Kinder Than Necessary
“Whoever is deprived of kindness is deprived of goodness” {Prophet SAW, Muslim}
Be kinder than necessary. What really is kindness? Kindness is being considerate, helpful, humble to someone. Its keeping someone’s needs first than yours. Being a kind person is to be like someone who prefers being good to others instead of mean. Its giving someone a reason to be happy about. Making someone’s day. Its taking the higher road, quelling your ego. Putting behind your own insecurities because thats mostly when we decide to be mean or rude to people.
I read a book called Wonder and I loved these lines mentioned in it which go like this.
“When given the choice between being right or being kind. Choose kind.”
When people treat you badly, bash you or are mean to you for some unknown reason. All you have to do is to put a smile on your face and go on about your day. I know for a fact that how difficult it is, to have this constant battle inside you; one side plotting mean strategies to get back at them and the other one cooling you down. Its upto you which part you side with but its something you’ll be remembered for all your life and becomes a part of you.
And what do we have to pay for it? Nothing. Zilch. Free of cost. So why not?
“Your deeds are your monuments. We should be remembered for the things we do. The things we do are the most important things of all. They are more important than what we say or what we look like. The things we do outlast our mortality. The things we do are like monuments that people build to nonor heroes after they’ve died. They’re like the pyramids that the Egyptians built to honor the pharaohs. Only instead of being made out of stone, they’re made out of memories people have of you. That’s why your deeds are like your monuments. Built with memories instead of with stone.”
I remember we’re taught about kindness in school but along with the other course studies, we kinda dont pay much attention to it. This isnt something you just study about, its something which needs to be executed in our daily lives. We need to show it, practice it in our daily lives. Now that I’m a parent, I am always scrutinzing kids behaviours. This is one of those moral values we need to instill in our kids from day one not by lecturing them on it but by displaying it because they copy everything that we do.
Kindness is a part of our faith. If our faith doesn’t manifest itself through kindness then indeed we’re doing something wrong. We yearn for kindness which is why we need to project it first. Give this world a little dose. Pick up the groceries for an old man, give someone a lift or lend enough money so they can hail a cab. Provide someone with lunch or dinner. Smile to a stranger. Its how we want to be remembered.
Book Review: The Kind Worth Killing
Goodreads Ratings : 4/5
My Ratings : 3/5
Okay, so first let me say that this book is not as twisted as Gone Girl. I would call it a suspense thriller but not a psychological thriller. It doesn’t play with your mind but it does let you keep on guessing who it might be and what’s next.
Ted meets Lily at an airport while they are waiting for their flight to board. Keeping in mind that they are total strangers to each other which makes their chances of running into each other even more slim. Ted starts to pour over his woes to Lily, telling her that he wants to kill his wife for cheating on him and Lily decides to help him in doing that. Ted doesnt know anything about her but still let her plot the murder of his wife without fearing its consequences.
So what happens when you let a stranger know your secret and help in executing it as well? You shall find out if you read this book 😛
For me, it wasn’t as amazing I thought it would be. It could have had more twists to play with your mind.But the book tells you that you can’t get away with anything, especially murder. Killing is easier, dealing with its aftermath is hard.
Its a good time-pass read 🙂
Story of a Kitkat Bar
I am a huge believer of ‘Everything Happens for a Reason’ and that ‘Allah knows best’.
I have come to firm my grounds on this belief by experiencing it so many times.
One of the examples is this incident.
We were travelling to Srilanka last week and on our flight back home, due to not getting proper food and all I was craving chocolate. I didn’t get a chance to go to a grocery store in Srilanka to pick any candy so when I saw them at the airport I went totally bonkers. But to my dismay, they all had packets and I couldn’t buy a single bar so I left it because thats something I could always buy when I come back home. Anyway, the craving was still there and I was trying my best not to think about it. Even mentioned it to my friend, reckoning that maybe talking about it would do me some good. Just then, we were asked to board our plane and off we went. Now the amazing part of this whole scenario is how the it grapples your attention all of a sudden because its one thing you are least expecting to happen to you. We were given our menu cards to choose what we want to eat so that when the hostess would come we could tell her. So she was there and presented us with our respective trays. The moment I saw whats on it, my eyes started to prick with tears.
Tears of pure astonishment as how it could be, tears of joy that I got what I wanted, tears of love for Allah that He always give me what I want (Alhumdulillah a lot for that) when I am least expecting it but really wanting it. I was super amazed to find a 2 finger bar of my most favorite KITKAT. I was thrilled, inspired, happy. It gave me so much happiness while I had it because thats how yu genuinely feel when you attain something you had been dreaming of, right? I thanked Allah a billion times and I was so sure that Allah seriously and undoubtedly knows and loves His Creation more than anything. He amazes us in the most impossible ways and its only Him that can make anything happen at any time. His timing is perfect and He is indeed the Most Merciful.
