Reflection on an advice taught by my teacher

 

We all read quotes and advices very often and much more due to social media notifications popping up every minute. However, I have noticed that a piece of advice increases in importance immeasurably, if taught by a teacher and given time to be discussed and reflected upon.

Alhumdulillah, in Darse-Nizami, I get various opportunities to not just read beautiful advices and quotes but also discuss and reflect upon them under the guidance of learned and pious people.

One of these pieces of advice, that I have been wanting to write on for a very long time but couldn’t, has been really effective for me and I might not be wrong if I say that it has  given me an undiscovered direction of thinking which helps me refrain from sins at least a little more than before.

Hence, I would like to take the blessed occasion of shab-e-Barat as an opportunity to share this with all my readers.

We were not aware that it was the last day of the third year of Dars-un-Nizami when in the last thirty minutes, our Arabic teacher came into the class and wrote the following on the board:

لذات الدنيا سريعة الزوال

لحظة في معصية اللّٰه تورث حزنا طويلا

 

Giving us a moment of silence to ponder and then decipher the translation of it, he pointed toward me, granting me the opportunity to decode this. With the grace of Allah, I translated it and since that moment, this has become an important part of my life. It is translated as follows:

“The pleasures of the world are fleeting, A moment of disobedience to Allah can (cause to) inherit long-lasting sorrow”

Our teacher expanded that sometimes it is just a moment-long rush of pleasure that we feel while sinning that can lead us to a guilt extending till the time of our death or even after. These bad deeds can make a person inherit perpetuated sorrow, leaving him helpless and despondent. The aftermath of this is nothing but realizing that we have lost control of our situation and there lies nothing in our hand to influence it. (May Allah protect us from this)

I might not be able to explain, but in reality, I was nothing but momentarily shocked by how strong this advice was. Isn’t this what we all experience? We sin and sin and sin until there remains nothing of the pleasure but unexpected and uninvited episodes of grief leading to more sins and more grief until we are permanently stuck under the viciousness of this cycle and experience withdrawal symptoms at attempting to abandon it.

After giving this advice some thought and a place in my room, I began to feel that this has become a part of my thoughts. Every single pleasure is ‘fleeting’ beeps in my head like a warning alarm and it has become comparatively easier to say no to many unneeded and worthy-to be –abandoned habits. Alhumdulillah.

 May Allah protect us all from experiencing a self-satisfaction that we become heedless to our accountability.

I would hereby make a small request: please look at this advice once more before you quit reading and take 10 minutes to ponder. It is best if you learn the Arabic of it which definitely has its own soothing effect. Also, share with your loved ones.

May Allah protect us all from fleeting pleasures and long-lasting sorrows. Ameen

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