By ‘Newbie’
I wake up in the early hours of the morning and bow before the Almighty Allah. I believe that Allah is my lord, my Creator, my protector, and that Allah is the granter of my wishes. So to sacrifice 15 minutes of my sleep in the morning is not such a big deal for me. I sleep on for a few more hours depending on my schedule for the day. I spend most of my day in the typically normal manner: attending classes, hanging out with besties, getting depressed, being happy beyond measure, having numerous ups and downs, surfing the net, sleeping, eating, reading books, irritating and teasing my siblings, laying the table for dinner and helping clean up afterwards, sometimes playing on the Wii, talking to my grans, and that’s about it other than praying four other times, praising and thanking my Creator for blessing me with so much and reading the holy Quran! And then I go to sleep! The next day it begins all over again; I have no routine yet I do the above mentioned things more or less during the day.
Except for the praying and reading the Quran, is there a difference between me and a non-Muslim girl? I don’t think so! So a mere difference of faith makes me a terrorist and more prone to killing someone? If you think so, then no offence, but you need to get your head checked!
On a different note, being a Muslim means more than praying, more than reading a holy book. Islam (the religion that we Muslims follow) is a whole guide to leading a better life. It stops us from misbehaving with our elders, it tells us to look out for those less fortunate than us through zaka’at (the wealthy are told to part with 2.5% of their wealth and give it to the needy), be pious and grateful for all we have, take every hardship as a test of endurance, complete hajj at least once in our lifetime (it’s a journey which I believe is a find-thyself journey in which one has to leave everything materialistic behind, go to Makkah and just pray for a minimum of 15 days – some people go for 40 days – it’s impossible to return without a change!), and finally treat others with respect. It is haram (forbidden) in Islam to kill anyone, so whoever does so is so clearly NOT a Muslim. They may call themselves Muslim, but are they not hypocrites? It is their actions and the faith in their hearts that should define them, not their tongues and what they say!
So back to the topic: If for example, Person 1 hurts a particular Person 2, then even Allah, who is ready to forgive us only if we apologize, doesn’t forgive unless the person who had been hurt does! And if the person doesn’t, well then, Person 1 will deeply regret his actions on the Day of Judgment when his good deeds will be taken from him and added to the other person’s account as a reward! BUT forgiveness has a BIGGER reward! Yes, Allah says, he who forgives others on earth, I will forgive him on the Day of Judgment! So hurting others has been written in black while forgiving someone who hurts who and being patient is written in gold.
But what is forgiving and being patient? To understand this let’s first understand what is NOT forgiving and being patient: it is making a huge fuss out of the whole situation, lamenting to others about it, cursing the other person, going on and on and on about it, and in the end saying I forgive you in a manner that suggests says ‘I’m forgiving you so be grateful you scumbag!’ No! Indeed that is NOT forgiving and NOT being patient!
If someone hurst you and instead you bear it, you let it pass by and not cause a fight, nor retort, nor try to hurt the other person back either by words or by body, then THAT is being patient and forgiving. Many of you might say, that is what coward people might do but in fact this is what keeps things calm and peaceful, and yes, Islam is all about spreading peace and serenity among the people. This is just one example! There are loads of others out there!
No matter what people might think, Islam is the easiest and most logial religion out there and for the umpteenth time, NO we are NOT terrorists! We are just normal people with a different faith. Get over it and stop pointing fingers and blaming us for most of the things we are not responsible for!
P.S.: This article might have sounded a little defensive to you guys out there and maybe most of you can understand why, but I sincerely hope you people would look beyond the horrifying image the media is portraying about us! They take the bad deeds of a few people in this society and turn them into mammoths but they completely ignore all the good ones!
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Original can be found here.
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