In the name of Allah, the Most-Merciful, the All-Compassionate

 

"May the Peace and Blessings of Allah be Upon You"

 

Bismillah Walhamdulillah Was Salaatu Was Salaam 'ala Rasulillah

As-Salaam Alaykum Wa-Rahmatullahi Wa-Barakaatuh

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1) Contentment: A Key to Productivity

Islam has equipped the believer with the tools necessary in keeping the “smile” part and parcel of your everyday appearance. One of these tools on its own can help you life your mood and help you lead a happier life, if understood and implemented that is.

This one tool is known as “satisfaction with the choosing of Allah”. To stress the importance of this divine formula, ponder over the following:

• When the Muslim wakes up in the morning, what are we taught to say?

“Praise be to Allah, the One who brought us back to life after causing us to die..”[Bukhari]

• When we get dressed, what are we taught to say?

“Praise be to you oh Allah, You clothed me with this! [Abi Dawood, At-Tirmithi]

• When the Muslim finishes eating, what are we taught to say?

“Praise be to Allah, with an abundant, beautiful, blessed praise..”[Bukhari]

• When the Muslim exits from the bathroom, what are we taught to say?

 “Praise be to Allah, the One who removed the impurities from me and relieved me.”[Ibn Majah]

• When the Muslim sees a person with a disability, what are we taught to say?

“Praise be to Allah, who has spared me from what he has been afflicted with.”[at-Tirmithi]

• When the Muslim attains or accomplishes something, what are we taught to say?

“Praise be to Allah, by whose blessing good things happen!”[Ibn Majah]

• If the Muslim fails to accomplish something? We are to say:

“Praise be to Allah, in all cases.” [Ibn Majah]

Isn’t that just amazing?! The Muslim finds himself perpetually alternating from one form of praise to another regardless of the situation’s ease or hardship. Yes, this is the sweet life of a believer: Gratitude during prosperity & patience during adversity, a reward from Allah in both cases, a win-win situation.

These words are guidance for us during our most difficult times. They allow us to find perspective even during hardship.

Even the non-Muslims who merely spend time with Muslims are witness to this! In an article titled:’The Garden of Allah’, Colonel Ronald Bodley (British army officer, author and journalist) tells the world:

“In 1918, I turned my back on the world I had known and went to north-west Africa and lived with the (Muslim) Arabs in the Sahara. I lived there seven years. I learned to speak the language of the nomads. I wore their clothes, I ate their food, and adopted their mode of life. I became an owner of sheep and slept on the ground in the Arabs’ tents.. ” He goes on to say: “Those seven years which I spent with these wandering shepherds were the most peaceful and contented years of my life.”

They take life so calmly and never hurry or get into unnecessary tempers when things go wrong. They know that what is ordained is ordained; and no one but God can alter anything. However, that doesn’t mean that in the face of disaster, they sit down and do nothing.

“To illustrate, let me tell you of a fierce, burning windstorm of the sirocco which I experienced when I was living in the Sahara. It howled and screamed for three days and nights. It was so strong, so fierce, that it blew sand from the Sahara hundreds of miles across the Mediterranean and sprinkled it over the Rhone Valley in France. The wind was so hot I felt as if the hair was being scorched off my head. My throat was parched. My eyes burned. My teeth were full of grit. I felt as if I were standing in front of a furnace in a glass factory. I was driven as near crazy as a man can be and retain his sanity. But the Arabs didn’t complain. They shrugged their shoulders and said: “Mektoub!” Meaning: “It is written.”

”But immediately after the storm was over, they sprang into action: they slaughtered all the lambs because they knew they would die anyway. After the lambs were slaughtered, the flocks were driven southward to water. This was all done calmly, without worry or complaining or mourning over their losses. The tribal chief said: “It is not too bad. We might have lost everything. But praise be to God, we have forty per cent of our sheep left to make a new start.”

”The seven years I spent with the Arabs convinced me that the neurotics, the insane, the drunks of America and Europe are the product of the hurried and harassed lives we live in our so-called civilization.”

”As long as I lived in the Sahara, I had no worries. I found there, in the Garden of Allah, the serene contentment and physical well-being that so many of us are seeking with tenseness and despair.”

