The King and Rebels

Today, I met a friend from Yemen and had a small conversation with him regarding the situation in Yemen and Arab world. He told me that thousands have lost their lives because of their rebellion against the king, the king who solely ruled their land for more than three decades.  Similar is the case with other Arab nations. The Arab kings did not like this rebellion and they ordered that anyone who will rebel against their supremacy will be killed. Till now they have killed thousands. These kings ruled those countries for years, almost all of them for more than 30 years. They were use to of this kingship. They ordered to kill anyone who was trying to take away this kingship from them. They thought that their supremacy will and should last forever. But until now some of them have died and some are finding a safe exit. 

Human history is full of such incidents. All this took my thoughts somewhere else. I started comparing these kings with another King, the solitary King of this universe. It reminded me how merciful and compassionate is The King of heavens and earth. It reminded me how abundant and eternal is the mercy of the most gracious King of east and the west. It reminded me how much The King, The Lord, Our God loves His creature.  The brutalities of these Arab kings towards the rebels, made me humble before The King of this Universe.

In His World, there are a lot of them, who rebel against Him. Let alone rebels, there are those who even deny His existence. And yet there are people like me, who even after knowing and accepting Him from head, heart and tongue, disobey Him. But all Praise to Him, all these rebels are living in His beautiful world, and He is giving them all the time before He will judge them in the hereafter. He is showing them all kind of signs to come back to Him and turn away from their rebellion.  But He is not killing these rebels on their rebellion. He is not punishing them for their arrogance and ignorance. He loves His creature.

Yes, He is the most gracious and the most merciful King of this world. Yes, His mercy is eternal and abundant. Only His solitary supremacy and Kingship will last forever and no rebellion can take it away from him. I feel humble before Him for his mercy and pray to Him that 

‘O Lord, forgive me for my sins, forgive me for my rebellious nature, and forgive me for taking your abundant and eternal mercy for granted, for that I am weak, but I belong to you and only you’. 

The Story of a Black box

Today, when I woke up, I saw a black box, placed in my room. There were lights of different color emitting from the box. Having something strange in the room, I was curious about it. A lot of questions started to prompt in my head. What is this? How does it emitting light? What is the box made of? How does it work? To satisfy my curiosity, I started working with the box. After a little “research” I found that the box is made of wood. With a little jiggling, I found that there is something inside the box which might be emitting the light. I became curious about what is inside the box and somehow managed to find the nuts and bolts of the box. I opened it, and found out that there is a light bulb inside which is running on a battery. The light bulb is covered with a paper which has several colors and that’s why the box is emitting colorful lights. This was enough for me to understand the box and the mystery of the light emitting from the black box. In other words, I had understood the ‘what’ of the box. But this was not good enough, i needed answer for the ‘why’ part as well. 

I am a human being with the faculty of reasoning and the desire to know the purpose of things. Hence my curiosity provoked me to search for some unanswered questions of why. Why this box is in my room? Who placed it in my room? What is the purpose of this black box? What does it have to do with me? I tried observing the box more closely. Of course I could have guessed some answers of these questions from careful observation of the box and its functionality. However, i needed affirmation and that too from the one who put that box in my room. 

Similar is the story of Religion. My atheist friends do not understand that science has actually answered only the ‘what’ part of this universe. Newton, Darwin, Laplace and Einstein, all have only answered the ‘what’ part of this universe. They have elaborated on the mechanism of this universe. They have elaborated on questions like how did it start? How does it work? What is the mechanism inside and outside the world?  However they and in other words, Science, is not in a position, as yet, to answer the ‘why’ part of the universe. Science cannot answer that why this universe exist? At the same time, it has understood human “mechanics” including the physiology and psychology of human beings, but it cannot answer why these human beings exist in this universe, and what is their purpose in this universe? To answer these questions, science has to ask someone else. For science, that someone is religion. According to Maulana Waheed , “Science answers “what is that exists” whereas the religion answers “why does it exist” “.

History has witnessed that only religion has given the most scientific answers and explanation of these natural questions emerging in human mind. As Cecil Boyce says “Nature does not explain, she is herself in need of an explanation”. My atheist friends should sincerely try to find the answers of this ‘why’ as well. And they should put it in breaking news if they find the answers from Science.

And oh, by the way, that story of black box was just an analogy, so don’t worry about its climax.


Wherever you are, be a source of comfort and joy for the fellow creatures. 

