Fajr Prayer

The fajr prayer is one of those amazingly beautiful things in Islam. Muslims have to pray 5 times a day, one of those prayer is at dawn or fajr. That's about 4 am as I write this. It has to be prayed between dawn and sunrise which is from 4 to around 5:30, not a very large time span to fit into the normal day like the rest of the assigned prayers, and also out of the usual waking hours of most people, which makes it quite the challenge.
I am not one who prays fajr regularly, although I should. I don't know why we are required to pray so early, but I have some ideas about it, and some I quote from other people. Firstly, it may have been set to pray at dawn because it is the start of the day, before sunrise, to prepare for something new before it starts, and how better to prepare than by praying! Another rationale I heard that seems very sound is that waking up early out of the normal waking hours of most people is something we do because we love God; if a lover asks us to do something difficult, we'd probably do it for them, we love God above all, then why not do it for Him; it's proof of our love and devotion. Moreover, it is a higher level of required discipline. I have mentioned before how discipline is part of Islam, especially in the required acts of worship like prayer. It is only fitting to have different levels of discipline that in turn become habits that are no longer such a challenge.
So there, I've analyzed the fajr prayer as I always seem to try to make sense of everything, but that's not all there is to it. Imagine waking up at 4 am, everything is quiet except maybe for some early birds chirping away. You're sleepy but it's too early to consider how the day is going to start yet. You do wodou'; wash up for prayer, and stand there in this very quiet and serene environment facing the Qibla; Mecca, the beautiful house of God, with His throne right above it, above all the heavens. Right then, you are standing in the hands of God, like you always do, only you've given up the precious hours of sleep, there is nothing on your Mind yet, no work, no school, no family, just you standing in the hands of God. You begin praying, "Allah Akbar" God is greatest. God is greater than sleep, than any other worldly issue that keeps us from really concentrating in our prayers, God is greatest so we sacrifice sound sleep for Him. You pray in the quiet, while the world has not waken up yet because Allah never sleeps. It is a brief prayer, barely takes 10 minutes, but it challenges us to get out of our way of the world that sometimes seems like it's all we consider in life, and we give 10 minutes of pure discipline, obedience, and total surrender to our Creator. What we get in return is an amazing moment of spirituality; to know that we have conquered our demons, and to have some peace.

P.S. I don't think I would have written this if it weren't for this video; amazing work, very inspiring, and may God bless all those who worked on it :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_XIbqKZxqg&feature=youtube_gdata_player

The Road to Heaven is paved with Good Intentions

I’m a strong believer in the saying “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”. In Islam however, everything is about intentions, what’s in your heart is what will make you do good or do bad. In Islam, the road to heaven is paved with good intentions.

I sound like I’m contradicting myself, don’t I? well I’m not, not really. The road to hell really is paved with good intentions. People do what they think is right, I cannot stress enough on the word right because it is such a tricky little thing, and we’ve been living with its tricks in everything we do or say. it’s in our culture, our fiction, in the stories we tell to our children. Doing the right thing is a very subjective act. In the fairytales we tell our kids, it was right for Cinderella to sneak out of the house to attend the prince’s ball, Snow White to live with seven strangers, and Ali Baba to be a thief (the above are borrowed), and we must also never forget Robin Hood; the king of thieves and good intentions. It is noble to fight injustice but not quite so when you play dirty. USA dropped atomic bombs on innocent people in Japan, not only killing them, but maiming generations and generations to come with the aftereffects of those weapons. The atomic bombs ended the war, which is a very good intention, but at what price! Was it right to use them to get to that noble outcome? God only knows, but I don’t believe it is. How many decisions do we make every single day with the purest of intentions that end up hurting people deeply? Worse yet, how many actions do we take thinking they are the right thing to do under the circumstances while we would condemn them when we see other people doing them? The road to hell really is paved with our own good intentions.

But that is not right! In Islam, everything we do in life should be done with a certain intention, the most noble and most important of which is to serve God and do good. Yes, that was what the church was doing in the middle ages when they were burning scientists, but that’s not how it works in Islam. Islam sets the rules on how to live your life as an honest human being. The rules of Islam are the rules that govern humanity; justice, equality, compassion. In Islam, we can’t do bad things with good intentions. We can’t kill a man because he might possibly murder someone. We can’t lie to someone so that they would make a decision that is right but based on wrong information. In Islam, we cannot do an act that is abstractly wrong like stealing with the intention of doing good. It just doesn’t work that way because Islam’s guidelines give us a moral compass to lead our lives with, and when we stray from the right path, there is always redemption and forgiveness, which is also the way to heaven.

