Calligraphy: First attempts

Calligraphy Practice 

Isolation Became Dear to Him

Why did isolation become dear to the Prophet (Peace be upon him)? Why did he feel the need to escape to Mount Hira for deep contemplation and reflection, even before prophethood. Sometimes, it is necessary to cut all connections with the world and people, in order to renew your connection with yourself, and thus your Lord. As Imaam Al-Ghazzali says “The heart is that in which if a man knows it, he knows himself, and if he knows himself, he knows his Lord. It is that in which if a man knows it not, he knows not himself and thus he knows not his Lord.”

Marriage and Insecurities

Insecurities are common for every marriage or relationship. I of all people know that. And these insecurities can grow, especially if one fails in their past relationships. Its common to blame ourselves for a marriage not working, saying we were not good enough for such a person, in one way or another and we make the mistake of looking for people that we think suit us better, but in fact, they actually suit our insecurities. 
What I mean by this is that we look for people "lower" than us, or more needy of us, so that it makes us feel we are totally in control. But in truth our insecurity is in control, because instead of dealing with it and overcoming it, we are only feeding it, growing and nurturing it to become something of a phobia. We need to realise, its all a state of the mind, and the mind is such a powerful tool. This is not about fighting, and winning the war of your insecurity, this is about being intelligent enough to deal with the problem after you have realised it. 

How to deal with it?
It depends on what your insecure about. It could be looks, it could be lack of knowledge or intellect, it could be that I think my partner will get bored of me, its all a state of the mind, and they all require simple communication, with yourself and with your partner.
Talk to them, ask them what they love to talk about, ask them how they love to see you dressed, ask them about what they want, and then work on it. Maybe you will keep failing at it, for example, I am not great at talking politics, but the more I try to talk about it, the more informed I will become, the closer I will become to developing my own ideas and feelings about it, and even my own opinions, and strategies. Its a step by step process, one which you may fail at some steps and seem a bit dumb, but don't take it so seriously, its important to be able to laugh at yourself and your own mistakes, and have fun in teaching each other, and don't allow the other person to feel stupid, we are what we are at the end of the day, we are all learning here and a sense of humour goes a long way in relationships, marriage should be fun, lets not forget that, because we are on this journey together.

We always tend to imagine the worst in our heads, especially us women, most likely its not even like that. We over think things and play things up so much in our heads that it becomes a mini drama. But in fact, this thing that you find such a massive problem, really isn't so massive. Find something else in the relationship to concentrate on, something you know your good at, making people laugh, informing them of interesting information, cooking, and physiologically your confidence with naturally increase, and once you have reached this level, you will start to naturally feel confident in other things too, allow it time, to take its own course, step by step. 

Running away from marriage is not the answer, not for long term anyway. 
Trying again and working on it with your partner is. We are all scared of failing, but if we don't try then neither will we succeed.  Marriage is about teamwork, friendship, understanding, you should want to help each other be better partners, most importantly, you should allow your partner to help you, we just need to try, because in effect this makes us better slaves of Allah. 

And Allah knows best.

Disconnected

The further you are from Allah, the harder it becomes to fight the battle. Its strange how I came across so many people, who were in a sense so anguished, and out of control. Its hard to explain. But it doesn't matter how much my heart goes out to those people, how much I want to show them the way out, and how much I want to reassure them that it will eventually be ok, they can really only help themselves. 
And eventually they will realise, that that torment, that lack of control, has a direct link to your closeness to Allah. The further you are from your deen, the more you seem to be losing the fight. And for this they need to re-assess their life, what needs to change in order to stop being a slave to their desires. Because it could be that you work all day, your life is work work and more work, you may pray all your prayers, but where is the khushu in that prayer? Where is the closeness that you once felt before and how did you become so...
disconnected from your Lord? These reasons are all according to the individual, it can be due to people you interact with, who are harmful to your deen, or needing someone, whom you know is good for your deen, but your ego denies it. It could be the nature of your job, some jobs require a level of dishonesty, disloyalty, business nowadays is dog eat dog,  and for this, people spend too much time trying to be the best at work, rather than trying to be the most pious Muslim. Whatever the reason, the answer is simple, and I would recommend those people to simply stop life and take time out to think:

First and foremost that person needs to be willing to make changes in their life, secondly they need to re-asses their situation to see what needs to change, thirdly they really really really need to ask Allah to help them. Because without asking, He wont give, we need to beg Him, surrender completely and beg Him to guide us. Without Him we are lost. 
Without Him we are slaves to our desires, and that is as low as it gets. We have all been there, but not all of us have won the battle. 

