Sunday, January 22, 2006
Losing Sleep
Job hunt for my last workterm has begun. Unlike other faculties, engineering co-op doesn't guarantee work. The process works like any other where only if the employer deems you capable enough, you will be called for an interview.
More so this time than any other, I'm not too worried about my job situation and not because I think of myself to be a prize catch in the job market. I tend to surprise people because for someone who is 'close' to graudation (2 years), my 'career-concern' meter seems to be on the 'not-care-much' mode. Why?
Because I've made a deal. As long as I look after my deen, I'm assured that my dunya will be taken care of. It's another story that often times, I tend to forget about my end of the bargain and am left swimming with sharks with straight As and top notch experience.
So instead of losing sleep over the type of job I'll work in the summer, I stay awake scared not being able to meet my obligations towards Allah (swt). Don't get me wrong, I'm not being all humble I-pray-all-night-and-still-scared like others.
There is no rest for the mu'minoon and I'm the hare that is still sleeping. Often, I tend to fall into a false sense of security because the little I do provides a feeling of grand accomplishments. My dad once mentioned to 'look up to those who have more piety so you always aim higher in religion and in matters of worldly goods, compare yourself to those with less wealth so you're satisfied with your possessions.'
A few years back, sitting against the side walls of Markuz-ul-Islam during Ramadan, a scholar from India mentioned that in order to get to jannah on the Day of Judgement, we'll be competing against persons whom spoke the Quran for decades meaning any word they uttered was the statement of Allah (swt); people who have memorized the seerah to the extent that they know the entire lineage of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).
Others who didn't miss a SINGLE prayer ther entire lives; people like Imam Hanifa who prayed fajr with the same wudu that he made for isha for over twenty years (implying he stayed up all night supplicating).
With competition like that, do you begin to understand why I lose sleep over my deen instead of my dunya?
[PS. on this note, time to read the Quran]
More so this time than any other, I'm not too worried about my job situation and not because I think of myself to be a prize catch in the job market. I tend to surprise people because for someone who is 'close' to graudation (2 years), my 'career-concern' meter seems to be on the 'not-care-much' mode. Why?
Because I've made a deal. As long as I look after my deen, I'm assured that my dunya will be taken care of. It's another story that often times, I tend to forget about my end of the bargain and am left swimming with sharks with straight As and top notch experience.
So instead of losing sleep over the type of job I'll work in the summer, I stay awake scared not being able to meet my obligations towards Allah (swt). Don't get me wrong, I'm not being all humble I-pray-all-night-and-still-scared like others.
There is no rest for the mu'minoon and I'm the hare that is still sleeping. Often, I tend to fall into a false sense of security because the little I do provides a feeling of grand accomplishments. My dad once mentioned to 'look up to those who have more piety so you always aim higher in religion and in matters of worldly goods, compare yourself to those with less wealth so you're satisfied with your possessions.'
A few years back, sitting against the side walls of Markuz-ul-Islam during Ramadan, a scholar from India mentioned that in order to get to jannah on the Day of Judgement, we'll be competing against persons whom spoke the Quran for decades meaning any word they uttered was the statement of Allah (swt); people who have memorized the seerah to the extent that they know the entire lineage of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).
Others who didn't miss a SINGLE prayer ther entire lives; people like Imam Hanifa who prayed fajr with the same wudu that he made for isha for over twenty years (implying he stayed up all night supplicating).
With competition like that, do you begin to understand why I lose sleep over my deen instead of my dunya?
[PS. on this note, time to read the Quran]
Faraz Ahmed 11:29 a.m.
5 Comments:
You're not competing with anyone for the Jannah. Just competiting with your nafs.
Also, I've never understood concepts such as the one you mention here. That if someone looks after their religion their worldly affairs will be taken care of. It just doesn't make any sense to me really. The only thing that makes sense to me is that if you look after your religion, you'll be looked after in the hereafter. To me it doesn't seem as if religious people are guaranteed anything on this world. Religious people die of famine and do very poorly in this dunya all the time.
Also, I've never understood concepts such as the one you mention here. That if someone looks after their religion their worldly affairs will be taken care of. It just doesn't make any sense to me really. The only thing that makes sense to me is that if you look after your religion, you'll be looked after in the hereafter. To me it doesn't seem as if religious people are guaranteed anything on this world. Religious people die of famine and do very poorly in this dunya all the time.
