Assalam-alaikam all,
Wednesday 12 May 2021
Eid ul Fitr 2021:1442 - Chand Raat
Monday 12 April 2021
Ramadan 2021/1442: Ramadan Kareem
Assalam alaikam all my dear readers,
I pray
that this message finds you healthy, happy and that Allah (SWT) is pleased with
you and accepts your good deeds.
This beautiful
month is with us again, a month of opportunity and blessing. I can’t remember a
time I felt less prepared to welcome this honoured guest into my home, but more
keen to see it. After a year of worry, anxiety, and confusion and after seeing
the grief of so many around me, this Ramadan feels like healing medicine.
After
a year when so many faced such hardship, and I managed to keep working, school
my child and keep my health, Ramadan feels like a time of deep thanksgiving and
an opportunity to make intense dua for my brothers and sisters.
I pray
this Ramadan, the Muslim community step
up as always to serve, to help and to pray for others. But I also pray that
the future is not too harsh for us, that we get through this time with our
health, wellbeing, and livelihoods intact and with our iman (faith) in a better
state than before.
If
Allah (SWT) has tested us, he has sent us this blessed month full of
opportunities to raise our taqwa (consciousness), to try and better ourselves
and to turn to him for help and sustenance insh’Allah.
This
Ramadan be gentle with yourself and kind to those around you, please remember
me and my family in your dua’s and may Allah (SWT) have mercy on every brother
and sister and all of humanity.
"Oh you who believe! Fasting is prescribed to
you as it was prescribed to those before you, that you many learn piety and
righteousness" ~ Qur'an 2:183
Narrated Abu Huraira: Allah’s Apostle (peace be upon him) said, “When
the month of Ramadan starts, the gates of the heaven are opened and the gates
of Hell are closed and the devils are chained.” ~ Bukhari - 31:123
The Prophet (peace be upon him) declared, 'Three men whose dua is never
rejected (by Allah) are: the fasting person until he breaks his fast (in
another narration, when he breaks fast), the just ruler and the one who is
oppressed.' ~Ahmad, at-Tirmidhi – Hasan.
Ramadan 2021/1442: The Prophets Sermon on Ramadan
Alhamdulillah,
every time I read the Prophet's (sallallahu alayhi wasallam) sermon on Ramadan
I find something new and moving in it.
It never fails to inspire me, remind me how blessed Ramadan really is
for us and take me back to why we fast and what we should be doing during this
special month:
Baihaqi
reported on the authority of Salman Al-Farsi (Radhi Allah ‘Anh) that Prophet (sallallahu
alayhi wasallam) delivered a sermon on the last day of the month of Sha’ban. In
it he (sallallahu alayhi wasallam) said,
“O
People! The month of Allah (Ramadan) has come with its mercies, blessings and
forgivenesses. Allah has decreed this month the best of all months. The days of
this month are the best among the days and the nights are the best among the
nights and the hours during Ramadan are the best among the hours. This is a
month in which you have been invited by Him (to fast and pray). Allah has honoured
you in it. In every breath you take is a reward of Allah, your sleep is
worship, your good deeds are accepted and your invocations are answered.
Therefore,
you must invoke your Lord in all earnestness with hearts free from sin and
evil, and pray that Allah may help you to keep fast, and to recite the Holy
Qur’an. Indeed!, miserable is the one who is deprived of Allah’s forgiveness
in this great month. While fasting remember the hunger and thirst on the Day
of Judgement. Give alms to the poor and needy. Pay respect to your elders, have
sympathy for your youngsters and be kind towards your relatives and kinsmen.
Guard your tongue against unworthy words, and your eyes from scenes that are
not worth seeing (forbidden) and your ears from sounds that should not be
heard.
Be
kind to orphans so that if your children may become orphans they will also be
treated with kindness. Do repent to Allah for your sins and supplicate with
raised hands at the times of prayer as these are the best times, during which
Allah Almighty looks at His servants with mercy. Allah Answers if they
supplicate, Responds if they call, Grants if He is asked, and Accepts if they
entreat. O people! you have made your conscience the slave of your desires.
Make
it free by invoking Allah for forgiveness. Your back may break from the heavy
load of your sins, so prostrate yourself before Allah for long intervals, and
make this load lighter. Understand fully that Allah has promised in His Honour
and Majesty that, people who perform salat and sajda (prostration) will be
guarded from Hell-fire on the Day of Judgement.
