Twenty.

بِسْــــــــــــــــــمِ اﷲِالرَّحْمَنِ اارَّحِيم

In the name of Allah Most Compassionate, Most Merciful

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Okay I know I don't always blog about my personal life here. But I don't really feel like blogging in Mechanicalove (my old blog) because well, I just want that phase of my life to be over, y'know?

And it's okay to blog here, I guess. Firstly because it's well, my blog (..duh?) and secondly because you don't know who I am anyway :D (okay who am I kidding? Most of you are my friends anyway right -.-)

Well I decided to go down memory lane and read some of my old posts in Mechanicalove, just to see how I'd normally blog on my birthday. Well turned out I don't really blog about birthdays. Or at least my own. Ha.

Okay I know it's just ramblings here. I'm not asking you to read this, really. I just need some place to vent out my feelings. Before it happens. Before the clock strikes twelve. Before I'm officially (according to my birth certificate) a 20 year old.

Eeek. The thought sends chills up my spine. The actual end of my teenage years. It's time to really grow up.. and leave the pain of the past behind. My whole teenage life was a total roller coaster ride. It's a bit funny, come to think of it, how silly I was as a teenage girl. How naive. How, plain, nonsensical. If ever I was to tell my tale to someone, I'd roll on the floor laughing at my own self.

Though I admit, it was painful.

I mean, it's funny when I reminisce and think about it now. But it did hurt back then. Back when I did not put Allah as my Ilah, when I didn't put him as the number one in my heart, when I didn't put him as my one and only hand-hold, where I lean and obtain support from. No, instead I pursued that from His creation. From a mere mortal, who was just as imperfect as I was. How was I to find perfection, to find salvation, in something who was also imperfect, in someone who also needed someplace else to lean on?

As much as I regret the past, I wouldn't change it even if given the chance, because I know Allah had written my life story in the best way it could ever possibly be. And if the past didn't happen, if I didn't meet the people I did, I would never be the person that I am right now. & I do treasure the person that I look in the mirror, day in and day out. The person she was, the person she is and the person she will be. It's all the same person, with the same identity, only with a slightly different thinking and a clearer view on things. A clearer view on her purpose in life and where she's heading. To Allah Azza Wa Jalla inshaaAllah.

And you were on the edge of a pit of the Fire, and He saved you from it. Thus does Allah make clear to you His verses that you may be guided [Quran 3:103]

Allahu Rabbi T.T

Alhamdulillah, the past is behind me now. Turning 20 is a big humongous gigantic step and frankly I never actually pictured myself at 20. Looking back, I probably didn't expect myself to be the person that I am right now. But come to think of it, I haven't really changed much. I'm still me. Just, with Allah in my heart, inshaaAllah. Yet I've still a lot to learn, much to improve. My journey to Allah is still a long one. Biiznillah, I will reach there one day. Ameeen Ya Rabb.

So here I am, declaring publicly and openly that I am not to grieve over my past anymore, except only as a means to get closer to Allah. I would not wish to change my past because He has decreed that it was best for me to go through that period of jahiliyyah. I will only change what I can, from here on out. Darling akhawats, especially my lovely Super Ukhtis, you be the witnesses of this (sorta?) oath of mine. And please remind me whenever my old Jahiliyyah brings me down. Remind me, that Allah loves me, as He loves all of us , inshaaAllah(:

May the next 20 years of our lives be better than the past 20 years. Allahumma ameen.

What are birthdays but a mere reminder of the approaching death?

Verily the knowledge of the Hour is with Allah (alone). It is He Who sends down rain, and He Who knows what is in the wombs. Nor does any one know what it is that he will earn on the morrow: Nor does any one know in what land he is to die. Verily with Allah is full knowledge and He is acquainted (with all things). [Quran 31:34]

Wallahualam.

The Infinite Love

بِسْــــــــــــــــــمِ اﷲِالرَّحْمَنِ اارَّحِيم

In the name of Allah Most Compassionate, Most Merciful

[Credit]

Assalamualaikum wrh (:

Hope whilst reading this you're in the Mercy and Blessings of Allah Azza wa Jalla inshaaAllah

Today I'd like to share about the beauty of love. (Ptuih love again? Dok abeh abeh) Hiks but this time it's about the greatest kind of love. The One true love. The infinite love.

His love.

To begin, let's start at the very beginning. The surah Al-Fatihah (The Opening).

Did you know, that during our solat, when we recite the Al-Fatihah, we're actually having a two-way conversation with our Lord? It's a hadith Qudsi, related by Sahih Muslim.

I'd like to highlight the fourth verse. When we say "You alone we worship, and You alone we ask for help". We have yet to ask for anything, we have yet to plead for His mercy. But he had immediately replied "This is between Me and My servant, and My servant shall have what he asked for" Without any hesitance, without any doubt, just like that. Our Lord wants to give us whatever it is we want.

Imagine if we had a maid. She asked us for a raise. Or some money for shopping. More holidays. And we'd be like "Dudette, you're just a servant. Can you stop asking for so much and just do your job already?" That is far from the case with Allah the Almighty. No one loves us more than He does. Not even a mother's love for her child can compare. If and only if we'd learn to appreciate and repay this love..

But wait! If it is really true that Allah grants all our du'as and all that we pray for, how come we don't get everything we want in this life?

