You are impatient

The context: It was during the early period of Islam at Mecca, when the muslims were frequently tortured by the Quraysh so that they abandon their new religion.

One day, Khabab Ibn Al-Arat, one of the oppressed people in Mecca who was severely abused and tortured, rushed to Allah's Prophet (Peace be upon him) asking his help. He found him lying on a garment in the shade of the Ka'bah. He asked him "O, Prophet of Allah (Peace be upon him) please ask Allah's Victory for us and call upon Him on our behalf. The Prophet (Peace be upon him) said:"Not long age, a believer used to be dragged to the desert where he was buried up to his neck in the sand. Then the disbelievers used to saw his head into two halfs and combed his body with iron combes until they split his flesh and bones. Yet, all this horrible torture did not force him to turn renegade. By Allah, He will ultimately bestow His Victory on us so much so that the traveler from San'aa on his way to Hadramaut will fear no one except Allah and the wolf lest he should devour his sheep, but you are impatient." [Reported by Al-Bukhari]

A knowledgeable person once recited to me this hadith, and he said to me, nowadays travelling from San'aa to Hadramaut is far from being a peaceful journey as envisioned by the Prophet s.a.w. - he said shootouts happen frequently, illegal gunmen are everywhere, tribal violence is common and so on and so forth. When the companion asked for victory, the Prophet s.a.w. envisioned peace and the worship of Oneness of God to spread. This religion should be a peaceful religion, and we wonder what is wrong with us?

That's an aside, my main point here is: If we find our little struggle with whatever in this life as unbearable, then indeed "you are impatient." Apalah sangat pon yang kita buat dengan hidup kita ni? Makan, belajar, main, tido je...

Making Things Right

Some people say reflecting on a deed is more important than doing the deed itself. These past few years, I come to a realization that almost everything that I do in my life, I do them wrongly; in spite of that, my life was 'perfect'. Note: This is not some Ghazalian epiphany, it's not about the turmoil regarding my intention (I am not claiming my intentions are sound either (He knows best), it's just not that).

The best way to describe it is like a smooth-running operating system that never crashed before, thus there was an illusion of robustness about the operating system . Let's say the operating system used to run on a single-core processor platform, suddenly when the industry switched to multi-core processors, it crashed almost every minute. The programmers were baffled, they tried to patch up the operating system with quick-fix service packs, but nothing was working. Actually the programmers realized that there was something fundamentally wrong with the kernel of the operating system, and the only way to fix it was to do a major overhaul, or to just discard it and start with something totally new.

Let's cut out what was wrong with me, it's too long a story. All I can say, I think now I am on my way to make things right (insyaAllah), although I am still stumbling, I just know it. As Tiger puts it, "because when you're changing something, what you think you're doing is not always what you're actually doing." For those who don't know, Tiger Woods was dominating the PGA tour between 1999-2002, but the young superstar was crazy enough to revamp his swing and search for a new, virtually 'perfect' swing. Everyone thought he was crazy at that time, but it was perhaps a necessary change: Some claim he will not be able to keep up with his old swing as he ages, even though it was a good one (Just like the operating system?). Whatever the truth is, Tiger made his resurgence in 2005 and onwards.

Hear what Tiger has to say about his swing changes: "It's never easy taking swing changes into competition. You have to be prepared and understand that you're going to fail. And it's OK to fail. The hardest thing is picking yourself up when you get knocked down. But to make the changes, you've got to keep getting up and realize that you have to get worse to get better."

Really, Tiger?

Note: If Naruto can do it, I can also do it...

Note2: Naruto during training...

Note3: Phew... I managed to supress the 'Kyuubi' yesterday, alhamdulillah.

Much Much More

I just finished my Islamic History course term test today. Alhamdulillah, I think I did okay, make du'a for me. Anyway, after going through some parts of Ibn Hisham's The Life of Muhammad, Tariq Ramadan's In the Footsteps of the Prophet, Al-Tabari's The Founding of the Caliphate, Montogomerry Watt's works, etcetera, my head is spinning with people's name, places names, terms, Maghazi, Fathul this and that, and maps. Doing review for the test really felt like as though I've never actually learned the sirah of the Prophet s.a.w. before this - my faulty memory. But now I feel like telling everyone about interesting events from the life of the Prophet s.a.w. Since I have killer engineering subjects tests coming up soon, I think I should contain mysef from writing something long (guys maybe I can take up one usrah slot to share with you all someday).

This is a speech given by Abu Bakr r.a. after the Prophet's s.a.w. death, when the ummah was in a state of shock and disbelief about the passing away of the beloved Prophet s.a.w.:-

After giving thanks and praise to God, Abu Bakr r.a. said "O men, if anyone worships Muhammad, Muhammad is dead: If anyone worships God, God is alive, immortal.' Then he recited this verse: "Muhammad is nothing but an apostle. Apostles have passed away before him. Can it be that if he were to die or be killed you would turn back on your heels? He who turns back does no harm to God, but God will reward the grateful” (Sura 3, 38)

*Ibn Hisham, The Life of Muhammad

Sometimes calamities strike us, but if we do our work for Him, we can transcend the need for support, recognitions, and rewards in the dunya; we are doing our work for something much... much... more than that. This psychological state is epitomized in this hadith:-

The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said, “How wonderful is the case of a believer; there is good for him in everything and this applies only to a believer. If prosperity attends him, he expresses gratitude to Allah and that is good for him; and if adversity befalls him, he endures it patiently and that is good for him” (Muslim).

And sometimes, less is more:-

The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said, "He whom Allah intends good, He makes him to suffer from some affliction" (Al-Bukhari).