Between North and South | 200th milestone

Bismillah.

Can't help but play on repeat in my mind the words of one respectable Capetonian: "You are always special and dear to us!" That's the sweetest sentence of the year for me. LOL. Thank God for people who always have something kind to say. And we know they mean it. South Africa is a great place with lovely people. May Allah send more and more good people into our lives. Ameen.

It's been a wonderful Saturday, hence, another weekend rambling. Hey, it's the 200th posting of the year, peeps. You should let me ramble free.

Am still reading about that special country in North Africa - Morocco. But now the feeling is kinda dented eversince I learned about the passing of one mu'aleem, principal of a tahfiz school in Penang. He's a Morrocan who had been serving the tahfiz school for 16 years mashaAllah. I met him some years back and during a recent trip to Penang I had planned to meet him to benefit from him and to inquire more about Fez in particular. Alas....I was told the shaykh had passed away about two months ago. Inna lillah wa inna ilai hi raji'un. Will visit his maqam in my next trip up north, inshaAllah.

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Now, between North and South, figuratively speaking, where do we stand?

We often hear about the need to strike a balance and opt for the middle way. But oftentimes, as we traverse the path, we slip to the extreme bottom or sometimes get a little too high on the top-end, only to realize that it's dizzying and we cannot hold on too long, thus we shift to the middle. 

During down-time we hit rock bottom and feel great d-e-s-p-a-i-r. It's during these low periods that we need a helping hand, a friend to push us forward. We need soothing words of encouragement to restore the zest for life here and after. Need to get out of low-lands and move to middle ground.

Rather than wait for help to come and make us stronger, maybe we should go out and do a small thing to make somebody happy. To quote one shaykh, I think it was Shaykh Abdul Aziz Fredericks who said, "We are weak. We become strong when we do good to people." To be strong, we need to do good to people.  

If I should be lucky, bi-iznillah the shaykh might accept my invitation to a private function in KL ; )

Let's pray it's ON. Let's pray. InshaAllah.

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Lastly, this one is for those of you sweet talker out there. I remembered in one of his talks in KL, Shaykh al-Ninowy said: most people equate nasihah with advice but what it really means is transparency and by that it means we should say with our tongue exactly what we have in our heart. We cannot be just sweet on the tongue when the heart is sour and not say what we really mean deep down. So, do not sweet talk unless you mean it truthfully. 

Allahu a'lam.

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I thank my Lord for this 200th posting. I would be grateful even if one person benefits from just two sentences of the 200 posts. Or two persons - one sentence each : )
Alhamdulillah.

"North"

"South"
These young men made my day.
Was feeling low until I met them.

p/s
If Blogger dot com could grant me a wish as a reward for being quite consistent, I wish they would create a tool with which we could block specific visitors who come here for the wrong reasons and with ill-intentions. Perhaps a face-recognition tool that can detect negative people because blocking IP address alone is not going to work. LOL.