Stories to learn from

[Ferrari1981]

<b>Abandoning something for the sake and Pleasure of Allah</b>


Ibn Rajab and others gave an account of a worshipper who ran out of resources while he was in Makkah. He became extremely hungry and was about to die from lack of nourishment.


One day, as he was wandering in the precincts of Makkah, he found an expensive necklace. He put it into his sleeves and headed for the Masjid.


On his way he came across a man announcing that he had lost a necklace. The poor man later said, "I asked him to describe it to me, and he did so, perfectly, leaving no room for doubt. I gave him the necklace without taking reward from him.


I said,: "O Allah, I have given it for You, so compensate me with what is better."


The man went to the ocean and began a journey in a small boat. Only a brief period of time passed before a storm came with heavy winds crashing into the boat.


The boat smashed into pieces and the man was forced to cling to a piece of wood. The winds were violent, propelling him to the left and to the right.


Finally, he was washed ashore onto an island. He found there a Masjid filled with people who were praying, so he joined them. He found papers with parts of the Qur'an written on them and he began to recite from them.


The people of the island asked him, "Do you read Qur'an?" He answered in the affirmative.


"Teach our children Qur'an," they said. So he began to teach them and he took a salary for his services.


One day, they saw him writing and they asked, "Will you teach our children to write?". Again he answered in the affirmative and began teaching them for a salary.


A short time later, they said to him, "There is an orphaned girl with us whose father was a good man. Will you marry her?"


He agreed to the marriage and later related, "I married her and found that she was wearing the exact same necklace. She said that her father lost it in Makkah and a man found it and returned to him. She said that her father would always supplicate while prostrating, for her daughter to become blessed with a husband similiar to the honest man. I then informed her that I was that man."


Umm Salamah reported: I heard the Messenger of Allah (salAllahu alayhi wasalam) saying,


Inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi raji`un. Allahumma ujurni fi musibati, wakhluf li khairan minha


We belong to Allah and to Him we shall return. O Allah! Compensate me in my loss, recompense my loss and give me something better in exchange for it.


[Muslim]


Abandoning something for the sake and Pleasure of Allah - Allah will definitely compensate with something that is better, either sooner or later, in this world or Hereafter.

[alia]

woooow really .. it is a beautiful and very meaningful story,


thank you very much for the story ..umm Zachariah :wavey:

[alia]

woooow really .. it is a beautiful and very meaningful story,


thank you very much for the story ..umm Zachariah :wavey:

[Muslimah]

Bismillah


I received this insightful story from Jennifer, when I started reading, I felt I will not be able to continue because I have a soft corner for animals and specially donkeys. But it is worth reading.


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One day a farmer’s donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally he decided the animal was old, and the well needed to be covered up anyway, it just wasn’t worth it to retrieve the donkey.


He invited all his neighbors to come over and help him. They each grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone’s amazement, he quieted down. A few shovel loads later, the farmer looked down the well, and was astonished at what he saw.


As every shovel of dirt hit his back, the donkey did something amazing. He would shake it off and take a step up. As the farmer’s neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon, everyone was amazed, as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and trotted off!


The Moral… Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. The trick to getting out of a hole is to shake it off and take a step up. Each of our troubles is a stepping stone. We can get out of the deepest holes just by not stopping, never giving up! Shake it off and take a step up.

[Muslimah]

Bismillah


My mother was reading a magazine named Al Yaqazah the past week, she drew my attention to very thoughtful story. I read the story, very touching and worth reflecting and pondering upon. It raises many points and underlines a lot.....


I took the liberty to translate it and post it here, but of course kept the source, Insh a Allah the author will not mind it.Actually, she published the article as an introduction to her article. So I dont really know who the original author is.


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Width of life


Happiness and unhappiness are deemed sequential lessons that you receive throughout your life for the purpose of enhancing your perception, and taking you to maturity. You will never attain happiness unless you realize real love and you will never attain real love till you know yourself.


