success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm

A lot of the prophets were not 'successful' in the worldly sense.

Saleh: He was a prominent figure among his people. Before prophethood his people hoped that he would be a future leader, but when he called his people to Allah the ones who followed him were the weak ones. Today even celebrities want to join D&T.

Lut: Only one household believed in him, and that was his own family, minus his wife.

Nuh: He did da'wah for 950 years and according to narrations, less than 100 people followed him. That's an average of

9.5 years of da'wah per follower.

Imagine doing da'wah for 9 years, and only one person believes in you. Thank God Allah made me as me, and not as prophet Nuh. 

Musa: A whole nation (the children of Israel) followed him, but after they crossed the Red Sea his followers rebelled and refused to listen. 

So don't hope for results, hope for Allah's mercy and forgiveness. Because if He says 'i'll give you 1000 followers tomorrow!', you'll get 1000 followers tomorrow. 

Let's look at the da'wah of Rasulullah. He goes around Makkah for 13 years and only a few followed him. But then he met the people of Madinah, and the Aus and Khazraj couldn't wait to be his followers. 

There were some things that made the Ansar (Aus & Khazraj) more susceptible to Islam:

- They were neighbours with the Jews, therefore they were more familiar with prophethood, holy books and monotheistic religion. They heard about the coming of Rasulullah from these Jews.

- A short while before Hijrah, a battle happened between the Aus and Khazraj (the Battle of Bu'ath). A lot of their old people were killed and the young ones were left (the leader of Aus, Sa'ad bin Muadh, was in his early 30s). Old people give a lot of resistance to new teachings, as compared to the youth.

These young men were the perfect help for Rasulullah, and there were also a lot of geographical advantages in Madinah. 

Allah gave help to His Messenger after a long period of unfruitful work. He gives help whenever He wants, wherever He wants, and however He wants. 

But we have to try our best. 

Prophet Nuh was turned down a lot of times, but he kept on trying night and day, in open and in secret.

Try our best, eventhough there are a lot of excuses and lies that we can tell ourselves.

"My work is too demanding"

"My family needs me all the time"

"I don't have money"

And so on.

The more i walk along this road, the more i am convinced that there is indeed a high price to pay for Jannah.

Conversations by the bookshelf

I didn't know that packing old books with your mum could be such an emotional event.

"I want to keep some of these books..they remind me of when you were little."

My whole past flashed by in a series of dusty tomes and yellowed pages.

There were the first-reader books, which i repeated over and over and over again until the pictures are familiar even until now...three little pigs with a wolf who huffs and puffs, red riding hood with a big bad grandma..

There were the disney storybooks, which came out with every new disney movie. Back then you watched them on videotapes, and you had to rewind the tapes to get back to the start, and they made this whirring sound especially if the tapes are old.

There was this encyclopedia which i brought to boarding school. On it was written 'mehmet ikmaludin bin ahmadun nordinie'. A friend of mine wrote that as a prank and taught it was very funny. I reported to the teacher and he got an earful. Now i find it funny too.

"There's a lot of books here..these are all investments on you, you know."

That's an important thing to note. Invest in books for your child.

"Yang ni simpan, bagi anak along baca" (keep these ones, give them to your children for them to read)

"Anak along baca english & arabic je" (my children read only english & arabic)

Lol. Just a few years ago i couldn't imagine that we'd touch on such topics.

How time flies.