Sunday, March 27, 2011

The Old Tree Fell Down

There was an old tree which had been standing outside my house for ages. The leaves and foliage had been cut off long ago and the trunk and branches remained. The tree was old, thick and heavy. Although it seemed to be dead, there were sometimes new branches that sprouted from it. Anyway, about a week ago I came home to find that the tree had fallen down. It had become uprooted, probably due to recent rains and it just fell down, leaving a big hole in the ground.

The workers from City Council struggled to pick this tree up. First they spent hours trying to saw the tree into smaller pieces because it was just way too big to lift up as a whole. They struggled to do this, and their electric saw seemed useless, but eventually after coming back a number of times, they managed to cut it into three pieces. Then they struggled to life it up. They had a truck with one of those crane things and despite this; they spent about two hours lifting it up. Still one piece of the tree is lying in wait for them to pick it up, because it was too heavy for them to take all at once.

SubhanAllah, imagine that, just one creation of Allah Almighty’s and it’s causing people so much difficulty to sort it out, and yet Allah was able to make it fall so easily. Truly All Power lies only with Allah (Swt). This is a reminder to us that things in our lives can be so difficult if we do not have Allah’s help and when we turn to Allah and ask for help; then everything can become so easy.

There were other reminders that this old tree gave me as well. Firstly, it’s that everything in life is a process. Sometimes we lose patience and we forget that things take time and everything happens on its own time. But if we remember that life is a process then things begin to make more sense. Take this particular tree for example. First it was a big strong tree with lots of leaves and branches. Then it lost its leaves and branches (I think it was due to lightning). Then even though it seemed useless, Allah still knew its purpose and it continued to stand strong. And then finally, when Allah decided it’s time on this earth was up, the tree fell down.

But this tree left a mark in the ground where it once stood. A huge hole serves as a reminder of the tree that once stood. Slowly this mark will disappear. It will probably be filled up; maybe grass will be planted again, and in years to come people will not know that a strong tree once stood there. Yet, the impact of the tree on things around it will never be fully known to us. For instance, we will not know how many birds and other things the tree gave shelter too. We won’t know how many people received shade and solace from the tree when it was very hot. We won’t know whether the tree was a source of nourishment to the earth around it. We may not know this, but Allah definitely knows it all!

This is an echo of life. We go through the process, it may seem like it will never end, but the time will come for change to happen, and then before we know it will be time for us to depart from this world. What type of a mark will we leave on this earth? Will people easily be able to fill up the gaping holes that we leave as a mark of our existence? What difference would we have made in this world?

Just like we will never know the true impact of the tree, I don’t think it matters if people in the world never know the true impact that we have made. What I mean is that we do not need to be famous, and our good actions do not need to be openly displayed for the whole world to talk about, and perhaps even other people may not need to understand Allah’s purpose for having us around. The important thing however, is that Allah knows the full impact that we have made. Since all our deeds are supposed to be only for Allah, in the end, Allah’s complete knowledge of us is all that matters, just like Allah Almighty has complete knowledge of the old tree so does Allah have complete knowledge about every single one of our lives, and I think that is amazing. I think that is something we should be thankful for.

Nothing and no one is insignificant in the sight of Allah Almighty, and Allah knows exactly what is going on with every single thing. Allah controls everything and will allow everything to happen on its own time. This is the biggest reminder I have received from the old tree that I could once upon a time see standing strong outside my window, and Alhamdullillah, I have to say that this thought brings a smile to my face and warmth to my heart, because indeed there is no one better to be in control of our affairs.

All Praise is Due to Allah, The Almighty, The Creator of everything. There is None worthy of worship besides Allah, The One, The Eternal! From Allah do we come and to Allah do we return. May Allah always remind us about things that are important, Inshaa Allah Ameen!

