Thursday, June 21, 2007

Lying Down

A week or so back, whilst I was driving home, I saw a man lying on the floor just outside the park entrance. Surrounding him were two officers and a large group of audience, spectating from their cars or houses.

The traffic lights were on red, and I was looking at that person trying to get up, but was being held down by the officers, ensuring that he didn’t injure himself further. It wasn’t long before the ambulance arrived to administer first aid to the person below.

The traffic continued to move slowly as all the drivers were taking a look at what was happening at the person. No doubt, different thoughts would be entering the individual minds of people.

Similarly, I had a few thoughts of my own, which changed from time to time…

Point

It occurred to me later that we may have all looked at that person making assumptions of his health and condition. But it did not occur to me at that time, that the person lying on the floor would have perceived this was going to occur to him today. Similarly, all the people who were looking at him were looking at the problem that had befallen him; none thought that it could be them in his place.

In this world, we are many a times negligent of the signs of Allah, mostly because we perceive them to be the calamities or problems of others without thinking that it could have been us if Allah had chosen; or without realising that what has occurred to another person today will be the same thing that will occur to us tomorrow.

Another thought that occurred to me was the actions of the man who was on the floor. Despite being aided by the local police, he was making every attempt to get up from the fall he had just experienced. This is not something fascinating or new; a person, after a fall, always attempts to recover from that fall and get up once again. In fact, at times, we make haste in getting up from our fall in order to avoid embarrassment and attention.

Despite this ideology and thinking we are very negligent of making an effort to get up spiritually after we have sinned and fell into the trap of Shaytaan and our Nafs (Desire). At times we make no attempt to get up from the fall (by seeking sincere forgiveness) and at times when we do intend to recover from our fall, we are quite relaxed and care-free.

It made me think, that the only reason for this could be that there is no regret and remorse; neither is there any concern of people seeing us sinning as the true severity of sinning has been eradicated from our minds due to our ‘luxurious’ social lives.

Had the above not been the case, we would be attempting to recover from a spiritual fall in such haste that every sin would be wiped out from our deeds and our tears would flow from the fear of Allah. We would be alert and look around to save ourselves from embarrassment, ‘has anybody seen me committing a sin’; ‘let me get up quickly before I am humiliated for committing a sin’; these should be our thoughts and our priorities.

May Allah give us all the wisdom to look at the calamities of others as a sign of reformation for ourselves. May He give us the knowledge to prioritise our duties and to inculcate humility, shame, regret and remorse into our lives. Aameen.


إن السعيد من وعظ بغيره

Fortunate is he who takes heed from others

[عبد الله ابن مسعود رضي الله عنه]

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Assalamu Alaikum Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuh

Aameen to the Dua's in the post. Jazak'Allah Khair for sharing thoughts with regards to the incident that took place.

I like the way you shared your thoughts in relation to our spiritual selves whereby one should continuously seek to reform oneself and seek forgiveness immediately.

Jazak'Allah Khair.

Wasalaamu Alaikum Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuh

Anonymous said...

aslaamu alaikum wrwb

mashallah excellent advice. plz keep updating ur blog..many ppl benefit from the lessons u write. may Allah reward u abundantly and keep u sincere in ur efforts. ameen

waslaam

Anonymous said...

Jazakallahu khair...

Anonymous said...

Very well said. Most of us are too busy rushing and we rarely realize how bad things happening to others or a disease afflicting some one else, could have been us. Thanks for reminding us.

intermuslim said...

May Allah grant us taufiq. Ameen.