Followers

Salam everyone.

First up congrats to YASEMIN/LISA from A Journey EASTWARD to Tartary... who just got back from Disneyland and said Shahada again. Alhamdulillah.

Which got me thinking. Everyone has their strength and weaknesses when entering Islam.
Of the 5 Pillars

(Belief/Shahada)

(Prayers)

(Fasting)

(Charity/Zakat)

(Hajj/Pilgramage)

we each have some or one pillar we excel at. Then we have others we really have trouble with.
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For me, my belief is strong. Alhamdulillah NO swerving or misgivings.

Prayers are the hardest for me. I love praying but have difficulty remembering some of them and making the ones I missed up in a timely manner. This is my personal Jihad I will have all my life to do my prayers ON TIME.

Fasting I thought would be the hardest for me as I love food YUMMY! but it turned out to be the easy for me. I know many others that this is their hardest Pillar and my heart goes out to them.

Charity/Zakat is really what brought me to Islam and is my best Pillar. If I have one dollar I will give you half. If I have half dollar I will give you a quarter. If I have 500 dollars I will give you 450. Alhamdulillah my faith is strong that money is not something we need to hold onto. Allah will send it to you and take it from you but there will always be a flow. Why not do your part and add tot he flow. It feels so good to give to other people too. And those chances when I get in return I feel so blessed.

My friend just left from UAE back to USA and masha'Allah gave me a lot of her stuff and subhanAllah just the things I needed most in my life. Those things I didn't need I have resolved to pass them right along to someone else to feel blessed. I'm currently clearing my house down again to give away to charity. I love the free flow of charity between many people. Always remember, we only have one life, why not spread things around.

Hajj Pillar is one that means a lot to many people and many people can't afford it. I cannot but can't wait to be able to as it's just right next door to me right now in UAE. I look forward to doing this Pillar and look forward to the difficulties I will face. BRING IT ON! I want to touch the Kabba. I want to pray with it in my face. I have the feeling my prayers Pillar will be strengthened with Hajj. Insha'Allah. I know intentions are a strong thing and I believe if you intend something strong enough it will happen eventually or you will be rewarded later for it. My intention for moving to UAE is to save up for Hajj. So far my Hajj fund is at 0..... but it will come. I know it. I'm looking forward to the day my whole family can do it together. I know for some though this will be their biggest Pillar to face. The journey, the walking, the rituals involved...etc. I make du'a for those of you who are struggling with this one.



Sometimes we loose sight of these 5 pillars. We forget their importance or need. We get a little lost. Sometimes returning to them helps to refocus our hearts.


What are your ups and downs in the 5 Pillars?

Have you ever wanted to fight someone so badly. You just felt that you NEEDED to release all your anger onto something right now? Well BRING IT ON!
There is an easy and efficient way to channel your anger and willful spirit in a way that brings you great reward.
I was visiting dearest Habayeb at A Learning Muslimah and read her Post on Ordeals are NECESSARY for the soul. I wanted to add onto her post with my own thoughts.
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We all know the phrase "that which doesn't kill us always makes us stronger" So why when we are tested do we feel so weak and lost? Because we are not seeing our ordeals our trials in the right light. I do this often myself so I'm writing this for myself as much as anyone else.

A trial is like an endurance challenge. Yet more accurately it is a Faith Challenge! Allah throws challenges into our life to test our faith. Like those who build skyscrapers and must build them in a way that if shaken by an earthquake they will not fall. We must build our faith so that when Allah tests us it does not fall.

Many of us are aware of the story of the first Martyr of Islam, a woman, named Sumayya. She was tied up and forced to deny Allah, Muhammad, and Islam. Her son bound to a pole near her was forced to watch her being tormented. She would not compromise her Faith in the face of Death. By uttering her last testification of faith in the face of death she said the ultimate "BRING IT ON!" She literally fought Shaytan and kicked him to the curb. Shaytan wanted her to give in to fear, to helplessness, to give in to disbelief. She did not. By her strength we have a Hero to look up to til the end of time. Those who think women in Islam are weak need only to look to it's first martyr to know the truth.
Everyday we wake up and even when the skies look a perfect blue we will be tested that day. Many of us are strong, stubborn, willful, intelligent, people. When we want to do something we will do it. So we should view each day as a challenge to beat Shaytan and prove our worth to Allah. I myself know that no argument made by man, no whisper of Shaytan, no force 'of nature' Allah may send into my life will convince me Islam is not the Straight Path. I am like Sumayya and know that even in the face of death I will be firmly saying SHAHADA. There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his Messenger.

