Ramadan reflections day 18

Published by TPOS on 28 July, 2013 - 06:59

SubhanAllah! Humans are great creations. Our abilities to understand and empathise are some of the greatest things we can do. We can recognise peoples’ emotions, and respond accordingly, we can help the emotionally distressed even by a few words of encouragement or wisdom. We can make people cry with laughter. We can make people feel happy, safe, accepted, loved.

I read in Thursday’s metro a story about a 15yr girl who had drowned and her 14yr old friend attempted to rescue her but drowned and died herself too. What a a courageous and loving girl she must’ve been. I hope her parents find solace in knowing their daughter will be known as a hero.

But humans can be capable of doing things which cannot be described as anything but purely evil.

Like those people involved in the Ramban massacre on the 18th of July

Or those being droned by the Western powers

Or the Egyptians being murdered. I saw a few pictures from Egypt today; corpses, a street with a pool of blood formed in the shape of a person, a man shot who was refusing to break his fast, saying he’d rather open his fast in paradise.

I came across Shaker Ahmed’s (last remaining Guantanamo prisoner, cleared for release in 2007) daughter’s twitter account today, she said this eid will be her 25th without her father!

The strength of the people who go through these things is unbelievable. I remember reading an article on the library at gitmo, it mentioned the prisoners took out books like Harry Potter and others, but also that ‘Don’t be sad’ was one of the most borrowed!

The imaan of these people is incredible, have you seen the picture with people attacking I think it’s either Syrians or Palestians, yet they’re all in congregation, praying? SubhanAllah! But that doesn’t take away from the evil that is being done to human beings by human beings.

Taking it down a notch, there a individuals hurting others for wealth and status or other worldly gains too –attacking, kidnapping, killing people to get what they want.

Then there’s the stuff we wouldn’t really call “evil” but definitely wrong – lying, cheating, stealing etc.

Then there’s wrong stuff “normal” people may do when interacting with others – lying (not so seriously), upsetting people, getting angry, not doing what is expected, being annoying etc.

I tried to be do something good that I fail to do at times and I know I need to improve on but towards the end of the day I lost my patience and once again I was reminded of my flaws.  I recognised I still have work to do to improve my character and I must improve it.

I can’t fix my fellow people of the world, if I can’t fix myself. If I don’t try fixing myself, the other direction is obviously to become worse. Dr Umar Faruq Abdullah, when teaching a book from the Ihya of Imam Ghazali (rh) said we should see everything bad happening in the world because peoples' hearts are not sound. And the heart doesn't stay in one position, it always goes up or down. So if I don't make an effort to let my heart travel higher it will go lower, and I will become a worse person. The world doesn’t need more people doing more wrong things.

If I fix myself, I should be able to help others fix themselves too.

And to be successful at this I must follow Surah Asr.

I have been meaning to write notes for at least a part of br. Nouman Ali Khan’s talk on the tafseer of Surah Asr, and I probably will at some point but here’s the link to part 1 You can find the rest of the parts on there too, I think. I haven’t actually listened to it on youtube cuz I listen to the podcasts.

And here’s a little summary NAK gives at the end of part 1, which I know has been shared on this site before.

">http://youtu.be/ymIwqlVD0FA]

I wanted to make notes on the example he gives of non-Muslims following this example too, for those who may not listen to the talks. InshaAllah I will do it at some point.

Imam Shafi'i (rh) said if someone pondered just on Surah Asr it’d be enough for them! SubhanAllah.