Phone Vibrating Yusuf, my brother
Mom, can you hear me? I can hear you, I can hear you, my dear mom, my dear Why did you wake up so early? I had a dream about you
A sweet dream? What did you dream about? It was sweet because I saw you in it, but it wasn't sweet because I couldn't reach you
But you're awake, mom, thank God you reached me, we're talking to each other But the thing on the phone, I mean, it doesn't feel real, it made me miss you
I want to hug you too, mom I want to see you, mom, and smell your scent My dear, and God willing, it will happen, mom, it will happen
I prayed to Allah, I prayed to our Lord, and he answered me, we're talking here But I'll keep praying so we can see each other
And I, mom, I won't stop praying, until you hug me, mom Adam, your aunt told me you're a good person
Oh, uh, the housekeeper made us some knafah, you always brought it to us And uncle Yusuf, my brother, my brother
Allah says in the Hadith Qudsi You curse time for moving too slow or too fast Forgetting that He is the one turning it for you perfectly Allah says in the Hadith Qudsi Allah says in the Hadith Qudsi
Allah says in the Hadith Qudsi Allah says in the Hadith Qudsi Allah says in the Hadith Qudsi Allah says in the Hadith Qudsi Allah says in the Hadith Qudsi Allah says in the Hadith Qudsi Allah says in the Hadith Qudsi
But I am time, in my hand is the command I turn the night and the day You say, why now? When He is saying, not yet You say, why me? When He's saying, because I know you
We've spoken about rising above your trials Grounding yourself in your blessings And breaking out of the cycles But the thing is, you don't get to set the schedule on any of that And that can be extremely frustrating
Because it feels entirely out of your control But when you curse time You're actually cursing the one who owns time Just like when you belittle a blessing You're belittling the bestower of that blessing
So you say Alhamdulillah for your food And never criticize it, right? But what about the delays? It's one thing to talk about inner peace But how do you come to terms with The pace of Allah's doings? When will the door open?
When will the relief come? When will the du'a be answered? When is this all going to get easier? When will the help of Allah finally arrive? Mata Nasrullah Allah owns the pause, the play, the rewind
And the forward buttons of your life But you so badly want the remote yourself And you want to times two through your trials And maybe slow motion what feels like Your vacations in this journey of life But it's not yours
And it's not yours to do And when you're lying in bed at night and can't sleep And your heart and mind won't sit still Or when the bills seem to be piling up on the kitchen table Or the job interview went sideways Or another marriage pursuit fell short
And that du'a that you've been making for years Still seems to have not broken through the heavens Wallahi, it's not random And it's not pointless And it's not outside of His mercy The squeeze is from Him
And the breath that will follow Is also from Him And too often in times of hardship You're waiting so desperately for the hardship to pass Or waiting so desperately for the blessing to arrive
That you neglect the lessons and blessings You could be receiving during the waiting period itself A window that will soon close Once He opens that door you've been waiting for Just think of the quality of your du'a
When you're going through test and trial It's different And so is the reward Think of that mother in the moment that she's giving birth And as she pushes out another life from inside of her And she almost loses her own life in the process
But she still finds a way to say Alhamdulillah And then think of the person who receives the news of the death of a child And feels like they can't breathe But still they say Alhamdulillah
In both cases Allah is giving them something more In the squeeze of the moment But even when it's not that dramatic When you're in a state of qabd Your du'as have so much more weight
They feel heavier and more intense But the reward they get is also heavier and more intense When Allah withholds He's simply giving in another way And when He gives He's withholding in another way
And that's where His names Al-Qabid, Al-Basit unfold He is the one who tightens And the one who opens The one who draws in And the one who stretches out Allah says
Say verily my Lord expands provision for whom He wills And constricts it So both abundance and scarcity are tests And the worst thing you'd want Is that Allah temporarily give you a greater share here
That ends up spoiling you And giving you a greater share of hellfire for eternity And Allah says It is Allah who withholds And Allah who expands
And to Him you will all return The reality is that the great equalizing isn't here It's in the hereafter But here and there It's always in His hands Even in our communal life You can see how He takes from the wealthy
That's a kind of qabd by obligation That purifies our wealth And then He expands it for the poor By making them its recipients And then in His own creation He tightens one stream
So that He can irrigate another And then at the end Allah says That the earth, all of it will be His handful
On the day of resurrection And the heavens will be folded in His right hand Here His qabd shows His might But on the day of judgment His qabd, His handful shows up as mercy
He will seize a handful from the fire And take out people whom others had already written off And every night there's qabd and bast with the souls Every night your sleep is a little death
Your soul is taken and then returned to you You woke up today because He chose to give you back your soul That wasn't luck That was called bast Both of these are divine mercy And both of these are divine management
The tightening is not punishment It's actually protection And the opening is not an invitation to indulgence It's actually a test And both come from the same hand And that's why many of the scholars say That these names should only be mentioned together
Because one without the other Could suggest Allah restricting without wisdom Or giving without guidance When He holds, He's not being stingy He's teaching you to look inward and upward again
And when He expands, He's not necessarily rewarding He's placing something in your hand That you can't let occupy your heart Just like when you breathe You can't live only inhaling Nor can you live only exhaling
Qabd and bast are the inhale and exhale of your soul The sabr that you practice during constriction Becomes oxygen for the shukr that you practice during expansion So when a person says Alhamdulillah
I remember this trial So now I can appreciate this blessing properly And Allah doesn't squeeze the believer Except to reward him and replenish him as a result Think of Jibreel (عليه السلام)
When he squeezed the Prophet (ﷺ) So hard that the Prophet (ﷺ) said I thought I wasn't going to be able to breathe I thought I was going to die But what he was doing was actually preparing him for
Inna sanulqi alayka qawlan thaqeela We are going to bestow upon you a heavy word But Allah then says Alam nashrah laka sadrak Did we not expand for you your chest?
