Posts Tagged ‘lectures’

its just a crayon…

Sunday, August 13th, 2006

"imagine yourself in this situation... imagine that you've just gotten onto a bus. a few people got on before you, and a few people get on after you. after a while, the bus stops, and a man and 2 young kids get on the bus. the kids start running around and bothering the passengers, taking people's hats and hitting the people on the bus and so on. the man, presumably the father, sits there staring into space seemingly not caring about what his kids are doing... now imagine yourself in this situation... how will you feel?"

"... you would feel annoyed at the kids, and annoyed or perhaps angry at the man for letting the kids bother everyone without even making the slightest effort to stop them... now suppose that this goes on until a man sitting next to this man turns to him and says, 'excuse me, sir, your kids are running around and bothering the people on the bus... would you please ask them to stop?' - to which the man answers, 'oh.. i am really sorry, i wasn't paying attention. we just came from the hospital, their mother just died...' -- now how do you feel?"

"... the situation didn't change, but the way you feel suddenly changes... the kids may still be running around, but now you are no longer annoyed and angry, you feel compassionate and merciful. why? because when you compare the small annoyance of the kids against something as big as death, it doesn't really matter anymore."

this was from a talk given at mca on friday entitled, "weathering the storm - virtues of patience." the talk was given by sheikh abdul bary yahya, who is masha'Allah an amazing person and sheikh. friday was the first time i had the honor of meeting him and listening to him.

to my non-muslim friends: as you may have been able to tell by the first story, a lot of the stuff in the talk doesn't necessarily apply for muslims only - they are mostly general stories with lessons that can be taken by everyone. as thus, it maybe worth your while to read this too.

by the way... i should mention that whatever is in italics and quotes is not really quoted... its more of paraphrased. so anything that's wrong here is due to my shortcomings and/or misunderstanding.

"... (sh. muhammad alshareef) once gave me a very good example about patience. he said that sometimes, he would have to teach kids (in sunday school for example). and sometimes, he'd have to teach really young kids. so sometimes, he would teach them, and other times, he'd let them color for example. and sometimes, he wouldn't have enough crayons to go around for the whole class, and so sometimes, the kids would have to share the crayons."

"... and almost everytime, two kids would want to color something using the same color. the kid who didn't get the color he wanted would run to him crying and screaming because the other kid got the crayon... and the whole while , he's thinking to himself, '... but its just a crayon...'"

"... and that's the point... to the kid, its a big deal, because the kid doesn't see the big picture. to his teacher, who sees the big picture, he realizes that its not a big deal... so how do we know that the things that make us cry from the bottom of our hearts and make us really sad are not just a crayon in the eyes of God? many times, if we saw the big picture, we too would realize that, 'hey... its just a crayon..'"

i'll skip the next part and come back to it at the end, because it talks about how a muslim is to view these hardships of life. i'll continue on to one of the important ways he mentioned as to how to build patience.

"... so lets say there's something in specific that makes you lose your patience and that you want to be more patient the next time that happens. say for example you got angry at your wife or kids, and that you don't want to do that anymore. how do you become patient in these situations?"

"... you identify the situation, and make intention that the next time this thing happens, i will not get angry for example. how does that make a difference? consider, for example, if an earthquake were to happen, and you'd never thought about it or been in one before... what would you do? you would not know where to go... should i go outside, should i stay inside, should i go under the table... what should i do? essentially, you would end up running around in circles because the earthquake happens so suddenly that you don't have time to react and think properly as to what to do..."

"... but now suppose that you sat down right now and devised a plan. 'if an earthquake happens and i am in this place, i'll do this. if i am in this place, i'll do that. if i am outside, i'll do this.' -- then once the earthquake happens, your mind will promptly pull the right course of action into active memory and you'll begin executing that preplanned task. and the same applies with patience."

i personally never thought of this. and maybe that's why there are situations where i fail to react the correct way, because they happen so suddenly and i don't have a plan for how to handle them. so i thought this was really good advice.

"there are three types of patience. patience with respect to hardships or calamities, patience with respect to doing good things, and patience with respect to staying away from bad things. for the believer, there's the hadith of the Prophet (salla Allahu 3alayhi wa salam which says):"

"Strange is the affair of the Mu'min (the believer), verily all his affairs are good for him. If something pleasing befalls him he thanks (Allah) and it becomes better for him. And if something harmful befalls him he is patient (Saabir) and it becomes better for him. And this is only for the Mu'mmin." [Muslim]

"... also, everything that harms a believer, even if its being pricked by a needle, erases sins and gives good deeds... sometimes the hardships that happen are tests in order to raise a person's levels and erase their sins. and sometimes, they are a punishment for something a person has done, in hopes that this thing will bring the person back to Allah."

so that was roughly it. i probably missed several points but i basically documented whatever i remembered. may Allah grant us patience, and may Allah reward sheikh abdul bary.

also, please make du3a2 for my grandmother, who passed away on saturday. "إنا لله وإنا إليه راجعون"

