Karima > Recent Status Updates

"We tend to think that the future happens later, but we're creating it in our minds every day. When the present falls apart, so does the future we had associated with it. And having the future taken away is the mother of all plot twists. But if we spend the present trying to fix the past or control the future, we remain stuck in place, in perpetual regret."

"It is important to be mindful that a person's natural tendencies and behaviour make it very rare that two people will agree on everything, [...] So it is not a condition of a successful marital relationship that your desires and practices be absolutely the same. Rather, what is critical is that there exist true love, affection, mercy and emotional connection."

"It is important to be mindful that a person's natural tendencies and behaviour make it very rare that two people will agree on everything, [...] So it is not a condition of a successful marital relationship that your desires and practices be absolutely the same. Rather, what is critical is that there exist true love, affection, mercy and emotional connection."

On physical productivity: "Managing nutrition is not about you, or present enjoyment, it's an amanah, a trust, to help keep our bodies running efficiently to allow our souls to accumulate as many good deeds as possible before our return to the Creator."

Spiritual energy increases with taqwa because the more pious you are, the more strength you develop in your personality and character. It enables you to make conscious decisions that lead to your success, even if these decisions come at personal short-term cost.

"Hātim al-Aṣamm said: 'I was once too late for congregational prayer and Abū Ishāq al-Bukhārī was the only one to commiserate with me. Had I lost a son, more than ten thousand would have offered me their condolences, for people find religious misfortune easier to bear than worldly calamity.'."

"A servant should be hopeful and fearful, not too confident and not despairing of the mercy of Allāh. If you keep to my advice, nothing will be more beloved to you than death and certainly it will soon come to you. If you disregard my advice, nothing will be more hateful to you than death and you cannot prevent it."

- Abū Bakr As-Siddīq (ra)

"The intelligence of the heart is of the humanistic type, which cares about other people as well. The intelligence of the brain is of a selfish kind, which is more concerned about its own survival."

"If the heart is not kept clean, then the lamp of the soul is dimmed, much like a light-bulb that is covered with dust. However, if the heart is kept polished, then the soul will light up the whole human being."

"When you think about it, it’s the future you’ll never get to see that you regret missing the most when you die."

"Love has to end. That’s all. And even though everyone knows it they still fall in love. I guess it’s the same with life. We all know it has to end someday, but even so we act as if we’re going to live forever. Like love, life is beautiful because it has to end."

"What he understood that Allah meant by qadar was that the prior decree of Allah does not cancel out the need to strive, and it does not imply that we should depend only on Allah's decree. On the contrary, it should motivate us to strive hard and make the effort to attain whatever will be of benefit in this world and in the Hereafter."

Answered some questions and created some new ones...

"Do what is right and do your best, for the person who is destined for Paradise will be caused to die when he is doing one of the deeds of the people of Paradise, no matter what he did before, and the one who is destined for Hell will be caused to die when he is doing one of the deeds of the people of Hell, no matter what he did before."
- The Prophet ﷺ

The Prophet ﷺ said: "If you hear something from your brother that you reject, make an excuse for him up to seventy excuses. If you cannot do it, then say: 'Perhaps he has an excuse i do not know.'."

The Prophet ﷺ said, "Whoever controls his anger at the time when he has the means to act upon it, Allāh will fill his heart with contentment on the Day of Resurrection."

"When you think of Islam as an identity, you are, in fact, associating your ideas of what Muslims need to be. When a person has to be a certain way - and no other - then the identity becomes heavy, and thus the religion becomes heavy. Religion is meant to transform us, and to transform, we need to be light."

Rereading this book after 3 years, bismillah 👩‍🦯

"It may happen that people evade their collective duties due to the ignorance that results from the sort of isolation in which many women live. [...] If some of these collective duties are required of men in the first place, yet in a case of general backwardness and lack of enough male ability and understanding, these duties become applicable to women who are endowed with such understanding and ability."

"She wanted this. And I wanted her to have it. I wanted her to be happy. But now that I have it, I realize that she’s happy and I’m not. Her happiness came at the cost of mine. I feel robbed and exploited."

"The key to successful parenting is based on your deepest feelings of love and affection for your child and is demonstrated simply through empathy and understanding. Good parenting begins in your heart and then continues on a moment-to-moment basis by engaging your children when feelings run high, when they are sad, angry or scared.

The heart of parenting is being there in a particular way when it really counts"

"O disciple, be neither destitute of good deeds nor devoid of spiritual states, for you can be sure that mere knowledge will not help."

"O disciple, knowledge without action is madness and action without knowledge is void."

"At the very least, we should be willing to agree that theologically speaking, whatever diminishes and denies the full humanity of women must be presumed not to reflect the divine or an authentic relation to the divine."

"So decide who you are for that is what your children will grow up to be."

"The strongest shield against evil influences of society is high confidence and a strong sense of and pride in personal identity that is based on a noble history. What you do with confidence inspires others. What you are apologetic about, doesn't even inspire you."

So far, this book could've done without the harsh tone. It also feels like a thought dump rather than a book about raising a child.

"And because intimate adult relationships are so emotionally arousing, they tend to activate unresolved issues about not getting our emotional needs met. We often project issues about our parents onto our partners; then we may become even more angry with them because, at an unconscious level, they remind us of the past, in addition to whatever is happening in the present."

I should be studying...

"Unfortunately, being counted on isn't the same thing as being loved, and the emotional emptiness of this strategy eventually becomes apparent."

"Many people who were neglected as children don't realise that their independence was a necessity, not a choice."

If you had an independent, self-reliant personality, your parent wouldn't have seen you as a needy child for whom they could play the role of rescuing parent. Instead, you were pegged as the child without needs, the little grown-up. It wasn't some sort of insufficiency in you that made your parent pay more attention to your sibling; rather, you weren't dependent enough to trigger you parent's enmeshment instincts.