Meeting with a lady

People always said, appreciate what you have for one day, it will perish.

You know, what we have now in our possession are blessings given by Allah. If we were to take those blessings for granted and we fail to cherish them, we are basically degrading ourselves in the eyes of Allah.

Alhamdulillah, today Allah destined for me to meet two individuals. Perhaps in the eyes of people they are just a normal person living among many other extraordinary / well to-do people. When I get back home, I was wondering, why Allah directed me to meet those two individuals? And that leads me to write this entry.

Rubbish Collector

I was throwing rubbish at the dump area when I saw a middle aged lady collecting recycle stuff from the dustbin. She was sweating and looks tired. I handed her two glass bottles for recycling. That’s when we started conversing and from there I get to know more about her. From the recycle stuff, she can only make around RM10-RM30 per day. And from that money she needs to maintain herself, her only daughter age fifteen, to pay rent and etc. She was talking while tears dropping from her eyes. On top of that, she’s a divorcee for almost fifteen years and has no one except her little girl (oh btw she is Indonesian, so she doesn’t has any family in Malaysia). During weekend, she will bring her daughter to help her collecting recycle junks.

I felt so sad. So sad thinking that I am living in a comfortable life yet still whining over petty matters. That short meeting reminds me of being grateful over what I have now. At least I am working in a comfortable office, have money for my dinner tonight, and have family to support me in times of hardship.

67 year old Diabetic Patient

While walking back to home after Isyak, I passed by one uncle who was trembling and nearly falling down. I know him. Always saw him in the mosque praying on a chair. He asked me to hold him as he was having hypoglycemia (usually happens when your blood sugar (glucose) levels fall below the normal range). Luckily he has chocolate ready in his bag. From there we started talking and I get to know that he had an operation to remove part of his feet because of the diabetes. Though he is having difficulty in walking, that does not stopping him from praying at the mosque. ‘My son ask me to pray at home but I don’t know what to say to Allah if I don’t pray at the Mosque’ – This is what he told me.

Again, this uncle reminds me of being grateful. Be grateful over the blessings of health and young age. I was comparing myself with him. He is 67, diabetic patient (both of his feet are bandaged - I would say its look pretty bad), having difficulty in waking, yet he tries his best to keep his prayer at the mosque. What about me – who’s still youngand healthy? What about the rest of us?

That lady, she is no one. People don’t really know her. She works in dirty places. But I am sure, in the eyes of Allah, she is someone. She is known to the inhabitants of heaven – the angles. Same goes with that uncle, he is an old man with amputated toes, not living in luxurious life, yet in the eyes of Allah, he is VIP. Allah is watching and recording all the steps that he took towards the Mosque. And I am sure that, because of that, He raises this old man rank with other righteous servants, Insha-Allah.

Typing along with Yiruma’s melody –Scenery From My Window

the lady

Shall I not be a thankful slave ( أَفَلاَ أَكُونُ عَبْدًا شَكُورًا)?

Alhamdulillah.

All praises be to Allah alone.

I have been wanting to write a short entry on “being Grateful”. For me, one of the biggest if not greatest forms of worship is – to show our gratitude to Allah. For everything; for the foods on table that keep us full, the companions that always be with us, the job that secures our income,  the path that we are able to walk on our feet – I can go on but the list will not end. 

There are too many things to be thankful for. Simply being able to breathe in and out, peacefully, that’s already a great blessing.

I was riding my kapcai motorbike last week when the sky teared with rain. Then I saw an old man, pedaling on his shabby bicycle, with trashes (recycle tins and bottles) at the back. That sight really triggers my emotion. I was comparing myself with that old man – and it made me feel ashamed. How Allah has bestowed me with many things, and still my lust is never satisfied. How He always provide me and I took it all for granted. There must be reasons why Allah showed him to me. I should be more grateful to Allah.

In another instance, I was driving my car, when I saw an old lady stop from one car to another car, selling pocket tissues. Judging by her look, I would guess she is in her 60s. Seeing her reminds me of my own Ammi. :( It was so heart-breaking to see her carrying a bag and selling tissues in the middle of the road while I am sitting in the comfort of my air-conditioned car. Again, there must be reasons why Allah showed her to me. I should be more grateful to Allah.

