LESSON # 42.

Alhamdolillah, we are four months into our Taleem ul Quran Course now and it couldn't have passed any quicker. Three years, that seemed so long when I was registering for the course, have started seeming so short now. Especially since we completed Surah Al-Baqarah last week. The longest surah of the Quran, we had went over it's tafseer already and I coudn't hep but feel at loss for all the classes I had missed, all it's ehkamaat that I had faied to implement and all that I might have forgotten already.

So there I was, sitting and thinking about how I could improve on these mistakes, when we did our, yet another, beautiful tafseer lesson, today. I thought how lucky I was to be still sitting here and being blessed with the oppertunity to listen to Allah's beautiful Words again. Ahamdolillah. I realized how dreadful it would be to lose this, as my ustaza says "Use it or lose it!" and there are far better people than me out there, who could get so much more out of these than me.

So, here are some of the lessons we derived from the 9 verses(23-32 A'al-Imran) Today.

"...those who were given a portion of the Scripture...then a party of them  turns away.." (3:23)

• It is not necessary that one who has knowledge will be acting upon it too.

Even though these people of The Book had knowledge from their books, that what they were being called towards was the truth, they turned away from it. It is important to evaluate ourselves, are we acting upon the little knowledge, that we do have, of the deen? Are we at least trying to act upon it? or we turn away like they did?

.."O Allah , Owner of Sovereignty, You give sovereignty to whom You will and You take sovereignty away from whom You will." ...(3:26)

• The real owner of all power and status is Allah. To seek it from any means other than Him is foolishness. 

We slack in our religious duties because we are too busy chasing after worldly gains. We forget that Allah is the One Who Owns the world, too. How silly are we, displeasing Him to seek that which belongs to Him?

..You honor whom You will and You humble whom You will...(3:26)

Being hesitant in acting 'religious' because that would humble us in the eyes of people. Hanging with the 'cool crowd' because that would make us cool. We have it al wrong. He is the source of all Honour and Glory. It is only Allah that we should seek for these things and His is the only path that can actually lead us to them.

Say, [O Muhammad], "If you should love Allah , then follow me, [so] Allah will love you and forgive you..." (3:31)

We claim to love every other meal that we eat and new dress that we buy but is it truy love? Love, according to scholars, is the emotion that brings you so close to the object of love, that everything except it, the beloved, perishes. All that matters is the pleasure of the beloved. Allah Says that His pleasure can be sought by following the footsteps of Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. A measure of our love, our true love, for Allah is how much are we trying to follow the  Sunnah of The Holy Prophet.
ALSO, Allah Says that He will Love us if we do that. So if we want to know how much Allah Loves us, we can find out by checking how much of the sunnah do we follow.
One wonders why not just follow Allah's Commands? Because among all of Allah's creation Prophet Muhammad  (صلى الله عليه و سلم) was blessed with the Title of Habeeb Ullah (The Beloved of Allah). So to be His beloveds we must be like the one who was THE Beloved.
A plus point for all of us who cant help but wish for instant worldly benefits too: 

The Prophet said, "If Allah loves a person.... then he is granted the pleasure of the people on the earth."

Following every command of Allah is such a Win win for both this world and the hereafter. May Allah make us all realize that and may we follow more and more of His commands to attain His Love. Ameen. :)

Mattar Pulao Anyone?

As soon as my mother opened the door to let me in, as i got back home from school, after greeting her with salam my first question was "It smells weird, did you cook biryani?" She replied telling me that it was 'mattar pulao', this came as a little disappointment but no worries, I was stuffed after having a hotdog sandwich in school.

Mama said she had intended to give some of the rice to the maids but they never showed up so she was hoping the kids from the 'kachi abaadi' nearby would show up in the street for something and she would give it to them instead. Just as we finished discussing the whole rice issue, we heard some kids in the street and my mama quite literally 'leapt at the opportunity' and called them in. As the two little brothers were leaving, with the rice in one hand and trash bags in the other, I saw the two most adorable little girls walking by our gate. The little boys called to them and told them to come get food too. I couldn't get over their smiles and surprise for several minutes after they left.

I still had not really processed the lesson i was to derive from this experience. I went upstairs to my room. The curtains had been pulled back to let in the rays of the scarce winter sun. Through the window I saw the two little boys, sitting by the side of the drainage canal, amidst the garbage they looked like they were having the time of their lives and there couldn't have been a better place to rest and a better meal to eat.
Seeing this I remembered my reply, after being told that mattar pulao was cooked, had been "I really don't get why people even cook that?(I like meat)."
I felt ashamed of my ingratitude, yet thankful that God had given me a buzzer so quickly to help me identify the feeling and try getting rid of it (Inshallah).


Absorbed in a serious discussion over lunch. ^_^
That's as good as my phone's 5MP camera can get.