A Blessing in Disguise

Several years ago, my mom suffered from a slight stroke that rendered her speech slurred. It happened shortly after her father passed away. As a result, she became quiet, disoriented at times, unable to indulge in her favorite hobby, which was reading. The slight facial paralysis she had at the time has slowly faded and her smile and facial expressions are no longer lopsided. However, she still remained quieter than before and whenever she spoke, her words still came out slurry at times. 

When she took a very bad fall recently, the right side of her head hit the floor and bled badly. And because she has been on blood thinner due to aggressive diabetes, she bled profusely. The baby blue baju kurung she was wearing was soaked in blood. All those who loves her, feared the worst. She looked so frail and it broke my heart to see how my strong mother had been reduced to this thin and fragile little woman.

However, as she slowly recovers, her head injury stopped bleeding the next day and she was able to move around unaided, albeit a little wobbly.  As the days go by, her physical strength grew and her appetite improved. But the best part is this: her speech is no longer slurred! She's back to her talkative self, participating in active conversations with her loved ones and is now able to express her thoughts and opinions without any paused hesitation or broken train of thought! Somehow, the blow to the right side of her head may have released whatever pressure she had suffered in her temporal lobe area during her mild stroke several years ago.

As difficult as it is to see an accident as a blessing, apparently this is exactly what had happened to my mother. The way I see it, this is Allah's way of reminding us that He is indeed God, Most Loving and Most Powerful. And that He knows what's best for us, for His love for us infinitely surpasses the love of any or all mortals put together. 

Mom's head injury has now scabbed and healing. And the same goes for my own emotional wounds. Faith restored. I'm deeply grateful that He never gives up on me. And He never grows tired of being patient with me and my shortcomings. Alhamdulillah. 

Taking care of mom is the most important and significant mission of my life. And I feel honored to be her only daughter. I feel blessed and grateful to be her first born. I truly believe God has blessed me with the best mother I can ever have. She's my mother and she's a fighter. All that I am, she shaped me. Now, it's my turn to give my best to her. She will never forsake or abandon me. And neither will I. 

Minus Two, Plus Two.

What's the value in having the respect of strangers when your own flesh and blood are ashamed of you? You may have been a straight A student with brains oozing out of your ears while I was the joker, the dunce, the girl who always got called to the principal's office because she forgot to do her homework. What would you understand about what it's like to be a child of a broken home when you're so blessed with having a teacher as your mom to tutor you for free.

So now you are surrounded by socialites and you think it's okay to belittle me and talk down at me in front of our friends because you're on the cover of elite magazines. As "wild" as I may have been, I've NEVER dragged my family name through mud like you did. Just be grateful my mom brought me well enough to not mouth you off! Well, I must credit you for the best lesson I've learnt from your own words, "With you as a friend, who needs enemies." You got it, sistah! Adios! This dunce will never "talk about your work" anymore. And you can keep that "unfinished business of yours." You both could've save a lot of people plenty of heartaches and annoyance by just being honest with yourselves and each other. 

I'm done. 

A Prayer for Mak

Bismillah Al Rahman Al Rahiim.

Ya Allah, I beg You, God Most Loving and Most Merciful, please heal my mother. Please stop the bleeding on her head. Please bless her with stronger leg muscles so she won't fall in a public restroom again. Please heal her of all the illnesses she has. Please keep her safe and strong. I'm not ready to lose her yet. I don't think I ever will.

Ya Allah, please bless me with the strength to help care for her, to be strong for her. Please grant me the inner strength I need to manage my anxieties well enough to be there for my mother when she needs me most. I'm leaning on no one else but You. I implore you, oh Allah Most Magnificent, have mercy on us and not test us with more than what we can carry.

Please oh Allah... Forgive us for all our sins and be gentle on us. We are nothing without You.

Ameen.

Divine Messages for Me Today.

Muhajibah's

He is The Healer!

Nobody was meant to understand you and your pain. This specific test was written for you, only you and nobody else. People will say insensitive things. They will make comments trying to say they understand and at other times they will want you to just get over it. But really if you’re bleeding internally, people can’t even see how bad the pain is and you’ll only know because you feel it. So be it. This is how God wrote the test and wanted the pain to be so you can only seek help from the Healer of broken hearts.

