I am a person born in a religious family. My father is a religious preacher and possesses tremendous knowledge about religion. Right from my birth, I was taught about the do’s and don’ts of Islam by my father. In addition to that, I was admitted to a maktab as well for further religious knowledge and Hifz. At the age of just 13, my father trained me to face the stage and preach religion to others as well and prepared the speech of Surat ul Asr for me and asked me to preach it to the people on stage and I did that. I was also a very differently dressed child (following an Islamic attire) in my school where most students adopted the conventional style of uniform in which the Islamic dress code was seen nowhere. Then after my matriculation, I was admitted to an institution where besides doing a bachelor’s in arts, I had the opportunity to get an aalima and fazila degree, and since I excelled in that I received a gold medal in Bachelor from the Governor of Kashmir himself.
After passing my bachelor’s in arts and simultaneously doing aalima and fazila, I got admission to the University of Kashmir for a Master’s in Islamic Studies and as I was the topper there as well, I received another gold medal for my Masters. This way, after the completion of my master’s I became a double gold medallist after Masters, I got married and currently am pursuing a Ph.D. in Islamic Studies on the theme “Religiosity, Income and Contentment among the Muslims of District Srinagar: An Empirical Study”. I am a person who knows the Arabic language Alhamdulillah and can understand almost 80% of the Holy Qur’an in Arabic itself without looking into translation.
I have given such an academic description about myself primarily and only to emphasize the fact that despite having such a religious background right from birth, there was still a huge vacuum in my life (which by the grace of Almighty Allah is fulfilled now after attending the Discover Yourself workshop by Sadatullah Khan Sir. May Allah always keep him in His amaan).
Elaborating further on that huge vacuum in my life, I may say that somehow and somewhere I was lacking something most important and most valuable. I was getting stressed at little things. I used to overthink about all the things in life. I used to lose my balance often and because of that, I would become frustrated and anxious at times. But since Alhamdulillah, I had a good relationship with my Lord right from my childhood, I always had the habit of talking to Him, crying before him, asking him for everything I needed and getting myself relieved and standing up again.
This year, a few months ago my best friend told me about the DYS workshop by Sadathullah Khan. She told me that in the upcoming months, we will have something very outstanding in Kashmir and all of our problems are going to be solved after attending that. I knew nothing about the workshop but since my best friend was talking about it, I made up my mind to attend it. Alhamdulillah, it is all the blessings of Allah that made me a part of the workshop and granted me the most beautiful three days of my life (The 1st, 2nd and 3rd of September 2023) in which the workshop was held. I literally found this workshop amazing, thought-provoking, wonderful, and delightful.
Studying religion throughout all years of my life I have never ever been trained and guided the way Sadathullah Khan guided and trained me in the matters of religion in general and life in particular. I knew a lot Alhamdulillah before DYS, but I didn’t know how to live with what I knew. After DYS, I learned to live in Islam in a practical way. I learnt to be aware of the nafs; whispers of Satan; the mind, etc. which I needed desperately.
I learnt how to transform from mind to heart; from denial to submission; from rejection to acceptance; from past or future to present; from burdening myself with thousands of things to nothingness (LA); from the world of meanings, interpretations to taking things at face value; from opinions, judgements to nothingness; from expectations to zero expectations; from listening and communicating from many things in mind to listening and communicating from nothingness; from assumptions to nothingness; from holding grudges to forgetting and forgiving; from multitasking to doing one thing at one time; from comfort zone to working zone; from heedlessness to mindfulness; from going into an argument to accepting the reality as it is and thereby submitting to the will of Allah ; learning how acceptance causes disappearance; learning to accept what happened that happened and forgetting about that ; learning to honour my word; getting to know that life is to be enjoyed because Allah has given life to enjoy and learning how to be mindful in salah and in turn develop what Qur’an calls Khushu and khuzu (humility). In addition to this, the other most important thing that I learned is how to raise my baby in an Islamic way; how to do his tarbiyah, and how to raise him to become a human being; a person of piety, righteousness, and morally upright. I used to ask many learned people about this, but I couldn’t get any satisfactory answer or couldn’t get how to practically do that Alhamdulillah Khan Sab guided me in this also and that solved all of my problems of how to deal with a two-year-old baby in a completely Islamic and Allah’s way.
All the things (which I learned from the workshop) after practicing helped me to stay happy, peaceful, calm, and content with what I have and with what my external environment is. No matter what is going on in my external environment, I am at peace with myself. No matter how people treat me; behave with me; appreciate me or condemn me; I find myself at peace. Nothing is bothering me or agitating me now. After DYS, the only thing that is my concern now is to stay all time aware of the whispers of Satan develop my connection with my Rabb, and above all apply everything I learned from the workshop in my life.
I literally feel that many of my duas are answered now after attending this workshop. I used to invoke Allah to make me understand the verses of the Holy Quran the way Allah has made them understand Prophet SAW and now I literally understand the verses of the Quran and traditions of Prophet SAW differently and can practically see how my life is being transformed; how my relationships with family and others are getting beautiful; how my perspective about world in general and humanity in particular is getting transformed.
Whenever I get a chance, I keep sharing whatever I learned from the workshop with different people I meet. I told my father about it and since he takes my words seriously, he is also very eager to be a part of this workshop. I feel like every single human being living in any part of the world needs to be a part of this workshop no matter what religion or age or profession he/she belongs to. I am determined that when Khan Sab again comes to Kashmir, I will spend a few days of my life inviting all the people to this workshop (to whomsoever I can reach) to the best of my capacity and let all of us live the life Allah wants us to live.
Lastly, I pray to Almighty Allah that Khan Sab be blessed with a long life full of Taqwa, Iman, health, happiness, and righteous deeds. May all his endeavours bear fruit in this life and the next.
Aameen.
Looking forward to meeting such a great personality again and being blessed to spend a few more moments of life with an enlightened person like him In Sha Allah.
“Practicing what I learned from the workshop helped me to stay happy, peaceful, calm, and content with what I have and with what my external environment is. No matter what is going on in my external environment, I am at peace with myself. No matter how people treat me; behave with me; appreciate me or condemn me; I find myself at peace. Nothing is bothering me or agitating me now.”
COMMENTS