I asked our Barakah Effect course students to practice a simple exercise. Before every action, they needed to pause and ask themselves, “How can I please Allah SWT through this?”
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When You Just Don’t Feel Like It (Overcoming Laziness)
I wrote about ‘ajz, that feeling when you want to do good but feel powerless to act. Today, I want to explore its close cousin: kasal (laziness).
While ‘ajz is “I want to, but I can’t,” kasal is “I want to, but I just don’t feel like it.”
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The Guilt You’re Feeling? It’s Sacred
We’re all feeling it. That knot in our stomach whenever we see pictures of the unfolding genocide in Gaza and witness the hunger, starvation, and death.
It’s a heavy weight that presses down on us whenever we go through our daily routines. Unimaginable images flash through our phones between meetings, meals, and our comfortable beds.
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🔊 The Global “Allahu Akbar” Reprogramming
The genius of Islam is that it gives us spiritual seasons to remind us of our purpose in life: Ramadan forces us to slow down. The five daily prayers create mandatory pauses. And these ten days of Dhul-Hijjah? They’re asking us to step off the hamster wheel and witness the sacredness of these days and the year’s greatest event: The Hajj.
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🧗♂️ Why Self-Actualization Might Be Hurting Your Soul
Your life’s purpose isn’t self-actualization. Your life’s purpose is to worship Allah. Don’t let any self-help book or guru convince you otherwise.
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Slow down your life with #SlowSalah
Alhamdulillah, we are blessed as Muslims to have the five daily prayers that help us pause in the middle of our busy lives and turn to our Creator. But sadly, many of us rush through them trying to catch up with life.
The irony is that we rush through our meeting with our Creator, Who has control over everything in our lives, to hurry towards meetings with people or tasks that only Allah can facilitate in the first place!
The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ spoke directly about this issue. In a hadith narrated by Abu Hurairah, the Prophet ﷺ noticed a man praying in a hurried manner. He said to him, “Go back and pray, for you have not prayed.” This happened three times, until the man said, “Teach me, O Messenger of Allah.” The Prophet ﷺ then explained, “When you stand for prayer, perform wudu properly, then face the qibla and say takbir. Then recite what you can from the Quran, then bow until you feel at ease in ruku’, then rise until you are standing straight, then prostrate until you feel at ease in prostration…” (Bukhari)
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