Have you ever wondered who, what, or where you were before the skies, seas and mountains ever existed? Have you ever pondered about your own creation, how simple, yet complex it seems? Have you ever ponder that you could not have been made to spend nine months in your mother’s belly, only to be born and engage in frivolities? Have you ever wondered why the cycle of weakness and helplessness repeats itself when old age sets in for people and the grim reaper is making for their throat? Have you ever wondered where you are from?

What purpose do you serve here? And where are you going later on? Questions upon questions without a definite answer will make confusion set in, I know. But I really want you to think deep and ponder, but if you need my help doing that, read on. Let us summarize the whole of our life as a journey of “From, for, & to”. From where or what were we created? For what were we created? And to where will we be returned? Why do so much sadness exist, and maybe, little joy. Why do people see life as nothingness, and why do some see it as a playground?

FROM (PAST)

Fifty thousand years before the creation of the heavens and the earth, we were nothing. Nothing to be ever remembered. Fifty thousand years before the creation of the heavens and the earth Allah ordained the measures (of quality) of the creation. The first thing Allah created was the pen, and when the pen was created, it was told to write. The pen asked what should be written, and Allah instructed it to write what was decreed about everything till the last hour. Part of what the pen wrote was the creation of human beings, which indicates that we began from nothingness — unnamed in any form. The Qur’an relates:

“Has there not been over man a period of time, when he was nothing to be mentioned?”

-Sura Al-Insan, Ayah 1

So, we started as nothingness, never to be mentioned. Then when Allah began creation and He created the angels who worshipped Him without break, He then made the creation of man happened, starting from Adam (May Allah be pleased with him) and his wife Hawwa (May Allah be pleased with her). Adam was created from clay, Hawwau was created from his rib whilst he was asleep, and they were both made to procreate and the result of their procreation is we. But our creation is different from theirs. Ours involve the meeting of a pair (Male and female) as it is only through that reproduction can happen.

The Qur’an is explicit about our creation:

• So let man see from what he is created!

• He is created from a water gushing forth.

• Proceeding from between the back-bone and the ribs,

-Sura At-Tariq, Ayah 5-7

Read Also: THE LAST BONE STANDING

This process only happens when a man and woman meets, and even when they meet, there is no guarantee that their cohabitation will bring forth any being except if it has been decreed. So, when this happens, the creation of man has not ended. The sexual relation is the first phase to it (the phase which ends the father’s contribution), the next phase is totally controlled by Allah through the female (Mother to-be after having being impregnated), the Qur’an tells us:

“O mankind! If you are in doubt about the Resurrection, then verily! We have created you (i.e. Adam) from dust, then from a Nutfah (mixed drops of male and female sexual discharge i.e. offspring of Adam), then from a clot (a piece of thick coagulated blood) then from a little lump of flesh, some formed and some unformed (miscarriage), that We may make (it) clear to you (i.e. to show you Our Power and Ability to do what We will). And We cause whom We will to remain in the wombs for an appointed term, then We bring you out as infants, then (give you growth) that you may reach your age of full strength. And among you there is he who dies (young), and among you there is he who is brought back to the miserable old age, so that he knows nothing after having known. And you see the earth barren, but when We send down water (rain) on it, it is stirred (to life), it swells and puts forth every lovely kind (of growth).”

-Sura Al-Hajj, Ayah 5

So, the entire creation of man was explained in the above verse. To buttress the verse, the Prophet also related in one of the hadiths narrated by Abdullah Ibn Mas’ud:

“The creation of you (humans) is gathered in the form of semen in the womb of your mother for forty days, then it becomes a clinging thing in similar (period), then it becomes a lump of flesh like that, then Allah sends an angel who breathes life into it; and (the angel) is commanded to record four things about it: Its provision, its term of life (in this world), its conduct; and whether it will be happy or miserable.” (Al-Bukhari).

Going by the aforementioned, we were totally fashioned by Allah in the best of forms that we are today. Our entire journey has been from Him, if He has then planned our creation and we have been brought to life, what purpose do we then serve? Why are we here? That brings us to the second stage. The present.

SHEHU, Abdus-Salam Aladodo.

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RATIONALIZING THE TRUTH: FACTS DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOUR FEELING.

