Friday, October 25, 2013

NEW DISRUPTIVE GENERATION

 "Wealth and children are the adornment of the life of this world. But the good righteous deeds (five compulsory prayers, deeds of Allah's obedience, good and nice talk, remembrance of Allah with glorification, praises and thanks, etc.), that last, are better with your Lord for rewards and better in respect of hope" [18:46]



Muslim Married women (or couples) shouldn't give birth to a child if they can't bring them up through the teachings of Islam. Because it is better to not give birth than to raise a child that is close to becoming a kaafir. Parents are to be blamed because some muslim parents are raising up their children to become great doctors or a multimillionaire dollar scientists and those are the same parents who in the end are placed in old age foster care homes by their occupied busy children. If you raised them to be great muslims and home caretakers then you would see your child treating you in the best way and not as maids or sponsors. The reason why I am writing this is because a friend of my sister told her why she doesn't wanna cover her head is because "TEENS SHOULD LIVE AND ENJOY LIKE TEENS" :S I wish I showed her how teens should be smacked like teens. I know as kids we weren't perfect or even close to it but my only regret is that only if I was lead in the right direction. 
What I meant by not giving birth was to not conceive in the first place or plan to have kids to have a good status in society or as a means of show off and competition of whose kids are better in worldly success and knowledge in society or relatives. Regardless to that, people consider marriage contract as a way of living their lives to the fullest according to their desires when actually it is the hardest and most responsible job ever. It's not a joke to start a family and on top of that to take care of it. Before marrying, every single muslim woman should be trained or given courses on how to raise children according to the sharia of Islam because a mother is the one who nurtures the home and from her is the entire ummah. Obviously, fathers aren't exempted from this responsibility because the children also need the fatherly dose as well and the wife needs his support too. He shouldn't sit by watching his wife struggle with kids and house chores while he is busy watching T.V and ordering her to get him some food and snacks 24/7. This is how children learn. Through you, through parents by imitating.  
Learning how to raise children after marriage is also great but it doesn't suffice your actual benefit and most of the time those lessons are through hard learned lessons from experiences. Majority of the times the parents are the one in the compromising state and the children start controlling them. Do not let them control you. You are the bigger authority. Be a good example. Not good but be a GREAT example.
I am not married or a mother hence I can't say this but I am a daughter and I understand this fact that if someone makes a mistake, we owe it to ourselves to learn from it & not repeat the same mistakes again. I learned a lot from my parent's mistakes and that's how we all become wiser as to-be parents.

Nowadays the best way for a mother to shut their children from crying is by shoving them with iPads, tablets or making them listen to nursery rhymes or watch Disney movies. They are bought everything and anything the kids demand from toys to accessories to gadgets. Every parent should teach their children to ponder over all those poor unfortunate children over the world. With more exposure to television all they see is rich kids who have everything and anything so they are bound to become like them and demand such things. They should be made to go to the oldage foster homes to help the elderly. 
Moreover, there are many kids who now have open and unsupervised internet. These kids easily know how to use these gadgets and slowly slowly they aren't interested in what their moms want them to listen or watch. They are getting exposed to many explicit and unwanted content which is not even for us Muslim Adults to watch let alone kids! All they have are idols like Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber and 1D. It's really scary because gradually these are how mothers these days are raising their kids. *BLINDFOLD*

This obviously doesn't apply to all mothers. There are some amazing mothers out there who know great parenting techniques on how to handle their kids from peer pressure and they do the right upbringing. They raise their children with the teachings of our Rasool, Sahabas and their grandparents. masha'Allah! They are friends to their children and parents too. They have that mutual trust between one another and the children share everything with their parents. 
These parents are not super strict or super lenient. They are balanced. MashaAllah! I have seen such parents. They indulge their children into so many educational activities (worldly and deeni) so that the child doesn't have time to involve in haram activities and or become fat! If parents really want to invest money into something, they should invest it in the best education of deen and dunya, activities and best food for their kids. Do not be scared of poverty and do not withhold your hands from spending in the right way, in the way of Allah. Many parents spend lots and lots of money on worldly education which is not bad but when the child wants to do some religious study, they ask a lot of questions and expect it to be the cheapest studies ever which makes them not want to spend in the way of Allah. 

My only concern is the new disruptive generation. I don't care about the kaafirs much because our own Muslim generations is getting destructed and my first priority is them. As a teacher I try my best to take the opportunity to advice my students to be good people because teachers in schools aren't teaching this also. :S 
Please mothers or to be mothers or wives who are planning to conceive, or to be wives, please do remember this is a big responsibility. I am not scaring you from having a child, but not to forget, with greater achievements comes greater responsibilities. Please teach them akhlaq, cleanliness, politeness, humbleness and gratefulness. These are basics things for a child to know to be a good human and eventually with time, teach them who their creator is, what their religion is & who their last messenger is. Teach them how to pray, read Qu'ran, learn QurĂ¡n and eventually they'll become good muslims who will be ready to strive in this Dunya without hurdles in sha Allah (All of this is to be done and done till the age of 13)
Don't underestimate the capabilities of your child because they are capable of sooooo much. The parents just can't see it. 

