Thursday, September 15, 2016

Forgive and Forget

Often without even trying, 
the ones closest to our heart 
(by the very nature of their closeness)
are the ones who can hurt us the most.

And because it hurts so much, 
it is our parents, siblings, lovers, close friends
who we can find hardest to forgive.


The remedy in the Quran addressing this problem 
is a quite simple piece of advice:

 "وَلـيَعفُواْ وَليَصفَحُوٓاْ"

"walya'fu": 
and do not punish 
"walyasfahu": 
and turn the page

Simply: 
'forgive and forget'.

Cool. 
But we just said that
it's not always that easy, is it?


So the ayat continues by asking:

"أَلَا تُحِبُّونَ أًَن يَغفِرَ اللهًُ لَكُم"

"Would you not like 
that Allah should forgive you?"

SubhanAllah, with this
Allah has weighed up the difficulty of forgiving and forgetting 
against the magnitude of Allah's forgiveness.

(And what can possibly compare to the magnitude of Allah's forgiveness??)

Meaning, if a person still refuses to forgive and forget, 
it is quite possibly a problem of iman (faith).
If he still refuses to forgive and forget, then
he has to perhaps look into his heart 
to see what is stopping him: 
it could very well be pride and arrogance.

The ayat concludes with:

"وٓ اللهُ غٓفُورٌ رّٓحِيمٌ"

"And Allah is Forgiving and Merciful"


So..will you 
forgive and forget? 🙂



Reference: 
Ustaz Nouman Ali Khan's tafsir of ayat 22 of Surah An-Nur

Sunday, September 11, 2016

Eiduladha

But then, what is love -
that emotion, intangible;
that feeling, unmeasurable?
It seems that even at its most quantifiable,
love is but a complex series of chemical reactions in the brain, incomprehensible.

There doesn't seem to be a unit of measurement for love;
like there are metres and miles to measure distance,
or hertz and decibels to measure sound.

And so, empty sound
is what "I love you"
too often turns out to be.

That, to me, 
was prophet Ibrahim's lesson
in his willingness to sacrifice his son:

That there actually is 
a unit of measurement of love -  sacrifice.
That the more one loves, the more for his object of love
he should be willing to sacrifice.

Ibrahim's love to God was not intangible,
not empty - it was proven by his willingness to sacrifice what he loved most in this world.

Eiduladha is a celebration of that sacrifice; of that love.

selamat hari raya, everybody!! 🙂

Thursday, September 8, 2016

Does the heart want 
happiness, or familiarity? 

I think it yearns for the former
but finds contentment in the latter.

Maybe that's why a cloudy day is strangely comforting.. 🤔



(Until it starts raining lah. Then not happy, or comfortable)

Thursday, September 1, 2016

Papa is a Tree

Pa, I remember you arriving home from work,
hands on hips, imitating the branches of a tree:

"Papa is a tree. 
Try and climb papa!"

Gleefully adik and I obliged, 
having never climbed a real tree,
racing to climb you like the city kids we are
(and having little regard for the health of your back 😅).

It has been nearly 15 years now since we last did that.
Those years have seen us kids 
grow up, leave school, fly overseas.
While you, Pa; 
our football coach, 
our chauffeur,
our best friend, 
have stayed our steady tree. 

I guess it can be tricky playing that role..
Being that steady over the years, 
it's easy to blend into the background -
people forgetting how important you are.

As you put out roots into yesterday, 
giving us steady support;
as you put out shoots into tomorrow, 
sheltering us from Life's elements;
as you put out flowers and fruits, 
nurturing those around you;
as you put out leaves green, red and brown, 
coloring our lives.

Trees, like everything, grow old
but they do develop a certain beauty with old age:
barks scarred and wrinkled with wisdom, 
leaves no longer growing thick,
revealing the empty nests of those city kids
who once lived on you, but
now live halfway across the world.

They remember still what you once said,
hands on hips, imitating the branches of a tree:

"Papa is a tree. 
Try and climb papa!"

Happy birthday, pa..
We love you! ❤️❤️😬😬