This Eid, there is still a cause to celebrate. Because with terror and evil, goodness and hope is not only just present, it becomes stronger. And as the lines of humanity in the world become more and more blurred, I'd just remember to look to the normal civilians, the kids, the everyday people. The ones who smile despite all the hardship. They are the ones who are displaying the purest examples of love, peace and unwavering faith.

If I were still a kid, looking at my life superficially, I'd question, "Why do I have to study? I just have to pray every day, and that would make Allah happy." Because I'd see my formal education as an entity that is completely different from what I know as to how to worship God. But could excelling in design, math, science, engineering, psychology and so on... worship God?

Being Singaporean, complaining about anything and everything was part of my second nature. But I've since learnt that as much as it's easy to thank Him for the blessings and good things he has put in my life, I should thank Him for all the trials too.

So many people have asked me this question, "Do you pray 5 times a day?" And when I say yes, they open their eyes wide in shock. To understand each prayer as a representation of a cycle at any stage in our lives.. the beginning, peak, fall, and demise... it just helps to remind us to give thanks and worship Allah at every point.

Sickness makes you realise how weak you are, and that you're not in control of your life. It makes you realise that only God is the one in control, so you pray to Him with the most sincere of heart. Sickness stops you in your tracks, asking you if you remembered God in your life.

The Wait is one of the most challenging experiences of learning sabr- it is inevitable. But we can become blinded by the thing that we want so badly, and ignore the multitude of other blessings that Allah gives us throughout that Wait. And when we don't see it, we are indeed of the ungrateful.

The death of a seed is the onset of a shoot's life; the death of living fruits or animals in the human stomach is the beginning of their rising to the level of human life. As a seed sown in the grown becomes a tree in the world of the air, so a man who is laid in the earth will surely produce the shoots of an everlasting life in the Intermediate Realm.

This is to you, the Convert's Friend.
The one who is patiently enduring, never forcing.
The one who is never quick to judge, the persevering imaan buddy, the pillar of support.
The one who knows that Allah will always guide, in time.