Do not grieve, there is another life to come…!! Üzülme, bizi bekleyen yeni bir hayat var … !!

The day will come when Allah will gather together the first of the creation and the last of it. The knowledge of this occurrence alone should reassure you of Allah’s justice. So whoever’s money is usurped here shall find it there; whoever is oppressed here shall find justice carried out there; and whoever oppresses here shall find his punishment there.

Immanuel Kant, the German philosopher, said,

“The drama of this life is not complete; there must be a second scene to it, for we see the tyrant and his victims without seeing justice being executed. We see the conqueror and the subjugated, without the latter finding any revenge. Therefore there must be another world, where justice will be carried out.”

Ash-Shaykh `Ali at-Tantawi, commenting on this, said:

“This statement suggests a confession from this foreigner (to Islam); of the existence of a Hereafter where judgment will take place.”

An Arab poet said:

“If the minister and his delegates rule despotically, and the judge on earth is unjust in his judgments, then woe, followed by woe after woe

Upon the judge of the earth from the judge who is above.

“(This Day shall every person be recompensed for what he earned. No injustice [shall he done to anybody]. Truly, Allah is Swift in reckoning. (Qur ‘an 40: 17)

Robert Louis Stevenson said:

“Every person is capable of performing his daily tasks, no matter how difficult they are, and every person is capable of living happily during his day until the sun sets: and this is the meaning of life.”

“Robert Louis Stevenson şöyle dedi ; Ne kadar meşakkatli olursa olsun her insan işini bir gün içinde yapabilir. Güneş batıncaya kadar her insan mutluluk içinde yaşayabilir. İşte hayatın anlamı budur.”

Stephen Leacock said:

“The young child says: when I will become a bigger boy. The boy says: when I become a teenager, and when that time comes, he says: when I will marry. What about after marriage? And what comes after all of these stages? One’s thoughts constantly follow the tune of the following: when I will be able to retire. But when one actually reaches old age and looks back, he is scorched by a cold wind. He lost out on his whole life that dwindled away without ever living inside of it. And thus we learn, only when it is too late, that life is to be lived in every breathing minute and hour.”

Such is the state of those who put off repenting from their sins. One of our pious predecessors said:

“I warn you of delaying and saying that I will do it later, for this is a phrase that prevents one from doing good and causes one to fall behind in deeds of righteousness.”

Leave them to eat and enjoy, and let them be preoccupied with [false] hope. They will come to know! (Qur’an 15: 3)

The French philosopher, Montaigne, said:

“My life was filled with bad luck that never showed mercy.”

I assert that despite their knowledge and intelligence, many famous thinkers knew nothing of the wisdom behind their own creation. They were not guided by the teachings that Allah sent through His Messenger, Muhammad (pbuh).

And he for whom Allah has not appointed light, for him there is no light. (Qur’an 24: 40)

Verily, we showed him the way, whether he be grateful or ungrateful. (Qur’an 76: 3)

Dante said:

“Consider that this day will not occur again.”
Better and more beautiful and complete is the hadith:
“Pray as if it is your farewell prayer.”

Dante şöyle dedi:

“Bugünün bir daha doğmayacağını düşün.”

Daha iyi ve daha güzel ve tamamlayan bir Hadis,
“Namazına kalktığın vakit (dünyaya) veda edenin (namazı gibi) namaz kıl.”

Whoever puts it into his mind that today is his last day, will make a fresh repentance, will do good deeds, and will strive to be obedient to his Lord, the Almighty and His Messenger (bpuh).

Grieve not and ask yourself the following questions

1. Do I put off living in the present because of fears and apprehensions about the future or because of hopes of the magical garden beyond the horizon?

2. Do I embitter my present life by mulling over events that occurred in the past?

3. Do I wake up in the morning with an intention of spending my day usefully?

4. Do I find that I am benefiting from my life when I try to concentrate on a present situation or task?

5. When will I begin to live in the present moment, without worrying too much about the past and future? Next week? Tomorrow? Or today?

Excerpt from the book “Don’t Be Sad , Aaidh ibn Abdullah al-Qarni

Why do people have to leave each other? Neden insanlar birbirlerini bırakmak zorundadırlar? by Yasmin Mogahed

When I was 17 years old, I had a dream. I dreamt that I was sitting inside a masjid and a little girl walked up to ask me a question. She asked me: “Why do people have to leave each other?” The question was a personal one, but it seemed clear to me why the question was chosen for me.
I was one to get attached.

Ever since I was a child, this temperament was clear. While other children in preschool could easily recover once their parents left, I could not. My tears, once set in motion, did not stop easily. As I grew up, I learned to become attached to everything around me. From the time I was in first grade, I needed a best friend. As I got older, any fall-out with a friend shattered me. I couldn’t let go of anything. People, places, events, photographs, moments—even outcomes became objects of strong attachment. If things didn’t work out the way I wanted or imagined they should, I was devastated. And disappointment for me wasn’t an ordinary emotion. It was catastrophic. Once let down, I never fully recovered. I could never forget, and the break never mended. Like a glass vase that you place on the edge of a table, once broken, the pieces never quite fit again.

