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Ayah of the Day:
Believers, be helpers of God, as Jesus Son of Mary said to the disciples, "Who will be my helpers to God?" The disciples said, "We will be helpers of God." And a part of the Israelites believed, while a part scoffed; We backed those who believed against their enemies, so they became victorious. [61: 14]
Hadith of the Day:
The excellence of a person's Islam includes leaving what does not concern him. [Tirmidhi]
Wise Quote of the Day:
Servantship is strengthened by persisting in neediness, impotence, weakness and lowliness before God. [Shaykh Abul Hasan al-Shadhili]
Guidance of the Day:
You must fill up your time with acts of worship so that no period of time elapses, whether by night or by day, without being used in some act of goodness. This is how the baraka within time is manifest, the purpose of life fulfilled, and the approach to God the Exalted made constant.
You should allocate specific periods of time for your habitual activities such as eating, drinking, and working for livelihood. Know that no state can be sound in the presence of neglect, and no wealth useful in the presence of heedlessness. If you abandon yourself to neglect and purposelessness, as the cattle do, and just do anything that may occur to you at any time it happens to occur to you, most of your time will be wasted. Your time is your life, and your life is your capital; it is the basis of your transactions (with God), and the means to attain to everlasting felicity, in the proximity of God the Exalted. Each of your breaths is a priceless jewel, and when it passes away it never returns. [Al-Haddad, The Book of Assistance]
Food for Thought:
There are many fine things which you mean to do some day, under what you think will be more favorable circumstances. But the only time that is yours is the present. Don't wait until your time is almost up to call home and say, "I love you." Don't bring flowers to the grave; rather, bring them home or send them to the person who is precious to you today.
Monday, November 09, 2009
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Pearls of Wisdom....202
1. Whenever you desire to do a certain thing or abstain from doing it, flee to God, and call to Him for help. Accustom yourself to that.
2. Take heed not to lose confidence in God. Trust in God, for God loves the trustful.
3. Knock on the door of dhikr, seeking shelter with God and avowing your need of Him, if you desire to have spiritual sufficiency.
4. Sustenance is Divinely apportioned. It is not the piety of a pious man that increases it, nor it is the impiety of an impious man that diminishes it.
5. Display not your knowledge in order that men may consider you to be sincere, but display your knowledge in order that God may consider you to be sincere.
6. Act toward God with certainty. Stand fast where He has established you, abstain from forbidden where He has forbidden you, with true insight (basira) in the religious certainty, and be not one of heedless.
7. If a person loves God, and He loves him, his friendship is brought to perfection.
8. The lover in very truth is he over whose heart there is no authority belonging to any except his Beloved and in which there is no will other than His will.
9. He whose friendship in relation to God has been established for him feels no aversion in meeting with God (on the Day of Judgment).
10. The veritable friend (of God) is not averse to death if it comes to him, since one who has tasted of intimacy with his Master will love meeting with Him. [Above quotes by Shaykh Abul Hasan al Shadhili]
2. Take heed not to lose confidence in God. Trust in God, for God loves the trustful.
3. Knock on the door of dhikr, seeking shelter with God and avowing your need of Him, if you desire to have spiritual sufficiency.
4. Sustenance is Divinely apportioned. It is not the piety of a pious man that increases it, nor it is the impiety of an impious man that diminishes it.
5. Display not your knowledge in order that men may consider you to be sincere, but display your knowledge in order that God may consider you to be sincere.
6. Act toward God with certainty. Stand fast where He has established you, abstain from forbidden where He has forbidden you, with true insight (basira) in the religious certainty, and be not one of heedless.
7. If a person loves God, and He loves him, his friendship is brought to perfection.
8. The lover in very truth is he over whose heart there is no authority belonging to any except his Beloved and in which there is no will other than His will.
9. He whose friendship in relation to God has been established for him feels no aversion in meeting with God (on the Day of Judgment).
