Words To Mend, Words For Strength

Salam and hello everyone!

Today's post will be regarding a talk on Despair given by Shaykh Muhammad Mukhtar Ash-Shinqitee.

   Below is a transcript of the talk that I was listening to. I decided to transcribe the talk as I could not find any available transcripts online. It's such a wonderful lecture that I would love to share and keep as a reminder and for future reference.

He says:

"O you

We have not found Him except He is Forbearing, Merciful. We have not found Him except He is Generous and Great. He opens for you the door of relief from where you expect and where you don't.

And there is no slave who calls upon Allah with truthfulness during a hardship except that Allah grants him/her one of the best of two things; if Allah knows its better for his/her hardship to be relieved, He will relieve him/her immediately, and if Allah knows it is better for his/her hardship to be prolonged, He will give him/her certainty and Iman and submission such that hardship becomes for him/her a source of blessing and happiness. May Allah make us and you the likes of that man/woman.

If you have trust in Allah and called upon Him and longed for Him while being truthful, believer and relying on Him then either He will relieve your hardship or He will grant you patience and certainty such that punishment becomes mercy, and your status is elevated and your reward becomes enormous and your sins are forgiven and your troubles, anxiety and grief are relieved.

And therefore in trials and tribulations, there is a happiness of longing for Allah that has no equivalence. How pleasant are those moments, and how pleasant are those blessed hours in which you call upon Allah in seclusion, and you address your sorrows to Him, and you address your hardship, anxiety and distress to Him. And you ask Him, and you privately consult Him, call upon and have trust in Him (Glory be to Him).

The happiest of people is the one who addresses his/her complains to Allah and not to one of His creations. The happiest of people are the ones who places his/her certainty in Allah and does not place his/her certainty in other people.
Imagine if your friend tells you that he/she will talk to such and such person, and your problem is something simple for that person, and you know that the matter will be resolved. How certain are you of that your problems being settled and your hardship being removed? But how about the King of the Kings, the one who has depositories of the heavens and the earth in His hand?  How about The Most Generous, which the fullness of His hand is not affected by the continuous spending, night and day.

People turning away from you is indeed a blessing from Allah, He wants you to turn to Him. The forsaken is the one who turns away from Allah to other than Allah. The forsaken is the one attached to the people and feels that whenever calamity befalls him/her or he/she faces difficulty, they'll go to this and that person and the matter is resolved. But as for you, you knock the doors but they do not open, and you ask people but they do not give you assistance, and you come to people but they humiliate you and dishonour you and might even slander, smear and disgrace you!

"Many a person with shaggy and dusty hair, dusty and driven away from doors were to swear by Allah (that something would happen), Allah will certainly make it happen."   ~Muslim~ 

And what will make you perceive that this trial gets you to know about Allah such that you'll not be afflicted with neither anxiety nor grief except with a relief?

The happiest of people is the one who says "Ya Rabb" (O' Lord) and Allah answers his/her supplication. By Allah, happiness is not in wealth; if it was in wealth, the happiest of the people would have been Qaarun, but he was among the most miserable people.

"And We caused the earth to swallow him and his home" ~28:81~

We ask Allah for safety and well-being. Wealth is not happiness and happiness is not when you ask people and they give you, and happiness is not if you go to this and that person your matters become simple . Happiness, virtue and increase in goodness is when you say "Ya Allah" and the doors of the Heaven open for you and happiness is when you say "Ya Rabbi" and complain to Allah and Allah answers your supplication and removes your hardships. Indeed, amongst people there are those who are overwhelmed with trials, tests and adversity and they know this and that person who could assist them but he/she never complained. And among people there is the one who can easily contact this rich person and that wealthy person, but says

"I'm shy of Allah seeing me asking other than Him". 

So he/she is pleased with Allah, and he/she left his/her matters to Allah, and he/she is attached to Allah, and was truthful with Allah so Allah has granted him/her a relief and a way out (of hardships) between the plates of heaven and the earth.

Have you ever seen your Lord abandoning a slave who was truthful in worshipping Him? By Allah, no! And what are these stories that Allah tells us in His Book. Allah has mentioned stories in His Book so that we may flee from Him to Him.

