tadaru' : humility and humbleness before Allah

[note: this is an abridged version of the first in a series of articles by Amr Khaled on Islamic Qualities]

Law Number One: We must always humble ourselves towards Allah

Tadaru' is a term that means exaggerated humility and humbleness caused by despair and is expressed when a person reached his final resort.

Allah teaches us in the Quran that tadaru' is a form of worship a believer uses during emergencies and crises. It requires a person to remove the veils of arrogance and ego covering his or her heart. It implies sincere begging to the Lord of the Worlds. It demonstrates that a person has realized how weak he is and how Powerful our Lord is, and that he is nothing whatsoever in front of Allah (swt).

We need to approach Allah being aware of the fact that He is our last and only resort for help. It is Him and only Him who can rescue us from the calamities we are facing and the hardship we are going through, both as individuals and as a community.

Sometimes when Allah sees that we have strayed from the Straight Path, He puts us in a severe situation so that we realize our weakness and run back to Allah for protection. We must be intelligent enough to understand these messages and act according to them. Allah does this for our benefit, because we need to maintain a close relationship with Him. We must not make the mistake of closing our eyes and hearts in front of Allah's call to humbleness and humility to Him.

Going back to tadaru’:

1. Understand, accept and acknowledge that there is no one to help you apart from Allah (swt), the only One worthy of worshipping, glorified and exalted be He.
2. Realize and confess in front of Allah that you have wronged yourself.
3. Engage in sincere supplication to Allah with utmost humility and humbleness.

Our prayers are bound to be answered if we are sincere enough in our and aware of our status of being His slave. Tadaru' .... that's the first thing we should go back to. We need to achieve tadaru' so that Allah may change our situation, because...

"Verily Allah will never change the condition of a people until they change themselves"

inertia

inertia. i was first introduced to this term of physics in high school back in the mid nintys. it applies to object's reluctance to change from their current state.

this is a term that very much describes a lot about me. i hav a high inertia, especially when it comes to climbing out of those lows that everyone falls into (which in my case more often than not). ever since returning home mid last year, i have more or less been doing nothing meaningful. just laying back and letting time fly me away. guess its like wat happens when u suddenly find urself wit loads of money, and are totally at wit's end on wat to do with it.

it took me great few months to realize this. not lets see how long it takes me to make it happen.

life

life is like a wheel moving forward
each point returns to kiss the ground
but its a different ground at each kiss

and life goes on

no posts in a lloonngg while. over five months to be exact. reflection of how my life had been over these times: these busy times, these lazy times.

moved back to bangladesh in july, and been trying to settle back into the old life since then. spent a few months with parents in chittagong, where i realized how many years separation had unknowingly crept in between myself and them.

aint sure whether i re-joined my old workplace, or they took me back in; but thats why i am here struggling to settle in this un settling dhaka.

we hv an interim government ruling the country. but it seems the whole country is going through an interim period. everyone is living on with their lives, yet everyone seems to be in a transition; waiting for something to happen.

well, life itself is all about living in transition, isnt it? i remember someone genuinely defined life as the 'transition stage between birth and death'.