A Flickering Light

Bismillah, Assalam u alaikum! 

The topic of forgiveness is a vast topic with many hadiths and many stories. Inshallah I will tackle this topic in many future posts to come. However today we will look at a Hadith from Riyad-us-saliheen page 28 Hadith number 16.
It is as follows:

Abu Musa Al ash'ari (ra) reported : The Prophet (saw) said, " Allah the exalted, will continue to stretch out His Hand in the night so that the sinners of the day may repent, and continue to stretch His Hand in the daytime so that sinners of the night may repent, until the sun rises from the west."  
[Collected by Muslim]

The Prophet (saw) said that Allah's Hands are stretched open to accept forgiveness in the night so that those who sin during the day may repent in the veil of the night, and those who sin under the cover of darkness, may repent in the confrontation of a new day, perhaps hoping for a brighter horizon.  Whatever the case, the doors or mercy are open to public till the day the horizon switches gears. 

Let's be real. We all sin. Whether it's manifest, or whether it's locked away in a room, there are times that we regret deeply. Now stop. You can only feel darkness if you have seen light. And darkness is not the absence of light. Just like peace is not the absence of war. In order to understand that you are in darkness, you must be able to SEE that darkness. That means that your heart has a grain of light. A flickering night light. It may be old and rusty, it may be broken and dirty, but it's there. 

And we are so scared to come close. Wrapped in dirty and torn rags. Mud and dirty streaks on our face. Stringy hair and a stench that swears never to be squelched. We are afraid that if we come close, our past sins may extinguish the little weak light we have. But we forget that the mere fact we are afraid, is a huge accomplishment. To have that guilt means that we are aware of our situation. 

Grab that light. Who are we to underestimate the mercy of The One Who has our soul in His Hand. 

Ya ilah, la tuzigh quloobuna ba'da ith hadaiy tana, wa hablana milla dunka rahma

Sidra k. Afzal

A New Start

Bismillahhir Rahman nirRaheem

I begin in the name of The Most Merciful, Most Beneficent.

                                           

Assalam u alaikum! 

It has been nearly 2 years since I last posted. If you are a past reader... You may have noticed the not-so-slight change in the name and overall look. So inshallah this blog will now be called A String of Pearls. I have deleted some of my old posts, but I decided not to create a new blog due to the sheer fact that I have been blogging since 2012. 

As I was reading my past blog posts, I literally laughed out loud. I was such a child back then... Lol. Bithinillah tho, I will update this blog weekly if not more -inshallah. Life in 2015 has been going crazy. My short story was voted #1 on Teen Ink, I won first in poetry competition, got interviews by the Wall Street Journal and inshallah a Representative will be meeting with me tmrw over my article! All praise is due to Allah and all thanks is due to Him! I thank him for this whole way he has brought me and make due that Allah keep us all guided on the straight path!

Over the years I have seen that there is always this one post that gets a lot of attention and that is Depression. So inshallah I will write more on that topic. :)

I will leave with quote: "Carpe Diem"

Sieze the day and don't wait for the perfect moment-take a moment and make it perfect! 

Wasalam!

Sidra k. Afzal