for that matter any Pakistan. If we have had the fortune of being born into Muslim families and a so called Muslim country then we need to make the most of our situation. Practice Islam and spread its teachings, live by it as it is the best way to live. It is a guideline to make us victorious in this life and in the life hereafter.

So it is now the duty of each and every one of us to make this country the country it was envisioned to be. And make the slogan and the dream a reality- Pakistan ka matlab kia? La Illaha Illallah.