— Balogun Abdulbasit Umar

“It is not for a believer, man or woman, when Allah and His Messenger have decreed a matter that they should have any option in their decision. And whoever disobeys Allah and His Messenger, he has indeed strayed in a plain error.” -Sura Al-Ahzab, Ayah 36

The Maxim that forms the title of this write up is a reflection of what has overcome Muslims in our world today. We tend to question every thing that does not go inline with our own flawed and adulterated reasoning. You see a Muslim questioning the reason why Allah would allow a Man to marry four and restrict women to one, saying Shari’ah is barbaric (Allah forbid), why did the Prophet say women should not be leaders, why are Muslim men commanded to raise their trousers and keep their beards (you’ll hear them say “That’s Backwardness!”). Some will even go as far as arguing with their reasoning and when you present them with a Hadith or a verse in the Qur’an they say “I disagree with you…!” which translates to one thing; they disagrees with the Qur’an or the legislation of Allah the Almighty. May Allah forbid.

In line with the aforementioned, the Prophet clearly warned us to steer clear of excessive questioning in one of his hadith:

On the authority of Abu Hurayrah (ra):
I heard the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) say, “What I have forbidden for you, avoid. What I have ordered you [to do], do as much of it as you can. For verily, it was only the excessive questioning and their disagreeing with their Prophets that destroyed [the nations] who were before you.” [Bukhari & Muslim]

When such people come out with this reaction what I reply them with is a simple statement, “well, facts don’t care about how you feel”. It’s your problem to feel that you think you’re reasonable than the one who created you and gave you that brain to reason with. It is also your problem that you think the Messenger which was sent to you is not as intellectually gifted as you are.

A Muslim is not like an adherent of other religions. Everything we do has a reference, either from the Qur’an or Hadīth. We don’t do things out of the blue and bring poor evidences like:

وَجَدْنَا آبَاءَنَا عَلَىٰ أُمَّةٍ وَإِنَّا عَلَىٰ آثَارِهِمْ مُهْتَدُونَ
“We found our fathers following a certain way and religion, and we guide ourselves by their footsteps.”
-Sura Az-Zukhruf, Ayah 22

A Muslim is not like this, we pray because we were commanded to, same as we fast, go for Hajj and other legislated actions and deeds in our religion.

So whenever you as a Muslim are challenged by people who are narrow-minded like that, tell them it’s not about how they feel. They should rather suppress their own desires to meet the legislation of Allah. In a weak Hadith from Imam Nawawi on the Authority of Abdullah bn Amr bn al-‘As the prophet was said to have said: “None of you have believed until his desires are in line with what I have brought (Islam)” this is a weak Hadith but are we suppose to worship or be a Muslim in our own way or in the manner Allah wants us to be?

The one who is afflicted with self-desire should shed that cloak and embrace what has been revealed to him from his Lord in good faith even if his brain doesn’t seem to grasp it. He should also learn more about Islam, what is in it and what is against it. He should not worship Allah based on his whims and caprices.

And remember whenever you hear retorting statement about religious issues from one miskeen Bakr or Zaid tell them that “Facts don’t care about how you feel”¹

__________
¹. The statement was from a Ben Shapiro discuss with some students of a university in America. Ben is an Islamophobe but he was right there even though he is a liar!

YOUR BOYS HAVE BECOME DEVILS.

— Olanrewaju Alhassan Adedokun

There is some news about your teenage boys that you must listen to; you might never have a better chance to hear this in a clearer voice; the only other chance you might have at hearing this -maybe when they are indicted for rape – would be a shaky voice laced with tears.

At this point, you might say that this is commonplace; a warning about raising ‘some boys’ whose nuisance cannot be contained by their parents, but no, this is not about ‘some boys’ but your own teenage kids; those ones that have memorized the whole Qur’an, those ones that speak fluent Arabic, those ones you literally hold to have become scholars; who you think only need a law degree now before they would become the next chief Imam of Lekki and their tectonic lectures would be listened to acutely all over the country.

I’m not going to bore you with those tedious and shallow talks about the society and how it will corrupt your teenage boys, I simply want to tell you about your teenage boys and how they are already constituting nuisance to the society, how, soon, their shame will be corroborated in the village square, to tell you how your girls’ lives are at stake.

What you are about to hear might sound too perturbing to be true, but you may never hear this clearer, I repeat. You will read things that you wouldn’t expect from a Lagos conductor who doubles as a weed seller, I urge you to find solace in knowing that you will never hear them say these things to you; you are their parents, I am their friend.

Call this what you may: an attempt at self-righteously strutting my uprightness, just don’t let that overshadow the grievousness of what ensued between me and your son, my ‘friend’; your Haafidh son who is under 16, who told a girl (jilbaabite) how he much of ‘a rough kisser’ he was. And if it sounds strange and a little over the top, if it seems far fetched that your own son would say this, then I am honoured to congratulate you on your failure.

