God’s Generosity

This is the view from my front door. I took it this evening with my wife’s camera when I came home from work. I took it because it means something to me; something that I’ve been thinking a great deal about for the past few days.

It represents how much God has given me, how generous He has been to me. When I was younger I used to dream that one day I’d live in a house looking out on a cottage garden. Well, that’s pretty much what I got. This photo doesn’t really do our garden any justice. When you wander up and down those steps each day you’re just taken by the beautiful flowers coming into bloom and the delicious scent of the Daphne. The other day I was standing at my front door, looking out onto the garden and I couldn’t help but say Alhamdulilah over and over. Why? Because there are different coloured primroses, cowslips, tulips and daffodils flowering all over the place, and we didn’t do a thing. I stood there saying Alhamdulilah and then another thought came to my mind: what a disgrace I am.

God has showered the pair of us in great bounties, and yet look how I have behaved over the last few weeks, months and years. When I reflected on this, I felt ashamed.

There are funny things that happen to us in our home which repeatedly remind us of God’s great generosity. Just after we got married, my wife suggested buying something for the kitchen which I refused, saying that it would be extravagant, only for us to receive it as a gift a few weeks later from my grandmother. Indeed, in her boxes of cast-offs that she insisted on sending us away with were half a dozen items that we had thought of over the preceding months. After we moved into our home my wife discovered a Black Sea fruit tree in our back garden which supplies her with an unending stream of berries much loved in her village back home each autumn. Just a few weeks ago, my wife saw something in my mother’s home that she thought would be useful in ours, only for our first set of guests on our return back home to give it to us as a gift – somewhat surprising given that it was somewhat unusual. These things happen to us a lot and each time it is a reminder of God’s generosity.

Lately I’ve been thinking about this a great deal. Over the past two and a half years I had a job which made me extremely depressed. Now I’ve dwelled on the fact before that I should really have been grateful to have had an income and that’s all true and accepted, but if I am honest, I really hated it. On my first day there after resigning from my previous workplace I sat with my manager and listened as he went through my job description, crossing out all of the elements that were no longer required of me. It was pretty much everything that had led me to apply for the post. Over the months that followed I sunk into quite a heavy bout of melancholy. It was only natural then that I should mention my employment when I stood on the Plain of Arafat during my Hajj a year ago. My prayer went something like this, “Oh Allah, You know my heart better than I do. I have no idea what I want to do to earn my living, so grant me a job that will make me happy, in which I will work hard and that will be good for me here and hereafter.”

Well God is most generous. On the day of Arafat a year later I started a new job – I only realised the significance when I put the radio on in my car and there was a report on Britain’s Hajj delegation gathering on the Plain that morning. I didn’t do anything to get this job. The department in which I originally worked was merged into another and my role disappeared as a result. They had to find me something to do, but Alhamdulilah, Alhamdulilah. Each day now I find myself reflecting on this new role of mine, because I really love it. It’s a great job and I’m doing something I really enjoy. I work hard now and I’m happy. That is God’s generosity completely. I did nothing to deserve this. It is His generosity completely. His generosity and His mercy.

And there is something else. Over the last few months I have been really stupid. My stupidity ultimately drove me to heavy tears under the strain of a heavy heart. Maybe it was looking out onto my front garden which brought me to a halt: those Alhamdulilahs followed by that feeling of shame and regret. Those thoughts of God’s incredible generosity followed by the reflection on my ingratitude. I prayed for God’s help, for His forgiveness, for His Guidance, for His aid. I think, just maybe, we have just witnessed His generosity once more. A wise friend has come to visit us and it seems he is setting us straight, helping us start each day in a good way and end each day in a good way too. I consider it God’s immense generosity.

When I think of what He has given me, showered on me, I can only feel ashamed. Has my conduct been any way to say Thank You? No, but perhaps recognising His generosity is the first step towards rectifying our affairs.

Inna lillahi wa inna ilahi raji’un.

We never know, of course, when our chances will cease. I have just seen the CCTV footage showing the moment when a car driven by a drunken driver sped through red lights at a junction and ploughed into the car in which my brother-in-law was travelling the Sunday before last. The speeding car hit the rear passenger door and killed my brother-in-law’s best friend, who happened to have swapped sides with him on this one occaison. Indeed we belong to Allah, and indeed to Him we return.

A Second Chance

As the years pass by, there is always a part of us that wants to look backwards, to reminisce about a life we have left behind now. We travelled up to North Yorkshire this weekend to visit my parents and I had in mind to take a detour to Hull on our return: to remember old friends, revisit old streets and see how much has changed. We didn’t get to go there as it happened, but I did realise another desire of mine: to return to York mosque.

