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One of the diseases we experience in our culture is cheap talk. People say things all the time, whether they mean it or not. Worse, people lie as easily as they breathe–sometimes, even as often–and sometimes, under the guise of “just kidding!”

But is talk cheap? Let’s look at some evidence from the Qur’an and Sunnah.

• Shahada: People enter Islam when they take the shahada–in other words, when they say certain words.
• Kufr: People leave Islam when they say words of disbelief.
• Marriage, Divorce, Slaves: The Prophet (صلي الله عليه وسلم) said: Three things are serious if you’re serious, and serious if you’re joking: marriage, divorce, and freeing a slave. (The words matter, even if uttered without intention [1].)
• The Truthful: The Prophet (صلي الله عليه وسلم) said, in a longer hadith: Truth leads to birr, and birr leads to Paradise. A person keeps speaking the truth until he is recorded with Allah as one of the truthful. [Bukhari]
• The Liars: The Prophet (صلي الله عليه وسلم) said in that same hadith: Lying leads to vice, and vice leads to Hellfire. A person keeps lying until he is recorded with Allah as a liar. [Bukhari]
• Hellfire: One of the sahaba asked the Prophet (صلي الله عليه وسلم), “Will we be held accountable for what we say?” He said, “May your mother lose you! People will be flung face-down into the Hellfire on account of what their tongues sent before them!” [Tirmidhi]
• Hypocrites: The Prophet (صلي الله عليه وسلم) said: the hypocrites have three traits. [One is] when he speaks, he lies. [Bukhari and Muslim] (I.e. words can become a reason for one to become a hypocrite.)

And these are a few small things that you probably already knew, some common ahadith we hear often enough. There are no doubt many, many more proofs.

Once a young man from the Muhajiruwn and a young man from the Ansaar quarreled. So the muhajirun called out for help stating: “O Muhajiruwn!” And the ansaari said: “O Ansaar!” The Prophet (صلي الله عليه وسلم) heard this and said: ”Is it with the call off jahiliyyah that you are calling out, and I am present amongst you!” (Bukhari)

Want to earn the love of Allah? Imagine! To be loved by the greatest, the self-sufficient, the lord of the universe! Who doesn’t want that? Read on inshallah and find out how to achieve that lofty goal!

Ibn al-Qaiyim (رحمالله) mentioned ten causes that result in Allah’s (سبحانه وتعالى) love for His slave and the slave’s love for his Lord. [These ten are:]

First, recite the Qur’an while pondering over its meanings and what is meant by it.

For those of you who regularly write Arabic (and, incidentally, you can generalize this to any language inshallah), you might look at your writing and say, “man, that is ugggggleeeeeee!”

So how do you go about beautifying it? The key here is that you can recognize nice Arabic writing when you see it–and I don’t mean calligraphy.

The solution is surprisingly simple. Grab a mushaf (or, if you have them, one of the three Medinah University Arabic books), Apply your observational skills, and you can easily inshallah detect a few clues on how to improve (or even how to write them!) Check out the letters below:

This is the fourth part of our discussion on ways to achieving purification of our salaah.

The Prophet (صلي الله عليه وسلم) said: “Allah, the Blessed and Exalted, has said: ‘I have divided the prayer between Myself and My slave, into two halves, and My slave shall have what he has asked for.’

“When the slave says “Ar-Rehman-nir-Raheem“, Allaah (سبحانه وتعالى) says, “My slave has extolled me.”

In Arabic, masculine plurals generally follow a couple of different patterns. Sometimes they acquire a waw-noon at the end (eg. muslim becomes muslimuwna)–these are called “sound plurals” (because the original word is still intact). Some acquire letters inside their form (eg. qalam becomes aqlaam)–these are called “broken plurals”.

Feminine words, Allahu ‘alim, they also have sound and broken forms. One example of a sound feminine plural is muslimaat (plural of muslimah).

Interestingly enough, with inanimate objects–such as pens, books, cars, and dogs–the plural (both masculine and feminine plural) acts as if it’s the feminine singular.

The word “du’a” is the verbal noun of the verb “da’a”, which means “to call out, to summon.”

With that said, du’a is a fundamental aspect of Islam, and without it, one’s eman cannot be intact. Allah mentions du’a in the Qur’an to signify many things, such as:

• Worship:

  وَلاَ تَدْعُ مِنْ دُونِ اللَّهِ مَا لاَ يَنْفَعُكَ وَلاَ يَضُرُّكَ

  Translation: “And do not call besides Allah that which will not harm you or benefit you…” [Surah Yunus, 10:106].

• Praise:

  يَوْمَ يَدْعُوكُمْ

  Read more…

The following is an excerpt from “Don’t be Sad” by Shaykh Aaidh ibn Abdullah Al-Qarni.

Everything that has gentleness within it is beautified, and whatever lacks it is spoiled. When you meet someone, giving them a bright smile and a kind word, you are displaying a characteristic of the truly successful person, a characteristic that even a bee exhibits. When a bee lands on a flower (doing so for a practical purpose) it does not destroy it, because Allah rewards gentleness with that which He does give for harshness. There are certain people whose personalities are like magnets , attracting everyone who is nearby, simply because they are loved for their gentle talk, their good manners, and their noble deeds.

Inshallah what follows is a small gem from the Qur’an about Maryam (عليها سلام), mother of ‘Isa (عليه سلام).

At the end of Surah Tahrim, Allah (سبحانه وتعالى) says:

Translation: And Mary the daughter of ‘Imran, who guarded her chastity; and We breathed into (her body) of Our spirit; and she testified to the truth of the words of her Lord and of His Revelations, and was one of the Qanitiyn [Surah Tahrim, 66:12]

Ibn al-Qayyim (رحمالله) said:

And mankind, with regard to their performance of prayer are in five levels:

The First: The level of the one who is negligent and wrongs his soul: He is the one who falls short in performing wudoo properly, performing the prayer upon its time and within its specified limits, and in fulfilling its essential pillars.

The Second: The one who guards his prayers upon their proper times and within their specified limits, fulfills their essential pillars and performs his wudoo with care. However, his striving (in achieving the above) is wasted due whisperings in his prayer so he is taken away by thoughts and ideas.