One day, one of my children asked, “If Allah is The Most Merciful, why does He give us troubles and burdens, Mom? Why is there war on earth, and how come Allah let those terrible things happened to humankind?”

I smiled to hear that. The exact same question was also asked by me when I was a kid. And, as history, where most of the stories repeat itself, the question is now asked by my child. And so, I tried to answer, although not precisely copying my ustadzah (female teacher) answer three decades ago–and also because I forgot her exact words. 😀

“Have you ever thought, if human was given endless easiness then they will not be able to learn, they will not grow stronger and wiser, they wouldn’t even be able to feel grateful for simple sweet things. You know how human easily forget Allah when they’re given great things.

There are human blessed with power and greatness, then they’d feel as if above the sky, felt powerful, they started to behave as their pleased, forgetting there is the Divine power who could actually take his power anytime He wanted. When He really took the power and pinch them with troubles, they started to cry like a baby and repenting their mistakes. But when they were given another easiness, they forget all over again. That’s the basic behavior of human, indeed. Only few, human who were really committed to their repentance.  I pray, may my children and also myself, inshallah, will be in the group of those of the “few”. We don’t need to be the majority, being minority is enough, as long as Allah bless us with His ridha.

“So why is there still war on earth? Why is there evil?” my child asked, not satisfied yet.

“If there are no evil, would you understand what’s good?” I asked them back, got them silenced, thinking.

“Would you then understand which is right and which is wrong?” I asked, made them nod repeatedly.

“War. To me personally, war is the greatest achievement of man’s ego. Talk ego, what’s good in it, right? You’ll understand. On the other hand, there are parties who deliberately preserve the wars so they could get rich by selling their guns. But it’s a whole different level of political stories, you don’t need to know about it right now.” I stopped right there for it’s a topic for another day, after they graduated from college and ready to see the real world. Hehe.. It’s just that my child laughed to hear my last sentence. I could only assume that my children, inshallah, somewhat smarter than their parents (they better!) so without further explanation, they understood.

“Anyways, I’m sure, it’s not that Allah let evil runs the earth. It must be so easy for Allah to exterminate a nation, like He did to the Tsamud and ‘Aad. But maybe, this time, Allah wanted to see whether human is still able to help other human. Maybe Allah wanted to see how is human’s capability to solve their own problems now. Because, that way, then human can evolve, developed to become stronger, tougher and smarter. And surely, there will be evil-superior men. But there also must be good-superior men with great manners created by Allah, to balance it all. That’s where the name “Allah The Just” come to one’s understanding. Wallahu a’lam (Allah knows best).

All of these, kindness and evil, have existed since Adam descended to earth. Now, it’s our choice to decide, will we be the bad one or the good one? If you wanted be the good one, ask Allah, as the ruler of the hearts, the One who is able to flip through the heart.

YAA MUQALLIBAL QULUUB, TSABBIT QALBII ‘ALAA DIINIKA WA ‘ALAA THOO’ATHIK.

O mover of the hearts, make my heart firm upon Your religion, make my heart firm upon obedience to You.

That is one of the most recited prays Rasulullah, pbuh done in his life. Rasulullah taught us, so let’s follow it, so that we won’t get lost when we go home later on.”

“Aamiin. We will,” shoot the kids.

Alhamdulillah for having kids whose minds are quite critical, so their mum could not sit down and relax, instead I need to learn much more so I won’t lose from them. 😀

Happy Tuesday, all.