The Midas Touch

 

 

 

We all know the story of the greedy king named Midas. He had a lot of gold and the more he had the more he wanted. He stored all the gold in his vaults and used to spend time every day counting it.

One day while he was counting a mysterious stranger came from nowhere and told the King that he would grant him a wish.

The king was delighted and said, “I would like everything I touch to turn to gold.”

The stranger asked the king, “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” replied the greedy king. So the stranger said, “Starting tomorrow morning with the sun rays you will get the golden touch.”

The king thought he must be dreaming, this couldn’t be true. But the next day when he woke up, he touched the bed, his clothes, and to his surprise, everything turned to gold. Of course, the king was very delighted.

He then looked out of the window and saw his daughter playing in the garden. He decided to give her a surprise and thought she would be happy. But before he went to the garden he decided to read a book. The moment he touched it, it turned into gold and he couldn’t read it. Then he sat to have breakfast and the moment he touched the fruit and the glass of water, they turned to gold. He was getting hungry and he said to himself, “I can’t eat and drink gold.”

Just about that time his daughter came running and he hugged her and she turned into a gold statue. There were no more smiles left.

The king bowed his head and started crying. The stranger who gave the wish came again and asked the king if he was happy with his golden touch.

The king said he was the most miserable man. The stranger asked, “What would you rather have, your food and loving daughter or lumps of gold and her golden statue?”

The king cried and asked for forgiveness. He said, “I will give up all my gold. Please give me my daughter back because without her I have lost everything worth having.”

The stranger said to the king, “You have become wiser than before” and he reversed the spell. The king got his daughter back in his arms and the king learned a lesson that he never forget for the rest of his life.

Moral: Sometimes getting what you want may be a bigger tragedy than not getting what you want.

Enjoy your life at every moment

Once a fisherman was sitting near seashore, under the shadow of a tree smoking his beedi. Suddenly a rich businessman passing by approached him and enquired as to why he was sitting under a tree smoking and not working. To this the poor fisherman replied that he had caught enough fishes for the day.

Hearing this the rich man got angry and said: Why don’t you catch more fishes instead of sitting in shadow wasting your time?
Fisherman asked: What would I do by catching more fishes?
Businessman: You could catch more fishes, sell them and earn more money, and buy a bigger boat.
Fisherman: What would I do then?
Businessman: You could go fishing in deep waters and catch even more fishes and earn even more money.
Fisherman: What would I do then?
Businessman: You could buy many boats and employ many people to work for you and earn even more money.
Fisherman: What would I do then?
Businessman: You could become a rich businessman like me.
Fisherman: What would I do then?
Businessman: You could then enjoy your life peacefully.
Fisherman: What do you think I’m doing right now?

MORAL – You don’t need to wait for tomorrow to be happy and enjoy your life. You don’t even need to be more rich, more powerful to enjoy life. LIFE is at this moment, enjoy it fully.

As some great men have said “My riches consist not in extent of my possessions but in the fewness of my wants”.

The mouse trap

A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package. “What food might this contain?” the mouse wondered. He was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap.

Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning: “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!”

The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said “Mr. Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it.”

The mouse turned to the pig and told him “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!” The pig sympathized, but said “I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in my prayers.”

The mouse turned to the cow and said “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!” The cow said “Wow, Mr. Mouse. I’m sorry for you, but it’s no skin off my nose.”

So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer’s mousetrap alone.

That very night a sound was heard throughout the house – like the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey. The farmer’s wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught. The snake bit the farmer’s wife. The farmer rushed her to the hospital and she returned home with a fever.

Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup’s main ingredient. But his wife’s sickness continued, so friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig. The farmer’s wife did not get well; she died. So many! people came for her funeral, the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them.

The mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the wall with great sadness. So, the next time you hear someone is facing a problem and think it doesn’t concern you, remember: when one of us is threatened, we are all at risk. We are all involved in this journey called life. We must keep an eye out for one another and make an extra effort to encourage one another. Each of us is a vital thread in another person’s tapestry.

The house with the golden windows

The little girl lived in a small, very simple, poor house on a hill and as she grew she would play in the small garden and as she grew she was able to see over the garden fence and across the valley to a wonderful house high on the hill – and this house had golden windows, so golden and shining that the little girl would dream of how magic it would be to grow up and live in a house with golden windows instead of an ordinary house like hers.

And although she loved her parents and her family, she yearned to live in such a golden house and dreamed all day about how wonderful and exciting it must feel to live there.

When she got to an age where she gained enough skill and sensibility to go outside her garden fence, she asked her mother is she could go for a bike ride outside the gate and down the lane. After pleading with her, her mother finally allowed her to go, insisting that she kept close to the house and didn’t wander too far. The day was beautiful and the little girl knew exactly where she was heading! Down the lane and across the valley, she rode her bike until she got to the gate of the golden house across on the other hill.

As she dismounted her bike and lent it against the gate post, she focused on the path that lead to the house and then on the house itself…and was so disappointed as she realized all the windows were plain and rather dirty, reflecting nothing other than the sad neglect of the house that stood derelict.