The tree as it once stood standing strong (It was beautiful, even without the foliage)


The fallen tree and the big hole in the ground
( Photo courtesy of my sister Khadeeja)

The last remaining piece of the tree. It looks so empty without the tree.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Muslimah Bloggers Directory

As-salaamu-alaykum (Peace be upon you)

Sister Rabia Ashraf has a great new blog. She has decided to create a directory of Muslimah Bloggers. The blog looks great Alhamdullillah. Check it out- http://muslimahbloggers.blogspot.com/

For those who are interested in adding their blogs to this directory. See the details below. This is from Sister Rabia's Blog:

If you somehow found this blog, and you're a muslimah and would like to submit your blog, please e-mail me at: rabiaaisrabiaa@gmail.com

When you email me make sure you include:

Blog Link
Blog Title
Name(it can be a nickname)
Blog Category

Personal Information

Country
Any interesting fact about yourself

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Blue Pearl Award


I've received an award from a very special sister. Bluepearl has created such innovative awards, I really admire her creativity, Alhamdullillah. Thank you dear bluepearl for this very special and thoughtful award. I truly appreciate this!!!

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

We can do with so much less

Two weeks ago my family and I decided to go on a health detox. When my brother first suggested it we casually dismissed it, thinking that it was unnecessary or something that we’ll never do. My sister and I tried a detox some time ago, we had to spend one whole day eating nothing but fruit and vegetables, I have to admit that it was difficult. So when my brother suggested this I thought, no way, a whole week without proper food, I don’t know if I could do that! In any case, we ended up doing it, Alhamdullillah. So with this detox we couldn’t eat any meat, rice, spices, we could only have a very limited portion of certain types of fish (which happened to be rare and very expensive so that meant no fish either). No butter, cheese, or anything like that. No milk, no juices, especially no soft drinks. So basically, we could only have vegetables, lentils, grains (such as nutty wheat cereal) yoghurt and whole grain bread. Some of you may think this is okay, but by day three we were ready to give up. Our food had no taste, we felt hungry all the time, and we could only drink water. Alhamdullillah, this was supposed to help cleanse out our bodies and make us feel healthier. For me there were some other important lessons to be learnt.

Firstly, I had to make shukr (give thanks) to Allah (SWT) for always giving me such tasty food to eat. You never appreciate how much you have to be thankful for unless you don’t have that anymore. When our detox was over, we appreciated our food so much more than before. Alhamdullillah, I am so fortunate and I can’t even imagine what it is like for people who are forced to eat whatever they can find every day because they have no food, or spices to make the food taste nice. Truly we will never be able to thank Allah enough for all that He gives to us. SubhanaAllah!

The other lesson I learnt is that we can survive with so much less. We survived a whole week with eating so much less food than we usually do. This means that all the excess that we usually eat is unnecessary, let alone very unhealthy.

But, it’s not only eating that we can cut down, it’s also so many other things, like the amount of clothes we have or the things we have in our homes. If we look at how much we actually need to survive, we will see that it’s very little. Take clothes for example, when we travel we have to take a minimal amount of clothes with, so we have like two outfits of clothing, or 3 at most right, because otherwise our suitcases won’t be able to keep all our things. The same thing goes for shoes, handbags, hijabs, etc. Yet, at home, our cupboards are full of different outfits of clothing and shoes. (And I’m looking at my things first so I’m not pointing any fingers here).

This just made me think. If we are supposed to live on this earth as if we are travellers, then why are we accumulating so many things? Why are we filling our bodies with so much food, and why are we filling our cupboards and our homes with so many things? Clearly all this accumulation doesn’t fit in with how we are supposed to be living. And the thing with accumulating stuff is that it then becomes difficult to let go of that stuff, just like it was difficult for us to stop eating all the delicious food and drinks that we usually eat. Ultimately this leads to us being attached to the world and this makes it difficult for us to leave the world and we cannot live as travellers in a world that was never meant to be permanent for any human being.