May Allah help us all.

Imam Ahmed ibn Hanbal’s advice to his son on his wedding day:

Imam Ahmed ibn Hanbal’s advice to his son on his wedding day:

Dear son, you will not attain good fortune in your home except by 10 characteristics which you show to your wife, so remember them and be enthusiastic in acting upon them.

As for the first two; women like attention and they like to be told clearly that they are loved. So don’t be stingy in expressing your love for your wife. If you become limited in expressing your love, you will create a barrier of harshness between you and her, and there will be a decrease in affection.

3, Ladies hate a strict, overcautious man, yet they seek to use the soft vulnerable one. So use each quality appropriately. This will be more appealing for love and it will bring you peace of mind.

4. Ladies like from their husbands what their husbands like from them, i.e. kind words, good looks, clean clothes and a pleasant odour. Therefore, always remain in that state.

5, Indeed, the house is under the sovereignty of the woman. While she remains therein, she feels that she is sitting upon her throne, and that she is the chief of the house . Stay clear of destroying this kingdom of hers and do not ever attempt to dethrone her, otherwise you will be trying to snatch her sovereignty. A king gets most angry at he who tries to strip him of his authority, even if he portrays to show something else.

6. A woman wants to love her husband, but at the same time she does not want to lose her family. So do not put yourself and her family in the same scale, because then her choice will be down to either you or her family. And even if she does choose you over her family, she will remain in anxiety, which will then turn into hatred towards you in your daily life.

7. Surely woman has been created from a curved rib, and this is the secret of her beauty, and the secret of the attraction towards her. And this is no defect in her, because ‘the eyebrows look beautiful due to them being curved’. So if she errs, do not rebuke her in a manner in which there is no gentleness, attempting to straighten her; otherwise you will simply break her and her breaking, is her divorce. At the same time do not let her off upon that mistake, otherwise her crookedness will increase and she will become arrogant with her ego. Thereafter, she will never soften for you and she won’t listen to you, so stay in between the two.

8. It is in the women’s nature to be ungrateful towards their husbands and to deny favours. If you were to be nice to her for her whole life but you grieved her once, she will say, “I have never seen any good from you”. So don’t let this attitude of her make you dislike her or to run away from her. If you dislike this feature of hers, you will be pleased with some other good habits within her, so create a balance.

9. Surely there are times when a woman goes through some conditions of bodily weakness and fatigue of the mind. Such that Allah has relieved her of some of her compulsory worships during that period; Allah has totally pardoned her from praying, and has postponed the days of fasting for her within this break to a later date until she regains her health and becomes normal in her temperament once more. Thus, during these days, treat her in a godly manner. Just as Allah has relieved her of the duties, you should also lessen your demands and instructions from her during those days.

10. Last but not least, know that a woman is like a captive with you. Therefore, have mercy upon her.

 

 

 