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a moving story of tawbah

Thursday, February 10th, 2005

pieces. so i was listening to a lecture about tawbah [repentance] by amr khaled [http://www.amrkhaled.net] from the series of "isla7 al quloob," or fixing/purifying of the heart... and in one of those lectures was, what i felt, was a really moving story.

the story was that of malik ibn dinar, who is one of the imams or leaders of the tabi3een who was known to be very pious.

but malik ibn dinar didn't start off as a pious man. malik ibn dinar tells his story. he says that he began his life as a drunk person, as a disobedient person, as a person who would eat other people's rights, as a person who was so bad that people would avoid him because of how bad he was.

he says, "this was the way my life was, until one day, i really wanted to settle down, get married, and have a daughter that i could play with and spend time with. and so i got married and i had a daughter. i named her fatima. i loved her a lot, and the older she got, the stronger in my heart my iman grew, and disobedience became less in my heart. and one day fatima saw me holding a cup of alcohol, and she came close to me and pushed it away even though she was only 2 years old. and it was as though Allah made her do that. and the older she got, the more my iman increased, and i kept leaving the disobediences."

"this continued until fatima reached 3 years of age. once she reached 3 years old, she died. so i became worse and worse than i used to be before. and shaytan kept messing with me, until one day, my shaytan told me, 'tonight you will get drunk to such an extent that you've never gotten ever before' - so i drank, and drank, and drank all night until i fell. and then i saw myself going through dream after dream until i came to this particular dream."

"i found myself in the day of judgement, and the sun had darkened, and the seas had turned into fire, and the earth had split asunder, and the people were all gathered for the day of judgement, and the people were all gathered groups and groups and i am between the people. and i hear a caller calling, 'so and so son of so and so, come to be presented in front of the Compeller' - and i see that person's face turn totally black."

"until i heard the caller call, 'malik ibn dinar, come to be presented in front of the Compeller' -- and then all the people disappeared from around me, and as if there was no one else in the land except me - and then i saw a huge snake that looked really strong and large, with its mouth open rushing towards me. so i began to run in a state of great fear. so i saw an old, weak man, so i ran up to him and said, 'save me from this snake,' and he said, 'i am weak, i can't do anything to help you, but run in that direction and maybe you'll be saved.' - so i ran towards the direction that he pointed in while in great fear, until i saw the fire in front of me. so i wondered to myself, 'shall i flee from the snake to end up in the fire?' - so i returned running and the snake was coming closer, and i returned to the old man and said, 'by God, help me, save me!' -- so he cried feeling sorry for my condition, and then said, 'i am weak as you see, i can't do anything for you, but run towards this mountain and you might be saved.'"

he says, "so i ran towards the mountain with the snake just about to get me, and i saw little kids on the mountain. and i heard the kids screaming, 'oh fatima, save your father, save your father' -- so i knew it was my daughter, and i was happy that i had a daughter that died when she was young so she could save me in such a situation. so she took me by her right hand and pushed the snake away with her left hand, and i am like a dead person from how scared i was."

and he continues saying what happened in the dream, saying, "then she sat in my lap like she used to in the world, and said to me, 'oh my father, "has not the time arrived for the believers that their hearts in all humility should engage in the remembrance of Allah..."' (57:16)"

"so i said oh my daughter, tell me about this snake." she said, "that is your bad deeds, you fed it and made it grow until it was about to eat you. did you not know oh my father that deeds from the world come back in a body shape/form on the day of judgement?" so i asked, "what about the weak man?" she said, "that is your good deeds. you made it weak and feeble, until it cried out of feeling sorry for your situation and couldn't do anything for you. and if it weren't for the fact that you had me, and if it weren't for the fact that i died while i was young, there would have been nothing to have helped you."

he says, "so i woke up from my sleep while i was screaming, saying, 'the time has indeed come, the time has indeed come' (in response to the question asked by his daughter which came from the ayah, "has not the time arrived for the believers that their hearts in all humility should engage in the remembrance of Allah..."' (57:16)")."

he says, "then i made ghusul and went to salat al-fajr at the masjid, intending repentance and returning to Allah, and i walked in the masjid and found the imam reading the same ayah, "has not the time arrived for the believers that their hearts in all humility should engage in the remembrance of Allah..."' (57:16)," and he repented.

so that's the story. i thought it was amazing, although i think i butchered it by my attempted translation. but the meaning is still there.

peace outs.

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isna trip and photo galleries

Tuesday, September 7th, 2004

peace and greetings.
before i start talking about my isna trip, for those in a rush, i finally got around to putting up my picture galleries on my website. gthumb is a really nice program, i used it to both get the pictures off my camera and to generate the albums. very nice.

anyhow, on to the isna trip. so this year could really be considered my first year going to isna trip, although it wasn't. i went to the chicago isna a long time ago with my family, but i am too young to remember much of anything; except that i stayed with the little kids, went to the sears tower, and got an autograph from the famous egyptian reciter, sheikh muhammad jibreel.

so this year is the first year that i was really old enough to be aware of what's going on and such.

the first thing i want to discuss is the lectures. first and foremost, i was very pleasantly surprised to see sheikh mokhtar maghrawi there -- i love that shiekh. and, amazingly enough, he remembered me and took me by the hug when he saw me -- may Allah bless him and his family and grant them eternal happiness in this life and in the hereafter.

