Tag: taqdeer

  • Fallacious philosophies

    Fallacious philosophies

    This is incorrect on many levels. Most importantly, it suggests that our thoughts inspire the actions of others.

    That is patently incorrect.

    It also suggests that if we focus on positivity, we’re guaranteed to attract positivity.

    That is dangerously incorrect.

    We all wear masks of some kind.

    When someone offers us an opportunity to fill the gaps in our lives that those masks are intended to hide, we are attracted to them, and vice versa.

    A healing spirit will attract a hurt soul, and hurt souls often attract the generosity of a healing spirit.

    But that doesn’t mean that the one that is hurt will choose to be healed.

    Many find comfort in the affection and care that their hurt attracts.

    When that comfort defines their self worth, they will respond aggressively when expected to rise above it, or encouraged to heal from it.

    That’s when the masks fail them and the relationship breaks down.

    This law of attraction thinking is a fallacy that will harm more than it will heal.

    Be careful of what philosophy you buy into.

  • Own your failure, own your growth

    Own your failure, own your growth

    Why do we feel accomplished and proud of our efforts when things work out, but we blame fate or taqdeer when we encounter trials or failure?

    The reality is, given our ability to reason and to choose how we respond to what we are faced with, both good and bad, we’ll never have certainty as to what was destined versus what is up to us to determine.

    If everything was destined, despite our best efforts or no efforts, there would be no reason for accountability, either in this world to our fellow humans, or in the Hereafter when we are taken to account in front of the Almighty.

    Regardless of your spiritual beliefs, the fact that we can choose, and that those choices have very real consequences that we cannot wish away, means that the sooner we take accountability for those consequences, the sooner we’ll be able to learn from it and do better.

    When we convince ourselves that it wasn’t in our destiny to have something, we’re simply protecting our ego from having to accept that we failed at something important to us.

    Failure is OK. It means that you had the courage to believe in something enough to try to achieve it.

    What you do with the information that you acquired through failing determines whether you’re a failure or whether you’re still learning.

    And we’re all still learning.

    Right until the day we die, we’re still learning.

    You wanna know why? Because every new moment in our life is a moment that we didn’t live before.

    We were never 20, or 30, or 50 years old before. We were never parenting a 5 or 10 or 20 year old before.

    And we were never parents, grandparents, or whatever role we play at THIS point in our lives before.

    So stop blaming destiny or taqdeer and own your life.

    If not, those who own theirs will own yours as well.

    It always starts with you.

  • Who is that voice in your head?

    Who is that voice in your head?

    There are signs in everything, if only we paid attention, or reflected deeply enough on it.

    It’s like noticing all the cars on the road that are similar to your own.

    You may also notice cars that you really dislike, and cars that you love.

    But do you notice cars that don’t interest you in any meaningful way?

    No. Those, we navigate around as objects or obstacles in our efforts to get to our destination.

    The same is true about everything else in life.

    We notice that which feeds our interest in what we’re trying to achieve.

    Convinced that your partner is annoying? You’ll recognise every annoying habit and you’ll dismiss every endearing quality.

    Convinced that you’re not good enough? You’ll doubt every sincere gesture, and you’ll hold onto every criticism.

    You’ll even selectively interpret things the way that you want it to fit into your belief about what is true.

    That’s how we convince ourselves that the universe is sending us a sign.

    It’s not. We’re looking for the evidence of what we want to believe is true.

    Hence the importance of being mindful. Not just of what’s going on around you, but especially being mindful of what’s going on within you.

    It always starts with you.

  • The quick sand of my mind

    The quick sand of my mind

    The icy breaths that leave my mouth on a miserably cold morning is the only accurate reflection of the emotions that stir within.

    I see messages proclaiming that love is the answer to the world’s problems, but they don’t realise that most don’t know how to love. It’s the arrogance of the assumption that if we had it, they must have had it too.

    I met a calloused soul today. One who was so steeped in her victim-hood, that she couldn’t grasp her contribution towards the destruction of an innocent soul. So vile was her gaul, that she stepped forward uninvited to offer comfort towards the crushed innocent, completely oblivious to her contribution towards the state in which she found the little one.

    Such is the dementia of those who believe themselves to be above reproach because they didn’t actively participate in the abuse of the meek, but only sat quietly on the sidelines observing it play out, waiting patiently for their moment to leech significance by offering comfort to the one whom they abandoned in their moment of need.