You see, our lives should resolve around being gratefulness. We wake up in the morning, and we’re breathing fresh air – that’s already blessings given by Allah. We stand up and walk to the toilet – another blessings. We use water to clean ourselves – another blessing. And this is just like 10-15 minutes after we woke up from our sleep. Just imagine, the blessings that we are going to enjoy for the next 23 hours and 45 minutes?

Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. We should always show our gratitude to Allah. But how? Read the Qur’an, do dhikir, pray solah, give charity, help the needy, be empathy – these are some acts that we can do to reflect our gratitude to Allah. Allah has given us many things yet we are not able to see and further to cherish it. We love to compare ourselves with those higher than us. Whereas the Prophet (ﷺ) has already advised us when he said:

"Look to one who is lower than you, and do not look to one who is above you. For indeed that is more worthy (so that you will) not belittle Allah's favors upon you."

When we see people lower than us, automatically, it will trigger us to be grateful for the favors that Allah has bestowed upon us and it will also lead us to be humble. When we are eating, remember Allah and be grateful to Allah. In one hadith narrated by Anas who relates from Rasulullah (ﷺ) that, Allah is pleased with that servant who eats one morsel (bite) or drinks one sip and gives thanks to Him. Just one bite and sip! Mashaallah! And how many bites do we eat for our breakfast? Have we ever count it? Lets try this for ournext meal – try to count how many bites do we eat and try to give thanks to Allah for it. Just imagine the rewards that will flow into our akhirah-account.

Last words, know that being grateful is the Sunnah of our Beloved Prophet (ﷺ). Know that when we give thanks to Allah, we are following the path of Rasulullah (ﷺ). Everyone must knows this hadith, but I will still quote it for the message is so deep - The Prophet (ﷺ) used to pray so much that his feet used to become edematous or swollen, and when he was asked as to why he prays so much, he would say, "Shall I not be a thankful slave (to Allah)?.

So, ask ourselves, "Shall I not be a thankful slave"?

As I was wiping my tears listening to Maher Zain - Thank you Allah :'( 

 

 Thank you, Allah..

Shyness (خجولة)

There’s one Rose

Distinct from the others

Blossoming exquisitely

In a spacious garden

And its redolence is hovering

Yielding harmony to passerby

Pleasing the singing birdies

And the buzzing bees

None can touch the Rose

For the thorns ’re guarding

And the garden is shielding

While the bees are roving

Fortifying its purity

Against those wild-trespasser

Whose hearts are impure

But

Neither the thorns

Nor the bees

Can stand the impurities

For the Rose grows

In its bashfulness

Burgeoning in its reticence

Isolated by its shyness

Castling itself

from the smuttiness

 ..

There’s this Rose

Whose fragrance

Resembling no others

..

Bukit Bintang | 9.16PM | 13 March 2017 

The Piano keeps playing the Melody - Yiruma - The Moment

P.S.: Your shyness is your Crown. And that's how these all began..

Grow cactus, live your life.
As God is always with you.

God is Kind to me

God is kind to me

When He send you

To teach me the word of Love

God is kind to me

When He placed me

In the sanctified womb

Close to your heart

And your heartbeats

Became the melody of mercy

Comforting me, caring for me

God is kind to me

When He fortifies you

To guide me, to be with me

Instilling me with the knowledge of Lord

Leading me to the path of God

God is kind to me

When He led you to me

To lit the candle

When darkness caging me

When fear grasping me

God is kind to me

When He cheered me

With a lovely smile

Crafted on your façade

Washing away

My sorrow and agony

God is kind to me

When He lends me

With His Mercy and Blessing

Through the blessed hands

Hugging me, warming me

When distress roared me

God is kind to me

When He taught me

To love you

To care for you

To always missing you

Oh my Kindest God

Tell me

How would I describe her affection

How do I enumerate her adoration

When You raise her rank

Next to Your Beautiful Name

Oh my Kindest God

Guide me, teach me

To love her, to care for her

As long as my soul and body

Are intertwined

 ..

Love you Ammi.

.

