Lessons

On Saturday, I had a casual chat with a sister from America. I first met her when I went to this event called Muslims in the West. She was one of the speakers. At the event, she shared with the audience about how it was like for her to grow up in the West and the struggles she went through. How her family did not like her when she embraced Islam and even to an extent, offered money to her children to take off their hijabs. I can’t imagine how must that have felt like. Seriously, think about it. Being rejected by a stranger is hard enough, but being rejected by your own family? Man that's really tough. Not only that, she also did not get the support even from the people from her masjid. She said something very profound during her speech which sounded something like this;

“When I was not a Muslim, I met so many Muslims who talked to me about Islam and invited me into it. The moment I decided to walk into Islam, they left me. It was as if their job was to bring me into Islam and once I accepted it, their job was done. How was I supposed to survive?”

But being the smart woman she was (still is), she decided to learn Arabic and went straight to the sources; Quran and Hadith. You see, she believed in Islam. She knew from the beginning that the religion is perfect, it's the Muslims that aren't. So she didn't give up on the religion but continued searching for the truth instead. Subhannallah.

So when I met her at the mosque yesterday, I asked her how on earth did she do it? How did she learn Arabic? Where and how did she begin? We spoke for about a good 15 minutes and what I could conclude from our short chat were:

1. You have to have a burning desire to learn. You will do just anything to learn. When you have this kind of desire, you won’t be afraid to make mistakes and you won’t be shy to ask people the same questions for a thousand times until you understand it.

2. Make it important. Because when something is important, you will make a point to spend some time for it and continue doing it.

3. Be steadfast. No one will know if you give up but because you have imposed such importance to that something, you cannot afford but to be steadfast about it. It is a commitment and you just gotta keep pushing.

4. Don’t be afraid if you had to do it alone. I especially love this point. Sometimes we wish we could get some support while doing good things like this, but her words reminded me that if you gotta do it alone - even without the support of your closest family and friends, don’t worry about it. Allah will help. He alone is sufficient.

Two weeks ago, she embarked on a journey to memorise the whole Quran. And not only that, she wants to REALLY understand the Quran so she’s reading on various tafseers as well. Her goal is to be able to open any part of the Quran and actually understands it by heart. Masha Allah :')

I was very inspired. And I hope you are too.

Reflection

How hard do I really try to make my life revolves around my religion?

I’ll give you some examples and ask yourself, which one do you usually do?

1. I plan to wake up at 5am tomorrow to study. While I’m on it, I might as well pray tahajjud.

OR

I plan to wake up at 5 for tahajjud. While I’m on it, I might as well stay up a little bit and study.

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2. When planning for a journey, do you say - Let’s leave the house at 10am so we can have lunch at Tapah R&R at 2pm. We might as well want to catch Zuhr there too.

OR

Let’s leave the house at 10am so we can make it for Zuhr at Tapah RnR. We can take our lunch there?

See the difference?

I admit, sometimes I slip too. As much as I tell myself that I love Islam and remind myself to do things solely for Allah, I still forget. I don't just forget once, but a WHOLE lot of times. But you know what? We are taught in Islam of how merciful Allah is. We should never ever lose hope in Allah. The moment we are reminded of how much we are consumed by this world, take a step back. Just one tiny step back is enough to make us look at things clearer. Make loads of Istighfar and start again with a feeling of gratitude for the realisation. Don't think for a second that we got to that realisation by ourselves. We did not make it on our own. And lastly, sincerely pray for Allah to accept our Tawbah & make us remember Him always.

Now that it's Final Exam time, I wanted to remind myself on how I should make a conscious effort to continue making my life revolves around my religion and not the other way around. I don't know about you, but I'm really worried that my attention for finals will divert my attention towards my ultimate goal. Small things like continuing reading when you can clearly hear the adhan just because you don't want to lose the momentum, shows how lightly you take your religion. May Allah protect us from that.

While my mind was on this, I received a text message from a very good friend who was at Twins of Faith. Bilal Philips had just spoken about education and he said,

“There are 2 groups of people: Muslims who happen to be students, and students who happen to be Muslims. Always remember that you are Muslim first.”

It was so spot on! Well, I was not at Twins of Faith (I was kinda disappointed about it at first) but Insha Allah khair, it all happened by the Qadr of Allah. He knows best and I should know by now that learning can happen just anywhere. Also, all praises be to Him for I had really amazing friends who would text me from the conference and share with me some of the things those amazing shuyukhs said. Fatimah, being the serious knowledge seeker she is, even wrote notes about it on facebook and tagged me. Jazakumullahu khairan everybody. You know who you are :) I am truly blessed to have friends like you.

*Hint: Khadijah & Asma' cepatlah updateeeee ;)

Passion

Tonight, Boona Muhammed was here in my university. I've been listening to his spoken word performances since some time last year. The first time I heard him speak, I was instantly inspired.

I was inspired by the fact that this regular dude he claims himself to be, is doing something he is passionate about, something he is good at and something that is meaningful to him to inspire the world and benefit people. The best part of all is, he is doing it for the sake of Islam. He uses his creativity to introduce and spread the message of Islam to people. How cool is that? You see, Boona, at the age of 24, is doing something amazing. The generation of our parents would never think that this would make money nor would it give the person who does it a bright future. But what they (and even most of us) don’t realise is, when a person does something for the sake of Allah, He will make it easy for you. Allah says in the Quran,

"And will provide for him from where he does not expect. And whoever relies upon Allah - then He is sufficient for him. Indeed, Allah will accomplish His purpose. Verily, for all things has Allah appointed a due proportion." (65:3)

"If you set apart for Allah a goodly portion, He will multiply it for you and forgive you. And Allah is Most Appreciative and Forbearing." (64:17)

So don't be afraid to invest for the sake of Allah. Remember Asma's favourite quote?

SAYA PERCAYA!

Besides all that, the best part of all is the fact that Boona gets to ask people to pray for him. For those of you who were there tonight, remember how he asked for all of us to pray for him? He asked nothing but for du’as. Imagine if whenever and wherever he performs, all he asks from his audience is a piece of du’a. Priceless gift, don't you think?

So let us try to ask ourselves some questions now. Have you identified what your passion truly is? Your strengths and weaknesses? What do YOU enjoy doing the most? What is it that you find meaningful? Once you've identified all that, try to connect and link them to each other, to form an idea on how can you contribute to the Ummah.

I'll end with a link of this video from TEDx. The speaker is Amal from Canada. Check out how she once tried to build an orphanage but failed, and how that lesson taught her that she could use her passion for speaking, poems and peace to make the world a better place. She's only 17.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5JOzIlGv08