Islam

During the time of these people, they had a king who claimed he was Allah–similar to how Fir’aun, in the Qur’an, claims to be Allah.

There is no oppresser that maintains his power without magic.

Even today? you might ask.

Even today.

In the Qur’an, Allah (سبحانه وتعالى) says:

Translation: Moses said “Throw ye (first).” So when they threw, they bewitched the eyes of the people, and struck terror into them: for they showed a great (feat of) magic (Surah Al-Araf, 7:116).¹

When the Prophet (صلي الله عليه وسلم) first claimed prophethood, Abu Dhar sent his brother to Mecca to investigate and see information he could turn up. His brother investigated and returned. He said (to the meaning of): “A person claims prophethood. The people call him a liar.” Abu Dhar said (to the meaning of): “that’s not enough information, I will go myself and find out more.” (Bear in mind this is a time and place where whole tribes convert or fight Islam whole-scale based on their leaders.) Abu Dhar (radiallahu ‘an) returned to Mecca. Back then, the ka’bah was a holy site. He figured the Prophet, whoever he was, would eventually end up there. So he lurked around, looking at people. But he didn’t know what the Prophet looked like, and he didn’t ask.

Expect several posts on tafseer and lessons from the story of the People of the Ditch, the background to Surah Burooj.

Allah (سبحانه وتعالى) says in the Qur’an:

Translation: By the promised Day (of Judgment), by one that witnesses, and the subject of the witness: woe to the makers of the pit (of fire), fire supplied (abundantly) with fuel. Behold! they sat over against the (fire), and they witnessed (all) that they were doing against the Believers. And they ill-treated them for no other reason than that they believed in Allah, Al-Aziz (Exalted in Power), Al-Hameed (Worthy of all Praise)! (Surah Burooj, 85:2-8)¹

Abstraction: Selective ignorance of certain elements in order to focus on other elements.

In software development, abstraction means you zoom out and see the big picture. You ignore minor implementation details–what are the little pieces? How do they work?–and focus on the whole. These are the systems and how they fit together, and this is the overall goal.

When you employ abstraction, efficiency increases. No longer bogged down with function pointers, memory management, or 16-bit register values, you focus on how to make your software work better.

To optimize your meetings and keep them clear, concise, and on-topic, follow the following two rules as much as possible:

Two Cents: Keep your two cents out of it. Nobody wants to hear your opinion anyway, and spewing one opinion denies other opinions their right. When you compound personal opinion with rebuttal with re-rebuttal, your main topic quickly derails. (Never tolerate deviations from this rule.)

Two Sentences: When you speak, l__imit your dialogue to two sentences max. Power comes with being concise. This forces you to think about your statements before you say them, and prevents you from getting far off topic whenever you choose to speak. (Ignore occasional deviations from this rule.)

“Don’t judge a book by its cover or a man by his beard, because what’s behind the beard can be weird.”

Apply this to your lives, and you’ll find that, bi ithnillah (by the permission of Allah), you will never be surprised or dissapointed. When you make great assumptions about people, where can they go except down?

Great assumptions often lead to great letdowns. Wallahu ‘alim.

“If you fear the creator, you will never fear the creation.” -Imam Anwar al-Awlaki

If your heart trembles in fear of Allah (سبحانه وتعالى) and awe of His majesty, nothing in the dunya (world) can ever overshadow that fear. The dunya can throw a bigger army at you, better weapons, everything and anything. And if you fear Allah the way He deserves to be feared, none of that can overshadow your fear of the Creator.

MultiTimer, a lightweight application, allows you to track your time commitments to multiple items simultaneously. You type in the timer label, set the inital time and count method (countup or countdown), and the application handles the rest.

In particular, if you need to track (and, optionally, aggregate) time usage for multiple projects, you can assign one timer per project and track your time use per day. Or per week. Or per month. Or per year. Or, if you follow the ABCD life management method, you can assign one timer to each category.

This article by Steve Pavlina explains how to effectively manage your life by focusing on tasks based on their long-term effects.

The article defines three categories of tasks, and allocates your daily time to each of them proportionally based on their expected benefit.

1. “A” tasks yield benefit in five or more years, such as learning a new language.
2. “B” tasks yield benefit in two or more years, such as training for a marathon.
3. “C” tasks yield benefit in 90 days or less. This includes day-to-day tasks, like checking email.

He supports a 50-30-20 method of time-sharing: allocate 50% of your time for A tasks, 30% of your time to B tasks, and 20% of your time to C tasks.

“Islamic work isn’t something we do for a hobby–it’s our life.”

Work for the cause, don’t abandon it. Don’t neglect it to play video games or watch TV or surf the internet. It isn’t a hobby. It isn’t part-time. It’s full-time, all out, no holds-barred work for the cause of Allah.

If you consider the illustrious sahaba, radiallahu ‘anhuma ajma’een, they all gave their all for the cause. Their wealth, their health, their free time, even their very lives.