There's a monster under my bed, but don't worry, I think it's just me.
For the most part, I consider myself a fairly well put together person. Alhamdulillah, I’m not easily given to panic or woe-is-me-ism. Lately though, I find myself being ambushed by sudden, overwhelming feelings of hopelessness and futility. Am I depressed? Not nearly as much as I was last month or so. I think I’m just emotionally vulnerable. And here I am blogging about it, because sometimes the only way to conquer the monster under your bed is to put your head under there with a flashlight and see that it’s only an old pair of bunny slippers. I haven’t been able to drag the monster out of the dark yet (and to date, I’ve never owned a pair of bunny slippers) but the first step towards a solution is admitting that there is a problem. So I am. And here it is. I, Abez, deliberate Muslim and earnest (if not part-time) seeker of The Straight Path, suddenly find myself face-down in a pot hole when I thought I had been doing a jaunty two-step on the road to spiritual completion and peace. We all hit speed-bumps, but sometimes I feel like someone has laid out a trip wire. And thumb tacks. Yes, I know, the straight path is bumpy and uphill. It’s supposed to be that way. The easy path is the wrong one. It’s the one with the smooth, fluid, downhill descent into the pleasure of distraction. I could read books all day, I could numb reality with non-stop nonsense, I could fall face-first into the gooey decadence of self-indulgence and then I wouldn’t have to think about anything that stressed me out, because I wouldn’t have to *think*. And if I didn’t think, I wouldn’t worry. It would seem that I worry a lot. I worry about Khalid, his future, his teeth, that funny rash on his back, whether his pants are too tight, his shoes too small, his hair too long... And Iman- SubhanAllah- I spend hours worrying about her, but not as a mutually exclusive activity. I worry about her while doing other things- like when brushing her hair- how can I teach her to do hijab with passion and eagerness and the certainty that you can only have when the decision comes from both the mind and the heart? Will she be intelligent? Will she be a compassionate person? If she’s not, how can I teach her? Will she pray? Will she resent me for trying to make her? And then I worry about random people. I only have to step into the waiting room of my doctor’s office to have my mind suddenly awash with hopelessness- all these people waiting around me are worried too, they all need help, they all have something wrong, some things major, some things minor, all of them painful, many of them debilitating. Will they find purpose through their trials? Or will they think they were ok until they hit a speed bump, stepped on a thumb tack and then fell face first into a pot hole, where they then rolled over and found me laying next to them? On a side-note, the view from the pot hole can be amazing. If you just turn over, you can see the stars. But maybe this isn’t the side-note, maybe this is the whole point. Maybe I lose track of the destination while plodding along, staring at nothing but my feet. Maybe I need to get knocked to the ground so I can turn to the sky. I don’t know if this is entirely true, but I do know that I am never closer to Allah than I am when in pain, in fear, and in need. And in the closeness is a sweetness that you can’t find anywhere else, and that closeness is the direct result of desperation. I know I am suppose to stand up, thank Allah for the lesson, and keep on climbing, but sometimes I feel like my legs are giving out on me, or that there’s no way I’ll ever make it to the top. I lose hope, though Alhamdulillah, I have yet to lose purpose. Correction: I refuse to lose purpose. I will not lose purpose. Even if I’m laying in the dirt without the will to get up again, I will still know why I’m there and what direction I’m going to go in once I can find my feet. I need to remember, and God, please help me remember, that if fate gives me a black eye it’s because Allah ordered it. And there is good in it, provided I am willing to see it and that I am humble enough to admit that I deserved it, and Lord knows I have enough sins to warrant some expiation. God give me the strength to admit that Allah knows best, and that losing hope in anything good ever lasting for too long is losing hope in Allah’s Mercy, His divine will, and His greater purpose in all things. I can’t blame anyone but myself, even though sometimes my fits of hopelessness feel almost out of my control. One minute I’m ok, next minute I’m thinking about how hard all the day-laborers and construction workers have it, how they don’t see their families for years at a time and earn less money a year than most people earn in a month. And I’m thinking that it’s just not fair. Aha! I lose hope because it’s not fair. To them. Or to me. Oh boy. I didn’t know my spiritual angst was still a teenager. I bet if my discord had tiny feet, it would be stomping them right now. I’m pretty sure I haven’t whined ‘It’s not fair!’ since I was a baby-faced teenager arguing over how my brother got to stay out late on the weekends but I always had to be home before dinner. At some point I grew up and learned things like: - God is just, but people can be cruel and small
- This world is just a big board game with live pieces
- Allah will even out all the imbalances on the Day of Judgment, so all ‘unfairness’ is just temporary
- Setbacks, handicaps, physical flaws, mental deficiencies are a function of the hand you are dealt in a game we all play. And no one has all the aces anyway
And I also learned things like: - Allah has promised to not test anyone more than they can bear
- All pain, worry, illness, stress, etc- when handled with patience and faith, simply erase previous sins in addition to make you stronger
- Allah has promised refuge to those who seek refuge in Him
- And if you go to Him walking, He comes to you at speed
So now I need to add some new lessons. And it may be a statement of the obvious, but I think it helps round off the previous lessons nicely. Here it is: - Trying to be righteous is hard work
- When they said uphill, they really meant it
- Spiritual struggle can be quite a ... struggle
By Abez, The End. Labels: Autism, Islam, Medical Misadventures
SubhanAllah
One of the great things about not updating your blog regularly is that no one really visits it anymore. So you can write whatever you want to. Like this:
Lab Technician: Ah, a BHCG test, expecting a baby?
Me: No, having a miscarriage.
LT: Oh, uh- I'm sorry.
Me: It's ok.-Pained silence-Once upon a time I was in the US for Owlie’s wedding, and two days after arriving, I found out I was pregnant. And then, after four days of baby shopping, and quietly thinking of names, and imagining sweet little faces with HF’s big brown eyes, I found out I was having a miscarriage. And then I was on the next flight home, a week after I had arrived and a week before my original return. And here I am today. Blogging. Because it would seem that my blog fulfills many roles, one of which is catharsis. And I’m an extremely logical person, but my own brain is baffled by how deeply you can mourn something that was never yours and was never meant for you to begin with. I can’t say that I’ve lost a baby, because the baby was never mine. If Allah had willed that child for me, the entire world could not have withheld it from me. But He did not, and so the entire world can not grant it to me. And the miscarriage was not my fault, and could not have been caused by anything I did or by any medicine I could have taken. The doctor very kindly said so. Which was nice, because up until that point I had been mentally crucifying myself for taking my daily migraine medication. Never mind that I had no idea I was pregnant until three days before I miscarried. I’m a mom, I blame myself for things. The flip side of taking responsibility for your children is that you blame yourself when something happens to any of them, even an embryo that was never meant to be born. And you cry, and you cry, and you cry. And when no one is looking, and Abu Dhabi is flying past you at 155 kph with the highway roaring and the nasheed blasting, you cry when you remember what you’ve been trying so desperately to drown out. A few people know, and they ask about me because they care, not because they’re trying to stick their fingers into the gaping, bleeding, hole in my heart. I have to pull myself together and be polite, and patient, and coherent, and talk about things in terms of BHCG levels and non-viability and natural termination. I have managed to not cry in front of anyone but HF and the speed radars on the Abu Dhabi/Dubai highway, not because I’m being Stoic, but because I don’t want anyone’s pity, especially my own. I’m healthy, I’m ok, I am free from permanent physical effects of what was an early and natural miscarriage that required no medical intervention, chemical or surgical. I have two beautiful, amazing children and no reason to believe that I cannot have more, InshaAllah. I have the most loving, supportive, water-proof husband in the entire world, who not only knows what to do with a wife who is crying so hard she’s incoherent, but also to make her stop, and eventually, even smile. Allah hasn’t wronged me. He never has. And faith says that He never will. Healing is just a matter of time and patience. And being content with God’s will does not mean that I cannot allow myself to grieve. SubhanAllah, may Allah bless those who preserved the life and sunnah of the Prophet, so that fourteen hundred years after the death of Prophet Muhammad, we know what he said upon the death of Ibrahim, his 18 month old son. “"O Ibrahim, against the judgment of God, we cannot avail you a thing."
His son died in his lap, and when he passed away, the Prophet, with tears in his eyes, said “"O Ibrahim, were the truth not certain that the last of us will join the first, we would have mourned you even more than we do now." A moment later he said: "The eyes send their tears and the heart is saddened, but we do not say anything except that which pleases our Lord. Indeed, O Ibrahim, we are bereaved by your departure from us."