Peace be upon you all

Life Without Passion II : Passion and Perseverance

Recently, i wrote something about Passion. The basic premise in my previous blog about passion was that "a life without passion is nothing but just moments without life". The readers of this blog can find it by following this link. "Life Without Passion". 

While reading about Passion, i found a wonderful small article on Passion, written by Rehan Ahmad Yusufi. After reading the article i realized that i missed one very important aspect of following our passions, which was perseverance. The article i am about to share with you explains perseverance in its own way. I found it worthwhile to share it with the readers of my blog.  Happy Reading :)

"The attributes of Allah, “Rahman” (Beneficent)" and “Raheem” (Merciful)" are mentioned together on various occasions in the Quran. It’s a common perception that both these attributes are used to present the same dimension i.e. the mercy, of God and are used together to emphasize on the idea. This idea that both the properties exhibit the mercy of God is true, but there is a minute yet important difference between the two. The word “Rahman” has a factor of passion and expanse more dominant in it while “Raheem” has a dominance of permanency and tenure in its meaning. When combined, both these attributes, excellently represent the absolute mercy of Allah SWT

These attributes of Allah SWT, hold a great lesson for us in them. A pulse of passion for righteousness is not enough and a perseverance and permanence is also required. Be it the matter of helping the religion or that of helping the poor, surely human passion convinces one to start doing something, but with this passion one should also have consistency. Only then can he permanently adopt kindness and good in his life.

The fact is that a person who does good only once due to passion can never compete with someone who is consistent on his good deed, however small that may be." 

Source: Al-Mawrid

Wherever you are, be a source of comfort and joy for the fellow creatures. 

Peace be upon you all

Life without Passion

'Are you bored? Do you feel deprived or frustrated? You must be a person without a Passion'

In our daily lives, there come moments when we feel bored, when the hearts sinks and we feel deprived, desperate and frustrated. All this Borusperation (boredom+frustration+desperation) is inevitable while living in this world. We cannot eliminate such "ailments". However, we can reduce them and that’s why the degree of Borusperation varies among individuals. 

Some among us are actually living every moment of their lives. They are satisfied and happy and love their lives. They have Life in every moment they live !

There are few who are standing on the other side of the shore. They hate their lives and feel depressed and bored quite frequently. These people are also living, but the moments they are living are without life !

Majority of us lie somewhere in the middle of both extremes. We sometimes find ourselves loving our life and sometimes we hate it. Sometimes we are enjoying it and sometimes we are frustrated and bored. These kind of people are just living their lives. 

To the best of my intellectual abilities and thinking, what makes the difference is a 7 letter word called ‘Passion’. It is the presence of a passion in our life, and the degree to which we actually follow it, which determines the amount of life in the moments we live. It is the passion for something which keeps us going, which is the driving force in our life. It is this passion, which makes us love our lives. Some people call it goal, but i disagree with them. In my opinion, everyone of us has some goal in our life. It is the passion associated with that goal, which actually makes it more than just a goal. Secondly, this passion can be for anything, from activities like music to our love for a person, it can be somebody’s passion for music to the passion which Mother Teresa had for the betterment of humanity.

We all know what our passion is, but somehow some of us forget it and some put it behind their backs. For the ones who just put it behind their back, there is only one suggestion. Guys, come on there is something just “behind your back” which can make your life awesome, just take it and LIVE. Create your own world without fear. For the ones who forget it, the trick is to do some soul search. I was recently reading a post on Facebook by a Pakistani journalist named Aamir Khakwani. He mentions a small soul searching technique for this purpose, which goes like this:

"Sit in a quiet room and consider for a moment that you have died and people are writing your gravestone. This is your final destination, the end of your life. Now think, what do you want them to write on that? Whatever you wanted to be in your life, you will choose the same to be written on the gravestone. Keep thinking in the same way, choose 3 writings and then keep thinking over them and finally choose one"

So the simple, yet difficult, recipe for a wonderful charming life, without Borusperation, is in finding our passion and then following it without fear. To be honest, i have not worked on it, but i have got the solution.

Wherever you are, be a source of comfort and joy for the fellow creatures.

Peace be upon you all

Truthfulness Vs Bluntness

"There is a difference between truthfulness and bluntness, be truthful but not blunt"

Aamir Amin

I have always believed that one should be expressive and truthful. However, when some people decide to become truthful, they become blunt. They confuse truthfulness with bluntness. The difference between both is in the approach, in the way and wisdom with which you will convey the truth. 


