macam mana nak
tak buat lagi dosa,
kalau taubat tu tak
cukup lagi dose?

Living in 

a washing machine;

in a cycle circular

faster and faster

until 

at the centre

is 

 just

   emptiness

the da'ie should be like the autumn tree,

who through her pain of falling leaves,

brightens the world in orange hues.

Ya Allah, 

let the sun come out;

let not the cold harden my heart.

For the heart hardened aches,

for the heart hardened 

more easily breaks.

one can live several different lives concurrently;

while feeling in each and every one

lonely.

let not the loneliness be 

perpetual,

let not the loneliness be

spiritual.

[2:186] 

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

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!! 🙂