Al- Hadi Part 4

Bismillah!

For those of you who are checking out this post for the first time here's the 3rd part that you can check out! In the last post we discussed about the last 2 types of Guidance and in this one we will discuss on how this attribute of Allah SWT must affect our life and the surah which has the abundant Guidance in it.

For starters, lets think about this beautiful qudsi hadith;

On the authority of Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) from the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), who said:

"Allah (mighty and sublime be He), had said: 'I have divided prayer between Myself and My servant into two halves, and My servant shall have what he has asked for. When the servant says: 'Al-hamdu lillahi rabbi l-alamin' (3), Allah (mighty and sublime be He) says: 'My servant has praised Me.' And when he says: 'Ar-rahmani r-rahim' (4), Allah (mighty and sublime be He) says: 'My servant has extolled Me,' and when he says: 'Maliki yawmi d-din' (5), Allah says: 'My servant has glorified Me' - and on one occasion He said: 'My servant has submitted to My power.' And when he says: 'Iyyaka na budu wa iyyaka nasta in' (6), He says: 'This is between Me and My servant, and My servant shall have what he has asked for.' And when he says: 'Ihdina s-sirata l- mustaqim, siratal ladhina an amta alayhim ghayril-maghdubi alayhim wa la d-dallin' [Guide us to the Straight Way ,The Way of those on whom You have bestowed Your Grace , not (the way) of those who earned Your Anger (such as the Jews), nor of those who went astray. (such as the Christians)] (7), He says: 'This is for My servant, and My servant shall have what he has asked for.'"

[Muslim (also by Malik, at-Tirmidhi, Abu-Dawud, an-Nasa'i and Ibn Majah)]
You can check out the translation of whats written above right here.

So now, when we go through this hadith we can figure out that the essence of this surah is in the guidance that we ask from Allah SWT at least 17 times in a day because we are so prone on getting misguided now and then, in one way or another. Now, you and I can't just say 'okay so we recite the surah everyday, yet there are some sins we do on daily basis' because the thing that we must keep in mind is that, how much faith and belief are we sincerely putting in while we recite this surah in our salah? Are we just reciting it on a ferrari's speed? or are we actually trying to read while pondering upon it's meaning?

Now, if Allah SWT does provide us the guidance based on the above Qudsi Hadith then how do we figure about what exactly is that type of Guidance? The scholars have categorized the Guidance in 9 types, which is ;

1. Allah will guide you to acquire knowledge about the right/wrong or halal/haraam : Alhamdulillah many of us have receieved this type of guidance yet we choose to conveniently overlook some of the things which contradict with our whims and desires. so what do we do then? well the answer is in next point!

2. Allah will give you the ability to act upon that guidance : Guidance can also be in form of the ability to do something that pleases Allah SWT. For example, if i have a fractured foot, no matter how much I would want to make a sujood that time I will not be able to do it. So this ability that we have and that we take for granted to obey Allah SWT is also a type Guidance and help from Allah. But what if i know that I have the ability yet i just don't feel ''like it''? Next point for the answer!

3. Allah will make you want to do it : This is the type of Guidance that not many of us receieve because sometimes we do know the right and wrong, and we are capable of following the straight path but the obstacles on it just makes us want to go back to our old ways of life and in short, we don't WANT to go on that path. So Allah SWT is fixing this problem as well by giving us the guidance of wanting to do the right thing, now few of us who do not have this guidance, what do we do? DUA!! Yes, a simple answer for anything!

4. Allah will make you firm on that guidance till you meet him and this will be the complete guidance : Well I don't know about any of you, But I desperately need this type of Guidance because I am like a slippery soap on bathroom tiles when it comes to being firm on my emaan. Sometimes, its sky high and sometimes its 6 feet under! So what any of us would probably want after receiving the guidance is to be firm and stable on it... well some of you might think why?? Next point for the answer! hehe

5. He will protect you from the obstacles: The problem with the world that we live in these days is that when we try to practice the actual islam and disregard the so called cultural islam comprising of many innovations and conviniently slected religious duties (as if its a buffet table) with the excuse of Allah is Ghafoor ur-Raheem (the most forgiving and merciful) forgetting the fact that he is also Shadeed ul Iqaab (most severe in punishment), people tend to create a LOT of obstacles for us. So when we encounter such people or situations in our life we need to have a firmly guided conscious because they were times that I myself have done things contradicting to the Islamic beliefs.

