Midweek Lessons from Ibn al-Qayyim

The better we understand the ghastly nature of our sins, and the rate at which we accumulate them, along with their undesirable impact on our daily lives and the hereafter, the more it can propel us away from committing sins in general and the more it will drive us to seek forgiveness for our sins – through making the right Dua’s for us and for others.

Ibn al-Qayyim provided one of the great descriptions of sins and the impact of sins in this life and after.

• Sins deprive a person of rizq in this life. In Musnad Ahmad it is narrated that Thawbaan said: “The Messenger of Allah (SAWS) said: ‘A man is deprived of provision because of the sins that he commits.’” (Narrated by Ibn Maajah, 4022, classed as hasan by al-Albaani in Saheeh Ibn Maajah).
• A sinful person experiences a sense of alienation (indifference) with his Lord, and between him and other people. One of the salaf had said that he could see the impact of disobedience to Allah (in some aspects of his daily life).
• A person who commits sins sees that things become difficult for him. In any matter that he turns to, he finds the way blocked or he finds it difficult. By the same token, for the one who fears Allah, things are made easy for him. 
• ‘Abd-Allaah ibn ‘Abbaas said: “Good deeds make the face light, give light to the heart, and bring about ample provision, physical strength and love in people’s hearts. Bad deeds make the face dark, give darkness to the heart, and bring about physical weakness, a lack of provision and hatred in people’s hearts.” 
• Sin breeds sin until it dominates a person and he cannot escape from it. Sin weakens a person’s willpower. It gradually strengthens his will to commit sin and weakens his will to repent until there is no will in his heart to repent at all, so he seeks forgiveness and expresses repentance, but it is merely words on the lips, like the repentance of the liars, whose hearts are still determined to commit sin and persist in it. This is one of the most serious diseases that is likely to lead to doom. He becomes desensitized and no longer find sins abhorrent, so it becomes his habit, and he is not bothered if people see him committing the sin or talk about him.

So, we can easily see that by engaging in sins, we are not only making the prospects of our after life bleak but sins can greatly and actively contribute to the difficulties of our daily lives. Allah says, “Whatever of good reaches you, is from Allah, but whatever of evil befalls you, is from yourself.” [an-Nisa 4:79]

Analogies for the Soul

I'm trying to write an APA paper right now, but it's not working. I came across something titled "56 worst analogies used in High School papers," and I assure you, nothing will ever make you feel better about your writing than this. Although they are all too brilliant to be hand-picked by an unworthy and inexperienced writer like myself, I decided to pick a few of my favorites.

1. He was as tall as a 6′3″ tree.
2. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.
3. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
4. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.
5. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.
6. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife’s infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM.
7. The lamp just sat there, like an inanimate object.
8. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.
9. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
10. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
11. She was as easy as the TV Guide crossword.
12. She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.
13. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.
14. It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall.
15. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.
16. The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after the Dr. on a Dr Pepper can.
17. The red brick wall was the color of a brick-red Crayola crayon.
18. Her eyes were shining like two marbles that someone dropped in mucus and then held up to catch the light.
19. I felt a nameless dread. Well, there probably is a long German name for it, like Geschpooklichkeit or something, but I don’t speak German. Anyway, it’s a dread that nobody knows the name for, like those little square plastic gizmos that close your bread bags. I don’t know the name for those either.
20. Her artistic sense was exquisitely refined, like someone who can tell butter from I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter.
21. Bob was as perplexed as a hacker who means to access T:flw.quid55328.com\aaakk/ch@ung but gets T:\flw.quidaaakk/ch@ung by mistake.
22. The sunset displayed rich, spectacular hues like a .jpeg file at 10 percent cyan, 10 percent magenta, 60 percent yellow and 10 percent black.

My Internet History

I have been living a significant portion of my life on the Internet. My social interaction is minimal, yet my abilities to create havoc in the online community have improved exponentially. I have an extra day off this weekend, so I thought I'd be productive for a change, but judging from the fact that I'm blogging, that would not be the case. Instead, I went through my old e-mails, which date back to September 19, 2004. (I'm guessing my birthday present was an e-mail address, which is, of course, every child's dream. Who needs books or an extra pair of shoes?) I felt the need to compare myself between now and then, but after reading some of the things I wrote, I feel like I didn't have a functioning brain at that stage of my life. Comparing the past me to the present me would be like comparing Donald Trump to Albert Einstein. It's unnecessary, awkward, and wrong in many different levels. Just reading the subject line from some of the e-mails I wrote makes me cringe. I don't know whether to be amused or burn my laptop out of embarrassment. Yet hiding behind the glowing screen in front of me has caused to me grow stronger, and therefore, I will share some of my best messages with the world.


Exhibit A:

I have no idea what it says. It's in some code, and so I didn't even bother trying to figure it out. It probably says, "To whom it may concern: I have written to you an innumerable amount of times, and you have not responded once. For the last time, can you just give me my pet turtle back?"

Exhibit B:

First felony: COMIC SANS. Second felony: LAUGHING AT MY OWN JOKES. Third felony: COMIC SANS. But you can see that my unnaturally alluring charisma has begun to flourish, and that would eliminate two out of the three felonies.

Exhibit C:

To make matters worse, it was titled "Yo, whaz up dawg!!!" I was never a cool kid.

Exhibit D:

This one just speaks for itself. I tried way too hard as a child. I feel like these e-mails are predicting my sad future. What does 2 century even mean?

