I Am In Complete and Utter Need of Allah, Most High

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful, Most Compassionate
Assalaamu alaykum

Dear Friends

I pray that you are well.

Everything we have is from our Lord and we should be grateful and thankful to Him. We are in complete and utter need of Allah, Most High, in every single moment. Were Allah, Most High, to withdraw His maintaining us in existence for even a second, everything will cease to exist.

Allah does whatever He wills. He is the Creator. Whether you like it or not things happen. Bad things happen. Good things happen. But we are responsible and accountable for our actions. Allah created choice within us to choose between doing good and doing bad, between obeying Him and not obeying Him.

When we obey Allah, we are grateful and thankful to Allah for His tawfiq. We focus on the fact that Allah created the good act. We don't focus on the fact that we acquired it because we will become proud and will have this sense of self-consequence or self-deserving. This is not becoming of a slave. A slave should have a deep sense of duty and deep sense of need for His Master. A slave does not feel independent of His Master.

When we make mistakes and disobey Allah, we are remorseful and immediately turn towards Allah in regretful repentance. We look and focus on the fact that we acquired the disobedience and we are responsible for it.

We don't do the opposite like the Shaytan. When Iblis disobeyed Allah, he looked at the fact that Allah created the action and he didn't accept responsibility. When he did a good act (he worshiped Allah for long time before the creation of Adam, peace be upon him), he looked at the fact that he acquired the action and he became proud. And look where he ended up.

"Whoever finds good let him thank Allah and whoever finds anything else, let him blame no one but himself." (related by Muslim)

قَالَ يَـٰقَوۡمِ أَرَءَيۡتُمۡ إِن كُنتُ عَلَىٰ بَيِّنَةٍ۬ مِّن رَّبِّى وَرَزَقَنِى مِنۡهُ رِزۡقًا حَسَنً۬ا‌ۚ وَمَآ أُرِيدُ أَنۡ أُخَالِفَكُمۡ إِلَىٰ مَآ أَنۡهَٮٰڪُمۡ عَنۡهُ‌ۚ إِنۡ أُرِيدُ إِلَّا ٱلۡإِصۡلَـٰحَ مَا ٱسۡتَطَعۡتُ‌ۚ وَمَا تَوۡفِيقِىٓ إِلَّا بِٱللَّهِ‌ۚ عَلَيۡهِ تَوَكَّلۡتُ وَإِلَيۡهِ أُنِيبُ

"He (Prophet Shu'ayb, peace be upon him) said: "O my people! see ye whether I have a Clear (Sign) from my Lord, and He hath given me sustenance (pure and) good as from Himself? I wish not, in opposition to you, to do that which I forbid you to do. I only desire (your) betterment to the best of my power; and my success (in my task) can only come from God. In Him I trust, and unto Him I look." Qur'an Hud 11:88

May Allah grant us tawfiq. Ameen. Please don't forget us in your night prayers. Jazakallahu khairan.

And Allah knows best.
Wassalaam

Your Attitude

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful, Most Compassionate

Assalaamu alaykum

Dear Friends

I pray that you are well.

There is good and bad in every place. If you look for good, you will find good. If you look for bad, you will find bad. It boils down to your attitude.

We always thought of having a system is good. Everybody loves USA for its system. Everything seems to run like clock work--consistent, predictable and efficient. If you go to the Department of Motor Vehicles to register your car tomorrow, you can expect there are people working behind the desk to help you, the same way they were there yesterday or the year before. You plan your day without contingencies because you have complete faith in the system.

But having a system is not necessarily good. No human system is perfect. It works sometimes. It doesn't work sometimes. It may work for some, it may not work for some other. Sometimes no system is better.

This foreign place is notorious for not having any system (they say the system here is no system) but it works for millions of people and it works for me. For example, I can wait for a bus anywhere I want and I can tell the driver to stop anywhere I want (along the bus route). I cannot imagine we can do this in the good USA. If the bus driver did this, the police will ticket the bus driver for traffic violation and he will have to pay a hefty fine and penalty! And if I wanted to take a bus, I would have to drive to the designated bus stop!

So who need the system, fancy bus stop, well paved roads, state of the art bridges--who is paying for it? The people. When the people have to pay for the people's convenience and comfort, they have to work and the more convenience and the more comfort people want, the more they have to pay, and the harder they have to work to pay. And who lose? The souls.

May Allah grant us good in this world and the next and protect us from the Hellfire. Ameen. Please keep us in your night prayers. Jazakallahu khairan.

And Allah knows best.

Wassalaam