There's this story but I do not know the source and the authenticity of it, so pardon me for that. And if you know, please please do tell. Okay so once upon a time there was this one kind man. He had prayed and prayed and cried buckets of tears while begging Allah to grant his du'a. But time and time again his call seemed to be of no avail. His prayer seemed unanswered. But he never gave up on the Mercy of Allah [Quran 9:87] and kept on praying.

One of the Angels felt pitiful towards him so the Angel went up to meet Allah and prayed to Allah to answer the man's prayers. Allah said (and I've rephrased this. May Allah forgive me T.T) "I am about to answer his prayer, but just a little while more. I have missed him talking and crying to me the way he is right now. But I am sure to answer his prayer, just a little while more"

Remember Allah once said  "Call upon Me; I will respond to you.”  [Quran 40:60]

Have Faith in Allah. "I am as my servants think I am" [Hadith Qudsi - Bukhari and Muslim] Think of Allah as the Most Merciful, the Most Forgiving, The One who will only give you what's best for you, and at the right time. Maybe, say, if He answered our prayer to get really good grades for one major examination, maybe that time we weren't ready for it. Maybe, if He really did give us that, we'd stray even further from Him. We'd lose sight of what's real. And that would be istidraj - something given to someone to stray him further away from the truth. Have Faith that whatever it is that Allah grants us is whatever is best for us, whatever that will draw us closer to Him and His Redha.

What other proofs are there to show that Allah loves us, His servants?

"O my Servants who have transgressed against their souls! Despair not of the Mercy of Allah: for Allah forgives all sins: for He is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful" [Quran 39:53]

Allah (swt) says: “Take one step towards me, I will take ten steps towards you. Walk towards me, I will run towards you.” [Hadith Qudsi - Bukhari and Muslim]

"O son of Adam, as long as you call upon Me and put your hope in Me, I have forgiven you for what you have done and I do not mind. O son of Adam, if your sins were to reach the clouds of the sky and then you would seek My forgiveness, I would forgive you. O son of Adam, if you were to come to Me with sins that are close to filling the earth and then you would meet Me without ascribing any partners with Me, I would certainly bring to you forgiveness close to filling it." [Hadith Qudsi - At-Tarmidhi]

If He didn't love us as much as He did, would we still be here right now, getting our second, third, fourth, fifth chance every waking day? Every second is another chance to repent. To seek Him. To ask for forgiveness. Every second is but a Mercy from Him.

Only by realising this truth, how much He loves us, would we be able to do everything He commands us to do, and leave everything he commands us to leave. When we love someone, we would do anything and everything to impress them, to make them happy and pleased with us and ultimately to repay their unconditional love towards us. Allah's unconditional love towards us.

For my sisters who have yet to put on the hijab, once you've realised how much Allah loves you, you would put it on, not to shut the people around you who has bugged you to put it on. Not to impress some guy. Not to follow some trend. But because and only because you want to please the One who Loves you so very much. You want to follow what the One who Loves you so very much has told you to do. Only then will you be able to wear it proud, and wear it right, the way He wanted us to wear it. Because it's a symbol that you acknowledge the fact that Allah loves you. And, you love Him too.

For my friends whom I love fillah who knows to have a relationship before marriage is wrong but deems it to be too hard to leave. One simple parable (credited to Yasmin Mogahed) would be like a kid with this super awesome toycar he sees in a shop. But his mommy won't let him have it. So he passes by the shop everyday, feeling so hurt because the toycar is so close yet so far. He wants it soo badly but he can't have it. He feels like he just wants to steal it, taking it in the haram way, telling himself that he will pay it one day and make it halal (if Allah grants him that opportunity. But if that day never comes and it remains haram?). But then his mother showed him a real Ferrari. And allowed him to play in that. Would he still think about the small toycar? Would we still think about the insignificant haram relationship when there's an even greater, infinite Love to achieve? The time will come when a different kind of love will come around biiznillah (with the one who was created for you) but this time not to compete, but to strengthen the infinite Love.

When the call for prayer comes, we don't heavily take our wudhu' and heavily pray. But we look forward to our meeting with our Lord. Our meeting with the Creator of Love Himself. And in the wee hours of the morning, it wouldn't be such a burden to wake up and pray tahajjud. Because that's when He awaits His servants the most. #NoteToSelf

When we do everything in our lives, for Allah, simply to obtain His love, His redha, simply to show Him how much we love and cherish Him, everything will be made that bit easier, inshaaAllah. Because we know everything that we do is with a purpose and throughout every step of the way, He is with us.

"..and My servant continues to draw near to Me with supererogatory (sunat) deeds so that I shall love him. When I love him I am his hearing with which he hears, his seeing with which he sees, his hand with which he strikes and his foot with which he walks. Were he to ask [something] of Me, I would surely give it to him, and were he to ask Me for refuge, I would surely grant him it" [Hadith Qudsi - Bukhari]

Here's a video, a talk by Yasmin Mogahed. On the Divine Love itself. Go knock yourself out (;

This is but a reminder to myself. Because I always seem to forget that Allah loves me.
As He loves you.

Wallahualam.

P/S: Please correct me for any mistakes. Jazakallahu khair (May Allah reward you with goodness). And aseef (my apologies) for not updating the blog for a while now. Please pray for our jihad in the approaching A-Level examinations ^^