A woman was first to believe in Prophet ﷺ, a woman was first to pray with him, a woman was first to die for him, he left this world resting his head on a woman, his lineage continued through a woman & from his final words were “I give you counsel that you be good to your women”
A citizen in Istanbul found an approximately 6-week-old kitten that had been left all alone on the street, crying for help and meowing from hunger and desperation. After feeding the kitten, the citizen took it to a shelter so it could be safe.
But the story didn't end there.
Most likely, the mother cat had only left her kitten for a short time to look for food. When she returned and couldn't find her kitten where she had left it, she immediately began searching for it. She wandered around the area for days, checking every shelter and clinic she came across.
Then one day, she heard a meowing sound coming from a clinic. She immediately recognized that the voice belonged to her own kitten. Without hesitation, she followed the sound inside and went straight to her kitten. And the very first thing she did after being reunited with her baby was nurse it 🥺
How powerful is a mother's love... To recognize her own kitten's voice among countless others and never give up until she found it 😭❤️
Ibn Umar (RA) narrated: "The Prophet (ﷺ) would say the following for the Talbiyah:
"Labbaik Allahumma labbaik. Labbaik la sharika laka labbaik. Innal-hamda wan-ni’mata laka wal-mulk, la sharika laka." ('I respond to Your call O Allah! I respond to Your call. You have no partner. I respond to Your call. All praise, thanks and blessings are for You. All sovereignty is for You. And You have no partners with You).'"
(Jami`at-Tirmidhi 825, Book 9, Hadith 18)
لَبَّيْكَ اللَّهُمَّ لَبَّيْكَ
لَبَّيْكَ لاَ شَرِيكَ لَكَ لَبَّيْكَ إِنَّ الْحَمْدَ وَالنِّعْمَةَ لَكَ وَالْمُلْكَ لاَ شَرِيكَ لَكَ
IIT Delhi to IIM Bangalore to IAS. I got the best education my country had to offer. It taught me how to crack tough exams and manage big responsibilities. But it never taught me how to quiet my own mind or handle loneliness. We spend many years learning how to achieve, but not a single day learning how to be happy.
My thoughts on what is missing in school education.
Emotional Regulation:
We memorized the periodic table, but no one explained the chemistry of a broken heart. School demanded we stay quiet, confusing silence with peace. Now, we don't know how to host our own storms without drowning in them. We feel lost because we were taught to suppress, not to process.
Deep Communication:
We were taught to write perfect essays, but not how to say "I’m hurting" or "No." While there is a strong emphasis on communication, we are not taught the vocabulary of the adult life. There is no course on how to stand our ground in face of bullying by a boss or how to protect our work boundaries by saying 'No'
Critical Thinking:
In school, the person with the most answers won. In life, the person with the most questions survives. This is the reason many adults can repeat opinions confidently without ever questioning where those opinions came from. We are told everything as the gospel truth. So we end up just following blindly
Financial Literacy:
We spent years learning maths and solving for x, but never learned how to keep ourselves from falling in a debt trap. Money isn't just about math; it’s about the dignity of choice. We do not learn how to use debt effectively without it controlling our freedom. How impulsive spending compounds over time, or how money affects stress, relationships, and mental peace. Financial literacy is missing because education often focuses on earning money someday, not managing it wisely once it arrives.
Self-Discipline
School is a world of bells and schedules. Someone else always tells you what to do and when. But adulthood is a world of total silence. We feel stuck because we were never taught how to push ourselves without a teacher watching. Discipline is simply the habit of keeping promises to yourself. This is a habit many of us are lacking
Handling Loneliness
In school, you are always shrouded by people. You never realize how loud the silence of adulthood can be until you’re in it. We feel lonely because we weren't taught how to be our own best friends. Peace is learning that being alone doesn't mean being lonely. It is a sacred space, not a sign of being unwanted.
Reading People
School is a time of innocence where friendships are often given to you. But as we go along, not everyone retains that purity. We feel cheated because we weren't taught to see the hidden intentions or the masks people wear. Reading people is the quiet wisdom of seeing the truth behind the words.
