headerphoto

Sandwiched by Jannah

 

Bismillahhirrahmanirrahim… a reminder made especially for me, and only then, to others.

 

Picture a child and his mom going out shopping in a mall. Naturally, being a child, he was tad naughty. Mom then gave him a good spanking and yelling, the kid cried his head off, yet, even so, his hands never let go of his mother’s leg. His world revolves around his mother. He doesn’t want to deal with those huge and ugly strangers passing by. No matter how disappointed and angry the mother was, she was all he had. He never let go.

Subhanallah, such should be the relationship between us and Allah Azza wa Jalla,

Being what we are, we never failed to disappoint the standards set by Allah in every turn. And of course, He knows it. So much so, this trait of constantly being involved in whatever garb being thrown at us, is listed as part of the trait of the muttaqins (people of taqwa). Curious? You should be.

In Surah Ali ‘Imran, the verse 134-135 (which mentions the traits of muttaqins), are sandwiched between the verse 133 and 136, which mentions about Jannah. I don’t know about you guys, but being sandwiched by Jannah sounds pretty darn awesome.

The traits of Muttaqin (03:134-135):

  1. Those who spent their money, in times of ease, and in times of hardship. – in Arabic, infak literally means to ‘let go’, so to be exact, you’re not even spending them, but you’re letting them go, ultimately for the sake of Allah.
  2. Those who swallow their anger, and forgives out of love – here again, I want to highlight the powerful imagery used by Allah. Note that when people eat, we can see from the movement of the cheek, munching the food. But if you swallow the food, it would be hard to guess so. Such is with anger, that you should swallow it, meaning it shouldn’t even show on your face that you are angry. Not so easy eh. And even harder, is to forgive out of love. And that love is not necessarily meant for those who transgress you, as naturally most people won’t be able to do so. Technically speaking, to forgive is to give pardon to those who doesn’t even deserve it. That love is from Allah. Allah made mention on the very same verse (135), He is giving us the option between your anger to those who transgress you compared to His love.  And how terribly pissed could you be to ignore the love that Allah is offering you in exchange for your pardon.
  3. Those who wronged themselves or commit immorality. (We fit easily into the first part of this category. But take note in what Allah has to say next) but immediately, they REMEMBERED ALLAH and ASK FOR FORGIVENESS and do not persist in what they have done while they know.

 

We can never escape of doing such mistakes and falling short of the standards set by Allah. But we must never lose hope in His Mercy, for we are not even allowed to. There’s a reason why the sins of our past, which you and I are constantly doing are hidden and kept secret in the closet by Allah s.w.t, so that we would always in the end be able to go back closer to Allah. He’s the only one who knows our sins. So take time to reflect and contemplate our actions, and then seek forgiveness. Who else do we have to go to?

A final piece of advice is to heed the trick of shaytan, whenever we commit sins, he’ll come to us and mess with our heads with lines like:

“you did THAT, now you want to go and do doa?  Two-faced!”

“you’re a hypocrite, how can you face Allah after what you’ve done”

“ok first you did that, now you want to go to the masjid?”

“so now you wanna go to a lecture after doing THAT?”

These are pretty much the common lines that would probably end up in our heads, so heed it, and beware of it. Don’t fall trap to it. Isolating ourselves will only take away the khusyuk in our solah, and doa. And it’s a terribly fight to earn those back.

Again, the main highlight of this issue is to show that we all mess up every once awhile. But the thing that set us apart, are the actions that we take after we messed up. So, for whatever the reasons it may be, and even when others won’t be able to accept you, ALWAYS go back to Allah, for He is the Most Forgiving. May our struggle put us among those who are sandwiched by Jannah. InsyaAllah.


Go Back

Comment