Trust me, it can be anyone as close as your best friend or your own family. I remember once my mom had made a dress for me but the sleeves of it were only until the elbows, she forgot that i started wearing only full-sleeves dresses, when I tried to explain her how I could not wear the dress she prepared for me for a party she got upset at it, but when i stuck firm to my belief Alhamdulillah she understood my point and stopped persisting me about it after sometime.

6. Allah will make your goal i.e. paradise clear for your all the time so that nothing puts you down : As the famous english idiom goes Keep Your Eyes on the Prize, with this type of Guidance we would do exactly THAT.

7. Allah SWT will show you how you are in need of his guidance constantly : Because we know how it is so difficult for us sometimes to maintain the consistency in the deeds that we do.

8. Allah SWT will show the way of the ones who are misguided so that when you look at them you learn from them : Now some people might think that is slightly arrogant to look upon the misguided people, but see we are not supposed to look down at them with the intention of mocking them out loud or silently. Because we need to keep our own period of misguidance in mind, Allah SWT guides us by showing these people so that we don't end up doing the same mistakes that they have done, we learn from their mistakes without being arrogant or boastful about how we are rightly guided because we are so, only by the mercy of Allah SWT.

9. Allah SWT will also guide you in all the matters regarding your worldly affairs : So above was the different types of guidance that we could recieve based upon the Qudsi Hadith. But, Allah SWT's guidance is not just limited to us with regards to our matters in the hereafter, HE SWT will in fact also guide us with the matters regarding this world as well. We've all had sometimes the types of situations whereby we feel that ''this is IT, there's no way out, this is impossible, I don't know how to solve this problem'' and then suddenly we do not even realize it and things work out so easily that we end up wondering ''Subhanallah how did THAT work out so easily?''... It is only done due to the guidance and help of Allah SWT.

As we come to the end of our series of the name and attribute of Allah SWT which is Al-Hadi. We should also study a little bit on how this name must impact our life (i know my posts are too LONG so I will try to keep this as short as possible!) :

- Reflecting upon the functions of the humans and the other creation and comprehend on how each creation is guided towards what is best for them

- Reflect on the previous way of our lives and the current one.

- Realizing on how Allah has guided us and how we should think of the ways to make Allah SWT happy for the blessing of guidance that he has blessed on us.

- When we feel lost, confused and our heart is not sure of our actions, then we do not need to sink into depression because we know where we can obtain our guidance from.

- We also learn that we as human beings can never feel self sufficient for without the guidance of Allah SWT we would not be able to achieve anything. We have to ask for guidance even for a small thing in life.

- Most importantly, we have to become the means of guiding somebody. It does not necessarily have to be regarding their religious affairs, we can guide them with affairs pertaining to this world. We can become a mean of guidance for a brother or sister in islam, we do not necessarily have to search for non-muslims and get their interest in Islam because we have alot of siblings from our own ummah who could use some guidance. When we are trying to be a mean of guidance to somebody, we must also remember that we can only try to be a mean of guidance but at the end of the day it is the decision of that person to accept it or not so we must not feel let down for it is only Allah SWT who can change hearts not us. ''In our hand is to be a mean of guidance for people by delivering the message, we don't have to worry about changing them'' We just need to have the sincere intention and ask Allah for help for reforming the character of that person.

And with this we come to an end for our discussion upon the name and attribute Al - Hadi. I am excited to let you know we have started a new name, and I shall start posting the notes for that name as well, I am just in need of some time management! Ok, so can you guess whats the next name?

Hint : It is something that makes a person's face look beautiful :P