The Wooden Bowl

Ofcourse, one might have read this already elsewhere. And since it’s very inspiring I thought to post it here too.

A frail old man went to live with his son, daughter-in-law, and four-year-old grandson. The old man’s hands trembled,his eyesight was blurred, and his step faltered. The family ate together at the table. But the elderly grandfather’s shaky hands and failing sight made eating difficult. Peas rolled off his spoon onto the floor. When he grasped the glass, milk spilled on the tablecloth. The son and daughter-in-law became irritated with the mess. We must do something about Grandfather,” said the son. I’ve had enough of his spilled milk, noisy eating, and food on the floor. So the husband and wife set a small table in the corner. There, Grandfather ate alone while the rest of the family enjoyed dinner. Since Grandfather had broken a dish or two, his food was served in a wooden bowl.

When the family glanced in Grandfather’s direction, sometimes he had a tear in his eye as he sat alone. Still, the only words the couple had for him were sharp admonitions when he dropped a fork or spilled food.

The four-year-old watched it all in silence. One evening before supper, the father noticed his son playing with wood scraps on the floor. He asked the child sweetly, “What are you making?” Just as sweetly, the boy responded, “Oh, I am making a little bowl for you and Mama to eat your food when I grow up.” The four-year-old smiled and went back to work.

The words so struck the parents that they were speechless. Then tears started to stream down their cheeks. Though no word was spoken, both knew what must be done. That evening the husband took Grandfather’s hand and gently led him back to the family table. For the remainder of his days he ate every meal with the family. And for some reason, neither husband nor wife seemed to care any longer when a fork was dropped, milk spilled, or the tablecloth soiled.

Allah mentions in Quran, Surah Al-'Isrā' 17:23-24

” And your Lord has decreed that you worship none but Him. And that you be dutiful to your parents. If one of them or both of them attain old age in your life, say not to them a word of disrespect, nor shout at them but address them in terms of honour. ” (verse 23)

” And lower unto them the wing of submission and humility through mercy, and say: “My Lord! Bestow on them Your Mercy as they did bring me up when I was small. ” (verse 24)

True Companions

Each of your breaths is a priceless jewel, since each of them is irreplaceable and, once gone, can never be retrieved. Do not be like the deceived fools who are joyous because each day their wealth increases while their life shortens. What good is an increase in wealth when life grows ever shorter? Therefore be joyous only for an increase in knowledge or in good works, for they are your two companions who will accompany you in your grave when your family, wealth, children and friends stay behind.[Sheikh al-Ghazali]

Eid Mubarak

The Miracle of the Qur’an

By Khalid Baig

It happened at an international inter-faith conference. The organizers decided to end the conference with readings from the scriptures of major religions, done by followers of other religions. As it happened, an Arab Christian read a passage from the Qur’an. He was a good reciter. Every one seemed to be moved by his heart-rending reading, including the reciter himself. Immediately afterward, prominent Muslim thinker and writer, Maulana Waheeduddin Khan, who narrated this story, asked him: “Do you think Qur’an is the Word of God?” In a moment of truth he said: “Yes.” But, then, he had second thoughts so he added: “But only for the Arabs.”

Actually not only the Qur’anic message keeps attracting people all over the world, its words also move people who may not know a word of Arabic language. Famous Egyptian reciter Qari Abdul Basit reportedly once accompanied then President Gamal Abdul Nasir to a meeting with the Soviet leaders. During a break in the meeting, Nasir asked him to recite the Qur’an before the top Soviet leaders. When he finished the recitation, Qari Abdul Basit saw four of them shedding tears. “We don’t know what it was,” they later explained. But there was some thing touching in those Words!

Ironically at that time Qur’an was the forbidden tree for the Muslims in the Soviet Union. Reading, teaching, or even possessing a copy of the Qur’an resulted in the most severe punishments. The KGB was always on the lookout. Its agents could enter any house, any time, if they suspected anyone inside of reading Qur’an or offering prayers. Religious leaders were drafted for compulsory labor. Mosques and Islamic schools were closed down and turned into cinema houses, factories and offices. One could not find a copy of the Qur’an anywhere. The ruthless state machinery did everything within its power to extinguish the flame of Qur’an from the empire. Yet during those seventy dark years Muslims kept the flame burning. They developed elaborate camouflage mechanisms, at tremendous risks, to teach Qur’an to their children. Little children had to stay away from their parents for months at a time as they retired to secret hujras (rooms) where they memorized Qur’an and received religious instructions without ever having looked at a printed page. Their stories remain a neglected but extremely bright part of our recent history.

What kind of Book can command such devotion and sacrifices? Only the Book that begins by asserting:

“This is the Book; in it is guidance sure, without doubt, to those who fear Allah.” (Al-Baqarah 2:2).

And then each and every line of it attests to that assertion. It declares:

“The Most Gracious! It is He Who has taught the Qur’an.” (Al-Rahman 55:1-2).