Allah expanded his chest for the mighty gift of the Quran And through that the Prophet's burdens were removed And his name was elevated Likewise Mecca became unbearable to live in
But then Madinah became the city of the Prophet (ﷺ) Until Allah gave him back Mecca in its entirety With an ummah multiplied many times over Allah squeezes, then he spreads
And it's never outside of his mercy or wisdom And this isn't just personal, it's collective too When you look at his Shari'ah, his legislations Allah tightened the path of Bani Israel out of justice
Making things stricter on them due to their transgressions And holding them to their covenant And then he widened the path of Muhammad (ﷺ) out of grace So that no generation of Muslims could ever say
That our religion is impossible to live But even within this ummah Sometimes he tightens out of justice Sometimes he widens out of grace He restricts one door to protect a people from arrogance
And then he opens another to test their gratitude Because just as qabd and bast shape the heart They also shape our history Sometimes we forget who we're supposed to be in our moments of glory
And then we only wake up in our Gaza moments And as those people show us what it's like to be in a qabd In a seizing that we can't even imagine We are also being tested with a bast
With a stretch that we take for granted And when time feels stuck Remember that he's also named Al-Muqaddim wal-Mu'akhir The one who brings forward and the one who delays
Because sometimes you're not being held back You're being set up for something greater Sometimes your delay is your protection Sometimes your slowness is your refinement
Remember again how Yusuf (عليه السلام) was sitting in prison And then I want you to consider the timing of it all He watches two cellmates leave before him One of them goes to a palace The other one goes to a death sentence
But he's still sitting in prison And then when Allah finally brought him forward After saving him from death more than once It wasn't to be a servant in that palace like his cellmate It was to run it as a leader
And that wouldn't have happened without Allah's timing it so perfectly That his fellow prisoner got out first And then mentioned Yusuf to the king So that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala would bring him to the throne So just like with Yusuf
What's delayed for you is not always denied Sometimes your fate is being upgraded behind the scenes In a way you could have never imagined So sometimes Allah limits you So that you could learn patience Sometimes he expands you
So that you could learn gratitude Sometimes he brings you forward to honor your readiness Sometimes he delays you To protect your soul that's not ready Don't rush his decree Trust his pacing He owns the remote control
And that's his mercy Because you would have just fast forwarded Through the very scene that he wrote To prepare you for the ending you begged him for And when the delay hurts Remember the du'a that Umar ibn Abdul Aziz used to repeat frequently
Oh Allah, make me content with your decree And bless me in what you have destined for me Until I no longer wish to hasten what you have delayed Nor delay what you have hastened
Because once you trust Al-Qabid in the squeeze And Al-Basit in the stretch Then you're content with Al-Muqaddim when he brings forward And Al-Mu'akhir when he slows you down And time stops feeling like an enemy
And starts feeling like a teacher and an opportunity And maybe that's the real secret of peace Not when things finally happen But when you finally stop wishing they would And let's return to the heart Because some people lose their way
Not in the maze of what But in the maze of when You want marriage now Healing now Children now A door to open now And Allah's pace is just different
And there's a particular sweetness that the heart cannot taste Until it stops trying to fast forward life And stops wishing to rewind And starts loving his timing When you finally say with your heart
Ya Muqaddim Qaddimni 'indak Bring me forward with you Ya Mu'akhir Akhirni 'amma yu'akhiruni 'ank Delay from me Whatever delays me from you
You'll find that your anxiety has less to do with the calendar And more to do with trust And one thing that's consistent is Allah is always extending his hand to you in repentance Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) said
Inna Allaha yabsutu yadahu bil-layli liyatuba musi'u al-nahar wa yabsutu yadahu bil-nahari liyatuba musi'u al-layli Allah stretches out his hand at night
So that the sinner of the day may repent And he stretches out his hand by day So that the sinner of the night might repent And Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) also taught us That as we ask Al-Muqaddim to put forward
And Al-Mu'akhir to hold back We must seek forgiveness for what we have put forward And what we have delayed Faghfir lana ma qaddamna wa ma akhkharna Forgive us for what we put forth
And what we held back That way you focus on questioning yourself instead of him And on finding peace in what he gives and withholds While taking responsibility for what you give And what you hold back
Ya Qabid, Ya Basit When you withhold, let me not lose hope And when you expand, let me not lose humility Tighten my path only to redirect me to yours
And widen it in ways that only increase my gratitude to you Teach me to find you in both the squeeze and the release And to love you both in the stillness and the flow
Ya Muqaddim, Ya Mu'akhir When you bring me forward, make me worthy of the moment And when you hold me back, make me patient with the waiting Advance me only when the step will please you
And delay me only when the pause will protect me Wherever I stand in your decree Let me always feel content that I am never misplaced
Wa lillahi al-asma' al-husna fa-ud'uhu biha