May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him.Logic and emotion are both part of human nature, and insane, frantic, overwhelming love for your children is part of a parent’s nature. I am allowed to be sad, but I am also required to fight through the blinding storm of grief and find the knowledge that Allah doesn’t test anyone more than they can bear, and all that’s required of me to pass this test is to keep faith and be patient. Verily we are God’s, and to Him we return. Inna lillahi wa inna ileihi rajioon Labels: Islam, Medical Misadventures, Mortal Wounds
When you get old, bits start falling off
I remember quite clearly the point at which I realized that teeth got worse when you got older. I was eight or nine, and we were still living in our apartment on Elmdale. I had been playing in the bedroom and I'm not sure whether I had come back from the dentist that day or whether it had been a few days before that, but I do know that I had not enjoyed it. I decided then and there, that when I was a grown-up I wasn't going to tolerate any of this drilling business. I was going to have all my teeth removed in one go and either a) wear dentures like Grandma did, or b) have new fake teeth screwed into my jaw. I'm not sure where I got the idea of fake teeth, but I did know that fake teeth didn't get cavities and therefore couldn't be subjected to a drilling. Then, as time progressed, other things starting going down hill- I got sick, I got chubby, I passed through the ugly adolescent years and came out on the other side of awkward young adulthood. I got migraines, acne, and a little down the road, my appendix removed. Then I moved into independent adulthood and got stress-induced gastritis, stretch marks, more migraine, and my knee torn up in a car accident. (If you're looking for me in Dubai, I'm the one with the headache, the limp, and the antacid in my purse. Also, two kids.) Through all this, I've carried with me a nagging, niggling discontent about the fragile nature of the human body. (I'm supposed to go at least fifty years with this thing, I thought, and it's falling apart now?) I managed to keep myself out of the realm of ingratitude by reminding myself that God never gave us warranties, but that was a just a bandaid, not a cure to the discontent. The good news is, I haven't started visibly aging yet, so I can't complain about crow's feet. The better news is, I've had an epiphany, and I think I'll be ok when the crow's finally do that rolling hoppity-skip into our world. Are you ready for it? The Epiphany? It's sort of obvious, and I know alot of people will wonder what took me so long and how I managed to not realize this ages ago, but still- it was an epiphany to me, so here it goes: Sons of Adam inveigh against [the vicissitudes of] Time, and I am Time, in My hand is the night and the day. This is Hadith Qudsi (a hadith where the Prophet, peace be upon him, said that Allah said "...") that basically takes my malcontent, crumples it into a little ball, and then drop-kicks it across the room. I'm not allowed to complain that my teeth are sagging and my bones are groaning and my bits are falling off because these are the vicissitudes of Time. They aren't proof of shoddy construction or lack of manufacturer warranty. They're not a flaw in the system, they are the system at work. The 'ravages of time' do their part in this world, which would be unfair, if this world was it. Alhamdulillah, it's not. This is the battle ground, the gauntlet, the litmus test of faith and fortitude, and as such, we do the best we have with what we've got. And what we've got is designed to fall apart, because that's part of the test. I read this Hadith years ago, and it was filed away without being fully synthesized. Back then, the " Vicissitudes of Time" seemed to be more like the rise and fall of civilizations maybe, or the loss of pristine beauty on earth due to man's presence, or the crushing erasure of life through natural disasters- and it's not that these too, don't fit into the description. It's just that my limited understanding came to the conclusion that things that tested your faith had to make mountains crumble or ecosystems perish, not just your teeth fall out. So yeah. In my tiny soul, in my petty universe, once upon a time, life wasn't fair because I got migraines and ulcers and had to pray sitting down because my knee was irrevocably damaged. But yeah, I've had my epiphany. I understand now, Alhamdulillah, that my health is just one of the cards I've been dealt by a Just and All-Knowing dealer. It's part of the game. When we all get up and leave the table, we'll be on the same terms- there will be no more sickness, no more trials, no more tests to pass. Man will stand alone with nothing but his deeds, his own heart, and his own soul as proof of how well he played the game. Regardless of the cards he was dealt. InshaAllah. Labels: Islam
I think I'm having a spiritual headache
Or maybe it's a sleep deprivation headache, I'm not sure. Either way, my head hurts, and I'm seriously reconsidering the direction that my life is taking. Case in point: I work too much, and I don't know why. I contract my work out on an hourly basis. In May I had 40 hours. In June, 60. July has just ended, and tomorrow I'll be sending my invoice for 42. I have this chart on the wall that supposed to make me work out and read Qur'an every day, and out of the 9 days it's been up, I have about a 50% success rate for both goals. Ok, maybe 45%. And I tell myself that I couldn't work out today because I didn't have the time. And why didn't I have the time? Because I was working. And why was I working? I don't know. Alhamdulillah, I don't need to work to feed my family. I'm not working for pocket money, because out of the maybe thousand dirhams I've spent in the last three months, none of it has been on myself. (A thousand dirhams is a little less than 300 dollars) I'm not a big shopper. Work is an intellectual stimulant as well as a challenge, and I enjoy learning new skills and figuring that there is one more thing I can do, and do well enough to get paid for, Alhamdulillah. However, most people don't turn to photoshop for intellectual stimulation, and I have plenty of other skillsets that are lagging behind. Like my Arabic skills, and my ability to focus on my prayer- Alhamdulillahi- presentation due tomorrow- rabbil alameen...) - and the frequency at which I actually get dressed in the morning and pretend to be presentable. I have a slight problem with work- I have a hard time stopping. I don't know how it happened, but I've become a workaholic, and pair this with being a full-time Momma, and you get me now- baby-chaser by day, PR Media designer by night, sleep deprived always. I shouldn't complain, because I do this to myself, and as HF reminded me a few nights ago- You always do this, you over do it! You get burnt out and you say you want to quit, you say this every month! I do actually. Usually around the end of the month too, when I'm pushing to finish everything that's supposed to be finished by the first of the next month, and then I finish it all, send my invoice, and count up the money I don't spend. Money is the means, but I can't remember what the end is. I've lost my focus. I can't remember what I'm doing here, apart from burning my candle at both ends. With a blowtorch. And I want to quit, but I hate disappointing people. It would be easier if my boss was unhappy, but he's not- the last meeting he opened with- I like your work, how can I get more of it? (I thought- I can't sleep any less, I'll go mad!) so I said- what else can I help you with? So now I have more projects to make more money to sleep less hours and frazzle more of my braincells for Big Corporate U- an entity that means nothing to me but seems to occupy 80% of my conscious thought. I have no problem working full time, I've done it before- and I have no problem with challenges, but being a full time mother is already a full time job, and the fact that work is taking away from my ability to focus on what's really important to me is bugging me. My priorities in life are my Islam and my family, but they're both being pushed out of place by work. I've let it happen, and I don't know how to make it stop. I need to outsource. That's what the consultant in me sez- it sez: invoice Corporate U for the project at N rate per hour. Hire someone else to do it for you at 80 percent of N. And there are some things I can do that for, but most things I can't. So that's not much of a solution, although I'm going to pay Hemmie to take care of the newsletter this month for me, and I'm going to pay her a hundred percent of N, and that should actually save me about five hours of work. Five hours would be a nice nap. Or a very intensely satisfying workout, followed by a thorough shower, a non-distracted salah and some quiet time with the Qur'an. And then some running around with Khalid without worrying about how many hours have gone by that I haven't spent on the next project due, or whether he'll nap long enough for me to mail the boss a status update. Like I said, I have a headache. Labels: Islam
Cheesecake and Strategic Negotiations
"Oh Ye who believe! Fear Allah and make your utterance straightforward. That He may make your conduct whole and sound and forgive you your sins; he that obeys Allah and His messenger, has already attained a great victory."
The Qur'an, Chapter Al-Ahzab (33) 70:71
So I came across this line today and it made me smile. It may be a reinforcement of what I already believe to be true: the best type of speech is honest and straightforward, but it's great see that and be able to go, "And look, God said so too!" On a side note, I had an imaginary conversation with Bebeface a few minutes ago that went something like this: Bebeface, who was no longer much of a Bebe, but around 16 and wanting to go hang out with the guys on the corner who stand around each other's cars and do whatever it is that teenagers do, comes up to me and says- Hey Mom, can I go hang out with the guys? And I put my cheesecake down (if I'm imagining things, I might as well add a piece of cheesecake) and say, Where to babe? Oh, we're just gonna hang out. On the corner there. And I picture what we see every night now- groups of young men- some in their late teens, smoking and drinking that alcohol-free malt that still looks like a can of beer that no one would really drink if it was packaged to look like just another soft drink. There are younger kids too, hanging around them, but not with them, at a distance great enough to be safe but not too far to be excluded from the vicarious coolness. And there will be a few cars with the hoods up, and a few guys looking inside and comparing things. And although there will be nothing distinctly wrong with the picture, there will be an outpouring of wrong- ness; the cigarettes, the near-beer, the fascination with fast cars that has little to do with engineering and more to do with drag racing, and then there's the hierarchy of coolness and bullying and the social pecking and punching order of youth when more than two of them occupy the same dimension in space. And then there's wondering what they're all doing out at 11:30 on a weeknight, and where they're going afterwards, and what their parents think they're doing. I can't hide Khalid from the world, and I can't hide the world from Khalid. I don't want him to get burned, but he has to know what fire is to be able to avoid it. And I wonder if I say no- will he give me some sort of smart-alecky answer? No Khalid, now ask me why. Aw Mommmm... why? There will be times in your life when you can't avoid people smoking around you, but this isn't one of them. There will be times when you can stay up late for a perfectly good reason with friends, but hanging out on the corner isn't one of them. If you want to hang out with your friends, do something tomorrow in the day time. If you need a ride or want to go somewhere cool, grab your dad and we'll plan something out that's a whole lot better than hanging out on the corner at 11. And last of all, if you just want to hang out, invite your friends over and just hang out. You know that smoking is a deathwish, and I wouldn't let anyone else rip your lungs out, so I'm not going to let you do it to yourself- Mom, that's gross- But it's true, so you know not to hang out with people who are smoking, even though some of your friends may smoke, they don't have to smoke around you. So that's a no? Yep. Want some cheesecake? No thank you. And Khalid sulks away and goes to his room. And I'm not sure if that went very well, because the end goal is not control, but education and guidance. There are basic human needs that make everyone tick, and for kids, the need to feel like a part of the gang (aka: social acceptance) can be overpoweringly strong. So I call Khalid back. Hey kid, let's have that conversation again. And this time, let's use strategic negotiation, ok? Mom, I would like to hang out with the guys, who are, at the moment, hanging out down the street. I say Ok Khalid, I recognize the validity of a. you wanting to hang out with your friends However, I have the following concerns: 1. The timing 2. The venue 3. Possible negative behavioral elements I would like for you to enjoy your friends' company in a time and place that doesn't infringe upon certain agreed-up boundaries, such a curfew and behavioral norms, how can we reach a solution that addresses both of our interests? Here, Khalid looks at me like I'm crazy, but because he's grown up with the principles of strategic negotiation (which HF and I try to use for all disagreements, even now) he knows how they work and what he needs to do in order for us to reach a compromise. He swipes a bite of my cheesecake and says: As per venue and negative behavioral elements, Sami is the only one who smokes, and he's not there right now because Hammoudi think he's a moron, and I know it's late, but if I could just go for twenty minutes, I can talk to the rest of the guys about meeting up tomorrow, at a venue that we both find satisfactory, during a time that fits well within curfew, and in a setting that minimizes the possibility of negative behavioral elements? And he smiles hopefully. I nod. And he comes home exactly twenty minutes later, and we arrange for he and his friends to come over tomorrow and hang out in the pool (imaginary cheesecake goes very well, poolside) after Maghrib. And I make secret plans to make them all volunteer in the cancer ward of a hospital for a few weekends, so they can see what lung and throat cancer does to your body, but that's another imaginary battle for another imaginary day. By Zeba, the end. Labels: BebeFiles, Islam
And furthermore...