It challenges:

“Say If the whole of mankind and Jinn were to gather together to produce the like of this Qur’an, they could not produce the like thereof, even if they backed up each other with help and support.” (Bani Israel 17:88).


It claims:

“Verily it is We Who revealed the Remembrance and verily We are its guardians.” (Al-Hijr, 15:9).
 

Qur’an is the first document in the Arabic language. There is no other language of the world that has withstood the passage of fourteen centuries. Over the centuries, rivers change courses, civilizations rise and fall, and languages become extinct and new ones develop. Consider the expression “faeder ure on heofonum” from Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6 from a Bible of 900 C.E. We are told it means: “Our father in heaven.” It also means that any writing from that time cannot be read by an English speaker today. But any Arabic speaker can open the Qur’an today and understand its message. As did all the people in the intervening centuries!

Prominent scholar Dr. Hamidullah tells of an effort in Germany by the Christian scholars to gather all the Greek manuscripts of Bible as the original Bible in Aramaic is extinct. They gathered all manuscripts in the world and after examining them reported: “Some two hundred thousand contradictory narrations have been found… of these one-eighth are of an important nature.” When the report was published, some people established an Institute for Qur’anic Research in Munich with the goal of examining Qur’an the same way. A gigantic research project was started that continued for three generations. By 1933, 43000 photocopies of Qur’anic manuscripts had been collected. A report published shortly before World War II showed the results of the examination of these manuscripts. While some minor mistakes of calligraphy were found, not a single discrepancy in the text had been discovered!

Of course the love, devotion and care that Muslim showed toward the Qur’an, and that became the immediate cause of its miraculous preservation, was inspired by the Prophet Muhammad, Salla-Allahu alayhi wa sallam. On one occasion he asked the companions in Suffa: Which of you would like to go out every morning to Buthan or Al- Aqiq (two markets near Medina) and bring two large she-camels without being guilty of sin or without severing the ties of kinship? Camels were the valuable commodity of the time, she-camels even more so. Its equivalent today may be a brand new automobile. As they showed their interest, Prophet Muhammad, Salla-Allahu alayhi wa sallam, explained: To teach or recite two verses of the Qur’an is better than getting two she-camels. And three verses are better than three she-camels. (Muslim).

And so, for centuries this ummah displayed an unprecedented love and devotion for the Book of Allah. It began the education of its children by teaching them how to read Qur’an. It began its day by reciting from the Qur’an. Qur’an was divided into seven parts, each called a manzil, so it could be read completely every week. It was divided into thirty parts, each called a juz, so it could be read completely every month. Qur’an is the most read and memorized book in the world!

Today, though, we see a change. Thanks to the twin scourges of a colonial education system and the television, today we find millions of Muslim children for whom learning to read the Qur’an is not part of their education. We find millions of Muslim homes where Qur’an is read only on special occasions. When someone dies, for example. This despite the fact that in most parts of the world today, unlike the Soviet Union of yesterday, reading the Qur’an is no longer a high risk proposition. How unfortunate is the person who should die of thirst while holding the refreshing glass of water in his hands! How unfortunate the person who should die of disease while holding the perfect medicine in his hands!

Of course we must read it, understand it, and put it into practice. But we must also remember that reading with full deference and proper etiquettes is a pre-requisite for understanding the Qur’an, just as understanding its message is a pre-requisite for practicing it. Our goal must be to live by the Qur’an. For only then we truly live. Otherwise we only pretend to live.

A Wise Woman

A wise woman who was traveling in the mountains found a precious stone in a stream. The next day she met another traveler who was hungry, and the wise woman opened her bag to share her food. The hungry traveler saw the precious stone and asked the woman to give it to him, she did so without hesitation. The traveler left, rejoicing in his good fortune. He knew the stone was worth enough to give him security for a lifetime. But a few days later he came back to return the stone to the wise woman.

“I have been thinking,” he said, “I know how valuable the stone is, but I give it back in the hope that you can give me something even more precious. Give me what you have within you that enabled you to give me the stone.”

Meray Pass Raho

Meray Pass Raho – translated as : Be with me / Stay with me / Be near me.
One of the classic Urdu poem by great Poet, Faiz Ahmad Faiz.

Meray Pass Raho

You who demolish me, you whom I love,
be near me. Remain near me when evening,
drunk on the blood of the skies,
becomes night, in its one hand
a perfumed balm, in the other
a sword sheathed in the diamond of stars.

Be near me when night laments or sings,
or when it begins to dance,
its steel-blue anklets ringing with grief.

Be here when longings, long submerged
in the heart’s waters, resurface
and when everyone begins to look:
Where is the assassin? In whose sleeve
is hidden the redeeming knife?

And when wine, as it is poured, is the sobbing
of children whom nothing will console -
when nothing holds,
when nothing is:
at that dark hour when night mourns,
be near me, my destroyer, my lover,
be near me.

