Why Say Bismillah?

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

Dear Friends

I pray that you are well.

We say بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم (BismillahirRahmanirRahim) before we start our actions. We say بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم before we eat, before we cook, before we enter the bathroom, before we put our clothes on, before we comb our hair, before we step out of the house, before we turn the car ignition, before we write, before we turn on the computer, before we take the exam, before an important job interview, before we make wudu', before we enter the masjid, before praying, before reading the Qur'an, before so many things that we do. Allah knows how many times we say Bismillah everyday. He does not miss it. May Allah accept our Bismillah as good deeds. Ameen.

But what is it that we are really saying when we say بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم ?

When you say بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم you are intending to perform the action in the Name of Allah alone, not in the name of yourself, your friends, your teacher, your boss, your spouse, your children, the person next to you or anyone or anything else.

So at the outset, it reminds us of Allah. It reminds us to make our intentions purely for Allah. Our focus now is towards Allah. We are doing this action for His sake alone and with His help alone. He is the One who gives us the tawfiq to do this. And if He does not will this to happen, even this piece of fish that I am about to chew can fall out of my mouth and be picked up by the cat, or even what I am about to write, will not happen or flow the way I want it, if Allah does not give me the tawfiq.

It is meant for us not to have this feeling of self-consequence or pride, rather to have this feeling of gratitude towards Allah, Lord of the Worlds, who nourishes and benefits us. So we will use what He gives us for the purpose He has created them for us and in the manner He wants us to use them.

Take this simple example, when you put your clothes on your body, it is not to show to people how rich or beautiful you are, but simply to cover your nakedness to please Allah. You feel grateful that He provided you with the means to have this beautiful clothes and a beautiful body to put it on, so you stay away from disobedience of Allah by showing off or looking down upon the less fortunate, for example, and do more good deeds by helping the less fortunate by giving away some of your nice clothes which you haven't worn for many years! And you can think of the many examples that apply to you and take the action. InshaAllah.

And we seek His Mercy and Compassion to give us the blessings and acceptance in what we are about to do.

This is what we should have in our minds and in our hearts when we say بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim, and we follow it with the good action and more good actions with the tawfiq from Allah.

So, pause a little bit after you say Bismillah, and reflect on the blessings. Don't rush your Bismillah (or neglect to say the Basmalah) to get to the action without a moment of reflection.

Teach and remind your children this. InshaAllah.

And Allah knows best.

May Allah brings us closer to Him and gives us tawfiq. Ameen. Please don't forget us in your night prayers. Jazakallahu khairan.

Wassalaam

If You Want More, You Give More

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

Dear Friends

I pray that you are well.

Generosity is one of the highest virtues of Islam. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him peace, was the most generous of people. Generosity is an expression of gratitude to Allah, the Generous One (Al-Karim,) the Provider of all wealth and provision (Ar-Razzaq). If you are grateful to Allah, He swears that He will give you more.

If we claim we are grateful to Allah for His blessings, we should be generous to His creations. If you are not a generous person, you pretend to be one by forcing your hand to give even though your heart refused. One day, inshaAllah, your hand and your heart will work together in harmony in spending Allah's blessings for His sake only.

If it is still difficult to give in charity or pay zakat, remember death will take you and move you on one day. And when that happens, all your possessions will stay behind for others to spend or fight over, while you are facing the trials of the grave alone. May Allah saves us from the trials of the grave. Ameen.

Ali, Allah be pleased with him, said, "The worst person is the miser. In this world he is deprived of his own wealth, and in the Hereafter he is punished."

A miser is constantly worried about money and would not spend his money even on himself or his family for fear of poverty or fear of not having enough. No one like the miser. Even misers loathe each other. This should be enough to turn you away from being one.

"For those who give in Charity, men and women, and loan to Allah a Beautiful Loan, it shall be increased manifold (to their credit) and they shall have (besides) a liberal reward." Qur'an Al-Hadid 57:18

"The likeness of those who spend their wealth in the Way of Allah, is as the likeness of a grain (of corn); it grows seven ears, and each ear has a hundred grains. Allah gives manifold increase to whom He wills. And Allah is All-Sufficient for His creatures' needs, All-Knower." Qur'an Al-Baqarah 2:261

"And the likeness of those who spend their wealth seeking Allah's Pleasure while they in their ownselves are sure and certain that Allah will reward them (for their spending in His Cause), is the likeness of a garden on a height; heavy rain falls on it and it doubles its yield of harvest. And if it does not receive heavy rain, light rain suffices it. And Allah is All-Seer of (knows well) what you do. Qur'an al-Baqarah 2:265

May Allah makes us among His generous servants and protect us from miserliness. Ameen. Please don't forget us in your night prayers. Jazakallahu khairan.

