The unspoken word…

Nothing seemed to work anymore. Everything was turning out in turmoil. The only thing which was truly making me happy was something which my mind couldnt get enough of. Today was same as yesterday and I was sure that tomorrow would be same as today. Nothing seemed different anymore even going to the best of places, eating the best of the food, making the most of the day everyday, everything felt as if it had came crashing down in the middle of nowhere. I dint know what my heart’s desire was nor did I knew how to make my inner self feel contended with what I had with one thing which was so badly missing from the jigsaw of my life.

I wanted to cry out loud but dint found the courage to spill tears. I was doing everything to make myself happy, did everything which I once wanted to do so badly in life yet still everything felt incomplete. It felt as if no one around me wanted me anymore. As I write this, I am so immersed in my thoughts like its some deep black hole swallowing me slowly and slowly deeper into the abyss….

A part of my body revolted so badly about achieving all those things which I really want in life, but theres a part of me saying that I cant do it. With so many failures, trying to live upto people’s expectations each day, answering desperately to keep up my reputation, the part of me which says I cant has so many evidences to show me. These revolts around me have made me so numb, I cant even express myself properly even to myself. Everything in my life looked like what my room looks like : clutter. I dint want anyone to listen or to lessen my pain, I wanted order in my life, something which I havent achieved uptill now, and the worst part is that even the best of vacations dont make me happy anymore untill I get my desire.

I know that someday, I will achieve what I want truly from life because I have been brave in life, I have met struggles people cant even imagine to meet. I want more from life and from this day forward, I will get my share of happiness from life, I will get my obsession even if I have to snatch it from it. I will prove all those people wrong who think or say that I dont deserve what I truly want from life. And someday, when I look back, I’ll know that I deserved it, I deserved it more than anyone else in the world.

 

- Page from Sapphy’s diary, Dated : sometime years back….

Kun fayakun

“His Command, when He intends anything, is only that He says to it, “Be’ then (and there) it is – (Kun Fayakun)” – Al-Quran.

Allah mentions the above verse in the Quran, few days ago, I heard an excellent explanation of these words which I am about to write. Humans are amazing creatures, our minds are absolutely perfect and why wouldn’t they be, they were created by the most perfect God. The most surprising aspect of our mind is its ability to recall, for eg if we are talking about something, it gets made up in our minds, if for eg we are talking about going to school, a picture of it or anything related to it immediately comes to our minds and it doesnt even take mere seconds for that image to form in our minds, another eg of this could be, that for every person we meet, whenevr we mention this person, we form an image of that person in our minds about some of their character trait or anything else. So if humans can form images in their minds when they’re just talking about it, then it shouldn’t be doubted as to how God creates things when He just says Be and they get created!

Every aspect of ourselves reminds us of Allah and his wonderful perfection in His creations!

Where Is God?

This tale is perhaps the most understandable, indisputable and convincing about the existance of God. It goes like this:

An atheist asked Imam Ja’far as-Sadiq (as),how could he convince him about the existence of God. Coming to know that the man had gone several times on sea voyages, Imam asked him “Have you ever been caught in a fierce storm in middle of nowhere, your rudder gone, your sails torn away, trying desperately to keep your boat afloat?” The answer was `Yes’. Then Imam asked: “And sometimes perhaps even that leaking boat went down leaving you exhausted and helpless on the mercy of raging waves?”

The answer was again `Yes’.

Then Imam asked: “Was not there, in all that black despair, a glimmer of hope in your heart that some unnamed and unknown power could still save you?” When he agreed, Imam said: “That power is God.”

That atheist was intelligent. He knew the truth when he saw it.

Good to know:

Imam Jafar Sadiq (as) is the 6th descendent of the Prophet (p.b.u.h). He is teacher to notable personalities in history such as Jabir Bin Hayyan, Imam Malik and Imam abu Hanifa

P.S : Although I have heard this tale in person from a great scholar, but right now I’ve copied it from http://www.al-islam.org/god-an-islamic-perspective/3.htm

Worship like the slaves

An old story dates back to the time of Arabia, when slaves were bought from all parts of the world to serve Arabs. Since these slaves were from different ethnicities and nationalities ranging from Chinese to Armenians, the masters had to give them food according to what they ate in their original home town, shelter and clothing was also given to them accordingly.