The happiest of people are the ones when calamities befall on them they say:

"It is my shortcomings, I'm the sinner, I'm the wrong doer, I've not thanked Allah for His blessings. It was my shortcomings O'Lord. I've not remembered You as you should be remembered. I've not thanked You as You should be thanked, so forgive my shortcomings in thanking You for the blessings". 

So he seeks forgiveness, repentance, and turning to Allah and the narrowness is widen and widen and seeking forgiveness becomes a mercy that takes away his grief and relieves him of distress.

The happiest of people are the ones who turns to Allah during calamities. If anxieties and distress surrounds the person and his/her hardships are overwhelming and if that does not increase in him/her except his/her attachment to other than Allah, and does not increase in him/her except complains to people and going to this and that person for assistance, then that is a misfortune, we seek refuge in Allah from that, that is a misfortune.

Have trust in Allah and rely on Him and think well of Allah and that you ask more for forgiveness and know that you have been afflicted because of your sins. So hate the Shaytan, and the self that's inclined towards evil and seek forgiveness, then start reviewing yourself. Have you oppressed one of the muslims? Did you take someone's wealth? Have you transgressed on someone's honour? Did you swear at your muslim brother/sister? Did you slander him/her?

Then you start purifying yourself from oppressions and sins. Whoever does that trials become beneficial for him/her, and what was in distance becomes nearer for him/her that is what I advise you. To be truthful with Allah and turn to that which makes your situation better in the sight of Allah and you firmly work on having certainty that a relief from Allah is coming.

"Verily, with the hardship, there is relief,"   ~95:5~

Allah has not put hardship on someone except with two reliefs. So trust in Allah, and know that if you fear the consequences and hardships of the future, and if you talk to yourself about this then know it is a shaytan knocking on your heart. (If you trust Allah, you will not fear the future)

"Shaytan threatens you with poverty."  ~2:268~

Shaytan does not promise you except every evil, every trial and every harm. So be with Allah, be truthful with Allah and do not worry. Repentance and seeking forgiveness, and having certainty in Allah's relief and taking appropriate means, and thinking well of Allah that He will relieve you from this hardship and by increasing your supplications at times they're best accepted. For example, when the call for the five prayers are given and between the azan and iqamah and during the sujud and also in the depths of the night (before dawn). Relief comes to you from where you expect and where you least expect it. So whoever is truthful with Allah, Allah is truthful to him/her.

And be aware of regarding a matter as too huge for Allah to resolve it. "Allahu Akbar" means Allah is greater than anything. Allah is greater than every anxiety, distress and hardship that is between us and the meeting of Allah, until we meet Allah with Him being pleased with us. O'Allah relieve us from anxiety and from distress and hardships. O'Allah relieve us from every concern and appoint us a way out of every distress and keep us safe from every turmoil. O'Allah we seek your victory, so give us victory and we seek your assistance so assist us. O'Allah do not abandon us, O'Allah relieve us from every concern and appoint us a way out of every distress, and keep us safe from every turmoil. O'Allah bless our health, our parents, our family, our provisions and bless everything that You've granted and gave us. O'Allah we ask You to put blessings in all of our matters, sooner and later, that which we knew of and that which we don't.

O'Allah we complain to You about all our troubles and make that which You've granted us an aid for Your obedience, Your love and Your satisfaction O The Ever Living, the Self-subsisting. O'Allah forgive us and our fathers and mothers and our families and our loved ones and our scholars and those who advised us and those who sought our advise and those who are present with us and those who are absent and those who loved us for your sake. O'Allah forgive us all and make our righteous ones a reason to forgive our sinners. And be in charge of our affairs, O' The Most Merciful. O'Allah have mercy on us, a mercy that because of it you forgive our sins and relieve us of our hardships and straighten our crookedness and reinforce our path. A mercy that brings us Your Great mercies, in this world and hereafter. A mercy that You open with it the gates of Your Magnificent Grace for us. O' The Most Merciful, O' Forbearing, O' Merciful, O' generous, there is no god but You.

