02.19.07
Keeping it Real
Verily your children are a test for you.
Yes, Allah speaks the truth and my children are a test for me.
I am striving to do what I can to keep my children on the siratul mustaqeen. I have a 6 month old girl, 4 year old girl, 6 year old girl, 7 year old boy, and 9 year old girl.
Everyone dotes on the baby, but the rest fight amongst each other like cats and dogs. I’m trying to do what I can to raise them islamically although I am overwhelmed with my responsibilities right now. My family live hundreds of miles away and my only friend is my husband, so al hamdulilaah for him.
I feel alone although my dad sent me the card I initially posted stating that ‘You Are Not Alone’. Loneliness stems from not being understood, not being able to express how you are feeling or have those feeling acknowledged or validating, so while I am not alone on a desert island I can be lonely at times. I don’t like being lonely or isolated so I keep searching for a better place, although hubby says that wherever we go it’s always the same thing. In a way he is right as I am a firm believer in the fact that you never miss what you have until its gone, gone, gone.
I miss living in Maryland/Virgnina area and believe that was the best muslim community by far at the time that I was living there. If I go back it won’t be the same as many of the people have moved, married, made hijrah and the like but still I remininensce as I remember what was and hope for what could be. People change though and yet they still remain the same.
The Companion of the Dunya
And do not burden yourself with its worries, since you have seen with your own eyes its misfortunes and calamities, and you know for certain the grief encountered when separating from it. And tightly fasten whatever has become distressing in it, in order to make it easy and comfortable when it befalls you. And be the happiest person concerning your present status in it, and be most wary about what you want further
from it (i.e. higher positions, more wealth, etc.). For indeed whenever a companion of the worldly life (Dunyaa) trusts one of its pleasures, it dispatches to him something despised from itself. And when such a companion obtains something from the Dunyaa, he slips up on it, twisting his foot and so he falls over as a result of it.
Anything of the Dunyaa that makes one happy, is only a deception, and whatever of it is beneficial [today], is harmful the next day. And any ease in it is connected to trials and misfortunes, and anything that remains in it will be made to perish. Its joys are mixed with grief and the last years of one’s life in it are full of weakness and frailness. So adopt the attitude towards it of someone who abstains from it and separates himself from it. And do not have the attitude of someone who is its lover and shows tender affection for it.
Know that it eliminates the one who lived and resided in it and that it inflicts suffering upon the one who had faith in it and was dazzled by it. Whatever departs from it, will not return and so it slips away. And whatever is to come in it is not made known, such that one could expect it.
Be cautious of it! For indeed its claims are lies and its expectations are deceptions. Its life is full of hard work and its happiness is murky and full of grief. And you are upon danger with respect to the Dunyaa. Either there is a blessing in it, which is soon to perish, or else there is an affliction in it that is descending. Either there is a calamity that will cause pain or there is a lethal decisive death.
If only the companion of the Dunyaa had realized it, he would have seen that life had been hard and difficult on him, and that he was upon danger with respect to any of its graces, and that he was wary and cautious with respect to the needs he had, and that he was certain of death. So even if the Creator, the Most High, had not informed anything about [the ills of] the Dunyaa, nor had expounded any examples about it, nor had ordered us to abstain from it, then the Dunyaa itself should be enough to warn even the one who is asleep and would arouse even the one who is negligent and indifferent.
And how much more so is this when there came from Allaah, the Most High, one who alerted and deterred the people from it and who warned and admonished concerning it?! So it is of no worth to Allaah, not even being worth the equivalent of an insignificant weight to Allaah, the Most High. Not even being worth the measure of a small pebble to Him, the Most High. Not even the measure of a single grain of soil.
And there is no created thing that I know of, which is more hateful to Him than this Dunyaa, and He has not looked at it ever since creating it, out of hatred for it.