So I guess this is a lesson for us all, Alhamdullillah, although we are very grateful to Allah (SWT) for all the bounties bestowed upon us, we should all (myself first) make stronger attempts to live with less, less food, less sweets and chocolates, less clothing, less shoes, less ornaments in our homes, less of everything, because the less worldly things we have, the more of Allah we will have! And who wants more in this world, when the hereafter offers us things that are million times better! Besides-The less we live with, the more we’ll have to give to others! (So maybe less is more after all :))
So Inshaa’Allah, let us all make an intention to start living with less things in our lives, and through this sacrifice (because there are many beautiful and delicious things in this world), but maybe if we give these things up then Allah will give us better in the hereafter-Inshaa'Allah.

All Praise is due to Allah!!!May the Almighty Allah give us all strength– Inshaa'Allah!

Image 1 taken from: http://www.detoxdietplanet.com/
Image 2 taken from: http://stylebakery.com/style-recipes/10_ways_to_recession-proof_your_wardrobe.html

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Congratulations to the Winners of The Tribute Award

Alhamdullillah, our competition has now come to an end. I would like to congratulate every single blog that was nominated for this competition. I really think that every single one is great. Unfortunately we can only have 3 winners, and so special congratulations goes out to our 3 winners!


They are.....

1. Aeesha's recital

2. Blue Abaya

3. Jordania okiem polki

Here are the awards. The winners can copy the award and add it to their own blogs.

Thank you to everyone for participating in this competition, to all thos who so willingly added their nominations and of course, their votes- A big thanks to you!

To all my wonderful sisters- Keep doing what you're doing. Every contribution is an important one, every positive word written or spoken can make a difference!

May You All be rewarded by Allah Almighty!

Stay well- May Allah shower His Peace and Blessings on you all.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

The Tribute Award- Voting is Now Open!!!

As-salaamu-Alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu (May Allah's Peace be Upon You and His Mercy and Blesssings)

The voting for The Tribute Award is now officially open. Below you will find a list of nominations. These are linked to the websites and you can take a look at these sites, which are all amazing- Alhamdullillah.

You can vote on the poll on the right hand side of this blog. Please only choose 3 from the list.

The voting will close at 23:59pm, Saturday 19 March 2011.

I really appreciate all your participation in this award and I wish all the best for every single nominee! May the Almighty Allah reward all of our efforts- Inshaa'Allah!:)
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The Tribute Award -Nomination List:
























Wednesday, March 16, 2011

2 -1/2 Hours Left for Nominations

As-salaamu-alaykum- Peace to you All

I'm just letting you know that there are only 2 and 1/2 hours left for you to nominate your favourite blogs for The Tribute Award.

Since I am in South Africa, I'm going according to South African Time- (I apologise to those of you who are in time zones that are behind South African Time which is GMT+2:00h.


Voting will begin shortly after nominations close!

Just to remind you, there will be 3 days of voting- On Sunday 20 March 2011, The Winners Will be announced. Inshaa Allah.

Jazakallah Khayr- Thank you very much- to all of you who have sent in your nominations. All the blogs in our nomination list are wonderful!

Stay tuned!...

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Have you posted your nominations?

As-salaamu-alaykum - Peace to you All

Tommorrow (Wednesday, 16 March 2011) is the final day for posting of nominations for the Tribute Award (see previous post for details).

If you haven't already posted your nominations, please do so now!

Voting will begin on Thursday, 17 March Inshaa'Allah.

Thanks for all the great nominations thus far.

All The Best:)




Image from: http://www.popularairsoft.com/nominations-1st-airsoft-players-choice-awards-now-open

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Announcement !!! Nominations Now Open !!!

I've decided to have my very own mini-awardS. Since there are so many amazing sisters blogging I decided that I am going to be running ...

THE TRIBUTE AWARD !

Since my blog is basically intended to be a Tribute to Amazing Muslim women, I thought that this would be very appropriate. It's simple and fun and this is how it will work inshaa'Allah:


-You will have 1 week to nominate the blogs that you think deserve
                        The Tribute Award.

- You can simply add your nominations to the comments below this post.

- On Wednesday 16 March 2011, the nominations will close.

- I will then put up a poll and voting will take place for 3 days inshaa'Allah.