10. The veritable friend (of God) is not averse to death if it comes to him, since one who has tasted of intimacy with his Master will love meeting with Him. [Above quotes by Shaykh Abul Hasan al Shadhili]
Thursday, October 29, 2009
LESSON OF THE DAY 1161
Ayahs of the Day:
Believers, shall I guide you to a trade that will save you from intense agony-----you believe in God and the messenger of God and strive for the cause of God with your properties and your persons------that is best for you, if you knew: God will forgive you your sins and admit you to gardens with streams flowing below, pleasant abodes in gardens of eternity-------that is the great success. And another you will like----help from God, and victory close at hand; so give the good news to the believers. [61: 10 to13]
Hadith of the Day:
The best (act of worship) in the sight of God is that which is done regularly. [Bukhari]
Wise Quote of the Day:
He is not a person of intelligence who does not strengthen himself by the strength of God. [Ibn Ata'Allah]
Guidance of the Day:
Know that one who claims to have a thriving inward but whose outward has been corrupted by his abandoning outward acts of obedience is a pretender and a liar. The one who exerts himself in the reform of his outward aspect by caring about the way he dresses and appears, speaks, moves, sits, stands, and walks, but leaves his inward full of repellent attributes and vile traits, is one of the people of affectation and ostentation, who have turned away from the Lord.
Beware, O brother, of doing in secret that which if seen by people would make you ashamed and worried about being censured. If you cannot make your inward better than your outward, the least that you can do is to make them equal, so that you behave equally well privately and publicly in obeying God's injunctions, avoiding His prohibitions, respecting what He has made sacred, and hastening to please Him. This is the first step a servant takes on the path of special knowledge. Know this! Success is from God. [Al-Haddad, The Book of Assistance]
Food for Thought:
Never forget the three powerful resources you always have available to you----love, prayer and forgiveness. As long as you don't forgive, who and whatever will occupy rent free space in your mind. Resentment is one burden that is incompatible with your success, always be the first to forgive.
Believers, shall I guide you to a trade that will save you from intense agony-----you believe in God and the messenger of God and strive for the cause of God with your properties and your persons------that is best for you, if you knew: God will forgive you your sins and admit you to gardens with streams flowing below, pleasant abodes in gardens of eternity-------that is the great success. And another you will like----help from God, and victory close at hand; so give the good news to the believers. [61: 10 to13]
Hadith of the Day:
The best (act of worship) in the sight of God is that which is done regularly. [Bukhari]
Wise Quote of the Day:
He is not a person of intelligence who does not strengthen himself by the strength of God. [Ibn Ata'Allah]
Guidance of the Day:
Know that one who claims to have a thriving inward but whose outward has been corrupted by his abandoning outward acts of obedience is a pretender and a liar. The one who exerts himself in the reform of his outward aspect by caring about the way he dresses and appears, speaks, moves, sits, stands, and walks, but leaves his inward full of repellent attributes and vile traits, is one of the people of affectation and ostentation, who have turned away from the Lord.
Beware, O brother, of doing in secret that which if seen by people would make you ashamed and worried about being censured. If you cannot make your inward better than your outward, the least that you can do is to make them equal, so that you behave equally well privately and publicly in obeying God's injunctions, avoiding His prohibitions, respecting what He has made sacred, and hastening to please Him. This is the first step a servant takes on the path of special knowledge. Know this! Success is from God. [Al-Haddad, The Book of Assistance]
Food for Thought:
Never forget the three powerful resources you always have available to you----love, prayer and forgiveness. As long as you don't forgive, who and whatever will occupy rent free space in your mind. Resentment is one burden that is incompatible with your success, always be the first to forgive.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Pearls of Wisdom....201
1. Take to yourself for armor ritual purification, fasting, worship, patience, performance of the dhikr, recitation of the Qur'an, and disclaiming the strength and power of God, and you will be in safety.
2. The increased blessings are actually the increases of religious knowledge, certainty, and intuitional knowledge (ma'rifa).
3. Every desire that summons you to long for the thing represented in the mind is the tool and weapon of Satan; and every desire that summons you to obey God and long to perform good deeds is praise worthy.
