Category: Islam

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

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,

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.

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!

Eid Mubarak Blogistan! Excuse me while I go and grin…

Never mind, I’ll just grin and type simultaneously. Got a lot to be happy about today, tomorrow is the culmination of a whole month’s worth of fasting. Am I happy because fasting is finished? No, I’m actually kind of wishing this Ramadan hadn’t gone by so fast. I suppose I’m just happy because in a lovely and fitting wrap-up of this month’s devotion, Muslims will join together in a communal prayer seeking God’s mercy and the purification of their actions & intentions and forgiveness of their sins.

This isn’t the end to what we’ve been working towards in Ramadan, it’s just the inauguration of the real-time application. Allah makes it easy for us in Ramadan so that we can build good habits and grow in ways that are harder to do without the benefit of a holy month, and starting tomorrow, it’s time to practice everything we’ve been errr… practicing. So now it’s time to reimmerse our spiritually refreshed and renewed selves back into the world of trial by fire and work to keep our cool all the way until the next Ramadan InshaAllah.

This isn’t the end, it’s the just the beginning, baybee!

Eid Mubarak. 🙂

Here’s an interesting quiz: can you translate these two paragraphs of Arabic?

Wallahi Al-atfal yajroona fil mal’aab, yal’abu kurratl-qadam.

Kuntu amshi izi dzhuribta rasi bil-kurati.

Waqata rasi ‘ala’l-ard, bi-iznillah…

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Wa hu-al-lazi maddal-‘arda wa ja’ala feeha rawaasiya wa an-haaraa

Wa min kullis-samaraati ja’ala feeha zowjainith-naini

Yaghshil-lailan-nahaara…

Ok, so we all know a few words, right? Like Wallahi, that means ‘by God.’ Al-Ard, that means the earth, and we’ve spotted the word lail in the second paragraph which you know means night. The word Allah is in both of those paragraphs too. So any guesses on the meanings? If you’re like me then you might not have a very clear idea of what’s being stated above, and without a translation, you’re kind of lost actually. They could mean anything.

Now, say you’ve been assigned to recite one of these paragraphs with every ounce of religious devotion you’ve got, but not knowing what you’re saying, how do you hope to really mean what you say?

Having been raised in the US, my Arabic skills were nil until I came to Pakistan and started studying. Right now they’re half a degree up from nil, but even with my severely limited Arabic skills I have gained an understanding of the beauty of the Qur’an in its original form that I could never have gotten without being able to read the Arabic. Before that I could have recited Al-Baqra (The Cow, a chapter in the Qur’an referring to the golden calf worshipped by Prophet Moses’ followers in his absence) or a recipe for roasting beef and gotten the same understanding from it.

It’s important for Muslims to learn Arabic, not because Islam is an Arab religion, but because the Qur’an just happens to be in Arabic. God states in the Qur’an that He revealed the same Message to different people at different times in different languages, and Arabic just happens to be the language of the current revelation. Without the power to understand the Qur’an on our own we’re always going to be left with our attention wandering during prayers when the Imam recites a verse that we haven’t already memorized the translation to. Or at best, we stand in confused devotion trying to guess at the meaning and obtain guidance from a recitation that (without translation) is nothing more than a pleasant sound in our ears.

The second of those two paragraphs was from the Qur’an, and it means:

And it is He Who spread out the earth, and set thereon mountains standing firm, and (flowing) rivers: and fruit of every kind He made in pairs, two and two: He draweth the Night as a veil O’er the Day. Behold, verily in these things there are Signs for those who consider! –line 3 from Ar-Ra’ad, (The Thunder) –The Holy Qur’an

The first of those paragraphs though, is not only NOT divine, it’s also a badly written selection from my Arabic homework. Anyone wanna guess at the meaning?

I (personally) suffer from parenthetical thought. That’s where you have distracting thoughts within other (otherwise perfectly straightforward) thoughts that can distract from your initial point. They don’t (necessarily) have to be negative though.

I’ll stop doing that now. (now)

Parenthetical thoughts can actually be used to help supplement your concentration in prayer. I’m sharing this because I sometimes suffer from poor concentration when I’m trying to pray.

(AllahuAkbar… Oh look, a rug!)

I’ve found that the parenthetical thought is particularly useful for two key things:

Number One: The Parenthetical Niyyah

The traditional way to make your Niyyat for prayer (intention) is to say to yourself:

“I offer, the _________ prayer (name of a particular prayer), of ______ rakats (number of rakats), Qurbatan E-lal-Ah, (seeking nearness to Allah, in obedience to Him”).

The parenthetical way is a bit longer, might look like this:

“I offer, (standing in a private audience with my Creator) the Maghrib prayer of 3 rakats seeking nearness to Allah (who raised the sky without pillars, hung it with stars and sprinkled tiny and lovely sparrows therein) in obedience to (and awe of) Him.

