Why and How to wake up for fajr??

If you are an insomniac like me, who catches sleep only during the late hours of night, or even otherwise, then I’m sure you’d agree that waking up for fajr can get really hard at times. So, here is an article form ProductiveMuslim website with some tips to help you wake up for fajr! 🙂 But before reading this article, watch the video to understand how satan tricks you into not offering your fajr prayer. So, next time when you turn off that alarm and plan to go back to sleep, remember it’s your enemy there who vowed to mislead you [38 :82]. Choice is yours, are you going to let him win?

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Source:How to wake up for fajr?

How do you wake up for fajr? And I don’t mean wake up for a day or two, but how do you keep waking up for fajr, constantly, everyday, without fail.

There’s loads & loads of websites online giving you tips and advice on how to wake up early. But our focus is not on worldly tips (which should be taken by all means, part of tying the camel ;)), our focus is on the spiritual means.

 

My dear brothers/sisters, every day when you read Surat Al-Fatiha, at least 17 times a day, you recite the verse “You Alone we Worship, and You Alone we Seek Help from”: You want to worship Allah? “Yes!” You need His help then. You want to wake up for Fajr? “Yes please!” Guess what, you need Allah. You cannot, I repeat, cannot, wake up for fajr without Allah’s help. Now ask yourself the question, what can I do to show Allah that I truly and utterly want to wake up for fajr?!

Have you ever had days when you’re about to go to sleep, and you have this deep feeling that you’ll definitely wake up for fajr? And have you ever had days when you know for certain that you’ll oversleep? Imagine the two scenarios, which I’m sure some of us have gone through:

Scenario 1:

You feel high with Eman, you’ve prayed your witr, read some Quran, and even though you’ve got 2 hours to sleep till fajr, you’re certain you’ll wake up because you’ve set your mind, heart and body to make sure you wake up. In fact, sometimes you keep on waking in the middle of the night thinking it’s fajr time out of fear that you’re going to miss it. If you haven’t experienced this, think of a time when you had to catch an early flight or a bus/train, and think of how your mind, heart and body were switched on, and it doesn’t matter what time you slept, you’ll wake up.

Scenario 2:

There are days when deep down you really don’t want to wake up, you hope that you “oversleep” so you feel less guilty about it, and Allah may have mercy upon you and still wake you up, and that’s when the battle with the snooze alarm starts and the classic shaytaan trick “just 5 more minutes…” begins.

How do we maintain scenario 1 everyday?

With these 2 scenarios, one details a feeling deep down inside that you’re definitely waking up, and another where you know you won’t wake up because deep down inside you don’t want to and you’re not ready to take the fight against shaytaan of waking up in the morning.

Below I detail some practical and spiritual tools, that will help you in achieving scenario 1 all the time inshaAllah:

SPIRITUAL TOOLS

• Know who Allah is: This is the key and number one tool to waking up for Fajr. If you know Who you’re worshipping, and you know that He requests that you get up in the morning and pray to Him, you’ll wake up. It’s our lack of understanding of who Allah is that makes us slump into scenario 2 all the time. Know your Lord, that’s key.
• Sincerity: Be sincere about waking up for fajr, don’t just say to yourself: “InshaAllah, it’ll be nice if I wake up for fajr” be sincere about it, and say: “I will wake up for fajr” I find it useful sometimes to talk to myself about it before going to sleep and say: “I will wake up for fajr, i don’t care how, but I’ll definitely will!”
• Wudu before sleep: Ibn Abbas reported that Allah’s Messenger said: “Purify these bodies and Allah will purify you, for there is no slave who goes to sleep in a state of purity but an Angel spends the night with him, and every time he turns over, [the Angel] says, ‘O Allah! Forgive Your slave, for he went to bed in a state of purity.” Do you think that such a person would be left to oversleep and miss fajr?
• Witr Prayer + Dua: Make sure you don’t sleep before performing your witr prayer, and supplicate to Allah during your Witr prayer to help you wake up for Fajr, remember, “You Alone we Worship, and You Alone we Seek help from”
• Read some Quran: Ending the day with verses of the Noble Quran will sure put your focus straight on waking up for salaat. Prophet Muhammad used to recommend that we recite Surat Al-Sajdah, and Surat Al-Mulk (Chapters 32 and 67) before going to sleep.
• Remember Allah before you go to Sleep: This is part of the first point I made, and you can find all the supplications you need to recite before going to sleep here. You might need to print them off and read them off paper at first, but within a week or two you should be able to memorize them fully and just recite them before dozing off.
• Remember the rewards attached to Fajr Salaat: from being safe from being a hypocrite, to having light on the day of judgement, to being under Allah’s protection the whole day, to having laziness removed from us that day and being productive. Remember these rewards and you’ll sure wake up.

