God guide me

God, I love You and You have no equal.

Nothing more do I want than to find You and You guide the beseecher.

Dua: Allah's Perfect Words

(1) I seek refuge with Allah's Perfect Words
(2) from earning His displeasure,
(3) and from the evil of His slaves,
(4) the promptings of the devils
(5) and from that they come to me.

(1) a3oodhu bi kalimaatillaahi-ttaammati
(2) min ghaDhabihi
(3) wa sharri 3ibaadihi
(4) wa min hamazaati-shayaaTeeni
(5) wa an ya7Dhuroon[i]

Winners consult, losers mope!

مَا خَابَ مَنْ اِسْتَشَارَ
وَ لَا نَدِمَ مَنْ اِسْتَخَارَ

maa khaaba man istashaara
wa laa nadima man istakhaara

He never loses, the one who consults others.
And never does he regret, the one who consulted God.

Questioning the Qur'anic human creation story

The sequence of events in Surah Al-A'raaf (has) had me puzzled for quite a while:

• God creates Adam and Hawwa (Verse 11);
• they are to reside in Paradise (as we are to find out in Verse 19);
• the angels and Iblees are commanded by God to prostrate to Adam (Verse 11);
• Iblees refuses (Verse 11);
• Iblees is told by God to get down from Paradise (Verse 13);
• Iblees asks for respite until the day that they (Adam, Hawwa and their offspring) are raised up (from death, for judgement; Verse 14);
• God grants Iblees this respite (Verse 15).

My first question was: given that Adam and Hawwa were residing in Paradise and Iblees asks for respite until the day that they are raised, does this imply that there would have been death and accountability despite them being in Paradise? But I guess this is answered in that God had earlier said to the angels that He would place successive generations on earth (Surah al-Baqarah, Verse 30), and Iblees was the most learned of the angels (though himself of Jinn-kind).

My second question then is: has Iblees been granted respite and leave to roam in and out of Paradise until the Day of Judgement, given that He must have entered Paradise to have misled Adam and Hawwa as he did (Verses 20-22)? And how do we consolidate this with God's saying to Iblees in Verse 18 to get out from Paradise disgraced and expelled (this after Iblees was granted respite in Verse 15) ?

Another point that sticks out is Iblees' remarkable acknowledgement in Verse 16 that God has sent him astray, but going to leave that for another day...

God mould me

O God let me not meet You

until You build me ready:

gentle

free from weakness

strong

free from harshness

devout

free from incapability.

The oddity of God's trading policy

"Indeed Allah has purchased from the believers their lives and their properties [in exchange] for that they will have Paradise..." (Al-Qur'an, 9:111)

How odd God's trading policy is.
He gives each one of us a life we did not have,
and makes clear that our provision is fixed;
we'll get what we're due to get
so no need to worry
and better to work for it than beg or swindle it.

Now here's the odd part:
any time we sell back a small part of our time, wealth or self,
we get yet more of what we sold
and along with it a share in Paradise to suit!
How strange a deal where both
what is bought and what is sold is the property of the purchaser.

Wealth and faith

How is it
I tell myself
I'll be at peace
were I to secure wealth

And yet
my mind knows
comfort is not in material
but a faith to be protected within my heart...