Hope and Inspiration from ThePositiveMuslimah.com

As salaamualaikum Everyone,

I hope you are having a blessed Ramadan. I want to strongly recommend to you all a superb website: ThePositiveMuslimah.com.

This website never fails to inspire me and give me hope whenever I visit it. If you are ever feeling like you need a Positivity Boost, please visit ThePositiveMuslimah.com!

Here is a recent review of my book by The Positive Muslimah herself, Sis. Fatima Hachem El Hamoui:

http://thepositivemuslimah.com/2015/06/how-to-be-a-happy-muslim-review/

The moment I read the title of this book (How to Be a Happy Muslim Insha’Allah), I thought “This is just what I was looking for!”.

This book is written by our sister Sheima Sumer over at howtobeahappymuslim.com.

We, as Muslims, always look for ways to be happy. However, we sometimes have trouble staying happy. I constantly asked myself about how I can truly be happy but failed to find the right answer. I would repeatedly try different approaches to be happy but then give up what I was doing after proving it wasn’t practical. Then I came across this book, subhan’Allah, just as if Allah (swt) was showing me the answer to my all-time question “How can I be happy and enjoy a positive life?”. I found an effective and efficient answer to my question in this book.

I know that happiness and positive feelings aren’t permanent, but neither are sadness and negative feelings. This book taught me that everything in life is temporary but we can still be able to minimize the effect of the negative feelings and maximize the effect of the positive feelings by clearing our mind of the negative ones and focusing on the positive ones.

I liked the HAPPINESS REFLECTION and HAPPINESS HINT sections very much as they gave me a happiness boost throughout my reading and allowed me to ponder about why I’m not happy, why I should be happy, and how I could be happy! Moreover, the underlining of important words, phrases, and sentences enabled me to keep the important stuff in my head. So, if I go back to the book now after I finished it, I would remember the ideas by just taking a look at the underlined text.

The advantageous thing about this book is its structure. The structure and flow of ideas is very straightforward and simple that absolutely anyone can read, understand, and enjoy its content. It was absolutely amazing in a way that made the book very interesting to read and I never got tired of reading it because I was very anxious to know the whole answer of how to be happy!

Furthermore, I liked how each title in this book represented a practical and simple action that I could easily think about and incorporate in my daily life. All the advice and tips were very easy to implement as long as we put our mind to it. After all, it’s all up to us if we really want to be happy. The author made sure she taught us everything we needed to know to be happy and enjoy a positive life, but if we don’t put that effort into applying what we learned then we wouldn’t have benefited ourselves with this amazing book.

What I admired the most about the book is the fact that the author included evidence from the Quran and Hadith to back her purpose and ideas. The way that the Ayah’s and Hadith’s are coordinated and organized throughout the book is very thoughtful and helpful. This gave it more credibility and made me more convinced with everything she had to say.

The first title of the book was a short and brief answer to “How to be a Happy Muslim In Shaa Allah” and the last title was a summary of the answer to “How to be a Happy Muslim In Shaa Allah” with a list of ideas to implement. These 2 were very important and necessary for the book since it keeps the readers in the atmosphere of the book’s content and enables them to keep the answer to this important question in mind and not lose track on their way of reading it. It was very clever to do so because it really worked with me. I was able to stay on the right track as I read the book. The first title got my head into wanting to really be happy and the last title reminded me of how I can do that by restating the basic ideas of the book in a simple list of points and giving me a list of ideas that would definitely help me along the way of being happy.

One of the important lessons that I learned is that whenever I’m not happy and couldn’t do anything about it, I should make Duaa to Allah (swt). Allah (swt) is always waiting for us to talk to Him so He can help us whenever we need it. He has the answer to every prayer. I used to feel lazy and not make Duaa very often, but now I make Duaa for every single thing I struggle with and every single thing I wish Allah (swt) would grant me with, and it works! Every time I felt sad or angry after reading this book, I would sit down and make Duaa to Allah to make me feel better, and I did shortly, subhan’Allah.

The author pointed out that being happy shouldn’t only be a wish, it should also be a decision from within. I had to literally decide that I wanted to be happy so I can convince my brain to help me implement that decision! I also learned how to bring myself to inner peace by replacing any negative thought with a positive one, which made it easier for me, after calming my mind down, to deal with what’s bothering me in a more effective manner.

The author also frequently emphasized on the fact that an important factor for being a happy Muslim is to please Allah (swt) because everything lies in His hands and He has all the answers to our problems. This gave me confidence and strength to start improving my relationship with Allah (swt), having more faith in Him, and being grateful for everything He has ever given me. This helped me tremendously. Believing that Allah (swt) is always by my side helped me focus less on the negative encounters that I faced in life and focus more on the thought of being loved by Allah and Him wanting what’s best for me. Whenever something I wouldn’t have wanted to happen, happened to me, I’d say to myself “Allah (swt) knows best, He always wants what’s best for me, and I’m positive that He’s saving something much much better for me later in shaa Allah” This always guided me to inner peace and helped me sooth and calm down, alhamdulillah.

I might not have been able to apply every single detail of this book yet, but I have definitely learned a lot. Most importantly, I’ve learned that we live only once, so why waste our time being unhappy when we have Allah (swt) by our sides, talking to us with His soothing words of the Quran and listening to us whenever we have anything to say to him in Duaa?

Jazaki Allahu khayran sister Sheima for this outstanding and extremely valuable book.