Saying Alhamdulillah in all situations

Saying Alhamdulillah in all situations!

Bismillah

walhamdulillah,

لَقَدْ كَانَ لَكُمْ فِي رَسُولِ اللَّهِ أُسْوَةٌ حَسَنَةٌ لِمَنْ كَانَ يَرْجُو اللَّهَ وَالْيَوْمَ الْآخِرَ وَذَكَرَ اللَّهَ كَثِيرًا

“There has certainly been for you in the Messenger of Allah an excellent example for anyone whose hope is in Allah and the Last Day and [who] remembers Allah much.” (33:21)

There are many sunan (plural of sunnah) that the Prophet sal Allahu alayhi wa sallam left for us to learn from and emulate. Unfortunately, many sunan have been forgotten and so we are not aware of them.

Recently going through some changes in my life, I remembered this sunnah that we should revivebi’ithnillah:

‏ ‏عن ‏ ‏عائشة ‏ ‏قالت ‏ 
كان رسول الله ‏ ‏صلى الله عليه وسلم ‏ ‏إذا رأى ما يحب قال ‏ ‏الحمد لله الذي بنعمته تتم الصالحات وإذا رأى ما يكره قال الحمد لله على كل حال ‏

Narrated from A’ishah radi Allahu anha, “When the Prophet sal Allahu alayhi wa sallam saw something that pleased him, he would say: Alhamdulillahil lathee bi ni’matihi tatimmus saalihaat, and when he saw something that displeased him, he would say:Alhamdulillah ‘alaa kuli haal. (Narrated in Sunan Ibn Maajah, classified as Saheeh according to Shaykh Albaani rahimahullah in Silsilatus Saheehah hadeeth 265)

الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ الَّذِي بِنِعْمَتِهِ تَتِمُّ الصَّالِحَاتُ Alhamdulillahil lathee bi ni’matihi tatimmus saalihaat means: All praise and thanks are only for Allah, the One who, by His blessing and favor, perfected goodness/good works are accomplished.

الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ عَلَى كُلِّ حَالٍ Alhamdulillah ‘alaa kuli haalmeans: All praise and thanks are only for Allah in all circumstances.

Let’s revive the sunnah of saying Alhamdulillah in all situations inshaAllah!

A life without meaning is not a life

A life without meaning is not a life

Here is the deal.

We have two clear choices on the path of being human.

1. We can choose the life of the banal and mundane. Wake up, eat, go to work, earn to buy stuff that we don’t need, eating crap that creates a toxic waste dump of our bodies, made by companies that really don’t care less, buying more junk and more shoes and more gizzmo’s because the last latest and greatest is now obsolete (12 months old), pay for services and insurance that don’t really do anything but create a shit load of money for the company….go home watch incredibly badly made time fillers on TV that somehow keep us perfectly numb, eat more rubbish, go to bed…and do it all again a few hours later. Repeat…for years. Years! At some stage we wake up, surrounded by all the shiny toys, the stuff that says we have made it, but inside we feel like crap, not just because we are probably close to needing a triple bypass having McMac’d ourselves to death, but because somewhere along the way we lost our way. We lost ourselves. We lost the part of us that found joy in watching a sun set, hanging with the kids, learning a new skill, helping a neighbour with their lawn, connecting with loved ones in conversations where the earth moves. We lost connection with the part of ourselves that wanted to do something grand with our lives. Or the part of us that wanted to serve and to do so with remarkable excellence.

2. Or we can choose a life that has meaning. Where we do stuff that matters. Really matters to us. “But I can’t afford to do that”…or what ever lame excuse we give. No time, too much risk, too much debt, too much hard work, not enough education…. A life of meaning doesn’t need money, or stuff. If Viktor Frankl could find meaning being incarcerated in Auschwitz for 4 years I am quite sure if we looked hard enough we might be able to find some meaning in our comparatively over privileged life. People living in what we call third world countries often live a life rich with meaning.They live life. If you have lost your way…then to find it…start with exploring your heart ache. Go to the places where your heart bleeds for something. Injustice, animals, kids, people not living a life of meaning, health…the more painful the heart ache the more likely you are in the right place.