I know it was just a chocolate bar for which I created such a hype but thats the thing, it wasn’t just a chocolate bar. I like to think that Allah wanted me to believe that He is watching out for me, that He loves me, that He will give me anything and everything I want if I only believe in Him. That, a one more milestone has been achieved in our relationship. Alhumdulillah. It surely felt like that.
Book Review: The Island at the end of Everything by Kiran Millwood
Goodreads Ratings : 4.6/5
My Ratings : 4/5
I started this book 3 weeks ago but finally managed to finish it. I was travelling to Sri Lanka and thought of taking this book with me because it reminded me of the beaches and jungles I would be visiting. Although I didn’t get time to read it as much I still took so many photos of it in different styles 😂. So I restarted it once I got back and finished it in a span of two days. How’s that for finding an inspiration to read this spectacular book?
It’s hard, isn’t it? Describing a person only in words, when they can hold whole worlds in them.
Finding a book with a breathtaking cover and an equally beautiful story is pure good luck. This book was something I haven’t read before as it spoke of a painful fact, but weaved into a perfect tale of friendship, love, loss and adventure.
Culion is an island of Phillipines in which Culion Leper Colony was established by US government in order to rid leprosy from it by separating all lepers from their families and making them stay there. They were also cared for and treated there.
In this story, a twelve year old Amihan is separated from her leper mother and sent off to an another island, Coron, to live in an orphanage and the story unfolds from there. Amihan was a very brave girl who carried her beliefs undeterrably and accomplished from her life things she loved and cared for.
This story breaks your heart when you think about leaving or getting separated from your loved ones forcefully. It also tells of the cruelty of people and misunderstanding due to their hate of this disease leprosy leading them to believe that it can be caught through touch which is not how you get it.
I liked how the author tried to shed light on this long forgotton sad history of Phillipines and added so many other flavors to it like love, friendship, loss and adventure.
I loved the description of the lifecycle of a butterfly and what they look like, mentioned in this book.How beautiful it would be to be surrounded by them, butterflies of different colors and patterns. 🦋😍
However, I’d rather be an observer of this beautiful phenomenon than to become a Lepidopterist ( a person who studies butterflies) because it involves killing them.
Rainbow Salad
I am a sucker for salads and especially for the diversity of it. Give me some good veggies and I can make you finger licking good salad. Now, enough with self praise and lets get down to business.
The only thing which might prove a disadvantage in your favor is that this one takes time. It is not one of those salads which you can prepare in a jiffy. It requires a lot of cutting and chopping.
Okay so here it goes:
- Green layer: consists of 4 cups of parsely, 2 cups of lettuce, 1 cup of cabbage and half cup of spring onion. All should be finely chopped. Put them in a bowl and drizzle on top a dressing made up of 1 tbspoon of olive oil, juice of 1 lemon, salt and pepper to it. Mix them thoroughly and set it aside.
- Yellow layer : the first layer is of small cubed potatoes followed by equally sized aubergine. Now with these two, after cubing them down ,you need to sautee them separately in olive oil with a little sprinkle of salt and pepper/red chilli powder to enhance their flavor till they are done. Dont go overboard with olive oil. For this recipe you will need 2 medium sized potatoes and aubergines. You will use about 1 tbspoon of olive oil for each or even less if you are making it in a non stick pan.
- The next layer is of boiled chickpeas. I prefer to use home boiled chickpeas, not a fan of canned foods. But whatever’s easy for you. You need 1.5 cups of chickpeas.
- Following chickpeas is the red beans layer. Again, home boiled are preferred. You need one cup of red beans.
- Croutons layer: I tend to make them at home as they are super easy. All you have to do is to take some flat bread/pita bread/ khubus and cut it in small squares. You can either shallow or deep fry them, the choice is yours. Heat up some vegetable oil in a pan and put the chopped up bread. Fry them till you get a nice golden color. Take them out and let them cool. You require 1 cup of croutons for this recipe but more is good too.
- Dressing (optional): You can either use store- bought thousand island dressing or you can just mix 2 tbspoon of mayonaise with 1 tbspoon of ketchup and season it with some black pepper. Voila! You have homemade thousand island dressing.
Now the assembling part is super easy. First comes the green layer, spread it evenly on the serving plate making a bed of those veggies. Top it off with sauteed potatoes followed by aubergines. Spread chickpeas evenly in the next layer and repeat the same with red beans. Garnish it with croutons as much as you like. You can either put the dressing separately so that anyone can add it to their own liking or you can add some on the top of the salad like I did to add some flavor.
