Graduated.

The long pause was deliberate. Writing is addictive and sometimes we end up enlisting confessions that should have vanished .. perhaps, the key is to hold your horses; so, hold your pens, let the passage of time be at your service. Alhamdolillah, I graduated (masters degree) a couple of weeks ago. By Allah, every part of every endeavor I made by far was easy, very easy .. & by all means, I take it as a beginning. A beginning of a revitalized struggle to follow a true calling, an energetic devotion to a life of absolute servitude, and a passion to contribute with my abilities. I am not underestimating my experiences and successes, but I am not expecting things to soothe from now onwards. To be honest, there seems to be no stopping to this, and I like it as it is .. “easy” is boring :->

Inshallah, remember me in your prayers.
Asalamalaikum.

Brother Nouman Ali Khan’s advices to youth

Yesterday, I was part of a sleepover with a huge number of muslim brothers and Alhamdolillah, it was an overwhelming experience. Something new for me was to hear fellow brothers chanting “Allah hu Akbar” after scoring a soccer goal, or after sniping out a red team member on some xbox game!

Anyways, the guest was Brother Nouman Ali Khan. I knew him but met for the first time. He was a silent, simple dressed, and a decent person. Like many, I had a glimpse at him when he entered the facility and my eyes chased him until he asked for a basketball and intermingled with the players around.

He led our Isha prayer and his recitation was soothing not only for ears, but for all of our hearts for sure. Following the prayers, we gathered around him, and the humble young sheikh sat in the center, and started his fun-oriented dawah session. His didn’t talk about his work; instead, he took advantage of the youth’s gathering, and talked about its responsibilities. Following are few excerpts I remember:

1. Spend as much time as possible with elderly people (parents being of foremost importance), and learn from their experiences. The best place to find such elder people is a Masjid.
2. The classic – choose you friends wisely! Outnumber your bad acquaintances with good practicing muslim brothers. Don’t think that you can improve you bad friends by living amongst them on a daily basis, chances are, that they’ll demote you and your taqwah eventually.
3. Don’t say that I am bored. Because, it means that you think you don’t have much to do in your life. But being a muslim, we can’t be free enough from our responsibilites (dawah, salah, reading, and doing best to attain a higher level in Jannah, etc.) to get ‘bored’.
4. You can live without facebook, and text messages. Come out of this loop, and think about what this technology has done to you and your thought process. Try your best to meet people face to face instead of posting messages on their walls. He left facebook because he received requests like “Sister xyz wants to be your friend”.
5. If you don’t have a beard, then you can do a better job of doing Dawah to people who won’t even look at the faces of beard scholarly men (for advice or knowledge about islam).
6. Try to drag your discussions (with your fellow non-muslim & muslim friends) in a way that you can convey the stance of Islam on matters of life. Jump into discussions if you see such an opportunity, and never hesitate to say what must be known by them.
7. Islam needs not to be defensive. Let not people ask you questions about things that they misunderstand about Islam. Smash questions on them about the apparent fallacies in their societies, pinpoint the issues, and present the solutions. Leave them with a big question mark.
8. Be responsible, you surely have a responsibility. Read more and more of Quran, and use this knowledge to answers questions about your faith.
9. Don’t give yourself time to be alone. The worst that you can do to yourself is to make room for idleness, which usually ends up in you comitting something that you shouldn’t have. So, the idea is to find activities, and always staying in some good company. One alternative is sports! Go out, and play something with your friends. Indulge in physical activities.
10. If you have to, then prefer gaming over useless internet browsing because internet is ‘open’ and you have your limits. But gaming itself has to be limited as something that should follow constructive activities. For example, an hour of gaming following by few hours of group study.

That’s it. There was more, but I can’t recall it all.. I am hungry (& single) 😀

I ask for forgiveness from Allah SWT if I misquoted anything on behalf of Brother Nauman; may Allah SWT bless him with the best of this world and hereafter.

Jak. Asalamalaikum.

Trust, Responsibility, and Intentions.

“If you put your whole trust in Allah, as you ought, He most certainly will satisfy your needs, as He satisfies those of the birds. They come out hungry in the morning, but return full to their nests.” [Tirmidhi]

Life is all about ups and downs (and downs and downs ?! :>) Alhamdolillah for everything. I try not to hasten but I ensure not to delay things; things that I’ve little control over. I think, talk, listen, argue, and learn. I think ideal, talk truth, listen critically, argue constructively, and learn sincerely. I’ve changed people’s opinions; opinions of people much older than me.. and helped them to be more optimistic.. Allah, the Exalted knows better.

And in the meantime, I discovered a bunch of things about my (real) self by observing the way people see me. The one best thing I learned is that I am different in the way I think about responsibility. One of the facets of optimism is an ideal trust on Allah SWT. With such an ideal trust, you feel comfortable in taking on responsibilities. Now, I don’t like it when someone tells me that he’s not mature enough to take a next big step in life, where apparently, all he is a trying to get is a little more freedom of being single, what we call partying out with friends. To me, it’s a lack of sense of responsibility combined with some nonsensical ideas about life.

Although, most of the times when we talk about the next big step, we refer to marriage. But, I want to talk in general. In general, how the heck can you feel immature by the age of 22-26? and again why the heck do you want to party out at such an age? I feel like this has something to do with the definition of freedom that perhaps is communicated to us by well-defined devilish sources like teen movies, sitcoms, and just some specific breed of friends. And this is where I become argumentative. I am straight in letting someone know that he’s a ruined fellow as far as his related concepts are concerned..  so harsh, I know! But to leave someone in a laughable state is NOT at all better than making him angry with you and at the same time, incite some serious thought process in him.

Anyways, unless someone has a geniune reason of not taking the next big step, He/She must take it.. I don’t see an option here and taking this step is not hastening, it’s truely about time. Talking about marriage, I am dead sure that it brings happiness being equally propotional to your intentions. If you want to enjoy a “few more” gatherings with friends to pick on each other and do some indecent jabbering etc. (while being financially able to get married) then you’re really not planning to take the most out of this relationship. There is not a single aim or goal of our lives that would ensure our well being in the hereafter, which might get obstructed by getting married. For all worldly objectives of supposed “well-being”, such a human being needs a serious rethinking.

Now most importantly, I don’t talk out of experience, I just try to make the most of the Hadeeths I know and the essence of trust on Allah SWT communicated by Allah SWT Himself. You are supposed to trust Him, depend on His plans, refresh your intentions, and take the decisions. And then, it’s so simple, with no need to know about people’s experiences :> and Allah, the Exalted knows the best.

`Abdullah ibn Mas’ood (may Allah be pleased with him) reported that he heard the Messenger of Allah (PBUH) say:

“Whoever transforms all of his concerns into one concern only – concern for the Hereafter – Allah will satsify his demands and needs in this life. As for he who devotes his concerns to wordly matters, Allah will not care in which valley he perishes.”