Azka's Writeups

A few weeks ago I was told a story of a woman of great strength and resilience. It was a name I knew but never before had I reflected on her story like I did in our Seerah class in Al-Miftah.  The story was of a 9 year old slave girl of African descent bought by an Arab named Abdullah and hence inherited by his son; the Prophet of Allah (SAW); this girl, originally called Barakah Bint Tha'labah came to be known as Umme Ayman and was of great - perhaps greatest - service to Islam.  We all know the story from here. The Prophet's (SAW) mother passes away and this girl, brings a 4-6 year old from Abwa to Mecca to entrust him to his grandfather. She takes care of him and dedicates her youth to his upbringing. At 40 something she marries upon the Prophet (SAW) insisting and her husband dies. She marries again (Zaid Bin Haritha), and this time her husband is martyred while she lives on even after the caliphate of Umar (RA). While the story may make you go 'wow', when you human...

Progress doesn't always come in the form of visible muscle, especially for women.  The first and most important sign of progress is muscular endurance; the ability of your muscles to work continuously without getting tired.  A year ago playing badminton for as little as 20 minutes meant my forearm would ache for at least 2 days. Over the last few months, I added weights to my workout, this wasn't very often nor were the weights too heavy. But as everyone will, I too was looking for progress in the form of visible muscle.  Returning to badminton about a week ago, I realized that I could play for an hour without my forearm giving me a tough time later. And as a person invested in workouts of all sorts, it didn't take me long to label this as progress. Endurance.  So guys... and girls, if you're able to do even a few more reps of that exercise than before, you've made progress! Keep it up.