"Exalted in your Lord, the Lord of might, above what they can describe. And peace upon the messengers. And praise to Allah, Lord of the worlds."   ~37:180-182~

Engulfed in Darkness

   Oh the sorrow, the pain, the tears, the anguish. How I long for these feelings to abandon my soul. I feel as though my heart is repeatedly yanked out of the very depth of my being at the sound of an incoming email. Yet, there is no one else to be blamed for this current calamity but me. I have once again drowned myself in the same darkness that I once vowed I shall never see. I have repeated the same idiotic mistakes that I once vowed to myself, my family, my friends and most importantly to Him that I would never repeat. Is this the love that I promised myself? Is this the respect and success that I promised to everyone else?

   Argh! Weak Weak Weak! That is what I am! I succumbed to the petty pleasures of the moment forgetting the bigger picture. Throwing away my responsibilities like only I matter in this world. How I loathe myself at this moment. I loathe at my weakness. I loathe at the lack of determination, the lack of effort. What have I become? What have I done? 

   I love history but why can't I learn from them! Is that not what histories are meant for, for us to learn from our past mistakes and improve so as to not repeat them again. Is that not what memories are for, for us to remember the bitter taste of those mistakes, to remember the pain and sufferings caused by the actions. I have all these grand words, phrases, quotations displayed all around my room but what good has it brought if I am not to listen from them. Oh what an imbecile I truly am!

   For now all that is right for me to do is to pray for divine intervention. The verse that is keeping me sane for now is 

"There is no Allah save Thee. Be Thou Glorified! Lo! I have been a wrong-doer."

Oh how those words ring true. I pray to Him, I call unto Him to save me from bringing further shame to my family, to save me from my current situation and to bring light into this darkness for the strongest feeling that is felt in darkness is nothing else but fear.

   This is a reminder to my future self, if ever in doubt. Try to remember the feelings that you felt at the moment you wrote this post. Try to remember what caused those feelings. Try to remember all the pain that you had afflicted onto those that care about you, onto those that you love. Try to remember the shame you had to endure and the pathetic begging that had to be done. Now that you have all those feelings welled up inside, reason with that vulnerable, self-righteous, arrogant, indecisive and evil side that is making you weak. Do you want those feelings to actually haunt you again without knowing how long it will remain?

Forgive me but this post has to stand bare of any photos, witty lines, or any form of happy feelings.

Summer Strength

Salam and hello everyone!

I am currently on my Summer Term break and am absoutely loving the weather these past few weeks! The sun has been shining beautifully from 5am till 9pm and the current furniture arrangments in my room allows me to absorb its wonderful rays to the max. The brightness just makes me all perky and wanting to hop around all day like I'm high on sunshine!

Muy bien let's first delve into my mental health and stability updates. So this year (term) has been a pretty unstable year filled with new friends, environments, courses, lecturers, etc. where I've pretty much been walking on unknown territories in terms of studies and future opportunities. It has definitely been scary and honestly I've had my fair share of Mini Internal Mind Meltdowns (MIMMs). 

The figure I've drawn above basically illustrates how my MIMMs happen and all those different emotions shown are basically emotions that my mind is undergoing simultaneously whilst my outer persona maintains its normal function to communicate effectively and normally with other beings. To be honest, now that I have written and figuratively described it, I scare myself! I mean I seem so psychotic, yet I'm probably certain there are others who feel and undergo these same emotions. Indirectly I predict these MIMMs are occuring because I am not being honest with myself and tackling the main issue at hand, I am still very afraid and in denial of accepting the situations or the cards that I've been dealt with. That is definitely something that I'm working on to resolve, it'll take time but I guess I'll have to wake up at some point don't I. Life is definitely not a fairytale.

Moving on, last December my beloved mother came over  to spend the December/Christmas holidays with me and my unfortunate inability to find housemates was definitely a blessing in disguise because we had the whole house to ourselves and it was absolutely splendid! Just having her around and allowing her to experience the life and journey that I've created here was definitely a breath of fresh air. Praise to Him we were fortunate enough to be able to visit my aunt in Ireland and my mom's good friend who now resides in The Netherlands with her family. Below is a photo post on my lovely Tulips that I planted which was brought over from The Netherlands, I honestly just absolutely adore them!!!

