“Your email came at the perfect time!”

Assalamu Alaikum.

Of course, there are other variations of this, such as:

“Your blog post came at the right time!”

“Subhan Allah, I was just thinking of calling you. Your call came at the right time!”

And so it goes.

We all know the drill. We’ve said it to someone (or someone has said it to us).

Of course, it’s usually the same story: We say “Alhamdulillah!” loudly and are very thrilled with said person who has sent the email/post/whatever at the perfect time.

Uh-huh.

A few questions:

1) Doesn’t everything happen at the perfect time anyway?

After all, Allah says:

“Verily, We have created all things with Qadar (Divine Preordainments of all things before their creation, as written in the Book of Decrees Al-Lawh Al-Mahfudh).” [Surah Al-Qamar (54) : 49]

2) Why are we so thrilled with this person?

He/she is just a means, right?

Do we mistakenly believe that this person was responsible for doing this thing at the right time?

No. Rather it was Allah , the All-Knowing, who was the one who guided him/her to do it.

3) Did we increase in gratitude to the One who was truly responsible for this?

Is gratitude just saying “Alhamdulillah”? No, it isn’t. True gratitude means increasing in obedience to Allah and enjoining others to be more obedient to Allah.

Did we become better slaves of the One who always comes to our aid?

So, the next time, we say: “It came at the right time!”

Let’s remember the following:

“And Allah is the Best of the planners.” [Surah Aal-Imran (3) : 54]

And let’s also remember to be grateful to the Best of Planners.