To anonymous, reflect on this Hadith:
The Prophet (PBUh) said, "Whoever sets this world as his goal, Allah (SWT) divides his affairs for him, He will place poverty between his eyes, and he will be able to attain nothing from this world, except for what Allah has already written for him. (In contrast) whoever sets the Hereafter as his goal, Allah gathers his affairs for him, gives him richness of (faith in) the heart and the world will come to him grudgingly and submissively."
[In the collection of Ibn Majah, Ahmed, and Al-Daarimy]
If you can read Arabic, the hadith is located here:
http://hadith.al-islam.com/Display/Hier.asp?Doc=5&n=5660
The Prophet (PBUh) said, "Whoever sets this world as his goal, Allah (SWT) divides his affairs for him, He will place poverty between his eyes, and he will be able to attain nothing from this world, except for what Allah has already written for him. (In contrast) whoever sets the Hereafter as his goal, Allah gathers his affairs for him, gives him richness of (faith in) the heart and the world will come to him grudgingly and submissively."
[In the collection of Ibn Majah, Ahmed, and Al-Daarimy]
If you can read Arabic, the hadith is located here:
http://hadith.al-islam.com/Display/Hier.asp?Doc=5&n=5660
Regardless, won't someone only get what Allah has decreed for him in this world anyways?
In the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful
To anonymous: It seems you have some sort of misunderstanding of what Allah's "decree" is.
Decree means that Allah - sub7aanahu wa ta3aala - by his absolute knowledge of all things, knows all that is going to happen to you: knows how much money you're gonna earn, when you're gonna die, or that you're gonna step into the local mosque on such a such a day and read 10 pages of Quran, or that at approximately 3684 days into your life, a leaf will drop from a maple tree behind you from 20 meters above the ground and hit the ground at 0.5 m/s at exactly 40.234 seconds later (just giving an geeky engineering example here), etc. Knowing all this, he has ordered all this to be written (or decreed) ahead of time, before He created you.
I'd like to point out, that this does not, in any way, contradict the fact that we have free will. We are free to make our own choices and to do what we want. Say you decide to steal that chocolate bar from the corner store, you cannot blame Allah afterwards saying "He decreed it for me". Why? Simply because you didn't know what Allah has decreed for you before you stole the chocolate bar. All you knew was that stealing is Haram (forbidden), and you based your decision solely on that knowledge. And the fact that you stole the chocolate bar with that knowledge in mind is in itself enough to put the blame on you. You can know whether something is decreed for you only after it occurs, not before. We don't know the unseen (Al-Ghayb); only Allah does.
Another example: When some of the companions asked the prophet pbuh whether medicine and supplications "prevent the decree of Allah", the prophet pbuh told them that medicine and supplicating to Allah "are part of that decree" [This is in the compilation of Al-Tarmithi].
So, if you are sick, and you decide to the means to get better by taking the medicine and supplicating to him. Because of that Allah cured you. Since Allah knows before hand that you were gonna take these means to get better on such and such a day, the fact that you were cured is written for you beforehand. Similary, if you had choosen not to do that and you died because of your illness, death would have been decreed for you. Allah knows what you are going to do beforehand, so whatever happens to you is decreed by his absolute knowledge of all things.
Reflecting on the hadith I mentioned, if you set the hereafter as your goal, Allah will make everything easy for you, and gather your affairs in this life, and it will be decreed (or written) as such beforehand. The decree would have been different had you chosen to make the dunya your sole goal.
Absolutely, like Murtada said, just because you make the hereafter your goal, it doesn't mean you'll be CEO of IBM or Syncrude. LOL. But, the hadith is clear in that Allah will help you with your affairs. That being said, note that a person who works hard is most likely going to end up at a higher rung on the corporate ladder than someone who is lazy. That lazy person will probably be fired. Same goes for studying (I gotta work on that myself).
There are however, somethings that we have no choice over, like the colour of our hair, our gender, our parents, etc. These are also part of Allah's decree. Also, remember that Allah is the most just. Scholars advised against dwelling too much on decree; you don't need to know more than this. More thinking only leads to thinking 'bad' things about Allah. Don't let the devil trick you.
