It's Raining Jinn! Astaghfirullah
Listen to the audio of this post below:
[soundcloud url="http://soundcloud.com/jawaadahmadkhan/itsrainingjinn"]
Last night, the Leonids visited us. Well, sort of. If you haven’t heard, one of the most amazing meteor showers of the century was supposed to happen last night, the Leonids meteors.
This past weekend was the first of the Seerah: The Sheherd’s Path class (from Al-Maghrib Institute) taught by AbdulBary Yahya (in Orlando, Florida). Alhamdulillah I was able to attend.
One of my favorite GEMs (Genuinely Enlightening Moments) was this: Before the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) and the revelation, the jinns used to go up just below the heavens and listen to the angels as they’d speak about things that were going to happen (You hear about that earthquake happening next week?), and then they’d come back down to Earth and tell the gypsies and fortune tellers. However, when the final revelation came, something strange happened. The jinn ascended up only to find that now the heavens were guarded and blocked off from them. They realized that the Qur’an had come. And all the meteors and cosmic rays and such were all falling to keep out these jinn. I’d heard from another class that a falling star is a jinn being kicked out of Jannah (from trying to eavesdrop).
As Allah’s Qadr would have it, I went home and heard about one of the best meteor showers coming on Tuesday morning. I read up about it and decided that I wanted to try to see it. I also began looking up more stuff online about meteors and astronomy in Islam. I was directed to the first ten ayaat (verses) of Surah Saaffat. Below is the 10th ayah:
Picture edited with Photoshop App on iPod Touch
The word ‘Shihaab’ refers to the flaming fire that descends, sometimes translated as a meteor. The preceding verse says that the eavesdropping jinn are to suffer a grave punishment, and this verse shows the exclusion: except those jinns that steal some information and run away, and they’re followed by ’shibaabun thaaqib’, a flaming fire of piercing brightness. (which many scholars believe is the meteors or cosmic rays).
So, I set my alarm(s) to 3:30AM, optimal time for viewing. At that time, I was annoyed, took off the alarms, covered up in my blankets again, and a second later: “Oh yeah! Meteors.”
Aside: Just another quick gem from an earlier seminar with Usama Canon of Zaytuna Institute. Whenever you do anythig, you should always make a pure intention. Going to the movies with your friends? Make intention to make Da’wah. Allah can open the doors for your intention to be fulfilled. Even if it doesn’t happen, you’ll still get the reward as if you fulfilled your intention. So, for this little adventure, I made intention to get closer to Allah (SWT).
I got up, prayed Tahajjud, then made my way onto the roof of my house. For some reason, I think my entire block deliberately left their outside lights on. Those lights in addition to the light post in front of my house and the streetlight behind my house made it so hard to even see the clouds. I missed out on seeing anything, (no leonids or anything) but still stayed up there. It was still a very peaceful time.
I popped out my iPod Touch, fired up my iQuran app, and scrolled to Surah Saaffat, and began reading. It was truly a different experience. I tried to recite slowly, pronouncing each letter, and periodically, I’d scroll back up and I would read the meaning.
It was definitely a blessed time, with the cool breeze blowing by, the leaves of the nakhlaat (palm trees) rustling, and Allah being closest to Earth, answering to whatever his servants would ask of Him for. I said Salaam to all the Muslims around me, the trees, the grass, the wind and all the rest that were submitting to what Allah had willed for them. I even said Salaam to the neighbor’s dog that caught a glimpse of me and began incessantly barking.
It began getting a bit cold a little later (at least, for a white tee and shorts), so I made my way down. I also didn’t want to upset the dog anymore and have him wake up somebody. I climbed down and went back to my bed.
Perhaps a sort-of ‘perfect’ ending was that when I fell back asleep, I dreamt a meteor came right into my backyard, in the form of strands of glowing light, shihaabun thaaqib.
So, in a way, I saw what I wanted to see.
Well now that you’ve read all about my experience, here’s your task. I want you to go out sometime in the next few days (nighttime to early morning preferably as it’s more calm and peaceful), and take a walk, lay down in the grass, or have a seat up on your fence, just be outside. Look around you to all the creation of Allah. Then, pick your favorite Surah that you’ve memorized and recite, slowly and loudly. Afterwards (if you don’t know Arabic), pick up an English Qur’an and read what you’d just read, and then contemplate on it.
Next, come back here, and leave a comment telling everyone about your experience.
Truly Allah has blessed the early hours. May Allah make it easy for us to get closer to him.
Ameen.