Once, an arab brought a slave and asked him, what food will you eat so that I can arrange it for you. The slave replied “You are my master, whatever food you’ll give me, I’ll eat it”

The arab then asks him again “Then tell me, what clothing did u use to wear at your old home town, I’ll give that clothing to you”. The slave replies “What are you talking about sir, You are my master, whatever you’ll give to me, I’ll wear it”

The arab finally asks him “Ok, forget about the clothing and the food, what kind of locality did you live in at your old town, I’ll arrange such a shelter for you”

The slave obediently replies “You are my master, whatever you’ll give me to eat, I’ll eat it, whatever you’ll give me to wear, I’ll wear it, whatever you’ll keep me, I’ll stay, I am only mere a slave”

The Arab then says “Today a slave has taught me how to worship the God Almighty. Wherever God wants to keep us, we should stay without complain, whatever He wants us to eat, we should eat and Whatever He wants us to wear, we should wear without the slightest of complain, He is our master afterall and we’re merely His slaves”!

This story teaches us a very important and beautiful lesson, that on the way to God, if we really want to obey him as our Creator, we should do as He says without being ungrateful. Times may be harsh but as God himself says that If you live your life in accordance to my rules, I’ll make your life just as you want it to be.

Ramadan blues

So Ramadan is finally here, the most blessed month of the year gives us another opportunity to reflect upon ourselves and work on our character and become good muslims. As a special feature for Ramadan, I’m going to post some of the good things frequently which I hear at the lectures given at my local mosque! If it develops any change within you, pray for me that I get all my prayers answered too!

Ramadan mubarak to all muslims in the world!

The road to progress

Success comes naturally to some people, who are exceptionally talented in one way or the other. But a lot of people are seemingly ordinary and have to fight their way to conquer their dreams, the dreams they have had ever since they’ve made sense of this world. Whats worse is that, people all around them may start asserting to them one way or the other thaat they wont really succeed in getting their dreams true.

Sometimes, its hard to turn a deaf ear to such people but you’ve got to somehow imprint this fact in your heart that you’ve got to go on, and it doesnt really matter what people say no matter how discouraging they may be, in the end and from the very beginning, its always been about you and never about them.Progress may be slow but it will come eventually because when you really desire something really hard, you will find the will to reach out to it and eventually conquer it. And for the rumbling, rattling people along the way, indifference is the best way to treat them with.

Vivacious Waves…

Don’t you just love the sea? In my opinion, it is one of the most beautiful blessings of God. But most importantly, I love the way it comes thrashing on the rocks, with so much passion so much energy, with so much life! Whenever I watch the waves, it immediately electrifies me with its power and it feels as if it’s energy penetrates within my soul. What if all of us put the same devotion, same energy to every task we do in our lives, wouldnt that make our lives more exciting, more lively and more worthwhile?

photo credits go to : http://www.flickr.com/photos/halikat/1398657161/

What if we struggled like the sea, loved like the sea, helped someone like the waves, believed like the sea and achieved our destiny like the waves, thrashing on our fates with utmost zeal and enthusiasm behaving as if today is the last day to be lived!

Perhaps thats what we need the most in our lives, a strong, ardent, unforgettable reason to live, whatever the reason may be, we need to advance ourselves towards it with paramount zeal so that when the time comes to die, we die with a new feeling of having lived life and not mere a life with no life in the real sense.

Don’t you have pity upon yourselves?

I was recently cleaning my drawers, when I came across a book and read these golden words. Indeed these words appeal to all time and to all ages. I havent translated into english because I thought I would ruin the eloquence. These are words that will open your eyes and spear your heart so much so that’ll bring tears to your eyes:

“Akhir kya waja hai? Tumhara mukhalif gumrahi mei rehte huwe tum se ziada sabit qadm hai. aur wo apni gumrahe ko phelaine ke liye tum se ziada daulat kharch karta hai. Is ka bas yehi sabab hai k tum dunya ki taraf mail hochuke ho lihaza tum sitam bardasht karne per raazi hochuke ho! Aur tum ne kanjoosi ko apna liya hai aur tum ne us cheez ko chor diya hai jis mei tumhari izzat o saadat hai aur jis mei tumhaare dushman ke khilaf tumhari quot hai. Tumhe na to apne Khuda ke farman ka pas hai aur na hi apni jaano per rehem karte ho.Har roz tum per zulm horaha hai aur phir bhi tum khuwab-e-gaflat se beidar nahi hote ho aur tumhari kahili khtam nhi horahe.”

