reflections
Cidla ciirsila
Joined January 2023
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demons don't clock *who* you are but *what* you are through your patterns of behaviour & they attack you by trying to disrupt or break those patterns. they break you by first breaking what you do, to then invade & distort who you are. always keep an eye on shifts in your ibadah
what matters more than what you achieve and do is the graces and breathing spaces you receive from Allaah and how you turn to Him. that's what you remember when you look back on what went right in your life. that's what holds you together and cools you. that's what feeds you
So important to ask Allaah to renew our eemaan before we find ourselves having "outgrown" it or disconnected from its practices. The prophet sallallaahu alayhi wasallam said eemaan gets worn-out like how clothes do so ask Allaah to renew the faith in your hearts
just as you grow n mature as a person, so do you in your eemaan (hopefully). more gracious, patient. more tolerant of uncertainty n ambivalence - not needing to make everything into clear-cut rulings. softening after having been bent enough times by humbling storms.
and just as you heal from what happens to you from others, so too do you heal in what is between you n Allaah — all the things that distances you from Him either bc of the harm from a younger self's overzealousness or unaddressed shubuhaat (doubts in your eemaan) or the betrayal of people who were key in your practicing or learning. so you just broke off from everything that reminds you of that time.
or, most importantly, healing from sins n what that has done to you. sins isn't just what you do in a moment, but if it persists, it warps your desires, tastes, perceptions, etc. like being taken over by a parasite. you start doing what harms your soul compulsively. it hurts but you can't stop. You become repelled by the good.
that needs its own type of healing too. bc it's the worst form of self-harm. to deny your soul its voice n force upon it what it clearly says NO! to.
the very meaning of dulm, of oppressing self. but also dulm, darkness. depriving yourself of Allaah is like depriving your brain of sufficient oxygen or your cells nutrients. being separated from Him by layers n layers like prophet Yunus alayhissalam in the belly of the whale.
and allll of the above is what i think about when i recite the verse and duaa of our forebears who realized just what was at stake;
قَالَا رَبَّنَا ظَلَمْنَآ أَنفُسَنَا وَإِن لَّمْ تَغْفِرْ لَنَا وَتَرْحَمْنَا لَنَكُونَنَّ مِنَ ٱلْخَـٰسِرِينَ
They replied, “Our Lord! We have wronged ourselves. If You do not forgive us and have mercy on us, we will certainly be losers.”
al-a'raaf 7:23
so much at stake. so much that can be lost. so little time. Ya rabb, be in our aid. Ya hayyu yaa qayyuum birahmatika nastaghith aslih-lana sha'ninaa kullahu wa laa takilnaa ilaa anfusinaa tarfata 'ayn
يَا حَيُّ يَا قَيُّوْمُ، بِرَحْمَتِكَ نَسْتَغِيثُ، أَصْلِحْ لَنَا شَأْنَنَا كُلَّهُ، وَلَا تَكِلْنَا إِلَىٰ أَنْفُسِنَا طَرْفَةَ عَيْنٍ
O the Ever-Living, O the Sustainer of all, we seek assistance through Your mercy. Rectify all of our affairs and do not leave us to ourselves, to our devices, even for the blink of an eye.
do not let our fate n outcome of our lives depend on ourselves
sovereignty retweeted
you can only know Allaah to the extent of your trust in Him. Trust is what binds and holds and reveals meaning.
even if you know about Allaah in terms of information, it's not something that can be digested & become something the heart connects to and transforms.
and you find people who are very knowledgeable & yet corrupt, evil, manipulative or even hypocrites or ex-muslims. i used to be so baffled. where is all that knowledge? wouldn't it protect the person from going down the paths of falsehood?
much, much later I realized that where knowledge is located & how it was attained defines one's relationship with it.
so, knowledge has to be preceded by a relationship with Allaah. and in fact, I'd say that knowledge is not knowledge without the awakening of the heart & its reflection. that's where the impetus & inspiration to know more begins.