Tasawuf Underground

SYARIAT DAN MAKNA HAKIKAT

Syekh Ibnu ‘Atha’illah mengatakan:
“Ilmu yang bermanfaat adalah ilmu yang membantu menuju ketaatan, mendatangkan rasa takut pada Allah dan menjaga rambu-rambu-Nya. Ilmu yang paling bermanfaat adalah ilmu tentang Allah. Orang yang banyak berbicara tentang tauhid, tetapi mengabaikan syariat berarti telah mencampakkan dirinya dalam samudera kekufuran.
Maka, orang yang benar-benar alim adalah yang didukung oleh hakikat dan terikat oleh syariat. Karena itu, seorang ahli hakikat tidak boleh hanya berada pada tingkat hakikat atau berhenti pada tataran syariat lahiriah semata. Tapi, ia harus berada pada posisi keduanya.
Berhenti pada syariat lahiriah saja adalah syirik, sedangkan hanya menetap pada hakikat tanpa terikat oleh syariat adalah sesat. Petunjuk dan hidayah terletak pada keduanya.”
--Syekh Ibnu ‘Atha’illah dalam Taj Al-‘Arus

Islamic Wisdom

"If you feel sad or emotionally hollow and confused as to why you’re just not feeling like yourself lately, then pray. Make dua that Allah detaches your heart from anything worldly and temporary and anything that will tarnish your good intentions or keep you from improving yourself. Ask Him to remove this dunya from your heart and ask Him to make you among those with whom He is pleased with and close to. Just ask. That’s all it takes."

Islamic Wisdom

"I’ve realized that the easiest way to check up on where your relationship with God lies is to notice the next time you’re really upset, emotionally volatile or just pure angry. Notice where, who and what you look for first to try and comfort yourself. That’s pretty much it. It’s scary sometimes when you realise."

Islamic Wisdom

"Ramadan is coming up soon inshaAllah and it’s often the case that we rarely prep ourselves for its arrival and expect to go into it, full of vigor and enthusiasm and with that alone, we expect that we’ll just get right into it. But just like any other event, you really have to get ready before hand. Because it runs far more smoothly if you do, and you can tell.

Fast on Mondays and Thursdays. It was a sunnah of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) to fast on these days. You’ll be physically prepping your body whilst gaining some immense rewards too.

Start reading the Quran. Try to read at least one page a day, or one page after every salat (prayer). Start re-familiarizing yourself with the words of Allah.

Reduce the amount of time you spend online. Try limiting the amount of time you spend on facebook, twitter, tumblr . The more time you spend being idle, the less you’ll have to be productive. And this is important especially in a month where you want to reap as much rewards as possible by actively doing those things which will benefit you both in this life and the next. It starts small.

Go to the masjid. Try going to the masjid at least once a week. Somehow, someway. Bring your heart back there and let it soak in that kind of serene atmosphere to prep it for taraweh.

Watch your diet. Start staying away from fast foods and processed foods. As silly as it sounds, you’ll want to be top notch once Ramadan rolls around. Keeping your body in a healthy and mint condition will make fasting much easier. Drink more water, eat more fruits.

Start making a Dua-list. Make a list of your hopes and aspirations, things you want, people you’d like to pray for, anything and everything. Start making a list on paper and use it during Ramadan. Read it often to remind yourself what you want to pray for, because remember that the duas of someone fasting are not rejected.

Pick your top 3 Ramadan goals. Choose three things you want to accomplish during this Ramadan. Keep reminding yourself of these three things.

Purify your intentions. Start today. Simplest of all. Make an intention to really want to work hard towards getting closer to Allah, to improve, to reap the blessings of this blessed month for His sake.

Pray for the Muslim reverts/converts. Keep making dua for your new brothers and sisters. Ramadan is often a very difficult and testing time for new Muslims, especially those who have yet to tell their families of their conversion. May He make it easy for them."

Say “Oh Allah, let us reach Ramadan”

A Woman of Missions

Recently, I had the pleasure of revisiting the film "Gandhi." I simply found him to be such a remarkable man of principles and excellent values. Being a simple person with such idealistic vision of how he wanted to contribute towards life and humanity. His legacy lives on. Considering his view on western commerce, I'm sure he would be appalled to see his face on all Indian currency notes.

But after watching the film as well as documentaries made of Mahatma, I realised something he had in common with the rest of the remarkable people who had left equal, if not similar, legacies. They all were on missions. They lived their lives dedicated to some bigger purpose or rather. They were ordinary people with extraordinary visions, ideas, passion, drive, and ambitions. And they also had the drive to achieve such great heights by completing their missions.

