"Surely, the true religion in Allah's sight is Islam" (3:19)
This is a talk delivered by Shaykh Ahmad Ali at the London Youth Tarbiyyah conference in June 2011. Shaykh talks about the harms and dangers of being involved in alcohol, drugs and intoxicants in Islam. A real important message and lessons for all to take on board and act positively upon.
reposted from Dec 2011.
The cheerful little girl with bouncy golden curls was almost five. Waiting with her mother at the checkout stand, she saw them, a circle of glistening white pearls in a pink foil box.
“Oh mommy please, Mommy. Can I have them? Please, Mommy, please?”
Quickly the mother checked the back of the little foil box and then looked back into the pleading blue eyes of her little girl’s upturned face.
“A dollar ninety-five. That’s almost $2.00. If you really want them, I’ll think of some extra chores for you and in no time you can save enough money to buy them for yourself. Your birthday’s only a week away and you might get another crisp dollar bill from Grandma.”
As soon as Jenny got home, she emptied her penny bank and counted out 17 pennies. After dinner, she did more than her share of chores and she went to the neighbor and asked Mrs. McJames if she could pick dandelions for ten cents. On her birthday,Grandma did give her another new dollar bill and at last she had enough money to buy the necklace.
Jenny loved her pearls. They made her feel dressed up and grown up. She wore them everywhere, Sunday school, kindergarten, even to bed. The only time she took them off was when she went swimming or had a bubble bath. Mother said if they got wet, they might turn her neck green.
Jenny had a very loving daddy and every night when she was ready for bed, he would stop whatever he was doing and come upstairs to read her a story. One night as he finished the story, he asked Jenny, “Do you love me?”
“Oh yes, daddy. You know that I love you.”
“Then give me your pearls.”
“Oh, daddy, not my pearls. But you can have Princess, the white horse from my collection, the one with the pink tail. Remember, daddy? The one you gave me. She’s my very favorite.”
“That’s okay, Honey, daddy loves you. Good night.” And he brushed her cheek with a kiss.
About a week later, after the story time, Jenny’s daddy asked again, “Do you love me?”
“Daddy, you know I love you.”
“Then give me your pearls.”
“Oh Daddy, not my pearls. But you can have my baby doll. The brand new one I got for my birthday. She is beautiful and you can have the yellow blanket that matches her sleeper.”
“That’s okay. Sleep well. God bless you, little one. Daddy loves you.”
And as always, he brushed her cheek with a gentle kiss.
A few nights later when her daddy came in, Jenny was sitting on her bed with her legs crossed Indian style.
As he came close, he noticed her chin was trembling and one silent tear rolled down her cheek. “What is it, Jenny? What’s the matter?”
Jenny didn’t say anything but lifted her little hand up to her daddy. And when she opened it, there was her little pearl necklace. With a little quiver, she finally said, “Here, daddy; this is for you.”
With tears gathering in his own eyes, Jenny’s daddy reached out with one hand to take the dime store necklace, and with the other hand he reached into his pocket and pulled out a blue velvet case with a strand of genuine pearls and gave them to Jenny.
He had them all the time… He was just waiting for her to give up the dime-store stuff so he could give her the genuine treasure.
So it is, with God. He is waiting for us to give up the cheap things in our lives so that he can give us beautiful treasures.
Are you holding onto things that God wants you to let go of?
Are you holding on to harmful or unnecessary partners, relationships, habits and activities that you have come so attached to that it seems impossible to let go? Sometimes it is so hard to see what is in the other hand but do believe this one thing.
God will never take away something without giving you something better in its place.
Reposted from Dec 2009
Am I truly grateful for each breath that I take,
For each and every moment that I am awake?
Do I thank Allah for my restful sleep,
And for the dreams that cause me to weep?
Am I honestly thankful to the Almighty One,
For the early morning mist, the bright, rising sun?
During Fajr prayer, I use my soft prayer mat,
As Allah’s servant, do I appreciate that?
Throughout the day, do I realise,
That Allah, All knowing and the Most Wise,
Gives me what I need and so much more
And that I have so much to be grateful for?
A grandmother’s love, a book of hadith,
The clothes that I wear, the food that I eat,
The book that I should follow, the Holy Qur’an,
Promoting the good and ending the wrong.
So I must ask myself every beautiful day,
Am I truly grateful for each breath that I take,
For each and every moment that I am awake?