They don’t care about us

Dont watch it if you dont like Micheal Jackson

Michael Jackson – They don’t care about us (Prison Version)

Wonder, if I should add the lyrics too …

The Mad Fence

A folktale rewritten..

Once there was and once there wasn’t, a long time ago, a young boy named Tariq with a VERY bad temper. When his mother called him to get up for school in the morning he would yell at her, “I’m up, leave me alone!” even though he had just opened his eyes.

If he wanted spaghetti when his mother made macaroni and cheese, he would get mad at her for not asking him before cooking.

When his little sister accidentally touched his toys he would yell at her. Always. He HATED it when someone touched HIS stuff, especially his sister.

When his friend missed the ball in a soccer game and their team lost, he yelled really bad words and his friend decided not to be friends with him anymore. Well, it WAS all his friend’s fault anyway, and who needs friends!

His father was a sailor and left home often to sail on ships around the world. He wasn’t home a lot. One day, his father came home from a long trip while Tariq was working on a model ship on the table.

His father roared out “Assalaamu ‘alaikum, I’m home!” and his mother and little sister came running happily from the back rooms to greet him. A gust of wind from the open door blew down the newly glued mast of Tariq’s model ship. Tariq screamed in rage. “Shut that door! You just ruined my model!”

Tariq’s father, mother, and little sister stared at him in shock. Everyone stayed away from Tariq for a while, while Tariq’s father had coffee and talked with his wife and daughter. There was lots of news of the family to catch up on.

Then, when Tariq’s mother went to start supper, Tariq’s father called him out to the storage shed in the back yard.

“Tariq, see these nails? See this hammer? I want you to take a nail to the back fence and hammer it in, for getting mad about the breeze disturbing your model earlier today. And from now on, I want you to pound in a nail each time you get angry.”

Tariq didn’t understand why he should hammer a nail, but he did as his father ordered. It was hard to hit the nail square on the head, and once he hit his finger instead of the nail. He got mad at the hammer and threw it across the yard. Tariq’s father made him nail in another nail, for throwing the hammer in rage.

The next morning, Tariq was almost late to school because he had to hammer in 5 nails for yelling at his mother, father, and sister for 5 different reasons before breakfast. By the end of the day he had hammered in 37 nails, and he was pretty tired of hammering. He was getting better about not hitting his fingers though.

Day by day Tariq hammered nails. Why did his father insist on it? Looking at the fence, with its many nails, Tariq was embarrassed by all the proof of his bad deeds.

Some of the kids from school knew about the fence, because he accidentally told them. They called it the “Mad Fence”. They asked many times to come and see it but Tariq wouldn’t show it to them. But little by little, he found that the thought of the fence made it easier to hold his tongue and he gradually began to yell less often, and when he yelled, he was able to stop more quickly.

Then, one evening, he was building a block castle and his sister, who had come over to watch, dropped her stuffed bunny on the blocks, making the whole thing come down. Tariq stood up quickly, took a big breath to yell, and, instead of saying something mad, suddenly burst out, “OK, I’ll get a nail!”

His father came out to the fence as Tariq pounded in the new nail. They talked about how he was pounding in fewer nails now. He had made great progress. He was even starting to have some friends again. Friends were nice to have! That was slow going though, because they remembered how mad he used to get and didn’t trust him yet.

“I’m glad I don’t have to pound so many nails anymore, Dad. Seeing all the nails in the fence is ugly.”

Then his father suggested that Tariq could remove a nail each day that he went all day without losing his temper. Day by day Tariq looked forward to removing a nail from the fence before Isha prayer. It was often difficult to pull them out and he had to struggle, but it felt good to remove the signs of his bad deeds.

Finally, the day came when he removed the last nail. He called his family to witness the great event. He felt very proud.

His mother was so happy, she kissed him and promised to make his favorite dessert for after supper.

His father, however, said, “You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this. You can put a knife in a man and draw it out. It won’t matter how many times you say, “I’m sorry”. The wound is still there. A verbal wound is as bad as a physical one.”

The family stared at the fence solemnly. It was a witness of Tariq’s battle with himself. Then his father hugged him and said, “May you grow to be a strong man, Son”.

---

Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said, “A strong man is not a good wrestler but one who controls himself when he is angry.” (Bukhari)

Echo of the Elephants

One of my friend sent me this and I simply had to post it here, image is edited by me.

“As I was passing the elephants, I suddenly stopped, confused by the fact that these huge creatures were being held by only a small rope tied to their front leg.

No chains, no cages. It was obvious that the elephants could, at anytime, break away from their bonds but for some reason, they did not. I saw a trainer near by and asked why these beautiful, magnificent animals just stood there and made no attempt to get away.

“Well,” he said, “when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it’s enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.”

I was amazed. These animals could at any time break free from their bonds but because they believed they couldn’t, they were stuck right where they were.

Like the elephants, how many of us go through life hanging onto a belief that we cannot do something, simply because we failed at it once before?”