if you like it, you'll find a way to do it

I dare you to read this and not cry

I was reading a short story on the train. I finished half of it, and put it away to continue reading later.

"serdang..please mind your step"

then i browsed through my phone. somehow i was so engrossed in that, and didn't notice that the train had stopped at my station. 

I looked up..

Shoot! How long had the train stopped?

I picked up my bags and ran.

*teeetteetteet*
*wooshh*

and the door shut in my face.

Oh well, might as well finish off the story i was reading. It's a beautiful story, and because its so beautiful i'll give you a glimpse of it.

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This is a true story, and it happened in the time of at-tabi'een. A man by the name of Abu Abdul Rahman was finally returning home after 28 years in the frontline, fighting to spread islam. Imagine the excitement he must have felt, finally returning home to his wife after 28 years. And in those days there was no skype, no whatsapp, no facebook. 

That's a huge enough sacrifice to make for the sake of islam, 

And in addition : when he left her to go out and fight, they were newly married.

Now he's finally coming home.

He opened his door..

To find that a young man was in the house.

They wrestled each other, they shoved and pushed until they were both thrown out of the house and the neighbours came to see what the commotion was all about. 'Why is this old man doing, trespassing into this house?' They grabbed the old man to stop the fighting and so he wouldn't escape.

Abu Abdul Rahman protested: "O people, let me go! This young man trespassed onto my wife! By Allah, if i had my spear with me, i would have destroyed him!"

The young man also bawled, "Let me go! By Allah, i saw with my own eyes, that man intruded into my house with his weapons!.. This is proof that he intended evil, he really intends evil!"

The people became confused. They knew that this was the house of the young man. What was the old man talking about? Is he really the man who left for jihad a quarter of a century ago? Is he 'Puruq', also known as Abu Abdul Rahman?

Then a woman came out from the house. She knew who this man was.

"Yes, that is Puruq. This is Puruq, O Rabi'ah!"

The young man in the house was none other than Abu Abdul Rahman's son. When he left for the frontier, his son was still in the womb. Now he had grown up to become a fine young man. All this while, throughout the 28 years, his wife stayed loyal to him while bringing up their son, educating him in the faith and sending him to learn with the best scholars of the time.

Who was this son?

He was Rabi'ah ar-Rayi bin Abu Abdul Rahman. He was one of the ulama' and fuqaha' of his generation and also one of the teachers of Imam Malik bin Anas, the founder of the Maliki madhhab. And what produced this great man?

A great wife and a great mother.

This story is so awesome, the word 'awesome' echoes in your mind. (AWESOME..AWEsome..Awesome..awesome..some..me..)

And their blood, sweat and tears in the path of allah still manage to touch hearts and make tears flow long after they have left the earth.

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So another 'train incident' ended up producing blessed fruits, because if i had gone out at my original stop, i wouldn't have finished the book.

There's a very powerful lesson in the story about bringing up excellent children. It doesn't begin with which kindergarten you send them to, or which milk formula you feed them with.

It begins with choosing an excellent mother for them.

And since there's not yet a Ms. Author as of today,

I'm not in a position yet to talk about that. maybe later. (I'll stop there before you ask me 'how much later?')

Fullstop.

And because i love all you readers out there,

I'm giving you a gift.

click here to receive your gift.

I want you to download it and print it out. I want you to read it, and feel the warmth and sincerity in this story, and understand its implications.

And then act upon it, and be serious in making ourselves complete muslim individuals so we can then bring up a whole generation of Rabi'ahs. 

the essential 6th Sense

It's all good, even when its not

The train arrived at the platform. An electronic board gave its destination: Klang.

"Nice, the one after this must be heading to seremban"

Then the next one came. There's something about these new trains, maybe its the air conditioning, maybe its the comfortable seats, or maybe its the (now reduced) political propaganda, they just make you want to doze off the moment you sit down.

Im too embarrassed to set off a wake-up alarm in the train, so i hold on to a simple philosophy: allah will wake you up when its time.

As soon as i woke up,i went out to see...that i had arrived in batu tiga. (My actual train was supposed to go to serdang, but arriving in batu tiga meant that i took the train to port klang instead. So i had to ride a train back to KL and take another train heading to serdang)

Husnuszhan (making good assumptions) about why that happened:

- there was a serial killer weaving a butcher's knife in the actual train, so i was spared his madness.

- a man forgot to wear deodorant on the actual train, and i was spared his, err, lack of fragrance.

- my rizq (provisions) of food for the day happened to be in Kl sentral

Nevertheless, i now know how to blog on the train.yay! So everything really is good for the believer.

Energizer Da'ie

I wanted to write something for people coming 'back for good, but this post was so comprehensive that i felt that any further elaboration would be redundant.

Working life can be very tempting and seem very harmless, like a cute energizer bunny.

But don't trust the cuteness of energizer bunnies. They Keep Going at all costs, they never tire out and if you follow their rhythm you and your heart will die a slow, agonizing death. And worse of all, you don't even realize your gradual death because the Energizer Bunny is keeping you drugged on Promotions, Increments, That New House and That Nice Car.

