Pearls of Wisdom 385

1. Act in accordance with what you know for what you do not know to be unveiled to you. [Imam al Ghazali]

2. Your knowledge should improve your heart and purge your ego. [Imam al Ghazali]

3. Whenever you interact with people, deal with them as you would wish yourself to be dealt with them, for a Believer's faith is incomplete until he wants for other people what he wants for himself. [Imam al Ghazali]

4. Not a day or night passes for any person without his death during it being a possibility [Imam al Ghazali]

5. Occupy yourself with inspecting your heart, discerning the features of your personality, giving worldly attachments a wide berth, purging yourself of ugly traits, and you would occupy yourself in adoring God the Exalted, worshipping Him and acquiring good qualities. [Imam al Ghazali]

6. If one is not satisfied with what suffices him, no abundance will ever enrich him. [Omar radi Allah anhu]

7. This world is an abode of tests. The object of life is not to avoid or deny its tests and trials, rather to successfully pass them. [Imam Zaid Shakir]

8. Many think that tests from God are always signs of His wrath. As Muslims, we believe that the trials afflicting us can be signs of His love. [Imam Zaid Shakir]

9. Human suffering is real. However, human perseverance and human dignity are just as real. They allow us to nobly endure the trials of this world. [Imam Zaid Shakir]

10. How bad can any suffering in this world be if it opens the door to unimaginable, eternal good in the life hereafter. [Imam Zaid Shakir]

Lesson of the day 1390

Ayahs of the day:
And do not insult what they pray to besides God, lest they revile God in a hostile way, without knowledge. Thus do We make every people's actions seem charming to them; but then their return will be to their Lord, who will inform them of what they had been doing. [6: 108]

Hadith of the day:
Whoever desires that Allah increase his provision and extend his life, let him maintain his family ties. [Bukhari]

Wise quote of the day:
O my people prove the sincerity of your respect for the Qur'an by putting its teachings into practice, not by arguing about it. [Shaykh Abdul Qadir Jilani]

Guidance of the day:
The essence of gratitude is for the servant to know that all the favors in his possession, outward as well as inward, are from God and by His grace and munificence. It is part of gratitude to rejoice and to thank in the presence of favors because they are the means to work in God's obedience and attain to His proximity.

It is part of gratitude to busy oneself with God's obedience, use His favors as a help in doing so, and use them as God likes them to be used - this is the utmost gratitude. One should not become arrogant, boast before others of the blessings he has been granted, transgress, wrong others, or overstep the limits in dealing with them. He who does so has not been thankful, but has denied God's favors. Denial leads to dispossession and to one's blessings being changed into afflictions. He who shows gratitude deserves goodness and increase. [Counsels of Religion by Imam al-Haddad]

Food for thought:
Marriage, like money is still with us, and, like money, progressively devalued. In every marriage more than a week old, there are grounds for divorce. The trick is to find, and continue to find, grounds for marriage. More marriages might survive if the partners realized that sometimes the better comes after the worse.The bonds of matrimony are like any other bond -- they come slowly.

Hijab -- Muslimah's identity and much more

Pearls of Wisdom 384

1. A disobedience that bequeaths humiliation and extreme need is better than an obedience that bequeaths self-infatuation and pride.

2. The trials that arrive in this world are but reminders to you of what you ignore of indigence.

3. The best of your moments is the one wherein you witness the existence of your indigence and, through it, arrive at the existence of your lowliness.

4. There are two graces from which no being can be separated and that are inevitable for every creature -- the grace of existence, and the grace of sustenance.

5. Whoever supposes that His gentleness (lutf) is separate from His decree of fate (qadr) does so out of short sightedness.

6. Do not press claims against your Lord because your request has been delayed; instead, press claims against yourself for slackening in your behavior.

7. When He makes you submissive to His commands outwardly and provides you with resignation to His power inwardly, then He has enhanced the greatness of the favor accorded you.

8. He commanded you in this world to reflect upon His creation; but in the Hereafter He will reveal to you the perfection of His essence.

9. So long as you are in this world, be not surprised at the existence of sorrows. For, truly, it manifests nothing but what is in keeping with its character or its inevitable nature.

