Did you know? (Inspirational Islamic Stories)

The easiest act of worship!

Think back to a story mentioned in many traditions and in our Holy Qur'an...

'The story of Prophet Yunus', who had been swallowed by a whale. He lay there in the stomach of this whale, alone and in darkness-
a feeling that some of us can relate to without ever having to find our way into the belly of any animal.

His reaction was not to curl up and fall into despair; rather he spoke to the only one who could take him out of this darkness and take him out of his lonely state. He said,

*"La ilaha illa antasubhanaka inni kuntu minathalimin
[none has the right to be worshipped but You (O Allah) Glorified are You (above all that (evil) they associate with You). Truly, I have been of the wrong-doers]*."

He made dhikr. When in unimaginable hardship, he made dhikr.

Then what happened? Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala (exalted is He) removed him from the darkness. He saved him and took care of him.

Allah then tells us in the Qur'an a very important point which brings this all home.

He says,

"Had he not been one of My glorifiers (musabbihin), he would have remained inside the whale's stomach until Judgment Day," (Qur'an 37:143-144).

The dhikr he made saved him from the loneliness and the darkness that he was enveloped in, along with the pain and suffering he was undergoing in the inside of the whale; imagine then what it can do for us.

An issue that often times arises when we try to implement adding dhikr into our lives is that we start off excited and really feeling it.

But then, the feeling starts to fade and we stop feeling our words. We start feeling that we are speaking empty words and then shaytaan comes in telling us that since we don't feel it, there is no point in doing it.

A wise man from our history, ibn Ata'illah, speaks of this eloquently and holistically. He says:

"Do not stop mentioning Allah just because your heart is not present. Forgetting Him completely is worse than being inattentive while you are mentioning him; perhaps He will elevate you from being inattentive to being attentive, and from being attentive to being fully present with Him, and from being fully present with Him to being fully absent from anything but Him; *'and this is not difficult for Allah'* (Qur'an 35:17)."

Abu Huraira (may Allah be pleased with him) said that Rasool Allah ﷺ said,

"The angels look for those who do Zikr of Allah on the paths. When they find those who are doing Zikr of Allah then they call each other,

"Come, your desired has been found."

Then those angels cover those are doing Zikr of Allah up to the skies of this world with their wings.
And Allah Rabbul Izzat says about them to those angels