Alhamdulillah

I don't know why, but walking along the beach today and looking out, straight out into the sea made me realise, that there is so much to be grateful for, Alhamdulillah. Why was it that this view made me feel deeply in this way? All I know was that the sight of the waves crashing in, the colour of the water, the vast amount of water that seems never ending, a view that was so simple yet so beautiful made me realise how complicated I make my life. And if I made it simple it could be just as beautiful.
Being grateful is just the start of simplicity. Realising what you have instead of what you don't have, makes life so much more easier. For example, I am living in a place where the streets are pretty ugly and dirty however just nearby is the coast, this beautiful and amazing sea and its because of this that I am so grateful that Allah brought me here, that out of so many people He chose me to have this experience that others would die for. And its because of this that I wouldn't want to be any where else in the world. For sure I wouldn't feel like this if I was too busy thinking about the rubbish on the street and the unpredictable semi-aggressive people. Every individual has a turmoil in their life. This turmoil is like the ugly dirty streets, but walking out of the street not far off is the bigger picture (the sea). Feeling grateful for what you have doesn't make the turmoil dissapear, but it somehow makes life liveable, it makes it beautiful.
Think about what you have, Take a deep breath in, and breath out saying Alhamdulillah and smile :)

 

Alexandria, Egypt Jan 2013

You Fool!

"The most foolish of men are those who believe strongly in their own intelligence.

And the men who are most stable in intelligence, are those who are suspicious of themselves, and most ready to ask from the learned." ~ Imaam Al-Ghazzali

The Mirror of the Heart

To understand reality as it truly is.

(Imaam Al-Ghazzali)

Sometimes we want to understand things the way we want to understand it and not as it truly is. And sometimes we want to understand things as they truely are and try to reach a higher state of spirituality to be amongst the pious, but can’t, why is this so?

The Heart is like a mirror, it has the ability to reflects the true nature of things.

As with the mirror, a true reflection will not be shown for the following 5 reasons:

1)      A defect in the iron of the mirror – the mirror is still just a lump of iron, it has not yet been formed and moulded into a mirror. So the entity (or potential) is there but has not yet been shaped or formed yet. (This is the state of the Hearts of children or the youth).

2)      Because of the dirt, rust and dullness. Even if it has been formed perfectly but it cannot reflect because of the dullness and dirt on the surface. (Due to the filth from disobedience and dirt from excessive desires which heap up onto the surface of the Heart causing it to be dull).

3)      Because it is turned away from the direction of the object towards something else. (Perhaps the attention is directed towards outward acts – making wudu/how to pray etc…one does not realise the internal needs to be worked on aswell).

4)      Because of a veil placed before the mirror and the object. (Because one is stuck to certain beliefs, or may even deny the higher states of spirituality).

5)      Because of not knowing how to position the mirror in the desired direction of the object. (Simply one has no knowledge of reaching this state of understanding).

Thus too is the Heart a mirror. Ready to have reflected in it the true nature of reality and all things.

When the nafs takes over...

It doesn’t matter how well you think you know yourself, Allah will surely send someone down to you to try your patients, to make you realise, infact, you still have much to learn about yourself, and about other people in the world.


What we must do is to try and be as prepared as possible for when our patience is put on trial, try to train your response, because most of the time, it will catch us off-guard. If you let your guard down, you could be a victim of letting your nafs get the better of you.


Generally when a person is giving another person hardship/discomfort/unease it is generally because they have some insecurity and that they are infact quite confused about who or what they are. But, we need to be sure that, before we are a father, a mother, a student or a teacher, a husband or a wife, an employer or an employee, WE are first and foremost MUSLIM. And, so long as we are Muslim first, in everything that we do, we will be successful in the eyes of Allah.


There are people out there who are ugly, who have morals with no manners, or they have manners with no morals. Either way it makes them look ugly on the outside, however, inside every person, there is a perfect and pure soul which laments as the nafs is destroying it.


The nafs, this is the ego, it is gluttony, it’s the part of you that wants to scream at the other person, it’s the part of you that wants to smack them in the head for nicking your favourite pencil, it’s the part of you that wants to show others your bigger and better and you have power – infact, these people have no power over their nafs, they have allowed their nafs to take over and torture the soul.


I believe that every person that walks into your life, will teach you something new about yourself. Whether it be that your not as patient as you thought you was, or your not as tactfull as you thought you was, or that you don’t actually have a way with words. There is no weakness in realising your weaknesses, so long as you realise it. Remember that however anyone treats you, you are not anyones slave except Allahs slave and you serve no one but THE one, your Lord.