And Allah knows best.
Wassalaam

Fix Your Eyes Towards The Gardens

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

Dear Friends

I pray that you are well.

Fix your eyes towards the Gardens...

"...for him who fears the standing before his Lord, there will be two Gardens (i.e. in Paradise)...With spreading branches...In them (both) will be two springs flowing (free)...In them (both) will be every kind of fruit in pairs...Reclining upon the couches lined with silk brocade, and the fruits of the two Gardens will be near at hand...In them will be (Maidens), chaste, restraining their glances, whom no man or Jinn before them has touched...(In beauty) they are like rubies and coral...And besides these two, there are two other Gardens (i.e. in Paradise)...Dark green (in color)...In them (both) will be two springs gushing forth...In them (both) will be fruits, and date-palms and pomegranates...In them will be fair (companions), good, beautiful... Companions restrained (as to their glances), in (goodly) pavilions...Whom no man or Jinn before them has touched...Reclining on green cushions and rich carpets of beauty...Then which of the Blessings of your Lord will you both (jinn and men) deny? (Qur'an Ar-Rahman 55)

Be mindful of how we spend our time. This life is but a bridge to our eternal abodes.

"Verily, for the Righteous, are Gardens of Delight, in the Presence of their Lord." (Qur'an Qalam 68:34)

"Verily, those who believe and do righteous good deeds, for them will be Gardens under which rivers flow (Paradise). That is the great success." (Qur'an Al-Burooj 85:11)

May Allah increase our Iman and grant us righteous deeds. Ameen. Please keep us in your night prayers. Jazakallahu khairan.

And Allah knows best.
wassalaam

The Path of Knowledge--cont.

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

Dear Friends

I pray that you are well.

Some of you were wondering where we were the other day. In Makkah, a grocery store, a disaster area, earthquake center, ...etc?

Actually, we were in a government hospital trying to get my kids to a room for a physical checkup in order to register them for al-Azhar schools. It must be done in a government hospital and cannot at a private clinic.

I could never imagine I would see such a sight in a medical facility! SubhanAllah. It was an experience and sight that also reminded me of the many blessings that Allah has bestowed upon my family--most of all the great blessings of health and time. Those people had no option about where to spend their time except at the hospital because they needed treatment and they had to endure the additional discomfort and hardship because they are too poor to seek treatment at a private clinic, but we had an out had we decided not to proceed with what we came to this 3rd world country in the first place.

Alhamdulillah, my boys are old (and big) enough that I didn't have to actually hold their hands--they waited by themselves at the door of the "examination" room, while I observed them from a little corner away from the heavy human traffic (sometimes my boys disappeared in the crowd), until they could get themselves in the examination room a few hours later.

May you have a blessed Ramadhan with full acceptance of all works of obedience and charity. Ameen. Please make du'a for me and my children and all the Muslims. Jazakum Allahu khairan.


And Allah knows best.

Wassalaam

You are rich!

BismillahirRahmanirRahim
Assalaamu alaykum

I pray that you are well.

You have two ears and two eyes. Do you prefer deaf or blind? Would you trade your eyes for $5M? Unequivocal NO! So you are rich, very rich. How can you say you are poor? Your eyes and ears are great blessings from Allah that often we take for granted. Be grateful--use them for what they are created for--to worship the Creator. Otherwise, if He loves you and has mercy on you, He might very well send you afflictions to remind you of Him. Don't complain when this happen.

Would you now complain about your mother for smacking your little hands when you tried to reach for the medicine because you thought they were candy and your mother was just trying to deprive you of the joy of eating candy? Maybe this will strike a good analogy. InshaAllah.

When my children were small, I took all the precautions I knew how so they didn't get into things that could harm them. I kept all medicine high in a child proof locked cabinet. But for some reason, one of my sons (he was about 2 years old at the time) was able to reach the medicine cabinet and opened a child proof bottle of children multivitamins with iron. SubhanAllah, I came home early that day from work--usually I would not have been back until 5 or 6 hours later, and found him with smears of colors on his face and his shirt and he smell medicine. I rushed him to the emergency hospital and Alhamdulillah Allah saved him. They pumped out his stomach. The doctor said if he were to arrive 5 minutes later he would have been a "dead puppy!" SubhanAllah.

So it may be tempting and seem sweet what you want to hear and what you want to see which is forbidden, but when Allah forbid something, it is because He knows it is harmful for you. He is Al-Alim, the All-Knowing.

So, protect your ears from listening to unlawful things. When you hear someone backbiting--your spouse, your children, your friends for example--help him/her leave this act and don't participate or try to listen in the backbiting.

A learned man once told me this story. A religious man was found dead on his chair by his computer. The computer was still on with a page of a bad site. You can guess what he was watching before he died! Inna lillahi wainna ilayhi raji'un. Remember this when you think you can get away with Allah.