4. So long as your heart is attached to your knowledge and your striving, you are not as one going toward God, and you will not be such until you despair of everything, cleaving to hope in God with every breath---------then you will find help from God.
5. Whenever God honors a servant in his activities and moments of rest, He assigns to him service to perform (ubudiya) and conceals from him his personal gratifications.
6. Steadfastness before God with a clear consciousness of Him is the fairest of obedient acts.
7. He is described as niggardly and blame worthy who holds back his possessions on account of fear of poverty, wrong conjecture about God, contempt for the respect due to the believers.
8. Whenever you find pleasure in your outer or inner states, say: 'Whatever God wills, there is no force except with God.'
9. If we fear God with a fear that makes us secure from everything, then there is no sense at all in having fear of anything, since He is by everything, with everything, above everything, below everything, near everything, enveloping everything.
10. May your servant ship consist in resignation, contentment, acceptance of what is sent, good opinion of God in whatever you encounter, and being occupied with what is most worthy. [Above quotes by Shaykh Abul Hasan al Shadhili]
2. The increased blessings are actually the increases of religious knowledge, certainty, and intuitional knowledge (ma'rifa).
3. Every desire that summons you to long for the thing represented in the mind is the tool and weapon of Satan; and every desire that summons you to obey God and long to perform good deeds is praise worthy.
4. So long as your heart is attached to your knowledge and your striving, you are not as one going toward God, and you will not be such until you despair of everything, cleaving to hope in God with every breath---------then you will find help from God.
5. Whenever God honors a servant in his activities and moments of rest, He assigns to him service to perform (ubudiya) and conceals from him his personal gratifications.
6. Steadfastness before God with a clear consciousness of Him is the fairest of obedient acts.
7. He is described as niggardly and blame worthy who holds back his possessions on account of fear of poverty, wrong conjecture about God, contempt for the respect due to the believers.
8. Whenever you find pleasure in your outer or inner states, say: 'Whatever God wills, there is no force except with God.'
9. If we fear God with a fear that makes us secure from everything, then there is no sense at all in having fear of anything, since He is by everything, with everything, above everything, below everything, near everything, enveloping everything.
10. May your servant ship consist in resignation, contentment, acceptance of what is sent, good opinion of God in whatever you encounter, and being occupied with what is most worthy. [Above quotes by Shaykh Abul Hasan al Shadhili]
Monday, October 26, 2009
LESSON OF THE DAY 1160
Ayahs of the Day:
They want to extinguish the light of God with their mouths, but God will complete the divine illumination in spite of the hatred of the unbelievers. God is the one who sent the messenger with the guidance and the religion of truth, to reveal it to all religion, even if polytheists object. [61: 8,9]
Hadith of the Day:
The onus of proof is upon the one who makes the claim. [Bayhaqi]
Wise Quote of the Day:
Abstaining from the unlawful is the beginning of renunciation of the world, just as contentment with one's lot is a branch of satisfaction with the will of God. [Abul Qasim al-Qushayri]
Guidance of the Day:
You must, O my brother, improve your inward aspect until it becomes better than your virtuous outer appearance, for the former is the where the gaze of the Real obtains, while the latter is where the envious gaze of creation is to be found. God never mentioned the inward and the outward in His Book without beginning with the inward. And the Prophet used to pray, may blessings and peace be upon him: 'O God! Make my inward better than my outward, and make my outward virtuous.'
When the inward is good the outward is also inevitably so, for the outward always follows the inward, whether for good or evil. The Messenger of God, may blessings and peace be upon him, has said: 'In the body there lies a small piece of flesh; when it is good the rest of the body is good also, and when it is corrupt the rest of the body becomes corrupt also: it is the heart.' [Al-Haddad, The Book of Assistance]
Food for Thought:
If we make religion our business, God will make it our blessedness. Nobody is anything except as he joins himself to something. You cannot be a whole unless you join a whole. This is religion. Religion-----that voice of the deepest human experience.