- On Sunday 20 March 2011 the winners will be announced on this blog.

- There will be three winners, Gold (1st), Silver (2nd) and Bronze (3rd)-
(I've added the awards below so you know what it looks like)

Just to clarify-The aim of this award is to pay tribute to the amazing sisters who are out there taking the time to share their opinions about things and just to tell us what they're thinking. I think all of you are great and so you are already winners in my eyes, but it's always great to get a little extra encouragement.

SO LET'S BEGIN TO POST NOMINATIONS NOW!!!

May Allah Shower Peace and Blessings on you All!

********************************************************
THE TRIBUTE AWARDS


Our 1st Place Winner will receive this Gold Award.

Our 2nd Place Winner will receive this Silver Award.

And our 3rd Place winner will receive this Bronze Award.

INSHAA ALLAH
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Saturday, March 5, 2011

Call on your Lord with True Conviction

We all pray to Allah to help us in situations, and sometimes we may feel that our prayers are not been answered and we naturally tend to wonder about things. Well, I just had an experience which made me question how true my conviction really is and how much I believe Allah will help me. Let me explain using my example, which is actually a mundane example, but there’s so much to learn from it.

I recently got a new car (Alhamdullillah), well my new car is actually a second-hand car which I got from my brother in law through a deal the family made. In any case, the car needed some work to be done on it and so we first sent it to the mechanic. Since the mechanic was waiting for car parts he took very long to sort everything out and eventually he brought the car back. After driving it for one day, the car gave me some problems, so we got that sorted out. Then, very shortly after that, it gave some more problems. These were all small things that the mechanic hadn’t adjusted properly because only once you begin to really drive the car can you see what works properly and what doesn’t. Anyway, Alhamdullillah, that got sorted out as well.

Now, here’s where the lesson begins...

 I was extremely irritated and frustrated by all this. After waiting for so long to get the car from the mechanic I really expected it to be working great and I wasn’t prepared for more hurdles. So I really didn’t deal with this well at all (okay, to be honest I sort of put up a tantrum about it). Since I had made duaa (prayers) to Allah Almighty before even getting the car, I wondered why all this was going wrong now, and maybe even wondered why Allah wasn’t accepting my prayers (May Allah (SWT) forgive me!!!).

You see the thing is that even though I made prayers, I didn’t ask Allah with true conviction and I didn’t go about it in the correct manner. Then the other day a wise Moulana said to me that the best way to get over any problem at all is to focus on shukr to Allah (Giving thanks to Allah for everything). It was like the key to open every single locked door when he said this, because it’s just so true. He explained that no matter what problem people may have, when we consider all Allah’s favours upon us, our problems will always be much, much less!!! SubhanAllah!!!! Truly Allah is the Most Giving, The Most Kind and Most Merciful!

The story continues...

The day after I heard this from the Moulana, the car started up again. As I was driving, a gush of thick white smoke started coming out from the exhaust pipe non-stop. I was about to freak out again, but then Alhamdullillah I was reminded about what the Moulana had told me. So I took a deep breath and firstly had to admit that I should be thankful to Allah that I have a car in the first place because I know many people who wish they were so fortunate. Besides that I should be thankful that I can drive, thankful that Allah keeps me safe all the time (especially in a place like Johannesburg which has been termed the “Crime Capital of the World”). You see, one incident and there were so many things I had to be thankful for.

Since the car started smoking when I was nearby my place of work I decided to just drive there because I had an appointment which I couldn’t miss. I calmly decided to complete my work and after that I’d see what happens with the car. Then before I left to go home I recited durood (praises on the Prophet Muhammad- Peace and Blessings be upon him), and really made a strong duaa from the bottom of my heart that I can at least take the car home because it was too far away for the mechanic to come out. After that there was just something inside me that knew the car was not going to act up again (Alhamdullillah- All praises are only due to Allah!). SubhanAllah, the car was absolutely fine all the way home. I had some stops to make and the car was fine, and no smoke all the way I was driving home, not even a little bit. (I just have to say SubhanAllah again!!!).