- You can also set some croutons aside seperately for people to add them again later as some people tend to love more crunch in their salads.
You can either make this salad for yourself or for dinner/lunch parties. Hope you guys liked this recipe enough to make it. I say, go for it once atleast 🙂
Book Review: Wonder by R.J. Palacio
Goodreads Ratings : 4.42
My ratings : 5/5
“Kinder than is necessary. Because its not enough to be kind. One should be kinder than needed.”
Okay this book veritably dragged me to the blog to write down its review. I have been meaning to begin writing book reviews once again but never had the inspiration to do it until now. Not that I haven’t been reading good books but this one really touched my heart. One of the reasons being that I had been reading it from a mother’s perspective. What if my child looked like the kid in the book and had to face the world? How would I have helped him, nurtured him to be “out there.” Keeping all these notions in mind, I always ended up misty eyed whenever something hurtful came up in the book.
I practically devoured this book in about 3 days. It’s such an engaging book which will melt your heart for sure and will leave you teary eyed. It will make you want to hug almost every person in the book.
It is basically a story about a ten year old boy named August Pullman who has a facial deformity since birth and has to undergo numerous surgeries throughout his life but still doesn’t look like a normal person. The plot thickens when he starts going to middle school grade 5 and have to face people. It is told from the perspectives of 6 different people in the book. I loved Via’s, Jack’s and Summer’s views particularly.
I loved the strength and selflessness depicted by Via’s character. How she always kept her emotional turmoil on the side whenever it came to Auggie. But at the same time, her character showed the signs of being human which made her character more real.
Kids like Summer make me love children more than ever whose hearts are brimming with innocence and clarity. They dont need to pretend anything because they have a clear view of who they are.
The thing I liked about Jack’s character was that it was also not perfect. The author of this book made sure that this book is relatable. Kids are more honest than adults. Initially, Jack didn’t want to hangout with Auggie but once he started to get to know him, he couldn’t pull away from him. Auggie was the first real friend he had who not only made him laugh but also had his back.
Last but not the least, August himself was a beautiful soul. His character made me wonder how shallow and superficial we have become these days. All we think and worry about are LOOKS. We believe that how we look is what defines us. Being a creation of God, most of us tend to not like how we look. But August taught me that despite being ugly or deformed, you can have real friends who wont pick on you and will stand up for you. Being ugly cant stop you from achieving your dreams, it cant dull the spark you have inside you. It wont stop you from being brave and having courage. The most important lesson here is that Your Looks Dont Define You, Your Character does. 🙂
One more quote which I loved besides the one I wrote in the beginning of this review is as follows.
“Greatness lies not in being strong, but in the right using of strength. He is the greatest whose strength carries up the most hearts by the attraction of his own.”
All in all, it is a heartwarming tale of bravery, courage, love and friendship. Definitely recommended.
Some Insights from Surah Kahf.
We are familiar with this chapter of the Quran as we, Muslims, tend to recite it every Friday as prescribed in various hadiths.
As reciting has its own virtues and merits, I like to focus on the explanation of the surah as well. So since we have been studying this Surah in our class, I drew few lessons and points to put into consideration and to incorporate in our lives which I have shared below.
- Quran is a book that rectifies every other thing. Its a book that warns you from the dangers of falling into sin and also give you the glad tidings of Paradise if you follow the path of Allah. And in order to achieve that you need to be sincere with Allah and follow the Sunnah.
- Paradise is eternal, a never ending place.
- If we truly love our religion we will never hate people because we all are here to help each other. To bring each other close to Islam.
- Allah created this world and everything in it for us, human beings in order to test us. To test who is the best among us in terms of good deeds. Who among us pays his gratitude towards Allah when he is blessed with a blessing and whether he uses it in a right or wrong way.
- Distraction and accumulation of wealth go hand in hand. The more wealth you gather for yourself of this world, the more distracted you become in your purpose of life i.e. to follow the path of Allah.
- The main thing is our Faith in Allah. We need to guard it and nourish it till death.
- The incident of People of the Cave teaches us that entrusting our lives with Allah will protect us from all kinds of evil and He will never let us down.
- You will be answerable for all the food that you waste or throw away in this world. The same goes for everything else.
- One of the tactics of Shaytan is that he doesnt let us think about the Hereafter and Paradise and makes us plan to get everything in this world. Because of him, we tend to fulfill our wishes here and try to perfect our lives for this world only.
- Do not be ungrateful towards your Creator. If He has provided you with blessings in this world make sure you thank Him and dont let your success make you proud and greedy for more.