In conclusion, decree is an outcome of the actions you make, which are ultimately based on your own choices; i.e. you are not forced to make those choices. Allah has absolute knowledge of our choices and their outcomes ahead of time, and He decrees these actions and outcomes as such. It is by the mercy of Allah that he gave us free will and the freedom to make our own decisions. Otherwise, how could Allah test his servants if He forced them into something (sin for example) despite of what they do??
If I said anything correct, it is from Allah. If I made a mistake, it is from myself.
Please keep me in your du'a.
To anonymous: It seems you have some sort of misunderstanding of what Allah's "decree" is.
Decree means that Allah - sub7aanahu wa ta3aala - by his absolute knowledge of all things, knows all that is going to happen to you: knows how much money you're gonna earn, when you're gonna die, or that you're gonna step into the local mosque on such a such a day and read 10 pages of Quran, or that at approximately 3684 days into your life, a leaf will drop from a maple tree behind you from 20 meters above the ground and hit the ground at 0.5 m/s at exactly 40.234 seconds later (just giving an geeky engineering example here), etc. Knowing all this, he has ordered all this to be written (or decreed) ahead of time, before He created you.
I'd like to point out, that this does not, in any way, contradict the fact that we have free will. We are free to make our own choices and to do what we want. Say you decide to steal that chocolate bar from the corner store, you cannot blame Allah afterwards saying "He decreed it for me". Why? Simply because you didn't know what Allah has decreed for you before you stole the chocolate bar. All you knew was that stealing is Haram (forbidden), and you based your decision solely on that knowledge. And the fact that you stole the chocolate bar with that knowledge in mind is in itself enough to put the blame on you. You can know whether something is decreed for you only after it occurs, not before. We don't know the unseen (Al-Ghayb); only Allah does.
Another example: When some of the companions asked the prophet pbuh whether medicine and supplications "prevent the decree of Allah", the prophet pbuh told them that medicine and supplicating to Allah "are part of that decree" [This is in the compilation of Al-Tarmithi].
So, if you are sick, and you decide to the means to get better by taking the medicine and supplicating to him. Because of that Allah cured you. Since Allah knows before hand that you were gonna take these means to get better on such and such a day, the fact that you were cured is written for you beforehand. Similary, if you had choosen not to do that and you died because of your illness, death would have been decreed for you. Allah knows what you are going to do beforehand, so whatever happens to you is decreed by his absolute knowledge of all things.
Reflecting on the hadith I mentioned, if you set the hereafter as your goal, Allah will make everything easy for you, and gather your affairs in this life, and it will be decreed (or written) as such beforehand. The decree would have been different had you chosen to make the dunya your sole goal.
Absolutely, like Murtada said, just because you make the hereafter your goal, it doesn't mean you'll be CEO of IBM or Syncrude. LOL. But, the hadith is clear in that Allah will help you with your affairs. That being said, note that a person who works hard is most likely going to end up at a higher rung on the corporate ladder than someone who is lazy. That lazy person will probably be fired. Same goes for studying (I gotta work on that myself).
There are however, somethings that we have no choice over, like the colour of our hair, our gender, our parents, etc. These are also part of Allah's decree. Also, remember that Allah is the most just. Scholars advised against dwelling too much on decree; you don't need to know more than this. More thinking only leads to thinking 'bad' things about Allah. Don't let the devil trick you.
In conclusion, decree is an outcome of the actions you make, which are ultimately based on your own choices; i.e. you are not forced to make those choices. Allah has absolute knowledge of our choices and their outcomes ahead of time, and He decrees these actions and outcomes as such. It is by the mercy of Allah that he gave us free will and the freedom to make our own decisions. Otherwise, how could Allah test his servants if He forced them into something (sin for example) despite of what they do??
If I said anything correct, it is from Allah. If I made a mistake, it is from myself.
Please keep me in your du'a.
Murtada, I think you summarized the point better than I could have :-)
Belal, Jazakullah khairun for the detailed advice and I hope anonymous has a better understanding of 'Qadr' now.
I think enough has been mentioned on this point for me to possibly add anything more.
Belal, Jazakullah khairun for the detailed advice and I hope anonymous has a better understanding of 'Qadr' now.
I think enough has been mentioned on this point for me to possibly add anything more.