The story isn’t over yet so please bear with me...

When I got into our driveway I stopped the car and went to open the garage gate. As soon as I got back into the car and started it, the smoke began again, a whole lot of it! I had to cry when I thought about how Allah Almighty had accepted my prayer and brought me all the way home with no problems. SubhanAllah!!!

You see, when you have true conviction that Allah is going to accept your prayers, then Allah will definitely accept your prayers! This does not only apply to me, it applies to every single human being and this is why I’m sharing this story with all of you!

The Moulana explained to us that Allah is as we think Allah is. So if you think that Allah can do anything and everything, then this is how Allah will be. And if you trust Allah completely then Allah will help you, but if you don’t have true conviction then Allah will treat you in the same manner. My example proved that this is indeed the truth.

So if you have a problem that you think you’re not getting the answer to, then ask yourself if your prayers are truly been made from the bottom of your heart and do you truly, absolutely, one hundred percent, believe that Allah will accept it. If not, well, then that in fact is the real problem!

PS: Please remember that sometimes Allah Almighty doesn’t accept our prayers because He has something better planned for us and if Allah does not accept a prayer in this world , then Allah keeps it for us and gives it to us in much better form in the hereafter, so much so that we will wish that none of our prayers were accepted when we in this world.

A true believer can never be at a loss. Remember that thankfulness to Allah comes before anything else. May Allah guide and protect us all, Inshaa’ Allah.

Image taken from: http://islamicthems.blogspot.com/2010/09/muslim-prayer-hands-wallpapers.html

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Stylish Blogger Award-2

I've received this award for the second time around. This time it's been given to me by another special lady. Marie @ http://wwwwritingvibe.blogspot.com/ Thank you dear Marie for this, may you always be blessed.

NOW I KNOW THAT THERE ARE SOME RULES TO FOLLOW, BUT SINCE I'VE HAD A VERY TIRING DAY I WON'T BE FOLLOWING THESE RULES RIGHT NOW.- I'M SORRY FOR THIS, BUT INSHA'ALLAH AS SOON AS I CAN I WILL RE-POST THIS, WITH THE RULES OF COURSE!!!

So for now-To be continued....

Alhamdullillah (Praise be to Allah) I finally have some time to continue this post:

So here are the rules that I need to follow:



1. Thank and link back to the person that awarded this to you.
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Award 15 recently discovered great bloggers.
4. Contact these bloggers and tell them about the award.




7 Things About me

1. I like learning new things, it doesn't matter what it is, I'm always interested in learning.
2. The desk that I'm supposed to use for work is actually organised chaos.There's hardly a space for me to work.
3. I'm always reading a number of books at the same time, and you're likely to find post-it notes in them.
4. I like spending quality time with good friends.
5. I like children when they reach the age of 1 or 2 years, before that they're cute but not as much fun.
6. I love all forms of water  (the sea, waterfalls, ice,) Alhamdullillah this is just the most beautiful thing in nature for me.
7. I usually go to bed really late at night and I'm finding this habit diffiult to change.

Now....The Stylish Blogger Award Goes to the following blogs  (in no specific order):

1. How to Wear Hijab
2. Road to Jannah
3. The Colourful Years
4. Me, Myself and Him
5. Pink Islam
6. The Color of Our Skin (Marie I think this blog is really great!)
7. The Tales of a Modern Muslimah
8. Amber Misk
9. Oldie Goldie & the Young ones 
10. POSITIVE ISLAM 
11. Rose Water (I know you're the one who first gave the award to me but you really deserve this again!)
12. Carnations Contribution
13. Light of Happiness *warkah seorang hamba)
14. Wiser, Miss Tweet Blue Pearl (I know you've also received it before but you deserve it again).
15. Glowing Snow (Love the name of your blog Syida)

Congratulations to all these lovely bloggers!!! Keep writing and putting your thoughts out there. Remember great things have happened from only just a thought:)

Stay well always:)