What Is Islam?

ISLAM IN ARABIC MEANS "ENTERING GOD'S PEACE"//SUBMISSION AND OBEDIENCE TO ALLAH, HAVING SINCERE FAITH IN HIM, & LIVING LIFE AS WILLED BY ALLAH =)
Any good points found in this blog comes from Allah SWT, all praise to Him. Any mistakes/inaccurate information in this blog is purely due to myself. Hence, please correct and forgive me.

Saturday, June 18, 2011

1. PART 1/2: Never settle for average! Go for high Excellence~!!



Bismillahirrahmanirrahim - in the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.

Assalamu' alaykum warahmatullah wa barakatuh & greetings to all,

Hopefully everyone's in the pink of health and for us Muslims, may we always be in our highest state of Iman. So, as I've mentioned the other day, I'd like to share what I gained from the Islamic Conference that I attended recently and alhamdulillah, today Allah has given me the opportunity and the time to write on one of the topics.

Okay, before I dive into today's post, I'd like to outline the topics that I will address in the few next posts:

1. Justice vs Excellence (This post)
2. Call on Me (Part 1, Part 2)
3. What is Love? (Part 1, Part 2)
4. Raising a Child
5. The Walking Qur'an
6. The Perfect Storm

Please note that my writings are based on my note-taking coupled with my annotations. Thank you.
____________________________________________________________

Speaker: Shaykh Moutasem Al-Hameedi

  • When an ordinary Muslim takes the initiatives to undergo a transformation by taking a leap in lifestyle or habits in order to become an outstanding Muslim à this is what we call Islam ! ISLAM (A Muslim) IS OUTSTANDING~!! 
  • Halal & Haram are the bottomline in Islam BUT when a person mentions Islam, the first thing they speak of is the "Halal & Haram" subject. WHY SO?!! Why are you trying to hit the bottomline? Once you are under this, you are clearly in trouble and a dangerous state! Allah teaches us great things above line, so why do we always look at the most bottom requirements? Why do we constantly set that as our benchmark?! ISLAM IS PERFECTION, reaching the outstanding level~!!
~Excellence is the result of striving each day to do better than the last~
  • What are my obligations towards Allah SWT? This is where the level of justice is introduced à One fulfills the 5 pillars and abide by the bottomline and YOU WILL BE SUCCESSFUL~! HOWEVER, humans are not perfect. Nobody is perfect, hence the best plan for defense is offense! You have to aspire higher in Islam. The higher you go, you will discover more beauty in ISLAM! =)
  • The Prophet(pbuh) once said, "Shouldn't I be a grateful servant?" Look, take the Prophet(pbuh) as an example. He wanted the highest position, to be the closest to Allah and he didn't want to just fulfill the bottomline. He did not make himself feel satisfied with just the minimum. Even though God loves him so much and has already granted him Paradise, etc, YET he still exerted himself in worshiping his Lord Almighty; he prayed for hours at wee hours of the morning till his feet became swollen and cracked, he bled and was tearful. Aishah, Prophet's wife wanted the Prophet next to her, she wants to feel him cos she loves him so much and albeit the Prophet(pbuh) loves her so much too, he extended his hands to his wife and said to her, "Let me worship my Lord. I can't live without being close to Him. Please allow me to worship Him because that is where Paradise lies, HE IS MY PARADISE." 
Okay, this is it for today. I will post the continuation to this in the next post, inshaAllah~! -- Part 2

WAllahua'lam.

~Take no challenge lightly - strive for Excellence~
(as Muslims, let's do our best to achieve the highest we can. Let's uphold Islam's name and not bring it down instead~!)

3 comments:

Musafir Sabahan said...

assalamualaikum
juz wanna leave some comment by dropping here
nice2 ntry...like it.
meaningful...
wish 2 read ur next post bout this.
Islam 4 all...strive 4 mardatillah biiznillah

qilaraf said...

assalamualaikum liana ^^

regarding the halal-haram thing, one of my friends said that it maybe because they are fear of it.. fear of the boundaries they have to obliged, the habits which may no longer be acceptable in Islam itself.. but i would think that it is because they are not fully understand the main reasons why certain things are halal and why certain others are haram..

what do you think? (n_n")

... said...

wa alaikumusalam wa rahmatullah ukhti,

hehe, qilah talked to your friend bout this is it? Anyway, yes, ana totally agree w yr friend. It is true that many Muslims talk of halal-haram cos of their fear of acts that may breach what's allowed by Allah which indirectly also means not pleasuring our Lord(which is what our life is about-mentioned in ana's previous post).

HOWEVER, due to THIS fear, it has caused many to misunderstand and always prioritise halal-haram only. Because of this fear, it also causes ppls' minds to tend to only focus on this area BUT IN FACT, Islam is a lot broader than that.

And I quote, "we need to understand the word of Allah: "people need not fear the unknown if they are capable of achieving what they need and want." We are afraid of losing what we have & causing anger to Him. But this fear evaporates when we understand that our life stories and the history of the world were written by the same hand." -The Alchemist-

send this to your friend too.. ^_^ shukran membaca ya ukhti~

salam fillah=)