Afterthoughts from last week's post on Hijab: There are no perfect hijabis any more than there are perfect Muslims. A woman wearing a hijab is not covering her head because she's reached the zenith of modesty and womanly goodness (Lookit her, thinking she's all holy...) she's covering her head because she is trying to be modest, to be recognized as a Muslim, and to be free from the otherwise imposed status of Everybody's Eye Candy. It's a bit of a universal confusion- I'm sure Christians wearing crosses may intimidate other Christians who don't, and the same with Jews in yarmulkes, and so on. And I'm sure that there are people out there who do wear their religion to show off, but I believe that for the most part, people wear these things to remind themselves, and also, because they are trying. I have a problem with labels. I would never, ever call myself religious. It would be an insult to religious people. I've actually been asked countless times- "So, are you a religious Muslim?" "Well," I say, very clearly remembering prayers I constantly struggle with, trees I've never planted and bridges I've knowingly burned, "No." "But you do that thing-" they say, pointing to my head. "Ah, this thing..." My scarf. Yeah, I wear a scarf. SubhanAllah. But that doesn't make me religious. It doesn't even make me a 'practicing' Muslim, because no one practices perfectly. If being called a 'Trying Muslim' didn't imply you were a difficult to work with and a wear on peoples' patience, I would be ok with that, because I'm not religious, I'm very imperfectly practicing Islam, and the most generous thing I can say about myself - without first checking if there are any dark, ominous, and possibly lightning-prone clouds nearby - is that I'm trying. So yeah, you meet hijabis who smoke, and hijabis who date, and hijabis who werk it like life is their catwalk, but just because they're hijabis doesn't mean their actions are any more or less unIslamic. Why is it that we're ok when a young Muslim woman shows up in tight jeans and no hijab, but if you add a hijab, we get really offended? Because people see hijab as a symbol of Purity (uppercase) rather than a symbol of attempted modesty, and they feel that by wearing tight pants, the girl is demeaning hijab. The truth of the matter is that the girl is demeaning the girl, not the hijab, not the religion, and not the concept. Her application is far from perfect, but are we all waiting to be perfect before we start practicing Islam? Because boy is that NEVER going to happen... Allah tells us that the person who reads/recites Qur'an fluently is rewarded for that goodness. And the person who reads with mistakes? Who has a had time? Who's struggling? That person is rewarded double, because they're putting all the more effort in to it. Allah knows who's trying, and a girl who's trying to be modest, but is obviously also struggling, should be encouraged, not condemned. And seeing her should make us look towards our own selves- why are we seeing what she does in such a negative way? Perhaps it's self-consciousness about our own imperfections that causes resentment, and therefore- nit-pickiness in the practice of people who seem more religious than we are? Allah knows best. Labels: Islam
Questions abt Hijab: Part I
Well, here's the hijab post that's been a long time coming. A sister, who asked not to be named, emailed me the following question- If a women wears a hijab how close is she suppose to stand next to an opposite sex? Can she touch him? You know like a pat here and a touch there? Can she handshake him? if yes, then can she also caress it? If she is an conversation with him, to what level her conversation is "hijab" appropriate? What are her limits in a conversation? Can she flirt and be part of manly jokes? What about her gaze? should she talk with her eyes or mouth? I know these question are dumb and to an extent i have the asnwers to these. the gist of the matter is that i do not wear a hijab and therefore i am no one to judge. But i know this much that all these things i have mentioned above are kind of a thorny issue. I just happen to know a girl who has each and every characteristics i have mentioned above and flaunts off the purity of a hijab. Please correct me if im wrong. First of all, I begin in the name of Allah, and seek refuge in Him, and ask that He guide me in my answer, and any good in it is from Him and any wrong or incorrectness is from my own self or Shaitan, and I ask Allah's forgiveness. Second of all, no questions are stupid. And now, on with the show. Hijab, as you are correctly assuming, does not start and stop at a head scarf. The head scarf, rather, is an extension of the modesty the Hijab as a set of beliefs and behaviors is meant to create in the wearer. In a nutshell, Hijab is this: Modesty in dress, action, speech and behavior As far as the dress goes, the hijab is meant to cover your head & hair (leaving your 'wajh' open, wajh meaning 'face') as well as fall over your chest. The rest of the body is also meant to be covered till the wrists and ankles, in clothing that is not tight or see-through, and doesn't over-emphasize your physical booty. or beauty, heh. The questions you're asking are about Hijab in speech and behavior, like- whether a girl in hijab is supposed to touch a guy. Well, irrespective of whether a Muslim woman wears hijab, she's not supposed to touch non-Mahram men. There will always be exceptions, most obviously in the case of say- a medical emergency or dragging someone out of harm's way, etc, but the general rule on touching is: Don't. Sometimes, the headscarf becomes a cultural choice, or someone else's choice, and when that happens, sometimes the scarf is a symbol of modesty without any real behavioural changes. And then sometimes, a girl just doesn't know better. I've been there, I started out wearing a hijab because I believed it was the right thing to do, but I wasn't fully informed about hijab as a complete package, so I wore short sleeves, hung out with my dude friends and was one of the guys. So it's best not to assume things about people- they could be crazy half-white, half-Pakistani punk teenagers with chains on their jeans and their scarves on sideways, hanging out with stoners after school but still going home to pray. They could be me ten years ago. And then, there's the issue of the nafs- the ego. Even as a hijabi, you sometimes wish you could get noticed. So you sometimes make yourself noticeable, even when you know you may be violating the spirit of hijab though not officially and necessarily the rules. Your head's still covered, but you know what you meant when you smiled that way. And you felt stupid for it later, and you sometimes feel like a hypocrite for wanting to be beautiful, be glamorous, be sexy because we live in a world where beauty, glamour and sex appeal are the end all and be-all of femininity. But that doesn't make you a hypocrite, that makes you a human, and Islam is not an all or none deal- there are NO perfect hijabis, any more than there are perfect Muslims. Some hijab is better than no hijab. A woman in hijab with lipstick on is still more covered than a woman in a mini skirt with lipstick on, and it is important, SO important, to enjoin good as well as forbid evil. If you see a hijabi who you think is practicing imperfectly or incompletely, first, see the good they are doing. Then, allow yourself to see the shortcomings as the inconsistencies that all Muslims have in faith, and see them as habits to be improved rather than yet another reason why you'd rather not wear hijab than be like one of those girls who wears hijab but still struts her stuff all over the dang place. The gist of the original question seems to be that of hijab in action, or the lack thereof. We are all incomplete. There are those of us who look the part but don't act it. There are those of us who act the part, but don't dress it. To try to place one aspect over the other in importance is like trying to figure out which one is more necessary to make the color orange- red, or yellow? The other question I was asked was; Where exactly in the Qur'an is hijab mentioned? In Surah Noor (24), ayah 31, Allah says:
"And say to the believing women that they cast down their looks and guard their private parts and do not display their ornaments except what appears thereof, and let them wear their head-coverings over their bosoms, and not display their ornaments..." verse continues here
Arab women of the time were already covering their heads, but they were tying their scarves behind their necks. They had it half-way right, and so Allah revealed the instruction that their head scarves were to fall over their chests as well. The details of hijab as a full set of behaviours- modesty in action, speech, etc are found in numerous hadith, which, if anyone needs me to find, I can InshaAllah, but I'm not posting them here at the moment. (It's 2am) So I hope that answers your questions, Sistahz, and if I've missed anything out or if anyone else has comments or feedback or heck, more questions, the comment box is right down there. I'll try to check it regularly, though Bebeface and I are in Doha at the moment, wallowing in five-star luxury on our first business trip with HF, having a great time but also facing certain spiritual hurdles that I will try to blog about soon InshaAllah, before we leave the day after tomorrow. (Our hoity-toity dessert had an odd tangy flavor that turned out to be Bailey's Irish whiskey, and now we feel sad) Salaams from Qatar! -Abez Labels: Islam
This is the Captain speaking...
