The Circle Of Life

Peace be upon you brothers and sisters. May Allah bless all of you. To our brothers and sisters who have taken and will be taking their examinations, I would like to wish all of you a good luck and may all of you succeed with flying colours.J

Dear brothers and sisters,

Have a look at our own lives, we frequently complain at every little thing? We might think that our lives are more distressing and pity compared to our friends or relatives. Why are they wealthy? Why am I so unlucky? Is this my fate of life? Indeed, we always view the contrary whenever we see successful people. Having this kind of thoughts makes us give up easily and assume that this is our destiny while we actually have no knowledge about it at all. Therefore, it is important to realise that our fate is in the hands of Allah, who is All-Knowing. Allah knows what best for us. If we do not get what we have planned and worked for, there must be hikmah behind it. This is because Allah has a better plan for us in the future or the hereafter. Yet as a Muslim, we should strive for the best, work hard and always pray to Allah after that. This is what we call as tawakkal. The question is how we can get a good destiny? In this blog, I would like to share a few steps on how we could change our destiny with Allah’s will.

Prayer &Doa’

This is one of the first things that we must always bear in our mind as a Muslim. Performing five times prayers in a day is the second pillar of Islam after reciting the two Syahadahs. It is vital for a Muslim to obey Allah’s commands by accomplishing all the five pillars. Besides performing prayers, another act that can change the qada’ and qadar with Allah’s will is doa’.

According to Tsauban R.A, the Prophet says, “Nothing can resist the fate besides prayer”. - Authentic hadith narrated by IbnHibban in his Sahih. (Agreed upon by al-Zahabiauthencity).

Hence, there is no excuse for us to stop praying to Allah. Furthermore, Allah has listed out a few times and places where doa’s is certainly fulfilled (Mustajab). This shows that Allah has a full of compassion on us and He is indeed the Most Merciful.

Good Deeds

Sometimes, doing something for the benefits of ourselves is not good enough. What we should be reminded is that we must always perform good deeds for the others such as charity. Though, the easiest way to be a generous person is by volunteering in any community services or by just helping the unfortunates. Allah loves people who are willing to sacrifice their work and time for other people’s convenience. By doing this, insyaAllah we will be rewarded with pahala.

This is based on the hadith narrated by Anas bin Malik, saying that the Prophet said: “The charity is able to suppress the wrath of al-Rabb (Allah).” Hadith narrated by Tirmidhi no. 664.

HusnuZon (Having Good Intention) of Allah and Others

At some point in our lives, we might have met people who keep blaming Allah whenever they had a misfortune. To them, Allah does not love them anymore or Allah has acted unfairly to them, and many other excuses. It is absolutely irrational for us to blame Allah for whatever we encounter in our lives. Do keep this in our mind; has Allah not given us enough? We should be grateful since Allah has created us and given us a life. Most importantly, born as a Muslim is one of the biggest awards that Allah has had ever conferred us. Also, we should always have good intention not only to Allah but other people as well.

The Prophet says:"Do notdie unless youare husnuzon(good intention) ofGod." -AuthenticHadithnarrated by Muslim, Ahmadandal-Bayhaqi.

I would like to share a story about an ordinary young lady who has a bad perception towards a young man in a railway station which takes place in the U.K. This lady is on her way to her hometown. While waiting for the train to come, she gets herself a newspaper to do the crossword, a cup of coffee and a packet of cookies. As she goes and sits on a bench, a perfect ordinary-looking young man sits beside her, wearing a business suit and carrying a briefcase.

At first, the lady does not notice anything weird in that man. Suddenly, the man leans to his left and picks up the packet of cookies, tears it open, takes one out, and has a bite of it. What she does is has a look at the newspaper, takes a sip of coffee, tries to do the crossword as she cannot do anything. What do you think happens next? She will just have to go for it and there she tries very hard not to notice the fact that the packet is already mysteriously opened. She takes out a cookie for herself. She thinks, that will settle the man. But it is not because a moment or two later, the man does it again. He takes another cookie.

He takes one, she takes one, he takes one, and she takes one. It feels like a lifetime. Finally, when they get to the end, the man stands up and walks away. Well, they exchange meaningful looks then he walks away, and the lady breathes a sigh of relief and sits back. A moment or two later the train is coming in, so she tosses back the rest of her coffee, stands up, picks up the newspaper, and underneath the newspaper are her cookies. As she notices her cookies, she feels embarrassed as she is the one eating the man’s cookies.

Hence, this shows us that having good intention of others is essential and this helps us build rapport with other people and become a respectful person.

Effort & Hard work

Last but not least, we could change our fate of life by effort and hard work. We must not solely depend on chances or luck for us to get what we want. If our first attempt doesn’t work, try to find a new way to reach to the top and never give up if we ever fail. Many people in this world from the past had shown to us that hard work really pays. For instance, our Prophet Muhammad S.A.W never gave up preaching the people about Islam. He is the best role model that we have in Islam. There is no reason for us to never put an effort in order to become successful.

There is a saying that journey to a million miles begins with a single step. So, start your journey by setting a goal in every single thing that you do. Always begin with basmallahand remember Allah once you are at the top.InsyaAllah you will succeed.

At that’s it for this time, thank you for willing to spend your time reading this article. I hope it benefits you. Assalamualaikum w.b.t.

Written by,

Muhammad Anwar bin Azrin

Bureau of Economy

MSOC 2013/2014

 "One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can't utter"

- James Earl Jones