You wonder how I can be so sure,
what if my child dies? It is by the will of Allah and perhaps it is a Mercy from Him that the child will in the future help me to enter Jannah as all innocents go to Jannah. I will miss my child but their death doesn't mean Allah is cruel and I should forsake Him.
what if my husband beats me everyday? This is the fault of the husband's lack of good faith not the punishment of God. I don't need to loose my faith to leave a man like this, I need only to make my faith stronger and use my resources Allah gives me to leave.
what if I become paralyzed or loose a sense like seeing or hearing? It is just a test to learn how to do things in a new way. To let others gain reward of charity in serving to help me. To benefit in learning the world through the eyes of those who have walked that road before me and do my best in showing that road to others so they too can understand.
what if my plane is crashing and i have to jump into the sea with only a life raft and then wash up on a deserted island? Oh please, nomadic island life BRING IT ON! I'd love that challenge, sure I'd MISS my BELOVED family and friends (ahem and Internet full of bloggers), but I would not forsake Allah because of the "affliction" in fact I would Need to rely on Him and His Mercy even more.

We humans are always in trials and always have problems. No one has a perfect life. Each person is given a set of tasks to overcome to better their souls. Are you going to sit there shrinking from your to-do-list of soul improvement or try to ignore it hoping it will just go away? Or do you flex your strong Will and puff your chest like a man and bellow BRING IT ON!!!

Not every task will be so life altering. Sometimes those of us who are strong in facing these despair situations loose our faith subtly in the everyday drama of trying to keep life rolling smoothly. An example: you have to get to work on time and your kids are dragging you all the way and you show up to work an hour late through no fault of your own and your Boss chews you out, then at lunch break you have to work overtime to make up the time you missed in the morning but you then realize you need 15 minutes to pray Thuhr Prayer, you can't ask your Boss who already thinks your irresponsible so shaytan starts whispering a subtle way to break your faith...."go on and work, you can always make it up later at home right?...after all better late then never?..." so you give in and work really hard all day to SHOW your Boss how wonderful you are. You go pick up your kids but then get so wrapped up in their drama you forget to make up Thuhr and to pray Asr and now it's Maghrib before you realize the sun set and you haven't prayed all day. Your faith feels low and you start feeling anxious and depressed about life....
THIS is where you have failed to make Allah the first priority in your life. This is where you have succumbed to Shaytan and you let him beat you up and take your prized possessions (your faith). You didn't step up and take charge of things where you should have.
You failed that test. And small test like that build up on each other until failing after failing your faith is so weakened. Going back to the skyscraper metaphor. If debris in a tornado continue to tear away at the structure of your building, your building won't survive the next hurricane/earthquake. Instead, when the debris hits (those small tests), you gotta quickly rebuild and make things sturdy again. Repentance for failing even the small tests should come quickly. Even if you let them pile up for a long time now and your building is pretty darn weak you can still take a deep breath and start now to rebuild. Perhaps your neighbor will see you rebuilding and will give you a helping hand.

The first step is yours though. You need to realize you have to step up and face the Challenge of Defending your Faith from those who try to take it from you. You gotta put on your game face and just say Bring it ON! Bring it ALL ON! You will not take me out. And mean it.


May Allah make it easy for you all to do so. Make du'a for each other and when you see your fellow human or animal or even plant being kicked to the curb in any situation Bring it ON yourself to lend a hand. Thus when you are down someone may offer that hand to you.

9:00 PM

T-H-E-O-R-Y

Means someone's thoughts that are not yet FACT.