When I reflect upon my own life, I realise that I've always been on a mission of sort. Being born an Aquarian makes me prioritise humanity. Being helpful and useful to others are key driving forces in the direction I steered my life. And being born in the Dragon year equips me with the determination and leadership to design my life as how I see fit. Although I am always well aware I cannot change the world to fit me, I knew that I can make it better by simply being me. I started by being honest with my inner self.

My friends in school remember me as the joker, the student who never stops singing whenever the teacher was away, the person they could come to for comfort and for a wise word of advice. I have to admit that even back in those years, I had no vision of my own future. I was clueless as to what my ambitions were gonna be. All I knew was that I wanna do the best of what I can do.

I purposely chose not to work for others because it was a priority for me to be there for my children while they were growing up. It was a non-negotiable thing that I must be there for them during their formative years. It was only after they have grown up to be independent individuals that I decided it was time for me to live my life doing what I love best: helping others.

It started with counselling runaway youths. They were rejected by their disappointed families. They mixed with the wrong group of friends. They were influenced to make all the bad choices you can imagine. And then it went on to healing others. I was always fighting for someone or something. I was always on a mission to rescue or save someone. And along the way, I got beaten, down trodden, attacked, framed, betrayed. I took many 'bullets' for others and thought nothing of it. It was just the right thing to do and I didn't think twice to make such decisions. It was instinctive. I knew for sure that's my purpose.

It was never difficult for me to see the best in others, especially those I was helping. They could only see their mistakes and bad choices. I only focused on their best potentials. Positive assumptions came easily to me. I never struggled with that.

Ironically, the pinnacle of my helping mission was when my country was experiencing it's worst tragedy: the missing flight of MH370. I thrived! I flourished! I was very driven. I felt I was born for that mission. I belonged. But after months had passed with no clue as to what had happened to the aircraft and it's passengers, all volunteer professionals, including me, were put on standby. That's when I began to spiral down depression again. It is very hard to be a warrior, all suited up, armed with the best weaponry, just waiting for deployment that has yet to come. This experience taught me something about myself: I am a warrior. I am a woman on a mission. I am a person who has a constant need to be useful.

For 7 years, I was on a mission to save someone. I gave that mission my all, to the point I had nothing left for myself. I had endured immeasurable pains, uncountable number of attacks, slander, betrayal, lies and whatever else that I never knew existed. But unfortunately, I am unable to complete that mission. I was cut off. I covered their backs but my own was left vulnerable and unprotected. That left me feeling useless, redundant, unneeded and unappreciated. It left me feeling like a huge failure. Like a sophisticated weapon that had failed to function and now thrown into the garbage and left to rot.

I am well aware of the advice often given by my supervisor when it comes to working in a helping profession: we cannot save everyone. We cannot help everyone. We can't do our work without permission from the sufferer. Its a bitter pill to swallow, but that's the reality of my purpose. God reminding me only He can do it all.

I need to learn to be less naive. I'm inclined to thinking that we treat people as how we want to be treated in return. That adage turns out to be more idealistic rather than realistic. I don't care for scars of attacks, abuse or whatever else that may have hurt me. But the wounds of betrayal and lies remain deep cuts in my psyche. And even when I can bring myself to forgive my betrayers, my wounds continue to bleed.

So, all I need now is a colossal mission. The kind that may inflict the worst possible pains. I hope the wounds will be far greater than the ones which are still bleeding now. I hope those huge wounds will render my current bleedings simply forgettable and insignificant. That's the only way I know I can stop bleeding and heal.

Tribute to beloved Mawlana Shaykh Nazim by Wahti Mahidin

Mawlana Shaykh Nazim: Who He Is To Me

I have often heard of Mawlana Shaykh Nazim. I am a big fan of his writings; and also his wife's, Hajjah Amina Adil. In the past, I had purchased several of their books and felt their words benefiting my spirit and deepening my love for Allah Ta'ala and our beloved Prophet Muhamad (peace be upon him). I was also aware that my father's side of the family were students of Mawlana Shaykh and followers of the Naqshahbandi order. And although I read his books and enjoyed The Lore of Light written by Hajjah Amina Adil, I refrained from following the sufi order.

