The Straight Way

‘The Straight Way’ (al-Sirat al-Mustaqim) is repeated 17 times a day by every Muslims in their daily Salat (ritual five time prayer). This is included in the sixth verse of first chapter of the Holy Quran, al-Fatiha. In the first part of Salat a believer prays to Allah, Guide me on ‘the Straight Way’. What is the straight way? An explanation is given in the following verses. It is the way of those whom Allah bestowed with grace and not the way of those incurred his wrath or has gone astray.

However, an example will help to understand ‘the Straight Way’. It is like a straight path with two tunnels in both sides. A guide standing in the beginning of the straight path has been calling people to walk through this path as it will go to their destination.  On the upper side of the path there is another guide. There are many open doors from straight path to tunnel with beautiful curtains barring sight to the tunnel. Whenever the man of the path tries to move the curtain the guide upside gives warning. He warns that if the curtain is moved you should enter the tunnel. The tunnel is penalties defined by Allah for various evil doings. The curtains are forbidden things which look beautiful and attractive in the sight of human beings. The guide upside is the good feeling in the mind of every believer and the guide in the entrance is the entrance is the revealed book, Holy Quran.

This example gives a clear view of the straight path.  The Lord Allah sent human beings to check their firmness in the straight path nevertheless they have power to choose what they wish to do.  The angels have power to do the only ordered things by God. Human beings are awarded with the great capacity to think, to sense and to choose. The thinking capacity helps man to control his sensation and choice. When the right knowledge is added to the thinking it helps him choose the right path. When the thought is not graced with good training and knowledge he chooses more adequate for his sensational happiness. Thus every believer should try to get as much as religious knowledge. 

Forbidden things are sweet and attractive. Human instinct encourages him to such things for momentary happiness. Planned strategies will help to get rid of such shortcoming. Here we discuss three important strategies.

1.      Friendship with good people

Friends play a good role in everybody’s life. They bring happiness and in their company we perform many of our activities. They give us guidance and help in our needs until they will become a part of our personality. Our attitudes become similar to their attitudes. Thus good friends will help us in following the straight path also.

2.      Love good people

Everybody will have some models in their life. Sportsman tries to follow a star footballer or cricketer as his model. A stylish boy or girl follows a cinema super star as his/her model. A writer follows some great writers as his model. In the same way in every field we love the great personalities in those fields.

In local level our father, mother and some relative become exemplary for younger generations. Our affection to them encourages us to grow in their path and be an exemplary citizen.

Sometimes some fathers and mothers tell their siblings stories of such personalities and visit them with children in intervals to motivate them. The children become motivated and try to grow with a passion.

Love and affection to good people throughout our life is another factor which helps us to keep on the Straight Way.

3.      Conscience of time, health, money and knowledge

There are four great bounties of God given to mankind, ie, time, health, money and knowledge. In the day of reckoning God will inquire all human being on these bounties. He should answer the way he spent or utilized these four things. The conscience about such a responsibility will keep everyone active and honorable personalities here and hereafter.   

To Be Good in front of the God

One asked: which charity is good one? Replied: the charity when you are energetic and miser, when you fear the poverty, when you long for richness, do not postpone till you reach the last breath.

When one sought his company in paradise, he enquired, anything else? repeated the same: itself, he wanted: please help me with increasing number of prostrations.

Ones he told: increase your prostrations, it will raise you one grade, and erase one fault.

The above verses show that there is no place for sloth in the path of a believer. Enduring passion to achieve abstract goals of life should lead one to outdoing the virtues at the earliest regardless of torrents of worldly wishes.  The complete renunciation of worldly joys is not the aim of Islamic life. But to plunge in the worldly life forgetting his aims is not admirable. Everybody will commit sin and the God will forgive all such evils. When committing sins become a habit one does not think repenting or the aura of joy of the worldly pleasures will not help him ward off sins from his life until he breathes the last.