So sad she didn’t go any further and turned, heart broken as she remounted her bike … As she glanced up she saw a sight to amaze her…there across the way on her side of the valley was a little house and its windows glistened golden …as the sun shone on her little home.

She realized that she had been living in her golden house and all the love and care she found there was what made her home the ‘golden house’. Everything she dreamed was right there in front of her nose!

The important things in life

A philosophy professor stood before his class with some items on the table in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with rocks, about 2 inches in diameter.

He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles, of course, rolled into the open areas between the rocks.

He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else.
He then asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous “Yes.”

“Now,” said the professor, “I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The rocks are the important things – your family, your partner, your health, your children – things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter – like your job, your house, your car.

The sand is everything else. The small stuff.”

“If you put the sand into the jar first,” he continued “there is no room for the pebbles or the rocks. The same goes for your life.

If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take your partner out dancing. There will always be time to go to work, clean the house, give a dinner party and fix the disposal.

Take care of the rocks first – the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.”

Motherhood and Miracles

Motherhood and Miracles

By Dalia Mogahed

According to the Prophet Muhammad(peace be upon him)...God created mercy, and spread one part of it among all the mothers on the Earth, the human, the jinn and the animals, that they should love and nurture their young, from the beginning of time until the end. And He saved ninety-nine parts of mercy for Himself to use when judging the children of Adam on the Day of Resurrection.

My 2-month-old baby Tariq had been crying for the past six hours. His rhythmic plea, whah, whah, whah, whah; was a desperate cry for help, an appeal to humanity. I was pacing with my arms wrapped around his soft but strong 12-pound body as he howled; his back arched, face red, eyes pinched and mouth gaping in audible torment.

The dim night light in the open kitchen enveloped the adjoining living room in a brown film, as a fan on the counter hummed at full blast,unable to cut through the heavy humid air. It was 2:37A.M. and a blistering summer night.
I was one of those moms who wanted to do everything right; no short cuts. I took Tariq on long walks in a front carrier and pointed out every flower, every bird, every ladybug I noticed, and told him these were all gifts from God. We spent hours in the rocking chair while I read to him from colorful board books, knowing how precious this time was, and knowing that before too long I will be the one trying to squeeze into his busy schedule. I cuddled my baby, nursed him before he had to cry out of hunger, played with him, and describing every activity I did in that motherly running-commentary fashion the baby books encouraged. My sense of well-being was innately tied to his, and as long as the sun was shining, I was a capable, in control mother, with a happy, well cared for child.

This sense of competence would unravel with the fading of the daylight. It was always the same: my otherwise contented, healthy child would begin to fuss at around 6:00 p.m. and then his irritation would turn into all out war by around 8:00 p.m. and continue into the night. I dreaded the darkness, the backdrop to my weakest moments. After the third hour of trying unsuccessfully to comfort him, I would move beyond rational thought, when all that would seem real was the screaming, when it was the only sound I could imagine. No matter what anyone tried to tell me about how "normal" it was, Tariq's inconsolable crying tormented me with worry and shook my mothering confidence at the root.Doctors told me all this was "just'"colic. But with my husband working nights, to me it was no less than a test of faith.

That night, as the summer heat wrapped around my body like a heavy wool coat, I bounced Tariq, walked across the living room, and sang every song I knew. Water! The faucet had worked last night, I desperately remembered. I turned on the water in the kitchen sink full blast. The crying ceased. Tariq looked at the sparkling stream in silent surprise.Thank God, I sighed and leaned against the counter. At that moment, he started screaming again; the novelty of the water had worn off.

I turned my mind from problem solving to desperate prayer. Please God,I am so in need. Oh please God, I need strength, give my baby peace,give me patience. I have no power except by You, I have no strength except what you give me. I am your humble servant, and I need your help.I felt so vulnerable, so weak, so exposed and so painfully in need of God. Tariq continued to scream, as if begging me for help. "Something hurts me, Mommy. Rescue me," I heard him cry to his powerless mother. As a last desperate attempt and more to calm myself than Tariq, I began to say the call to prayer(Azaan) as loud as I could, Allahuakbar...Allaaaaaaaahu akbar ; "God is greater, God is greater." The profound meaning of these familiar words came alive for me in this moment of need. God is greater than this situation, I thought. God is greater than this moment of difficulty. God is greater than this weakness I feel.

Apparently startled, Tariq stopped crying and looked at me with his round black eyes glistening in the glow of the kitchen night-light.Ash-hadu aLa Ihlaha illah Allah, I went on: "I bear witness there is no god but God." He is sufficient as a helper, I told myself, He is sufficient as a friend. I was not alone.I felt the weight of Tariq's head as he rested it against my shoulder while I continued, Ash-hadu annah Muhammadan rasul allaaaaaaaah: "I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of God." I let the heavy meaning of this statement sink into my consciousness, now rendered pliant by my new found humility, ready to hear, ready to understand. He is the prophet of God, I silently repeated. What he said was Truth, absolute truth, and I must believe it whole-heartedly.

