I was scrolling my Instagram and saw few updates from people I'm following. And some of them are few girls I know when they traveled to Czech few days ago. Actually, I even traveled with them to Adršpach, a nice place to enjoy the nature if you come to Czech. And few scenes in Narnia were taken at the rock town. ^_^
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| Adršpach, Czech |
Back from Adršpach, I invited them to come to my flat while waiting for Maghrib. Wohoo, it was exciting to have 16 young girls in my room. I served them with Turkish Delight; the jelly itself is covered with lots of icing sugar. Suddenly one of them asked me if there are any ants here.
So far that I remember, none. Maybe because of the weather, but still I found no ants even in summer. :) That night, I read few verses of Quran, few articles and decided to learn something from it.
Here we go :)
Do you know that there is a surah in Quran entitled Ants?
It is An-Naml, surah number 27.
Maybe we do not realized that even though ants are that small, Allah still elevate their status to be stated in Quran for us to learn life lessons the ants. Fuh :D
1. Ants can lift and carry more than three times their own weight. :O
(source - National Geographic)
Well, I know most of us are friendly with this verse;
“Allah does not burden a soul beyond that it can bear…” (Al-Baqarah, 2:286)
Allah tak bebankan seseorang dengan apa yang dia tak mampu. The ants teach us that we are stronger than what we think. Maybe not physically, but the mind that helps. I still remember when I started to love hiking, I was so nervous to join any hiking trips with the Czech students; as they walk so fast. But, I don't really want to be left at the back and take their time waiting for me; so, I struggled. At that time, I feel so weak (for my body) but Alhamdulillah, we still managed to be within the range of estimated time. :)
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| Snezka, Czech - Credit to the photographer :) |
That's the power of mind-control; with Allah's help for sure.
** interesting article to read :)
2. Ants work hard to find food; and they don't give up! ^_^
Back in Malaysia, I love to watch how the ants struggled to lift something (as their food). Even though the food fall down, they keep trying to lift it until they managed to walk with it. I learnt that we cannot give up in everything we do, especially doing something good and may benefits others.
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| source - Google image |
Don't give up.
Especially when other people keep saying things that make you down. InsyAllah, once Allah lead you TO something, He will guide you THROUGH it. The key is, don't lose hope with Allah and don't quit before you do your best.
3. Ants are good planners - and they work on it. ;)
I just knew that in summer ants always prepare food, not only for usage in summer but in winter too! They keep on preparing on something which is yet to come. Just imagine, even people would love to stay at home in super cold days, the same goes to the ants. See, they know how to make use of their time to the fullest.
Remember this quote?
Failing to plan is planning to fail.
I know planning is not really the problem here. People plan a lot, but we feel so hard and struggle to make all those planned things work!
Hihi I remember
Farah's post on SMART goal;- one of the example is "
I want to lose 5kg before 31st March 2015 by 3 times workout weekly."
And I really like her idea of writing it down and tell people about the goal. At least, we will try our best to work hard on it, and other people will keep reminding us too :)
4. Working in groups is better than doing things by your own. :)
Do you want to know the 'organisation' of ants? In term of how they are classified? So far that I know, they are divided into 3 groups;
- the queen (which will lay thousands of eggs - to make sure their colony's survival),
- the male (to mate with the queen)
- the workers (they are female that cannot reproduce; important to find food, take care of the ants' babies, protect the community, basically they are mostly seen by us).
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| Credit - eggs of ants are sold as exotic food. T_T |
A thing to learn from this point of view is that, they have their roles to survive. I mean, they need each other to live on, so they work in group. Every ants already know their function in the communities and they don't need to be ordered to perform their work.
So do humans, I mentioned we need each other to survive as each of us has our own capabilities or should I say talent, bakat? Some are well known for decorating, some are talented in making clothes, some are born with creativity, some have strength to do heavy work and some have the social skills to serve people etc.
But all in all, that makes our life beautiful and colorful. Right?
We can't do everything on our own. Really.
5. Be grateful.
In the surah, there are few verses of Nabi Sulaiman (Solomon) and story about Balqis too :) We knew that how powerful Nabi Sulaiman as a king of big kingdom at that time; Allah gave him ability to understand and can communicate with the animals and the Jinns (jin), also to command the winds.
Two verse that catch my eye are these; about how the words of the ants remind him to be grateful to Allah;-
At length, when they came to a (lowly) valley of ants, one of the ants said: "O ye ants, get into your habitations, lest Solomon and his hosts crush you (under foot) without knowing it." - An-Naml 27:18
(Maralah angkatan itu) hingga apabila mereka sampai ke "Waadin-Naml", berkatalah seekor semut: "Wahai sekalian semut, masuklah ke sarang kamu masing-masing, jangan Sulaiman dan tenteranya memijak serta membinasakan kamu, sedang mereka tidak menyedari".
So he smiled, amused at her speech; and he said: "O my Lord! so order me that I may be grateful for Thy favours, which thou hast bestowed on me and on my parents, and that I may work the righteousness that will please Thee: And admit me, by Thy Grace, to the ranks of Thy righteous Servants. - An-Naml 27:19
"Maka tersenyumlah Nabi Sulaiman mendengar kata-kata semut itu, dan berdoa dengan berkata:" Wahai Tuhanku, ilhamkanlah daku supaya tetap bersyukur akan nikmatMu yang Engkau kurniakan kepadaku dan kepada ibu bapaku, dan supaya aku tetap mengerjakan amal soleh yang Engkau redai; dan masukkanlah daku - dengan limpah rahmatMu - dalam kumpulan hamba-hambaMu yang soleh".
Can you feel how humble he was? T_T
We can relate this situation in our life too. As ants maybe represent the normal, ordinary people like us; workers, students, children - anyone who don't really have 'power' on others. Nabi Sulaiman represent 'powerful' people that rule the society.
Even though He was chosen to be the prophet, and granted a big kingdom, had lots of abilities and wealth; but he knew that all of them were given by Allah. And they can be taken away from his life anytime. SubhanAllah!
I really wish to see people nowadays, appreciate what they have now. Like not using their power for something that is not serving the community. Back to the basic, all of us are humans and we belong to one God and He is the one who rules us. :)
p/s - I dedicated all these points to myself;
p/s/s - When you say/share something, you need to do it too. :)
v Khaulah,