It is narrated that a king decided to take over a small village, thus, he mobilized his armies and started walking towards the targeted village. To his surprise, residents of the village welcomed the armies upon their arrival which raised the king's amazement. Because of this usual situation, he started touring the village, still astonished, specially when no one feared him neither did they prepare their armament. During his tour, he observed an open grave pitch in front of each house. Still people in the village were not concerned with the king neither his armies, he inquired to a passer about the chief of the village. The resident informed him that the chief lives on the outskirts. Immediately, the king started walking towards the place. On his way, he passed by a grave yard and was actually taken by the statements on each grave. XYZ lived an hour and died, ABC lived a day and died, and this one lived a week and died. In response, he was both bewildered and scared but continued walking seeking to meet the chief of the village only to find an old man sitting quietly and tranquilly in the porch.


The king asked him: Why you did not prepare to fight me?


Chief: Why should we prepare.. we do not fight anybody?!


King: Aren't you afraid of my armies?


Chief: We are not afraid of your armies neither do we fear death.


King: Why do you dig your graves in front of your houses while you use this grave yard to bury your dead?


Chief: Before going to their respective places of work, village residents are used to pass by the grave every morning to remind themselves with their final destination in order to avoid being unjust, cheating or lying.


King: What are those statements inscribed on the tombs? Do the village people have such very short lives?


Chief: Lives are not short.. but here, we measure lift times not by the number of days as you do..but rather by width.


King: And how do you do that?


Chief: The width of the life is what a human being contributes of love, and good under a sincere Niyah (intention) to Allah Ta`ala. For example, this whose tomb carries a one hour statement implies that he offered good seeking nothing but Allah's Face without waiting for a reward one time for one hour throughout his whole life. Thus, this deed is considered the optimal fruit of his work and existence in life.


As for the one whose tomb is labeled that he lived a year and died indicates one year which he dedicated to composing a book to serve people without a reward. But before doing it, he intended it to be only for Allah's sake. Thus, he considered the book as fruit of his existence, heart essence and production counting this year only.


At this point, the king looked down..commended the chief and extended his due respects. He evacuated the village. But this incident drew a new line in his life.


By Dr. Mariam Baqer


Al Yaqaza magazine 2-8 July 2008


Issue 2053

[Muslimah]

<b>Bismillah</b>


<b>Saber Bhatia of Hotmail
</b>


http://www.grid7.com/archives/86_faw-2-sab...of-hotmail.html


The enabling tool they built internally during development BECAME the actual product


Just like Paypal, the Hotmail founders (Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith) originally set out to build an entirely different product. They sought to make a simple plug-n-play database that anyone could use to store structured information and then expose it via the web. That product was called JavaSoft and sounds as if it would have been Google Base ten years before its time. Both founders held their corporate jobs while developing Javasoft. When their IT department implemented a firewall, it killed their ability to access their personal email (which they had been using to collaborate during development). They were forced to use paper and floppy’s to trade data and it crippled their development efforts. They were driven by necessity to find another way to access their personal emails remotely and it occurred to them that web sites could be accessed from anywhere. They immediately began developing a web-based email client.


The parallel here for us was that the original concept for the hardware version of JumpBox was born when Kimbro was working a consulting gig for a major hotel chain. He stepped into a situation of utter chaos with twenty consultants on the job using excel spreadsheets to track bugs and “free climbing” with no source control. He entered the situation and implemented a bug tracker, source control and a wiki for documentation to put some structure to the development effort and after the three days it took to setup this open source infrastructure, he thought “wouldn’t it be neat if a pristine instance of all this stuff could be cloned on small form factor machines and used every time you parachute into a gig and need development infrastructure?” This was of course before the concept of virtual appliances existed and he was thinking of a hardware-based appliance at the time. But he essentially arrived at the JumpBox concept in an effort to “scratch his own itch” - a common theme throughout the Founder’s At Work series.


Using the JavaSoft idea to test the waters with VC’s


Once they had the web-based email working they thought “other people probably have the same problem… we should share.” So they opened it up and began offering web email access for others and (just like Max posting his Palm Pilot security application) they had immediate visibility and rapid adoption. They gradually realized that the web-based email idea was bigger than the Javasoft product idea, but given the low barrier to entry they feared that telegraphing their intentions by distributing the business plan of the web email to VC circles could leak the concept to someone like Netscape and blow them out. They needed to tread carefully in how they approached potential investors so they used the JavaSoft story to gauge their reaction and broached the web email idea only after they had confidence in the VC.


Just-in-time scaling

[Muslimah]

Bismillah


the important lesson is that Saber endowed most of his wealth to help poor students back in his homeland.