May Allah make us all good parents and make our children one of those who pray and obeys Allah and Rasool SallahuAlaihi waSallam. Ameen! :D

JazakiAllah hu khairan for reading. Please Rate, Comment and follow my blog for more posts. Share this posts with your family and friends. 

Ask me anything here Thank you for reading. Please feel free to send me the link of your blogs and comment below if you have similar views.
- Manal Mirza


Thursday, October 3, 2013

CHARACTERISTICS OF A MO'MIN (BELIEVER)

Assalamualaikum WarahmatuaAllahi Wabarakaatuhu!
Surah Al Muminoon is one of the best Surahs I have ever come across. What bewilders me is that there is definitely no end to Allah's words. As Allah says in the Surah Al Kahf 109. Say (O Muhammad to mankind). "If the sea were ink for (writing) the Words of my Lord, surely, the sea would be exhausted before the Words of my Lord would be finished, even if we brought (another sea) like it for its aid."
And why do I say this? It is because one chapter after the other there keeps coming more reality and more truth than I could ever imagine. Its like there is no ending to the greatest speech of Allah subhanawaTa'la and this is only Surah number 23! subhanAllah!
Which is why I would like to enlighten you all with a little bit of what I know and would also like it to share it with you guys. 

I am only going to share few characters of a Momin (true believer) which I gathered from the few beginning verses of this Surah to make us realize and ponder upon our own souls that if we are really one of the real mo'mins or not.
 In sha Allah!
Characters of a Momin:

NOTE: please do read the Arabic text as it is the Kalaam of Allah so do not ignore. :)

1. A momin is the one who is humble and extremely submissive in their Salat. 
If you want to check your level of Imaan, simply just check your salat and see where your mind and attention is. Is it in the humility and submission towards Allah or is it directed towards the world? We as muslims need to improve our khushoo and khudu in our prayers. The highest level of perfection is to pray as if you are seeing Allah or if this is not possible then pray as if Allah is seeing you. 
2. A mo'min is the one who avoids vain useless talks.
 OMG! yes I know! We all are included in sooo much of useless pointless and futile talks whose purpose is nothing. A mo'min speaks and listens to only that which is beneficial to him and he avoids the company of such time wasting people. Whenever he speaks he speaks words of wisdom or he doesn't speak at all. So please sisters and brothers, stop talking or wasting time in useless vain talks especially over waste news & sports or over kaafir celebrities whose discussion doesn't benefit you. This has increased a lot over the years since Whatsapp, Facebook, Twitter, and free internet international calling system came into existence. 
3. A mo'min is the one who purifies his soul from all the evil 
like idolatry, disbelief, hypocrisy, backbiting, envy, jealousy, hatred. (Zakat here refers to the 'purity of the soul' as this surah was revealed in Makkah and the ehkaam of zakat wasn't revealed then)
He tries to purify his soul by increasing in good deeds, building a good character, having good manners, having a helpful nature and has a clean heart.   
4. A mo'min is the one who guards his private parts 
(chastity)
This includes fornication, any kind of lustful gaze,  watching pornography or indecent movies, having illegal relationships in marriage or outside of marriage, homosexuality, masturbation, watching anything indecent and talking anything indecent. Allah has called such people as transgressors. 
5. A mo'min is the one who is responsible of their own amaanats and covenants
Such as a wife taking care of her husbands house, (which is her amanah), and a husband taking care of his house, taking care of your time, wealth, body, health, children, pacts between each other, keeping a promise and mostly taking care of your dunya and aakhirah. He is true to his trust and covenants. He never deceives anyone.
6. A mo'min is the one who GUARDS his prayers (this came twice in this Surah). 
And how will he guard it? By praying on time, in taharah, in congregation (only men), in a clean place, with proper sunnah, proper postures in sajdah and rukoo etc. This is how he will guard his prayer. in sha Allah!
Allah subhanAllah wa Ta'la says, that "These are heirs who will inherit paradise and live therein forever." [23:10/11] 

Meaning that whoever has these few attributes, he is the heir of Paradise. SubhanaAllah! 
Whats even better is when Allah began this Surah saying "Indeed Successful are those believers" [23:1] 
Which means that whoever followed these few admonitions from their Rabb is definitely successful or has already become successful. :D mashaAllah!
May Allah give us the tawfeeq and guidance to follow these few admonitions and make us the heir of Jannah! Ameen!

Stay tuned for more characters of a Mo'min in the remaining Surah. :) Coming soon in sha Allah

PLEASE NOTE:
The translation of the Arabic text is not given in this blog post. Those were just explanatory sentences and not the exact translation of the Arabic Content. 

Ask me anything realetd to this post here. JazakumuAllah hu khairan for reading. Please feel free to send me the link of your blogs and comment below if you have similar views. 
- Manal Mirza