Allaah teaches us through pages and books He manifested in nature before we learn through the revelation & message of the deen.
someone who doesn't begin with that curiosity, with that awe, with that inspired tawfeeq... and instead may follow upon the paths of their community, their teachers, they still have to come back & establish this basis of awe that humbles you.
or sometimes it's a mix of initial awe & then the traditional curriculum & focus on know-how takes over, & it's not until a sort of crisis or burnout where the heart simply stiffens & no longer moves you that you revisit things.
either way, the trust in Allaah is what Allaah seeks to test in us. When all that you've accrued or identified with fails, what holds your faith up? When your mind is hijacked by your amygdala & you lose all safety in your circles — where is your eemaan located?
What is your eemaan made of?
sovereignty retweeted
A Kenyan developer @0x3Matt has built a virtual replica of Nairobi to make apartment hunting easier.
Imagine exploring different neighbourhoods before physically visiting a property.
Would you use it?
sovereignty retweeted
I will never dislike the rain, be it a drizzle or a full blown storm. It is a time when du'a is accepted, a form of rizq mentioned in the Qur’an & a source of life for the earth after drought. Thunder reminds us of Allah’s power & we are so privileged to have shelter from it.
stop competing with Allaah's decree for you. He chose you to exist to BE a specific trajectory that can only come through when you accept what you go through. fighting and resisting only deters, it never actually evolves things. surrendering to His will for you does.
sovereignty retweeted
It’s amazing to be Somali.
Just landed in Toronto with my elderly dad, and the first person who helped us get a wheelchair for him was a Somali man working at the airport.
We stopped at a restaurant to grab a bite, and a Somali woman serving us went out of her way to make tea for my dad.
We joked that Trump’s obsession with Somalis might actually be doing us a favor.
The more he attacks us, the stronger our sense of who we are becomes, and the deeper our pride in our identity grows.
Of course, Somalis have always been this way.
But there’s something beautiful about belonging to a community where you can land in a city thousands of miles from home and still feel like you’re among family.
Trump has no idea what a gift it is to be Somali.
Stumbleupon 😓😓😞
Anyone who surfed the early web between 1995-2010.
What’s the one website/app you still think about?
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
Stolen tweet being farmed for engagement
x.com/sflorimm/statu…
sovereignty retweeted
This weekend, I’m embarking on a long, somewhat perilous journey from Nairobi to Mombasa, onward to Lamu, then south to Pemba and Zanzibar.
The mission? To find the people keeping Swahili culture alive through their hands. The woodcarvers, weavers, potters, furniture makers, artisans, footwear makers and collectors of heirloom pieces whose work carries generations of knowledge, craftsmanship and stories.
Through @JahaziCrafts, we’re building a platform to bring the richness of Swahili culture to the world. From heirloom furniture and traditional kitchenware to pottery, woven baskets, mats, footwear and objects that tell the story of our coast, we want to create a home for everything Swahili.
But this journey is about more than collecting beautiful things. It’s about finding the people behind them, documenting their craft, giving their work the visibility it deserves and connecting them to a wider market without losing the soul of what they create.
We know these artisans are out there, often working quietly in their villages, workshops and homes. Some have inherited their craft from generations before them. Others are keeping traditions alive with little recognition beyond their immediate communities.
We want to find them. We want their stories told. And we want the world to discover what they make.
If you know a woodcarver in Lamu, a weaver in Pemba, a potter in Mombasa, a traditional furniture maker in Zanzibar, or anyone preserving the material heritage of the Swahili coast, please share this post with them or connect us directly.
The journey begins this weekend. And we’re just getting started.
there's so much that will hurt and betray you in this dunya, and would calcify and reduce to bitter distrust any heart that doesn't have Allaah in that process. With Him, that hurt would instead expand and make a heart more secure; thriving under grieving conditions.