Other tools I use that help me a lot:

Ask a friend/family member to wake you up: This is the number one rule for me to wake up. Get a family, friend, spouse to wake up, and help each other, if you get up before them, don’t be selfish and make sure they are awake too.

• 1.5 hours sleep rule: Aaaah.. here’s a secret trick, there’s a theory in the Sleep science that says that every human being completes an entire sleep cycle in 1.5 hours, therefore, if you can wake up at the end of a multiple of 1.5 hours (e.g. 1.5 hours, or 3 hours, or 4.5 hours..etc) you’ll wake up fresh and rejuvenated. Otherwise, you’ll wake up lazy. So if fajr is at 5am, and you sleep at 12am, make sure you set your alarm at 4.30am, because that gives you 4.5 hours to sleep. (Of course, if you take 1/2 an hour to fall to sleep, you might need to add that into your calculation).
• Nap in the afternoon: Another lifehack, taken from the Sunnah and recommended by many, make sure you nap in the afternoon, for just 20 minutes! yup, just 20 minutes. Trust me, for the past 3 years, I’ve mastered the 20 min nap, and everytime it never fails to rejuvenate me. If you need to train yourself to nap for that long, I highly recommend www.pzizz.com, a wonderful software that trains you for these short naps, it’s what I used to train myself.
• Promise yourself a grand breakfast if you wake up for Fajr: I’m a breakfast guy, so if I wake up early, I sure like to have a big breakfast. Sometimes i look forward to my breakfast from the afternoon before, and just like a small reward, treat yourself to a massive breakfast in the morning. It’ll definitely set your day straight as well inshaAllah.

It’s that new shade…

When it comes to being a hijabi, things can get cumbersome for most of us when getting ready for occasions like weddings. Dressing up holding the code of hijab, and with an effort to look modest yet neat and presentable is what we mostly strive for.

I remember this one particular time when I was dressing up for an
occasion. I had taken up the hijab recently and had just started
wearing it on occasions too.

It so happened that I was having a hard time wrapping the hijab
properly. I ended up removing it several times, only to wrap up again
in an improper manner. We were running out of time and my mom seeing
me struggle finally suggested that I should just forget it, meaning
not wear the hijab. This ofcourse she said to ease my trouble. Being a
hijabi herself she knew how troublesome it could get at times.
Neverthless, it made my emotions shoot up and I  asked her to let me
be and assured her that this was the last time I’m going to try and
wouldn’t care to set it right if it didn’t end up neat even after
this attempt.

I remember as I stood in front of the mirror, my nose and eyes turned red as I tried to hold back the tears, I began to wrap the hijab around my head. An avalanche of emotions took over me.

I did not want to let go off the hijab, NO WAY, no matter what. It was after a lot of struggles and troubled times and after having gone astray from the right path, that Allah(SWT) has given me a chance again. Led me to the right path again. Moreover, I couldn’t afford going away from my lord.

This hijab was MY decision. My humble effort
to please Allah, whom I so desperately needed back in my life. This hijab didn’t just change the way I look, it changed me. It was not
just a piece of cloth on my head it was a constant reminder for me that I was but a slave of Allah. This hijab was my path to a more
modest life. How could I just let go of it?!

I pleaded Allah to make this
hijab easy for me and help me with it!

That last attempt turned out to be, alhumdulillah, the best. That night, I looked beautiful, so say my mom and everyone else, masha’allah. I don’t know how true is that but all I’m hoping for is that I atleast looked sincere and beautiful in the eyes of the One I wish to please- the
Almighty Allah.

