"Your Lord has a right on you, your soul has a right on you, and your family has a right on you; so you should give the rights of all those who has a right on you." ... The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "Salman has spoken the truth."
The sun is up right now, and here we are, looking at a phone.
By dinner it'll be gone. The clocks went back yesterday, and the long evenings have left until spring. We'll look up from whatever has hold of us today, and it will already be dark outside the window.
When did that happen? It was just summer. We meant to sit outside more. We meant to pray one Maghrib on the grass.
Then came the emails and the laundry and the dentist, and one morning the tree at the end of the road had turned red without us.
We keep telling ourselves we'll rest once it's all done. We've been saying that for years, and somewhere in those years we lost the ability to stand still for one minute without reaching for something.
Two minutes would change this morning, and the door is right there.
Out there the air is cold enough to wake the whole face up. The leaves are turning, and no one has asked them for an update. The light has come a very long way to land on our skin, and it's free, and it's leaving early.
Allah kept all of it running while we answered emails. The sun came up today with no help from us.
So for two minutes we get to put it down, and feel how much of the world was never ours to hold up. SubhanAllah (glory be to Allah) is the only word it needs.
The emails will still be there in two minutes. This morning won't.
First ripple: Right now, before today gets any further, put the phone down, open the door, stand in the light for two minutes and say subhanAllah.
Reflection: What have I been too busy to notice this year?
Ummah Good News
On an 84-kilometre ride in Malaysia, a construction worker from Lahore got talking with his Grab driver, Hafiz, then took him to a Pakistani restaurant and paid for his dinner. He'd wanted to host him at home, Hafiz wrote, but there was no food ready there.
A du'a for you
Ya Allah, give everyone reading this one quiet moment today, and let them feel how close You are. Ameen.