    The bile rises to my throat, desperately wanting to clothe such contemptuous beings in the only fluid capable of digesting their caustic character. But my desire to be distanced from such hair-encrusted soap scum leaves me seething in my efforts to maintain my composure, torn between wanting to shake some sense into them, while simultaneously convulsing at the thought of touching them.

    This world is not big enough to create enough distance between me and them, with death offering the only path to peace.

    Sometimes, the most expensive lessons we learn in life are a result of trusting the wrong person. Once more, as I contemplate this reality, I find myself repulsed by those who cast frivolous quotes into the ether of blind optimism and toxic positivity, believing foolishly that doing the right thing will only yield positive results.

    If this torturous world was so easily subdued through the persistence of a positive thought, why then do so many innocents destroy themselves in search of such goodness? Why then are the starving still hungry, the abused still defiled, and the gluttonous still leading?

    The victim mindset is the greatest oppressor of the kind-hearted. The self-pitying soul is the most ungrateful of them all, and the martyr the saddest.

    Tonight, I find myself adrift on an icy lake. Not carried by tranquil waves or exaggerated ripples, but instead, sliding uncontrollably in no particular direction, finding comfort in the movement, but no fulfilment in the futility of its course.

    Wishing away reality does not change it. It simply adds it to the burden of those who are more aware of the impact of that which you wish away. Such is the reality of the victim mind set. So focused on its own struggle, that it grows criminally oblivious to the oppression it imposes on those around them. When they withhold their contribution towards uplifting others, they prioritise their efforts of desperation to have their own struggles honoured first.

    See my hurt before you ask me to see yours. Such is the pathetic indulgence of those who believe that their struggle is the only struggle of such epic proportions that lesser mortals will crumble if only they had to endure the same fate.

    Thus, surrendering to fate becomes the ultimate protest of the coward. The one who abandons rationality and choice in favour of embellishing their selfishness with a cloak of proclaimed vulnerability.

    I feel the bile rising again.

  • Psssst, guess what?

    Psssst, guess what?

    The universe is not waiting to serve you. It’s time to own your shit.

    “Expecting life to treat you well because you’re a good person is like expecting a bull not to charge at you because you’re a vegetarian.” (Unknown)

    This is my favourite quote whenever I come across someone that feels defeated because they were expecting the good that they do to be returned to them by ‘the universe’. I think it’s exceptionally arrogant to believe that the universe is actively conspiring to treat us well, or treat us badly, because of what we send forth. No. There are manipulators and con artists that get good to come their way all the time despite using everyone else as pawns in their game of life. And then when one bad thing happens to them, people are quick to jump on that karma bandwagon. So, let me get this straight…a lifetime of unethical and underhanded behaviour is repaid by a single event of loss or tragedy, and that’s supposed to be karma? No. It’s life. We are only ever good at what we set our minds to. If there was true justice in this world, we wouldn’t have the kind of problems that we’re facing as humanity. Let’s keep it real. Shall we?

    #thesecret #whatgoesaroundcomesaround

  • Questions from a Non-Muslim

    cynicallyjaded:

    wolfy18:

    I have a few questions I’d like to put out to the Muslims & Christians on here.

    Some questions might appeal to one religion more so than the other and the questions are sort of related to eachother, but whatever.

    1.  If God is all seeing, all knowing, and the great planner of everything, does this mean he plans evil?

    2.  Can you have mercy without sin?  If not, does this mean we have to become a sinner before we can “find God”?

    3.  If our lives are planned, does this contradict our free will?

    By the way I’m asking out of intrigue, not trying to sound like a condescending twat.  I genuinely want answers.

    Hi, these questions are asked often by both Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Here’s my perspective on what I think it means:

