Weekly Pearls of Wisdom Yasmin Mogahed

Don’t despair if your heart has been through a lot of trauma. Sometimes that’s how beautiful hearts are remade: they are shattered first.

If there is one recipe for unhappiness it is that: expectations.

Yasmin Mogahed

Dear Readers,

 

Today I present to you pearls of wisdom from Yasmin Mogahed. She’s a scholar, internationally acclaimed speaker, a writer for the Huffington Post  and author. She focuses most of her work on spiritual and personal development. She’s one of those women who has been very courageous in speaking out her mind and heart. Her work is highly inspiring. She’s shown light to many women and has given them true hope and courage to live life free from the confines of societal expectations. Her work gives us a means to try to better understand what our purpose is and how we can overcome our fears and anxiety by turning to our Creator and rebuilding that relationship.

 

 

I hope you’ll find these pearls of wisdom enlightening and inspiring. 

 

 

My value as a woman is not measured by the size of my waist or the number of men who like me. My worth as a human being is measured on a higher scale: a scale of righteousness and piety. And my purpose in life-despite what fashion magazines say-is something more sublime than just looking good for men. –

Reclaim Your Heart

 

Try not to confuse attachment with love. Attachment is about fear and dependency, and has more to do with love of self than love of another. Love without attachment is the purest love because it isn’t about what others can give you because you are empty. It is about what you can give others because you are already full.

Holding on to hope when everything is dark, is the greatest test of faith.

When you have friends, don’t expect your friends to fill your emptiness. When you get married, don’t expect your spouse to fulfill your every need. When you’re an activist, don’t put your hope in the results. When you’re in trouble don’t depend on yourself. Don’t depend on people. Depend on Allah. –

Reclaim Your Heart

If our inner state is dependent on something that is by definition inconstant, that inner state will also be inconstant.

Sometimes you search so hard for words. You look for a way to interpret the language of this heart and the unspoken bond you feel. But in the end you are left with nothing but silence. And deep down you hope it’s understood. –

When we can’t marry the person we had in mind, our inability to look beyond may even blind sight us from someone who is in fact better for us. When we don’t get hired, or we lose something dear to us, it’s hard to take a step back and notice the bigger picture. Often Allah takes things away from us, only to replace them with something greater.-

  Reclaim Your Heart

True or pure love should never contradict or compete with one’s love for Allah. It should strengthen it.

The determining aspect for success is not so much what we do when we’re up. The question is what we do when we’re down- when we’re not feeling it. The key to succeeding on this path is that once you do reach your ‘low’, you keep going, knowing that it’s normal.

As much as you can, keep Dunya (worldly life) in your hand–not in your heart. That means when someone insults you, keep it out of your heart so it doesn’t make you bitter or defensive. When someone praises you, also keep it out of your heart, so it doesn’t make you arrogant and self-deluded. When you face hardship and stress, don’t absorb it in your heart, so you don’t become hopeless and overwhelmed. Instead keep it in your hands and realize that everything passes. When you’re given a gift by God, don’t hold it in your heart. Hold it in your hand so that you don’t begin to love the gift more than the giver. And so that when it is taken away you can truly respond with ‘inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi rajioon’: indeed we belong to God, and to God we return.  – 

There are internal chains and external chains. All the external chains in the world won’t enslave you, if you are free inside. And all the external ‘freedom’ in the world won’t liberate you, if you are chained inside. Let go. And you’ll know Freedom.  –

True love allows you to be at peace with yourself and with God. That is why Allah says: “that you may dwell in tranquility.” –

Worry is a direct consequence of relying on your own efforts.

Nothing is difficult if you seek it through your Lord, and nothing is easy if you seek it through yourself. 

Stop hating on yourself for not being perfect. If God wanted perfection, He would have made you an angel.

So often we experience things in life, and yet never see the connections between them. When we are given hardship, or feel pain, we often fail to consider that the experience may be the direct cause or result of another action or experience. Sometimes we fail to recognize the direct connection between the pain in our lives and our relationship with Allah SWT.