Spreading love in the blogosphere :)

Alhumdulillah, I’ve been awarded the “liebster blog award” by hijab gal– a sister on the blogosphere! 🙂 This came as a suprise to me and it surely made my day, Alhumdulillah! 🙂 Jazakallahu Khair sister! 🙂

Now, this blog award is all about showing love to new and upcoming bloggers. Once you get the award, you pass it on to 3(/5) bloggers with less than 100( a few places it says 200/300) followers. And leave a message on their blogs. The cycle continues as we appreciate fellow bloggers! Masha’allah, Love the idea! 🙂

So, following the custom I’d like to pass on this award to 3 other lovely bloggers 🙂

• Sister Nida- who writes the “PINK” blog. Masha’allah, gifted with skill of writing, her articles are powerful and absolutely fun to read!
• Sister Aziza- Forever & Ever – writes some simple yet wonderful posts on her reflections of day to day incidents.
• Sister Latina Muslim – a lovely latina sister who writes about her experiences as a revert, and her thoughts on breaking the stereotypes of being a latina muslim along with sharing other variety of useful islamic posts and videos!

May Allah bless all your wonderful efforts! 🙂

“I’ve got something to tell you”

(Narrated Abdullah ibn Umar: The Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) said: Of all the lawful acts the most detestable to Allah is divorce. [Bukhari 12:2173] )

When I got home that night as my wife served dinner, I held her hand and said, I’ve got something to tell you. She sat down and ate quietly. Again I observed the hurt in her eyes. Suddenly I didn’t know how to open my mouth. But I had to let her know what I was thinking. I want a divorce. I raised the topic calmly.

She didn’t seem to be annoyed by my words, instead she asked me softly, why? I avoided her question. This made her angry. She threw away the chopsticks and shouted at me, you are not a man! That night, we didn’t talk to each other. She was weeping. I knew she wanted to find out what had happened to our marriage. But I could hardly give her a satisfactory answer; she had lost my heart to Dew. I didn’t love her anymore. I just pitied her!

With a deep sense of guilt, I drafted a divorce agreement which stated that she could own our house, our car, and 30% stake of my company. She glanced at it and then tore it into pieces. The woman who had spent ten years of her life with me had become a stranger. I felt sorry for her wasted time, resources and energy but I could not take back what I had said for I loved Dew so dearly. Finally she cried loudly in front of me, which was what I had expected to see. To me her cry was actually a kind of release. The idea of divorce which had obsessed me for several weeks seemed to be firmer and clearer now.

The next day, I came back home very late and found her writing something at the table. I didn’t have supper but went straight to sleep and fell asleep very fast because I was tired after an eventful day with Dew. When I woke up, she was still there at the table writing. I just did not care so I turned over and was asleep again.

In the morning she presented her divorce conditions: she didn’t want anything from me, but needed a month’s notice before the divorce.

She requested that in that one month we both struggle to live as normal a life as possible. Her reasons were simple: our son had his exams in a month’s time and she didn’t want to disrupt him with our broken marriage.

This was agreeable to me. But she had something more, she asked me to recall how I had carried her into out bridal room on our wedding day. She requested that everyday for the month’s duration I carry her out of our bedroom to the front door ever morning. I thought she was going crazy. Just to make our last days together bearable I accepted her odd request.

I told Dew about my wife’s divorce conditions… She laughed loudly and thought it was absurd. No matter what tricks she applies, she has to face the divorce, she said scornfully.

My wife and I hadn’t had any body contact since my divorce intention was explicitly expressed. So when I carried her out on the first day, we both appeared clumsy. Our son clapped behind us, daddy is holding mummy in his arms. His words brought me a sense of pain. From the bedroom to the sitting room, then to the door, I walked over ten meters with her in my arms. She closed her eyes and said softly; don’t tell our son about the divorce. I nodded, feeling somewhat upset. I put her down outside the door. She went to wait for the bus to work. I drove alone to the office.

On the second day, both of us acted much more easily. She leaned on my chest. I could smell the fragrance of her blouse. I realized that I hadn’t looked at this woman carefully for a long time.. I realized she was not young any more. There were fine wrinkles on her face, her hair was graying! Our marriage had taken its toll on her. For a minute I wondered what I had done to her.

On the fourth day, when I lifted her up, I felt a sense of intimacy returning. This was the woman who had given ten years of her life to me.

On the fifth and sixth day, I realized that our sense of intimacy was growing again. I didn’t tell Dew about this. It became easier to carry her as the month slipped by. Perhaps the everyday workout made me stronger.

She was choosing what to wear one morning. She tried on quite a few dresses but could not find a suitable one. Then she sighed, all my dresses have grown bigger. I suddenly realized that she had grown so thin, that was the reason why I could carry her more easily.

Suddenly it hit me… she had buried so much pain and bitterness in her heart. Subconsciously I reached out and touched her head.