And finally, Exhibit E:

OH, THE APOSTROPHES. OH, THE EXCLAMATION MARK. OH DEAR GOD, MY EYES. But hey, I could learn a lesson or two from the old me about being concise. Maybe it's not necessary to write five paragraphs in order to get your point across. All I need are a few extra exclamation marks and possibly some pepper spray.

From this point, I began abusing my messaging privileges to forward chain e-mails to everyone I knew. And thus began my journey through the viral world. I started off as a child who didn't know the difference between z and s, but I think have blossomed into a fine, nocturnal young woman. I'm pretty sure I'll be doing the same thing with my blog posts in about 10 years. So if the future me is reading this, HELLOOO. I hope you are enjoying your flying cars and floating house. 

How To Write Good

1. Avoid alliteration. Always.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. Avoid cliches like the plague. They’re old hat.
4. Employ the vernacular.
5. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
7. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
8. Contractions aren’t necessary.
9. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
10. One should never generalize
11. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”
12. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
13. Don’t be redundant; don’t use more words than necessary; it’s highly superfluous.
14. Profanity sucks.
15. Be more or less specific.
16. Understatement is always best.
17. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
18. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
20. The passive voice is to be avoided.
21. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
22. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
23. Who needs rhetorical questions?

My Life in Numbers

I slept for fifteen hours (15 HOURS) and I just ate breakfast which consisted of something other than cereal but I'm not sure what it was because I burnt my tongue while drinking my third cup of coffee so I couldn't taste anything and I didn't bother looking down at my plate and it's a miracle that I'm even using semi-proper grammar right now and I've only been sitting on this chair for 5 minutes and my backside is already hurting and I think I'm starting to go a little cross eyed. It's spring break. I have a second chance to redeem my sanity. I have absolutely nothing planned for the next 10 days, and so I thought I'd start it off right by contemplating over my life. I've used my limited knowledge I have of the theory of quantum physics to mathematically divide all of the time within the last year of my existence into 17 distinct categories, along with the percentage of how much of the year was spent (wasted) in that category, which have been listed in descending order:

1. Time spent sleeping: 25% (131,400 minutes)

2. Time spent eating: 12.5% (65,700 minutes)

3. Time spent living moments of blatant awesomeness that cannot be put into words: 11.5% (60,225 minutes)

4. Time spent awake due to Internet access: 10.4% (54,750 minutes)

5. Time spent pretending to work on homework: 8.3% (43,800 minutes)

6. Time spent praying: 5.2% (27,375 minutes)

7. Time spent yelling at my sisters to stop singing: 4.2% (21,900 minutes)

8. Time spent living horrific tales of sheer embarrassment that cannot be put into words: 3.1% (16,425 minutes)

9. Time spent trying to figure out what a Sheikh said last so I can write it in my notes, but then missing what he says next, and therefore failing at note-taking all together: 2.7% (14,400 minutes)

10. Time spent awake due to Internet access: 10.4% (54,750 minutes)

11. Time spent actually working on homework: 1.7% (9,125 minutes)

12. Time spent laughing for no apparent reason: 1.4% (7,300 minutes)

13. Time spent watching BBC and PBS: 1.04% (5,475 minutes)

14. Time spent telling myself that I don't need sleep at 3 AM because I procrastinated on my homework: 0.07% (3,657 minutes)

15. Time spent listening to my Qur'an teacher tell me that I need to do قلقلة: n0.005% (2,555 minutes)

16. Time spent trying to peel an orange without getting the juice in my paper cut: 0.004% (1,825 minutes)

17. Time spent in making this list: 0.00014% (75 minutes)

18. *BONUS: Time spent trying to fish the croutons out of the soup I was eating while coming up with this list: 0.000029% (15 minutes)

I actually got out my calculator to multiply and divide into these percentages, so I think they're fairly accurate. In that case, this is quite frightening because I spend more time on the Internet than I do praying. I'm calling for an intervention.

إِنَّ اللّهَ لاَ يُغَيِّرُ مَا بِقَوْمٍ حَتَّى يُغَيِّرُواْ مَا بِأَنْفُسِهِمْ

"Indeed, Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves." [13:11]

Bonus: 11 More Ways To Successfully Annoy an Equally Annoying Counterpart

1. Ask people what gender they are. When they respond, scratch your head, look skeptical, and ask, "You sure about that?"

2. Yell random numbers while someone is trying to count.

3. Beatbox along to every song, even if you can't beatbox. Especially if you can't beatbox.

4. Get on your hands and knees in the middle of a busy, crowded hallway. If someone asks you to move, scream "I'M LOOKING FOR MY CONTACT LENS. BACK OFF." Then lie on their feet.

5. Get into a fake boxing match with someone who has no idea what you're doing.

6. Sing your own theme music while you run down the halls acting like a ninja.

7. Ask the girl at the cash register if you can pay her in gum. When she says no, ask if you can pay her in trash.

8. Block your eyes and yell "EEWWWWWW!" at all of the kissing scenes in movies.

9. When someone tells you something, say "What?" as if you didn't hear. See how many times they'll repeat themselves until they catch on.

10. Stare quizzically at people. When asked what you're doing, just turn away, shake your head, and mumble something about "the prophecy."

11. When the waiter asks if your food is okay, burst into tears and launch into your life story. The long version.