Sometimes you wonder…

 

Sometimes you wonder what the purpose of doing things is. Take blogging for instance, I started doing this because I wanted to be able to share my “voice” and experiences as a Muslim woman. I was tired of people speaking on behalf of me and thought that maybe, just maybe I could manage to positively influence someone and make them understand the truth about things. But sometimes, I wonder if my writing even makes a difference or if I’m just wasting my time. I guess these thoughts are normal, human beings are prone to self-doubt at times, aren’t we?

 

And then of course at times like those we need reminders. Reminders that it’s the small things that count and that you don’t have to do big things to make a difference. Reminders that it’s not who listens to you that matters, but the fact that you’ve taken the effort to ‘speak’. Reminders that all of your actions are being recorded and that the One Creator sees and knows all you do.

 

Recently I got my reminder about blogging through a post written by a new blogger, an intelligent and talented young women (Masha’Allah- you can read her post here). In her very first blog post she speaks not only about our purpose on this earth but also about making use of our abilities to do good and basically to be better than what we think we can be. So although I’ve read many things similar to this before, this post somehow stayed with me, renewing my vigour and purpose for blogging, reminding me that an intention to do things to earn the pleasure of Allah is something that is important and it needs to be carried through with until Allah wills differently. It also reminded me that while we all start out full of enthusiasm and energy, we somehow tend to lose that along the way, but we should constantly renew our enthusiasm and energy, just like we constantly need to renew our enthusiasm for many things in life. It’s not difficult to renew your energy when you believe that what you are doing is for a good cause, but all this needs to be reminded to us, because being the weak human beings that we are, we tend to forget or overlook our purpose many times along the path.  I guess this reminder came at the right time and in the right manner, and you never know whose words will inspire you.

 

There are many other amazing women whose words have influenced me in different ways. Now that I think of it actually on a weekly, if not daily basis when I click on the various blogs I follow I’m almost certain to find some uplifting words, words that motivate me, and words that teach me something new about different people, different places and the way the world works in general.

 

I guess that positive words written will always linger on and even if it impacts on someone for a short while, the point is that if these words were not written then there would be no impact at all, and no impact or no influence is worse than even the smallest positive impact or influence.

 

Sometimes you wonder; I guess that’s a given in this life, but I am thankful that I manage to get my reminders and my answers whenever I do wonder, and I guess Allah Almighty has different ways of getting messages through to us, and Allah Almighty uses different people for this purpose.

 

May Allah guide us all and inspire us to always write words that will be a means of positivity!

 

 

What makes a True Leader?

The other day I was reading an article about the appointment of the new Vice-Chancellor at Wits University. The article was very positive and many people seemed to be happy that this man was appointed, believing that he would bring positivity to the University. I liked what I was reading and not only because the new Vice-Chancellor of my old University happens to be a Muslim man, but because it seemed that he actually has the necessary value system required for a true leader.

One particular thing stood out for me and this was with regards to the home of the Vice- Chancellor.

The article stated that:

“In June this year Prof. Habib is due to take up residence at Savernake, the historic residence of all Wits VCs since 1948. Situated on Parktown Ridge, it is a stately, heritage home but it is now in its 109th year and needs restoration. The issue of leaders and their homes is a sore point for South Africa and Habib has wisely and astutely avoided the excess trap. Instead he has requested that all restoration be put on hold until he and the team led by Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Finance and Operations Professor Tawana Kupe have properly examined the costs involved “and separated what is necessary expenditure from extravagance”.

So yes, the issue of leaders and their homes is a sore point in South Africa because recently the preposterous amounts of money spent on personal homes by our “leaders” has come under the spotlight. Yet this isn’t an issue unique to South Africa, this can be seen all across the world. So-called leaders around the world live in luxury while majority of the people suffer. What’s wrong with that you may ask? I mean shouldn’t leaders live better than others when they are the “most important people of the country”? If this is our way of thinking then we have no idea what a true leader really is.

