On the authority of Anas bin Malik, the servant of the messenger of Allah, that the prophet said :
"None of you [truely] believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself."
related by Bukhari and Muslim
Allah swt tells us in the Quran that Mankind is lost, except for those who have faith and do righteous deeds. Now, if you ask any learned person in Islam, "Who are those who have faith (Iman)?", they will respond to you that it is the Muslims. To have faith (Iman) is to have aquired the necisary knowledge concerning CORRECT belief in the Creator and how we are to worship Him, to understand it, believe in it, whole heartedly accept it and to impliment it in our lives.....
I submit to you all, that it is the Muslims today who are lost, along with the rest of mankind, and that it is due to a lack of knowledge and practice, i.e. a lack of faith and doing of righteous good deeds....
So what can we do about it?
As many of you know, I own a small halal bakery business. I manufacture Halal cookies and wholesale them to independent store owners, in and around the Memphis, TN area (Gas stations and grocery stores, etc). As you can imagine, I deal with a lot of Muslim store owners. I get to meet brothers and occasionally sisters from all over the world: India, Pakistan, Yemen, Syria, Philistine, Jordan, Israel, Iraq, Bosnia, Ethiopia, Somali, and the list is even longer....
Today, I had one of those experiences that makes your stomache sick, as a Practicing and Striving Muslim, and I have had several since taking over this business. But, before I tell you about this experience and its effects on me and my iman, I want thank Allah swt for giving me a wonderful, hard working and practicing Muslim wife. I want to thank Allah swt for my beautiful Ethiopian step kids. I want to thank Allah swt for giving me a means of making Halal money, %100 percent Halal!, and this is something that is hard to come by today: Halal relationship, Halal business, Halal money and Halal food..... Thank you Allah, for I deserve none of this. This sinful servent of yours is not deserving of anything that you have given him... Verily all praise is due to Allah!
My Iman has been taken on a roler-coaster of-a-ride, since my nikah to the sister, who owns this business and cooks these old fashioned handmade cookies that will make your mouth water at the very aroma of them as you walk into a store that carries them. I have seen brothers cry as I respond to there question, " are you a Muslim?" and tell them of my journey to Islam and how much I love this life, life as a Muslim. I have had brothers cry and tell me that our conversation has caused them to want to lock their doors and run to the masjid to perform salaah, which they haven't done in years..... I have met non Muslims and had them ask me questions and given them books and information on Islam.... and I have had many good experiences, as I go through my days delivering and peaking the curiousity of other brothers, as I walk in with my Arabic Accented Arabic and my White Guy American skin color with my Shaik-i-fied attire... lol
I love my job; I mean who wouldn't? I get to make money, give Dawah, meet and greet practicing and non practicing Muslims and its all %100 halal, but there are those times that my patience is tested and my Iman is effected. Lets not talk about the fact that %99 of these Muslims are dealing in Haram or that I'm out in the Dunya having to stare at the ground or the yellow lines in the road as I drive because of all the half naked women! Lets focus for a second on the brothers that tell me " get the hell out of my store!" and the ones who say "I dont give a shit if its halal or not, how much money am I making?" and then the experience the other day with a local store owner who told me, "get the cookies out of here if your going up 10 cents..."; "I had to go up akhi, because of cost of supplies. We use the best, and we use Halal Vanilla, which is very expensive. You don't lose. The customer pays $1.09 instead of $.99", I explained to him.
You have to look at it from my eyes, my perspective brothers and sisters. This was a Halal store, no alcohol or haram sold there, and the brothers always gave me salams and treated me with respect, as I did them. But, the minute they heard I went up .10 cents, they told me to take a hike and kept the competitions products. So, I'm thinking to myself, " why won't he keep doing business with me? I'm a Muslim; He's a Muslim, and we want for each other the best and to be able to provide for our families, right? And he still makes the same little .39 Cents he did before.... What does Islam say? Well, I can think of one Hadith off hand.... >>
On the authority of Anas bin Malik, the servant of the messenger of Allah, that the prophet said : "None of you [truely] believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself." related by Bukhari and Muslim
Why are we Muslims not fallowing the sunnah? Why are we not loving the fact that we are Muslims and we have been blessed with businesses, and why are we not eager to do business with our other brothers who have halal businesses? How is it that we can say " get out of here..."???
My thought for today brothers and sisters.... Thank you for alowing me to get some steam off.. :)
jazakallahum khyran
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