There is however something more interesting to the intention in Islam. The intention of serving and pleasing God can be set in every little detail in our lives, and they add to the score too. Something as simple as smiling in the face of someone is rewarded as charity. Working against one’s temptations counts as Jihad, and is actually stronger than Jihad at war. Saying a nice word, washing the dishes, helping someone out, all of these actions, little as they may seem count as long as they are done with good intentions. Even the failed attempt to do something with the correct intention counts. And the best part, it doesn’t necessarily count as one point. So maybe writing this, and you reading it counts too because I made you remember God, think about Him, and maybe I was of some help, so thanks for the score… May we all keep going with good intentions at heart and meet in heaven.

Technorati Tags: Islam,Muslim,Allah,Moral Compass,Jihad,Intentions,Atomic Bomb,Japan,Redemption,smiling,the road to hell is paved with good intentions,heaven

The Discipline of Islam

Islam is full of rules. We have to pray five times a day and fast for a whole month every year. We have a long list of things that we should do and a long list of things that we shouldn’t. As far as I know, we don’t have as many rules as in Judaism and our rules are not dictated by an entity like the church in Christianity. Our rules come from two very specific sources; Quran and Sunnah.

I’m sure everyone wondered at some point; why so many rules? Some have obvious reasoning like not drinking because getting drunk makes you lose control of coherent thought. The reasoning of others may not be as clear to us mortals. Any explanations are attempts to understand that which is divine. Those attempts are welcomed because we have always been required to think, meditate, and contemplate the world around us; that’s the way to strengthen our faith. I am not a religious scholar or a philosopher, but if it helps me reach a certain point where I feel my faith is stronger, why not share it?

Our faith is the most important thing to us. It sets our moral compass, tells us what’s right and what’s wrong, and eventually, takes us to heaven. Islam specifically is a way of life; it’s a set of morals that define human rights and ethical behavior. When we say we’re practicing Islam, we don’t mean praying and fasting, we mean living by it in everything to the extent that work is considered an act of worship. Higher states of faith in Islam are not growing beards and praying in mosques, they are applying Islam in every act of a Muslim’s life with the intention of worshiping God. For example, if I wash a dish to spare my mother the trouble would mean that I would get rewarded for it because it is an act that pleases God.

So why is it we have all those rules? Because to be able to live by Islam in everything in our lives, we need to be disciplined. To be disciplined, we need to learn discipline. So when we commit to praying five times a day at specific times, we pay attention to the time, we try to be punctual, we learn how to manage our time so that we don’t end up missing a prayer or missing a meeting to pray. When we fast from daybreak till sunset, we learn how to control our urges to eat and drink even though we get hungry and thirsty so that we learn how to get what we want at the right time, we learn patience, we learn how to not follow every whim and instinct like animals, we learn how to resist trouble and temptation. When we pay Zakah, we give money to God. We give it willingly to those less fortunate to learn that our livelihood is in the hands of our Creator, we learn how to consider others, that we live in a community, and we learn sharing. Every action that is required of us, every ritual that we absolutely have to do teaches us above all to commit to something. In this case it is our faith and our God, in addition to the other lessons. We are taught to perform these rituals as children in order to grow up with them as habits that we stick to and can never drop. The commitment to these rituals fluctuates and oscillates. It goes up at times and goes down at times. My personal observation is that when it goes up, it is at the time when we are the most disciplined in our lives, when we are in control of everything we do and are fully capable of handling the world around us. When it goes down, when I miss a prayer or break the habits of reading Quran regularly, it is when I seem to “lose it” in other points in my life as well like work and other activities.

To be disciplined is to be focused, to be in control of our lives and to handle the outside world. To be disciplined is to know when to accept that some things are beyond our control because they are the wish of God. To be disciplined is to live life to the fullest and to be the best of humanity.

Technorati Tags: Islam,Muslim,Prayer,Fasting,discipline,habit,God,Allah,Faith

Quran: unchangeable and divine

I've heard this over a lot of forums and even from some non Muslim friends: why don't you remove some texts from Quran because they seem outdated, obsolete, and I even heard "bloody" as a comment? My reaction would be the same every time I heard or read something like that: FLABBERGASTED! I don't get how any human being can think about replacing divine words by ones written by mortals? How could they even think of omitting something that is divine in the first place? It's like "let's see how the world is like without the sun or the moon or PHYSICS!"

