LESSON OF THE DAY 658

Ayah of the Day:
And direct your people to pray, and to be constant at it. We do not ask you for sustenance; it is We Who sustain you. And the reward is for the conscientiousness. [20: 132]

Hadith of the Day:
Every word uttered by a child of Adam will be held against him and not in favor of him, except enjoining good, forbidding wrong, and the remembrance of Allah. [Tirmidhi]

Wise Quote of the Day:
Time wasted in youth must be made up in later years, if what you seek is a solicitous end. [Ali radi Allah anhu]

Guidance of the Day:
Men are proud, and they do not know themselves. We are proud of what we are not, of that which our egos make us believe in real. Until we find out who we really are, our worship and devotion to God will be in hypocritical--at best, an imitation.

One way to know ourselves is by comparison. We should not compare ourselves to other people, which would be comparing an unknown with an unknown. But we should compare our state, even our imaginary state tainted with pride, to what we are supposed to be, as God meant us to be. God, as clear manifestation of His love for us, has sent His holy books and His Prophets--ideal human beings as examples to humankind----as the embodiment of all His wishes for us.

If we measure ourselves against the commands of God in the Qur'an, and if we compare our life to the life of the one whom He sent as His mercy upon the universe, we will perhaps be able to see our sad condition. Then perhaps our devotion, our worship, will be a little more sincere and true. Still it will be forced, tinted with the pain of self-disappointment, and selfish. We keep expecting reward, even if the reward is forgiveness. [The Path of Muhammad by Imam Birgivi]

Food for Thought:
The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just. No cause is helpless if it is just. The mark of an immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.