 Every now and then I decide I've been a wicked sloth monkey. This is a phrase my mother coined that I believe combines all the worst elements of the evil flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz and the deadly sin of Sloth. As far as eating according to the Sunnah, as far as working out, as far as reading Qur'an and praying Fajr and giving an overall damn about my personal and spiritual maintenance- I've been a very bad sloth monkey indeed. I'm still holding on the ten more post-baby pounds, I can't remember the last time I did a push-up, there's a layer of dust on my Qur'an so thick that opening The Book may require an archaeological dig... It's sad, but the good news is, I'm still Captain of the LazyShip Abez, and I say we're going to change course! I know, I know, I do this often, and the reassuring this is, it works. Considering how often (hu)man slips up, one should be willing to change course however many times necessary to keep the ship from going into the part of the map that says Thar Be Monsters. One should be willing to take correction, to admit mistakes, and if necessary- to make charts. I have a tendency to make charts. I have charts from 1996 until 2000 that count the number of prayers missed a day, every day. They are all titled, "Abez Is An Idiot," but they mean that in a good way, in a gentle way that means that if I miss prayer for anything less than a coma, I'm an idiot. No water? I can do tayummum. No masjid? All of the earth is a place of worship. No time? Generally, honestly, there's no such thing as no time. How many minutes does it take to say just the Fard- just the basics of prayer? Five? And how long do I spend surfing the net, taste-testing cereal and installing crooked bookshelves in my bedroom? Too Long. If I can just pray first, just pray before I spend an hour and a half realizing I have the wrong drill bit for cement, then I won't have to suddenly realize (with dust on my hands and an oddly shaped hole in the wall) that I only have ten minutes left until Asr time begins. I digress. I made a chart. Because I do better with achievable, short-term goals, it is divided into two one-week sections. Each day has a field for Working Out, Reading Quran, and Drinking A litre of Water a Day. The more water you drink, the less hungry you feel, and the easier it is to eat according to what your body needs as compared to what your stomach wants. Starting today, Monday January 8, as soon as I finish this blog, I have to do 30 min of reading/Qur'an, 30 min of working out, and fill a big water bottle and carry it around with me so I drink from it all day. Life is an ongoing process, and Self should always be a work in progress. None of us are perfect, but all of us could be better, InshaAllah. Labels: Islam
Forbidden frut, thy name is Skittles
 Back in the eighties, when leg warmers were hot and orange lipstick was cool, Abez was a wee little Muslim kid with a weird name that no one else had and dietary rules that none of her friends followed. She wished, above all things, that her name had been Diana, and that she could eat Skittles. Skittles, you see, used to be made with that devious evil- Pork Gelatin, and no one but Infidels ate them. ;) (Shout out to my favorite infidel- Hi Mom! :D) It's interesting to note that most Muslims, regardless of their level of practice, will not break the no-pork rule. I've met Muslims who drank at meals, danced till they dropped and ran amok on beaches in bikinis, but they still wouldn't eat pork. But I digress. Skittles were forbidden fruit, and in my 9-year old eyes, they epitomized everything that being a Muslim unfairly held back from me. Couldn't eat Oreos, couldn't have McNuggets, Twinkies are still haraam... Life was unfair and I can very distinctly remember sitting in the park outside of our apartment in Chicago and staring dejectedly at an empty Skittles wrapper that some other, luckier kid left on the ground. Then we moved to Pakistan for a few years and I had other things to worry about. Skittles were forgotten, for a while at least. Fast forward to 1994, and a 14 year old Abez in MCC, the Muslim Community Center, staring in shock at another kid eating Skittles. In the masjid. Man, it's one thing to eat pork, but to eat it in the masjid? That was a double whammy. I asked what the heck was up. Didn't you know Skittles have pork in them? No they don't said another 14 year old. We read the wrapper. I was blown away. The ingredients in Skittles had been changed while we were out of the country. I tasted Skittles, finally. Fast forward to this post, and a 26 year old Abez with feet up in the computer chair and a pack of Skittles on the desk. Believe it or not, I have only eaten Skittles a handful of times in my life. As I finish this bag I remember why- they taste fake and they get stuck in your teeth. Not that that stops me from finishing the bag. Oh no. The mental association that I have of Skittles with All Things Wonderful That Muslims Can't Have from when I was a child pushes me to finish the bag, to make up for past, lost opportunities. It's bizarre, really, and sad that being raised as a dietarily practicing Muslim (if little else) in the US left me with emotional baggage that I wasn't able to understand until I was much, much older. As an adult I can say things like, "Of course I wouldn't let my child go around eating pork. As Muslims, we should do our best to live by the rules that Allah has given us, and children may not understand why, but until they're older, they can at least understand that they must." Yep, that's the kind of thing that adult Abez sez. And then the kid inside (who insists that the Skittles were wonderful) says that no one should have to live in a world where they're wrongly denied simple pleasures. And the adult in me rolls her eyes and sez see, this is why kids are not in charge. Life is not about pleasures, simple or complex, and to say that no one should be denied their pleasure is the basis for a completely amoral society. As uptight as it sounds, this is the truth. As a child, it was Skittles. As a teenager, it was boyfriends. As a young adult, it was the sex and drugs that everyone else seemed to be having a great time with. There are pleasures, unfortunately, that have more detriment than benefit for society, and they are haraam for that reason- not because Islam has something against fun or enjoyment. You're allowed to eat sweets, but pork isn't clean. You're allowed to have friends, but never let the people you hang out with push you towards wrong. You're allowed to love, but do so cleanly, and with commitment, and within a marital contract that protects both parties and helps to ensure their rights. This is what grown-up Abez sez, but the little kid in Abez nods, pretends to understand and then whispers thank God they made Oreos halal.I wonder whether I will be able to explain this concept to Bebeface when he is older. Will he understand why, if he goes to a non-Muslim friend's house, he won't be able to eat the pork pies? The bacon bits? The ham sammiches? Will he be ok with that, or will he too resent his parents for imposing rules he doesn't understand in the name of a religion that he is too young to make sense of yet? Every child must be taught that they can't have everything they want. That's life, that's restraint, that's normal. But will my children negatively connect that to Islam? Will Khalid wish his name was Diana too? I hope not. I suppose that's one reason why I always want to live in a Muslim country. Note: I don't say Islamic country for a very big reason; No community is "Islamic," per se. People are people, human beings are all a mix of good and bad practices, and no one is completely virtuous or completely evil. A man who prays five times a day may still be a jerk to his friends and a complete jerk may pray five times a day, you know what I'm saying? (Think about it) If you go into a Muslim community expecting it to be completely moral and perfect, you will become disappointed and bitter. Boys will still sneak girly mags to school and smoke in the bathroom. Girls will still sneak out and maybe take their hijabs off when they get to the mall. So now you say, "If there's no difference between an "Islamic" community and everywhere else, then why bother? Well, the difference between a Muslim community (a community that is predominantly Muslim) and everywhere else is that morality is, a least, the expected norm. Of course, there will be people who drink and people who have sex but they will be people who do so in secret or do so to the disappointment of the community. Compare this to 16 year olds who do this with their parents' consent and make a big huge deal of it, so much so that the Muslim kids get jealous and wonder why they couldn't go to Prom, too. I lost my train of thought. Believe it or not, I was thinking about Oreos. Then I was wondering whether it would be proper to make a reference to pedophilia or homosexuality or drug abuse or any other 'pleasures' that certain pedophiles, homosexuals, or drug abusers feel they are wrongly denied by society. I'm not sure yet. I was going to draw a parallel, but it seemed wrong to taint Skittles with an association to marijuana. New Paragraph: Bebeface is still young, and fortunately, still asleep. Without his dedicated snoozing, this blog would not be possible. I suppose I will have to cross the bridge of forbidden fruit when we get there, and I pray I can do so without making my son feel deprived and resentful of the religion that sets him apart and the funny name that prevents him from being just like everyone else. May it set him apart as a good man. May he never, ever be just like everyone else. Ameen. Labels: Islam
Ramadan or the Lack Thereof, Part I
Once upon a time, Ramadan was really, really sacred. Owlie and I read Qur’an aloud each night, broke our fast on as little food possible, had reasonably small dinners and felt light and alive and grateful. This Ramadan is hugely disappointing, I feel like a Ramadan Failure. I’m not fasting because I need to nurse bebeface. That in itself does not at all make me a failure. Alhamdulillah, Allah knows His creations well, and allows certain exceptions to the fast, nursing mothers included. I will make the entire month of fasts up when I can, but as the days pass one after the other, I feel more and more as if I’m missing something that I can never get back. I feel, well... almost sore about it. I feel left out at Iftar time; me munching on dates then is not what it used to be. The first date at Iftar, the first bit of sweet, soft fruit that you put in your mouth is better than a hundred dates in any other month. That warm little cup of tea used to make up for hours of self-denial in its first sip. Iftar was quiet and contemplative and, for lack of a better word, magical. It used to be that Ramadan passed slowly. The first few days were agonizing, of course, but after a week or so, they had a certain, gradual sweetness to them. You counted the days of Ramadan not as being closer to the end of deprivation, but as being nearer to the happiness of Eid. I remember an Eid spent in Islamabad when it was just Owlie and me praying Eid Salah at Faisal Masjid. Now, we come from a very ‘Suck it in, Walk it off, If you lose you leg, don’t come crying to me’ kind of family, but we let all the force fields down after Eid prayer and give each other happy, sincere hugs. I remember that hug, I miss it. I used to read Qur’an. I used to open its pages and read and re-read the lines until I registered them, understood them, thought about them. It was slow going, but speed was not the issue, comprehension was. I used to pray Fajr. Now, a combination of odd baby-related sleep habits plus laziness and growing spiritual apathy on my part mean I pray a handful of Fajrs a month. It’s embarrassing to say, but what purpose would it be to hide it? Everything I do, and don’t do, will come out before every human ever born on the Day of Judgment. Blogistan, compared to All of Humanity, is peanuts, and compared to God, Humanity is dust. -to be continued- Labels: Islam
Ook, ook?