If you think what this teenage haafidh said is worth the fuss, then I’ll tell you that it is not strange to me. It is what I hear daily from my friends, your huffadh sons. It is no more than a single scene in a string of recurring events. And I would not have raised an alarm if it hadn’t come from a 14 year old whom I had always deemed quiet and reasonable, if he hadn’t been talking to another fourteen year old who thought him to be ‘cocky, sexy and cool’.(in her own words)

We meet at the KBC, at the Lekki Conference, at the One Ummah Convention. I know them too well. Different families, different ages, different backgrounds, but one ambition: girls.
We are all guilty of sins, but if we wait for the one who is sinless to cast the first stone, then no one will. I swore to myself to expose all the kinds of things I’ve heard from my ‘huffadh and Arabic-speaking friends’, to challenge them to correct me on the things they know me to do wrong too.  I would mention more horrendous atrocities being committed but for the fingers that would be pointed.

If you think your boys are safe because of some madrasah they attened, I am glad to inform you now, so that you won’t be too shocked when they impregnate a sister. That sounds far-fetched right? Wallah, Billah, it is very close. Very. Very, very. I know your sons in this aspect more than you. And no, they will not impregnate one Sister Mercy, they will do it to one of your girls too, a jilbabite, maybe even niqabi. If you have heard what I have, and seen what I have, you will agree with me that it shouldn’t be us shaking our heads at videos of a Hausa boy smoking weed and reciting Suura Taa-Ha. You should know better by now, that your boys, we, are now as bad.

You should know that you are sitting on a keg of gunpowder. The chicken will soon come home to roost, and when it does, it will be you, and the girls that will bear the brunt of it all.
This is not about Huffadh whose trousers ‘keep Lagos clean’ or boys who don’t pray. This is worse. Worse. Things that must not be said. If you dismiss this now, you will come back to it in a few years. You will know how bad it had become now, how taciturn and economical I am with revealing the extent of this decay.

If you wonder why this is directed to you rather than my friends, who, apparently, are deserving of my correction, then I’ll tell you that the reason is because I believe the blame is on you. And the teachers. And the madrasahs.

Many of you want your children to be huffadh to substantiate their curriculum vitae, you do not want them to have a sense of duty to Islam. You simply want their profiles to be more alluring. You do not really train them to become ‘Alfas’. You do not respect the scholars for their scholarly positions, but for their abilities to double as Islamic scholars and lawyers, engineers, doctors, and that is the beginning of it all.

Your children are self centred, they do not consider themselves as having the duty to change the society, to become Islamic scholars, to be ambassadors of Islam. They look down on those who pursue ‘Islamic scholarship’. They know how much you parents compromise the deen, why then, can’t they compromise some things too?

But you don’t know how bad, you won’t know now. You are free to believe it is just about your kids feeling no obligation to spread Islam. Soon, you will know how easy it is to slip when you don’t have the sense of duty. You will learn how your children lost respect for women; at 16, the friends I have talk about ‘using and dumping girls’ by Allah. They look at those few who warn them (Because yes, some of them are actually still upright) ad being too committed and unlively.

Your children have no sense of duty to Islam because you never imbibed it in them; but they have lost something bigger with it. They have lost respect for women. If you think Salafiyyah subjugates women, then you should listen to my huffadh friends talk about girls; how they talk about them like some piece of trash that can be used and dumped at any time. You need to listen. You need to know how much of a devil they have become. How they have lost all the care a Muslim should have for women, all the respect. An ideal Muslim kid who feels a sense of responsibility to Islam would respect, care for and be protective of women. He would be wary of all the stereotypes against Islam and be keen on breaking them. Your boys care not a tad about Islam or defending it. If your boys are raised to become dutiful to Islam, if you make them realize that becoming upright Muslim scholars comes before anything in life, they would feel embittered when they see Muslim girls exposing themselves to the world to feast on; but if on the other hand, they are raised to believe that one lives life as it comes, and memorized the Quran to boost his profile, then they would be the ones seeking to unveil the veiled sisters.

And our Ustadhs have to take note too. We won’t say more. No one will give you the more gory details. But please know, that what you are in for is worse than what you know. Do not trust us or assume us to be naturally upright. Things are happening. Don’t just teach these kids the Qur’an and Arabic. Engage them in deep conversations. Let them speak their mind. Let them understand the reasons behind Islam’s prohibition of things; especially those related to relationship with the opposite gender. It may require that our Ustadhs also ‘upgrade’ a bit, but it is necessary.