Hence we need to realize that we can be truthful without being blunt. We need to realize that stating a truth bluntly will not reap good results most of the time. So always remain truthful but always avoid bluntness, because a truth conveyed with wisdom will help the other to improve whereas a truth conveyed bluntly will only hurt him 


Wherever you live, be a source of comfort to your fellow creatures 


Aamir

Explanation on Definition of Life

"Human Thoughts Stink When They are Stagnant"

I was recently reviewing what i wrote about my Definition of Life, and somehow i felt that i left an important explanation. It is not related with the definition itself however it is an important explanation of it. (it is recommended to read my Definition of Life if you haven't !

While explaining, i wrote that:

"Similarly it is not always true that everything happens for good. An individual, with a positive attitude, should try to find positive out of every situation, however, we all experience that many times an event carries nothing but trouble for us."

What i forgot to mention here was that, although sometimes an event carries nothing but trouble for us, but an individual who will remain patient will, as a result, get peaceful and calm nerves, which will eventually enable him to see the whole situation more clearly and hence his response to the problem will change. This way he will learn something and probably even find an opportunity to improve as well.

So always remember that, Yes ! sometimes Life gives you something which carries no good in it, however with your response you may change it to a blessing :)

Definition of Life

"The way we define things determines our attitude towards them" Aamir Amin

It is very important to have a right definition of important aspects of our life. It is important because it determines our attitude towards them. It determines how we react to them. So, i decided to start with the definition of 'Life' itself. As they say "life is 10% how we make it and 90% how we take it". Hence, the definition of life is a very fundamental question which may determine the way we take our lives.

I have seen people defining life in various ways. Some define it as "Life is all about Fun". Such people will try to find fun in almost every aspect and phase of their life. For such people, anyone who will hinder the 'fun' part of their life will be an enemy. Some times the enemy can be their parents, some times friends, sometimes a teacher and even worst it can be God. The problem with such a definition is that sooner or later the reality-hit will shackle it, as life does show its colors one day.

Another wrong way of looking at life is believing in phrases like "do good have good" or "everything happens for good". Although such phrases are good to motivate someone to do good with others or in a situation when somebody is emotionally down because of a misfortune. But in my opinion, such an attitude, again, does not represent the real face of Life. It is not always true that if you will do good, you will have good. Similarly it is not always true that everything happens for good. An individual, with a positive attitude, should try to find positive out of every situation, however, we all experience that many times an event carries nothing but trouble for us.

As a result of such definitions and perspectives, people either start blaming life and other people for their miseries, or they become too arrogant. Other definitions and perspectives on life also do not comprehend it fully and fail to give a right attitude to the person.

This lead me to a definition which echoed around me several times, but i did not put my ears on it. According to this definition "Life is nothing but a test". Test of our decisions, choices and personality, with the intervals of happiness and grief, which are themselves parts of this test. A sage once rightly said that "this life is nothing but a test of gratitude and patience". Keeping this in mind, an individual will stand on the ground of reality. He will accept pain and sorrow as part of life, will know that his actions may not be responded in a similar fashion, will expect that sometimes life does give you trouble to test your patience. In case of a 'Gratitude-Test' the individual with such an attitude will not be arrogant and in case of a 'Patience-Test', he will be patient and positive.

Hence in my opinion, the definition that "Life is a Test", not only defines it realistically but also gives a right attitude to the individual.

Looking forward to your definition of life :)

Wherever you live, be a source of joy and blessing for all the creatures !

God bless you all

All Praise to Almighty Allah - My First Blog Ever !

I start this Blog today on 31st July, 2011 with the name of almighty Allah. I am neither a sage nor a saint, i claim not to have a brain and heart of both of them. I am a common man. I will put my thoughts in this blog. They are nothing more than observations of a common man.

I pray to God to keep and guide me to the straight path. To give me wisdom and a strong character. To guide me to become His better servant. To make me a good human being towards fellow beings. To forgive me and make me a resident of the Kingdom of Heaven.

I want and try to follow following Quote of Imam Shafa'i:

“I am convinced about the veracity of my opinions, but I do consider it likely that they may turn out to be incorrect. Likewise, I am convinced about the incorrectness of the views different from mine, but I do concede the possibility that they may turn out to be correct.”

I will always be looking for your comments and criticisms, You are among my teachers.

God bless you