Blessings of Allah

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We all have times, down periods, when we feel kind of sorry about ourselves. Not that I’m going through one right now, but me and a couple of my friends were praying in the mosque after school the other day and I realised how much blessings I’ve received in my life and how silly one’s state of mind is in those down periods. In fact, basically every wish I’ve ever had, every du’aa I’ve ever made about the dunya, has been accepted. A couple of years ago, when I started practising, I could only dream about having friends whom I would go with to the mosque to pray in between classes and after school. Now, that is what happens basically every day. There have been personal, family related problems, that could’ve resulted in a totally different life for me, but alhamdulillah it turned out exactly as I wanted. I mean, if I think about it, my life could’ve gone in a totally different direction but instead it turned out in a way which I, thinking back, always wanted. Religion-wise, something that is a huge deal and means the world to me is that I am now able to stand in prayer, recite from the Qur’an and have a basic understanding of the meaning. For many Muslims, this is something normal but growing up in a non-religious home where learning Islamic knowledge wasn’t a priority, this took me some time to be able to do. We are all created on the fitrah, and this is something I know from direct experience. When I was 4-5 years old, my biggest dream was to learn how to pray and to submit to Allah. When I was taken to the masjid, I saw people praying and doing sujud and it is like they say, it instantly clicked. Now, add to this the fact that even at such an age I knew, instinctively, about tawhid (and all it intails, like the Names and Attributes of Allah, His Mercy etc.), the akhirah etc., you can imagine my reaction when I got a chance to read parts of translations of the Qur’an. It is like my innermost thoughts and feelings that I’ve carried with be are being verbalized, or like meeting your parents after having been separated from them. It is like ibn al-Qayyim explained what Noorun ‘ala Noor (light upon light) means:

Something similar happens to the believer. His heart is lit such that he almost knows the truth by means of his fitrah and intellect. His heart, however, has no maadah (substance) within itself. But when the maadah of the al-Wahy (Revelation) touches his heart and the latter rejoices in its company, its light [of fitrah] increases by the light of al-Wahy. The light of al-Wahy adds up to that of fitrah and it becomes a light upon light. So, the believer would almost speak the truth even though he may have not heard an evidence. He later hears of the evidence to be identical to what has been attested to by his fitrah. Thus, it is being a light upon light. This is the status of the believer. He acknowledges the truth, in general, by means of his fitrah. He then hears of the textual proofs and [authentic] traditions presenting what he has acknowledged, but in details. His faith, therefore, stems from the attestation of al-Wahy and fitrah…” Source

So the beauty of the concept of Salat, standing in front of your Lord and devoting oneself to Him in prayer, combined with the recitation of His Words that affect your heart and trigger your innermost emotions… You can see why this is an incredible blessing.

My point is, we should appreciate the blessings in our life, because they are so great and we take them for granted. If we just stop and reflect about it for a little bit, we will have more appreciation for Allah’s Mercy and we will love Him even more.

I’ll just mention one more thing. The fact that I’ve found friends who can, if anything, bear with me and my type of humor, is quite a blessing in itself. To illustrate what’s funny to me (but probably not to the majority of the world’s population): I made a short Windows Moviemaker video where the prologue states that my story, which is that of a teenager with puberty related problems (you’ll have to figure out what I’m implying here, it’s nothing gross) was included in the (fictional) book “Tarikh al-Masakin”, which was then translated to English. Woody Allen reads it, and decides to make a movie about it. Christopher Plummer hears about it and suggests that he tell the story through an allegory. They have a vote in Nicaea with the studio executives and vote in favour of that idea. I then include the supposed movie in my video, and it is basically the final scene of the movie “Ali” with Will Smith, depicting the ”rumble in the jungle”. This would be an allegory of young “Miskeen” battling with his demons. It’s such a silly joke (and the video such a waste of time), but I have my “audience” who will at least get the references. For another one of my attempts at comedy (this time, a school assignment, so not a complete waste of time), you can read this old post.

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