“He has set up the Balance” – Surah Rahman, Ayah 7
Did anyone of you ever see the movie “Lion of the Desert”? In the beginning of that movie, Omar Mukhtar is shown as a teacher during the daytime and he is teaching all the children Surah Rahman. He stops at the Ayah shown above and reflects on it for a moment. Later on in the movie, while at war, he stops to rest in his ravaged hometown. He passes by his old school and picks up the tablets that the students were last writing (which was the beginning of Surah Rahman) and repeats the Ayah on Balance once more. It was clearly showing in the movie (judging from different clips in the movie) that he believed that the oppression that the Libyans were facing were one side of the balance and that he was the other side – providing the resistance against the Italians in order to keep the balance..
Well, that story could serve as one of the types of balance that has been set by Allah. I wanted to however, talk about another type of balance that I was thinking about recently because there were so many deaths that I felt affected by . News of deaths kept on pouring in for the past week and it felt rather disheartening to here of so many Muslims passing away. If anyone of you has ever read Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi (I’m the #1 Star Wars fan), Luke is feeling the same thing and said in a sad tone, “Is this was life is about: Just watching beloved people passing away in front of your eyes?” Normally, when I hear of someone’s death, I feel the same way; that one day, I will see or hear of my parents death (if Allah wills for me to live that long) as well as the deaths of others.
To explain this further, let’s take the topic of fear and hope. Imagine two different people. One person is filled with hope that he will go to Jannah no matter what, which makes him less devoted to his worship and more carefree. Another person is filled with fear that he would be in Hell no matter how much worship he does and become depressed with his life and is always in a state of misery. What type of person are you? One filled with only hope, or one filled with only fear? I doubt that any of us are in only one of the two categories. We should all be fearful of what is awaiting us after the Day of Judgement, but we should also be hopeful that we will be the ones that are going to Jannah. If we don’t keep a balance, then we will obviously become unbalanced and to an extreme. In Surah Baqara, Allah (saw) says, “And thus have We willed you to be a community of the middle way” (Ayah 143). He didn’t say that He has willed us to be of a community to an extreme, but rather a community of the middle way. May Allah (swt) keep us on the straight and middle path and may our actions and lives be balanced in the best manner possible. Ameen.
12 Comments
Allaahu Akbar! This was really and truly enlightening. You’re right, a believe is always balanced, not to one extreme or the other.
And that example of fear & hope was perfect. They are the two wings of a believer. Without one or the other, one can’t move on.
I really like this website of yours. So awesome. May Allah bless you in this world – and in the next. And may He give you ‘hayaatan tayyibah’. And may He help the Muslims to learn from this and benefit. Aameen. :) :)
IN response to “The Balance Set By Allah”
I think your article is full of wisdom. I have witnessed young teenage boys to be living in great fear every day about the Day of Judgement, and my heart is heavy with sadness when I see this. Your article encouraging believers to keep to the concept of ‘balance’ in place is promising. It reveals that you yourself have been through the struggle of it, and I commend you for your openness and encouragement. Your website reflects a great deal of reverence, respect and love for your fellow people. Keep up the good work and as AbdulBasit Khan says, may God/Allah bless you. Amen.
To add also, one cool thing,that verse above from surah baqarah, is verse143, which is the middle verse of the surah (143 out of 286) :)
Oh my God! I am like currently working on a post for my own blog and I’m writing about balance in our lives too. I like the point you made on a hopeful person being less devoted to his worship (I never thought about that). I guess that happens when a person turns that hope into arrogance. By the way, all these posts that I’m seeing today (like this one from 2007), I never saw them before.
Cool; please link to your blog when you write comments then; it’ll help you get more traffic.
And in regards to all of these posts coming out of nowhere, we installed Disqus onto the server, so while importing the comments from WordPress, I think they did some faster than others, so random articles rose to the top :) But Alhamdulillah, at least you were able to benefit from this,
Oh my God! I am like currently working on a post for my own blog and I'm writing about balance in our lives too. I like the point you made on a hopeful person being less devoted to his worship (I never thought about that). I guess that happens when a person turns that hope into arrogance. By the way, all these posts that I'm seeing today (like this one from 2007), I never saw them before.
Ameen
It’s interesting subhanAllah, how you relate everything with Islam mashaAllah- jedis, superheroes, coffee spilling etc.
Hope and Fear are two sides of the same coin. To maintain a balance, both are crucial.
jazakAllah khayr for this awesome read, subhanAllah its always pleasure reading your articles br. Arif :)
Allaahu Akbar! This was really and truly enlightening. You’re right, a believe is always balanced, not to one extreme or the other.
And that example of fear & hope was perfect. They are the two wings of a believer. Without one or the other, one can’t move on.
I really like this website of yours. So awesome. May Allah bless you in this world – and in the next. And may He give you ‘hayaatan tayyibah’. And may He help the Muslims to learn from this and benefit. Aameen. :) :)