Coping with Mental Illness
Shaykh `Abd al-`Azeez ibn Baaz (may Allaah have mercy on him) concerning mental illness & medication said:
It is permissible to treat sickness according to scholarly consensus. The Muslim may go to a doctor for internal sickness, injuries, nervous problems and so on, for him to diagnose his sickness and treat it appropriately, using medicines that are permitted according to Islam, according to his medical knowledge, because this comes under the heading of taking the usual means, and it does not contradict the idea of putting one’s trust in Allaah.
Allaah has sent down the disease and He has sent down the cure;those who know it know it, and those who do not know it do not know it, but Allaah does not put the healing for His slaves in something that He has forbidden to them. It is not permissible for a sick person to go to the soothsayers or fortunetellers who claim to have knowledge of the unseen, in order to find out from them what his sickness is. Nor is it permissible for him to believe what they tell him, for they speak without knowledge or they summon the jinn to ask their help in doing what they want to do. The ruling on these people is that they are kaafirs who are misguided, if they claim to have knowledge of the unseen…
Majmoo’ Fataawa al-Shaykh Ibn Baaz, 3/274
The scholars of the Standing Committee said, answering a similar
question:
Trust in Allaah and think positively of Him; delegate your affairs to Him, and do not despair of His mercy, bounty and kindness, for He has not sent down any disease but He has also sent down the cure. You should take the means and continue to consult specialist doctors who have knowledge of disease and its treatment. Recite Soorat al-
Ikhlaas, Soorat al-Falaq and Soorat al-Naas over yourself three times, and blow into your hands after each time, and wipe your face and whatever you can reach of your body. Do that repeatedly night and day and when going to sleep. Also recite over yourself Soorat al-Faatihah at any time of night or day, and recite Aayat al-Kursiy
when you lie in your bed at night. These are the best ruqyahs with which a person may treat himself and protect himself from evil. Call upon Allaah by reciting the du’aa’ for one who is in distress, and say:
“Laa ilaaha ill-Allaah al-`Azeem al-Haleem, laa ilaaha ill-Allaah rabb al-`arsh il-`azeem, laa ilaaha ill-Allaah rabb al-samawaati wa rabb al-ard wa rabb al-`arsh il-`azeem (There is no god but Allaah, the All-Mighty, the Forbearing, there is no god but Allaah, the Lord of the mighty Throne, there is no god but Allaah, Lord of the
heavens, Lord of the earth, and Lord of the mighty Throne).”
Also treat yourself with the ruqyah of the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him):
Allaahumma Rabb an-naas, mudhhib al-ba’s ishfi anta al-Shaafi, laa shaafiya illa anta, shifaa’an laa yughaadir saqaman (O Allaah, Lord of mankind, the One Who relieves hardship, grant healing, for there is no healer but You, a healing that leaves no trace of sickness) And recite other dhikrs and ruqyahs and du’aa’s which are mentioned in the books of hadeeth, and which are mentioned by al-Nawawi in Riyaadh al-Saaliheen and Kitaab al-Adhkaar. Fataawa al-Lajnah al-Daa’imah, 1/297
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You Are Not Alone
You are not alone
In sadness
You are not alone
in grieving
You are Not alone
in missing
what you’ve known
As friends and family gather,
In the time that will come after,
Please, always know that
You are not alone
Ahlan wa Sahlan (Welcome) to my blog and know for a surety that you are not alone. We are all out here together in the world striving to make a change and striving to make a difference.
This blog typical of other blogs is not alone in its perspective. It is the perspective of a Muslim convert who spent half of her life in the world trying to find a place, a place to make a home, to create a future.
I’ve found that place and that is in being Muslim and learning to live for Allah and knowing that I will die one day and hoping that inshallah if I die that my deeds of the day will be for me and not against me. That my reckoning will be swift and that I will be given my record in my right hand and I will be happy and say ‘yes, read my record – tell me my account.
I’ve been Muslim now since 1994 and I have grown and evolved and gone from highs and lows, from good to the bad, from mini-skirt to long skirts to jilbab to niqab and finally at home in jilbab and hijab al hamdulilaah.
As Muslims we are not alone although we are strangers in this life. But as strangers we will find people who we hold common interests with and we will share because
We Are Not Alone
