I was in the shower last night when out of the blue, I broke down and cried. Thing is, this whole week I’ve been having some sort of anxiety attack. There’s too much going on in my mind – let’s just leave this part out. So in the shower itself, I made a duaa. Well, an absurd place to make a duaa but I did anyway. I prayed for a guidance and explanation.
Then, I resumed doing my assigned task – the thesis. At one of point of time, I couldn’t get any more ideas to flow from my brain so I turned to Twitter for some distraction. Ha, some place to gather ideas kan? There, someone was asking Aida Azlin if she has any podcast for her talks in addition to her Youtube videos, and so she gave 2 links. I clicked both links but was more inclined towards the 2nd link because of the first topic that I saw on the page. The topic was ‘Surah Taha: Allah is “Crafting” You.
As we know, surah Taha is one of the most beautiful surah in the Quran because one of Prophet Muhammad’s (pbuh) companion, Umar ibn al-Khatab (ra) embraced Islam just by listening to the recitation of Surah Taha recited by his sister. And he was just on his way to kill the Prophet when he heard this recitation, masyaallah. How amazing that a cold heart can turn soft just by listening to the verses of the Quran, and how even more amazing that all of this can only happen by His mercy. Looking at this small fraction of the story, one can easily conclude that when Allah plans something for us, we are actually set to be on a specific role in our life, with a specific and intended purpose. Look at where Umar ranks in Islam and how enormous his role is in spreading this beautiful religion. Of course this was not achieved easily if it weren’t for the challenges that Allah has intended for him since Day 1.
Back to the podcast, Aida and Mariama started with the story of Prophet Musa a.s walking in the dessert with his family when he saw a fire ahead of them. He then told his family to stay put and that he would investigate what the fire was all about. When he came, Allah spoke to him and the first thing Allah asked Prophet Musa to do is to remove his sandals. Here we see how important adab is while seeking knowledge – or while doing anything else, for that matter. In this podcast, Aida and Mariama have compared 2 similar verses, verse 13 and verse 41, which have same English translation but not exactly the same meaning. Confusing right? But just stay with me.
Verse 13 is translated in English as “And I have chosen you, so listen to what is revealed (to you).” while verse 41 is translated as “And I have selected you for Myself.”. Both carry somewhat the same translation, however for verse 41, Allah has specifically used the word “Tana” which actually translate to “craft” in Arabic. In essense, verse 41 is properly translated to “And I have crafted you for Myself.”
How cool that Allah uses the word ‘craft’ to show Prophet Musa that all the challenges he has gone through, was beautifully molded, so that he can be shaped to be capable to endure such trials? Cool as heck, if you ask me.
Let me quote the beautiful reflection from the ladies now.
“It is telling a Prophet that he has been selected for a task. Allah is telling Musa, his whole life, the series of events he has gone through and all of the different events that led you to this cave with Me right now is all because I was crafting you for this job. The events in our life are not random. They all worked together in some type of way that they are leading us towards our greater purpose and greater goal. Sometimes life makes no sense. You really don’t understand that things are not going according to plan. You need those challenges to grow into someone better. Allah is crafting you and Allah is crafting every single circumstance and situation that He is giving you. Syaitan’s whisper is the loudest when you’re almost reaching that goal.”
Super, super cool. If we think about it, at this point of our lives, we should already be overcoming some hurdles in our lives. If we don’t know any better, those hurdles have subconsciously made us, or crafted us to be better, bolder and more resilient than ever. Otherwise, we won’t be where we are right now. And that is exactly the answer I needed from my duaa in the shower, Alhamdulillah.
The links for the podcast is as below :-
ramadanreminders.tumblr.com
theshawllabel.com/womanup (where I listened to the reflection on surah Taha)
Til, then, have a good and fulfilled Ramadhan for all Muslims around the world :)
P/S : The photo I have above is of Lake Kenyir, Terengganu, Malaysia. I finally got the chance to spend 2 nights in a boathouse in Lake Kenyir after years of persuasion from my bestfriend :) I will write more about the adventure in my next post, insyallah.