Last week I attended the janazah of my friend's father, may Allah have mercy on him.

My friend was telling me that he appeared to have a good death, reciting the shahada even when barely conscious. He returned to Allah on 12th Rabi al Awwal.

I asked her to tell me one thing about him, that she'd like me to take from his legacy. She told me that he never got angry, and that he overlooked the shortcomings of some of his relatives who dealt with him unfairly, just to honour the family bond.

Her description of her father reminded me of this ayah and the description of those people Allah loves who control their anger and pardon others - they are promised forgiveness and jannah.

May Allah SW

Allah says in surah al-Nisa':

[مَّن يَشْفَعْ شَفَاعَةً حَسَنَةً يَكُن لَّهُ نَصِيبٌ مِّنْهَا ۖ وَمَن يَشْفَعْ شَفَاعَةً سَيِّئَةً يَكُن لَّهُ كِفْلٌ مِّنْهَا ۗ وَكَانَ اللَّهُ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ مُّقِيتًا]

Whoever intercedes with good *shafa'ah* will have a share of it. But whoever intercedes with bad *shafa'ah* will have a burden from it. And Allah is a witness over everything. [85]

Commenting on this, al-Baghawi wrote:

[قال ابن عباس رضي الله عنهما : الشفاعة الحسنة هي الإصلاح بين الناس ، والشفاعة السيئة هي المشي بالنميمة بين الناس . وقيل : الشفاعة الحسنة هي حسن القول في الناس ينال به الثواب والخير ، والسيئة هي : الغيبة وإساءة القول في الناس ينال به الشر . ]

Ibn 'Abbaas said: Good *sha

Rabbi, will you accept my prayer rug’s intercession? “Who is it that can intercede with Him except by His permission?” (2:255)

Will you allow it to speak for me? For the times late at night and in the early mornings when it’s just You and I, it’s there too. Soaking up tears and snot. Hearing my cries, whispers, and silence in sujood. Seeing the prayers I made while tired, in pain, alone, and through every emotion. Feeling me study Your Word and reciting it as best as I can on it. It saw the times I couldn’t bring myself to move from it, so I stayed curled up in a fetal position. Falling asleep there many times. It can tell about the prayers I offer on time, locked in. And all the voluntary

Among the most repeated pairings in the Quran is Allah’s name — Ar-Rahman, Ar-Raheem — appearing at the opening of nearly every surah, as if the Quran itself refuses to let the reader forget it for long.

The Prophet ﷺ described the scale of this mercy in a hadith that’s hard to fully absorb: Allah has one hundred parts of mercy, of which He sent down only one part to be shared among all of creation — jinn, humans, animals, even the mercy an animal shows its own young comes from that single part. The other ninety-nine, He has kept with Him for the Day of Judgment (Sahih Muslim 2752). And the ayah that pairs with this almost undoes any excuse for despair: ‘Say, O My servants who have transg

(Disclaimer : this is just a personal reflection) The lesson I learned from this verse is that we often remain grateful to Allah (SWT) only as long as conditions are in our favor and everything is going the way we want. But as soon as something goes wrong, we become ungrateful. Not only that, but we also forget all those times Allah (SWT) accepted our duas and blessed us with so much.

The Qur’an answers those who question resurrection: “Who will bring us back?” — “He who created you the first time.” (17:51)

Our present existence itself is the result of extraordinarily complex processes of creation. After death, the matter of our bodies is dispersed and can be reorganized into other forms. Yet resurrection need not depend on the recovery of the same atoms or even the same physical laws. Allah can recreate us through whatever process He wills, within this universe or through a new creation beyond our present understanding.

If the first creation was not beyond His power, neither is re-creation.

This is one of the Ayahs I love the most. It always reminds me of how many blessings Allah has bestowed upon us. ✨

Allah has given us far more than we even notice.

Sometimes we ask for something in du'a and eventually forget what we even prayed for, but Allah never forgets. He still remembers and grants us what we asked for, the forgotten prayers alongside the ones we still remember. Indeed, He is the All-Hearing, the Best of responders. ❣

Yet as human beings, it is so easy to fall into ingratitude and feel like Allah hasn't given us anything, simply because we overlook all that He has done. 💙

May Allah forgive us and grant us truly grateful hearts. Amin 🤲

The Way We Follow Reading Surah al-Baqarah (2:140) through Hadith

What makes us truly close to someone who came before us? Is it knowing their story? Loving them? Feeling proud to be connected to them? Or is there something more?

Surah al-Baqarah takes us somewhere unexpected. We have seen Ibrahim (alayhi as-salam) tested, submitting, making duʿa, and raising the foundations of the Kaʿbah. Now the focus shifts from the life he lived to those who would later claim him as their own. أَمْ تَقُولُونَ إِنَّ إِبْرَاهِيمَ وَإِسْمَاعِيلَ وَإِسْحَاقَ وَيَعْقُوبَ وَالْأَسْبَاطَ كَانُوا هُودًا أَوْ نَصَارَىٰ “Or do you say that Ibrahim, Ismail, Ishaq, Yaqub and the Tribes were Jews or Christians?”

One peculiar aspect I really like about the Qur’an is that it does not simply ask us to believe; it asks us to look, think, reflect.

Look around.

Look at the skies. The heavens. The precision of the universe. The perfection of the earth that allows life to flourish.

Look at what reaps when one is patient. Not simply the seeds, but also the blessings.

The mercy.

The justice that comes when you surrender to Him.

Think.

Reflect.

And perhaps that is because He knows us better than we could ever know ourselves. He knows the questions we would ask, the doubts we would have, the things that would move us, the things that would make us understand.

He chose the words we would need.

The expl

True worship is not about worshiping Allah according to your own wants or desires. Rather, it is to worship Allah in the way He has commanded and loves. If a person worships Allah according to their own way, then in reality, they are following their desires rather than submitting to Allah.

This is why the declaration of faith is not complete unless one also affirms that Muhammad ﷺ is the Messenger of Allah, because it is through his guidance that we learn how Allah wants to be worshiped.

Saeeid ibn Al-Musayyib رحمه الله saw a man praying more than two Rakah (units of prayer) after the Athan of Fajr, so Saeed forbade him from doing so, because the Sunnah at that specific time is to pray onl