Let me tell you a little bit about a true leader. Our beloved Prophet Muhammad (May Allah’s Peace and Blessings be upon him). I urge you to read historical accounts for yourself to understand this unique leader, but in case you don’t get to do this let me share a little with you. The house of Muhammad (pbuh) was the same as the houses of all the other people. He lived in a simple home, amongst the people. In fact, he (pbuh) even had less than the other people in the community. He slept on the floor on a mat which left marks on his blessed body. He ate very little, and sometimes went days without eating. His food was dates and barley and he only ate meat dishes occasionally. He lived what he taught and his life was testimony to the fact that he had the best interests of everyone else in mind. He would give away money to Bedouins and peasants, and whenever money was brought to him he would not sleep without having distributed that money to the community. His daughter Fatima (may Allah be pleased with her) once hanged a fancy curtain (and in fancy I mean printed with flowers) and the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) refused to enter her home, when she asked why he said something to the effect that her curtain is too extravagant.

Besides living like the people, the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) worked with the people. He built the Masjid Nabawi in Madinah with the people. In one of the battles known as the Battle of the Trenches, he dug the trenches with the people. Speaking of battles, the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was always on the battle field with the people, an equal, not a leader giving orders to those in battle while he sits comfortably in his home. SubhanAllah (Glory be to Allah), this was a true leader in all regards.

The leaders which followed him practised this perfect example as well. They took very little provisions for themselves and gave the rest to the people. The entire system was based on the well-being of the people. Umar (May Allah be pleased with him) used to walk around the community at night to see that the people are doing okay and sometimes he would even help old ladies to do their chores. Abu Bakr (May Allah be pleased with him) when he saw his wife had extra money (which she had saved up) decided to reduce the amount of money he got because he thought they had excess. When the community asked the daughter of Umar (May Allah be pleased with him) to speak to her father and tell him to take more provisions for himself he said something to the effect that Muhammad (pbuh) and Abu Bakr have both passed away and returned to Allah, if I want to join them then I cannot live a life of excess.

SubhanAllah , Indeed there can be no better leader than our Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). The world will never see a greater leader than this, and if anyone wants to be a good leader, a just leader and a leader that deserves to be followed, then that person needs to adopt the value system of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).

I know that there are many lies made up in these times about our Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), but in a world filled with such deception, where injustice is the order of the day, where leaders look out only for their own interests, I am not surprised that people would want to discredit the man who stood for everything opposite to what they stand for. Of course it is up to everyone to believe what they will, but I can tell you that with real knowledge people will see the truth as did so many before them.

I will leave you with some quotes about the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and I will say that if any leader, whether it’s a vice- Chancellor of a University or a President of a country, if they had to adopt the leadership style of Muhammad (pbuh) then not only would they be successful but the people they lead would find peace, happiness and contentment instead of suffering, fear and oppression.

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Jules Masserman in a Time Magazine article entitled: “Who Were Histories Great Leaders?” wrote:

“Leaders must fulfil three functions:

1.      Provide for wellbeing of the led,

2.      Provide a social organisation in which people feel relatively secure,

3.      And provide them with one set of beliefs.

People like Pasteur and Salk are leaders in the first sense. People like Gandhi and Confucius, on one hand, and Alexander, Caeser and Hitler on the other hand, are leaders in the second and perhaps the third sense. Jesus and Buddha belong in the third category alone. Perhaps the greatest leader of all times was Mohammed, who combined all three functions.”(Emphasis mine)

“I became more than ever convinced that it was not the sword that won a place for Islam in those days. It was the rigid simplicity, the utter self-effacement of the Prophet, the scrupulous regard for pledges, his intense devotion to his friends and followers and his intrepidity, his fearlessness, his absoloute trust in God and in his own mission. These and not the sword carried everything before them and surmounted every obstacle”(Mahatma Gandhi)

“He was by far the most remarkable man that ever set foot on this earth. He preached a religion, founded a state, built a nation, laid down a moral code, initiated numerous social and political reforms, established a powerful and dynamic society to practice and represent his teachings and completely revolutionized the worlds of human thought and behaviour for all times to come. (Sir George Bernard Shaw)

A TRUE LEADER WILL ALWAYS BE REMEMBERED AND THE EFFECTS OF HIS LEADERSHIP WILL BE UNDENIABLE TO EVERYONE. BUT A LEADER WHO IS SELFISH AND ONLY CARES ABOUT HIS OWN POWER WILL SOON BE DISGRACED AND HUMILIATED.