"Whoso desires the reward of this world, with God is the reward of this world and of the world to come; God is All-hearing (as-Sami'), All-seeing (al-Baseer). Qur'an An-Nisa 4:134

May Allah cover our sins and make us die an honorable death at the highest of Iman. Ameen. Please don't forget me in your night prayers. Jazakallahu khairan.

And Allah knows best.

Wassalaam

Blessings of peace and food

BismillahirRahmanirRahim
Assalaamu alaykum

I pray that you are well.

There is no single blessing you possess but it is from Allah. Look at everything around you.

That leftover food in the fridge waiting for you to eat is a big blessing, but you don't know it and you don't like leftovers, so you throw them in the garbage. Then suddenly there is a big earthquake and the 2nd storey of your house collapse and your fridge and your pantry are smashed. You cannot get to the stores, everywhere is chaos--sirens, roadblocks, accidents, fires, roads flooded by broken fire hydrants, you can imagine the disaster! You have to wait for the red cross helicopters to drop you food packages. Now your stomach is crying, your children are laying there like fish out of the water--they haven't eaten for 2 days. You wish that leftover in the garbage to come back but the flies have gotten to it first!

There are two blessings that we cannot truly understand them until we lose them: blessings of peace and blessings of being fed.

For those who are living in the US, we are so blessed that we can stick our head out from the window when we lost our way and ask for directions without having the fear of being shot at. We were so appreciative of the guy who was nice enough to stop and give us the direction--we said thank you! But no thank you to Allah! the One Who gave your speech to ask for direction, the One Who made it possible for the guy to give you the directions, the One Who sent the earthquake to Haiti instead of to your area, the One Who gives you the peace and stability so that you can move around freely! The smallest of things that we take for granted in this life is a blessing from Allah and some don't care to thank Him. And Allah Al-Karim (the Generous), As-Sabur (the Patient One) still shower us with abundant blessings despite our ingratitude.

When I was in Egypt, I wanted to visit Jerusalem (I really wanted to pray in Masjid Al-Aqsa) but I couldn't because they won't let my sons enter Jerusalem--they have restrictions on young men at least at the time. When there is no peace, people are afraid of each other and movements are restricted or banned. You might think that something like this will never happen in "peaceful" countries like America. We don't know, only Allah knows. Allah can destroy a nation and can build a nation. Kun fa yakun. Be and it be. The Qur'an has many examples of this. Tomorrow we could wind up in the ocean--remember the Tsunami? There is nothing we can do. So while we are still free to move, live--but with a different attitude. The attitude should be of gratitude and living for next life. So Allah will remember us and not let us perish just like that.

When you look at your food next time, appreciate what Allah has given you. Have a heart full of appreciation and gratitude of what in front of you. The mark of this appreciation and gratitude is that you are humble and lower yourself in front of the blessing. All the sunnah of the Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him peace, is speaking to us--that we are so small, undeserving of the blessings of Allah, and the very food in front us is a treasure and we are lucky to have it and we really respect it. We are not merely saying on the tongue "Bismillah" at the beginning and "Alhamdulillah" at the end. We feel this before we eat and all the way beyond eating to the leftovers. All these have to be covered in deep veneration of Allah.

Don't cook too much that you have leftovers that food wind up in the garbage cans. Suffice to cook less for the stomachs then throwing food away. There is so much waste everywhere and it is very sad to see food go into the garbage--you see this a lot at the masjid! We tend not to respect food anymore. When I was 6 or 7 years old, my mother would not even let me drop a grain of rice when washing the rice before cooking it. If there was a grain of rice in the drain that fell out of the pot while I was washing it and touched filth, she would tell me to pick it up and give it to the chickens. But nowadays, we callously throw enormous amount of food. That is being disrespectful to food. Make a conscious effort not to waste food, the gift of Allah to us.

We must have a sense why we are doing something, what the purpose is, why we are eating. If you are eating for no purpose, then this is a big problem because this means you are living to eat instead of eating to live. Allah created the world for us, not us for the world, and He created us for Him. So we partake the world within His guidelines.

We eat to worship Him. Ultimately you are what you eat. Food and eating must be in line with the teachings and the sunnah of Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him peace. Otherwise, this most basic blessing and act that we enjoy can turn into a curse, ruin one's heart, ruins one's worship, becomes an obsession and many other matters that push us away from Allah.

The way the Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him peace, acted was reflecting a state that we meant to be following, to be slavely. We are expected to take this attitude from the Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him peace. How best to incorporate them other than to approach blessings the way he approached blessings. The more we can approach things the way our Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him peace, approached things, the easier it is to be like him in state. So learn the sunnah of the Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him peace, and incorporate them in your life as much as you can.

