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Date: February 12, 2015
Umm Salihah Ahmed, a blog writer and a loving mother tells about a flexible reward chart on pleasurable parenting. The content of the blog can be read in an abridged format as follows: Children are the focus of our life and we are all on the way to parent them in the best lovable and pleasurable way. She is a compassionate devotee of Islam religion and believes that children are the blessings of Allah and thus we have to treat them in a divine way. Just wipe out the feelings of stress, worries, guilty and cruelty and to start dedicating our life to parent our children. We have to understand the faults of our children, so that we can correct them timely. At the same time we can celebrate their strengths, be gentle in the way we guide them and recognise when the right way to discipline requires a loving approach that tries to identify why a child might be rebelling rather than punishment. The best way to have a good parent is to agree with the qualities of our children first and to lead them to a positive approach to life. By accepting the continuous request from her kids, she has prepared a reward chart for them. The chart incorporated nine broad blogcategories of activity that could generate a reward (or merit) and each child had a different coloured dot to identify who did something good. She also added a bar across the top to show weeks from now to the end of the year.
"The best of what a man leaves behind are three: a righteous child who supplicates for him, ongoing charity the reward of which reaches him, and knowledge that is acted upon after him."
Sunan Ibn Mājah
"Every day two angels come down from Heaven and one of them says, 'O Allah! Compensate every person who spends in Your Cause,' and the other (angel) says, 'O Allah! Destroy every miser.'"
Sahih Bukhari
Usthad Nouman Ali Khan is a great speaker and Islamic thinker well known for his video speeches on Islamic subjects. He is the CEO and founder of Bayyinah Institute, an Arabic studies, educational institution in the United States. He is a speaker at ICNA (Islamic Circle of North America Conventions about Islam, family and other topics. In the initial segment of his lecture on Surat Al QiyaMah, he says that all the religion is emphasizing three major things. They are Guard, Soul and an Afterlife. He says that we must learn well what Islam is before going to normal system of education. Spirituality is something related to psychology and we must pray to Allah all the time. Allah can create a security feel in your inner most soul, which will help you to stay alive peacefully in this universe. He says that Holy Quran is the only moral for the balance between the seen world and the unseen world.
Read MoreA human being’s caliber and knowledge lies in his bio and gene. Some of us excel in mathematics, some in social studies etc. by profession we will be doctors, engineers, scientists, politicians etc. by hobby, we will be coin collectors, riders, cookers etc. profession, wishes, character and everything may be different. But ultimately, each Muslim has a clear singular goal. It is nothing but, aspiring to the character of Prophet Muhammed. If you are physically clean for the day, you should read Quran on that day. If it is possible, a Muslim should read Quran every day. And there is a belief that Muslim should read Quran during the holy month of Ramadan. But you should read it before, during and after the holy month of Ramadan. Ramadan is meant for intense character training and its lessons are applicable for the year round. In the holy month of Ramadan and there after we should attempt to focus on the wisdom of Quran and the idealistic ways of Prophet Muhammed. In addition, we should engage with two greatest miracles of life through prayer, those are reflection and action. We should always be in remembrance of Allah and we should learn Quran and its teachings before, during and after Ramadan.
Read MoreThis is a wonderful article on suicide and its haram in Islam. The author of this article Saba Malik shares some knowledge he got from a depression mastery seminar by a prominent Muslim Shaykh, eight years back. Suicide is a sin in Islam. But the author still wonders that by knowing the fact that suicide is a bad activity, why Muslims still tries to kill themselves. Once the seminar finished, the author went up and asked the Shaykh that if a Muslim attempts or commits suicide, what happens to him. The Shaykh answered that definitely, he will go to hell. Mental illness, hallucinations, diseases, financial conditions, family problems etc. can cause one to commit suicide. Depression can be treated with some of the tools practiced in our day to day life and concentration. Following steps are helpful to avoid depression. 1. Regular salah 2. Medication 3. Psychotherapy or cognitive behavioral therapy 4. Regular exercise 5. Healthy eating 6. Good sleep hygiene 7. Keeping up with physical hygiene 8. Active and meaningful social relationships 9. Support groups or blog 10.Giving back to your community Dr. Al-Khater says that apart from the above tools, situational depression can be alleviated by practicing the following tools: 1. Using the Islamic creed 2. Doing righteous deeds 3. Offering salah and reciting prayers 4. Contemplating the worst cases 5. Having good opinions 6. Living with a realistic – not idealistic – point of view 7. Behaving well towards other and yourself 8. Having hope Above all, prayer and preach Allah is the best solution to forget the thoughts about committing suicide.
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