so while there, i attended 3 lectures for sheikh mokhtar. the first was talking about the tongue and how a muslim should use his tongue. in brief summary, it discussed how we talk a lot, and that if we were to use our arms the way we use our tongues, we wouldn't be able to move our arms from how tired they would be. so he stressed on how the more we talk, the more likely we are to say things that we shouldn't say. he also discussed how one should be very careful as to what they say and how they say it, along with the fact that we should be very tolerant and lenient. ultimately, he said, as a general rule, that a scholar taught his student that "when you are in a situation where you feel like speaking, then force yourself to remain silent. and when you are in a situation where you don't feel like speaking, then and only then can you speak and answer."

his second lecture was on the ears and eyes and how these are a gift from Allah and how we should be careful in the way we use them. the main point that stuck in my mind now was the fact that he swore that even the stealing of a small glance at something that we shouldn't see or listening to a small sound that we shouldn't listen to can change the state of our heart. and i think that sentence speaks for itself, and many of us know that this is true if we reflect on our lives and times when we've seen this happen to ourselves as well.

sheikh mokhtar had another lecture on a followup topic to the above two topics, but it was packed full and they wouldn't let me in... but the third lecture of his that i attended was a fiqh q&a lecture given by him and the president of isna. essentially, he gave a nice introduction which was, in my opinion, the most important part of the talk. essentially, the question being posed was, "do laws (specifically the laws of Islam) change over time as there people change, or do the laws stay constant even as the people change throughout time?" -- and his answer was no, the laws of Islam do not change over time; however, you cannot take that part of the answer alone. he goes on to explain that there are 5 major important principles that are the reason behind all laws - life, mind, faith, property and family/honor (not in order). certain things that are prohibited are always and will always be prohibited - for example, stealing. other things, however, that are prohibited can be legal only in a situation of must in which one of the five principles will be violated. the example he gave was that if you were in a desert and are dying of thirst, and stumble across an oasis but its owner isn't there, then you can drink just enough so that you remove the threat to the principle (life, in this case), and then wait till the owner gets back and pay him for whatever food or water you took without his permission. so basically, certain prohibitions can't and won't change because of the inherit reasons behind why they are prohibited, whereas other things can be temporarily made legal in the case that one of those 5 principles is being violated. sorry, my explanation isn't all that great, but i tried.. hehe.

i also went to another fiqh lecture by another shiekh who discussed some of the tradeoffs of following only one set mathhab versus following parts of the mathahib versus not following a mathhab at all... pretty interesting stuff, i should read up a bit more on this.

what else... ah, it was the first time i heard sheikh hamza yusuf speak in real life. my thoughts? first and foremost, he's a very good speaker (as in style, etc). i know that some people have their doubts about him based on some comments he made a few years ago, but i think that ultimately, each of us is a human being, which means we are all going to make mistakes from time to time... i think overall, his speeches are excellent in that it seems that the american public would be willing to listen to him if for no other reason than the fact that they can relate to him.

the first big talk he did was about islam and its state in the world now; how the Prophet (peace be upon him) set strict rules for jihad in which he ordered the companions not to kill women and children; and how, as thus, many of the events being attributed as "islamic extremist actions" today have nothing to do with islam. his second talk which i attended was a largely history filled talk (there was some history in the first talk too). he talked about the fact that islam was on the mind and tongues of our founding fathers; how clauses in the constitution were made with muslims in mind (for example, there was, at some point, a debate of using "Jesus" in place of "God" -- but the idea was left out for muslims and jews and others). he also said that napolean's napoleonic code was heavily influenced by maliki fiqh, which is pretty interesting...

two other scholars i got to hear this time around that i really loved -- one was sheikh suhaib webb -- this sheikh is amazing because of how he talks -- he's a convert from 10 years ago, and was one of the msa folks, so the way he talks is a way that youth can relate too. in summary, he's awesome.

and finally, last but far from least, sheikh muhammad alshareef. this guy is also awesome, he has an amazing way of talking and is very interesting. i bought two of his cds before i left, "when wolves become shepherds" and "the mountain pass." i think someone told me that he runs the al-maghrib islamic forums, i think i am going to join these at some point insha'Allah. the cds and stuff are done by eman rush.

so that was the lectures in a nutshell. a cracked nutshell. yeah. oh and the reciter, mu7ammad jibreel, was there this year too -- i didn't get his autograph this time around though...

so the lectures were one of the best parts of the whole trip. in addition to the lectures, i got to see many of my friends, many of whom i haven't seen in a while, and many of whom i won't see for a while due to the fact that they are studying abroad as well. so that was awesome.

of course every such program has its advantages and disadvantages. the disadvantages... well, lets just say that naseeb.com helped make the disadvantages several folds worse. no further explanation necessary.

overall, i think its a good idea and there's a lot one can potentially benefit by going, but it all depends on one's intentions. personally, i don't plan on going back until i am married, insha'Allah.

that's all for my long rambly blog entry of the day - peace out.

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