    1. Evil is not a ‘commodity’ like good in the same way that dark is not a ‘commodity’ like light. The one exists in the absence of the other. This ties in with the concept of fate and free will, which also relates to your third question, so I hope to deal with it more comprehensively in that answer. Essentially what I’m saying is that God doesn’t plan good or evil. He simply makes available the choices to us with predetermined outcomes, and what we choose is what determines whether good or evil results from our actions.
    2. Assuming that mercy is only required when we sin overlooks the fact that mercy is also needed to continue giving without reason or recompense. What I mean is that we often only think of asking for mercy if we realise that we’ve done something wrong. However, as Muslims, we consider every good that we receive, and every comfort that we enjoy as a mercy from Allah. So we believe that we’re indebted to Allah for all the mercy that He shows us even though we are often not complying with what we believe to be His will or instructions for the way we should be living our lives. 
    3. Free will and destiny are often very misunderstood. As Muslims, we believe we have a limited free will, and not an absolute free will. What I mean is that I can choose how I respond to a situation, or how I want to act, but I cannot control what situations or experiences are presented to me. This world is a perfect system in that every action has a predetermined reaction. These are the natural laws and order of things that we believe was created by Allah. Therefore, whatever we do, the outcome is known to Allah because He created the ‘rules’ that govern existence and how everything interacts. But in this system, there are variables, and these variables allow us to exercise our limited free will. So by exercising our gift of reason and logic, and our ability to act on it, we choose either to encourage good, or evil. How we choose, and how we comply with the laws and guidelines set out for us is what determines our standing in Allah’s court, and subsequently will determine our final fate when we’re called to account on the day of judgement.

    I’ve contemplated the issue of fate and free will previously, so if you’d like to read more about my thoughts on the subject, you can see some of my previous posts under the tag of fate.

    I look forward to hearing your views on this. 

  • Misconceptions of Taqdeer (Fate/Destiny)

    reflectionofhumblemodesty:

    A husband and his wife were standing in front of a mirror The wife asked: “What do you see?” The husband smiled and said: “The rest of my life..”
     
     
    Allah subhana wa ta’ala has already written the names of your spouses for you. What you need to work on is your relationship with Allah. He will send her/him to you when you’re ready. It is only a matter of time!!

    I find such statements very difficult to reconcile. My instinctive response is that it has to be a misinterpretation of the concept of taqdeer. It is based on the premise that a single partner has been intended for every single person. What then of those people that have married more than once and divorced more than once? It simply doesn’t add up. I love the idea of having that perfect person just waiting for the right time to walk into my life, but I know it doesn’t happen. I know this from experience on more than one occasion.

    It reminds me of the following hadith:

    One day Allah’s Messenger noticed a Bedouin leaving his camel without tying it. He asked the Bedouin, “Why don’t you tie down your camel?” The Bedouin answered, “I placed my trust in Allah.” At that, the Prophet, sal Allahu alayhi wa sallam, said, ” Tie your camel and place your trust in Allah” – Tirmidhi

    To me, taqdeer is more than just having everything set out for us regardless of our actions or efforts. Maybe I’m completely off the mark, but the more I consider it the more I believe that the whole issue of taqdeer is very misunderstood. The above hadith is a prime example of this misunderstanding.

    The fact that everything is pre-ordained I do not dispute. How it is pre-ordained is where the interpretations come into play, and again, as can be seen from the above hadith, it is not a predetermined outcome regardless of your actions. Within the context of the original post, what would you say to the person who has been married and after trying their hardest, ended up being divorced? Divorce, although hated, is halaal. So are we suggesting that even that is predetermined? If so, where does our accountability start and where does it stop?

    Or perhaps we’ve got this entire perspective on taqdeer all wrong. Perhaps taqdeer comprises of rules and laws that determine the effect of every cause, or the reaction to every action. Perhaps, within this context, our limited free will allows us to choose the outcomes based on our choices, and the more informed our choices, the more predictable the outcome? In the absence of this relationship between cause and effect, our limited free will would be inconsequential, and subsequently, there would be no basis on which we are to be judged for what we do.

    So isn’t this romantic idea of marital bliss and perfect partners really an over-simplification of divine decree?

    (Source: http://reflectionofhumblemodesty.tumblr.com)

  • Destiny…

    Some believe that the future is written and cannot be altered, others believe it can. Some believe it’s not written at all, and lies completely in your hands. Unsurprisingly so, I believe in neither, at least not within the context of its common interpretation.

    I often wonder what fate really is, and if it really is as rigid as we often believe it is. Someone recently shared a post that suggested that it is largely our inability to control the choices of others, and therefore their choices result in our destiny, and how we react to it is what completes the cycle. I think this is only a small part of a much bigger picture. 

