يَوْمَ يَفِرُّ ٱلْمَرْءُ مِنْ أَخِيهِ

on that Day every person will flee from their own siblings, (80:34)

When I read the above verse's translation: it increases my curiosity to learn more about why Allah SWT tells us that we will flee from our own siblings. 

I listened to Sheikh Abu Bakr Zoud's Tafseer lesson on this verse: to summarise, we tend to violate the rights of people we live and spend more time with. On the day of judgement, we will flee from them as they ask for our good deeds due to their rights being violated in this world.

It's terrifying to think I will flee from my own siblings, whereas in this dunya, I adore them.

The thought of losing them petrify me though it's inevitable that we have to face death.

I look forward to spending quality time of endearment with them in this world.

This made me conscious of fulfilling the rights of my siblings to the best of my abilities. I had an interesting conversation with two of my siblings on this verse, and I have told them for the rest of my life whenever you receive this verse in a WhatsApp message from me, then it means: I'm checking if I'm fulfilling your rights as a sibling. If they want to address any concern, they can send this verse to me as a reminder.

Lastly, this verse also awakens me to do a self-audit of my activities when I'm with my siblings to determine if I'm doing anything which falls under disobedience to the Creator.

May Allah SWT make it easy for us to act upon the Quran.

This made me conscious of fulfilling the rights of my siblings to the best of my abilities.

One time, I was in a halaqa and the topic was about sibling relationships. The sister pointed out how the first people mentioned in this aya that we’ll flee from on that day is our own siblings. Not your parents. Your siblings. Why? Because it’s the rights of our siblings we easily neglect. 

I think I know why, but then I think I don’t.

Maybe it’s because they’re the ties you never chose but were given. With friends, you choose who works well with you and who doesn’t. The ones that you get along with, you keep, and get closer to, while the others you can just walk away from, no hard feelings. But with siblings,  you’re permanently left with a set of identities that your personality may not coincide with, but you have to be together anyways Subhannallah. And that gets hard. 

I think it also may be that no matter how much you change, you can always rely on your sibling to bring you 10 years back, for better or worse lol. It can be great when they remind you of child-like happiness as you stroll down memory lane together. And it can be detrimental when you feel like you’re always reminded of who you were rather than who you are. 

I think it might also be how unappreciative of one another we can become. I think this might be the worst one. Your siblings are blood, so suddenly we file any favor they do for you under sibling-requirement. Yet if a friend were to do it for us, we wouldn’t believe the extent they went for us. We start to neglect every time they make pancakes and ask if we want. Or every time they picked up your favorite candy bar without you asking. Or every time they send you a funny clip of your favorite show, even if they don’t watch it themselves. Or every time they’ve passed by your bed to fix your blanket cause they found you curled and shivering. Somewhere along the line we begin confuse these acts of kindness as requirements and suddenly, your sibling starts to feel like they’re not very loved where they are. I think we forget that love, no matter how 'obligated' it may seem, needs to be nourished.  

May Allah make us kinder, more considerate, and more appreciative siblings. 

PS Comment an aya of the Quran about sibling relationships.

Muslim Student Organization & Women in Islam  CCNY

A few weeks ago, alhamdulillah, it was the nikah or marriage ceremony of my brother (I'm the oldest out of four brothers), which took place at a mosque.


After about an hour later, when most people have arrived at the place - it was a little over a hundred people, I think - the coordinator inside the mosque started to call everyone to gather and assemble in one particular area, so that the marriage introduction and ceremony can begin.


But the thing is, people were scattered in different places. We were in the large dining area, some people were outside, and some people were in the prayer hall. So, it's not possible to command such a large crowd which is dispersed and make them do exactly what you told them to do instantly.


However, some of the people heard the call and they had an idea where to go. But most people seemed to be following the people in front of them to know where to go. I wasn't sure which direction to go either, so I just watched and followed where everyone else was going.


People aggregated closer to each other and started moving in a particular direction, although some were splitting off or turning to a different direction to take care of something else. And of course, there was some amount of noise, people talking, children running around, playing, etc. But eventually, everyone gathered in the prayer hall.


During that brief moment of gathering and assembling, I thought about a scene that is going to be quite the opposite: I thought about the Day when the entire population scattered throughout the Earth will be under Allah SWT's control, when the Trumpet is blown a second time and everyone rises out of their graves.


Just a single blast, and that's all it takes to get everyone rushing towards their Lord, even against their own volition and control.


No loud voices, no deviating or splitting off to go somewhere else.