- Thinking that your worldly assets can protect you from harm in this world and after is a kind of Shirk. Because instead of having faith in Allah, you prescribe it to your material wealth.
- Incident of the Man who had a garden teaches us that dont be proud of your blessings but always be thankful to Allah for giving you all that. It is His will that you have all of that and if He wants He can take it all back from you in a matter of seconds. You see, nothing in this world belongs to us but only our deeds. Do not put your faith in your assets that they will protect you from harm because thats a kind of Shirk,only Allah has the power to do so. Thinking that since you got everything here, its apparent that you will be provided with it in Hereafter as well. Having it all here is a part of the test that this world is. Material wealth can not help us when the time comes. Power and wealth cause absolute corruption.
- Do not live extravagantly or poorly, keep a balance in your lives. Just don’t overdo it.
- Also make a habit to cook adequate amount of food so that the leftovers dont go to waste.
- Dont make friends with Shaytaan by disobeying Allah. Disobeying Allah means obeying or falling into the trap of Shaytan.
- Do not waste your time in useless arguments over religion.
- Allah has alloted each and every one of us a specific time, when that time comes there is no turning back. So use your time wisely in this world.
- Allah closes the hearts of people who either don’t listen to the message of Quran or be oblivious to it, as a punishment so that no hidaya may enter into them. The worst kind of punishment.
Advice of Jibreel A.S. to Prophet Muhammad SAW
Okay, so firstly I have to mention how much I loved this when I heard this. So so amazing subhanAllah!
This narration is at the end of the life of Prophet SAW.
Jibreel said O Muhammad! (When Jibreel says Ya Muhammad, its his way of telling him that this is outside the capacity of Relevation, what I am about to say is from me to you.)
He gave the Prophet SAW 5 advices which are as follows:
- Live as you will,but know that one day you will die.
- Love whom you will, but know that one day you will be separated from that person.
- Do as you will and know that you will be compensated and rewarded accordingly. (In the Hereafter)
- Know that the nobility of the believer is in the standing in prayer during the night.
- As for his dignity, its in being independent of people (financially, emotionally, mentally, physically).
So this is something I wanted to share with you guys. Its from a lecture by Omar Suleiman. Its a beautiful lecture 😊
This is the link to the lecture. Do check it out!
Letters For You.
I have just finished a book about letters and I am completely in love with the whole idea. And my mind is brimming with ideas as to how I can use letters to bring Muslims from all over the world to…
Source: Letters For You.
Love Letters from Your Creator.
Has anyone ever written you a letter? Or have you written one for someone? Dont you just love it when a person you love or care for writes you a letter? Not only it shows your worth but that they made an effort because they care for you. So let me ask you again, what if your mother leaves you a whole stack of big fat letters filled with love, life lessons, motivational tools and the fact you are gonna be with her forever? Wouldn’t you treasure all of that? I bet you would.
So here is the thing, and yes let me put a religious spin on this whole deal about letters. Lets imagine for a minute that Allah your Creator wrote you 30 letters filled with lots of love, certain stories containing morals, warnings to alert you about your enemy and so much more? How amazing is that. Actually thats an understatement. Allah loves His creation beyond measure. And as strange as it sounds He loves you 7 times more than your mother loves you. strange because no one can love anyone more than a mother loves her children. But its true that Allah loves each and every one so much. How lucky are you! But do you realize that? Do you even think of going through those letters atleast once in your life? And by going through I mean really going through it, trying to decipher the wisdom behind all those words and let the message sink in? Well majority of us dont bother. And thats what makes me sad…
Why do we care so much for our loved ones but not for The One who love us more than anything and anyone else? Why do we not take out one hour in a day to go through a page of Quran and try to understand it? Are we really that busy or just that careless about our future? Why does He comes after everything else? Why do we consider opening His Book after we are done with our worldly chores? Why do we follow the religion according to our own convenience when we are being told since childhood what the future entails. Wont we give ourselves a chance to know Our Creator?
The world in which we live in, the world which we give so much importance to, the world which will be nothing but a speck of dust when that Day arrives, and the world in which we have forgotten our true purpose. Why do we give it so much importance and not to what will happen to us when it will end?4
Now I dont want to make it sound so serious but people IT IS THAT SERIOUS AND THE CLOCK IS TICKING!
Whenever I hear some lecture, I am amazed as well as terrified at the words of Allah. It makes me question everything that is I do. All I want and pray for everyone is that may Allah give them a chance to know and learn this beautiful book, a book which can blossom our worldly life and can land us in eternal bliss. Ameen.
metamorphosingbeing 