The real 'Najah'.

If possible,  whatever I write in my blog, I am trying to be so careful with what I write here, in case it is going to hurt anyone's feelings in any ways. And also, I have always believed that we will be tested on what we said. That is why in any post, the post is a reminder especially for myself first then only others. :)

I learn that a real Najah(my name in Arabic means success) ;) does not mean when you are better than the others, but it means when you can be better than yesterday. That is the real success. Deep in everyone's heart, everyone wants to be a good person right? I want to be one too! High five!

But the path to be a good person who has a good heart is not easy. Our desire dislike things which are good for our heart. There is a hugeeee conflict of interest between our desire and heart, no wonder I personally find it very difficult to be steadfast in doing good things. But then I remember clearly the conversation I had with my Ustadha Hamidah when I was 17. I said to her; 

" Can you please give me an advice to keep myself stay close to Islam no matter what happens in my life especially after school, when there is no teachers will  be there to make me solah on time, in jamaah, recite Quran, wake me up for Qiyam. "

She said;

"Look after your solah and do not ever leave the Quran."

In life, we can make a long list of thing need to be done in order to help us to have a good heart. But then, as a beginner to have a good heart, the first thing I said to myself to do is, let us look after our solah. An ustadh said once, if you are doing solah, but it does not prevent you from doing sins and helping you to do more good things, then check the quality of your solah. Means, there is definitely something wrong in your solah. Let us see what we can learn out of our solah to practise in life.

1. PROBLEMS

When we said Allahuakbar, its a reminder to us, no matter how great our problems are in life, Allah is always the Greatest. He will help us to solve them.

2. CONCENTRATION

If we find it hard to concentrate in solah, its even harder to concentrate in other tasks such as in lectures.Imagine how hard we tried sometimes to just stay awake in lectures; drink coffee, chewing sweets, sleep early at nights. So, why not we try harder to stay focus in our solah?  The ability to concentrate in our solah will help us to concentrate in other tasks in life. So lets work on this insyaAllah.

3.INTENTION

Solah in western world especially in public area, (we have a very limited space to pray) made us very very very conscious about what are the non muslims thinking about us while praying. Forget about them. Solah is a special relation between you and Allah. You are not trying to please them but you are pleasing Allah. If their thoughts are making you worried so much, this reflects on how much you want to please people than Allah.So, in our life, lets get our intention straight; to please Allah before we start doing the actions.

4. DISCIPLINE
To pray at its earliest time as possible. Imagine we are so late to meet our consultant for the very first time in our hospital placement, how do we feel?

"Oh crap! I just made a very bad first impression about myself to my clinical supervisor and how this is gonna help me for my whole placement here especially he is the one who is going to sign me off?"

And what we have done about impressing Allah?He is the One who is going to sign us off in the hereafter.So lets make very good impressions about ourselves to Allah in pleasing Him by being punctual to pray our solat at its earliest time, even better in jamaah.

I remember an Imam who is also a doctor in Queen's hospital during khutbah jumaah once said;

"Work hard, put a sincere effore and have a strong desire to do our obligatory prayers. BE PASSIONATE while walking to prayer room."


5. SABAR

Okay, I am in the middle of doing my assignments and I ran out of ideas and I need to submit them by tomorrow. But then it's time to pray Asar. While praying, that is the time when your brain started to think of new  and brilliant ideas to add  in your assignment. Okay, alright I am gonna add them as soon as I finish praying. Let s get this solah done quickly.,

Wait a second Najah?!! What is this?! There were two problems.
1. Why you start thinking about your assignment in solah? You were not focusing!
2. "Let's get this solah done quickly." NO means you are not practising sabar Najah.

Sabar is when you fight with your desires in order to please Allah. While praying, I should have constantly fight with my brain and my heart to concentrate on my solah rather than letting myself got carried away with my assignments. Secondly, I should have not rushed in solah! NO. It's wrong! Imagine you are meeting someone who you respect so so so much and need his help in every single thing in your life, then you just blurted words which you did not understand them and just left the meeting when you are done. It does not sound right at all, right? We should talk and ask for his help properly. Only words from heart will touch another heart, then only the person who ask help from will feel our sincerity and help us in any way he wants. That is when we are dealing with human beings. Imagine how we should have been when we are asking help for Allah?

At the end of the day, The Super Great Allah does not need our solah to show how great He is. The solah itself is for us to help ourselves to meet the purpose of our life.

Okay, that is all for now. I need to go to do some work. If you have anything else, feel free to add them! :)

May Allah help and guide us to be mukmins who try our best to look after our solah, ameen!

Najah