12.19.2009

- in the name of Allah -

As the heaviest snow I've ever seen falls outside, I'm reminded of something I read in a book recently. It was a supplication where the Nabi (saw) asks Allah to wash his sins with "water, snow, and hail". I can't say I've ever thought of snow or hail having purifying qualities, but looking at simply how beautiful and marvelous it looks outside, I can kind of understand. So how does beauty lend itself to purification? Like how on the Day of Judgment everything would be destroyed and remade anew, that is sort of what snow does. Since its so cold, not many bacteria can thrive in it, if any. When it melts, it becomes water which washes away whatever it was frozen over. All of the grass, pavement, dirt, even the trash thrown carelessly on the ground by people, all of it gets covered and hidden, and only a cold, powdery blanket of snow is seen.

It's really marvelous when you think about it.

12.01.2009

- in the name of Allah -

late night, hidden from moonlight, no candles lit, bathed in darkness, I'm remanded to a path of crystalline clarity wherein a Provider blesses me with sight. no, I can't see the future, or even the palms of my own hands, the only thing apparent to me, is beneath the nomad's feet a path of desert sands. I'm just a traveller, passing through, not well attached, trying just as much as I need to do. my wisdom is slight, my knowledge imperfect, my vision shortsighted, my nafs subversive. so, if in myself I have nothing of worth, nothing that could stand alone, nothing that can see in darkness, nothing able on its own, where is my end and what is my goal? I'm hoping and praying for an end in gardens underneath which rivers flow, and perchance being granted a mercy that'd bring stone to tears, melting the ice in hearts of foes.