I’ve posted this hadith before on gs and I’ve sent it to some people but everytime I read it I feel like telling a million more people because it makes me think and makes me feel so shameful:
Once Umar entered Muhammad’s house and noticed the state of the furniture in it. Muhammad himself had only one sheet of cloth round him to cover the lower part of his body. There was one simple bed, with one pillow filled with nut fibre; on one side of the room was some barley and in one corner near his feet was an animal skin. There were some water-bag skins hanging beside his bed. Umar said that on seeing this tears came into his eyes. God’s Messenger asked the reason for his tears. He replied, “O God’s Messenger! Why shouldn’t I cry! The strings of the bed have left marks on your body. This is a small room with all your furniture, I can see what there is. The Kaiser of Rome and Kisra of Persia enjoy luxurious living while you, God’s Messenger, and the Chosen One, live like this.” He said, “Ibn Khattab! Don’t you like that they choose this world and we choose the Hereafter?”.
Anas reported that the Apostle of God …] as saying, "I am God’s servant, I eat like a servant and sit like a servant.‘’
http://www.prophetmuhammed.org/Character.asp
I don’t want to start a discussion about religion, I just wanted to focus on the prophet sallahu-alayhe-wa’alayhe-wasalam’s modesty and his recognition that this life is fleeting and the Muslim should focus on the hereafter and not on this world.
I’m so guilty of this, all I focus on when I wake up is exams that are coming up, what to eat, my fiance and throughout the day these are the things that I focus on and prayer time is just a fleeting part of the day where I focus on the hereafter.
Alhumdolillah I do pardah but I am not very regular in praying and maybe some other people on this board are in the same place as me so I thought why not make this a group effort? Like those threads on people going on a diet together, why don’t we all spend a week realigning our thinking so we focus on the Hereafter every waking minute and not on this world?
I was thinking of doing it this way:
- praying all namazein no matter what happens or praying kazaa as soon as we can if we miss it
- make a conscious effort to keep our eyes down when in public
- not gossip / not say anything bad towards someone
- not talk to na-mehram people
- for girls who don’t wear hijab, wear hijab for a week
- read Quran after fajr everyday
- if we can, talk to at least one person who is not Muslim about Islam this week
- no music, no movies, use that time for ibadah and extra-non compulsory salah and fasting or learning more about Islam for a week
- try to emulate the prophet saw in every aspect of our lives, and I mean personality and lifestyle choices eg. modesty and humbleness
can someone add more? I’m going to do this even if no one else is interested but it would be nice if more people wanted to do this too. it’s just a week as a group but I hope most of us can continue afterward too inshallah
note to mods: i dont want this moved to religion