DAILY ISLAMIC REMINDERS. Yawmul Ahad. 17th day of Dhul-Hijjah, 1445AH (Sunday, 23rd June 2024).

SEEKING GUIDANCE OF ALLAH MUST BE OUR PRIORITY. BismilLah. 

We often forget that ALLAH alone can help us overcome the many problems we encounter in our daily lives. The secret is to keep ALLAH in mind, constantly, so that when any difficulty arises, we can address it confident in the knowledge that ALLAH is aware of our situation. We should never face any problem on our own; ALLAH is with us and HE inspires and authorises the solution.

I remember reading a story about a young man who was keen to be a spiritual leader. But his Shaykh said to him, “Before you can hope to be a leader, you must answer this correctly. Imagine you are walking through the fields, when suddenly you are attacked by several sheepdogs at once. What will you do?” The man replied, “I will grab a stick or some stones to throw at them, and defend myself. His teacher smiled and said, “That’s not the answer. You may hold off one or two dogs, but the others will get you. You cannot defend yourself against so many attacking you all at once. The wise answer is to call on the shepherd, call the dogs’ master, and ask him for help. He’ll call the dogs away and they will leave you unharmed.”

Brothers and Sisters, this is of course a deeply philosophical story with many layers of meaning. The dogs are the problems we face in life, every day. The Shepherd is ALLAH. Don’t try to defend yourself without ALLAH. You cannot win. Take ALLAH into your confidence. Make HIM part of your life, part of every waking and sleeping moment. ALLAH loves it when we seek HIS help in big and small matters. This is another dimension of Taqwa, being constantly mindful of ALLAH, filling our hearts with a sense of love fear and hope. We love ALLAH and hope for Paradise through HIS MERCY, we fear HIS punishment and we are ever hopeful of HIS forgiveness and Mercy. But we must do so with sincerity. Repent sincerely from the haraam job, haraam relationship, from the stealing, cheating etc. We can't succeed with disobedience to HIS rules and regulations in life. May ALLAH (Al-Hayyu, Al-Qayyuum, The Living, The Maintainer of Life) aid us in our efforts to rely only on HIM alone. Aameen.