- Imam Ali (as)

Graduation Day

Graduation, the day every undergrad student waits for anxiously, so naturally when yesterday I had my graduation, everyone was excited. Somehow, I couldnt really find out the reason for this fervor, yes we had completed our most important bachelors degree which will effect our life for better or for worse, we had completed an important four years of our education, but when it comes down to it, its just one day right, nothing more!

But theres another thing which graduation signifies, something far beyond graduation robes, degrees and the usual tradition of throwing graduation caps in the air. It gives the notion of being one of the most privileged lot in a developing country like Pakistan. This priviledge is being able to afford decent education such that you can earn and live a life way better than thousands other in the country. But is this being graduated, being educated just a means of earning money, is it just so you can live a 9 to 5 life, go to office everyday and come back to feel proud of your accomplishments?

Thinking of education in such a prespective is degrading it. Education is meant to brighten lives, to light a candle in the darkness. 4 yrs of education is useless if it is not used to work for the betterment of the soceity, to improve the quality of life of the humanbeings around us. Job or no job, the meaning of education can never be fully understood unless we try to use this knowledge to bring a smile on the faces of those who are less priveledged than us. Unless we try to think in a more considerate and less materialistic way, we can never prove ourselves to be the best of all creations.

So, graduation should be celebrated definitely, not just because we’ve completed the 4 imp years of our lives but because we are stepping ahead in a world where we’ve got the chance to eradicate hopelessness from the lives of others and to become a positive change for the society.

My take on Port Grand

Port Grand! Familiar isnt it? why wouldnt it be, everyone’s talking about it and its all over facebook, it is being promoted as ’The finest development of Karachi city’ WHOA, Thats really gotta be grand!

After hearing all this praise about this place, I was quite excited to go and visit it and so were the thousands other Karachiites! which is why we left the place the first time we saw the queues! But next week, with all the patience we could muster, we went again to see what this place was all about that had driven all classes of Karachiites to come and have a glance.

So we got the chance to go in and the entry ticket was 300/= out of which 200/= could be spend in the food street, hmmmm…. sounds quite reasonable!

The first site of Port Grand from inside is like WOW, Am I really in Karachi? because the architecture is simply exquisite! Its huge and you wont get the feeling of being trapped between the crowd.

Well, the second site is not that GRAND! Because we entered the food street and it is actually like a street more like a gali (passage way) and you can imagine what happens when a lot of hungry customers are going from one stall to another in search for food in an area so small.

The result was there were queues everywhere with a waiting of about an hr at every stall, (1 1/2 hr for good resturaunts). And you wont believe what we ate out of the wonderful (so-called) food street, we ate kachories for dinner because it was the only stall where one could get food quickly. The most pathetic irony which happened was that every stall over there had ran out of mineral water!!! :S :S :S…

Anyway, they say there are going to be more activities being opened at Port Grand, like ciniplexes, shopping malls and other kinds of entertainment, there’s also going to be another food street (which is very necessary considering the amount of people who visit the place), I also have one more environmental concern about this place, you see its build on the netty jetty karachi port, the sea (or river or whatever that is) can be seen from the food street and as illiterate as the people over here are, i am sure a lot of them throw a lot of stuff in the sea which is harmful for the fishes and for the environment, aside from that, smoke rises from the barbq resturaunts which is exposed to the sea again, which destroys the freshness and could be poisonous for the sea life! Theres not much concern about the environment in Pakistan but this could become a serious issue if its not looked after.

So my rating on Port Grand is 6/10, because they need to bring more variety of food stalls and improve the parking area. Aside from that, I love the location, it really is grand and is worth a visit but definitely not on weekends!