THE KHALIFAH DIARIES Be The Best Muslimah For Allah SWT

Do you yearn for Allah’s love? If yes, how often do you consciously think about it? If you have a lover or someone you love deeply like your mother perhaps, you would often consciously think of ways to develop more love for each other, right? 

It’s the same for Allah. We need to consciously think of ways to develop our love for Allah on a daily basis.

Why? 

“And I did not create the jinn and mankind except to worship Me.” (Ad-Dhariyat, 51:56)

Because He is our Master. Our whole purpose of living is to worship Him and obey His commands. He is the Master that gave you your breathing faculties at this very moment. He is The One who provided you food for your day today. If it’s not because of Allah’s love and mercy for you, you wouldn’t be able to sustain yourself to this day.

So, let’s go on this journey to develop our love for Allah. Shall we?

1. Quran Tadabbur

Tadabbur means to reflect on the Quran’s messages with a Tafseer. It’s easier to just read the Arabic Quran on a daily basis without actually understanding its meanings. (If you’re a non-Arab speaker like me). 

If we truly want to develop our love for Allah, we need to first understand His messages. 

This is the best way to get up close and personal with Him. Ponder on His Quran deeply and sincerely intend to obey them. Set aside a quiet time for you to do this every day.

Soon, you will see that your eman is growing and your love for Allah will grow immensely too. InsyaAllah. 🙂

2. Do the Nawafil/Sunnah after your Fardh

Allah says He loves those who do the extra ibadahs for Him. Take it one step at a time, you don’t have to do everything at once. Allah loves deeds that are done in small amounts but are consistent.

So, pick one sunnah to start one at a time. One that is most convenient and easy for you. Do it regularly until it becomes a part of you and that it gets to a point where you don’t even have to think about it because it comes naturally for you.

Allah says: … My servant draws not near to Me with anything more loved by Me than the religious duties I have enjoined upon him, and My servant continues to draw near to Me with supererogatory works so that I shall love him. When I love him I am his hearing with which he hears, his seeing with which he sees, his hand with which he strikes and his foot with which he walks… (continue Hadith at 40 Hadith Qudsi, Hadith 25)

The best part about doing the Nawafil is that Allah says He will reward you by turning all your senses into loving Him as well. This means that your eyes, ears, hand and feet will only be guided towards things that Allah loves.

Your eyes will naturally want to watch halal things and you will be disgusted by the haram. Your ears will only want to listen to the good like Islamic lectures and so on. Your hands and feet will only do and go to places that please Allah and strengthen your love for Allah.

SubhanAllah, see how Allah helps you when you make the effort to please Him? 🙂

3. Always make dzikir to Allah

Dzikir is mentioning Allah’s name and glorifying Him throughout the day. When you do this each day in every single task that you’re doing, automatically you will remember Allah in everything that you do.

And because of that, Allah will put barakah (blessings) in all your affairs insyaAllah.

I experience this on a daily basis. When I do dzikir while cooking, usually the food will be tastier. When I do dzikir in all my house chores, usually I’ll enjoy doing them and it gets done faster.

I see it as Allah helping me in all my daily affairs. Alhamdulillah.

Try it. You’ll see for yourself. 🙂

4. Put Allah first before your nafs (desires)

Nafs is a very very… VERY dangerous thing. If my nafs were to take over my life, I wouldn’t be this same person. I would want a big house, a nice car and go on shopping sprees every day. Yupp, my folks would never recognize me.

Alhamdulillah, Allah gave me the strength to tame it. Or else, it would’ve destroyed me. 

So, how do we develop our love for Allah? 

One of the ways is to put Allah above your nafs. Meaning, when your nafs is telling you to do something and you know it is against what Allah would want you to do, you stay away from it and opt for options that would please Allah instead.

For example, when your nafs is telling you to binge watch that full kdrama series on netflix for the whole day, you restrain yourself and set aside time to do Quran tadabbur instead. 

