Friday Nasiha

Living The Quran

Al-Hajj (The Pilgrimage)
Chapter 22: Verse 31

Lack of Self-Definition
"Being true in faith to Allah, and never assigning partners to Him: if anyone assigns partners to Allah, he is as if he had fallen from heaven and been snatched up by birds, or the wind had swooped (like a bird on its prey) and thrown him into a far-distant place."

We see how this verse describes the sense of loss and lack of self-definition that afflicts the person in the absence of faith. The human being who lacks faith resembles a heavenly object that has strayed and fallen from its orbit. It is quick to burn up. It is lost and wasted, not knowing where it is headed. Such a person is overpowered by perplexing questions that make his or her mind as if it were about to explode. This person remains in emotional turmoil. The person's heart, likewise, does not come to any sound conclusion, and it takes that person's life right down to Hell.

It is part of our nature to seek out that which is to be venerated, that which is holy. This is why a person who does not acknowledge Allah as the one to be worshipped will find something else to worship.

All people, children and adults – and no matter how healthy, prosperous, or successful they might be – need a few moments away from other people, to commune with their Lord, to feel that Allah sees them, hears them, and will answer them. This is true at times of hardship and times of ease, not only when faced with failure, but even when enjoying the greatest success.

It is a grave error to assume that faith is tied in with fear of the unknown, as critics of religion claim. Rather, faith is tied in with a deep love in the heart, which in its outpouring naturally seeks that which is holy and sublime. In the absence of a willingness to recognize Allah, people might even worship idols like the Arabs used to do before the advent of Islam.

Compiled From:
"Faith is Human Nature – What Does This Really Mean?" - Salman al-Oadah

Understanding The Prophet's Life

Tranquil Soul and Heart

The first source of knowing proper manners and good character is the revelation from Allah. In the Quran and sunnah, many qualities are stated and shown to be praiseworthy. The blameworthy qualities are also pointed out in numerous verses and hadith. A person should go to those verses and hadith and judge himself in the light of those teachings.

What about particular deeds? What about deeds that are not specifically covered in the Quran and sunnah? How can he judge his own deeds on a day-to-day basis and discover whether they are of good character or not? Al-Teebi has brought together two hadith that offer an answer to this question. In one hadith, the Prophet (peace be upon him) said, "Righteousness is good character." In the other hadith, he said, "Righteousness is that concerning which the soul feels tranquil and the heart feels tranquil." So, good behaviour is that behaviour concerning which the soul is at rest and pleased.

Therefore, whenever a believer performs a deed or is considering doing an act, he should study the act. If he finds that his soul is at rest with that act, he will realize that the act is an act of good and proper character. Similarly, if the believer thinks about an act and his soul feels very good about that act, he should perform it as it is part of the good character that every Muslim should try to possess.

Compiled From:
"Commentary on the Forty Hadith of al-Nawawi" - Jamaal al-Din M. Zarabozo, p. 1026

Blindspot!

Liberation from the American Dream 

[Today,] America, the great liberator, is in desperate need of being liberated from itself – from its own excesses and arrogance. And the world needs to be liberated from American values and culture, spreading across the planet as if by divine providence. 

Yet the American dream is so seductive that most of us willingly keep on dreaming. We continue to drive our cars to the supermarket each week and idly wander the aisles, continue carelessly to throw out our weight in trash every few weeks, continue to assume that the additives in our foods are harmless shelf-life extenders, continue to play Visa against MasterCard, continue to buy sneakers made in offshore sweatshops, and continue to sit sphinx like in front of the tube most nights absorbing another dose of consumer-culture spectacle. 

The images beckon us to a future in which maximum pleasure and minimum pain are not only possible but inevitable. We yearn to realize the dream more fully. We work and strive for the promised payoff. We try to catch the river in a bucket. But we never will. 

Our culture has evolved into a consumer culture and we have evolved from citizens to consumers. Gratitude for what we have has been replaced by a sharpening hunger for what we don’t have. ‘How much is enough?’ has been replaced by ‘How much is possible?’ 

We have learned what it means to live full-on, to fly and fornicate…, and now we refuse to let that lifestyle go. So we keep consuming. Our bodies, minds, families, communities, the environment – all are consumed.  

Compiled From:
"Culture Jam: How to Reverse America's Suicidal Consumer Binge - And Why We Must" - Kalle Lasn, pp. 61-63