As there are worldly pleasures in different grades, and there is ladder of social status in which the people are categorized according to their incumbent duties in the hereafter world also people will have their own status as per their achievements in this life. The prostration in front of God is one type of worship which will please God and help to raise the grade of a believer. When one increases prostration and repentance it helps raise his grades. There is no oblique strategy to be good in front of the God.   

Work for Common good: Live a Virtuous Life

“Any Muslim plant a plant, no one eat from it without a charity (its reward), no one  steal from it without a charity(its reward) and no one decrease from it without a charity(its reward).”

“Do not ignore anything that is good even to meet your brother with a pleasant face.”

The above verses are very significant regarding the importance of plantation and nurturing of nature for the sake of common good. This especially exhorts every believer to plant trees which produce fruits. Trends of modernity and unfettered capitalism make people very selfish and arrogant. Consumerism does not encourage the habit of plantation and agriculture. People used to buy fruits and vegetables from shops rather than cultivating it in their own lands.

Celebrating a day of planting fruit plants in every year will raise the passion of every believer and help the prosperity and self-sufficiency of our nation. The selfishness of people is leading them into an amphibious status. Awakening people with this verse will woo them to the status of noble status of honored creature rather than a mere homo sapiens status.

As far as a believer is concerned every simple virtue is important. He should not ignore even a simple aspect of life. Whole of his time and activity is concerned with virtue. Thus he should be bothered even about his attitudes towards other people; he should meet his brother with a pleasant face. Selfishness and efforts to exploit others and accomplish his own urges in tortuous way is not the way of a believer.

Do good for the sake of Humanity, live in a virtuous way. 

Thought of the Day

“A powerful believer is nearer to God than one who is weak. Everyone has good fortune and should seek his fortune. Do not complain about his weaknesses but should seek help of God and understand that it is the God who control things and He does what He wants to do. Never say ‘If I were’ because if open door for Satan.”

The above paragraph is inclusive of following ideas:

1.       One should try to improve his health

2.       One should not complain about the present conditions

3.       One should not accuse the natural forces or any other factors in any failure

4.       Everything will have some good sides and should be pleasant thinking about that side

5.       One believer is always proactive and with a superiority complex or he rejects the inferiority complex.

A day in believer’s life

Life is the mixture of joy and sorrow, hardships and comforts, likenesses and contempt or derision. One cannot be happy throughout his life. When God’s grace is upon us we will be happy and we enjoy with our family and friends. When we become sad we withdraw to an alien life, away from friends expressing our anger to everything around us.

But the case of a believer is different. His attitude to different situations of life is sublime and admirable.

The true belief is the powerhouse of a believer. In aura of divine grace he try to shower the gratitude to his Lord. In the aura of difficulties he resort to the patience for the cause of God, the benevolent and merciful. The derision and disgraceful actions from the cruel living beings will not cause precipitous fall in his happy mood. The torrent of ill dealings  will not make him depressed. Sloth and idleness will not come to the aura of divinity of his life.  He will not resort to any oblique strategies to retaliate such people. Since he seek the sublime love of his creature who had created all living beings and is able to change their minds.

Thus the case of a believer is of great wonder.

Truth leads to Paradise

Life is something which is not controlled completely by self. We act as our circumstances need. We may tell truth or lie as per need. We express our anger, greed, sloth etc. many times. These do not irritate us. Because our concern more about managing our aims than to comply with moral assumptions. This dangerous attitude should be bemoaned in religious context. We should act daftly to change our ingrained notions by our Global inclinations which exhort us to take torrents of sins easy and go for personal gains.

Prophet (pbuh) Said: “ the truth leads to righteousness and righteousness leads to paradise. Verily one person say truth till he is written among Honests near God, and the lie leads to lewdness/immorality and lewdness/immorality leads to hell, verily one person lie till he is written among liars near God.

Thought of the Day

The best one is one who is awarded with long life and good works,
To live long is the wish of any humanbeing. But the worldly difficulties of bad health, life circumstances, family conditions and economic miserabilities persuade some to putting end to their life. Many people enjoy life with the riches of nature they or their ancestors acquired.