Taking things for granted

I had mentioned to a friend recently that I learn the ilmu agama for my own amalan to ensure that I'm doing things right and to strengthen my faith.

So I had a bit of anxiety attack when a friend had expressed her desire to revert to Islam and wanted me to teach her how to solat. I mean, I know how to solat. I know all the doas. But do you know which is the compulsory ones and which is not? I know al-Fatihah is compulsory but is the doa in tahiyyat awal and akhir compulsory as well? Dah la tu pulak, most of the terms that I'm familiar with is in Malay. Nak kena jugak cari the English part. Even harder to teach because she has totally zero knowledge of Islam and cannot read the Quran at all. Alhamdulillah, so far she found it easy to follow.

She hasn't officially revert yet, but she has rejected totally her previous religious beliefs and has stopped doing things that she knows is haram in Islam. She has even stopped eating the normal chicken and plan to find the halal chicken from now on.

I am really, really happy for her, and happy that I could help her in her journey. It isn't easy for her, to suddenly discard what she had believe all her life, what her family still believe in. Yet, while there was so many things that worry her in taking this step, she is so positive and have strong faith that Allah will help her through all this. It really humbled me to see how strong she is and how strong her faith in Allah, even though she just found Him. And she is very eager to learn everything - to learn how to solat, to fast, etc. And she hasn't complained about one single thing that she has to do if she becomes a Muslim. She had even scrapped her plan to return to her hometown in mid August because it will be Ramadhan then and she's afraid she'll not be able to practice Islam if she go back.

I think that we take our religion too much for granted that we don't appreciate the gift that was given to us - the gift of being born Muslim, the gift of knowledge in Islam, and the gift of living in a practicing Muslim country. So we don't show our appreciation by practicing it as best as we could, don't alleviate our faith by learning and learning more about Islam, and we don't wear the badge of Islam with pride. In the past few weeks, I have been reminded how blessed I am to have these gifts. Besides my friend, I had also gotten to know one lady from Azerbaijan during my Tafseer classes. She is born a Muslim, but she lived in a country that doesn't allow her to practice. So she is eager to know all there is about being a Muslim. It is these encounters that had really humbled me. We need to guard our gifts, protect them and appreciate them lest Allah takes them away from us and gave them to a more deserving nation than us.


Note to self:
Learn not only for own benefit, but for the benefit of others as well.