'People of Alhamdulillah'

Last month, I was supposed to meet up with someone for a catch up session. I have talked about her  in my blog before; she is a lovely lady, half Malaysian half Irish, who is working at the library of my institute for... I'm not sure how long lol shame on me XD Her name is Safina but I call her Kak Fina, because... that's just what Melayu people do 😂

I can't recall a moment that we don't chat whenever I bumped into her at the library - even when she had someone to attend to at the counter, she'd always look for me in the library after she's done with her 'customer'. She always asked me how I am doing. Well you know, when it comes to people that I'm not really close to, the answer has always been "I'm good". But since she has passed that 'boundary of strangers', my answers vary a bit from time to time (I think, lol). When I was not feeling really good about something, I would tell her, "Oh well, x happened, and I'm feeling y and z," but the stories always end with, "But I'm okay now" or "But it's fine" or "Well yeah, I'm alright" and so on. Well, it doesn't usually take long for me to comfort myself anyway, alhamdulillah.

That's it. That's the word that I've always missed at the end of my conversation. Every time I told Kak Fina about how my day has been, whether it's a good day and I'm felling extremely glad or I've had a not really great day but I've ended my story with a positive remark, she always pat my back or hold my arm and responded "Alhamdulillah."

"Alhamdulillah yea?" she said.

And I shyly iterated, "Yea, Alhamdulillah." It has always felt like I'm being surrounded with a positive energy whenever I'm around her. I think that's a characteristic of the people of Alhamdulillah; people who are in a constant state of gratitude. They always seem optimistic and energetic - not in a hyper kind, but you know, very spirited and enthusiastic about the things that they are doing and whatever is coming to them.

I was listening to Aida Azlin's podcast on Spotify about two weeks ago, specifically the episode where she had Najwa Latif as her guest. When they started to talk about Najwa's life achievements; her good grades in academics, her talent in singing, her profession as a lecturer; Kak Aida made a comment, "You're always like, at every other sentence, you're always saying alhamdulillah. So, I think like, when you're grateful Allah gives you more," and Najwa spontaneously responded, "Alhamdulillah," and they just laughed. Even Kak Aida herself is amazed by Najwa's humbleness, humility and sense of calmness that I think is very admirable for a person of her age. She is young and bright, and from their conversation, I can feel that she is a very tough and hardworking person. It makes sense that people who are always grateful are very humble because I think they always have this sense of realisation that, you know, "This is by the grace of my Lord", or maybe it sounds more familiar in Arabic:

هَٰذَا مِن فَضْلِ رَبِّي

Then, I saw an Instagram post by Ustaz Mizi Wahid (the writer of the book 'The Art of Letting God' that I talked about in this post). He recently wrote,

Anytime you feel overwhelmed by life, just begin to praise Him; "Alhamdulillah" 

Declare His goodness. Draw near to Him, and He will draw nearer to you. Walk to Him, and He will "run" to you. He'll fill your heart & soul with joy & strength, and you'll live in victory, insyaAllah

I saw people commented somewhere that it's really hard to be grateful in times like this. Gratitude is one the things that we forget and overlook the most while facing this kind of unprecedented situation, because we feel like a lot of things are being taken away from us, and we don't really bother looking for the silver lining. 'Ujian itu nikmat', remember? This is one of the tests, and Allah is greater than any of these tests.

I am just amazed with how people of alhamdulillah can be so calm and positive in their lives, especially in the midst of this calamity. I envy their optimist attribute and their ability to sustain their composure. I wanted to say that I hope I will be someone who is able to count my blessings without having to be prompted. But people don't change and become a better person overnight. So I'm taking these (the conversations, the podcast, the Instagram post) as the signs; the signs and the prompts for me to start practising gratitude (with baby steps!) - it's much better to be reminded every once in a while than not to be reminded at all, right?

Anyway, I wrote something about gratitude a year ago somewhere else, but I find it relevant to the situation today. It's based on a quote by Ibnu Qayyim,

I was wondering why did Ibnu Qayyim particularly highlighted these two values and not something else. I personally thought he had chosen those two because it's veeery tough to have patience and gratitude at the same time. And for me, this is one of the times both my patience and gratitude are heavily tested, for a lot of reasons. I question and ponder quite a number of things lately; some of them are related to the outbreak, others are just random thoughts about my life events. 

With that, I'll end this entry with a quote from Shaykh Hamza Yusuf - to remind myself that whether things are going fine or not really, just be grateful for what it is - students hate this word but oh well, it's a test, like life always is 😉. Even if we don't see the silver lining now, we will eventually :) Like what Ustaz Mizi said, praise Him, and He'll fill our heart with joy and strength and we will gain victory, God willing.

Everyone is a believer when things are going fine. The real faith is when one becomes patient with tribulations.