We left the Rectory half way through the morning on Monday and made good progress back past York and towards the M1. We had travelled about 30 miles and were about 10 miles short of the motorway when my wife suddenly remembered that we had forgotten our coats. She insisted on going back for them since they are all we have to protect us from the cold through the winter and my asthma medicine was with mine. Grudgingly I took the next slip road off the bypass, crossed the bridge and headed back in the opposite direction. We had travelled for forty minutes already and I was mindful of the 200 miles still to go ahead of us, but it was the only way.

Alhamdulilah for that. Though perhaps I was irritated as I counted an extra sixty miles and another hour added to our journey, I can only say Alhamdulilah. This time, setting off for home once more I gave more thought to the nagging within which asked me to revisit that old mosque of mine. I don’t know how many times over the years I have told myself that I must pop in to whisper salams, but it seems that I was never able to. Alhamdulilah; had we not forgotten our coats we would never have returned perhaps.

I am so glad that we did. We arrived there in time for dhuhr prayer and just before a lovely gentleman arrived to open up the doors and let us in. Last time I visited, the mosque committee was raising funds to build an extension for women and the growing community at large. As I skirted the small building I wondered if they had ever realised that goal, for it was a long time since my last visit. It was only after standing in the prayer hall for a couple of minutes that I realised just how tiny the original mosque had been, recalling the tight dimensions of those Friday prayers I had once sought out so keenly.

I realised that it was eight years since I last visited and yet this kind man somehow remembered me. He greeted my wife with salams, opened the prayer room for her and switched the amplifiers on without any intervention on my part (we have to specifically ask at my local mosque). His warmth and beautiful nature reminded me what I so loved about that modest little mosque as a visiting stranger almost a decade ago. Although I was travelling, I just had to do dhuhr with them and stay for a little time in that now slightly bigger mosque before our long journey onwards.

My brief return made me so happy and it was alhamdulilah-for-forgetting-our-coats all the way home. Alhamdulilah that Allah gave us a second chance. Thinking about it now, it seems a rather fitting parable for our lives.

O son of Adam, so long as you call upon Me and ask of Me, I shall forgive you for what you have done, and I shall not mind. O son of Adam, were your sins to reach the clouds of the sky and were you then to ask forgiveness of Me, I would forgive you. O son of Adam, were you to come to Me with sins nearly as great as the earth and were you then to face Me, ascribing no partner to Me, I would bring you forgiveness nearly as great as it.

Hadith Qudsi reported in the collections of Tirmidhi and Ahmad.

Me… Unplugged

In just a moment I am going to disconnect my personal computer from the internet; I am going to unplug the network cable from the back. In the Qur’an we read that there is good and bad in alcohol, but the harm outweighs the benefit. Just now, at this moment in time, the internet is my wine. Its harm is outweighing its benefit to me.

Protestant Christians—brought up on Paul’s appeal to Grace and his sustained condemnation of legalism in his letter to the Galatians—are sometimes heard lamenting the Muslim’s insistence on living by the letter of the Law. Grace sets mankind free from all that, they will argue, but surely the state of the world around us bears witness to the fallacy of that view. Some people are indeed blessed with great self-restraint, but isn’t our Sunnah really just being realistic about the strength of individuals and communities?

Yes, some people are just good folk. And yes, some people can become good folk with the promise of reward. But it is true too that some of us must be deterred from deeds which are harmful to us and others. In truth it is few that live by Grace; like donkeys, most of us will only respond to a carrot or a stick, or both depending on our state of mind. I appreciate this. I appreciate possessing a faith which is realistic about human nature. I appreciate possessing a faith that doesn’t simply tell me that mankind is born in sin and can do nothing about it except rejoice that a ransom has been paid on my behalf. I appreciate possessing a framework through which I might overcome what holds me back.

I sometimes feel sad that I do not have the pure, beautiful, sound heart of some of my fortunate brothers and sisters in faith. Sometimes we meet people whose whole being oozes kindness. I envy such people a lot, but I also recognise that all is not lost for me. The Sunnah, the Law, this noble framework for our lives, is a blessing for those of us who need a little more help. In our lives we sometimes deprive ourselves from certain pleasures, for which we are often derided by those around us, but we do so because we know that in the long run it is good for us. At other times we expend our efforts on tasks which we may find a burden, which we may even dislike, but we persevere nevertheless because we know that it is good for us, our family or our community.

I doubt that disconnecting myself from the internet is a prescription of our Sunnah, but depriving ourselves of that which brings harm upon us most certainly is. My first step—of promising myself not to spend too much time on the internet—failed in rather spectacular fashion. I have great self-restraint in many spheres, but this is not one of them. To unplug is my next step. If that doesn’t work, then I may just have to cancel our service altogether, although that would deprive my wife of her online training, Turkish news, video conversations with her family and www.reciter.org (she manages to obtain all the good of it). Perhaps that won’t be necessary if I can get her to hide the network cable from me—I can’t imagine this being a problem because she already does it with the cakes.