By the time this generation of ours start to marry, you will know what the kids have lost along with their sense of responsibility to Islam. They will marry and beat up their wives, they will treat ’em like trash, they won’t be satisfied by them because of what they had tasted.  The boys will rape your daughters, they will use and dump them, and they will move on with their lives. The brunt would be on you and the girls. We know it all and are warning before it gets there. And don’t think that the advent of this is farther, than tomorrow is to today. We know what we have seen already.

THEY HAD BETTER HEED

— Sanni Kay Yusuf

If I was asked to itemise stuffs I disliked doing as mosque administrator, two things would top my list: arbitrating in marital discords and being consulted to know whether or not a suitor is worth making a good husband.

Marital matters threatening peaceful coexistence between spouses are usually not blown out until dust had been raised and waves had spread it beyond the imam’s quelling prowess. At that juncture, the two parties would have to bear blames, though on a varied scale.

Where the wife is lashed for her untoward excesses and is thereafter admonished to avoid same on her hubby, the arbitrator, sometimes, is seen as partially tending towards the husband’s side. For instance, a woman who abuses and curses her man indoor and in the open wants to be patted on the back for a dignifying treat meted out to her husband. The one who, even at the reconciliation ground, acts saucily to the husband wants the imam’s pampering palm on her head for doing Islam proud. Imagine the height of irrationality!

Some women do not know that the filthy acts displayed by them, especially before people helping to put their marriages right, are a reflection of the kind of home training they got. They are either saying they are “abi i ko, or ako o gba”. A responsible wife does not do a parallel talk with her husband. While he vibrates, she should be on a silence mode.

The myth that the woman takes all blames in any marital brouhaha is, for me, a messy injustice. It’s barbaric. I grew up knowing that even where the man should be smacked or dealt some strokes of the cane for some unworthy excesses of his, the woman is rather considered blameworthy. That’s barbaric, I so repeat. Such is only obtainable in a society of slaves who reserve no human rights. The human world isn’t a jungle. The man should bear his share of the blame. He should be told his wrongs – to his face – not minding whose ox is gored.

A man who batters harder than Anthony Joshua wants the imam applaud his show of shame. Where he gets blamed for his dirty behaviour, the imam is rather held partial. He may say the imam is on the side of his wife. How on earth would the imam favour one who should have a haven in the jungle with gorillas? I honestly don’t know with what such fellows think.

Some men are worse that they hit their pregnant women, yet they want commendations for their moral bankruptcy. We even hear some ignominious ones adduce their area-boy attitude with verses of the Qur’an. People can be so bold that they whimsically twist Allah’s words to suit their sentiments. Chai! Like a sheikh said: “some men deserve a collective, organized beating to straighten their crooked heads”. The laughable thing is that the celebrated beaters are very hard when they handle the mic. In their sermons you feel the peak of piety, but with their wives their attitude is porous. Allahumma sallim!

The one who still eats from hand to mouth with a reflection of that in his living style wants the imam’s signature when the wife cries out his bid to take in a second wife. Where the imam candidly advises the sex-famished ninny to be patient, he holds the adviser on the list of his enemies and accuses him of favouritism. He may even go as far as blackmailing him of some shady and shoddy relationship with his embattled wife. They take falsification as weapon where they aren’t finding their desire rosy.

Some men are just too arrogant to be husbands. They don’t wish changing their stance even where they are stark. Only those who are full of themselves do such trash. Igbera ni igbera sanle!

While women who could not cope with such animalistic men had exited the bondage, some are still hopefully praying to their Lord, perhaps they would return to the human world.

May I suggest, at this juncture, that mosque administrators should consider orientating their congregants periodically on how a blissful matrimony can be ensured. Apparently, Muslim men and women (married and singles) need to be tutored.

THE LAST BONE STANDING.

— SHEHU, Abdus-Salam Aladodo.

Atheists do not believe in life after death. Well, how will one who does not acknowledge the presence of a Supreme Being even come to the conclusion that a resurrection will happen after we have been laid underneath the earth? Take Richard Dawkins; an English ethologist, evolutionary Biologist, Author, Professor, and an outspoken atheist well known for his criticism of creationism for example. He started out his teenage life as a Christian, and along the line, he became an atheist because he came to the conclusion that the theory of evolution was a better explanation for life’s complexity, and ceased believing in a god. In 2006, he wrote a book titled “God Delusion” where he opined that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is a delusion. For Dawkins, the widespread belief in an afterlife among human/religious cultures is an attempt to comfort those who have lost loved ones and to address our natural desire for survival. Dawkins is not the first, there has been several atheist before him, and even people who believe in the presence of a Supreme Being but negates the idea of life after death.