Dear Muslim, haven’t you noticed? The world is now turning to you for answers! In the quest for content, they gaze earnestly at your keys. So be satisfied with the tools of your ancestors. Learn and acknowledge the tools you have been equipped with to deal with the hardships of Dunya.

 

2) Discover the Greatness Within! 

 

Within all human beings, no matter what part of the world they’re from, what their environment has been, what culture they come from, what their religious tradition is, there lives a certain kind of greatness.

Everyone knows that this greatness lives within them. We call it different things, but the bottom line is that we all have a central wish to be as good, true, kind, and as profitable a human being that we can be. It’s in our very DNA. And that divine code if you will, is the same in every human being. We just dress it differently.

Within every individual there lives a wish to embody something grand, beautiful, kind, true, and loving. None of us – no matter where you go in the world – can escape the need we have to realize the truth of ourselves. And this longing we have to be free, to know ourselves, and to express ourselves, was given to us by something sacred. Nothing in the world has the right to take it away from us.

We all have common needs: the need to love; to grow as human beings; to continually perfect ourselves; and to integrate our lives with the universe around us. These needs are common to all of us, regardless of the place in the world we live in or the discipline we grew up with. The commonality of these needs means they were placed in us by something that came before our culture – that came before our religious backgrounds and traditions.

It is honoring the true needs we have as human beings that places us in relationship with that which put those needs within us – that places us in relationship with that which transcends all boundaries, that transcends all of the moralities and the mores, and all the other things that currently govern and divide human beings. If you know the truth of yourself, you will find freedom, because to know the truth of yourself is to come back into relationship with these essential needs that were put in us so that we could discover our connection with something that is timeless.

We share an uncommon possibility as human beings, which arises from the fact that we all share common heartaches. No matter where you go in the world, you’ll find men and women in one way or another whose dreams have been broken, who have lost something that they love or someone they love, who have a regret or a disappointment that they’re unable to shake free from.

As a rule, when we meet people with problems, the first thing we tend to do is distance ourselves from them because I already have enough pain. But we can start to understand that in the truest sense of the word, this man or this woman is in fact a celestial brother or sister because we have the same needs. And if I am going to be able to help another human being to hear, to understand, to bring any light whatsoever into the heart or mind of another individual I do so because I have found that understanding first in myself. And the extent to which I am capable of adding some light to the life of another human being, is the extent to which I have first found that light in myself, and know that we all hold that light in common. In that common sharing of a new understanding lies the uncommon possibility for a transcendent life that we all have as human beings.

There have been great individuals in the past who have truly helped and changed mankind – individuals like Jesus Christ, Buddha, and Prophet Mohammed (Saw). Compared to them, our efforts to help one or two people discover the truth of themselves and their connection to the sacred may seem insignificant. But one of the most beautiful things you will ever learn is that no one on this earth is more important than you – not important because other people say you’re important, or because you have some social standing or you own possessions that lend you a sense of power, but because it is the individual who changes the world.

Long before there was Christianity, or Buddhism, or Taoism, or Hinduism, or Islam, or any other religion, there was an individual who felt compelled to learn the truth of himself in response to a need seeded in him by the celestial. When that individual was touched by what he had reached for – and that was reaching for him, then he brought forth what he discovered within himself. And those discoveries became what we now call the world religions. They all started with an individual. And each of us, in our own way, and in scale, is meant to do the same thing.

Add to that this one important and beautiful idea: You cannot add a measure of light to any measure of darkness that doesn’t change the darkness everywhere. This is a law in physics. How much more true is it when it comes to us and the world we live in? If I understand a truth, if I embody it, if I become the instrument of that awareness, then wherever I go, whatever I do, no matter who I’m with or what is taking place, the very discovery and relationship I have to that little bit of light in myself changes everything around me, and the Universe itself.

What is really empowering is the recognition that this little bit of understanding, this little bit of awareness, this little love we may have for what is true and timeless, changes all human beings, makes it possible for all creatures on this earth to have a different order of being. It is possible because the being of the individual changes first, and then that higher being is all there is.

 

~ Have a blessed day~

Courtesy: SADRU RAJWANI

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