Good news: I'm wearing a pair of my old jeans. Bad news: I can't feel my legs. I am, at the moment, 25 pounds away from my previous weight and I don't feel intimidated by the challenge. I have rediscovered an old superpower- I am the Captain of My Stomach. My position as Captain was awarded years ago, but I had let control of the ship slip into the hands of the monkey that just happens to be aboard all self-respecting pirate ships. Incidentally the monkey (like all self-respecting monkeys) wanted nothing but bananas. The monkey didn't care whether the way it was going was dangerous or unhealthy or silly looking in jeans that fit just last week, it just wanted bananas. It's not like monkeys can read, so of course the monkey wasn't using a map (stupid monkey) so the monkey was steering the ship into Thar Be Monsters but the Captain (who had just eaten an extra helping of bananas) was too lethargic and too out of shape to do anything about it. After a time we found ourselves in the uncharted waters of 50 pounds overweight. Don't get me wrong, I like bananas too. Who doesn't like the occasional chocolate-dipped banana? And who wouldn't want that chocolate-dipped banana to be rolled in peanut butter and deep-fried? I digress. As Captain of my Stomach, I had to take the ship's wheel away from the unruly stomach-monkey. (Who in their right mind lets a monkey steer a ship anyway?) It was time to try and eat according to the Sunnah. No human being fills a container to worse effect than he fills his own stomach. It is sufficient for a human being to have a few bites to keep himself fit. If he must eat then let him use one-third for food, one-third for drink and one-third for breathing. -Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him. Have you ever tried to eat according to the Sunnah, filling 1/3 of your stomach with food, 1/3 with water, and leaving 1/3 empty? It's surprisingly difficult to tell yourself that you're done eating long before you feel full, and that the whole idea is that you never feel full because you never fill yourself to capacity. Our whole lives we're told to eat until we're full (Are you done eating? Are you full?) and we celebrate by stuffing ourselves because a full stomach is equated with happiness and contentment. The truth is that a full stomach means you've eaten about double what you needed to, and caving to the demands of you appetite means that your brain (who knows better) is subservient to your stomach monkey (who demands more). For me, humoring my stomach is a form of weakness, a lack of will power, and a backsliding into jaahil eating practices that took years to train out of me. Eating according to the Sunnah is not a diet or a temporary change of habits, it is a permanent way of rethinking your relationship with food and how much you need of it. Try it, and when you finally succeed, you'll be amazed by how light, how alert, and how extremely different you feel. It will take some doing, but come on, who's in charge, you or the monkey? Labels: Islam
Jabr & Qadr
A lot of very interesting questions and issues of theology have come up in the comments of my last post. I begin in the name of Allah and seek refuge in Him, and pray that the answers I give are based on truth. Anything good or correct I may write is from the Grace and Mercy of Allah, anything bad or incorrect is from my own ignorance or the influence of Shaitain, from whom I seek refuge. Wayfarer said:See, people always say "make dua for me or pray for me" and i do but in the end i don't think it matters because Allah's plan is set right? Like one friend said "make dua for me when you are having your baby because women are most sinless at that point." She is unable to have children and madly wants one. In my head i'm thinking yeah i can make dua but perhaps this is Allah's test for you. He doesn't want you to have children. So going with your thinking...chappati's, ropes around the neck and all that jazz, how is prayer different? Hasn't Allah already decided these things for us so why supplicate except for forgiveness - and other things He hasn't decided on yet if that is the case? Same with asking for protection of our loved ones. To what degree can we ask for? If their lives will be taken when it is set as the Qur'an says, what good does it do to ask for their safety? This has been a big question of mine since i converted to Islam and I'm glad you spoke of it because no one ever answers my inquiry with a serious thought. I'd like to hear your position on prayer as it relates though... It was a big question of mine too, and I think it was only recently resolved for me. A few weeks ago I attended a lil Islamic mini-lecture. The topic was dua, and the woman who spoke did an amazing job, MashaAllah. The question of Jabr & Qadr (free will & predetermination) has existed for as long as man has, in his free will, wondered about it. Alhamdulillah, because scholars have been writing about it for such a long time, there is a rich body of work on the subject. Most of us simply don't know that it exists and don't know that we can access it though. But yeah, as I was saying, because people with real knowledge have addressed the topic, I don't have to write my own shpiel. I can simply convey what has already been said: The first principle which Islam lays down in regard to Taqdir is that man is neither completely the master of his fate nor is he bound to the blind law of predestination. The idea that Allah has a foreknowledge of everything that He created and the events unfold themselves exactly according to it, does not imply that human beings have been completely deprived of the freedom of action. The foreknowledge of God is an acknowledged fact, but it should not be interpreted in the sense of predestination, for if we do so we shall have to conceive of eternity as a storehouse of ready-made events, from which they drop one by one like particles of sand in a glass hour. MSA-USC Intro to translation of Sahih Muslim, Book 33 The companions of the Prophet, may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, asked him why, if their final destinations (hell vs. heavan) were written, should they bother doing good deeds? Why not just rely on what was written in their destiny? The Prophet's response was, " Act, for everyone is facilitated what he intends to do." This hadith has been transmitted on the authority of Jabir b. Abdullah with the same wording (and includes these words): "Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) said: Every doer of deed is facilitated in his action." (Sahih Muslim, Kitab-ul-Qadr) Other times the Prophet answered this question with the following verse from the Qur'an: Then, who gives to the needy and guards against evil and accepts the excellent (the truth of Islam and the path of righteousness it prescribes), We shall make easy for him the easy end and who is miserly and considers himself above need, We shall make easy for him the difficult end". (XCii. 5-10). Obviously, what we think of as Qadr is not "predestination" in the restrictive, binding sense that we have no freedom of action. Otherwise, what would be the point of giving us rules? Of giving us a test if we had no hand in our own results? We do have a will of our own, and Allah refers to it many, many times in the Qur'an. ...So he who wills may take to his Lord a way of return by obeying his commandments. Quran: 78:39
So fear Allaah as much as you are able and listen and obey... Quran: 64:16
Allaah does not charge a soul except with that within its capacity. It will have the consequence of what good it has gained, and it will bear the consequence of what evil it has earned... Quran: 2:286 -IslamWeb
The will of man does exist, and yet the will of Allah is all-encompassing. How do we explain the co-existence of both wills simultaneously? Man's limited free will exists because Allah has allowed it, and it is limited in the sense that man's will is subject to God's. You may 'will' to sprout wings and fly, but good luck buddy. Allah wills for His creations what He wants, and since His supersedes yours, you may never get off the ground. Or more realistically, you may 'will' to take your car from point A to point B, and you may do everything in your abilities (your abilities also being allowed to you by the will of God) but God willed that someone else should crash into you somewhere in the middle and you never make it to your destination. There's a difference between your will and God's. You're only judged on what you do, not what happens to you. It's the difference between poking yourself in the eye with a fork deliberately or having a fork fly at you in a freak accident. No one will call you self-destructive in the second case, because it's not like it was your fault or will. Belief in Al-Qadr ...does not provide an excuse for mankind to sin or abandon what they are obligated to do. This excuse can be refuted by the following seven arguments...
Allaah says: "Those who associated with Allaah will say: 'If Allaah had willed, we would not have associated [anything] and neither would our fathers, nor would we have prohibited anything.' Likewise did those before deny until they tasted Our punishment. Say: 'Do you have any knowledge that you can produce for us?' You follow not except assumption, and you are not but falsifying." [Quran 6:148]
The disbelievers did not have a valid excuse when they said that what they did was according to Al-Qadr. If this excuse was valid, then why will Allaah punish them for their sins?
"The future certainly pre-exists in the organic whole of God's creative life, but it pre-exists as an open possibility, not as a fixed order of events with definite outlines."
So now that we know we're not limited by the fact that Allah already knows what we're going to do, we have the freedom to ask for things, don't we? "And your Lord says: Pray unto me: and I will hear your prayer" -Qur'an 40:60 We can petition God, as God has told us to, for our needs and wants, for guidance, for security, for peace. For a new shoelace even. Allah has said that He hears all prayers, and even the ones we don't consider to be "answered" according to our limited knowledge of what we think is good for us are not "wasted." The Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him said: Any Muslim who supplicates to Allah in a Du'a which contains no sin breaking of kinship, Allah will give him one of three things: either his Du'a will be immediately answered or, it will be saved for him in the hereafter, or it will turn away an equivalent amount of evil (from him)" The companions said "so we will ask for more" he replied, "Allah is more [generous]." at-Tirmidhi, AhmadSo there's always a point to making dua, and because not only does it bring you closer to Allah, it also benefits you in ways that you simply may not be able to understand or see. ...'protection' and 'predestination', both are the doings of the Almighty, as He alone does as He wills. As far as the slave of Allah is concerned, his responsibility is to make du'a, and then proceed in the direction of his choice, as that will be best for him. Wayfarer said: btw...hope that didn't sound like i don't believe prayer and supplication duas work because i do. I'm just talking about things that are predetermined like pregnancy, death, safety etc. It also doesn't stop me from praying for the safety and health of all my loved ones and even the other stuff - just in case. All things are 'predetermined,' not just pregnancy, death, safety, etc if you translate predetermination as being within Qadr- as being within the will and knowledge of Allah. And yet, we make dua because Qadr is not a limitation on man, it is simply another proof of God's magnificence and the completeness of His knowledge and power.