Now, I am perfectly aware of the fact that non Muslims believe that Quran is not divine text, so I've been thinking of ways to get them to understand how their "requests" are not possible. First, when it comes to one of the most controversial verses, the one that allows the beating of wives, the Sunna, which, if we consider the Quran to be the textbook of Islam, is the workbook or the manual on how to "act" according to Islam, has demonstrated that it is like a tap on the hand using something resembling a pencil, nothing major, no brutality involved, and by all means no disrespect or belittling of the woman. Since pain has always been known as a behavioral stimulus to the extent that there is a well known exercise to snap a rubber band on one’s wrist as stimulus for the brain to stop doing or thinking about something negative. Since excessive pain has been known to have negative side effects, wouldn't God know THAT?! On the other hand, if we disregard the Sunna for a second, and look at Quran only, how many other texts opposed to that one that actually promote mercy and compassion? So if we assume the man that beats his wife is using Quran as his only reference, then he is not doing by it because he's using it selectively by disregarding the mercy texts which outweigh that one single verse. What he is doing seems very similar to those promoting the removal of some verses because they are using something that is divine selectively, how wrong is that?!
I will not go into each "controversial" verse and explain it, I don't need to. I'm sure if someone wants to research the verse instead of lashing out, they'd find very sound explanations by people who are far more qualified than I am to respond to them. I want to tackle however the concept of time in a divine sense. People say Quran is obsolete and outdated, that it was meant for a certain period of time which was the time of the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him. As a side note, I don’t understand why this is not being said about the Torah, but this not the issue. Throughout time, there have been prophets and messengers of God sent to people. Those prophets were human, their time on earth was limited, whether it was 900 years like Noah for example, or 30 like Jesus, they were sent for a limited time on earth. Even Muhammad, being a human, lived for 63 years only, 23 of which were the actual time he spent spreading the word of God through Islam. God sent Islam through Muhammad. Quran is a series of verses, words, a book. The words did not die with Muhammad, Islam did not die with Muhammad, they kept on living. And wouldn't God, the creator of time as we know it, KNOW that? So would the "Entity" that created time, create a book that would survive through 1500 years (up till now) and not know that it would become obsolete? Now that sounds like a bad developer creating a software that works for a specific version of an operating system and forgetting how the word moves on ?(apologizing for the software analogy already). That mentality would make sense if we were talking about a human, a mortal, not a god, and definitely not THE GOD who created the world in 6 days. So God must have known that times would change and that the book would live on. God, being the creator of everything and who knows all, who, since He has created time, probably understands how it works better than we mere mortals do, would probably know beyond doubt how time would progress, and how technology would be so and so. If you were someone who created something such as time, wouldn't you, as a human with a limited brain such as ours, consider building a time machine at least? Or maybe something to view how time progresses? Or maybe even have it all planned out on the outside and have humans see only one dimension of it (like the tail of an elephant which seems like a rope) without being able to view the entire thing and how it functions? Those are just some thoughts coming from a limited mortal mind of someone who is neither philosopher nor quantum scientist.
I mean, how many years of experience do we actually have in quantum science in the first place to go into a debate about time in the divine sense?! From an engineering point of view, you can't use a few lines of code and ask them to work alone without the rest of the code to have it actually work, this goes for machines, chemical formulae, and cooking recipes, so why are we asking to apply that on Islam as well?

Technorati Tags: Islam,Quran,Time,Divinity,unchangeable,Quantum physics,Muhammad

The Fear

وَلَنَبْلُوَنَّكُمْ بِشَيْءٍ مِنَ الْخَوْفِ وَالْجُوعِ وَنَقْصٍ مِنَ الْأَمْوَالِ وَالْأَنْفُسِ وَالثَّمَرَاتِ وَبَشِّرِ الصَّابِرِينَ

{البقرة:155}

“Be sure We shall test you with something of fear and hunger, some loss in goods or lives or the fruits (of your toil), but give glad tidings to those who patiently persevere.” (2:155)

I was reading Quran and came across this verse. It’s definitely not the first time I read it, but it always seemed so obvious that loss of money, lives, and fruits in the sense of losing the harvest, was all a test. It all made sense that these things be tests to devout Muslims so that when we are patient, we get rewarded. After all, isn’t everything in life a test of faith? But it really struck me that fear is also a test. And I never realized it until I actually experienced it.