O
people!, if anyone amongst you arranges for iftar (meal at sunset) for any
believer, Allah will reward him as if he had freed a slave, and Allah will
forgive him his sins. A companion asked: “but not all of us have the means to
do so” The Prophet (sallallahu alayhi wasallam) replied: Keep yourself away
from Hell-fire though it may consist of half a date or even some water if you
have nothing else.
O
people!, anyone who during this month cultivates good manners, will walk over
the Sirat (bridge to Paradise) on the day when feet will tend to slip. For
anyone who during this month eases the workload of his servants, Allah will
make easy his accounting, and for anyone who doesn’t hurt others during this
month, Allah will safeguard him from His Wrath on the Day of Judgement. Anyone
who respects and treats an orphan with kindness during this month, Allah shall
look at him with kindness on that Day. Anyone who treats his kinsmen well
during this month, Allah will bestow His Mercy on him on that Day, while
anyone who mistreats his kinsmen during this month, Allah will keep away from
His Mercy.
Whomever
offers the recommended prayers during this month, Allah will save him from
Hell, and whomever observes his obligations during this month, his reward will
be seventy times the reward during other months. Whomever repeatedly invokes
Allah’s blessings on me, Allah will keep his scale of good deeds heavy, while
the scales of others will be tending to lightness. Whomever recites during this
month an ayat (verse) of the Holy Quran, will get the reward of reciting the
whole Quran in other months.
O people!, the gates of Paradise remain open during this month. Pray to your Lord that they may not be closed for you. While the gates of Hell are closed, pray to your Lord that they never open for you. Satan has been chained, invoke your Lord not to let him dominate you.”
Monday 22 February 2021
Yearning
Almost a
year into the epidemic and lockdown, I feel like both I and my family and the
people around me have changed in so many ways. I have lost interest to shopping
and new clothes, there is nothing I can order that would make me feel much
different. Work and home-schooling fill my time, my main contact with family is
over the phone and evenings spent journaling have got me unpicking all parts of
my brain. So, we work, we wait, we hope for the best…and I find myself yearning.
I’ve been
thinking about Pakistan these last few days – Lahore, my village near Jhelum,
the stunningly beautiful northern areas - I wonder if I will ever see them.
I have a
hankering to see the sea. I was mulling about our twentieth anniversary last
year and how the two of us sat on a high grassy cliff full of flowers, picnicking
and whiling away a day in the sunshine.
I would
love to spend a day on a green hill or by a lake, with the sun on my face.
I pray to sit with my family again, all of us in one room, sharing food, laughing, joking and telling the kids to stop screaming and racing around the house. I miss the stories, the teasing and everyone complimenting my mum on her food. Insha’Allah those days will come soon.
I miss
meeting my friends for coffee and cake, we used to skip dinner, feed the kids
and then meet up to eat cake guilt free. Every time I meet them, we chat, laugh
and unwind. I feel the stress falling away as we catch up, I always come away
feeling sleepy and contented.
I miss my
bestie and her loving words and big heart. She has been through so much this last year and I could not be properly there for her.
I yearn
for a time when the wanderlust gets me and I can walk out the house and go
where I want.
I look
forward to spring blossom season, which will be here soon. I am taking pleasure in the longer, warmer
days. I am enjoying taking a few stolen moments here and there in the garden,
clearing away weeds and dead plants, wondering what the garden will be like
this year.
When I
yearn, it means my spirit is still lively, a bit too much in love with this
world still perhaps, but refreshed and joyful by Allah SWT’s beautiful creation
of nature.
Monday 8 February 2021
Quarantine Stories: Schooling and Wellbeing.
We are now well into the
third lockdown in London and the second stint of home-schooling. I remember how
relieved I was when the children went back to school, thinking to myself: “I am
never doing this again”, only to find myself there again less than six months
later:
Home schooling five
children
Navigating GCSE’s, A
‘levels, University application, a last minute sixth form application and GCSE
options for next year.
Trying to support an
eight your old that cried every morning during online lessons for weeks.
With one eye on a six-year-old
little wildling that has no intention of sitting through a whole lesson.
Checking every hour
between meetings on the boys to make sure they are not falling asleep mid class.
