Playing Cats

Cats playing and chasing each other. These cutie felines can really turn wild in an instant.

Perhaps they also have mood swings of some sort, or perhaps they like their owners watch them play and run about?

Notes on Chapter 5

Notes

Summer Starts

Knowledge

The excellence of knowledge is due only to the fact that it causes a person to fear and obey God, otherwise it is just like anything else.

- Sufyan ath-thawri

Friday

We walked along a soft road, rice was being grown and harvested, and at the end of the clump of bamboo trees, we arrived at a lovely place. There was a bench under a Kamatsile tree where we can watch farmers, carabaos, white herons and spend some quiet moments of reflection. The wind drowns out our sorrows even if just for a while. I can't wait to come back here next week, in sha Allah, either bring a book, have something to sew, or have a picnic. It's summer already, it's in the air.

Hearts and Deeds

God does not judge you according to your bodies and appearances, but He scans your hearts and looks into your deeds. 

- Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him)

Friday

We went yesterday at the mosque to attend the Jumu'ah Prayers. After the prayers, we had lunch together with the sisters surrounded with fresh air, fruit trees, rice fields and a fish pond nearby the mosque. The weather is getting warmer now as the summer season is approaching fast.

I took a brief stroll and had a chat with my sister-in-law. We passed along rice fields and plots of planted spicy chili and rows of guava trees. The sun is shining brightly, it was around past 1:00 in the afternoon.

From top: Rice almost ready for harvest / Newly planted rice between rows of guava trees / Blossoms of spicy red chili / Baby Indian mangoes still green and very sour

A Saturday Eve

Matters of Faith to be Resolved

- Trust in Allah.

- Thinking well of Allah and His wisdom in allowing things to happen.

- Thinking well of Allah when prayers are not answered and when the opposite of what had been prayed for happens.

- Thinking well of Allah on the matters that He decided for me and for others (both in this world and in the Hereafter), the fate of the believing people who suffered injustices, cruelty and loss; and that all that is revealed in His Revelation in the Qur'an is for the good and welfare of the believing people (both women and men). 

- That Allah had Hidden Knowledge that only He alone knows, and that what is revealed in the Revelation is sufficient for the people, and that that Hidden Knowledge is something that the believing people should trust with their whole heart and leave to Allah alone.

- That the reward of a person has no bearing or loss for another, rather that reward of a person is separate and distinct and brought by the Grace and Mercy of the Lord for ones sacrifices and faith, not in  proportion to seeking the pleasure of any created being, but only with Allah.

- That everything that is endured in this present worldly life will be paid off in the end, in sha Allah.

- That this world is only a test, a passing illusion, not an end within itself, but only a means to return to the Lord and gaze at His Face - the Highest honor one can achieve in the life to come.

- That we are all equally created for the sole purpose of worshipping Allah.

The Age of Youth: A Trust From God

Partytilfajr - Khutbah of May 24, 2013

Friday

I'm trying so hard to find beautiful places around where I live, around the city, and anywhere as much as I could. I am restless. I want like to roam and travel to many, many places, even abroad.

Reason

Reason is prerequisite to the acquisition of knowledge, as well as for the performance of a good deed or righteous act. Mystical states like ecstasy or intoxication, which involve the suppression of reason, are imperfect states of mind, and ideas that conflict with reason are false. However, reason is not self-sufficient, it cannot dispense with revelation, which alone gives the knowledge of realities that transcend it...

On the other hand, those who decry reason and affirm things that are false, revel in satanic states and evil practices, and cross the boundaries which the sense of discrimination (between good and evil) draws, with which God has endowed man and elevated him above other creatures. 

- Ibn Taymiyyah

Seawall and Oleander

Butterflies in their Home

My first painting / illustration for this year, Butterflies (and a bee) in their Home.

Friday

Book reading with Long-tail Baby and blooming rose, fountain gazing while eating snacks at the park, and a posh condominium under construction few steps away from the park.

Tree-Lined Road