I don’t mean I’ve never been afraid, that would be just silly, especially for someone as neurotic as me. But it’s always been so easy to overcome my fear. So I’m afraid of an exam at school? Well I’ll just study the best I can and God will reward me as He sees fit. I’m afraid of not getting a job? It probably wasn’t meant for me anyway. This was how I handled my fear and Thank God it worked wonders because (again Thank God) I trust Him. This was all fine and dandy until I started experiencing fear of everything and nothing. I was afraid! That’s it, nothing more to it, no particular reason for my fear, there was nothing wrong. I was just afraid, and since I couldn’t figure out why, I was never able to find something to tell myself to make my fear seem irrational. That is by all means NOT a good feeling!

So when I came across this verse, it was like that cartoon light bulb for an AHA moment. I am a rational person that always seemed to rationalize everything. I always found out why I was afraid and always tried as hard as possible to make that “why” go away by rationally thinking it through. but this was not a test of my rational thinking techniques, this was a test of my faith. This is where I pray that God takes away my fear and just be patient. Some time later, another verse jumped at me:

الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَتَطْمَئِنُّ قُلُوبُهُمْ بِذِكْرِ اللَّهِ أَلَا بِذِكْرِ اللَّهِ تَطْمَئِنُّ الْقُلُوبُ

{الرعد:28}

"Those who believe, and whose hearts find satisfaction in the remembrance of Allah: for without doubt in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find satisfaction” (13:28)

This really was a test of my faith. I am supposed to be a believer, so the remembrance of God would be the only way to take my fear away. I am someone who believes every word of Quran and if it says that I will feel at peace with the remembrance of God then this is what I should do. It is also worth mentioning that at the time of my “fear”, I wasn’t very spiritually active. There was no doubt in my mind that this is what I should do.

It’s said the best method of remembrance is reading Quran, and that is exactly what I did. This makes so much sense since remembrance is about keeping God in our hearts and minds, and Quran is not just about mentioning Allah, it’s about all those stories and words that make us feel His divine power in everything we experience. I think I finally understand why fear can be such a huge test to everyone; for the believers who need it to find their way back to their spiritual side, and for the non-believers who will feel the true loss and void of not having a spiritual side in the first place; they will try so hard to find something rational to reassure them while the only thing that would take away their fear is the belief in God’s divine power.

In my case, was it really a test or just a divine reminder that I’m drifting and that I should pay attention? Probably a bit of both. My fear lead me to explore an idea that hadn’t occurred to me before, and to find a part that, at the time, was missing from my life. This was an important chapter in the journey of my spiritual growth (still in progress), but, God willing isA, it is a lesson well learned.

 

Technorati Tags: Allah,Islam,fear,remembrance,peace,test,faith,Quran,Muslim

The All-Good Concept

I’ve been going through some major changes in my life lately; changes that I never imagined I could go through all at once, or at least not at such close proximity. One of those changes was a result of a decision I had made; the decision to let go and pray to God for happiness. It was not easy, and I cannot say I was completely at rest when I took it. I had been wanting to do this for 8 months before actually going through with it. I owe my courage to the help of certain friends that were able to see the bigger picture that I could not see then. Anyway, that particular decision and the ones that followed, along with other circumstances have helped me realize a very important concept that I think all muslims – and probably non-muslims as well – know and understand, but I doubt that it plays but little part in their thoughts and feelings towards certain situations. The concept is as I like to call it “The All-Good Concept.”

We’ve all gone through difficult circumstances, and had to make decisions we are not certain of. Most of us pray “Istikhara” and hope for the best. Others, like how I used to be and still am sometimes, live in turmoil over whether or not they should take the decision in the first place. They are so afraid of the “what-if” that they forget how everything happens for a reason, and a good one too! Even when they finally make the decision and act upon it, they still wonder “was it the right thing to do?” and I do believe some never get a straight answer out of themselves. We live in a life where there is never time to think, or ponder on all implications. We also live in a life where there is always too much information for anyone; not necessarily a good thing as each piece of information, however irrelevant, gives room to more ideas, more decisions, and more implications. In the cases where there isn’t enough information, people panic and wonder and run around in circles because they are afraid of the blind spots they can’t predict. But even with all the information available, there will still be blind spots. There will always be something someone thinks is bad but it is actually good and vice versa “But it may happen that ye hate a thing which is good for you, and it may happen that ye love a thing which is bad for you. Allah knoweth, ye know not” [Al- Baqara 216]

“{وَعَسَى أَنْ تَكْرَهُوا شَيْئًا وَهُوَ خَيْرٌ لَكُمْ وَعَسَى أَنْ تُحِبُّوا شَيْئًا وَهُوَ شَرٌّ لَكُمْ وَاللَّهُ يَعْلَمُ وَأَنْتُمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَ} [البقرة: 216]}”

These blind spots that we fear so badly are called fate!

