The norm that must needs be followed in principles of belief is moderation and restraint upon the straight path, and anything that deviates from the proper intent of things is reprehensible. [Iqtisad]
The poet said, “Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.
Let’s take a closer look at this insanity.
Watch the TV, play the tape,
The latest chapter in the great escape,
Look at Spock out trekking stars,
Forget the Earth and her petty wars.
A country of R2s, D2s, a world of Darth Vaders,
The Senate makes less money than the Oakland Raiders,
The Renaissance sparked dreams of new worlds coming into view,
Dreams turned into the reality of Madison Avenue.
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I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin to shift from a “thing-oriented” society to a “person-oriented” society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered… (Dr. King) Taken from Imam Zaid’s article (link)
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So, while embarrassed by the large number of large people in conservative places of worship, people of faith need to raise their voices here. There is a national obesity epidemic, now affecting one in five British adults – and counting. Only yesterday, a new study showed that obesity is socially contagious, in that friends and relatives of overweight people tend to be less worried about their own weight, and hence may end up in the same condition. Genes are by no means the issue: if your best friend becomes obese, you are statistically 57% more likely to go the same way.
We human creatures may not always be young and athletic, but we should always recall that we are made in the image of God, and that how we treat our bodies is in some sense a sacred responsibility. We are learning that we cannot abuse the earth without storing up misfortune for ourselves; and something similar holds good for our bodies as well. Of course, faith teaches us never to judge by appearances, and part of the moral greatness of religion is that it takes our index finger, so willing to point judgmentally at others, and turns it in the direction of ourselves. The problem, then, cannot be overweight people; the problem lies in ourselves.
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- Kufr: to see the sun setting, and to do nothing about it.
- The beginner feels gratitude for the rukhsa in his mind. The advanced seeker feels gratitude for the rukhsa in his heart. The saint never takes the rukhsa at all.
- Your nafs will never receive exactly what it wants.
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Salman al-Farisi (ra) said:
Three things make me laugh, and three things make me cry. I laugh at
someone who stretches his hopes in this world, being unmindful of
death which is steadily seeking to end his life. I laugh at someone
who is heedless and unaware that Allah is not unmindful of him. And
finally, I laugh at someone who grins from ear to ear, unaware
whether his loud laughter is pleasing to his Lord, or perhaps
whether it is incurring His wrath.
On the other hand, I cry for missing the fellowship of Muhammad
(saw) and his companions. I cry when I think about a man
experiencing the throes of death, and his grief and agony with his
overwhelming newly unveiled encounter. And finally, I cry when I
think about my having to stand up on the Day of Reckoning before
Almighty Allah, blessed is His name, not knowing whether I will be
thirsted into hell-fire, or let to enter paradise.
[Narrated by Imam Ahman bin Hanbal]
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“The lights of some people precede their dhikr, while the dhikr of
some people precede their lights. There is the one who does (loud)
dhikr so that his heart be illumined; and there is the one whose
heart has been illumined and he does (silent) dhikr.”
- Ibn ‘Ata’Allah -
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