the ivy leagues are they worth it: courtesy:http://slinkingtowardretirement.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/ivyleague.gif

وَقَالُوا نَحْنُ أَكْثَرُ أَمْوَالًا وَأَوْلَادًا وَمَا نَحْنُ بِمُعَذَّبِينَ ﴿٣٥

Surah saba [34:35]

And they said, “We are more [than the believers] in wealth and children, and we are not to be punished.”

BACKGROUND: The democracy (majority) of affluence and Ivy League offspring brings a power to the individual and societies, which results in arrogance. This arrogance is incited from the wealth of provisions that Allah has given them.

Tafseer by Dr. Farhat Hashmi (translated from urdu)

When the non believing wealthy and the powerful in this world numerically exceed those who are believers but are impoverished and weak and (this extends to individuals and nations,) the powerful non believers think that since they are in the majority and have more resources and power both in wealth and successful progeny they are better off and they will not be punished.

Allah clarifies that he gives naimah in this world to test the gratefulness and generosity of the children of Adam. It is not a reward for their actions in this world, for those will be rewarded on the Day of Judgment.

In other surahs Allah Subhanawataala reminds us:

SURAH AL Mominoon 55-56

[23:55]

Do they think that what We extend to them of wealth and children

[23:56]

Is [because] We hasten for them good things? Rather, they do not perceive.

Sometimes wealth and children become a source of agony in this life even though some may have sacrificed their emaan for them:

SURAH TAUBAH 9: 55

So let not their wealth or their children impress you. Allah only intends to punish them through them in worldly life and that their souls should depart [at death] while they are disbelievers.

SURAH AL Mominoon [23:44]

Then We sent Our messengers in succession. Every time there came to a nation its messenger, they denied him, so We made them follow one another [to destruction], and We made them narrations. So away with a people who do not believe.

Allah Subhanawataala is putting the arrogant individuals and nations on notice……………for with the rejection of Allah and tawheed comes such destruction of nations that all that is left of them is “narrations” or stories of “once upon a time…………”

Supplication: May Allah protect us and the nations of Believers from such a fate.

Reblogged from Siraat-e-Mustaqeem:

Do not surrender your grief so quickly Let it cut more deeply Let it ferment and season you As few human or divine ingredients can Something is missing in my heart tonight That has made made my eyes so soft And my voice so tender And my need of God so absolutely clear. Hafiz

SURAH ALE IMRAN [3:164] 

Certainly did Allah confer [great] favor upon the believers when He sent among them a Messenger from themselves, reciting to them His verses and purifying them and teaching them the Book and wisdom, although they had been before in manifest error.

Excerpted from the Tafseer by Dr. Farhat Hashmi

Prior to this the believing people were openly disobedient and Allah sent Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) as a Rahmat ul Alameen (Mercy for Mankind)

Background:

To bring mercy to people is to improve them, and to pull them out of the dungeon of depression and self-destruction that they reside in. This is due to their ignorance of the Almighty and their preoccupation with the hedonism of the present.

How was Prophet Muhammad pbuh so successful in changing the hearts of diehard pagans thus bringing them into the circle of mercy of Allah?

Some guidelines were discussed in this tafseer:

HOW TO APPROACH PEOPLE TO BRING THEM THE MERCY OF ALLAH:

1. To improve a group of people, one should be familiar with those people, friends with them, knowing their ways and genuine in ones intentions with them.
2. Talk simply and succinctly and do not talk in a manner that it goes over their head. Rasoolallah would speak in the dialects of the people who came to see him. Speaking the language of your guest and friend brings him or her closer to you both in understanding (trust) and in expression of thought. Unless you can trust the person you will not listen to them
3. One has to learn to recite the Quran. (For in the recitation of the Quran lies the power of Allah’s words which cannot be replaced by anything else)
4. Ayahs have two meanings: one is the Ayahs of the Quran i.e. the verses of the Quran but also being able to visualize the signs of Allah thus bringing cognitive understanding of Allah’s signs resulting in understanding Allah’s Munificence.
5. Teach techniques for improvement to change the heart from the inside. (Purification: to be explained later)

End Tafseer.

And He it is Who has put the night and the day in succession, for such who desires to remember or desires to show his gratitude. 
(  سورة الفرقان  , Al-Furqan, Chapter #25, Verse #62)