10. What has he found who has lost YOU, what has he lost who has found YOU. [Ibn Ata'Allah]

Lesson of the day 1389

Ayahs of the day:
No vision comprehends God, but God comprehends all vision; and God is most subtle, aware. Insights from your Lord have already come to you: so if anyone sees, it is for his own benefit; and if anyone is blind, it is to his own detriment. [6: 103,104]

Hadith of the day:
Whoever is deprived of kindness is deprived of all goodness. [Muslim]

Wise quote of the day:
The past and almost all that was in your possession during the past is not with you now. You may thus rationally come to the conclusion that the present and all that is in your possession will also leave you. [Ali radi Allah anhu]

Guidance of the day:
The believer will need much patience when performing his acts of obedience, so as not to neglect them out of indolence and to perform them as God commands him to do, with perfect presence, sincerity, and lack of ostentation or affectation in the presence of others. It is natural for the ego to drag its feet in acts of obedience so that the servant needs to impose  them upon it with gracious patience.

The believer also needs patience to refrain from sins and forbidden things, for the ego incites to them and thinks about committing them. He thus needs to restrain it with patience and prevent it from outwardly committing sins and inwardly inclining toward and thinking about them.

The believer also needs much patience to refrain from permissible appetites, those that the ego desires for no other reason than to enjoy the pleasures of this world, when to indulge himself to excess and allow himself free rein in doing so will lead him to fall into the suspect and forbidden, increase one's desire for the world even more, arouse one's greed for it, incite to find comfort and give priority to it, while forgetting the hereafter. [Counsels of Religion by Imam al_Haddad]

Food for thought:
Every day is a new beginning. Our best preparation for tomorrow is the proper use of today. We need to plan our future carefully -- we are going to spend the rest of our life there.

Pearls of Wisdom 383

1. Some of the most sublime bestowals of God are contentment with the reliance upon God in hardships, and recourse to Him in reverses of fortune.

2. Love is a seizure that God grants to the heart of His servant and that distracts him from seeing everything save Him, so that you can see the soul inclining to obey Him.

3. If anyone would abide strictly by the command of God, let him do it by remembrance, reflection, promptness, and submission to the command of God.

4. Allow not your soul to be attached to anything, and you will be one of those well rooted in religious knowledge from whom no secret or knowledge is hidden.

5. If thoughts of disobedience and the world occur to your heart, caste them under your feet with disdain and indifference, and your heart will be filled with knowledge and the right guidance.

6. There is no guidance at all except for one who fears God, and there is no fear of God (taqwa) except who shuns the world.

7. He who neglects his heart despises his religion, and he who is preoccupied with his outer behavior is taking his religion as a jest.

8. The grace of God in the matter of contentment with His decree is that it causes you to forget your misfortunes by looking forward to the Day of Rendezvous.

9. Good intention in relation to matters between God and you means turning the heart respectfully toward God, with respect for the commanding of God, and with respect to what He has commanded.

10. The understanding man is one who has an understanding from God of His signs and whose occupation is dhikr and reflection upon His favors, taking refuge in and avowing dire need of Him, and seeking protection with Him. He appeals to God, and so God responds to him. [Above quotes by Shaykh Abul Hasan al Shadhili]

Forbearance -- a beautiful treasure

Rasul Allah (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam) said: “Whoever has forbearance Allah will help him. Whoever tries to be independent, Allah will enrich him. Whoever tries to be patient, Allah will give him patience. And no one is given a better or vaster gift than patience.” [related from Imam Malik in Muwatta]

Forbearance is the reservoir from which spring other beautiful qualities of character. Generosity cannot happen unless one is content/does sabr with what one has; bravery cannot exist in a person unless he/she can have patience with the consequences; kindness exists in a person when they consider others and not give prime importance to themselves, rather exhibit patience with their own situation. Therefore, patience is a treasure, for without this treasure one cannot exhibit the other qualities required to earn the pleasure of Allah (subhana wa ta'ala). The most content person in the world is the Mumin who has been gifted with patience.

The beautiful thing about forbearance is that the more you force yourself to it the more it grows in you and becomes a part of your nature. It is like a smile, for when you smile your brain begins to believe you are happy and you genuinely feel happy.
[Daily Hadith]