(It was reported that a man who was caught stealing was brought to 'Umar bin Al-Khattaab, may Allaah be pleased with him, who ordered that this man’s hand be cut off. The man said: "Wait, O leader of the believers! I only stole because this was in the Qadr of Allaah." 'Umar, may Allaah be pleased with him, replied "And we are amputating your hand because it is in the Qadr of Allaah." Ha ha.)
I hope that answers your questions Wayfarer. As for the pregnant women being without sin or having reduced sin, I looked but was unable to find any hadith mentioning that. I could be wrong, and Allah knows best, but as a pregnant woman m'self, I don't feel too terribly holy. I slept in and missed Fajr more than once this week alone. It was my fault entirely, it had nothing to do with pregnancy. The Bebe I carry is sinless, not me, and I don't know that the act of carrying a child itself is enough to wipe my slate clean or excuse any sin I indulge in. Although it is true that suffering, borne with patience and faith in Allah's will, serves to erase sin (by virtue of said patience), I'm not that much inconvenienced, even if I am starting to look like I've swallowed a basketball, heh. So about being 'most sinless' at this point, I'm pretty sure I had less sin when I was a Bebe m'self. Allah knows best. Labels: Islam
La hawla wa la quwwata illa billah
"Whatever of Mercy (i.e. of good), Allah may grant to mankind, none can withhold it, and whatever He may withhold, none can grant it thereafter. And He is the All-Mighty, the All-Wise." (Qur'an, 35:2) The Qur'an states that if God wills something for you, no one can withhold it, and if God chooses to withhold something from you, no one and no thing can grant it. It makes sense, no? Without God we don't even have existence, how then can we pretend to have any power or ability unless it comes from him? We acknowledge that because He is the Source, it is foolish to seek from anywhere else. Creations have no power over the Creator. There is no power nor strength except with God, so why then, do we put our faith and our hopes in people and things other than Him? Why do we feel that certain objects will possibly entice (or coerce?) God to grant a prayer that we feel hadn't been answered so far? If nothing and no one in the world can withhold what Allah chooses to grant you, then why are we waving around holy chapattis and tying black strings around our childrens' necks? That black string, btw, is called a tavees, and people take verses of the Qur'an or write Allah's name on a piece of paper, sew it into a black piece of cloth (because black is holier than other colors?) and tie it around the necks of their children to protect them from harm. The power of this tavees is apparently stronger than that of God, because is this not a better, more surefire measure than simply asking God to protect your children? I mean, maybe God had intended to let your child get a cold, but then you tied a tavees around the kid's neck and now God has been enticed/coerced into changing His mind? Astaghfirullah. Or hey, maybe you've had a bad fiscal year and someone tells you that you need to burn some chili peppers in your house while reciting verses from the Qur'an. So you've already been making dua and you feel it's not working? Chili peppers also have the power to change your fate. God may have been testing you with a tough year, as He said he would, but chili peppers can change that because chili peppers are yet another way of making God reconsider His will. You thought they were just hot? Oh no, they're also Powerful and Mighty. We know it's wrong to lend divine power to people, it's easier to say that the dirty man in the green satin has no power to either change or thwart God's will. But why is it not wrong to try 'curing' things with burnt peppers and chapattis? Or a black goat sacrificed in the moonlight on a Friday facing East and reciting Surah Fatiha?
"If Allah touches you with hurt, there is none can remove it but He; and if He intends any good for you, there is none who can repel His favor which He causes it to reach whomsoever of His slaves He will, and He is the Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful." (Qur'an, 10:117) We are all linked to God through our hearts, our thoughts, and our prayers, and there is nothing more direct, more "powerful" than asking Him for help. If you've been asking for something you haven't gotten yet and you feel it's time to take stronger, holier measures and break out the green peppers, what are you basing your actions on? Do you feel that God owes you something and that perhaps you should take stronger measures so that He grants it? Do we know something that God doesn't, or are we just hoping to get our way with the Creator? "If Allah helps you none can overcome you, and if He forsakes you, who is there, after Him, that can help you. And in Allah (alone) let believers put their trust." (Qur'an, 3:160) We must not let impatience with our trials lead us to the bizarre cultural form of shirk of associating foodstuff with our worship of God. We must also be wary of the shirk of drinks (make a prayer, blow on a glass of water and drink it, your prayer will be answered?), both hot and cold (try with an espresso?) Beware also of associating a certain location in your worship, because there are people who tell you that a prayer at such and such a grave will be answered, guaranteed. What guarantee are they talking about? Whose guarantee is it? The guarantee of the curator of the shrine, whose word supercedes God's?
"And whosoever fears Allah and keeps his duty to Him. He will make a way for him to get out (from) every (difficulty), and He will provide him from (sources) he could never imagine." (Qur'an, 65:2-3)
There is no power nor might except with God. Beware the outrageous belief that man can, with the power of worldly objects, change God's mind about what's been willed for him. Labels: Islam
What the Muslim world needs is more chapatti
There's a tv channel called QTV- Qur'an tv- upon which there's a sort of 'ask the scholar' type of program. People call in with their problems and a learned man sitting off-camera advises them. Yesterday's program was rather interesting. Woman caller: I have a problem with my son, he's not disobedient, but he sleeps all day and he stays up all night. What should I do?
Moderator: This is a common problem among our youth these days, what do you recommend?
Learned man: When you wake him up for breakfast, make him a chappati and write 'Ya Allah' over it with your finger seven times. Then feed it to him.
I'm sure there's a logical reason for this. The logical explanation must be that chapatti has hyper-religious powers that we don't. Even though Allah states that He is nearer to us than the jugular veins in our own necks, chapatti can bring Him even closer. That's how to bring your teenager nearer to God, feed him God. And if you feel your prayers about your son have been going unanswered, then just address God on a chapatti, because despite the fact that Allah is All-Hearing and All-Knowing and listens to our quietest prayers and hears our secretest thoughts, chapatti is still better at getting His attention than we ever could be. Such wonders from a home-made flatbread. I wonder what miracles one could work with a jalebi?  Auzubillah. Labels: Islam
To a new Muslim and an old friend.
AssalamuAlaikum Luv!!! I would have replied earlier but I've been meaning to sit down and really, really reply with all me brains to ye. However, seeing as how I'm never going to have all of something that I never had, heh, I'll just begin. Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah, welcome to Islam luv, and welcome to all the same questions and the confusions and sometimes doubts that we all have. *hugs* Faith is never a surety. If it were, they wouldn't call it faith, they would call it 'Duh,' and the test we're all taking right now would be rigged. :p About the severity of hell: You may not know this, but for every single time that hell is mentioned in the Qur'an, heaven is mentioned. They are referred to in equal numbers, and correspondingly, hell is as awful as heaven is amazing. The severity of hell is scary, you're right, and it may seem harsh because we think 'who really deserves that?' We forget a few things though. "When God decreed Creation He pledged Himself by writing in His book which is laid down with Him: My mercy prevails over my wrath." -Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) Hadith Qudsi Number 1. First, God promises, He has pledged Himself in fact, that His Mercy will be stronger than His wrath. That said, God, who is the best of Judges, and the knower of everything, knows who really, really deserves Wrath with a capital W. I may be mistaken, and Allah knows best, but a few types of people come to mind. (those who order genocide, murderers of entire nations, warlords, tyrants, mass murderers, unrepentant child molesters, etc.) I'd type out the name of a specific German WWII personality, but only God can judge people. Now, because God is the best Judge, you have to trust that no one, absolutely no one will get hell who didn't deserve it. After all, what reason have you to doubt God's word? Has He ever lied to us? No. God speaks only the truth, and God says hell is severe but nowhere does He say that people will be treated undeservedly harsh. Alhamdulillah. In fact, many many people will be treated undeservedly gently, and they'll get into heaven because God's Mercy prevails over his wrath. Take this Hadith Qudsi (I'll explain what a Hadith Qudsi is in a sec.) "A man from among those who were before you was called to account. Nothing in the way of good was found in him except that he used to have dealings with people, and being well-to-do, he would order his servants to let off the man in straightened circumstances [from repaying a debt.] He (the Prophet) said that Allah said: We are worthier than you of that (generosity) Let him off." Imagine that, a guy who has no good deeds at all, nothing good in him found at all, except that he would forgive poor people who owed him debts. So God released him from his debt of sin. There's also a hadith that mentions a prostitute who, seeing a thirsty dog standing at a well, fills her slipper full of water and gives it to the dog. For that kindness, God forgave her sins and granted her paradise. God makes it ridiculously easy for man to earn blessings, "Allah has written down the good deeds and the bad ones. Then He explained it [by saying that] he who has intended a good deed and has not done it, Allah writes it down with Himself as one full good deed, but if he has intended and done it, Allah writes it down with Himself as from ten good deeds to seven hundred times, or many times over. But, if he has intended a bad deed and has not done it, Allah writes it down as one full good deed, but if he has intended it and done it, Allah writes it down as one bad deed." -Hadith Qudsi 16 So here's the breakdown- 1. You intend to do something good, you get the full blessings of having done it regardless of whether it gets done.{bonus!} 2. You actually go through with it, and the deed is written for you as ten good deeds, or seven hundred, or however many times over Allah wants to multiply it for you. {bonus!} 3. If you intend a bad deed but then change you mind, you actually get a full good deed. {bonus!} 4. if you intend a bad deed and do it, it counts as just one bad deed. Just one. No multiplying. Allah is overwhelmingly generous in his Mercy, but perfectly Just in his punishment. You'll be rewarded many times over for doing one nice thing, and only penalized once for doing one bad thing. {fair} Even having sinned, God makes being forgiven wonderfully easy. Forgiveness, called Taubah in Arabic, has four steps. 