Our son came in at the moment and said, Dad, it’s time to carry mum out. To him, seeing his father carrying his mother out had become an essential part of his life. My wife gestured to our son to come closer and hugged him tightly. I turned my face away because I was afraid I might change my mind at this last minute. I then held her in my arms, walking from the bedroom, through the sitting room, to the hallway. Her hand surrounded my neck softly and naturally. I held her body tightly; it was just like our wedding day.

But her much lighter weight made me sad. On the last day, when I held her in my arms I could hardly move a step. Our son had gone to school. I held her tightly and said, I hadn’t noticed that our life lacked intimacy.

I drove to the office…. jumped out of the car swiftly without locking the door. I was afraid any delay would make me change my mind… I walked upstairs. Dew opened the door and I said to her, Sorry, Dew, I do not want the divorce anymore.

She looked at me, astonished, and then touched my forehead. Do you have a fever? She said. I moved her hand off my head. Sorry, Dew, I said, I won’t divorce. My marriage life was boring probably because she and I didn’t value the details of our lives, not because we didn’t love each other any more. Now I realize that since I carried her into my home on our wedding day I am supposed to hold her until death do us apart.

Dew seemed to suddenly wake up. She gave me a loud slap and then slammed the door and burst into tears. I walked downstairs and drove away.

At the floral shop on the way, I ordered a bouquet of flowers for my wife. The salesgirl asked me what to write on the card. I smiled and wrote, I’ll carry you out every morning until death do us apart.

That evening I arrived home, flowers in my hands, a smile on my face, I run up stairs, only to find my wife in the bed – dead.

This isn’t just about married couples, it’s about all of our relationships. Sometimes things get hard with certain people in our lives and we just want to give up but the more we let ourselves feel like that, the less hope we have for that certain relationship and we try to find a replacement, sometimes without even realising. At the end of the day every relationship you have is unique and we take them all for granted. It takes time for relationships to develop but it doesn’t take much to lose them completely. A relationship that you fought for before can be worth fighting for again. You just have to put the effort in and make sure the other person does the same. This goes for family and friends as well as the him or her in our lives. Sometimes you just have to swallow your pride and say I love you before it’s too late and hope for the best but you should never ever give up.

via iHijabi

Desert Rose

Assalamualaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatahu,

My dear readers, whom I love for the sake of Allah, i really want you all to watch this video. You would have read alot about the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and attended a lot of seerahs but THIS video will actually help you feel the pains and trial he(saw) had to go through. You just CANNOT miss watching it. At the end of this video you’ll begin to love and respect the Prophet(SAW) more, Insha’allah, and you would have found the secret to happiness too.

So, Please, please, please, do take out 48 mins of your life to get a glimpse of the life of the Chosen One(SAW)!

ALLAHUMMA SALLI ALA MUHAMMADIW WA ALA AALI MUHAMMADIN KAMAA SALLAITA ALA IBRAHIMA WA ALA AALI IBRAHIMA INNAKA HAMIDUM MAJID. ALLAHUMMA BAARIK ALA MUHAMMADIW WA ALA AALI MUHAMMADIN KAMAA BAARAKTA ALA IBRAHIMA WA ALA AALI IBRAHIMA INNAKA HAMIDUM MAJID.

“O Allah, let Your Blessings come upon Muhammad and the family of Muhammad, as you have blessed Ibrahim and his family. Truly, You are Praiseworthy and Glorious. Allah, bless Muhammad and the family of Muhammad, as you have blessed Ibrahim and his family. Truly, You are Praiseworthy and Glorious”.

Parents: Your door to paradise

The Prophet(SAW) said, “He who wishes to enter Paradise at the best door must please his father and mother.”

God makes jewels, not junk!

 A woman would be much better off if she could distinguish between a man who flatters  her and a man who compliments her.
A man who spends money on her and a man who invests in her.
A man that views her as property and a man that views her properly.                                  A man that lusts her and a man that loves her.

A man that believes he is Gods gift to women and a man that REMEMBERS woman was Gods gift to a man.

Know your self worth. God doesn’t make junk, God makes jewels.

-Unknown

Perfect ending?

We dream of fairy tale romances with a perfect ending. We dream of having a best friends who will never leave us. We dream and believe that happiness can last forever by just having the right people around. And At some point, we get a tight slap from life and the result – Reality Check- NOTHING LASTS FOREVER. Relationships end. People change. Hearts break. Friends leave. Memories fade. And finally we accept – ‘Prince charmings’ do not come on white horses and “happily ever afters” do not exist. (But no matter what Life Goes on.)