So there's this thing that I regularly do when I'm all stressed out which is procrastinate! *Dum dum dum* It really is just my fear of handling upcoming events or situations that causes me to fall in this downward spiral of procrastination, yet it is this very downward fall that brings about a more creative crafty side of myself which is absolutely fascinating. I say fascinating because my entire life I have been the least creative or crafty person in my family, I mean my parents are definitely brilliant at these sort of stuff but I've always accepted that I was not genetically gifted witht their talents. Heck throughout school they've been the ones I turn to to do all my school's artwork projects *yes I cheated and my parents did it instead*. So it's definitely a surprise that I genuinely welcome. 

Also my procrastination brought about a humbling wishlist for the future that I may share on this blog. I call it My 30 Before 30 which is a simple list of accomplishments I hope to realize within a certain time period insyaAllah.

As I mentioned in the beginning I am currently on holls and this year's summer vacation has been planned out to be an interesting experience. Starting with arabic lessons which I am undertaking online after being inspired by my parents Umrah journey and also a few arab youtubers. I've only just started the lesson for the past 2 weeks yet I can already sense a certain form of relationship and understanding of the Al-Quran. What I mean is that they're not just mere arabic writings that is to be read, but they somehow speak to my inner self. Okay I know I sound weird now but let's look at an example. 

As you can see above, once broken down into parts certain phrases just makes sense and applicable to other quranic verses. As you read, you pick up on those verses and you somehow become more alert as if you are being spoken to.

The last update that I can think of right now is that insyaAllah in July I will be flying to Czech Republic to attend my dear cousins graduation celebrations. Since both her parents, my uncle and aunt, won't be able to attend on those exact dates therefore I will be the family's representative for this joyous ocassion. I will be spending a week with her and I'm already mad with preparations and getting all engrossed with articles on places to visit, things to do and see, restaurant reviews and physical and mental training since I'll be travelling during the Ramadhan month. How exciting!

So that's all the updates I have for now to make up for my long absence. 

Till then my angels! xxx

The Colours of Comfort

     As I am buried under presentation preparations, I shall write a quick post on one of my favourite seasons which is Autumn! For me autumn is when we students would return to Uni and start another term of studies. It is the time where me meet new people and say goodbye to old ones. In addition, it is also the month whereby we International students would bid farewell to our beloved families, if we had gone home that is. This is the season where all the deep earthy tones would be dug out of the closet to be worn to match the season's colours.

          
     Autumn is almost over now and I am sad to see all the trees without leaves, like a skeleton without its flesh. However I just love watching the leaves fall ever so slowly and then get carried away by the icy cold winds of the north.

Till then my angels! xxx

A new beginning

Salam and hello everyone!

Gosh, it feels so awkward to be back in the blogging scene! I know it has only been a couple of years since I left this world but making a comeback at this day and age where there are thousands of other fantabulous bloggers out there does kinda make the butterflies in your tummy flutter harder than usual! *nervous giggle*

Anywho, let's get on with the introductions shall we. So my name is Syakirah and I am semi-new at this. I have a deep passion for story-telling and writing. In the real world (wherever that is?!) I am considered to have quite a talkative persona, whereas in the cyber world I am known as the person who can never keep sentences short and simple! Honestly I tell you, my friends would forever more and always tease the way I write their cards! No matter how big or small the card may be, it shall always be filled with words, and MORE words! *sigh* (maybe one of these days I'll dedicate a post on my card writing skills, T__T owh dear me).

The reason I have returned to writing is mainly therapeutical. So many things have happened in these past couple of years which have made me question myself, my decisions and my motivations. I basically need an outlet where I can easily retrace my steps, reassess my situations and decisions and to basically just remind me of who,what,where,why and how I am. As we grow older we tend to be rather forgetful, however, I for one would not want to forget any part of this wonderful journey that I have and will be making. May it be sweet or may it be painful, that is what makes me who I am. I want to be a better and stronger person through it all. So here I am, taking baby steps through blogging my journey to a better place. I thank each and everyone of you for dropping by...

I shall leave you with this dreamy image of a stream that I so dearly miss, filled with fond memories. Till then my angels! xxx