Being extraordinary: a different perspective

I have been hanging on a thread last week. My faith was at its lowest point. Retrospectively, I have to admit that it was due to many flimsy and foolish excuses.

I notice how my Iman effects my outlook towards life, especially my day to day routine and the problems I face each passing day. My Iman helps me to forgive other people's mistake with an open heart, it guides me to never give up when faced with an adversity, it strengthens my stand and gives me courage to hold true to my principles, even when people think negatively about me. But imminently, it shows me what really counts and what is important in a world that is now full of uncertainties.

I used to evaluate people on material views. If they can talk confidently, I think they are strong. If they scored well in exams, I think they are the smartest. If they are rich, I think they are lucky. If they are beautiful, I think they will always be happy.

But everything has changed. It is no longer from the eye of worldly appearance but from the window of faith that I am seeing things. As if I have come out from a closed, sealed box. For a long time trapped in my own selfish universe, now freed from the claws of self-sufficiency and self-consciousness. I am not self-sufficient, no one is. I'm am now (trying to truly be) God-conscious.

So, if people can talk confidently, they may actually be strong, but stronger are people who are confident to defend what is right and willing to be viewed as 'ghuraba's' as long as what is true prevails. If people scored etremely well in exams, they may actually be smart, but smarter are those who do well in exams but never at the price of their faith. If people are rich, richer are those who are poor materialistically but will contribute everything they have in the fight for the Deen. And beauty? Lies in the purest of heart.

The stranger is not the one
Who empties the house and bids farewell now
But the stranger is he who is serious
While the people around him play
And is awake while the people around him sleep
And follows the best path
While the people around him
Plot and plan in their misguidance

And truthful was the poet when he said:
My friend said to me, I see you as a stranger
Amongst these people without a close friend
I said nay! But the people are strange
I'm in this world and this is my way

This is the stranger
Strange in the view of those
Who jest and mock from amongst mankind
But in the Sight of his Lord, he is at a Noble Station

“Indeed Islaam began as something strange.
And it will return as something strange the way it began.
So give glad tidings to the strangers”
-Prophet Muhammad s.a.w-