Do I thank Allah for my restful sleep,
And for the dreams that cause me to weep?
By Ibn-e-Malik (Voices Issue 7)
Reposted from January 2008
اَلْحَمْدُ للهِ الَّذِىْ عَافَانِىْ مِمَّاابْتَلاَكَ بِهِ وَفَضَّلَنِىْ عَلىَ كَثِيْرٍ مِّمَّنْ خَلَقَ تَفْضِيْلاً
Al-hamdu lillãhil ladhi afani mimabtalaka bihi wa faddalani ala kathiririm mimman khalaqa tafdilâ.
All praises are for Allah who has granted me safety from the difficulty you are in and (praises for Him) who has favoured me over a great part of His creation.
(Tirmidhi)
Note: This duá should be read in a low tone so the person in difficulty does not hear.
Sayyiduna Umar (RA)
“Do not let your love be obsessive and do not let your hatred be destructive; When you love, do not go to a level of obsession as a child does with the things he loves, and when you hate, do not hate in such way that you want your opponent to be destroyed.
“And marry the unmarried among you and the righteous among your male slaves and female slaves. If they should be poor, Allah will enrich them from His bounty, and Allah is all-Encompassing and Knowing.”
[24:32]
Al-Imām Muhy al-Dīn Abū Zakariyyā Yahyā ibn Sharaf al-Nawawī (more commonly known as Imam Nawawi), was born in the village of Nawa on the Horan Plain of southern Syria in 631 H.
He was the imām of the later Shāfiʿī School, the scholar of his time in knowledge, piety, and abstinence, a hadīth master (hāfiẓ), biographer, lexicologist, and Sufi.
When he first came to Damascus in 649 H., he memorized the text of al-Imām Abū Ishaq al-Shīrāzī; al-Tanbīh in four and a half months, then the first quarter of al-Muhadhdhab, after which he accompanied his father on ḥajj, then visited Madīnah, and then returned to Damascus, where he assiduously devoted himself to mastering the Islāmic sciences.
He took Shāfiʿī Law, hadīth, tenets of faith, fundamentals of jurisprudence, Arabic and other subjects from more than twenty-two scholars of the time, including Abū Ibrāhīm Ishaq al-Maghrībī, ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn Qudāmah al-Maqdisī, and others, at a period of his life in which, as al-Imām al-Dhahabī notes,“his dedication to learning, night and day, became proverbial.”
Spending all his time in either worship or gaining Sacred Knowledge, he took some twelve lessons a day, only dozed off in the night at moments when sleep overcame him, and drilled himself on the lessons he learned by heart while walking along the street.
Fastidious in detail and deep in understanding of the subjects he thus mastered. He authored many great works in Shāfiʿī jurisprudence, hadīth, history, and legal opinion, among the best known of which are his Minhāj al-ṭālibīn, which has become a main reference for the Shāfiʿī School, Riyāḍ al-ṣālihīn and Kitab al-adhkār in hadīth, and his eighteen-volume Sharh Ṣahīh Muslim.
He lived simply, and it is related that his entire wardrobe consisted of a turban and an ankle-length shirt with a single button at the collar.
Death of Imam Nawawi
After a residence in Damascus of twenty-seven years, he returned the books he had borrowed from charitable endowments, bade his friends farewell, visited the graves of his Shaykhs who had died, and departed, going first to Jerusalem and then to his native Nawa, where he became ill at his father’s home and died at forty-four years of age in 676 H, young in years but great in benefit to Islām and the Muslims.
Source: Madrasa In’aamiyyah
Allah, The One, The Unique: A Tafsir of Surat ‘l Ikhlas delivered by Shaykh Riyadh ul Haq on Friday 25th May 2012 at Al Kawthar Academy, Leicester, United Kingdom.
This small chapter speaks about the oneness of Allah and monotheism. It emphasises the importance of making religion sincere and exclusive for Allah in all deeds and actions. Its profound meanings and messages are the very foundation of faith and the Qur’an.
Reposted from Nov 2012
Cast an evil glance
Shaytan begins to dance
For an arrow has been shot to the heart
And a darkness has enveloped it
After the glance, the darkness leaves
but the heart is adversly affected
Only the effect of sincere taubah
can return the blemished heart to
the pure condtion it enjoyed before.
Ilbas jadidan wa-ish hamidân wa mut shahidan
May you wear new clothing, live well and die a martyr.
(An-Nasai)