Priceless Treasure Discovered!

I greet you with the Islamic greetings, "May the Peace and Mercy of Allah (God) be upon you," and I hope that you are in the best of spirits. I feel strange sitting here typing and creating a blog for myself. The more I think of it, the more I worry that by becoming a 'blogger' I am being hypocritical. I remember hearing about -and even visiting a few- blogs in the past for a long time. However, every time I came across one, I would tell myself that it was enough to visit a blog if someone kept bugging me about it, but I had promised never to bother creating one for myself. There were a plethora of reasons why I chose to keep aloof; some of these reasons may seem insignificant for a few, but they had a great bearing for me. I had seen too many people spend unimaginable amounts of time updating their blogs and trying to vent out anger or frustration through what they thought was writing but what better resembled a rant.

So, what caused me to change my mind? Well, I can answer that question in more than one way. But before I do, I have to wonder something: "What caused you to visit my blog?" Perhaps it was the title; maybe it was the name of the 'blogger'; still maybe it was the title of the post. Unfortunately, if it was the last, you have probably already stopped reading because you didn't find out anything about the valuable treasure that was discovered. Then again, maybe you are so anxious to find out what that treasure was that you are patiently waiting to see if i eventually give you a link to a news article about the treasure. Well, I don't want to let you down -and hopefully I won't let you down- but I have to let those questions float around in your minds for a while because those are the same reasons that changed my mind about 'blogging' (with the exception of the name of the 'blogger', of course).

It was the title of the Blog that caused me to change my mind: "Islam, Eemaan, and Ihsaan". What do these three words mean? The simple English translation would be Peace/Submission of will/Acceptance (the understood meaning being: attaining peace by submitting one's will to, and by accepting, Allah as the only Lord, the Supreme, the only worthy of Worship), Faith, and Goodness, respectively. At first glance, all three of these words seem to be pointing to the same thing, peace is goodness and accepting Allah as the Lord is faith. Why, then should someone mention all three separately in a title, or for that matter why were they mentioned separately in a hadith (recorded saying of the last Messenger to humankind, Muhammad, Peace and Blessings be upon him)? In order to understand the religion of Islam, it is essential to understand these small, yet profound, words.

It was the title of the post that caused me to change my mind: "Priceless Treasure Discovered!". Sadly, yet truly, we live our lives in the anticipation of striking rich out of some mere luck. We dream about a day when we accidentally fall upon chests of riches almost like that fib about the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that we now scoff at. In this way, we live in a world of deceptions and contradictions that we create for ourselves. Some of our get-rich/famous-quick schemes are not more sophisticated than the efforts of the Alchemists to turn various metals into gold, even though nowadays we see no logic in their attempts. Despite all this, when a real get-rich/famous-quick scheme comes our way, we brush it aside as convoluted ideas of people stuck in the past, like those ignorant Alchemists. Even if we believe in it, we sometimes don't even want to bother trying it because it asks too much of us. Basically, we just want a big chest of treasure to appear right in front of us out of nowhere. Yet, when such a chest does appear, we refuse to accept it. What, you don't believe that a treasure chest can just appear in front of someone like that? Well, that's where you're wrong. Here's why:

Finally, to talk about that "priceless treasure" that was discovered. Yes, there was just such a treasure that appeared in the middle of a dessert, in a town that was once an empty and barren land. This treasure was discovered -rather uncovered- 1,441 years ago and there is actual historic documentation of its discovery. Some of the people who were lucky enough to exist at that time actually took advantage of it and eventually became heirs to endless treasures. Others weren't too sure about it and chose to opt out of the opportunity. As should be expected, those that refused to gain from the treasure, became the lowest of low even though before the discovery they were among the most powerful and richest people of the town. After reading about this, you must wish you were alive at that time to reap the benefits of that treasure. Even though I can see where you're coming from, I must remind you that there were people in that town who saw the treasure with their own eyes and still out of their ignorance they stayed away from it. All in all, it's not the best thing to wish for, unless you can assure your self that you can always hold the better of yourself, and be ready to give up everything to get that treasure. The people who accepted the treasure did just that and more. That is why, in the end, they became owners of the greatest treasures anyone can imagine.

Surprisingly, that treasure still exists today! The only difference is that it has spread to every corner of the world and yet there is still so much of it, that if a person takes benefit of it, he or she can really get a claim to an unmatched amount of richness -a richness that will be never ending.

What is that treasure? How can a person get to it? What does a person have to do to attain it? Well, in shaa ALLAH (If God wills), I will try to talk about the answers to those questions in future posts. For now, maybe you should think about them yourself and try to find out. If you come across something, please be sure to shed some light on it for me as well.

Until next time ('Alal-liqaa),