But the problem wasn’t with the vase. Or even that the vases kept breaking. The problem was that I kept putting them on the edge of tables. Through my attachments, I was dependent on my relationships to fulfill my needs. I allowed those relationships to define my happiness or my sadness, my fulfillment or my emptiness, my security, and even my self-worth. And so, like the vase placed where it will inevitably fall, through those dependencies I set myself up for disappointment. I set myself up to be broken. And that’s exactly what I found: one disappointment, one break after another.

But the people who broke me were not to blame any more than gravity can be blamed for breaking the vase. We can’t blame the laws of physics when a twig snaps because we leaned on it for support. The twig was never created to carry us.

Our weight was only meant to be carried by God. We are told in the Quran: “…whoever rejects evil and believes in God hath grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold, that never breaks. And God hears and knows all things.” (Qur’an 2: 256)

There is a crucial lesson in this verse: that there is only one handhold that never breaks. There is only one place where we can lay our dependencies. There is only one relationship that should define our self-worth and only one source from which to seek our ultimate happiness, fulfillment, and security. That place is God.

But this world is all about seeking those things everywhere else. Some of us seek it in our careers, some seek it in wealth, some in status. Some, like me, seek it in our relationships. In her book, Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert describes her own quest for happiness. She describes moving in and out of relationships, and even traveling the globe in search of this fulfillment. She seeks that fulfillment—unsuccessfully—in her relationships, in meditation, even in food.

And that’s exactly where I spent much of my own life: seeking a way to fill my inner void. So it was no wonder that the little girl in my dream asked me this question. It was a question about loss, about disappointment. It was a question about being let down. A question about seeking something and coming back empty handed. It was about what happens when you try to dig in concrete with your bare hands: not only do you come back with nothing—you break your fingers in the process. And I learned this not by reading it, not by hearing it from a wise sage. I learned it by trying it again, and again, and again.

And so, the little girl’s question was essentially my own question…being asked to myself.

Ultimately, the question was about the nature of the dunya as a place of fleeting moments and temporary attachments. As a place where people are with you today, and leave or die tomorrow. But this reality hurts our very being because it goes against our nature. We, as humans, are made to seek, love, and strive for what is perfect and what is permanent. We are made to seek what’s eternal. We seek this because we were not made for this life. Our first and true home was Paradise: a land that is both perfect and eternal. So the yearning for that type of life is a part of our being. The problem is that we try to find that here. And so we create ageless creams and cosmetic surgery in a desperate attempt to hold on—in an attempt to mold this world into what it is not, and will never be.

And that’s why if we live in dunya with our hearts, it breaks us. That’s why this dunya hurts. It is because the definition of dunya, as something temporary and imperfect, goes against everything we are made to yearn for. Allah put a yearning in us that can only be fulfilled by what is eternal and perfect. By trying to find fulfillment in what is fleeting, we are running after a hologram…a mirage. We are digging into concrete with our bare hands. Seeking to turn what is by its very nature temporary into something eternal is like trying to extract from fire, water. You just get burned. Only when we stop putting our hopes in dunya, only when we stop trying to make the dunya into what it is not—and was never meant to be (jannah)—will this life finally stop breaking our hearts.

We must also realize that nothing happens without a purpose. Nothing. Not even broken hearts. Not even pain. That broken heart and that pain are lessons and signs for us. They are warnings that something is wrong. They are warnings that we need to make a change. Just like the pain of being burned is what warns us to remove our hand from the fire, emotional pain warns us that we need to make an internal change. That we need to detach. Pain is a form of forced detachment. Like the loved one who hurts you again and again and again, the more dunya hurts us, the more we inevitably detach from it. The more we inevitably stop loving it.

And pain is a pointer to our attachments. That which makes us cry, that which causes us most pain is where our false attachments lie. And it is those things which we are attached to as we should only be attached to Allah which become barriers on our path to God. But the pain itself is what makes the false attachment evident. The pain creates a condition in our life that we seek to change, and if there is anything about our condition that we don’t like, there is a divine formula to change it. God says: “Verily never will God change the condition of a people until they change what is within themselves.” (Qur’an, 13:11)

After years of falling into the same pattern of disappointments and heartbreak, I finally began to realize something profound. I had always thought that love of dunya meant being attached to material things. And I was not attached to material things. I was attached to people. I was attached to moments. I was attached to emotions. So I thought that the love of dunya just did not apply to me. What I didn’t realize was that people, moments, emotions are all a part of dunya. What I didn’t realize is that all the pain I had experienced in life was due to one thing, and one thing only: love of dunya.