Trying to keep everyone
talking to try and gauge how they are feeling.
Work with tasks piling
up and meetings through the day (with various interruptions from various people,
I have mastered the art of dirty looks and a viciously whispered “go away” now
and again)
Trying to find a way to
manage meals for five children and two adults, three times per day.
Studying for my Masters
degree with online classes and research and reading for two assignments.
But something is
different this time around.
At Christmas I took two
weeks leave from work to coincide with the children winter holidays. I spent
the time in rest, reflection, and to clear my head from work, study and
home-school. It made a world of difference. It allowed me to get some
perspective and set some boundaries:
No working long hours
Being clear on my
priorities – worship and children
Weekly planning for
things like meals, meetings and housework.
Protecting my “me time”
for journaling, blogging.
Committing to learn to
rest and not feeling guilty about it.
It takes me daily reflection
and review of my day to try and stick to these principles, to stop myself working
into the evening, stressing about home school and constantly overthink.
I have found
doing less make me more peaceful and less stressed out, but also funnily, more productive.
I am still counting the
days till they can go back to school. I am still very worried about my sons
GCSEs and I still wonder how I am supposed to do everything I want at work and
with my personal projects. But I am peace with the idea of imperfection, not
finishing things, of a messy house and the art and practice of keeping my heart
full of gratitude.
Sunday 3 January 2021
Word of the Year 2021: Simplicity
I have been toying with
my Word of the Year for 2021 for the last few day and struggling to settle on
one word. My word for 2020 was belief – I wrote here
about recognising the need to have greater self-belief in myself:
“Belief in my good
intentions, in my capability, in my competence. Belief that I can achieve
anything I set my will to. Belief that I do enough, have enough and am
completely enough.”
In the past I have done
better some years than others in using the Word of the Year to motivate or
improve myself. During 2020, my self-belief grew exponentially. It was a year
of hard work, at work, at home, with my children, in my community, alone for
the last two months of the year. The hard work was accompanied by growth in my
confidence and knowledge of my work.
I ended the year with
recognition at work and having learned lots of new things. I managed to network
and start working with various community groups and finally I made sure my
children had everything they needed while we remained in lock down on and off
through the year: access to online learning and devices, continuous
encouragement and some monitoring, and most importantly routine and support to make
sure things didn’t get to much for them. I think this has been the first year
in 17 years of being a mum, I could put the mum guilt to one side and say I did
my best in the circumstances we were in.
By the end of the year,
I was full of self-belief and confidence but also overloaded with a feeling of
stress and burnout. I realised I had been so busy “doing” all the time, that I
had neglected my spiritual health and my relationship with Allah (SWT). I
learned the hard way that if you don’t nurture your faith and connection to
Allah (SWT), for instance through the quality if your salah, dhikr or
reflection, everything else in life starts to feel meaningless and you start to
feel aimless and even sad.
Because I felt so sad by
the end of the year and had to work my way back to feeling more motivated and positive
(with great difficulty), I committed going forward to prioritise my faith over everything
else insh’Allah. I also realised I had to stop trying to do everything. At work
I need to say no more, delegate more and raise problems without trying to
deliver the solution to all of them. At home, I need to set boundaries with
family and friends and again delegate chores and be more specific and firmer in
asking for help. I don’t know how this
will fit with the million goals I have set for 2021, but it did make me think I
need to simplify what is going on in my life.
So words that I considered
for this year included ambition (the next step after self-belief, to act
on it), fearless (again setting big goals and continuously moving beyond
my comfort zone) and purpose (making sure everything I do goes back to trying
to please Allah SWT). But in the end the one I want to hold onto is simplicity:
Simplicity means
identifying what’s essential, then eliminating the rest. ~ Leo Babuta.
That means cutting down
on e-mail especially, screen time, finding ways to filter and minimise the
deluge of information, content, tweets, Instagram posts, Facebook posts, WhatsApp’s
that we get all day. All of these are other people’s noise and other people’s
priorities, not mine.
It also means being
clear on what benefits me and my goals going forward and saying no to most of
the rest, especially at work. I am not sure how I will reconcile my goals for 2021
with my desire for simplicity, something to test and play around with in the coming
year I suppose.
Do you have a word for the year? What would yours be and why?
Words of the
Year 2018: Quran and Khidmat (Service)