Deluge of Mercy!!

Society Religion & Philosophy
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ومن أسمائه الحسنى عزَّ وجلَّ: الرحمن.. والرحيم

[Roughly translated:] And from His beautiful names are: Ar-Rahman (the Entirely Merciful) and Ar-Raheem (the Especially Merciful)

So started the sub-chapter

الرحمن

(the Entirely Merciful),

filled with instances of His Mercy that are manifested every moment of our lives yet we tend to ignore them, profound that they are. Although every aspect and dimension of His Mercy is enough to leave us awestruck yet there is one that intrigues me every time I’m reminded of it and I wonder how do we steer far away from Him after this?

ومن رحمة الرحمن الرحيم أنه يعيذ برضاه من سخطه، وبعفوه من عقوبته، ومن نفسه بنفسه

[Roughly translated:] And from the Mercy of the Entirely Merciful and the Especially Merciful is that He gives refuge with His contentment from His discontentment, and His forgiveness from His punishment, and from Himself with His self.

Who else is there in the entire world whom we displease and he gets angry and then the angry person himself engulfs us in his mercy to save us from his own anger? Not a soul! Indeed, Allah has no comparison, no likeness with any human or entity. We make Him angry and then we turn to Him and ask Him to save us from His anger and He envelops us in His mercy and forgives us and blesses us even more and then again we make Him angry and again we turn to Him and again He showers us with mercy and forgiveness and love and blessings. This keeps on happening over and over and over again and He keeps on forgiving us. Allahu Akbar!

Not even our own mothers, who love us with their hearts and souls, are that merciful to us. He, the Ar-Rahman, does not even remind us of our previous mistakes if once we have been forgiven. He does not say, “you’ve been disobedient a million times, I’ve had enough”. No, He does not! He knows we have no one to turn to if He’s displeased with us, so He blesses us with His mercy. What more can we possibly wish for? Why aren’t we grateful enough?

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Re: Deluge of Mercy!!

Earning Mercy

Bismillah.

In the last post, I shared some verses from the Quran which talked about how to gain Allah’s mercy. But right in the next lesson, Shaykh himself told about the way of attracting His Mercy…

والله سبحانه هو الرحمن الرحيم، ورحمته لنا تزيد بمقدار رحمتنا لخلقه، وإنما يرحم الله من عباده الرحماء

قال النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم : «لا يَـرْحَـمُ اللهُ مَنْ لا يَـرْحَـمُ النَّاسَ » متفق عليه

[Roughly translated:] And Allah, Glorified is He, He is the Entirely Merciful, the Especially Merciful. And His Mercy for us increases in proportion to our mercy for His creation, and indeed Allah shows mercy on his merciful slaves.
Prophet Muhammad sallallaahu ‘alaihi wassalam said, “Allah will not be merciful to those who are not merciful to the people”. (Agreed Upon)

What a beautiful way of obtaining His mercy. And unfortunately, this is what today we Muslims find most difficult. We’d pray and fast and talk good stuff but we’re not merciful to others. Look at our attitudes. Our communication with each other. Our sincerity. How many of us are kind to strangers, in general? People that we meet on the road, in the market, in a waiting room of the hospital, on the bus stop, on the airport? Do we smile at them, exchange good words, help them?

What about our family, friends and acquaintances? Where is the compassion and the empathy? When friends talk, they make fun of each other and taunt, thinking they’re being cool. We converse as if trying to tell the other person that we’re superior to them. Where is the love, respect and mercy between spouses today? Are they really the coolness of each others eyes as they’re supposed to be? Do parents and children have that merciful relationship in which they understand and respect each other? Or are parents forever scolding their children and their children disobeying and disrespecting them? Do siblings have that sharing and caring attitude that they should have being a family unit? What is our level of mercy with our uncles and aunts and grandparents? Do we ask after them regularly? Exchange gifts? Visit them? What about our neighbors? Today we don’t even know our neighbors, let alone visiting them and taking care of their needs.

And then, a merciful slave is merciful to his environment as well. He is merciful to the animals and the plants. He even walks kindly on the earth. He doesn’t spread litter or make his vicinity unclean.

The image of a merciful slave brings to my mind the following hadith:
Abdullah ibn Masud narrated: Allah’s Messenger (sallallaahu ‘alaihi wassalam) said, “Shall I not inform you of who is forbidden upon the (Hell) fire or whom the fire is forbidden upon? A man who is always accessible, gentle and easy going.” [At-Tirmidhi]
Isn’t this simply awesome?

Look at the Christian missionaries. I have had personal interaction with them and have found them to be the most well-mannered people. I don’t exaggerate. They talk to everyone and give them attention as if the other person means the most to them, and they do it genuinely, not in an artificial manner. Isn’t this what we’ve heard about our Prophet sallallaahu ‘alaihi wassalam?
Whenever there’s a disaster in any part of the world, who are the first people to reach there? Christian missionaries. Where is that compassion in us Muslims? Why aren’t people attracted to follow Islam by our conducts and characters? Why is the image of a ‘maulvi’ the most scariest today? Why do people run away from them? (Okay, I know media portrays it badly but we know the sole blame does not lie on media). Or sometimes we get so much into the fiqh of things that we forget the basics i.e. giving glad tidings and just being nice.

Sometimes (okay, most of the times, I admit), being good to others seems very difficult. Specially, if they’ve hurt us, we’d rather not speak kindly to them anymore or not help them. For that, the only thing that helps is remembering that you’re not doing it for them, but for Allah. Your reward lies with Him alone and if you’re merciful to His slaves, He’ll be merciful to you.

May Allah give us the taufeeq to actually be good to everyone for His sake alone and may we get His rahmah through it. Ameen.