"And We have enjoined upon man, to his parents, good treatment. His mother carried him with hardship and gave birth to him with hardship, and his gestation and weaning [period] is thirty months. [He grows] until, when he reaches maturity and reaches [the age of] forty years, he says, "My Lord, enable me to be grateful for Your favor which You have bestowed upon me and upon my parents and to work righteousness of which You will approve and make righteous for me my offspring. Indeed, I have repented to You, and indeed, I am of the Muslims"

Quran; 46:15

.

P.S.: 27 years ago, on this day, my mother gave birth to me. Thank you Allah, for lending her to me in this life and let us gather again in the eternal life, in our Home of Jannah.

P.S.S.: I still remember, when I was 5, my mother used to send me to the kindergarten, and I will cry out laud the moment she dropped me at the front door and turning back to go home.

.

Written with the melody of Arwen'sVigil by the Piano Guys. 

the wing of Mercy, the golden key to God's Heaven

Boulevard

It was an abysmal hole

Murky, pitch-black dent

And I couldn’t see

I was blind

I was behind

When a wild hand grasped

Leading me to a course

Deeper, duskier

It was atrocious

Dreadful

As I saw a blotch

Emerging

On my tiny heart

From one stain

To another

Consuming my soul

And as my eyes see

But my heart is blind

Then again

My God is Kind

He grabbed me from behind

He guides me to run

Towards a graceful boulevard

Egress from the dark hole

Just like a dying body

He revived me to life

He fixed me aright

He nourishes my heart

And walks by my side

Leaving my soul at peace

And heart at ease.

..

P.S.: Alhamdulillah. Thank you Allah.

I tripped and You caught me. I fell and You grabbed me. I forgot and You reminded me.

.

“Allah is the ally of those who believe. He brings them out from darknesses into the light. And those who disbelieve - their allies are Taghut. They take them out of the light into darknesses. Those are the companions of the Fire; they will abide eternally therein”

 Al-Baqarah; 257

Far Away

As the wind blowing

And the trees growing

As the birds ’re twittering

And the days fleeting

Routinely running

Uninterruptedly rolling

Amidst the normalcy

There's a heart aching

Longing and wondering

In a dark solitary desert

Created by his own fancy

Walking aimlessly

Searching for a diamond

With a clue but no answer

In his lifelong journey

And again

He stumbled at the juncture

And as the distance

Flaring and broadening

Pushing the wanderer

Away from the shore

Drowning in his own fantasy

In the middle of the ocean

Gasping for air

Leaving him despair

Hoping for a miracle hand

To come and snatch the wanderer

Away from the wilderness

But hey

Who's moving?

You or Him?

As the steps breaking

And the ocean deepening

As he keeps walking

To the opposite route

Away from his God

Forgetting, neglecting

To the unerring veracity

Of the one to be titled

A Creator and a creation

A Master and a slave

And still..

the audacity hitting

You felt far from Him?

وَنَحْنُ أَقْرَبُ إِلَيْهِ مِنْ حَبْلِ الْوَرِيدِ

"and We are closer to him than [his] jugular vein"

Qur'an; 50:16

P.S ..written partly in the sky, partly on the earth.

Khaled Siddiq - Pain

Repentance

One of the topics that I am really looking forward to hear is the topic of Repentance. After being inspired by the Talk of Sheikh Yasir Qadhi on Repentance, I would like to write on this topic and share with others. Bismillah.

Being a Muslim does not means that we are free from committing sins. In fact, a human being is prone to commit a sin. Just as our Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) said in one of his narrations, as narrated by Anas who said:

“All the sons of Adam are sinners…” (Related by At-Tirmidzi and Ibn Majah).

When we commit a sin, some of us will develop a feeling of frustration and defeated. And such feelings will drive us towards sadness and ultimately we become hopeless. We think that our sins are huge that we will be deprived of the Mercy of the One God, Allah. We feel that Shaytaan has already won over us and such humiliation will make us feel even worse.

Sinning is a tool of parting us away from Allah. It can also become a tool to bring us closer to Him. It is a matter of our perception and acceptance. When we let negativity and extreme frustration dwell over us, we are in fact paving a path towards our own destruction.