1. stop the sin 2. feel sorry 3. resolve not to do it again 4. make up for it if possible (if you have stolen, give it back, etc.) As long as you sincerely apologize for something, you are forgiven, and it doesn't matter if you, out of error, fall into the same thing again. God's forgiveness and mercy are without limit for those who seek them. "O son of Adam, so long as you call upon Me and ask of Me, I shall forgive you for what you have done, and I shall not mind. O son of Adam, were your sins to reach the clouds of the sky and were you then to ask forgiveness of me, I would forgive you. O son of Adam, were you to come to Me with sins nearly as great as the earth and were you then to face Me, ascribing no partner to Me, I would bring you forgiveness nearly as great as it." [as great as the earth] Hadith Qudsi 34 Ah yes, a Hadith is a saying of the Prophet, and Qudsi means 'Sacred,' and is used to refer to things the Prophet said that God said directly. I highly recommend picking up a copy of 40 Hadith Qudsi. That's the name of the book, it's fairly easy to find in any Islamic bookstore, and I know the one in F-8 markaz, right around Szabist university has it. If you can't find one lemme know and be ten to seven hundred times happy to send you one. ;) It's true, in spite of God's Mercy, some people will make it to hell. After all, God can only forgive you for the sins you sought forgiveness for. What do you do with a person who dies unrepentant and proud of the hurt they've done to other people? If you reward the good then you must punish the bad, such is justice. Even so, consider: "There will come out of the Hell-fire he who has said There is no god but Allah, and who has in his heart goodness weighing a barley-corn. then there will come out of the Hell-fire he who has said There is no god but Allah, and who has in his heart goodness weighing a grain of wheat, then there will come out of the Hell-fire he who has said There is no god but Allah, and who has in his heart goodness weighing an atom." Hadith Qudsi 36 Note: the word Allah is not a proper name. It is simply God with a capital G in Arabic. What does it take to get out of hell once you've fulfilled your term? Faith in God and an atom's worth of goodness. Alhamdulillah. Faith is hard, yeah. It's hard for all of us luv. Everyone has questions and only God has all the answers. In the mean time, we're here to help one another and assuage our smaller doubts with the greater certainties: God created us and nurtures us and expects us to be grateful to Him and good to one another. The first verse of the Qur'an, Surah Fatiha, is often called 'The Essence of the Qur'an,' because it sums everything up so beautifully. All Praise is due to Allah, Lord of the Worlds, the Merciful, the Beneficent, Master of the Day of Judgment. Thee alone do we worship and thee alone do we seek help from. Guide us along the path that is straight; the path of those who have earned your Mercy, not that of those who have earned your wrath and gone astray. [Praise is due to God. God, please guide us to righteousness.] I know it's taken me way too long to get back to you. Aniraz told me about your email after I got back from a weekend trip and I was so happy for you darling, and I am, I really am praying for you. I want you to find peace and strength and happiness. I'm here for you, please, ask me any question at all, doesn't matter, because chances are I've had the same ones. It's taken me years to work things out, but if I can save you the time of having to search for the answers yourself then I can save you trouble that I wish I didn't have to go through, because those spots of trouble weakened my faith for a while before God helped me through with comfort and answers. (yeah, I'm a bad little infidel.) Remember luv, God always hears the prayer of one who calls on Him, and when you call on God, He speaks your name, and if you reach out to Him, He comes to you at speed.* Love, Love, Love -Zeba *I am as My servant thinks I am. I am with him when he makes mention of Me. If he makes mention of Me to himself, I make mention of him to Myself; and if he makes mention of Me in an assembly, I make mention of him in an assemble better than it. And if he draws near to Me an arm's length, I draw near to him a fathom's length. And if he comes to Me walking, I go to him at speed. -Hadith Qudsi 15 Labels: Islam
Lookie Lookie!
I have an article in Muslim Link. :) And it has typos, hehe. New Muslim Burnout: Dealing with bitterness
by Z. H. Khan
I first saw Nicole in December of 2000. She was a Christian then, but very interested in Islam and Muslims- in what we stood for and how we chose to do so. She was full of enthusiasm, eager to learn and willing to read any book. She could be found sitting front and center when any discussion about Islam took place, and she seemed to know more about it than most Muslims our age. That was 2000 and she was 20. The last I saw Nicole was August of 2004. She had been Muslim for three years and married to a Lebanese man who divorced her in six months. We were at yet another party, and this time, when an Islamic discussion started in the living room, she took her drink and walked out. That was 2004 and she was bitter. Ali converted to Islam when he was fifteen but had learned little beyond those first few months. At twenty he still did not know how to pray. "I started learning," he once told me, "But then I guess I stopped. At least I’m not Jewish anymore." Nicole and Ali are two examples of what often happen to us new Muslims. We start out on a spiritual high, we resolve to do amazing things with our faith, but we lose enthusiasm like Ali did, or worse yet, we become bitter like Nicole. Ali's solution was relatively easy compared to Nicole's, he changed his circle of friends and his location so that he could be around people who strengthened his faith, but what do you do if being around other Muslims only depresses you?... Read the rest...For the full article, visit www.muslimlink.ca and download Issue 10, Volume Three. I'm on page two. hehe. Labels: Islam
Inna Lillahi Wa Inna Ileihi Rajioon
What do you say to a friend who has lost someone that they loved, that they really, really loved, in the strongest, most affectionate sense of the word. What if they passed away unexpectedly. What if you called up your friend and could hear the trembling of their voice and their complete inability to stop crying. Has anyone ever been comforted by hearing, 'I'm sorry'? I don't know. I remember that when my grandfather died I thought I would never smile, not ever again. I was fifteen, and it was the first time I had ever lost anyone, and although I had not been exceedingly close to my grandfather, and he had been 'dying' of cancer for the last few years, it was still a shock, and it was still painful. Emotion is relative and grief can't be measured. It hits you, washes over you in waves until you're so far down that you can't imagine coming up again. When you think of that someone being gone, really gone, then part of you dies as well. It's possible to feel a part of your heart suffocating, giving up, and then blackening. You can feel yourself becoming bitter. You wonder why God would allow you to love a person so strongly when he was just going to take her away. Cruelty. It all seems like cruelty. That is, if you think of her as gone. She's not. She's not gone, darling, she's just gone ahead. You will meet her again, and she will be fresh and young and alive. You and she will sit, as you did in this life, down together over food and laughter and the company you miss now. She will be the same person, she will love you no less than she did in this life. It seems unfair, insensitive, downright horrible to tell you to not be sad. It's natural to be sad, but whatever you do, don't despair. Despair is an insult to God's promise, to the fact that He very beautifully, very reassuringly stated, " My mercy overcomes My wrath." And remember that God said in the Qur'an, "In the case of those who say, "Our Lord is Allah., and, further, stand straight and steadfast, the angels descend on them;""Fear ye not!" (they suggest), "Nor grieve! but receive the Glad Tidings of the Garden (of Bliss), the which ye were promised!" "We are your protectors in this life and in the Hereafter: therein shall ye have all that your souls shall desire; therein shall ye have all that ye ask for!- A hospitable gift from one Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful!" The Holy Qur'an: Surah Ha-Mim 41:30-32 Truly, in remembering God do hearts find rest.
Labels: Islam
Masha'Allah
I used to wonder about people who were always muttering prayers under their breath, whether they were doing it consciously, whether they were doing it just to show how much Arabic they could memorize. That was back when my understanding of applied religion was much shallower. I can't say it’s too terribly deep now, but I do at least know (SubhanAllah) that a person with true sincerity doesn't give a hot-diggety damn whether other people see them muttering prayers to God or not. To them, it wouldn't matter if the whole world thought they were crazy for it, because the world and everyone in it, with all their powers combined, still can't pass a judgment as important or well-founded as God's. On a more basic level, this is something I had to overcome when Masha'Allah and Insha'Allah and Alhamdulillah first started creeping into my vocabulary. I was embarrassed at first, not in front of my non-Muslim friends- because they already knew I was crazy and didn't care what I was muttering about- but in front of my Muslim friends. It's sad, the judgment of our peers sometimes weighs more heavily than it should. I didn't want them to think that I was trying to be religious just to show off, or trying to be so lame that I couldn't think of anything but MashaAllah in a conversation. I passed Mr. Brown's with a B!Hey man, that's F****-awesome!MashaAllah…*roll eyes* (that religious weirdo is at is again)There was a lot I had to overcome in order to finally put the Subhan'Allah's into my vocabulary. There was the self-consciousness (as seen above) as well as the fear of hypocrisy. I had always been wary of saying Masha'Allah, because in this culture people use Masha'Allah in a lot of ways that are not necessarily correct. Sometimes this religious phrase is used superstitiously, and could easily be substituted with 'knock on wood.' She's so pretty!Quick, say Masha'Allah! / Quick, knock on wood!MashaAllah is also used as a bashful way of saying thank you instead of sincerely praising God for the compliment. Wow, your hair is so pretty!*girl blushes* Aw, MashaAllah…And worst of all, it's also used as a pick-up line. I've walked past groups of young men and heard MashaAllah's and SubhanAllah's that I know were not praising God. (Don't worry, they weren't for me, I just heard em, heh.) And then there's the Masha'Allah leer: greasy man looks at you and says MashaAlllaaaaaah... And then there was the Bosnian wedding that went like this, as seen by a friend of mine: The wedding guests are sitting around the tables. At the far end of the hall a door opens and the bride enters in all her splendor. The DJ pushes play on a track that begins with a soft, melodic, MashaaaaaAllaaaaaah, MaashaaaaaAllaaaaah… The bride takes a few steps, and then a heavy bass kicks in. dooofdooofdooofdooof, MashaAllah, MashaAllah, doofdoof, MashaAllah! It's a techno song. The guests are thrilled. They hop up onto the tables, both men and women, and begin dancing. My shocked and horrified friend leaves the wedding crying.Masha'Allah is used sarcastically even, and I remember standing in a packed elevator at the ISNA convention some years ago as one brother was entering all the floor numbers for the various people, and somehow, the whole panel reset. All the entries were lost. His friend turned angrily to him and said, "What did you do? Masha'Allah!" Ma means what. Sha' is want or will. Allah is God. Masha'Allah means ' What God willed.' It is a reminder to us, who, when we are pleased with a situation, should remember that it is Allah's will, and we should thank Him for it. Instead of turning it into a meaningless catch-phrase to ward off superstition or make inappropriate passes at girls in masjids, we need to take it back to what it really is: MashaAllah is zhikr. It is the audible escape of Taqwa through the lips. MashaAllah is a beautiful phrase. Let it be so. Labels: Islam
curse you, and your beard too.