I stopped writing for a minute, wanting so badly to jump to the next paragraph which I have not yet written, but I’m stopping myself. I want to tell my story before I jump to the conclusion I have always known but never embraced. So here I go! As I’ve previously mentioned, there was a certain life changing decision I’ve been pondering for close to 8 months. I asked everyone and anyone that could give me sound advice, and still I could not make that decision. I was too afraid to be wronging myself and other people, which was what I was accused of when I finally announced it. It is always so hard to make a decision that you know perfectly well would affect other people’s well being as much as your own. I kept praying “Istikhara” night and day, praying to God to guide me to the right thing to do, and I never got the sign I wished for. I think, at that time, God was punishing me by making me lose my way because I was not keeping my faith to heart. But I also think it was the lesson I needed to learn in order to understand more clearly how life works. So 8 months of wishing and praying that something happens, something outside of my control so I could make this difficult decision more easily, but nothing happened. I remember the day I decided to act upon my decision, I prayed to God to stop me if I was doing something wrong, and He didn’t… Elhamdulellah! A few hours later, it was done; all the implications and the pain and confusion was done with. I made my decision and my life didn’t stop, I wasn’t struck down, people didn’t die, and my mother didn’t disown me. I went through the pain I may have caused and it hurt me too. I doubted myself, and I cried, but not for long. Half an hour later, I was relieved. The pain I had caused seemed more like a disciplinary slap on the back of a hand than a gunshot to the gut. The pain I got fired back at me felt like a shot through body-armor; shockingly painful at first, but no injury, not really. And I finally realized what I was supposed to have at heart of any thought I ever had or ever will have: Trust God! Thank God for anything, good or bad. Believe that God will never give us pain except as “Ebtelaa” or a test of our faith. I was failing that test every time, but I finally learned the lesson and passed it, or at least I hope I did. Before that when I was pondering my decision, the thought I kept having was that I need to jump and have someone catch me, someone save me from the fall. I knew for a fact that I needed to jump and was looking desperately for someone to catch me, forgetting that no one will ever catch me except My God! That was the first moment ever I felt completely at peace with myself, balanced, and truly happy. I should have regretted all the delay on my part before finally making my decision, but I don’t. I guess I believe it is part of the process of learning that no matter what happens, God helps those who help themselves, and those who Trust Him. A friend had told me a story about how she let go of everything, knowing that God will be there. She acted based on that belief, and God has not let her down, she went through the rough patch, and got out. She passed the test. She told me her story around 3 months before I made my decision. Maybe she helped me take it and maybe she didn’t. But I know now that I have learned from her to be a little stronger and let go of all the doubts, just trust God.

We all know that we should trust God, but I will be frank and admit, remorsefully, that whenever the reason was not crystal clear, I wondered why certain events took place, just as some people wonder why children have cancer, or why people get sick. We all wonder sometimes, and this is the test of our faiths that we fail so many times, because when we wonder, we do not trust God anymore. We are required as muslims to believe blindly in a few things; one of those things is fate, or how we say it “kada2 Allah wa kadaro”, Which means we are required to believe that whatever happens, it happens for a reason, and that in the end we have to believe that God knows best. We have to trust Him and understand that it all comes down to something good, even if that good thing isn’t visible to us. We are required to be patient and know that the moment we jump, or even get pushed off the ledge by life, when the going gets tough, God will be there and no one else. At the end of the day, it’s all good!

Elhamdulellah!

P.S. In light of recent events, I want to say to all those people who are afraid for their jobs and the economy and their children’s schooling that we are only reasons for God’s will to be done. So stop worrying and trust that God will guide us through this to a better light. If someone loses their job, however unfortunate that is, it is still a test and an opportunity to do something better. The cup is ALWAYS half full. After all, we were able to overthrow Mubarak