Hijrah

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

Hijrah. I think this is one of the sweetest moments of my life. To finally know The One. To finally know the true meaning of life. For the first time ever the purpose of life seemed more logical and understandable. For the first time, I felt alive.

It was around 3 years ago. Life to me was just fine, but I didn't know that there were more than just waking up at 5.30 am for school and going back to my room (I was staying at the hostel at that time. I was in Lower 6th) after the class had finished and going to night prep after Isyak prayer. Neither did I know that Fridays and Sundays were not supposed to be 'lazy days'.

And one Ramadhan night, boom! A bullet from tazkirah session hit, and I realised how ignorant I had been my whole life.And that day my journey began.

Ups and downs are normal. Up to this day I'm still facing so many struggles in this quest to earn His love. To fall down is a norm, but what matters is that effort to get back up and continue striving.

Stay strong fighters!

p/s : I actually would like to announce that I will no longer be writing for this blog as I have moved to my new page, Thoughts in Pieces, and all contents from this blog have also been imported to the new page. I would like to say Thank You to everyone, and I hope whatever I have shared here benefit us all both in this world and the Hereafter. Jazakumullahu Khair!

For myself first and foremost.

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

I can't really remember when I started to realise that writing is one of my strengths... well minus my so-not-girly handwriting. Back then in school, you know how the questions for language (Malay and English) are right? In that list of questions I have a high tendency to choose creative writing over factual/academic writing. I joined competitions. I found joy in creating stories and connecting the words dramatically, be it in English or Malay. I enjoy putting things into words.

As for blogging I started around 2008 or so. I was just a kid, and blogging was kind of the in-thing. Don't ask what were the things that I put in there, but they were definitely not something you would expect to come out of me. Even thinking about it makes me embarrassed sometimes. It has been safely deleted. But despite of all the foolish things I said, I actually enjoyed typing down my daily activities, new things I discovered, dissatisfaction and so forth.But despite of all this realisation that I have quite an ability to write, I never actually felt really passionate about it. All the competitions were just for the sake of joining and winning and trying out my luck, which most of the time, I was considerably lucky.

I'm not sure if it has developed into a passion or not, but recently I do feel some kind of relief when writing, especially on my journal which I just started after coming here. I started fresh with blogging around 2 years ago, which I failed to consistently write at first but I have overcome it after coming here, too. And not forgetting the success of "Kuadratik" (nerd aleeeert!!) Alhamdulillah.

As time passes my preference in the way of expressing my thoughts and ideas is expanding. Now, I am more into advocating in making the most out of life. We have a time limit to be in this world, which no one knows except for Allah, so why not make it more meaningful and presentable to Him in the Hereafter?

And in my current work I pour them all out, but as I am re-reading it I see that everything that I say is thrown back to my face.

"O you who have believed, why do you say what you do not do? Great is hatred in the sight of Allah that you say what you do not do." [As-Saff : 2-3]

And then I realised that actually we all know a bit of everything. We know how important it is to focus in our prayer. We know that prayer is an obligation upon us Muslims. We know the importance of sincerity. We know this, we know that. But there are things that we know but we don't practice, that we deliberately ignore on many unreasonable stances.  Or it's just seated at the very back of our head, waiting to come out.

So, everything that I said, is not merely me reminding everyone else, but it's a way of reminding myself, too. In the end, and in truth, it's me who needs them the most, a normal human being, still trying to strive and struggling to remain on His path. 

May Allah forgive us.

The blessing of health and time.

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

Spring has finally bloomed, and I got the chance to visit Gulhane Park last 2 weekends. I was actually meeting a fellow Bruneian who happened to be studying in one of the madrasahs in Istanbul. I chose Gulhane Park because I expected the tulips to have started blooming, And they did! So we spent that afternoon enjoying the flowers and scent of spring, updating each other about things happening since we last hung out together. The day went well  -until that night I started having fever.

Not only that, I developed quite a bad cough as well, and for the whole week I was sick and I had to stay in to rest. It took around 3-4 days for the fever to completely go away, and currently my cough is not driving me crazy anymore. But I'm still in the process of dezombifying myself after the Sick Week, because falling sick has disrupted my physical and mental system from functioning normally. My plans for the week were badly shifted. My mind wandered more than it usually does, and then at one point I missed being healthy again.

It reminded me of the hadith by Rasulullah SAW on time and health. Time and health are indeed deceiving. We rarely realise their presence until we lost them. As I was resting, too hot (literally) to do anything, coughing my chest out, things i was supposed to be doing and things i had been wanting to do were doing somersaults in  my head, and I started to wish I had done them earlier at the time when my health permits. But I was too late.

Take care of your time and health whenever you can, because once gone, it's not something you can easily regain.