I’m a big fan of sparrows. To me they are energetic, tiny, airborne ping-pong balls who stand (and fly, and bathe in dust, and play with each other and chirp happily) as proof of God’s love for all of His creations. God takes care of the need of all His creatures, even the sparrow.

The things in parenthesis are up to you, they are not additions to the verbal intention for prayer itself, they’re just thoughts that might help you focus your prayer, maybe go into it with a bit more soul. Try to make the parentheses for every niyyat in every prayer different relating to what you might have read in the Qur’an or maybe found inspiring, or maybe what you’re praying for…

I offer, the Maghrib prayer of 3 rakats seeking nearness to Allah (in whose Hands are my life and soul, who I beseech for strong faith and good health) in obedience (and humble recognition of my own powerlessness over my own health) to Him.

Number Two: Parenthetical Sajda

Sajda is the position in prayer with your face on the floor. In this position you recite:

Subhana Rabbi yal A’la, which means Glory to my Lord, Most High.

The ironic and hopefully humble parenthetical thought goes:

Glory to my Lord Most High (from a servant most low.)

So guys, that’s it. Just a suggestion that I found really helpful for rebuilding sincerity and concentration in my prayers. Keep me in your prayers. 🙂

I started off writing a post about how people are all on different spiritual levels, and I wanted to point that out in reference to praying Sunnah. However, because I’m sleepy and hungry and can’t seem to put things down intelligently, I’m just gonna sez things like they is. Yeah.

I’ve had a problem with praying my Sunnah, the problem being that I don’t always do it. It’s usually always laziness, or perhaps it’s spiritual procrastination. I have always felt guilty about it, but any time someone asked me about it or reminded me about it, I felt as if I couldn’t possibly pray my Sunnah then because I was doing it just to please them, and it would be hypocrisy on my part.

(Smarter people don’t get into these dilemmas, but Abez is not smarter people.)

It wasn’t a conscious decision on my part to skip Sunnah prayers, it was just a highly-evolved form of ‘pray and get off rug before you remember and feel guilty,’ because praying out of guilt or embarrassment didn’t seem like a proper intention.

It took me a long time to figure things out, but here’s what I finally discovered. People on different spiritual levels respond to different things. A person on a very low spiritual level may go and do something good only because they would feel guilty or embarrassed for not doing it. A person with a higher level may do that same thing out of fear of Allah’s displeasure, and guilt towards other people or embarrassment in front of them doesn’t even figure. A person on a higher level will do something good because of the reason mentioned before (not wanting to incur displeasure) in addition to a sincere desire to be grateful and obedient to the Lord who created them and sustains their very existence. Check it out:

Level One: Prays Sunnah because will feel guilt leaving the rug before other people do.

Level Two: Prays Sunnah because of fear of appearing ungrateful to their Lord.

Level Three: Pray Sunnah because they really, really want to.

Don’t quote me on these levels, and please note that people can be on a certain level for one thing (maybe their prayer is level three) but on a different level for another (maybe their hijab is just level one). To our imperfect human judgement, faith cannot be measured. You can’t look a person and know whether they’re a ‘good’ Muslim or a ‘bad’ Muslim simply by virtue of their deeds, and since only Allah knows our intentions, He alone can say who’s been good or bad.

So how does a Level 1 Sunnah worshipper get to a better level without doing their Sunnah just to please other people? Two ways:

1. Pray Sunnah in secret. There have been times when I have sat on the prayer rug while others have prayed their Sunnah, and then left when the Jamaat was over, only to go and pray my Sunnah somewhere else. Why do that? Why not just pray Sunnah there with everyone else? Because those were times when I did not feel solid enough, or sure enough that my intention for Sunnah would not be tainted with the desire to pray Sunnah before other people just so they know I’m doing it.

2. The reset button. I’ve also learned the value of re-evaluating my intentions, revising them if necessary by pushing the reset button. If I stand up to pray Sunnah and find, in the back of my mind, the whisper of level one, I very firmly tell myself that I don’t give a hibbity-dibbity about what others think of me, and I’m here to pray to God, for the sake of pleasing Him, and being Grateful to him, and I will pray my Sunnah with concentration, no matter how long it takes me, even if that means I’m the last one left on the prayer rug when everyone else is gone.

A sincere intention to do something always negates hypocrisy, no matter how you think things might appear to other people. People could look at a person who’s praying with obvious concentration, who is last to leave the prayer rug, as trying to show off, but if a person isn’t, then it really doesn’t matter. The person’s intentions are between them and their Lord.

What was my point? Oh yes, me not praying Sunnah when other people told me to was foolish. My fear of appearing like a hypocrite was, in fact, a lesser form of hypocrisy, in that what and how much I prayed was still subject to what people thought of it. A sincere desire can take a reminder to pray Sunnah, and then just reiterate the sincere intention, remake it if necessary, and pray their Sunnah then and there.