They want to extinguish the light of God with their mouths, but God will complete the divine illumination in spite of the hatred of the unbelievers. God is the one who sent the messenger with the guidance and the religion of truth, to reveal it to all religion, even if polytheists object. [61: 8,9]
Hadith of the Day:
The onus of proof is upon the one who makes the claim. [Bayhaqi]
Wise Quote of the Day:
Abstaining from the unlawful is the beginning of renunciation of the world, just as contentment with one's lot is a branch of satisfaction with the will of God. [Abul Qasim al-Qushayri]
Guidance of the Day:
You must, O my brother, improve your inward aspect until it becomes better than your virtuous outer appearance, for the former is the where the gaze of the Real obtains, while the latter is where the envious gaze of creation is to be found. God never mentioned the inward and the outward in His Book without beginning with the inward. And the Prophet used to pray, may blessings and peace be upon him: 'O God! Make my inward better than my outward, and make my outward virtuous.'
When the inward is good the outward is also inevitably so, for the outward always follows the inward, whether for good or evil. The Messenger of God, may blessings and peace be upon him, has said: 'In the body there lies a small piece of flesh; when it is good the rest of the body is good also, and when it is corrupt the rest of the body becomes corrupt also: it is the heart.' [Al-Haddad, The Book of Assistance]
Food for Thought:
If we make religion our business, God will make it our blessedness. Nobody is anything except as he joins himself to something. You cannot be a whole unless you join a whole. This is religion. Religion-----that voice of the deepest human experience.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Pearls of Wisdom....200
1. Some of the most sublime bestowals of God are contentment with the reliance upon God in hardships, and recourse to Him in reverses of fortune.
2. Love is a seizure that God grants to the heart of His servant and that distracts him from seeing everything save Him, so that you can see the soul inclining to obey Him.
3. If anyone would abide strictly by the command of God, let him do it by remembrance, reflection, promptness, and submission to the command of God.
4. Allow not your soul to be attached to anything, and you will be one of those well rooted in religious knowledge from whom no secret or knowledge is hidden.
5. If thoughts of disobedience and the world occur to your heart, caste them under your feet with disdain and indifference, and your heart will be filled with knowledge and the right guidance.
6. There is no guidance at all except for one who fears God, and there is no fear of God (taqwa) except who shuns the world.
7. He who neglects his heart despises his religion, and he who is preoccupied with his outer behavior is taking his religion as a jest.
8. The grace of God in the matter of contentment with His decree is that it causes you to forget your misfortunes by looking forward to the Day of Rendezvous.
9. Good intention in relation to matters between God and you means turning the heart respectfully toward God, with respect for the commanding of God, and with respect to what He has commanded.
10. The understanding man is one who has an understanding from God of His signs and whose occupation is dhikr and reflection upon His favors, taking refuge in and avowing dire need of Him, and seeking protection with Him. He appeals to God, and so God responds to him. [Above quotes by Shaykh Abul Hasan al Shadhili]
2. Love is a seizure that God grants to the heart of His servant and that distracts him from seeing everything save Him, so that you can see the soul inclining to obey Him.
3. If anyone would abide strictly by the command of God, let him do it by remembrance, reflection, promptness, and submission to the command of God.
4. Allow not your soul to be attached to anything, and you will be one of those well rooted in religious knowledge from whom no secret or knowledge is hidden.
5. If thoughts of disobedience and the world occur to your heart, caste them under your feet with disdain and indifference, and your heart will be filled with knowledge and the right guidance.
6. There is no guidance at all except for one who fears God, and there is no fear of God (taqwa) except who shuns the world.
7. He who neglects his heart despises his religion, and he who is preoccupied with his outer behavior is taking his religion as a jest.
8. The grace of God in the matter of contentment with His decree is that it causes you to forget your misfortunes by looking forward to the Day of Rendezvous.
9. Good intention in relation to matters between God and you means turning the heart respectfully toward God, with respect for the commanding of God, and with respect to what He has commanded.