So let Rasulullah SAW and Mu'az ibn Jabal radhiyallahu'anhu teach us 

"How to Stay Sane and Awesome"

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From Mu'az ibn Jabal ra, he said "i said 'O Rasulullah, tell me about a deed that will enter me into Paradise, and keep me far from Hell.'

He (SAW) said "you have asked about a great thing, and verily it is easy for those whom Allah makes it easy. Worship Allah, and do not make anything as partners with Him. And uphold solah, and give zakah, and fast in Ramadan, and perform Hajj."

And then he (SAW) said, "Do you want me to show you the doors of good? Fasting is a shield, and sadaqah will extinguish sins like water extinguishes fire, and the solah of a man in the middle of the night." And then he recited: "They arise from their beds..until he reaches what they used to do" (Surah As Sajdah:16-17) 

And then he (SAW) said, "Do you want me to tell you the head of the matter, and its pillars, and its highest peak?" I said, "Yes, O Rasulullah". "The head of the matter is islam, its pillars are solah, and its highest peak is jihad."

And then he (SAW) said, "Do you want me to tell you about the essential prerequisite to all that?" I said "Yes, O Rasulullah". Therefore he held his tongue and said "Guard this". I said "O prophet of Allah, and we are going to be taken (to account) for what we speak with it?" He (SAW) said, "May your mother be bereaved of you! And what would make men fall prostrate on their faces-or on their noses- in Hell, except the harvest of their tongues" (Tirmidhi)

The recipe is simple enough

1) guard the 5 basic obligations of islam

2) Persist in performing nawafil (amalan sunat)

3) the base of the matter is islam, its pillar is solah and its highest peak is jihad. Uphold prayers (and this means praying solah on time and at the masjid) because in addition to maintaining your connection to Allah, it will train you to struggle,to give your all-out. Like muharikah advised, attend usrah even if you don't feel like you gained anything. 

4) Guard your tongue. 

Simple to say, difficult to practise.

There is one race that an Energizer bunny cannot win, and that is a race with an Energizer da'ie. Because

الفكر لا يحد، واللسان لا يصمت، والجوارح لا تسكن. فان لم تشغلها بالعظاءم، شغلك الصغاءر

"The thought cannot be limited, and the tongue cannot stay quiet, and the body cannot stay still. Therefore if you do not occupy it with great things, small things have occupied you" - Abdul Wahhab 'Azzam

the great scholars were book nerds, so?

By little brother gets an adrenaline rush if he passes by Toys R'Us. He'll say something like "best la nampak mainan tu. dia boleh pusing-pusing" when he's actually saying "i'll be happy if you buy me that toy"

Some people get an adrenaline rush from seeing clothes.

Some get adrenaline rushes from food. (do you realise how much malaysians talk about food? in britain, never once did people greet me with "have you ate?" (dah makan dah?) all they talk about is the weather -.- malaysians are experts in 'gastronomic geography'. in a recent trip with several brothers, almost everyone recalled places according to food. "ipoh! have you tried nasi ganja?" "taiping cendol!" "r&r tapah has some good food!"

yes, brothers are human too.

Some get an adrenaline rush from books, from seeing physical books lined up on shelves and seeing files of books lined up in an awesome website like

www.kalamullah.com.

they have lots & lots & lots & lots & lots of digital books to help in D&T *swoon*. So to all those on holiday and to those who spend too much time thinking about where to have lunch, don't say "but there's nothing for me to do" *wink*

Suggestions :
- noble life of the prophet by sheikh ali sallabi - a 2000+ page biography of the prophet with lessons for the modern da'ie.
- recordings of the life of Muhammad, Abu Bakr and Umar - something beneficial and serious to listen to, rather than listen to random songs on the radio while stuck in a 30-minute traffic jam.

p/s : don't just download everything. Some of these authors are still alive and need to make a living for their families.

giving up? we've got a justification for that.

Hasan al-Banna, describing the da'ie (caller):

"يبذل كل ماله، وكل دمه،  وكل نفسه، في سبيل عقيدته التي امن بها وعاش اجلها"

"He sacrifices all his wealth, all his blood, and his ownself, to defend his aqeedah which he believes in, and which he lives for"

This statement is like someone knocking furiously on the heart, saying

"Hello, is anybody alive in there?"

Its easy for people to get lost in the race that never ends. Syaitan will always have an 'escape hatch' for people who don't really want to commit their lives to spreading the truth.

Escape hatch for students : My studies are too demanding, i have to write 40-page essays! I can't do da'wah at the same time

Escape hatch for working people : My workload is too demanding, i have to work weekends and my employer doesn't really like me being active. let me off just a teeeeeeny bit, please.

Escape hatch for retirees : I don't have any more energy, walking is becoming too demanding, you go on..

Escape hatch for dead people : ............

We accept these escape hatches and repeat them to ourselves. Then our hearts die, bit by bit. Our fiery souls slowly extinguish, drenched by a bucket of excuses.

And then we try to inflate the value of our insignificant deeds. We think we're doing a huge favour by doing the bare minimum of coming to circles, and we stop at that, not caring to do more.

"At least i come"

True. But realising our huge hopes for the ummah needs more than that.

If you really want something, you'll find a way. If not, you'll find an excuse.