Analogies

You’re on the waiting list for membership to an exclusive club. Finally, you use connections, pay a hefty sum, and sign the dotted line. To keep your membership privileges, you need to adhere to all the rules, even if some are inconvenient. If swimming is allowed up to 6 pm, you cannot squeeze in an extra hour at night. You can’t pick and choose the rules you wish to follow or your membership could be revoked.

In Surah Al-Baqarah 2:208, Allah (swt) commands us to enter into Islam completely. We cannot pick and choose, which commandment we find easy and which we can ignore. If we want to remain members of this exclusive club, we need to remind ourselves that we cannot voluntarily choose prayer times or skip Hajj rituals. We can’t break rules and still flaunt our membership card at the entry check-post to Jannah.

Imagine a stock that gives you a guaranteed ten, seventy or even seven hundred-fold return on your principal. Who wouldn’t want to invest every penny in such a lucrative deal? Imagine an account that keeps on increasing in value even after you’re dead? Who wouldn’t want to set up such an account?

Spending in the way of Allah (swt) out of what you love (Surah Al-Baqarah 2:177) – not a bare minimum, where you don’t even feel the pinch – has great returns guaranteed without the fine print.

Building a school, paying for a water fountain or leaving behind righteous children are a few forms of Sadqah Jaariyah.

Do we spend all our time, energy, and money maintaining a rent-a-car? Would we spend thousands re-decorating our hotel room? No. We know it’s a temporary possession that we have to part with soon and, hence, we use it, but don’t form an extreme attachment to it.

If we keep telling ourselves that our jewellery, designer clothes, and cars will not last forever, perhaps we’ll love them less and consider them as a means to an end, not an end in itself. Our life is like a train journey, in which we don’t know the station we would get off at.

If you’re appearing for an exam at a reputed institution, the length of an answer is not as important as is how well you understood the question and how clear your concepts are. Nevertheless, you can still have doubts that the examiner might not mark the paper fairly.

In the most crucial exam of our lives, our deeds will not be counted – rather, they will be weighed. Two people, who have both performed their daily prayers, may be rewarded differently depending on their intention, concentration, new Surahs recited, and the manner of performing each action. Every one of us standing on the Last Day knows that our Examiner is al-Aadil (the Just), and we will not be treated unfairly.