Mental Health Maintenance
We have gym class for our bodies, but nothing for our souls. We are taught to push through exhaustion to finish a project, which is exactly how we end up in burnout. Honoring your nervous system is the only way to make sure the light inside you doesn't go out. We should know when we are dealing with a stressor and unable to handle it anymore. We should know when to reach out for help if we feel that we are drowning in that distress
Knowing Yourself
We spend years trying to be the "best" student, only to realize we don't know who we are without a gold medal. We are left inadequate because we studied every subject except our own souls. The ultimate education is discovering what truly matters to you before the world tells you what to want.
Abu Huraira (RA) reported: I heard Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) as saying: Allah created mercy in one hundred parts and He retained with Him ninety-nine parts, and He has sent down upon the earth one part, and it is because of this one part that there is mutual love among the creation so much so that the animal lifts up its hoof from its young one, fearing that it might harm it.
(Sahih Muslim, Book 37, Hadith 6629)
Search is full of ads and wrong answers. Every other email is an ad. Prime Video charges you and shows ads. Paramount? Ads. Peacock? YouTube? Hulu? Ads followed by more ads. Netflix full of ads. Meta and X, every other thing is an ad. Pinterest is nothing but ads. AI is in everything. AI finishes sentences incorrectly and won’t stop. AI reads your email and search history to target you with more ads. Every time you open an app or visit a site there’s an update making it worse. In a hurry? First, click here to agree to terms you don’t have time to read and must accept. You need an account to do that. Change your temporary password. Enter your 2FA code. Check your email and enter that code. Now use a passkey. Your password is too simple to remember. Change it. No, not like that. Now log on. Enter your 2FA code. Check your email for a code… Welcome back! We’ve updated our terms of service and privacy policy (you have none). Subscribe to the site. Subscribe to Netflix. Subscribe to toilet paper. Subscribe to these groceries. Pay a membership fee for the right to subscribe then tip your driver who delivers the subscriptions your membership lets you subscribe to. Time to work? We’ve got to update your laptop and will slow down everything you do until you agree to update. But first, click here to agree. Update installed — your laptop’s broken now. It doesn’t matter, since your boss just replaced you with AI. Go to your phone to complain on social media. Wait, your phone needs an update so we can add more AI. Click here. Oh sorry, your phone can’t handle this update. Now it’s useless. Go get the newest phone. Here’s a text from a friend, an email, a voice mail they left three days ago but you didn’t see until now because of sync problems with the cloud. It’s their GoFundMe. Their MLM. Their Patreon. Never mind, you didn’t respond to their text within 9 minutes and now you’re no longer friends. They blocked you. Make new friends. Download this app to find people in your area. In your neighborhood. On your street. Two doors down from you. Do you know this person yet, we think you’d get along. You need an account to use this app. That username is taken. Enter a password. Not that one, you used it on another site. You need to be connected to WiFi to download the app. Allow the app to connect to other devices on your network. Allow the app to access your contacts, know your precise location, store your credit card details. Oops, sorry, we got hacked now all that info is available on the web. There’s a class action suit. You can join. It’ll take a decade to get your $3.73 share of the ten billion settlement. We’ll send it via PayPal or deposit it to your bank, just tell us those details. Oh no, another hack. That info is circulating now, too. Here’s a spam call, a spam email, a spam text. Why are you angry? Why are you talking about getting rid of your phone? Why don’t you like AI, it lets us make all of this easier? Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? This is progress. You’ll be left behind. Do you want to be left behind? Do you???
Dramatic video from a railway station in Bangladesh shows a father shielding his infant underneath a moving train after the child fell off the platform.
Local media reported that both escaped unharmed after eight carriages passed over them.
As an Ummah, we need to continuously strive to increase our knowledge and deepen our understanding of this Deen.
Seeking knowledge is a responsibility upon all of us. The more we learn, the better we can live by the teachings of Islam with sincerity, wisdom, and purpose.