Life has it’s own ways of teaching us our lessons. There was a time when I believed in perfect endings too. But along my journey.. there are lessons I’ve learnt, mistakes i’ve made too.. there are still times when I’m reminded of or when i look back I miss certain people, I miss certain way how things used to be. But I also know that Allah(SWT) has something better in store for me, Insha’Allah, and that’s the ONLY thing that keeps me going, Alhumdulillah. I cannot come to regret the decisions I’d made, yes i do know today they were wrong and would never want to repeat them again, Allah willing, but it’s also true that those were the decisions that lead me towards Allah(SWT) .

I remember a friend of mine had long back updated her fb status which read —

‎”A calamity that makes you ‘turn’ to Allah is better for you than a blessing which makes you ‘forget’ the remembrance of Allah.” [Ibn Taymiyyah]

So true, isn’t it? Has it ever happened to you that you are blessed with something beautiful but you got so indulged in that, that you went away from the path that leads to Allah? On the other hand, there are these bad days, times when you are absolutely low, but the result of which is that they brought you more closer to your creator. Think about it, there’s nothing in this world that’s constant. You can’t be sure who, what is going to last for how long. Everything is going to end. As a matter-of-fact expecting anything to last forever in this world, is like building castles in air. Expecting a perfect-ending in this world is believing fairy tales to be true.

When we lose something or someone we say “to Allah we belong and to him we return.” So, if nothing, we are going to die someday and return to whom? Our Lord, right? So the only perfect ending that exists is, if on that day, the day of judgement, the day when our deeds will be weighed, if we’ve got that right, if the scale of our good deeds is heavier than the bad ones, and if we are blessed by the life of Jannah, then that and only that, is the perfect happy ending, we as Muslims can hope.. and strive for!!

Everything else in this world, well, it’s just Life.

“Pray as you have seen me pray”

Prophet Muhammad   said (which means): What lies between a man and disbelief is the abandonment of prayer. [Muslim, Aboo Dawood, Nasaa’ee]

Salah- The second and most important pillar of Islam after the shahada.

Prophet Muhammed (SAW) said “Pray as you have seen me pray…” (Sahih Bukhari  91:352)

Here is a video showing a step by step guide to perfecting Salah.

Also Download this documentary for a more detailed descreption on performing salah. I have this one and find it very beneficial. Right click here and save link as to Download. (279 MB) (Source: Iloveallah.com)

 

 

 

 

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Salah-Life’s forgotten purpose – By Sister Yasmin Mogahed

Man has taken many journeys throughout time. But there is one journey that nobody has ever taken.

Nobody—except one.

On a vehicle no man has ever ridden, through a path no soul has ever seen. To a place no creation has ever before set foot. It was the journey of one man to meet the Divine. It was the journey of Muhammad ﷺ, prophet of God, to the highest heaven.

It was al Israa wal Miraaj (the magnificent journey).

On that journey Allah took his beloved prophet ﷺ to the seventh heaven—a place not even angel Gibreel could enter. In the Prophet’s mission on earth, every instruction, every commandment was sent down through angel Gibreel. But, there was one commandment that was not. There was one commandment so important, that rather than sending angel Gibreel down with it, Allah brought the Prophet ﷺ up to Himself.

That commandment was salah (prayer). When the Prophet ﷺ was first given the command to pray, it was to be fifty times in a day. After asking Allah to make it easier, the commandment was eventually reduced to five times a day, with the reward of the fifty.

Reflecting upon this incident scholars have explained that the process of going from fifty to five was a deliberate one, intended to teach us the true place salah should hold in our lives. Imagine for a moment actually praying fifty times a day. Would we be able to do anything else but pray? No. And that’s the point. What greater way than that to illustrate our life’s true purpose? As if to say, salah is our real life; all the rest that we fill our day with…just motions.

And yet, we live as if it’s exactly the opposite. Salah is something we squeeze into our day, when we find time—if that. Our ‘lives’ don’t revolve around salah. Salah revolves around our ‘lives.’ If we’re in class, salah is an afterthought. If we’re at the mall, the Macy’s sale is more urgent. Something is seriously wrong when we put aside the very purpose of our existence in order to watch a basketball game.