‎يَوْمَئِذٍ يَتَّبِعُونَ ٱلدَّاعِىَ لَا عِوَجَ لَهُۥ وَخَشَعَتِ ٱلْأَصْوَاتُ لِلرَّحْمَٰنِ فَلَا تَسْمَعُ إِلَّا هَمْسًا


'On that Day, they will all follow (the call) of the Caller, with no deviation therefrom, and all voices will be humbled before the Most Merciful, so that you hear nothing but a faint sound (of footsteps).' (20:108)


And that is easy for Allah.


#TheCall

Rayaan Shafi True coz we are short sighted or I should say Impatient 

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Especially Merciful,

Gratitude. 

Whenever a person expresses thanks to someone for something the feeling is always a positive one. Being thankful will never generate sadness but the very opposite. Let’s think of some scenarios:

1) Your mother cooked your meal when you got back from work. It was a hard and a laborious day and you were exhausted; 
2) A friend spends time listening to you whilst you are going through something very difficult;
3) Someone overlooks your mistake;
4) someone surprises you with a gift you wanted for a very long time and so on.

It’s a feeling of thanks, happiness and this generates appreciation and love. It’s often that when a person will show gratitude the relationship with whom he or she is grateful towards will grow stronger.

But what about our relationship with Allah? This is the most important relationship of all. He is the One who bestows upon us every single blessing and all these sorts of relationships.  If you will go back and contemplate every blessing we can see and perhaps cannot see goes back to Allah. 

We as human beings often need to reset sometimes. Too often our thoughts are regarding the things which are less important and in the grand scheme of things are often futile.

Take a step back and ask ourselves:

'Where are we heading? Whom are we heading towards?'

'How has life passed by? What were we before and what are we today?'

'How did we get here?' 

'Go back to the source of all blessings'

If a person is so preoccupied with life’s difficulties then one must see how he or she has been fashioned and this is even more evident when one becomes a parent. It is not we who feed the unborn child in the womb - it is Allah.

But it’s also the same in the world, Allah has given us hands and legs to facilitate attaining nourishment but where does the source of sustenance come from? Allah. 

Think about the process by which you have attained your meal, from a seed, sunshine, rain, the process of growth, to the farmer, to store, to the market and so on. It doesn’t cease there then we should contemplate how Allah has given us the mouth, teeth, windpipe, stomach and so on to eat and digest this food. 

We often overlook these things as little things, but they are not. To grow close to Allah a person must not be heedless of His blessings but one should be continuously grateful and be sure the relationship with Allah will improve. Gratitude will turn into a deep love, positivity and thankfulness manifested in action.

And Allah is the Most Appreciative of all, despite the fact we cannot truly express our gratitude the way He deserves. Yet, we must be thankful, for praising Him causes closeness and increases our awareness of Him.

وَجَعَلْنَا نَوْمَكُمْ سُبَاتًا
WajaAAalna nawmakum subaata 
'and made your sleep a source of rest,' [Surah An-Naba] 

'Nawm' refers to deep sleep. Allah says He made your deep sleep 'subaata' . Literally Subaat means that which cuts off . Allah speaks of night as something that cuts you off . What does it cut you off from ?
First of all it cuts your body off from its soul.  Sleep is indeed a kind of minor death . Your soul departs from your body every night.  You are cut off from your business , your tasks , from your family , from all the chores as soon as you hit deep sleep. It's as if you don't exist for those few hours. This is actually very important as it is foreshadowing of what Allah talks about a little while later in this Surah and that is the Resurrection Day. One of the most important features of Resurrection day is that all human beings will be cut off from each other . Allah says :

'....that Day a man will flee from his brother, and his mother and his father, and his wife and his children.   For each one of them that Day will have enough preoccupations of his own.' [Surah 'Abasa] 

The above is the kind of cutting off that would be permanent. We experience something from that cutting off every single day . We can't even help our own sleep. No matter how much we try to avoid sleeping; in the end we will be overpowered by it. And this is the kind of power Allah has on even the one who disbelieves, the one who denies Allah and the Hereafter. Subhan'Allah the logic here is that such are the powers Allah has on us . Signs of Allah that are so clear and obvious in the creation around us and within our own selves. Does man think that the one who created all these things  ; does not have the power to create life again ?

- Tafseer notes from Ustadh Nouman Ali Khan's lecture.
#SignsofAllah
#ResurrectionDay

Subhannallah! Ya Allah Almighty count us among those who enter Your Jennah quickly and never hear or smell the fire. Ya Allah. Ameen.  La howla wa la quita illa billa 