Date: March 17, 2015
Did you ever think of what is the meaning of blindness? The meaning varies for people, for their thoughts and approach. To some, it will be merely a sickness or defect by birth. To some others, it sounds something unsound or a state of ignorance or passiveness. Often it is a frightening thought or state. Here the thing is something different. Author states that blindness has become a way of life, to be open, a disguising to lead the life. Author recollects his experience from Manipal hospital, near Bangalore, that he was bedridden due to a massive stroke which lead him to a total blindness. His illness transformed him to a blind man physically, but not mentally. Gradually he started to recover his blindness using auditory senses and the mind to be able to overcome the deficiency. And this challenging situation taught him to keep his blindness as an asset. Instead of crying about the vision loss, he found himself taking up the challenges of gaining ground and bridging the gap between being sighted and facing blindness. He read newspaper e copy by software called JAWS (Job Access With Speech). Watched movies by listening the conversation and amazingly he got extra power for his other senses. Author is giving a positive message to the blind people that to keep the defect as a challenge and live life with full of joy and activities.
This is a wonderful article on suicide and its haram in Islam. The author of this article Saba Malik shares some knowledge he got from a depression mastery seminar by a prominent Muslim Shaykh, eight years back. Suicide is a sin in Islam. But the author still wonders that by knowing the fact that suicide is a bad activity, why Muslims still tries to kill themselves. Once the seminar finished, the author went up and asked the Shaykh that if a Muslim attempts or commits suicide, what happens to him. The Shaykh answered that definitely, he will go to hell. Mental illness, hallucinations, diseases, financial conditions, family problems etc. can cause one to commit suicide. Depression can be treated with some of the tools practiced in our day to day life and concentration. Following steps are helpful to avoid depression. 1. Regular salah 2. Medication 3. Psychotherapy or cognitive behavioral therapy 4. Regular exercise 5. Healthy eating 6. Good sleep hygiene 7. Keeping up with physical hygiene 8. Active and meaningful social relationships 9. Support groups or blog 10.Giving back to your community Dr. Al-Khater says that apart from the above tools, situational depression can be alleviated by practicing the following tools: 1. Using the Islamic creed 2. Doing righteous deeds 3. Offering salah and reciting prayers 4. Contemplating the worst cases 5. Having good opinions 6. Living with a realistic – not idealistic – point of view 7. Behaving well towards other and yourself 8. Having hope Above all, prayer and preach Allah is the best solution to forget the thoughts about committing suicide.
Read MoreDepression usually comes from being far from Allah. We need remembrance of Allah. Our body consists of flesh, bone, muscle and blood. Our body has two parts. Those are physical sense and spiritual sense. For physical sense, it needs exercise, good heart, good food and nutrition. But what does the soul needs. Soul needs Allah. And when that soul taken away from Allah, it never remember Allah. It never is in a good environment. It becomes depressed and lonely. It yearns for Allah and it yearns for its creator. For this we needs in good environment and we needs to be around good people. Good people will remember Allah always. People who pray and people who have genuine fear of Allah are good people. So be in a circle of good people always and remember Allah, the creator.
Read MoreAlhamdulilah, we're very pleased to announce that we've added Tafsir Ibn Kathir in english to Alim.org. You can enter any ayah on the homepage and click on the "Tafsir" button to see the tafsir for that ayah. The arabic and english translation of the ayaat are displayed above each section of the tafsir and the navigation works fairly smoothly. We're excited because we feel this is the best presentation on the web for this particular tafsir thus far. Please let us know if you find any bugs and spread the word!
Read More"When a person dies, his works end, except for three: ongoing charity, knowledge that is benefited from, and a righteous child who prays for him."
Prophet Mohammed (PBUH)
"The best of what a man leaves behind are three: a righteous child who supplicates for him, ongoing charity the reward of which reaches him, and knowledge that is acted upon after him."
Sunan Ibn Mājah
"Every day two angels come down from Heaven and one of them says, 'O Allah! Compensate every person who spends in Your Cause,' and the other (angel) says, 'O Allah! Destroy every miser.'"
Sahih Bukhari