I have the bad habit of using my desktop to keep unsorted files in view until they can be assigned to a file in my vast, over-sorted dropbox. Some things though, aren’t like to find a home, and fit into the category of: Stuff I’d like to read again. Tonight though, my beloved lappy is scheduled to be brainwashed formatted, so it’s time to move some of the miscellaneous desktop stuff to a new home- this blog.
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Unfinished Blog: Highway Hifz Program
You may be one of those people who sings in the shower, hums in the kitchen, and has every infernal lyric to every song you’ve ever heard- good or bad- written in stone in your head. Bad news- you are a human mp3 player. Good news- you’re a prime candidate for a highway Hifz program.
Good news for human mp3 players- I used to commute 120 miles, 4 days a week for my son’s therapy program in Dubai from Abu Dhabi, and I learned lots of things from the drive. One is that the best shawarma in the UAE is at Baraka Grills, near exit 366 on theDubai-Abu Dhabi Highway. The other is that time spent in the car can be time invested in your deen, via your own personal Highway Hifz program. All you need is a good CD or mp3 of Juz Amma, and the desire to memorize more Qur’an, and pretty soon, not only will you have revised and fine-tuned recitation of verses you already knew, but you’ll begin adding more and more slowly to the playlist in your heart.
Other benefits include:
1. Using your commute for Ibada, and not just getting from point A to point B.
2. Reprogramming your mental jukebox by converting more of your mental tracks that benefit you and increase your status on the Day of Judgment instead of bring you down. We all suffer from a certain song that pops into our head uninvited and escapes from our mouths unintentionally. Having Qur’an on the brain means you’re more likely to be reciting Qur’an than singing, and the amazing thing is, it’s guilt-free, it’s refreshing to the soul, and the more you beautify your recitation, the more it penetrates you heart and the more you increase in love for recitation. I never enjoyed listening to the Qur’an until I started reciting it myself.
3. (Crash into the gates of Jannah?) Increasing the likelihood of dying with Zhikr on your lips in case of a car accident. If you’re going to crash and die, wouldn’t you rather be reciting Qur’an from the depth of your heart rather than singing Lady Ga-Ga at the top of your lungs? Or worse, screaming four-letter words about excrement? Increasing the likelihood of dying with Zhikr on your lips in case of a car accident.
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Inspiring Hadith: 70,000 without Reckoning
Narrated Ibn ‘Abbas: Allah’s Apostle said, ‘Nations were displayed before me; one or two prophets would pass by along with a few followers. A prophet would pass by accompanied by nobody. Then a big crowd of people passed in front of me and I asked, Who are they Are they my followers?” It was said, ‘No. It is Moses and his followers It was said to me, ‘Look at the horizon.” Behold! There was a multitude of people filling the horizon. Then it was said to me, ‘Look there and there about the stretching sky! Behold! There was a multitude filling the horizon,’ It was said to me, ‘This is your nation out of whom seventy thousand shall enter Paradise without reckoning.’ “Then the Prophet entered his house without telling his companions who they (the 70,000) were. So the people started talking about the issue and said, “It is we who have believed in Allah and followed His Apostle; therefore those people are either ourselves or our children who are born m the Islamic era, for we were born in the Pre-lslamic Period of Ignorance.” When the Prophet heard of that, he came out and said. “Those people are those who do not treat themselves with Ruqya, nor do they believe in bad or good omen (from birds etc.) nor do they get themselves branded (Cauterized). but they put their trust (only) in their Lord ” On that ‘Ukasha bin Muhsin said. “Am I one of them, O Allah’s Apostle?’ The Prophet said, “Yes.” Then another person got up and said, “Am I one of them?” The Prophet said, ‘Ukasha has anticipated you.”