As soon as I began to have that realization, a veil was lifted from my eyes. I started to see what my problem was. I was expecting this life to be what it is not, and was never meant to be: perfect. And being the idealist that I am, I was struggling with every cell in my body to make it so. It had to be perfect. And I would not stop until it was. I gave my blood, sweat, and tears to this endeavor: making the dunya into jannah. This meant expecting people around me to be perfect. Expecting my relationships to be perfect. Expecting so much from those around me and from this life. Expectations. Expectations. Expectations. And if there is one recipe for unhappiness it is that: expectations. But herein lay my fatal mistake. My mistake was not in having expectations; as humans, we should never lose hope. The problem was in *where* I was placing those expectations and that hope. At the end of the day, my hope and expectations were not being placed in God. My hope and expectations were in people, relationships, means. Ultimately, my hope was in this dunya rather than Allah.

And so I came to realize a very deep Truth. An ayah began to cross my mind. It was an ayah I had heard before, but for the first time I realized that it was actually describing me: “Those who rest not their hope on their meeting with Us, but are pleased and satisfied with the life of the present, and those who heed not Our Signs.” (Qur’an, 10:7)

By thinking that I can have everything here, my hope was not in my meeting with God. My hope was in dunya. But what does it mean to place your hope in dunya? How can this be avoided? It means when you have friends, don’t expect your friends to fill your emptiness. When you get married, don’t expect your spouse to fulfill your every need. When you’re an activist, don’t put your hope in the results. When you’re in trouble don’t depend on yourself. Don’t depend on people. Depend on God.

Seek the help of people—but realize that it is not the people (or even your own self) that can save you. Only Allah can do these things. The people are only tools, a means used by God. But they are not the source of help, aid, or salvation of any kind. Only God is. The people cannot even create the wing of a fly (22:73). And so, even while you interact with people externally, turn your heart towards God. Face Him alone, as Prophet Ibrahim (as) said so beautifully: “For me, I have set my face, firmly and truly, towards Him Who created the heavens and the earth, and never shall I give partners to Allah.” (Qur’an, 6:79)

But how does Prophet Ibrahim (as) describe his journey to that point? He studies the moon, the sun and the stars and realizes that they are not perfect. They set.

They let us down.

So Prophet Ibrahim (as) was thereby led to face Allah alone. Like him, we need to put our full hope, trust, and dependency on God. And God alone. And if we do that, we will learn what it means to finally find peace and stability of heart. Only then will the roller coaster that once defined our lives finally come to an end. That is because if our inner state is dependent on something that is by definition inconstant, that inner state will also be inconstant. If our inner state is dependent on something changing and temporary, that inner state will be in a constant state of instability, agitation, and unrest. This means that one moment we’re happy, but as soon as that which our happiness depended upon changes, our happiness also changes. And we become sad. We remain always swinging from one extreme to another and not realizing why.

We experience this emotional roller coaster because we can never find stability and lasting peace until our attachment and dependency is on what is stable and lasting. How can we hope to find constancy if what we hold on to is inconstant and perishing? In the statement of Abu Bakr is a deep illustration of this truth. After the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ died, the people went into shock and could not handle the news. But although no one loved the Prophet ﷺ like Abu Bakr, Abu Bakr understood well the only place where one’s dependency should lie. He said: “If you worshipped Muhammad, know that Muhammad is dead. But if you worshipped Allah, know that Allah never dies.”

To attain that state, don’t let your source of fulfillment be anything other than your relationship with God. Don’t let your definition of success, failure, or self-worth be anything other than your position with Him (Qur’an, 49:13). And if you do this, you become unbreakable, because your handhold is unbreakable. You become unconquerable, because your supporter can never be conquered. And you will never become empty, because your source of fulfillment is unending and never diminishes.

Looking back at the dream I had when I was 17, I wonder if that little girl was me. I wonder this because the answer I gave her was a lesson I would need to spend the next painful years of my life learning. My answer to her question of why people have to leave each other was: “because this life isn’t perfect; for if it was, what would the next be called?”

Live life as if everything is rigged in your favor. . . Hayatı herşeyin senin arzun istikametinde oluyormuş gibi yaşa ― Jalaluddin Rumi.

It is the duty of the believing human being to love people, to love good for them, and to love to benefit them. This is a sign of faith in the human being.

You will not enter paradise until you have faith. and you will not complete your faith until you love one another.

Birbirinizi sevmedikçe iman etmiş olamazsınız ve iman etmedikçe cennete giremezsiniz.

(Holy Prophet Muhummad – peace be upon him)

Friendship is a living thing that lasts only as long as it is nourished with kindness, empathy and understanding.

May Allah swt bless us with His Love, Mercy and forgiveness.

Be like a diamond precious & rare. Not like a stone found everywhere. 💛 Bir elmas gibi ol değerli & nadir rastlanan. Heryerde bulunan bir taş gibi değil. 💛

Humankind today, has been caught by a greater flood than Noah’s and that is “flood of immorality”.

İnsanoğlu bugün, Nuh tufanından daha büyük bir tufana yakalandı ki, o da şu içinde bulunduğumuz “Ahlaksızlık Tufanı”dır.

ll Nureddin YILDIZ ll