Frustration over our failure to avoid sin is acceptable. It is in fact what we should be feeling of. With a balance tune, it can be a means of making tawbah. But having an extreme feeling of frustration will turn ourselves into a hopeless state of mind. It will eat up our Iman and will turn us into depression.

If we ever fall into the hole of this, we should always remind ourselves of this beautiful verse from the Qur’an:

“Say, "O My servants who have transgressed against themselves [by sinning], do not despair of the mercy of Allah. Indeed, Allah forgives all sins. Indeed, it is He who is the Forgiving, the Merciful.” Az-Zumar; 53

When we go through each word of the above verse, we can extract an invaluable pearl that can shine our life in this world and ultimately in the hereafter. For me, this verse if full of Rahma and Love. Just read it twice or thrice, and ponder upon it. You will find Allah’s Mercy spreading widely in front of you and you just have to open the door and embark into it. Some scholars said, the widest door you can ever find in Islam is, the door of Repentance. No matter how big our sin is, be it as enormous as the mountain, or even to the sky height, we can always turn to Allah and He will wipe away all of our sins. Just ponder upon the following Hadith Qudsi, where Allah said:

“O son of Adam, as long as you call upon Me and put your hope in Me, I have forgiven you for what you have done and I do not mind. O son of Adam, if your sins were to reach the clouds of the sky and then you would seek My forgiveness, I would forgive you. O son of Adam, if you were to come to Me with sins that are close to filling the earth and then you would meet Me without ascribing any partners with Me, I would certainly bring to you forgiveness close to filling it.”

Subhanallah! Just see how massive Allah’s Mercy is. One of the beautiful names of Allah is Al-Ghafur (الغفور) which can be roughly translated to “The Forgiver and Hider of Faults”. It is the ‘nature’ of Allah to forgive and he loves to forgive. He loves to forgive us as much as the love of traveler upon finding his lost camel. Just as the Prophet’s saying which was narrated by Anas bin Malik:

Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said, “Allah is more pleased with the repentance of His slave than anyone of you is pleased with finding his camel which he had lost in the desert.” (Sahih Bukhari)

We often repeat the same sins over and over again and it might be that we feel like “ok that’s it. I am not going to change after all”. Hold on my brothers and sisters. Before we dwell ourselves on this thought, just consider the following Hadith Qudsi:

A servant committed a sin and he said: O Allah, forgive my sin! Allah the Exalted said: My servant has committed a sin and he knows he has a Lord who forgives sins and holds him accountable. Then the servant returned to his sin and he said: O Allah, forgive my sin! Allah said: My servant has committed a sin and he knows he has a Lord who forgives sins and holds him accountable. Then the servant returned to his sin and he said: O Allah, forgive my sin! Allah said: My servant has committed a sin and he knows he has a Lord who forgives sins and holds him accountable, so do what you will for I have forgiven you.

Allahuakbar.. We should cry reading this hadith. Just open our eyes and read it again and again. How can a servant of Allah loses his hope in the forgiveness of Allah when Allah has sent down this hadith? How can we give up upon the Mercy of Allah, when we have such powerful hadith within us? Indeed the true loser is the one who deprive themselves from the Mercy and Forgiveness of Allah. Just think about this – when we feel that we are not a good Muslim and we can never be forgiven, we are actually saying that we know Allah better than Allah knows Himself. It’s like we are saying that Allah is incapable of forgiving us. Allahuakbar, what a great slander against Allah?? How can we judge Allah as incapable of forgiving our sins when He said by himself that He is At-Tawwab and Al-Ghaffar? Allah himself declared in Surah Al-Ghafir verse 3 that he is “The Forgiver of sin, Acceptor of repentance,..”

Thus, it is encumbered upon us to seek the forgiveness of Allah day and night. When we are riding our bike, or driving our car, or sitting in a train, moist our tongue with the seeking of Allah’s forgiveness - اَسْتَغْفِرُ اَللّهَ الْعَظِیْمَ (I Seek the forgiveness of Allah). Remember this hadith – “All the sons of Adam are sinners, but the best of sinners are those who repent often.” (Related by At-Tirmidzi and Ibn Majah) So let us be the best of sinners and elevate ourselves closer to Allah, The Forgiver of all sins.

A note to myself. May Allah forgives all of my sins. 

Ungu - Bila Tiba