When Muhammad(peace be upon him) told a man to stay home from jihad to take care of his mother because "paradise is at her feet," that was truth, and when he advised another to honor his mother three times above his father, that was truth.

Such status cannot be easy to achieve, I realized. Such reverence is earned. There is honor in this endeavor, there is privilege in it. I was joining the ranks of some of the greatest and most important people in human history. I was a mother!

Hayaa alasalaah, hayaa ala alfalaa: "Come to prayer, come to success." The words continued to resonate within me; prayer was the model for success in life. Success was submission to God's will. Success was perseverance, was patience, was finding in myself the strength that could only be born in a trial. Success was discovering the love that my heart was capable of by giving birth to a human being that I would take a bullet for without a second thought. This experience itself was success; it was not a struggle in vain.

An immense wave of tranquility had drowned my tension. The drone of the fan seemed imposing now in the new stillness of the room. The small couch and chair in the living room, my silent witnesses, were covered with a golden blanket of soft light, thrown upon them by the tiny lamp in the kitchen. Tariq's soft cheeks were pressed against my shoulder and he was sound asleep.
I looked down at my son, the test, responsibility, and gift God had entrusted me with, and was awestruck. There in the dim light with his eyelids closed and laced with long black eyelashes, his pink cheeks bulging into his button nose, and his heart-shaped lips resting peacefully, he was a miracle, a sign of the Divine.I understood at that moment that to draw closer to the Merciful, I had to strive to eternalize His attributes as much as is possible with my limited human capacity.

This bittersweet journey called motherhood had brought me one step closer to understanding Ar-Rahman, A-Raheem; the All Merciful, the Most Benevolent. For I knew that the immense love, tenderness and compassion that I felt for my son, all my unconditional love, all my limitless giving, was infinitely dwarfed by God's love and mercy. I was just one mother, one insignificant speck in the family of creation, sharing in the mercy bestowed on mothers by God.

Recognizing my smallness erupted in me an epiphany of God's greatness,and the magnitude of His benevolence. While bestowing one part of mercy on the Earth for all mothers to share, He had saved ninety-nine parts for Himself.

I felt hot tears well up in my eyes as I whispered, Allahu akbar,Allahu akbar, La illah illa Allah;"God is greater, God is
greater,there is no god but God," completing the ancient call to prayer(Azaan) as it had been recited by billions before me for the past 1400 years. Yet on that night, I felt these words were spoken especially for me, like a personal letter from a friend.

Amazing Story- This flame is nothing!

 

Qari Muhammad Qayyam (may the mercy of Allah be upon him) related that a great deal of fighting and bloodshed had started prior to the Indo-Pakistan partition of 1947. He said that a very beautiful daughter of a very rich man in a certain community stepped out of her house to visit her aunt, who lived no more than a few streets away. Suddenly a riot erupted as she had gone halfway and she found herself trapped with apparently nowhere to go. She saw a mosque nearby and quickly went inside, sitting in the women’s section. The rioting continued late into the night and this girl did not know what to do.

The custodian of the masjid was a very young student there and late at night when he walked through the masjid before locking up he noticed this beautiful young lady. He was a respectful young man who feared Allah and so politely asked her to leave, saying that if she was found there then both would be dishonored and thrown out. She pleaded with him because of the extreme danger outside and so he agreed that she could spend the night, and sat down to study at the opposite end of the masjid.

The girl was unable to sleep with the events of the day in her mind and so watched the young man sitting studying by candle light at the opposite end of the masjid. She kept watching him and was very surprised at something she saw. From time to time this young man would extend his hand and keep it over the open flame, only withdrawing it when the flame obviously became unbearable. He then would resume his studies and continued this throughout the night until the dawn broke.

The young man called the adhan and asked the girl to leave before the congregation started coming to pray since now everything was calm outside. She agreed on the condition that he tell her why he was placing his hand on the candle flame throughout the night. The young man said that that was his own business and so the girl refused to leave until he told her what she wanted to know. The young man gave in and said, “I am at the age of youth and strong desire. We were alone and my desire was increasing, and although I was studying the shaytan would occasionally put temptation in my heart. Hence whenever I would feel any temptation I would put my hand on the flame and my fingers would burn. I would say to myself that this flame is nothing compared to the fire of Hell.”

The girl left the masjid and reached home, calming her parents’ fears as to what had happened to her. She also confided in her mother that she wanted to marry the custodian of the mosque near their house. She related the night’s events to her parents and said that only such a man with true fear of Allah in his heart can be true to his wife. Only such a man who truly fears Allah can fulfill a wife’s rights properly.

Hence the poor custodian of the mosque earned the daughter of a rich household in marriage. He received this honor not because of his looks but because of his character. Everything disintegrates and turns to dust but character remains strong. Honor is not bestowed because of handsome clothes or beautiful jewelry but because of what is in the heart. Knowledge is only beneficial when it is captured within the heart, and not merely written in books.

 

Source: I Love Allaah blog