Sunday 4 March 2018

Shedding Sin, Deep Breathing and Loving God

By Laila Ali Haid- 

The title infers that reaching a balance in spiritual life, good intentions, and open will is easy. The preceding sentence is merely a juncture between the title and this current line, a part of my next inchoate facade of substance beating style, but not really.

To get to the juiciest flesh bit on the bone, I must explain the actual point of this post.

I want this post, in sha Allah, to come to a conclusion on how live happily, healthily and introspectively (to an extent).

I don't want good living to be a notion in the air, a calculation of postulations that never reach ground.

I want the good life to be available to potential readers as much as myself.

As such, this post will articulate a guideline on how to find goodness in your life without changing your being, which I believe is static.

I accept that the concept of true happiness has been overly pontificated upon by everyone who has attempted to define it.

This is why I will give only 3 points, spread over a couple of posts, on how to claim the lofty idea of achieving happiness in simple steps and thought-shifts.

You all have a destiny, and the Lord is merciful. 

The story of Prophet Yusuf (Joseph - Peace Be Upon Him), is like an aromatic bright flower that is adorned in layers of vividly colored petals, and cloaked in a beautiful scent.

This Prophet's life is encapsulated in Chapter 12 of the Qur'an, called 'Surah Yusuf'.

This chapter has come to anchor my hopes, and I come across 'Surah Yusuf' many times ,when looking for help from Allah whilst reading the Qur'an in many of my stressful days.

Actually, there is one verse, which always undoes the despair which underwrites my slower days.

The verse (or Ayah as it is called in Arabic) in question is Surah Yusuf/Chapter 12, Verse 100:
And he raised his parents to the throne and they fell down before him prostrate. And he said: "O my father! This is the interpretation of my dream aforetime! My Lord has made it come true! He was indeed good to me, when He took me out of the prison, and brought you (all here) out of the bedouin-life, after Shaitan (Satan) had sown enmity between me and my brothers. Certainly, my Lord is the Most Courteous and Kind unto whom He will. Truly He! Only He is the All-Knowing, the All-Wise."
There are a certain ways in which this verse makes me feel that life truly has not only meaning, but a hidden structure.

Firstly, this verse/Ayat shows how fruitful a believer's life is, and dispels mundane existential worries over our living.

For example, in Surah Yusuf, Prophet Yusuf/Joseph (peace be upon him) recounts the events that happened after his enslavement, until he was beautifully reunited with his family.

But ! In this Ayat, Yusuf links these occurrences to a dream he had in childhood, which his father Prophet Jacob comments on at the beginning of the chapter:

وَكَذَٰلِكَ يَجْتَبِيكَ رَبُّكَ وَيُعَلِّمُكَ مِن تَأْوِيلِ الْأَحَادِيثِ وَيُتِمُّ نِعْمَتَهُ عَلَيْكَ وَعَلَىٰ آلِ يَعْقُوبَ كَمَا أَتَمَّهَا عَلَىٰ أَبَوَيْكَ مِن قَبْلُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ وَإِسْحَاقَ ۚ إِنَّ رَبَّكَ عَلِيمٌ حَكِيمٌ -
12:6 :
And thus will your Lord choose you and teach you the interpretation of narratives and complete His favor upon you and upon the family of Jacob, as He completed it upon your fathers before, Abraham and Isaac. Indeed, your Lord is Knowing and Wise."
Thus, in achieving the dream's prophecy, Yusuf (peace be upon him) gains recognizance of the immense loveliness and beauty of Allah's guidance, favor and Guardianship.

Thus, Prophet Yusuf's story is a guidance for the drifting, down-beaten and lost Muslim. 

To Be Continued...

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