In January 2012, approximately 2 weeks after my beloved grandfather passed away, I had a very vivid dream. It was Mawlana Shaykh Nazim. He just looked at me, not saying a word. The way he looked at me sent a very clear and profound message: "I see you." For almost 5 years prior to that dream, I had felt as though I had 'fallen from the Grace of God.' I was in a state of perpetual fall, just waiting for the impact of hitting the ground. That never came. When I woke up from that dream of Mawlana Shaykh just looking at me, I felt I had stopped falling. He had caught me. I felt saved and safe.

Several weeks after the first dream, came a second one. I found myself being in a big room, with wooden panels on the walls, red carpeting on the floor. And there were many young looking men, dressed in green robes and wearing turbans. I couldn't see Mawlana Shaykh but I felt his presence in the room. When I woke up from that dream, I got curious and decided to google about him. And among my findings was a video of him with his followers in Lefke. What I discovered was that the room in the video is the exact room that was in my dream.

I consulted several people who have been followers of the order about my dream. And it was very clear: Mawlana Shaykh had chosen to include me in his order. And from then on, Mawlana Shaykh was my spiritual teacher. The rest is history.

But today, it saddens me that Mawlana Shaykh Nazim has passed on in Lefke, at the age of 92. All those who love him feel the void he has left in our hearts. He's simply irreplaceable. He died at 6:40pm (Malaysian time) on Wednesday 7th of May, 2014.

It pains me that despite the many videos of him I have watched, how many times he came to my aid when I needed his help and how much his wise words help shape my soul, and knowing that he has gone home, I still cry. I cry because I still need him because I'm still so messed up. I cry because I did not get to meet him in person. I cry because despite having met Shaykh Hisham and Shaykh Adnan, it was with Mawlana Shaykh Nazim that I had a spiritual connection with. He came to me. He stopped me from falling. He saved my soul.

And now he has gone home, leaving behind all those who love him in this cruel world. Indeed this world is a prison for those who truly love Allah Ta'ala. I will continue to pray for my Mawlana Shaykh: for the connection of the spirit is never severed by distance or death. 

Al Fatihah.

Here are his last words:

Bismillahi 'r-rahmani 'r-raheem 

Everything which has a beginning has an ending. You are asking me to stay. But if I was here for 20 years instead of for 20 days and it would end today, it would be the same. In this life this is how it has to be. No-one is together forever, even children and families, neighbours, friends, relatives, murids and sheikhs, students and teachers, all go different ways one day. We can continue in our hearts. We are always together in our souls, even if it is not physical. It tells us that we are servants of Allah the Almighty. All of us are creatures. Even if our clothes change, our original position never will. We are not giving a lecture, I am not a professor but a simple person, like all prophets were. They were sitting on the ground with poor people, slaves, women, children... We have been created from earth and we must try to be closer to earth. This will give you a good character and make you more humble. If you sit on strange chairs, you think you are important. Being close to earth gives benefit to your body. Scientists tell us that there are so many bacteria there. The closer you come to earth the friendlier they will be with you. They will run after those who escape from them. Just like with dogs: if you are friendly with them, they will be too... People nowadays are living in skyscrapers far away from earth. They are in concrete buildings surrounded by plastic and metal. They are escaping from nature and all kinds of illnesses come to them. They want to know where cancer comes from. It is because people are running away from nature. Befriend the earth! You have been created from earth and you will return to earth. If not today, then tomorrow, after one week, one month, one year, or even after 100 years. You cannot escape, you will return to earth. Don't run away from earth, it is your mother. If you come closer to earth it will change your nature for the better. It will give your face more lights and take away the darkness. Disturbing bacteria will leave you and you will be more in peace and in comfort. T'his is why all prophets used to sit on earth. But nowadays people want to be elegant. Physically you take benefit by sitting close to earth, spiritually even more so. Your spirituality will increase, because you will accept to be humble. No-one can develop spiritually without becoming humble. The most humble person is the highest one spiritually. The characteristic which prevents spirituality is pride. Satan was on the highest position when he was humble, but when he became proud he fell to the lowest. The best quality for a servant is to be humble. Whoever wants to reach the high stations of Heavens must accept that they are nothing. If you want safety, you must throw your weight away. In the old days when ships were travelling through difficult straits, people would throw their luggage overboard. If you want to reach Heavenly Stations you must throw your burdens overboard. The heaviest part of you is your ego, asking to be something, never sacrificing itself Sacrifice it! When you have done that, you will reach Heavens and be like lights without any physical body stopping you. It can carry you from earth to Heavens.
- Sheikh Nazim al Haqqani