While on my Twitter account the other day, I saw a tweet from Sh. Abdul Nasir Jangda (instructor for Bayyinah Institute) which read, “Hafidh Salis Jibran, 18, has passed away.” After reading this, I thought to myself, “A Hafidh just passed away? An eighteen-year-old American kid, Hafidh, just passed away?!” Death can come to anyone at anytime, but as someone who studied in the American Madrasa system, I had never heard of any of the Huffadh passing away in any of the schools throughout the country. It was a shock to see someone of this caliber passing away, pure shock.
After speaking to Shaykh Abdul Nasir, I was told that Salis was an active member of the Dallas Muslim community. He was one of those kids that people loved, cherished, and enjoyed the company of. At his Janazah, there were thousands upon thousands of people who came to pray for him. In my opinion, this was a blessing the Qur’an had brought him.
The point of this article is not to grieve over Salis’s passing. In fact, we should be more worried about ourselves then him. As Muslim youth living in the west, we are the flag-bearers of Islam. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) mentioned that it was the youth that were the ones who never disappointed him when there was a task to be done (paraphrased Hadith). Don’t finish reading this post and still tell yourself “I’m 18, 19, 20, and that I have my whole life to live.” Don’t tell yourself that you’ll make Hajj or repent later. Don’t say you’ll become “religiously committed” to Allah when you get older. Don’t think about then, think about NOW! Hafidh Salis didn’t have his whole life ahead of him to memorize the Qur’an. He took the time he had, properly invested it, and memorized 600 some pages, 6,236 verses of the Qur’an.
Now the question for us is what are we doing to get closer to Allah? Are we still stuck in the same mode of procrastination with the Qur’an? How often do we review our memorized Surahs? How often do we open this letter from our King and read what it is telling us? How often do we make the Qur’an the center of attention in our conversations? Have we embraced its essence and message? Or are we still in the phase of opening the Qur’an in Ramadan or when someone dies, and then putting it back onto the shelf? Let us rather open the Qur’an, read it, memorize it, and become closer to Allah through this book. Let it become a means of intercession for us and guide us towards the right way.
W need to know that we can leave this world at anytime. Instead of throwing our time and effort away into excessively playing Call of Duty, scrutinizing the lives of the NBA All-Star players, and constantly not putting our time into efficient things, let’s remember that life is too short not to open the Qur’an and see what it has to offer us.
**I had originally written this post for MuslimYouthMusings.com. Please visit their website as I am also a writer there!**
3 comments:
Inna lillahi wa inna ilahi raji'un.
As salaamu alaikum brother - excellent post. Indeed, it is a reminder for us and our use of time. Something I definitely need to work on.
It's very true, us American Muslims, especially the youth (don't know if I qualify for that anymore at age 28, hehe), though I do feel an increased sense of responsibility as our parents are getting older and the current atmosphere that we face in the West. We are the next ones to carry the torch of Islam, as you said.
I actually got back on the horse a bit late last week - I hadn't added a surah to my modest collection, so I quickly memorized one of the smaller surat (As-Asr). This encouraged me to insha'allah make more effort and build things up, despite the busy life of being a graduate student.
Also, something I just saw today on Al Jazeera - a Nigerian girl won a Qur'an Recitation contest and was awarded a new car, 10,000 USD. Now, the point of mentioning this was not the prizes, but the fact that she was a Hafiza at age 13 and can recite 1/3 of the Book in one day I believe it if I recall correctly.
Anyways, again, great post.
May Allah (swt) make us stronger in our Deen and make us spend more quality time with His Book so that it will intercede for us on the Day of Judgement, as is quoted in a hadith. This, along with our Salah of course. Ameen.
Jazak'Allahu Khairan bro.
One of my favorite articles Masha'Allah. Keep it up bro.
He was 17, actually. But that was a very thoughtful post.
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