Wednesday 7 November 2012

Allah is waiting to help me..

Remembering Past Trials, a humbling experience.
A wise person always takes lessons from the past hardships and afflictions and learns from his or her experiences. It is the realization of the situation that makes the person more humble and appreciate the blessings of Allah(swt); for instance good times, health, youth, past friends, deceased family members, poverty, wealth etc. With every trial and difficulty Allah (swt) tests us; we should make the experience a source of wisdom and understanding making us more humble and sincere Muslims. We must learn to recall our past and always remain conscious of the fact that life is short and we will soon return to Allah (swt). It is always Allah that listens to our distress and makes it better. The Prophet (Pbuh) said that remembering past trials can even earn us rewards....






Thursday 1 November 2012

Prayer and our steadfastness for prayer


....
..Soon after witnessing this reality, the Holy Rasulullah Muhammad received the Divine Order from His Sustainer concerning the five daily prayers, which is necessary for his community's salvation. Up until that moment, only the morning and night prayers were obligatory to be performed and therefore people were only practising the morning and night prayers.
As already explained before, the prayers were prescribed fifty times a day in the past, but later on, this figure has dropped to only five times a day.
Now, let us pay attention here. If somebody cannot pray five times a day, does that give him the right to never do it?
This is not only a false belief, but is also completely wrong.
If you cannot perform prayers five times a day, then at least try to perform them four times or twice or maybe even once a day! Do as much as you can.
But, the most important thing is that performing these prayers is essential, even if this is only done once a day. In fact, this simply indicates that the person is genuinely sincere about doing it.
Suppose that you owe somebody five million liras and imagine that you have fifty thousand liras in your hand now. If you pay this sum towards your debt, this indicates that you are always ready to pay your debt since you have shown your effort and sincerity with this act. But if you spend all the money you have in your possession for your own pleasure instead of making a little payment to settle your debt, then your sincerity can never be trusted and therefore that person will never believe in your seriousness. He will always know you as a liar, a person with a double faced character.
Well, if that's the case...
If a person cannot perform daily prayers five times a day, it is essential to at least do it twice or once a day as a minimum requirement. By doing so, he proves that he has total faith in what he does.
Even if he cannot allocate time for himself during the day, it is obvious that whenever he gets up in the morning, he will wash his hands and his face anyway. If he could also wash his feet, then he would perform the ablution. After this, he can perform his morning prayer, which consists of only two units, and if he cannot not perform this at five or six o'clock in the morning, he can certainly do it after he wakes up in the morning. So, this is a convenience that is also offered.
After all, it is only a morning prayer consisting of two units. If you perform this prayer by reciting the verses of 'Al-Hamdu' and 'QulHuwallah' respectively from the Koran, then the whole process of praying takes only about two minutes. Of course, it does not seem appropriate for a person to argue that he has not even got two minutes. Every person can spend two minutes and hence allocate time for a daily prayer.
Even if we cannot do anything, let us at least perform the morning prayer, which is only two units in length so that we can say to ourselves, 'Well, I can only do this much!' During this two unit prayer which lasts only about two minutes, let us recite all those holy words we have mentioned before so that we can store the meaning of these words into our brain and consciousness at least. So, by grasping the meaning of these words in full, we will be able to manifest these qualities through ourselves more strongly when the time comes in the future.