A simple post from Yosra about waking up at Fajr time. Somehow, I find this simple post to be quite inspirational, not sure why.
Up Before Dawn
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Category Archives: Prayer
The Pink Mosque
Alixianna at BeautifulMuslimah poses the question to her readers, how female-friendly is your local mosque?
As for the woman’s role at the Masjid, the Masjid is not following the Sunnah of the Prophet Mohammed (S.A.W.) if you are scrubbing the floors and cleaning the sinks but cannot voice your concerns or are having someone dictate an impractical behaviour on you without historical Islamic basis.
Why your du`a’ isn’t answered
Consider the condition the Muslims are facing today, we need to reflect why our Du’as are not answered. From Angie:
Ibrahim ibn Adham – may Allah have mercy on him – a third century scholar, a teacher and a companion of Sufyan ath-Thawri, was asked about the saying of Allah – the Most High:
“and your Lord says: “Call on me I will answer your prayer…”
[40:60]
“We supplicate and we are not answered.”
So he said to them:
You know Allah, Yet you do not obey Him,
You recite the Qur’an, Yet do not act according to it,
You know Shaitan, Yet you have agreed with him,
You proclaim that you love Muhammad Yet you abandon his Sunnah,
You proclaim your love for Paradise, Yet you do not act to gain it,
You proclaim your fear the Fire, Yet you do not prevent yourselves from sins,
You say “Indeed death is true”, Yet you have not prepared for it,
You point out the faults with others, Yet you do not look at your faults,
You eat of that which Allah has provided for you, Yet you do not thank Him,
You bury your dead, Yet you do not take a lesson from it.”
Submit Your Dua Stories
Another halfdate.com drive is about to come to a close. This one revolves around the miracle of dua (prayer). As well as asking readers to submit aadiya, and to volunteer for the ‘Dua Team’, the Half Date team also asked for inspiring dua stories. Scroll through the comments to find them. The following is my personal favourite:
There is one brother our family knew years ago whose faith in Allah SWT was so personified. May Allah bless him wherever he may be now. Lots of the power of dua stories I know are through him.
He narrated this true story:
He’d been working for the sake of Allah SWT, and for whatever reason, had nothing left at the end of the month to pay for the following month’s rent. His new wife (ask me another time about the power of dua that won him her hand) had left everything she’d ever known, including her country to follow him to the ends of the earth. He didn’t want to put her through the anguish of homelessness. So where did he turn? He made a sincere dua to Allah SWT.
And literally, the following morning, he was called up by a dear friend of his whom he hadn’t spoken to for ages. The conversation went something like this:“Assalam Alaykum Abdul _________(the nameless hero of our story). I know we haven’t spoken in a long time and I really wanted to call you. You were in my dream last night. In it, I gave you $735.00. Tell me, brother, are you in need of that amount of money? I’m ready to send it to you.”
The brother started crying. It was the exact amount of his rent, subhan Allah.
The Key to Answered Prayers
I love Suhaib Webb’s blog, masha’Allah… I could easily link to his site every day on Ijtema! I urge you to subscribe to his feed if you haven’t already. Anyway, the following short story posted in his latest entry was so wonderfully sweet, I had to give it a special mention here for your benefit, insha’Allah:
Sajjadah 1426 – An Illuminating Prayer Rug
Salaam, peace and every other type of hello or welcome!
Okay, I am not a type of person that gets impressed easily….well that’s actually a lie. I brought a yoyo the other day, talk about hours of fun!!!
Ahem…anyways – back to the point!!!
Right now this week’s item is straight out of a Ghostbusters movie!!!
Between Adhan and Salah
Meghan Rose illustrates the progression of our entire life as the period between Adhan and Salah.
I was not born a Muslim, so I did not have this experience, but Alhamdulillah the adhan is one of the first things that I heard upon reverting. It goes on to say that when we die, the last thing that is said over us is the funeral prayer. So our lives begin with adhan and end with salah; our whole lives are lived between adhan and salah.
Losing Prayer, Keeping Hope
MuslimWritings warns us about missing Salah, but why we should never lose hope entirely, for Allah is the Most Forgiving, Most Merciful.
It starts with missing Fajr (too early) or Isha (too tired). Zhur, Asr, and Magrib (too busy) also get lost. Maybe you make salat once at night and try to make all five prayers at once, but then that becomes too difficult. It’s okay, though, because you make it at least sometimes, when you’re around other Muslims. Then you find that you’re not around Muslims who pray, you’re only around Muslims who don’t pray either. Maybe you don’t really see any other Muslims at all. Your whole world has become that of the non-Muslims, and salat has become pretty much a thing of the past. Forget Ramadan.
[Photo Credit: Vince Millett]