    Consider this scenario. I’m driving down a road, and there’s a huge rock in the middle of the road which presents me with a few options:

    1. Avoid the rock and drive on unharmed or undamaged – and people will say that it was in my fate/destiny to have seen the rock and been able to avoid it in time
    2. Apply brakes and stop before hitting the rock and escape unhurt or undamaged – and people will say that it was in my fate to have seen it and brake in time to avoid injury
    3. See the rock and choose to do nothing because I was feeling particularly morbidly destructive at the time and die in the crash – and people will say that it was in my fate to die that day and if it wasn’t the rock, it would be something else that would have caused my death anyway
    4. Not see the rock because I was texting someone and crash and die – and people will say that he was too busy with his mobile phone, that’s why he didn’t see the rock

    There’s probably many more scenarios that could play out but the point is, I had a choice in what I was focusing on and how I was going to respond to the presence of the rock, and each sequence of events and related decisions had pre-defined outcomes. And in this, I believe, lies the secret of destiny.

    Destiny, for me, is not a prescribed outcome regardless of the efforts of my life. Nor is it a cast-in-stone destination that I will reach regardless of what I do or don’t do towards achieving it. If that were true, we’d all be able to laze around and never have to worry about anything, because it’s all pre-ordained already. Well, I believe that it is pre-ordained, but just not in that context.

    I often toy with the analogy of a software developer and the code that they write. That code gives ‘life’ to a certain number of functions that have specified behaviours that are limited only to the permutations possible through the available configurations made possible by that code. Let’s assume for a second that that code had a sense of self, or a conscious nature with an associated intelligence to act out the possible permutations defined by the developer. In that case, every single one of those sequences that play out could be defined as destiny within the context of that code. 

    Extrapolate that example onto a grand scale and note how the same laws apply to the universe, and humans. The laws of nature have been defined. Pre-determined. Hard coded and configured. We have the intelligence and the limited ability to manipulate those configuration permutations in seemingly infinite ways, and because of the number of variables that give rise to infinite variations, it appears impossible to predict the outcomes accurately, except where the known variables are limited to what is within our grasp to compute. Man has never created anything. We’ve only manipulated what we have in order to arrive at new configurations of what already exists, regardless of how complex the manipulation may be, it will always be nothing more than that. A manipulation of what exists. 

    With this in mind, destiny then becomes a sequence of events that are triggered entirely by choices we make, and actions we take, with one caveat. There’s always a caveat. Each person acts with independent thought, despite many displaying behaviour that suggests that they’re possibly incapable of such an act. How our choices interact with each other is what makes life a challenge, or a pleasure. How we react to those interactions of choices is what determines our fate and well being. 

    Whether we choose to actively participate or not is irrelevant. Because every breath forces a reaction, every thought prompts an action, and every action spawns a reaction. So the only time we stop participating is when we die. At that point, the impact of our actions continue to survive beyond our lifetime, but we are then unable to influence the outcomes of any further interactions of choice. 

    The future is therefore what we make of it. What effort and focus we put in, directly influences what we get out. But don’t mistake this for karma, as in if we do good, we should expect good in return. It doesn’t work that way. Our choice to care about someone that may not choose to care in return (for whatever reason) will result in our good being repaid with bad. That is destiny and karma will never be able to explain that.

    We alter the course of our lives with every thought and every act. We develop trends through the consistency of our actions, but at any given moment a single act or coinciding set of choices could alter that carefully constructed path and destroy every aspiration or ambition we so meticulously planned for. However, this ‘configuration’ is not limited to only what we can observe or manipulate physically. I believe it extends to everything we sense, feel, think, experience, or contemplate.

    Imagine that every single thing that you can fathom, tangible or intangible, physical or spiritual, all has a value that gives it a weighting within this grand scheme we call destiny. How much we accumulate of the various values would determine the course of our lives. Take this a step further and imagine that even prayer has such values assigned to it. The accumulation of this value on a spiritual plane would have an influence on our experiences on a physical plane, which results in apparently amazing outcomes that would not otherwise be explainable. 

    The complexity of the laws that govern all this is mind blowing to say the least. The fact that a finite set of laws exists is unquestionable. If there was the slightest hint of randomness in any of it, things supposedly left to chance, there would be unpredictable chaos at every turn. But there isn’t. Even when things go really pear-shaped, after a suitably rigorous post-mortem, the sequence of events that gave rise to the apparent chaos is quickly unravelled. Which confirms that chaos in fact does not exist. 

    There’s so many more thoughts on this that I need to articulate, but it’s too many to effectively translate into words right now. This is the first time that I’ve attempted to share these ideas at all even though it has been plaguing me for many years now. I wonder if it will make sense to anyone else at all?