Back in Makkah, in the earliest days of Prophethood, a group of Arab polytheists who hold no believe in the Prophethood of Muhammad (Peace be upon him), who do not believe in the Qur’an or Islam as the only religion of salvation, came forward to make firm their polytheism. They did this by bringing along with them some old rotten bones, they crushed the bones with their hands and asked: “Who will bring life to these bones after they have rotten away?” This display and questioning was born out of the fact that Muhammad (Peace be upon him) and his followers were preaching the monotheistic religion and telling people about life after death — rewards and punishment. These group of people held no believe in it, so they came forward with a charade-cum-questioning. After having displayed their ignorance, Allah replied their act with the following verses:

° Does man not consider that We created him from a [mere] sperm-drop – then at once he is a clear adversary?

° And he presents for Us an example and forgets his [own] creation. He says, “Who will give life to bones while they are disintegrated?”

° Say, “He will give them life who produced them the first time; and He is, of all creation, Knowing.”

-Sura Ya-Seen, Ayah 77-79

The Qur’an also relate to us the tale of a man who passed by a desecrated town, and began to ponder upon how Allah will bring all the lost souls in the town back to life, then Allah made an example out of him to serve as a reminder for us all.
It narrates thus:

Or [consider such an example] as the one who passed by a township which had fallen into ruin. He said, “How will Allah bring this to life after its death?” So Allah caused him to die for a hundred years; then He revived him. He said, “How long have you remained?” The man said, “I have remained a day or part of a day.” He said, “Rather, you have remained one hundred years. Look at your food and your drink; it has not changed with time. And look at your donkey; and We will make you a sign for the people. And look at the bones [of this donkey] – how We raise them and then We cover them with flesh.” And when it became clear to him, he said, “I know that Allah is over all things competent.”

-Sura Al-Baqarah, Ayah 259

With the above verses, Allah made a declaration that giving life back to our bones after they would have been rotten beneath the earth is simple just as He has created us from nothingness; a mere sperm drop which no one could ever believe will become a clinging clot, then metamorphose into a lump of flesh — formed and unformed. Bringing us back after death to account for our deeds will be so easy in a way we can never imagine, so much that even our fingertips will not be spared:

° Does man think that We will not assemble his bones?

° Yes. [We are] Able [even] to proportion his fingertips.

-Sura Al-Qiyamah, Ayah 3-4

As Muslims, what makes our faith in Allah complete is to believe in the last day (the day of resurrection), before that day happens, we will have to die. Death is not the end of our journey, rather, it is the beginning of another long journey to our Maker. The deceased will be questioned in the grave, punishment will be melted out upon the disbelievers, and the believers will be made to rest till the trumpet is blown for the day of reckoning. When the trumpet is blown, we will all be resurrected after having decayed under the earth, our bones rotten, decayed and forgotten except for the little bone at the end of the coccyx.

It was narrated that Abu Hurayrah (may Allaah be pleased with him) who said: “The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said, ‘What is between the two Trumpet-blasts will be forty.’ Somebody asked, ‘Forty days?’ But I could not answer. Then he asked, ‘Forty months?’ But I could not answer. Then he asked, ‘Forty years?’ But I could not answer.” Abu Hurayrah added, “Then (after this period) Allah will send water from the sky and then the dead bodies will grow like vegetation grows. There is nothing of the human body that does not decay except one bone; that is the little bone at the end of the coccyx from which the human body will be recreated on the Day of Resurrection.” (Sahih al-Bukhaari).

So, after having died, we will be brought back to life, just as we were giving life before we even knew we ever existed. The Qur’an affirms this:

The Day when We will fold the heaven like the folding of a [written] sheet for the records. As We began the first creation, We will repeat it. [That is] a promise binding upon Us. Indeed, We will do it.

-Sura Al-Anbiya’, Ayah 104

Therefore, for a Muslim, the dialogue of life after death happening or not should be ruled out because it will happen. Our major concern should be what we are putting in place to meet our Maker — our deeds, our steadfastness in the one who gave us life, and our unflinching faith in Him and His promises for those who believe.

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