Then choose to do one thing. One little thing that addresses the heart ache. And see how you feel for the doing of it. Learn, adjust, modify, repeat. You never know, one day you may wake up and realise by surprise that you have found your way home. Oh…and if all of us decided that we no longer wanted to buy junk, eat junk, read junk, work at a place that couldn’t care less, run by people who are only interested in their own stock pile..  and if we decided this because we want to live a life of meaning…then I guess we might just upgrade the world. We got the game we got because we play the game.

I would love to hear your comments here...

Who Understands the IoT?

Who Understands the IoT? 

         According to Cisco, there will be 13.5 billion connected devices in manufacturing by 2022. And JP Morgan’s Global Equity Research team has already pegged manufacturing with having the greatest Internet of Things (IoT) market potential. Although it’s difficult to accurately gauge the impact these technologies will have, it’s clear that experts are projecting it to be massive.

             But what do manufacturing leaders have to say about the IoT?

             Several months ago, LNS Research launched some new IoT survey questions that dig a little deeper into this topic. The study asks manufacturing executives and other senior leaders how the IoT is impacting their business today, as well as about their expected IoT investments going forward. What’s interesting is that almost half—43%—of these industry professionals indicated they still “don’t understand” or “know about” the IoT.

            Given the hype around the IoT, these numbers may seem a bit odd to some. But the emerging technologies have the potential to be broadly disruptive, making the potential applications appear daunting for many businesses, therefore this trend is likely to continue until after more proven and commonplace solutions surface in the coming years—and they will.

         In this post, we’ll drill down into this new IoT research data and share insights into what you should do if you fall into the “don’t understand” category.nd JP Morgan’s Global Equity Research team has already pegged manufacturing with having the greatest Internet of Things (IoT) market potential. Although it’s difficult to accurately gauge the impact these technologies will have, it’s clear that experts are projecting it to be massive.

         But what do manufacturing leaders have to say about the IoT?

      Several months ago, LNS Research launched some new IoT survey questions that dig a little deeper into this topic. The study asks manufacturing executives and other senior leaders how the IoT is impacting their business today, as well as about their expected IoT investments going forward. What’s interesting is that almost half—43%—of these industry professionals indicated they still “don’t understand” or “know about” the IoT.

        Given the hype around the IoT, these numbers may seem a bit odd to some. But the emerging technologies have the potential to be broadly disruptive, making the potential applications appear daunting for many businesses, therefore this trend is likely to continue until after more proven and commonplace solutions surface in the coming years—and they will.

              In this post, we’ll drill down into this new IoT research data and share insights into what you should do if you fall into the “don’t understand” category.

Attitudes toward IoT in Manufacturing

Although the number of respondents stating they “don’t understand” the IoT is substantial, almost 300 different individuals (and counting) have responded to these survey questions and this particular question offered seven options.

A combined 42% acknowledged having an interest in or understanding of the IoT. One in five reported being interested in but still investigating the impact. And 11% are rapidly pursuing IoT opportunities either internally, with customers, or in both regards. There seems to be somewhat of a split between executives who are learning about and experimenting with the IoT compared to those who don’t understand the technology.

Why Should You “Know About” the IoT

The IoT is expected to transform the way businesses operate. We’re already seeing use cases surface in manufacturing as well as in the consumer world, particularly with the servitization of products—in other words, enabling new service models whereby customer buy or rent a delivered result from a product instead of the product itself. And in the near future we’re expecting to see more use of intelligent sensors and devices in the shop floor environment, providing enormous amounts of new data streams that can be utilized up and down the value chain. Massively parallel and in memory big data analytics technologies, which are considered part of the IoT, are expected to provide insights into real-time performance, from which correlations can be drawn that were previously too resource-intensive to calculate.

The utility of the IoT may be as vast as your imagination, but here are a few potential connected device use cases for perspective:

• Quality Intelligence: Adding new quality variables and more precise data into real-time production monitoring and statistical process control to anticipate process variations
• Asset Management: Adding new variables for monitoring machine performance, predicting failures, and alerting workers
• Health and Safety: Equipping staff with connected wearables that monitor key health and safety indicators like body temperature or exposure to hazardous elements 
• Service: Gaining visibility into real-time product performance and diagnostics without having to rely on traditional on-site field service techniques
• Sustainability: Closely monitoring the usage of utilities such as water, air, gas, or steam with wireless intelligent gauges that offer remote information access

The idea behind nearly all IoT applications is to gather new, more finite types of information and data and then transform it into usable, contextualized intelligence, awareness, and collaboration.