There's a lot I want to write about, things I want to say but don't know how to properly introduce into the paragraph. How do you go about deciding whether or not you're Islamic enough? How do you decide whether or not your life and time have been a waste?
I recently met someone who takes their Islam very seriously, and to be honest, I find it intimidating. It makes me somewhat uneasy when I mentally compare my level of knowledge to theirs, and measuring up short makes me feel, well… short.
Alright, so the metaphor here isn't perfect, as physical growth is limited by genetics and spiritual growth is limited only by your will. Being 5'5," I'm always in the middle of things and don't really mind. Being a somewhat practicing Muslim, I've fallen into complacency about my spiritual height. I hang out with people all of the same height, and in the absence of taller people, we tend to forget that we're average at best.
So I met a person spiritually taller than me, and it was unsettling for a while. They went and raised the bar. (Curse you. Yes, you.) And now the low standards to which I measured myself are back in proper perspective. Low is once again low, and it makes me feel bad.
I tried to blame this on the other person at first (only a little, and that I blame on shaitan) but I have to properly put the blame on myself. Why was my bar so low? It used to be higher, when did I let it slip a few notches? And why am I so uncomfortable discussing religion with them? Is it because they're too tall? Or is it because I'm too short? Can I ever be comfortable in their presence?
*looks around room*
No, I can't, and to be honest, I never should. Comfort is complacency, complacency is stagnation, stagnation is the antithesis to spiritual growth. If I want to get any taller, I need to let myself see my shortness first, because if I refuse to see it, how will I see the need to grow? Sure, it's easier just to stay put, to stay the same comfortable height and do the same comfortable things, but I'll never get anywhere that way. The wisest men know they are sinners, the worst sinners think they're wise. It may be hutzbah to call myself wise enough to see my sins, but God forbid I revel in my wisdom and overlook my sins.
So I curse you. Yes, you, for poking me out of hibernation, for waking me from the Lotus Eater's sleep and pushing me into brighter light. I curse you, and I thank you. And even if you should move on to higher places and better things, I will remember the reminder. I will not defend my height. I will instead work on growing. I won't work on being comfortable with the subject, because comfort is a prerequisite to falling asleep again. Go on and annoy the heck out of me. I want you to.
Labels: Islam
A moment of (relative) stillness
So right now Owlie and the 3 Homeez (like the 3 Wisemen, only more fun) are off running last minute errands while I’m at home with a cup of contraband coffee. Black with sugar and vanilla, delicious. I stayed back to book tickets and coordinate pick-ups with two different tailors, and now that I’ve finished, I’m just relaxing and taking a minute to catch up on email and blogistan.
And I’ve typed four different paragraphs and then deleted them all. The first one was about my cup of coffee. The second one was about whether there’d be coffee in Jannah and how divinely delicious that would be. The third paragraph was about how I stink and if I want Divine Jannah-brand coffee I better work harder, and the fourth was about how one of the people from the Bangla matrimonial ad is still emailing me and they want my personal info. I also wrote about how nice the heater was working and how perfectly toasty my toes were feeling. Mmmm, toasted toes… Now you see why I selected it all and pressed delete.
And now, more randomness. You guys know that hadith about how a Muslim is like a horse on a tether, and sometimes he strays and goes to the very end of his rope, and sometimes he’s good and stands very close to it depending on how strong a person is in their faith. I know my poorly rendered version of this hadith is going to confuse people, which is why I was wondering if anyone had this hadith on hand. It’s one I remember fondly but don’t seem to have a copy of. Well, I feel like I’m pulling my rope pretty far from where it’s been tied and man, I miss Ramadan. Sometimes I just want me a nice empty cave (with light, heating and indoor plumbing) to sit and think and return the spiritual waters to the clear stillness they once had before life stirred them up and made things all murky.
And my last random paragraph is going to be dedicated to Binjetude and PakiPenguin, both of whom rule. One of whom has enabled me to use my digital camera again, and the other of whom got my cell phone fixed. :) Alhamdulillah for nice people and Muslim brothers. Masha’Allah, JazakAllah, and of course, Hip hip, HOORAY!
Labels: Islam
me and my headstrong heart
So what’s up with the heart anyway? A pure one is hard to find, and though there are plenty of decent ones, they tend to develop spots after a while. People try to use the heart as a metaphor for your true self or sincere desires (follow your heart?) but what they don’t realize is that the heart is not a compass. It’s more like a headstrong puppy on a leash that pulls you in whatever direction in wants, whether or not it’s the right one. Sometimes it goes the right way, but other times it wants to run out into the street into traffic because it smelled something interesting there. Bad heart, sit. I said sit!
Your brain and the heart vie for control, the brain being the more logical of the two. The brain is more like a compass, granted, it’s not perfect, but at least it can think where the heart only feels and living on your emotions is illogical. What you feel today is not what you’ll feel tomorrow, and the person you were completely in love with ten years ago who made you vow you’d never love again… you forgot their name. That’s because your brain is smart enough to move on. Good brain. *pat pat*
So not everyone has such good brains, but then, almost no one has an entirely good heart, so you’re still better off using your brain instead. Say you’re presented with two glasses of yellow liquid that look exactly the same. One’s lemonade and the other’s bathroom cleaning acid. Which one do you drink? The one you *feel* most right about? Or the one that smells lemony while the other smells caustic? One glass is pleasantly cool, the other one has gotten hot because the acid is starting to corrode the cup. You use your brains and pick the lemonade, hooray!
So the brain’s smarter. Yeah, the heart’s more in tune to emotion, but is emotion always a good thing? Emotionally speaking, you may want to punch the person who’s stabbed you in the arm, but logically, you realize it’s a doctor and that was a vaccination. Or you may want to talk to the woman who winked at you, but you realize she’s a prostitute. Yeah, you may feel attracted to her, but you logically know the moral, ethical, and health problems associated with such a liason.
So emotion is both good and bad and you’re stuck relying on your brain, no matter how squishy it is. You realize that na? So why is how you feel about religious devotion such an important thing? Why is it that if you sit down for zhikr and you don’t feel that Masha’Allah-SubhanAllah kinda feeling, you feel like there’s no point for you to do zhikr? I mean, what’s an act of worship without sincerity right? Ah, but where does sincerity come from darling, surely sincerity is not exclusive to the heart.
If sincerity is the perfect harmony of your intentions and your actions, then know that intentions are made in the brain, whether or not the headstrong puppy on the leash agrees where they should be going. After all, he wants to sniff trees, not jog. You want to go to the masjid, he wants to cavort with dogs. It is hard to train your heart, and even the most well-disciplined heart will sometimes turn whimpering away from the brain’s goals, but the brain must battle to keep it under control. This battle being a righteous struggle makes it a Jihad.
It is, in fact, Jihad-e-Nafs- the struggle to bring the self in line with the righteousness we logically know as compared to the unrighteousness we longingly feel. A sincere act of worship is one with sincere intentions, and having made the intention to do something for the sake of seeking God’s pleasure, the struggle to get that Masha’Allah-SubhanAllah kind of feeling does not take away from the experience, but only adds.
It is the same case with reading the Qur’an, a person who recites perfectly and without error earns blessings, but a person who struggles and reads with difficulty, possibly even making mistakes, they get double the blessings. One set for the act itself, and one set for the struggle. A person to whom zhikr comes naturally will be rewarded, but a person who sits down and makes themselves do zhikr even when the heart is whining that it wants to watch tv, they will be blessed more in proportion to the effort it took them.
There may be some people in this world to whom religiousness is a second nature the same way that some people are just born athletic. The rest of us though, being neither athletic nor spiritual, have to train harder, push ourselves farther to get to the level of performance that we seek, and the reward for our struggle is greater than that of their effortlessness.
Rejoice in the struggle, for there are blessings in the tears. Labels: Islam
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Abez Is... 
