Tuesday, December 23, 2008

White socks

Salamu alaykum,

A sister once said, that one should be able to walk through Muslim's home with white socks so that in the end of the visit they would still be white.
As much as I agree, the words did not sound right for me.

I forgot the words, until one day it came back to my mind. And I realized what was wrong.
Cleanliness is part of our deen, and besides that, Allah loves beauty.
But if your white socks turn black in sisters house, what do you do?

Do you look around and think how she is lazy to not to clean her house?
That she has too many children as she cannot even manage her home?
That this is not the way Muslim should live, why she doesn't clean her house?
Maybe you get to remind her of hadith clearing the importance of cleanliness?

Or do you just ignore it and drink the coffee she just poured?
Do you chat about daily duties and passed and up-coming events?
Look at her with bunch of kids all busy thinking "mashaAllah, she does not complain even she must be so tired"?

And your socks you will throw to the washing machine when you go home, texting her thanks for the coffee.

Or do you tell her to send her crew to the playground with you and your kids and let her rest a bit or wipe her floor?
Do you ask her how she really is and if she needs some help?
Or if you know her well enough, do you go and take the mop from the closet and give her a hug, whilst heading to mop that dirty floor?

Maybe those dirty socks after all reveal the one who wears them.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Every now and then

"you should not weary the people making it a habit that every single time you sit in a gathering you admonish and address the people, since the Prophet used to give them admonition now and then, and not too frequently.
This is because the souls become weary and bored. When they become bored they become languid and weak and may even come to dislike what is good merely because of the frequency with which the person stands and addresses them."

(By Shaykh Muhammad ibn Saalih al-‘Uthaymeen, taken from “An Explanation of the Three Principles”)

We are often very passionate and fierce in the beginning of our Islam mashaAllah, always ready to bring out a fatwa, an article by well-know scholar, ahadith and ayaat of the Qur'aan to bring evidence for whatever discussing that time.

I believe that naseeha is something that needs to be given, and I believe that a wrong I pass without trying to change it either with my hand, tongue or the very least du'aa, will be an evidence against me.

But I do believe too, that naseeha that is given without the knowledge of the nature of good naseeha can do more harm than keeping quiet.
Naseeha should be given with knowledge of more than just about the issue it is given about.

One of the books I love is "Enjoining good and forbidding evil" by ibn Taymiya.
If every Muslim would read it, I think our ummah would be way healthier than it is.

May Allah make us united for His sake and guide us on the right path. Aamin