May Allah Almighty guide us all, Inshaa-Allah!

 

Image 1 from here

Image 2 from here

We’ve lost it along the way

I was shopping with my niece and nephews today at a bookstore / gift store and I was so taken aback by some of the items they had there. They had key rings, gift cards and those little signs that you hang on doors or walls such as “danger keep out of my room”. But amongst these “child-friendly” items they had ones that were extremely lewd and open. One of the signs even had cartoon pictures of a bunch of naked women on it! My sister and I were so disgusted we had to quickly (and subtly) move my nephews away from there so that they didn’t see it. In fact there were a lot of items that I would say belongs in an adult store instead of a general book/gift store.

Now I know that some people will call me a prude or whatever and probably tell me to ‘’get with the times“, but honestly how can we expose people to such lewdness, and don’t we consider how this corrupts the minds of innocent children. Surely these types of things should be kept for those people who don’t mind seeing it, instead of flaunting it openly for the general public to see. I may be a prude, boring, old-fashioned even but really, where have our morals and ethics gone?

This morning as I was helping my brother with a Media Studies assignment I read that in the 1950s the South African government opposed the introduction of television in this country on moral and ethical grounds, and I thought, ‘Ah, so there was a time when morals and ethics was common amongst people’. Sadly those times seem to be way gone!

Yes, it seems our actual “progression” in life is actually a huge “regression” because we seem to have lost the things that really matter, slowly along the way our ethics and morals began to lessen as we gave way to modernity, globalisation and capitalism. In our quest to “get with the times” we’ve actually lost more than what we’ve gained. And so it is that we have young children behaving like adults and crazy things happening all the time. A recent newspaper headline read that 45 000 schoolgirls get pregnant a year in South Africa! Am I the only person who thinks this is crazy? Surely something isn’t going very right here!

So at the risk of sounding extremely old-fashioned, I just need to say that I want the morality that we’ve lost, I want us to find our ethics, I want to be able to walk in to a store and not feel the need to cover up the eyes of young innocent children. I want to shout this out to whoever’s listening, I want people to start understanding that a society without morals, values and ethics is a lost society, a society that will forever be plagued with social problems. I’m not saying that morals and ethics solves all the problems in society, but it sure does make a huge difference! Where are the days when everyone understood this- When all people believed that respect and modesty is essential? We’ve lost those days, we’ve lost those people and all we’ve gained is a world of materialism where the outside looks good and modern but the inside is decaying, like a rotten core in a shiny apple.

May the Almighty Allah guide us all and help us to find the goodness that we have lost!

Image from here

Reflections on life and opposites

Recently I’ve been thinking about how life seems to be made up of “opposites or polarities”.

Last week my friend’s mother passed away, two days after that my sister gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. My friend is naturally extremely devastated and saddened, she looks like she never wants to smile again. My sister is naturally elated and so happy that she can’t stop smiling every time she sees her new-born child.

Life and death, two opposites, yet two things that are an essential part of our lives on this earth. It seems that life is filled with these polarities, Life-Death; Happiness-Sadness; Light-Darkness… perhaps everything in life has an opposite.

Interestingly it seems that these opposites are interlinked, thus confirming that its necessity in life. Think about it- if we never experience joy then we can’t understand sorrow, if we never experience sorrow then we can’t appreciate joy. If we have never had happiness then sadness becomes obsolete and if we’ve never seen light then darkness is something we see as natural. Without opposites, things don’t seem to make much sense, do they?

Eternal life may seem like an ideal to some people, but ask a really old person about that and they’ll probably tell you they’d prefer death because life has just become tiring. Birth in itself cannot be extricated from death.  