I know, it’s super hard my friend. But Allah knows our struggles and He is immensely merciful. Just try your best, insyaAllah He will always be there to help you on your journey to increase your love for Him.

5. Always reflect on Allah’s 99 names (Asma ul Husna)

What better way is there to develop love for Allah than to get to know His names? Reflecting on Allah’s 99 names will help you recognize your Master, your Creator and The One who has been taking care of you your whole life.

It will be a beautiful journey to get to know Allah. 🙂

“Allah has ninety-nine names, i.e. one-hundred minus one, and whoever knows them will go to Paradise.” (Sahih Bukhari, 6410)

6. Humble yourself before Allah when doing your ibadahs (spiritual obligations)

Since we are all slaves of Allah, there is no room for us to show arrogance or self-sufficiency whatsoever. Never think that the ibadahs or deeds you’ve done are good enough.

Always have this humble attitude of concern whether your ibadahs are good enough and whether they will be accepted by Allah out of your sincerity to cultivate love for Him.

7. Be alone with Allah

Life can get very busy and some of us just simply don’t get our me-time on a regular basis let alone time to develop love for Allah. But no matter what, we still need our me-time and we need our precious alone time with Allah.

He is your God that Created you and He understands all your desires, problems and everything about you that you may not even know yourself.

Don’t you want to be with Him and allow yourself to be vulnerable? 

My personal me-time with Allah is at 4.30am in the morning. Don’t ask me how I managed to get up at 4.30am, I just do… with Allah’s help Alhamdulillah.

Set your alarm and a sincere intention to be with Him alone during that time. No kids running around, no boss hovering over you, no husband stealing your cheesecake… just you and Allah.

8. Always be around those who remember Allah

They say you are the average of 5 people you spend the most time with. You know what that means? If the 5 people around you are always remembering Allah and consciously cultivating their love for Allah – watching Islamic lectures, reminding each other towards the good – that will rub off on you.

And likewise, if the 5 people in your circle are neglecting their duties towards Allah, always watching and doing the haram, that will affect you too. 

I’ve tried to protect and defend myself from my environment for the longest time but it didn’t work. The fact is we are very very social creatures. No matter how resilient you are, the more time you spend with the wrong people, the more you will become them.

And it’s even worst if you don’t realize it. Before you know it you’re already comfortable watching the haram and disobeying Allah. (May Allah protect us).

“A man is upon the religion of his best friend, so let one of you look at whom he befriends.” (Sahih Tirmidhi, 2378)

So, to develop your love for Allah, you must always be around those who remember Allah.

9. Stay away from bad things

There are so many things in our lives that we know are bad for us.

For example, If you know that person can’t stop gossiping every time you meet up, stay away from her. If you know you will eventually waste money when you go to the mall, stay away from it.

These are small acts that will develop your love for Allah on a daily basis.

In a way, you’re protecting yourself by staying away from things that you know will drag you to do bad things… things that you regret doing later on.

10. Make taubah (repentance) often, all the time

Making taubah immediately after sinning is a sure way to develop your love for Allah. Allah loves it when we run to Him for forgiveness every time we sin.

And we must also be mindful that even when we’re not purposely sinning, we are inevitably doing them. 

Every single day, every son of Adam is sinning whether we realize it or not. Maybe it’s talking back to our mother, maybe we drove carelessly this morning and someone almost got a heart attack or maybe your cat is starving because you forgot to feed it.

There are a million things we could do wrong in a day.

And Allah knows it. That is why we have to constantly seek forgiveness and keep doing our best each day.

Steps to make taubah:

• Make istighfar 
• Vow not to do it again
• Believe that Allah does forgive your sins

Conclusion:

Developing our love for Allah is something we should all do as His slaves. Though He doesn’t need us, we need Him to fulfill our purpose of creation. 

May Allah guide us all to increase our love for Him each day. Ameen.