The First Step of My Journey

Guest writer Haleema Sadia shares what she learnt at Hamza Tzortzis’ inspiring workshop ‘Changing the World through Imaan’ at PC Hotel Rawalpindi.

For the first time ever, I have started attending live talks by different religious speakers, starting this February. One word – beautiful. I realize now how beautiful my religion is, how completely and utterly free of any oppression, bias and hatred it is, thriving in its original form within the fitnah (tribulation) of this world.

Prophet Muhammad (sallalahu alaihi wasallam) is reported to have said:

“The whole duniya (world) is a prison for the believer and paradise for the non-believers.”

I heard this Hadith countless times but never really understood its meaning. After attending Brother Hamza Tzortzis’ talk during Winds of Change 2014, I realized how we are enslaved to the world, and how to break the shackles by becoming slaves of Allah. I was inspired even more to change my way of living because I didn’t want to get caught up in the glitz and glamour of this world. I realized with even more determination, my purpose of existence, my other side.

Brother Hamza said that this society encourages the celebration of your egos. True, because why else then would we never be satisfied of what we are given and have an eye for the things of others? Why else would we go on doing meaningless things which serve no rightful purpose to us and neglect obligations, such as our daily prayers? Such is the worship of self, which destroys the self morally, physically and spiritually.

Brother Hamza further highlighted that “Rooh” (Arabic word for the soul) comes from the world “Ra’ha” which means liberty and freedom. The food for this rooh is the only thing that can make us free and quench our thirst for existing.  That food is knowing and worshiping Allah. A believer should have Tauheed burning in his heart, La illaha illallah i.e. that there is no object or deity to be worship but THE deity, Allah. Today I learned that Tauheed or Oneness of Allah can be found in the unity of His Lordship, unity of His worship and unity of His names and attributes.

He also stressed upon the importance of Ikhlas (sincerity of intention). Do you know that Ikhlas can be our savior on the Day of Judgment? When the scales would be tipping in the wrong direction, with our countless sins, only one deed of Ikhlas can save us from the hell-fire! If a person doesn’t have Ikhlas, he is bound to end up in hell; but if he has it, then heaven is not very far away. SubhanAllah! Wouldn’t it be nice if you did something every day, purely and secretly, for the sake of Allah, no matter how small the deed be?

I understood from his talk that our spiritual DNA can only be strengthened by thinking and reflecting on the Quran. By Allah! Dhikr (remembrance of Allah) is the most powerful of weapons a believer can ever have and this can help us to take power over our ego, and submit ourselves to the will of our Master, our Rabb.

Brother Hamza ended this workshop by highlighting how wrong and unjust the capitalist banking system is, and how Islam’s macro economy is the solution of this corrupt way of producing money out of nothing. He stressed that Islamic system is based upon real wealth that is not created out of nothing. That wealth is there because somebody worked hard enough to earn it in the right way.

The lecture was enlightening as it truly opened up my senses and increased my quest for more knowledge. Brother Hamza did an excellent job and I thank him and others like him who are spreading the light of Islam to jaahils (illiterate w.r.t. the teachings and true meaning of Deen) like us!