What I also found interesting when thinking about this is that with some of these opposites, we actually have a choice as to which one we will hold on to. For instance, we can choose whether we want to let light into our lives, or if we want to continue to dwell in darkness. We can choose happiness over sadness, (by focusing on all the favours of Allah for instance). We can choose to make wise decisions instead of stupid ones. Okay, so when it’s our time to die we don’t really have a choice in the matter, but we can choose how we wish to live, and these choices will ultimately determine our final outcomes, not only in this world but in the hereafter as well.

So basically while it saddens me immensely to see my friend in mourning, I know that one day she will be rejoicing life again- and I have to admit that while I’m thrilled to see my sister so elated and rejoicing new life- I cannot forget that one day she will have to face sadness of losing a loved one.

Life just has to be this way, like I said, if we don’t experience both sides of these polarities then we will never appreciate and understand life, and this means that we will never grow. After all, doesn’t Allah Almighty remind us of this in the Glorious Quraan when Allah Most Merciful, Most Gracious tells us that: ‘Indeed after hardship will come ease’. Without the hardship we will never be able to appreciate the ease. SubhanAllah (Glory be to Allah) Allah truly knows everything. May Allah Almighty help us to deal with whatever we have to deal with and may Allah give us the gift of appreciation and contentment with whatever situation we are in!

 

All Praise is due to Allah Almighty!

 

Image from here

Could we ever be like this amazing woman?

I came across this article and was so inspired that I just had to share it here. Alhamdulillah this woman had such conviction and strength in faith, and I couldn't help asking myself if I would be able to resist the temptation of fame the way she did... Allah Knows best, but truly there are amazing woman, even in today's time. Anyway, read for yourself and you'll know what I mean:-) The article below was taken from here: Oldest Woman in the World Refused Entry in Guinness Because of Headscarf

Faizel Patel, Radio Islam News - 2013-02-18   A 124 year old Palestinian woman, Maryam Hamdan Ammash was refused entry into the Guinness book of world records because she refused to take off her head scarf and appear on TV. Maryam's family members said that their grandmother who has performed the Hajj (Pilgrimage) five times in her life and performed Umrah ten times refused to commit a sinful act even for getting eternal with entering the Guinness World Records. In an interview with Gulf News, Mahdi Helmi Ammash, a grandson of Maryam said "There have been serious discussions about Maryam entering the Guinness World Records breaking the record of the French Jeanne Louise Calment who lived 122 and a half years. A team of the Guinness team visited Maryam and her family last March to this end" "Armed with official documents including her birth certificate, identity card and other documents, we will not give up our grandmother's right to enter the Guinness World Records for the longest human lifespan even after her death," he said. Sadly Maryam passed away on the 26th January 2013, after she lived for 124 years. Scores of people from around the world attended her condolence session held in her home village of Jisr Al Zarqa'a, near Haifa of the 1948 areas. Maryam who held a Turkish birth certificate and an identity card clearly stated that she was born in 1888 and became undoubtedly the oldest woman in the world. "This fact is beyond doubt and that all officials who paid visits to my grandmother have confirmed it and this is documented with the family", added Mahdi. Maryam was also a very outspoken. When a representative of the Guinness told her that they can make her a well-known personality, she answered with a question: "And will that make me happy?" To which the representative, with a little hesitation, replied that it would probably make her and her family happy. She asked the representative how old he was to which he replied,”43”. She smiled and said, “And most of all, you are not a Muslim ...?"Surprised by her answer the man asked why these issues may be of any importance and what she wanted to say? She said, “You are old enough to distinguish between what is right and what is not. But you are not a Muslim. That means either you are too small to distinguish truth from delusion, or you are an imbecile. Because only a child or imbecile would believe that it will make him/her happy to be glorified among the same mortals like himself. When he risks being thrown into shame in the eyes of the Creator." "So what should I choose?” asked the Guinness representative. Maryam said, “to be glorious amongst those themselves are inglorious or to be glorious amongst the lucky owners of the Contentment of the Creator, me, you, him and all those whom you represent"? The Guinness representative was stumped when Maryam had the final word and said, “Go away and grow up to start thinking if you do not have the answer. And I promise not to die until you get back - she joked at the end". The most surprising fact was that the man embraced Islam in 7 months afterwards. And after another 4 months Maryam Hamdan Ammash died.