Assalamualaikum my dear,

How have these past two weeks been for you?

For myself, these two weeks has been all about discovering a beautiful phrase that has altered my brain chemistry!

—

The car situation

The other day, my husband and I were both discussing the situation with our car. We had been struggling to sell our car for a while now. And although initially the market had seemed pretty dry, over the past weekend, we were starting to receive a few offers alhamdulillah.

As a result, we had a potential buyer look at the car a few days ago and alhamdulillah, within hours they contacted us back saying they were interested in buying the car.

We were ecstatic, finally the car was sold. We informed others calling interested that the car was off the market and we took the car down from the various sites.

But days later…the car remained parked outside our flat. The money from our buyer still outstanding.

This was the situation my husband and I were discussing. We were both worried about this sale falling through, and having to go through the whole process of trying to find buyers again. We’ve been trying to get rid of this car for quite a while now and the thought of having to go through all that hassle for second time was not fun.

As a result, the mood in the room was down.

But it was because of one randomly uttered phrase, the beautiful phrase that I mentioned at the start of the letter, that the mood of that room altered so drastically that day.

—

What phrase are you on about?!

I’m sure you’re wondering about this now!

It’s actually a well known phrase, but one I just saw in a different light while reading a story about it in the Barakah Effect book by Muhammad Faris (yess, this book again!)

I want to share that story you. It may be one you have heard of before. I feel like I had vaguely too, but for some reason it left such a mark on me when I read it this time -

Isn’t the phrase ‘fiha khair’ — ‘in this situation, there is goodness’ so beautiful?

I know we don’t live in the world of cannibals or hunting but I just found the conviction the servant had in the goodness of all situations, the conviction of fiha khair, to be really powerful.

Fiha Khayr

We all know of the Hadith where the Prophet (s) tells us that -

We also know of the verse in the Quran where Allah tells us that

Both this hadith and verse are huge parts of the mindset of a true believer…and how I am striving to view life.

When things go well, viewing life like this, with gratitude and contentment, is easy.

But the difficult part, and the true test for me, is to be just as grateful and content with Allah when things don’t go the way I want them to.

When things go ‘wrong’.

Although the thing is, does anything really go ‘wrong’?

Things may not go our way, but when we know Allah, Al Aleem (The Most Knowing), Al Hakim (The Wise), Al Qadeer (The One in Complete Control) and Al Wadud (The Most Loving), is the one who controls all - can anything really go wrong?

Even the moments of ‘wrong’ are exactly what we need, just live the verse above tells us.

The lifelong struggle

But even though I know this theoretically, my lifelong struggle has been figuring out - how do I really take this into my heart, into my lens of how I view any small or big situation, from when I stub my toe on the corner of the table, to when the train gets cancelled again and again, to when I don’t get accepted into a job I worked so hard for.

How do I see goodness in every one of those moments? How do I maintain gratitude at every one of these turns?

And that’s where the fiha khayr glasses come in!

The fiha khayr glasses

Till date, my personal method of trying to see goodness in all situations was to say Alhamdulillah when things go well and even when they don’t.

But my biggest struggle with this was to actually get to that phrase of alhamdulillah. It felt like it always came too late to me - after the rage and sorrow and every other negative emotion under the sun had its time to shine first!

That’s why this phrase really stuck out to me.

Fiha Khayr - ‘In this situation, there is goodness’.

Why?

Because a thing I noticed about brains is that they have their own automatic ‘Fiha’ mode on.

For when I stub my toes, my brain automatically thinks ‘In this situation, there is only pain, and I hate pain and …’

For when the train gets cancelled again and again, my brain automatically thinks ‘In this situation, there is only inconvenience, and I hate inconvenience…’

For when I don’t get the job I worked so hard for, my brain automatically thinks ‘In this situation, there is only sorrow and its horrible and…’

The brain is already on this automatic ‘Fiha Shar’ mode, so ready to just see the worst, and so its hard to jump straight to gratitude and patience. Its hard to jump straight to Alhamdulillah.

But fiha khayr?

Fiha Khayr acts almost as the buffer between the brains ‘Fiha Shar’ mode and being able to truly say Alhamdulillah.

Because when I stub my toe, and my brain jumps to automatically think ‘In this situation there is only pain’, I am able to use Fiha Khayr as a way to override my brain.

In that precise moment of the throbbing pain on my toe, I say out loud ‘Fiha khair’ - ‘yes in this situation, there is good’.

The brain is going to pause for a second in absolute confusion. Wait, there is good in this situation, it wonders.

But since these words have been uttered, it begins to search its memories to confirm it. 

And in this situation, it will find the memory of you reading that hadith that reminds you that any moment of difficulty removes sins from you. (You can read more of that here!)

And at that moment, your body automatically finds the words Alhamdulillah on its tongue, out of true gratitude.

Because how can it not be grateful to a Lord who is trying to look after its soul every moment.

Back to the car

And that’s how the mood in that room lightened up that day!

While we were muttering about the hassle of the car, I was thinking of the story of Fiha Khayr from the book, as a reminder for myself that this ‘hassle’ had to have goodness in it.

I just didn’t realise I’d actually said those words loud enough for my husband to hear too.

Because it was my husband who replied to it saying, yes you’re right, this might actually be better for us! And he goes onto casually list a number of ways why this sale falling apart could be good for us.

Suddenly, the room felt lighter. And so did our hearts.

We agreed we’d give the buyer a bit more time and if that didn’t work we’d just look for those buyers who’d previously called.

And then we carried on our day.

The new motto

I know it might all seem a bit far fetched but alhamdulillah its been a game changer for me. I find myself clinging onto this phrase now which is why I’d say my new motto is no longer just alhamdulillah but…

Fi ha khayr, alhamdulillah.

So sis,

If you sometimes find yourself struggling to feel positive about the different situations in your life, form your relationships, to your finances, to your work life, I pray you find comfort in this phrase like I did.

I pray this phrase opens up your heart from its constriction and helps you truly feel loved and taken care of by your Lord who sees and knows every moment of difficulty you go through.

—

Until next time,
Thasneema 🌻

PS. Anyone like the idea of putting this onto a hoodie! ☺️ I have been low-key trying this out on canva recently!