It is Darwin's theory of Evolution NOT Darwin's FACTS on Evolution. Yet everyone treats it as facts and forces us to learn it in school where Creationism is not allowed.

I spent a number of years as an Atheist studying Darwin's works and held great admiration for what he achieved with his life and was set to stick my Darwin Fish on my car when i first owned one.

There were number of questions though that I never found answers to. Answers that the "Great" Darwin could not answer. Some Questions for the curious like:


Why if we descended from Monkeys/chimps are their STILL monkeys and chimps that have not evolved? Surely they would have long ago changed too. What about all the other animals that have not evolved over the centuries and are still very similar to it's original?



Also the ever present, What was there before the BIG BANG? How did it "randomly" spark? There have been many THEORIES about it but nothing that holds water for long unless, get this, YOU JUST BELIEVE. Yes, you have to BELIEVE in Darwinism to just accept that molecules and atoms randomly sprung together to create this ordered and well maintained universe. It's a leap of Faith in science.


One I no longer share. Alhamdulillah. Don't get me wrong I DO understand that some animals and some things change with time just like a river carving it's way through the Grand Canyon. But I do not believe WE HUMANS started out from monkeys/chimps. The river remains a river, the rock of the canyon remains rock. They each change a little but are THE SAME...It has been clear from my studies on Islam in these matters that Allah created Adam and he was huge compared to us. And in Jannah we will be given back larger bodies. So I do see things from two sides really kinda a blend of Darwin/Creation. I believe Allah created everything with set scientific rules. As things reproduced and changed slowly it is by HIS WILL and PLAN. Take my husband and myself and our children, each child looks exactly like half of each of us. They are the blending of two distinctly different races of HUMAN. They will later reproduce with different features creating completely different people with measurements different from me and my husband. These are known facts. But they will remain shorter or taller examples of HUMANS not anything else.
Now I have seen some deeply inbred people with thick brows and chunky heads that if dressed in a monkey suit could pass for monkey or neanderthal but yet they remain human and if married to someone of lighter browed, higher foreheaded person, would produce different children etc... my point of all this is though we humans do change looks and style depending on location or breeding patterns we still remain human and I truly believe we always HAVE been all the way back to Adam when he was Created by Allah. After all Allah created the other forms so why should Human be any more difficult? We have a different soul perhaps but that is another Post to ponder on. The point is that no one on this earth is the gigantic portions of Adam because of the way we've changed but none of us is any closer to changing into a different species.

So a few years after becoming Muslim I realized I cannot BELIEVE the theory of Darwin and although I totally BELIEVE Allah's Creation, I do see some Middle Ground I think scientist should focus on to improve knowledge instead of fighting all the time.


{By the way I do know all the Darwin sided points about the old "Who created God stuff" after all I used to battle Christians on it long ago so don't bother to fight it out with me ok. I'm just putting out my THEORY of ALL of Creationism and PART of Darwin.}

11:55 PM

Testification of Faith (Shahada)

Wrote: American Muslima Writer |


The Testification of Faith
"I testify that no one is God except Allah,
and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah"

People in this area are resolving to work on their Belief in:



  • Allah (God)
  • Islam
  • Prophet & Messenger of God Muhammad
  • All Prophets and Messengers who came before Muhammad who also conveyed Islam
Belief in Aqeedah Issues like:
  • Attributes of Allah
  • Angels
  • Jinn
  • The Holy Books from Before (103 of them)
  • The Holy Qur'an
  • The Day of Judgement and all it entails
  • Dwelling in Paradise (Jannah) or HellFire Forever
  • Destiny (by the Will of Allah)
  • All Prophets had excellent characters
  • Prophet Muhammad was the last prophet, the seal of all prophets
  • Knowledge about what takes a person out of Islam
Whether you are interested in Learning about Islam and possibly taking the Shahada or you have taken the Shahada and are trying to learn more about it; share with us your resolutions involving these matters!

People say:
"I resolve to study Aqeedah and then take Shahada in three months"
"I am thinking to believe in God"
"My Jummah Resolution is to learn more about Prophet Muhammad's life"

What do you have to say?

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