Pomp and amusement

I had Tajweed this morning and sara and I have started to sit on a green mat usually probed against a corner of the room. We thought we would imagine ourselves sat in a Qur’an Halaqa studying with the Asshaba. Sara informed me that it was an old MD (mari) practice when she was here last summer. I can see why there is something so much more spiritually uplifting reciting the Qur’an and practicing the rule on the ground with your legs crossed then sat on a chair.

I had a really precious moment when I was practicing a rule called qalqala I was concentrating on the repeating sound when sara made me repeat the ayat again and suddenly I stopped in the middle of the ayat because I realised I understood it. Subhanallah but I understood it. It’s the ayat in which Allah was ordering musa (AS) to go to Fir’aun, he has transgressed. It reads roughly ihba ila fir’auna innahu daqaa (verse 15 surah 79).

Almost 3months of studying and I understood one ayat but to me it was infinitely so much more, it’s what that one ayat represents. The misery of getting up at 6am to be in work for 8 am in the height of winter were despite all my layers I had never felt such penetrating cold but this memory has been supersede by the memory of this morning. Subhanallah but it was worth it for that ayat alone.

My father when I was young used to say to me that the worth of something that you have been give and the worth of something that you have worked hard for can never be of comparative value, one will always out live the other in your memory. It took me 23 years to "get" it , may allah grant him jannatul firdaws.

I was reminded of when allah asks the inhabitants of jannah if they experienced any hardship on earth and they say not for one moment oh lord ( or something therein) Am also reminded of the ayat that says "And the life of this world is only a deceiving enjoyment"

Then I came home and crashed out in front of the sofa and switched on the tv which went automatically to the Qur’an channel which was at this point playing surah yusuf with the English translation running at the bottom of the screen. It was on the bit when the woman of that town heard about the wife of Al-Aziz’s failed seduction of Yusuf (As) so she invited them to a banquet and gave them knives. Then called him out and because of his beauty they cut themselves and stated that he couldn’t be a mortal and he must in fact be an angle.

She then says admitted her intentions towards Yusuf , tells about his refusal and goes on to say that he will be punished and imprisoned hence being disgraced.While Yusuf says "oh my lord prison is dearer to be then that which they invite me to" When I had moment of realisation that his concept of being disgraced is disobeying allah , hence being akhiyra orientated while her concept of disgrace is a prison on earth thus being dunaya orientated. Subhanallah!

Being from the west it struck me just what Yusus (AS) was refusing, the attentions of one of the most beautiful woman of his time and more so of the entire woman in his area yet today we are so used to men being defined as a stud because of the number of woman he has been with, and it struck me the difference in thinking, how many men of our time faced with such temptation, a beautiful women or prison would turn to his lord and say

" oh my lord prison is dearer to be then that which they invite me to"!