Naeem's Blog

Humza’s your typical seven year old boy. He’s got his good habits and his bad habits. One of his most annoying habits is his incessant calling upon his mother (and, lucky for me, only occasionally his father).

When he wants something, he’ll say Momma over and over and over and over, until he gets a response. This is a bad habit we’re trying to teach him out of – especially since he also does it in school with his teacher.

Anyways, when he does this to his mother, as you can imagine, it annoys the living daylights out of her (as well as me and anyone else in the vicinity). At first, she’ll quietly and politely tell him to wait. After a few more calls of ‘Momma, Momma’, she’ll raise her voice and ask him ‘Did I not ask you to wait?’ But rarely does he desist. Finally, my wife or I will either sternly reprimand him or (wrongly) give in and ask him what he wants.

Why am I sharing this with you?

Well, I was thinking today that Humza’s mother loves him more than she loves herself. Indeed such is the love of the mother towards the child. But irrespective of how much she loves him, his constant and continuous calling upon her - sometimes for the most trivial of things - becomes a serious nuisance.

How much then must Allah (swt) love His servant who is ceaselessly calling upon Him, day and night, ‘Ya Allah! Ya Allah!’, yet He never tires of hearing those calls?

Especially when you consider the forgetful, heedless, sinning servant has done nothing to deserve a response. He has done nothing to deserve an audience with the King.

Yet Allah (swt) loves to hear His servant's call.

It has been narrated that when the disbeliever calls upon Allah (swt) for something, He orders the angels to quickly fulfill the person’s needs. But when a believer calls upon Allah (swt), He tells the angels to wait.

When the angels express their confusion at this seemingly backwards state of affairs, Allah (swt) replies that when the disbeliever calls upon Me, I cannot stand to hear his voice calling My name, so I wish to quickly silence him.

However, when My beloved servant calls Me, I love to hear his petitioning Me, I love to hear his sincere prayer, I love to hear him express his need for Me and so I delay his request knowing the he will faithfully persist in calling upon Me.

The Prophet (saw) is reported to have said: “The love of God for His creatures is seventy times greater than that of a mother for her child”

Verily our dear Prophet (saw) has spoken the truth.