In a moment or two I am going to disconnect my personal computer from the internet, not for an hour or two, or a day. For quite some time I hope. At least until I have achieved everything I need to. I can’t say I have high hopes, for I know myself too well and I know I have been somewhere like this so many times before. But I am going to unplug the network cable now, so let’s see how I go. And God help me, and us all.

Falling

When I moved down to Cambridge in 1995 to work as a software tester for an IT company, I encountered a programmer who said he was quitting IT, heading off to work for the National Trust instead. The new-fangled email system and nascent internet were loading too many pressures on his shoulders and he could not wait to get out, to drive a tractor or something. The world has completely changed since then—in the course of my career I have only known this always-online world—but I can appreciate his sentiments perfectly. I often wish I could just turn off and disconnect. I sometimes think I might survive those old dreams of mine to disappear into the hills to live a subsistence lifestyle.

I mentioned my current feeling about the internet to my colleagues the other day and they all looked at me somewhat stunned. I have just got myself a job as a web application developer. ‘Don’t you think you might have chosen the wrong career path then?’ they asked me. Quite possibly.. I had just told them that I often think about cancelling my broadband internet connection, except that my wife now benefits from it greatly for staying in touch with family and friends overseas. ‘Okay, put it another way,’ I said, ‘I use the internet all the time, and that’s the problem.’ It wastes my time and worse.

I remember that feeling of relief we had after we disposed of our television six years ago. I can imagine such relief returning for me personally if I unplugged from this giant network. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with television: there is good in it as well as bad. The same is true of the internet. I am not condemning it as the ultimate source of evil. I am just saying I could live better without it, I think.

Today my heart is weighing heavy in my chest and I feel like I am burning up inside, and a memory keeps on recurring in my mind’s eye. A few years ago my wife and I holidayed in south Wales. One morning we were driving down hill along a private road. For a split second we freewheeled and I quickly lost control of the car. We hit a sharp rock and ripped one of the front tyres open. I managed to get the car back into gear, slow it down and regain control. But a minute on down the road, just round the bend, came a walker, rambling up the slope. I realised in that instant that I could have killed that man. The past few weeks I have been free wheeling (or free falling) just like that in my life. And now I see that walker, standing in my path. I think this pain in my chest is going to accompany me for a while now. I want to head for the hills and disappear.

Help Yourself

The only good thing about an egotist, say some, is that they don’t talk about other people, but this is not entirely true. The devoted egotist will talk about everyone in an effort to blame every ill on someone or something else. The true egotist is an expert in the art of self-pity. They will not necessarily express a high opinion of themselves, but their conduct indicates that self-regard is their dominating underlying characteristic.

Fifteen years ago I had low self-esteem to a horrendous extreme. When I started at college my personal tutor referred me to a mentor who tried her best to lift me out of my negative morass, but there was nothing anybody could do to help me because I was not prepared to help myself. Whenever my mentor suggested a solution to a problem I would dismiss it, for they were not actually obstacles, just excuses. Hearing my lamentations about my solitary existence, my mentor would remind me that I had a bicycle that could carry me far and wide, only for me to respond that I was always getting punctures; I had an answer for everything. My mentor went as far as identifying for me puncture resistant tyres, but she was wasting her time. I was not ready to help myself, preferring to wallow in self-pity, for I found it easier to blame others than to take myself to account.

I was reminded of that period of my life yesterday when I received a phone call from a friend which irritated me immensely. As soon as I had heard what he had to say, I was somehow recalling those tyres of mine and that period in my mid-teens when no solution to a problem would ever satisfy me because I refused to help myself. Thinking back to all those mostly repetitive conversations we had had over at least five years, I was suddenly reminded of a famous Qur’anic verse: “God does not change the condition of a people until…” I think we have reached that stage my mentor once arrived at after working with me for over a year: there is nothing I can do for him except pray. If a person does not want to help him/herself, no external force will have any effect.

A couple of years after I became Muslim a close friend of mine travelled 430 miles north from London to give me advice that I didn’t want to hear. Over the preceding months he had witnessed my struggles in my new faith, whether in my emails or telephone calls from Scotland. One afternoon, although he had a phobia for heights, we ascended Myreton Hill rising to 387 metres above sea level in the Ochil Hills of Clackmannanshire and began to discuss what was holding me back. There came his advice for me: God had done his part in guiding me to faith. Now it was my turn to repay Him. It was not advice I wanted to hear, but I have treasured it ever since. I may have wanted sympathy at that moment in time, but what would I gain from that? Sometimes we need to receive uncomfortable advice. Sometimes we need to be pushed out of our comfort zone. Sometimes we need to be told to help ourselves. If you find that something is holding you back, look inward: “Is the obstacle actually me?”

Individual personal accountability is central to our faith. I only started making progress in life when I realised that I had to help myself and thus acted accordingly. There is no aid for one who will not help him/herself, who prefers to wallow in self-pity, blaming others rather than taking him/herself to account. This applies to individuals, communities and nations. If you want to get on in life, help yourself.

NB: This post has been edited.