Let the waves of love for Allah, not the chain of afflictions, push you towards Him--show Him your gratitude for all His blessings. May Allah give you tawfiq and bless your day. Ameen. And please keep me in your night prayers. Jazakallahu khairan.

And Allah knows best.

Wassalaam

How to increase your money

BismillahirRahmanirRahim
Assalaamu alaykum salaam

I ask Allah to envelop you in His Mercy and Generosity.

I drive my kids to school every morning usually. It's about a half hour drive/15 miles--if we leave home by 6 a.m. they will get to school on time. And we try to make sure we are out the door and in the car by 6 a.m. It is like clock work every morning almost. Yesterday, one of the rare days someone didn't get in the car by 6 a.m.--and it was me. My kids already in the car. I asked them to move to our SUV because it would go faster than my old Honda Civic. One of my sons said, Mom that would take a lot of gas. Then I said, that's okay you need to get to school on time. He then said, Egypt mom? I said what about Egypt? Then he said, "the gas money would feed many poor Egyptians!" My other son said, "Allah will bless our time inshaAllah, and He will let all the lights green when we pass through inshaAllah." I told them they were right. So we took off in the Honda and Alhamdulillah they got to school on time, in fact we arrived at the drop off spot earlier than we normally did! SubhanAllah!

We lived in Egypt for about 8 months and came back in the beginning of summer last year. We chose not to drive the SUV after we came back (except a few times because I had loaned the Honda to a friend) because our hearts were still in Egypt and it was still fresh in our minds how the poor live there--and they were around us, we see the poverty every day, a normal sight. And we feel guilty driving around in a nice SUV while we know our neighbors in Egypt are hungry.

I remember the first few days after we arrived there, my kids were all excited that they now could eat halal MacDonalds. So we sat and ate at MacDonalds a few times and one evening we also had to order a carryout for one of my sons who decided to stay home. As we were walking back to our apartment, a boy, probably about 8 or 9 years old, darted in front of my son who was carrying the food for his brother from no where and tried to grab the bag from him. This was my son's first encounter of something like this--he had never been "ambushed" before. My son panicked and called out "Mom, Mom!" I told him to give it to the boy and he did. I cried so hard that time for Allah had chosen my kids to have plenty. After that my kids never asked me to eat at MacDonalds again. Later on they became in love with what the Egyptians called "the poor man's food", kushari, that we ate it several times a week. SubhanAllah!

There are so many heart breaking stories during our stay in Egypt which I can share with you but inshaAllah at a later time. The reason I am telling you these stories is to encourage you to give and give and give more. We have so much comfort in this country, it is very easy to take things for granted until we are reminded. It is very easy to forget the poor because, for many of us, we don't live among them--we don't see with our own 2 eyes their struggles. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him peace, said something like this, the food for 1 can feed 2 and the food for 2 can feed 4 and so on. So don't waste, there is plenty to go around and there is so much blessings in giving. Make a daily or weekly or monthly plans to give, money and/or food and/or clothing. The regular it is the better. Remember these are good deeds that will help you in this life and after this life.

I am pretty sure you received a lot of emails asking for donations. You might feel bombarded sometimes but don't feel that way and please don't ignore these emails. Don't turn down any request for charity. Aisha, Allah be pleased with her, perfumed the charity she was giving because it would go right into Allah's hands and it is more fitting that it smells good. She thanked the poor person for giving her the opportunity to give to Allah. This is the attitude and manners of giving.

So send/give something to every asking. You are giving to Allah, your Lord, the All Generous. If you cannot send a lot, even a dollar will go a long way for your coming near to Allah. Don't be shy to give a dollar if that is all you can afford. You are giving to Allah and He knows what you can or cannot do. Make a conscious effort to cut down your expenses--use your small car instead of driving big cars and SUVs; don't buy soft drinks anymore (if you normally drink one Pepsi a day, you can now save $30 a month--besides this carbonated drinks destroy your bones); reduce the number of eating out and try not to eat out at all (you will have lots of great food in Paradise!) Use your savings to give to the poor. I am pretty sure you can give more than a dollar if you do this inshaAllah. For some of you, you have zakat to pay. If you often have more than $2400 or $2500 at the end of zakat year, you have already over the zakatable minimum in which you must pay zakat (2.5%). Many of us probably have this zakatable minimum at the end of the year. Put this zakat amount aside now, earmark it for zakat, and you can use this money you set aside to give out to the poor as they come throughout the year. InshaAllah, Allah will give lots of barakah to the rest of your money.

There are so many ways how you can save and give that savings to the poor. You just have to be creative for your specific situation. If there is a will, there is a way. May Allah give you tawfiq and protect us all from poverty. Ameen.

Wassalaam