And that is for those who even pray at all. There are those who have not only put aside their life’s purpose, they have abandoned it completely. What we often don’t realize about the abandonment ofsalah is this: No scholar has ever held the opinion that committing zina (fornication) makes you a disbeliever. No scholar has ever held the opinion that stealing, drinking or taking drugs makes you a disbeliever. No scholar has even claimed that murder makes you a non-Muslim. But, about salah, some scholars have said he who abandons it, is no longer Muslim. This is said based on ahadithsuch as this one: “The covenant between us and them is prayer, so if anyone abandons it, he has become a disbeliever.” [Ahmad]

Imagine an act so egregious that the Prophet ﷺ would speak about it is such a way. Consider for a moment what satan did wrong. He didn’t refuse to believe in Allah. He refused to make one sajdah. Just one. Imagine all the sajdahs we refuse to make.

Consider the seriousness of such a refusal. And yet, think how lightly we take the matter of salah.Salah is the first thing we will be asked about on the Day of Judgment, and yet it is the last thing that is on our mind. The Prophet ﷺ said: “The first thing which will be judged among a man’s deeds on the Day of Resurrection is the Prayer. If this is in good order then he will succeed and prosper but if it is defective then he will fail and will be a loser.” [Tirmidhi]

On that Day, the people of paradise will ask those who have entered Hell-fire, why they have entered it. And the Qur’an tells us exactly what their first response will be: ”What led you into Hell Fire? They will say: ‘We were not of those who prayed.’” (Qur’an, 74:42-43)

How many of us will be among those who say “we were not of those who prayed, or we were not of those who prayed on time, or we were not of those who made prayer any priority in our lives?” Why is it that if we’re in class or at work or fast asleep at the time of fajr and we need to use the restroom, we make time for that? In fact, the question almost sounds absurd. We don’t even consider it an option not to. And even if we were taking the most important exam of our lives, when we need to go, we will go. Why? Because the potentially mortifying consequences of not going, makes it a non-option.

There are many people who say they don’t have time to pray at work or school, or while they’re out. But how many have ever said they don’t have time to go to the bathroom, so while out, at work or school have opted instead to just wear Depends? How many of us just don’t feel like waking up at Fajrtime if we need to use the bathroom, and choose instead to wet our bed? The truth is we’ll get out of bed, or leave class, or stop work, to use the bathroom, but not to pray.

It sounds comical, but the truth is we put the needs of our body above the needs of our soul. We feed our bodies, because if we didn’t, we’d die. But so many of us starve our souls, forgetting that if we are not praying our soul is dead. And ironically, the body that we tend to is only temporary, while the soul that we neglect is eternal.

Originally published by InfocusNews

The Deep Advice of ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab (RA)

Wonderful compilation of the advice of Hazrath Umar Radhi-allahu’anhu!

The Deep Advice of ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab (as narrated by Sa’id ibn al-Musayyib):

• “There’s nothing more sufficient than when someone disobeys Allah in dealing with you, you do nothing but obey Allah in dealing with him.
• Place the affairs of your brother when they reach you upon the best of interpretations until there comes to you clarity which overcomes that.
• Do not think ill of a statement which comes from another Muslim if you can find a good interpretation for it.
• Whoever exposes himself to suspicion let him not blame those who then think badly of him, and whoever conceals his secrets, strength of choice will be in his hands.
• Hold fast to truthful companions, live with them closely for they are a charm at times of ease and an aid at times of difficulty. Stick to the truth even if the truth kills you, and do not involve yourself with issues that don’t concern you.
• Do not ask about things which haven’t taken place for indeed, that which has already taken place is enough to preoccupy you from it!
• Do not seek help or take your affairs to someone who doesn’t wish to see you succeed, and do not befriend the sinful lest you learn from his sins and evil.
• Keep away from your enemy and be cautious of even your friend, except for the truthful and trusted friend. And no-one is trustworthy except him who fears Allah.
• Humble yourself at the graves, lower yourself in obedience and stand firm against disobedience. And when it comes to your affairs, seek counsel only from those who truly fear Allah for indeed, Allah says,      

            إِنَّمَا يَخۡشَى ٱللَّهَ مِنۡ عِبَادِهِ ٱلۡعُلَمَـٰٓؤُاْۗ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ عَزِيزٌ غَفُورٌ
“.Indeed, it is only those who have knowledge among His Slaves, that truly fear Allah.” [al-Fatir:28]

The advice of ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab as narrated by Sa’id ibn al-Musayyib Rawdhat al-’Uqala’ (pg. 77-78)

via TowardsJannah