10. The understanding man is one who has an understanding from God of His signs and whose occupation is dhikr and reflection upon His favors, taking refuge in and avowing dire need of Him, and seeking protection with Him. He appeals to God, and so God responds to him. [Above quotes by Shaykh Abul Hasan al Shadhili]
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
LESSON OF THE DAY 1159
Ayahs of the Day:
God has not forbidden you to be charitable and just to those who have not fought you over religion or driven you from your homes, for God loves the just. God only forbids you to befriend those who fight you over religion and drive you from your homes, and back your expulsion; and any who befriend them are themselves wrongdoers. [60: 8,9]
Hadith of the Day:
Let your tongue never cease to be moist with the remembrance of God. [Tirmidhi]
Wise Quote of the Day:
The gates of salvation are only reached through struggle. [Imam Birgivi]
Guidance of the Day:
Whenever you notice in your soul any laziness in His worship or inclination to disobedience, remind it that God hears and sees you and knows your secrets and secret conversation. If this reminding does not benefit it because of inadequacy of its knowledge of the Majesty of God, remind it of the two noble angels who record good and evil deeds. If this reminding does not influence it, remind it of the proximity of death, that it is the nearest of all hidden and awaited things; frighten it of its sudden pouncing, whereby if it does come when it is in an unsatisfactory state it will end up in endless perdition.
If this threat is of no use, remind it of the immense reward which God has promised those who obey Him, and the painful torment with which He has threatened those who disobey Him. Say to it: 'O soul! After death there will be no opportunity to repent, and there will be, after this life, only the Garden or the Fire. Choose, if you will, obedience, the consequence of which is triumph, contentment, immortality in vast gardens, and looking at the Face of God, the Generous, the Beneficent; or else disobedience, the consequence of which is degradation, humiliation, mockery, deprivation, and imprisonment between layers of fire.' Endeavor to cure your soul through such reminders when it neglects obedience and inclines to rebellion, for they are useful medicines for the heart's diseases. [Al-Haddad, The Book of Assistance]
Food for Thought:
Motherhood: all love begins and ends there.
Thank her for it
And live your life with the love she bestowed on you, then share that love with all,
The gift of love is a mother's greatest gift.
Appreciate, respect, and acknowledge this.
God has not forbidden you to be charitable and just to those who have not fought you over religion or driven you from your homes, for God loves the just. God only forbids you to befriend those who fight you over religion and drive you from your homes, and back your expulsion; and any who befriend them are themselves wrongdoers. [60: 8,9]
Hadith of the Day:
Let your tongue never cease to be moist with the remembrance of God. [Tirmidhi]
Wise Quote of the Day:
The gates of salvation are only reached through struggle. [Imam Birgivi]
Guidance of the Day:
Whenever you notice in your soul any laziness in His worship or inclination to disobedience, remind it that God hears and sees you and knows your secrets and secret conversation. If this reminding does not benefit it because of inadequacy of its knowledge of the Majesty of God, remind it of the two noble angels who record good and evil deeds. If this reminding does not influence it, remind it of the proximity of death, that it is the nearest of all hidden and awaited things; frighten it of its sudden pouncing, whereby if it does come when it is in an unsatisfactory state it will end up in endless perdition.
If this threat is of no use, remind it of the immense reward which God has promised those who obey Him, and the painful torment with which He has threatened those who disobey Him. Say to it: 'O soul! After death there will be no opportunity to repent, and there will be, after this life, only the Garden or the Fire. Choose, if you will, obedience, the consequence of which is triumph, contentment, immortality in vast gardens, and looking at the Face of God, the Generous, the Beneficent; or else disobedience, the consequence of which is degradation, humiliation, mockery, deprivation, and imprisonment between layers of fire.' Endeavor to cure your soul through such reminders when it neglects obedience and inclines to rebellion, for they are useful medicines for the heart's diseases. [Al-Haddad, The Book of Assistance]
Food for Thought:
Motherhood: all love begins and ends there.
Thank her for it
And live your life with the love she bestowed on you, then share that love with all,
The gift of love is a mother's greatest gift.
Appreciate, respect, and acknowledge this.
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