My way of getting to praying Sunnah was long and circuitous. It was a private argument that went on in my head for fear of embarrassment. It’s still kind of embarrassing actually, because considering the blessings I have in my life, and all the reasons I have to be thankful, I have all the more reason to be praying some extra prayers. I’m writing about this now because I figure that other people in the same dilemma might benefit from seeing how a foolish person goes about wasting time and blessings, and they might take the shorter route to sincerity.

If anyone has any suggestions or recommendations for helping someone out who’s struggling with extra prayers, feel free to leave them in the comments box. 🙂

***



It is stated in a hadith that whenever a Muslim prostrates to Allah, He will elevate him one degree and forgive him one bad deed. Reported by At-Tirmidhi

I’ve decided that if, in the future, anyone makes mention of the Taliban, I’m going to ask which one. Cuz there are two types of Taliban, you know. The first type is Afghan. The second type is French. And when people give me a weird look, I’m going to tell them that French rulers of the fundamentalist majority are forcing other people to follow their religion, the religion of the French Taliban being Secularism.

Secularism, if you ask me, is the worst kind of religion, because although other religions may have a slightly less than friendly approach to competing religions, they at least maintain the pretence of religious freedom. Secularism though, is against ALL religions, and in a Secular Extremist society such as France, people are not allowed religious freedom even to chose their own wardrobes.

Those who support France should have no problem with the Taliban.

Those who have a problem with the Taliban should be speaking out against France.

One enforced hijab and the enforces hijablessness.

The Taliban and the French: two sides of the same coin.

Down with Secularism.

***addendum***

JazakAllahuKheiran to Bhai for pointing out to me that I had failed to clarify something. The comparison I’m trying to make is not that both the Taliban and the French are bad, but rather, that the French and those who support the Hijab ban but condemn the Taliban are hypocrites. The ‘civilized’ world excortiated the Taliban for the fact that they were enforcing a religious change of dress code, and they themselves are doing the same thing, only their religion is Secularism and the Taliban’s was Islam.

I agree that a society needs a dress code, and I had no problem with mandating hijab in Afghanistan . I do have problems with how this law was enforced (reported cases of violence) but that’s not relevant to my point. My point is this: None of the Western countries have any right to say anything bad about the Taliban or about how they made a certain dress code mandatory, especially when they’re doing the same thing. The Taliban were enforcing modesty while the French are enforcing immodesty, but I don’t think they see it that way.

To them it’s all about freedom, and for them to withhold it from Muslims when they demand that it be granted to everyone else smacks of hypocrisy.

Sorry for not being clear earlier. I seek Allah’s forgiveness if I have given people the wrong impression or slandered any Muslims unintentionally. AllahuAalim.

Had an interesting discussion with my mother the other day about the difference in opinion between Mormonism and Islam as far as the purpose of life goes. According to Mormonism, the purpose of this life is to get the experience of having a physical, human body, because supposedly God has a human body Himself, and in order for us to all become gods with our own planets to run in the next life, we all need to know what having a body is like. Don’t ask me, it’s not my religion. Ask my momma.

*clears throat*

Anyways, the purpose of life in Islam according to the Qur’an is Ibada- worship or service to God. (Surah 51:56) A lot of people misunderstand this purpose, and think that God created humans just to pray 24/7, which seems impossible as well as restrictive as far as life and human nature go. In order to worship 24/7 you wouldn’t be able to have a job or a family or go to school or basically do anything, right?

Wrong. That misunderstanding comes from not knowing what exactly Ibada is, not knowing what exactly an act of worship is.

Worship can roughly de defined as an act of devotion or religious service performed with the intention of pleasing or earning favor. What that means in that any halal (permissible) action performed with the intention of pleasing God is counted as an act of worship, an Ibada. This obviously includes the formal acts of worship like prayer, charity, fasting, Hajj, etc, but it also includes things like eating one’s Cheerios.

Compare these two scenarios.

1. Guy wakes up in morning, falls out of bed, brushes his teeth and eats his Cheerios.
2. Guys wakes up and thanks Allah for another day alive. (ding! An Ibada!) He stands up and makes the intention to try and do things right today for the sake of pleasing God and being the best person he can. (ding!) He brushes his teeth. (ding for good hygiene?) and says Bismillah and eats his Cheerios. Ding!

One very lovely concept in Islam is that actions are judged by their intention (1) and an act that is intended to/ devoted to pleasing God counts as an act of worship. This means that if you eat your Cheerios and remember to thank God for the favor and intend to eat your good and halal breakfast as a service to the body He has given you, then you are performing an act of worship. On the other hand, a seemingly religious act that is devoid of the right intention doesn’t count for squat. Compare:

1. Guy praying to thank God and seek guidance.
2. Guy praying to impress how religious he is on other people.

Both these guys are praying, but the difference is that one if praying for God’s favor and the other is praying for the people’s favor, much in the same way that the first guy was eating Cheerios because they pleased his stomach (Honey-Nut, not plain) and the other was eating the Cheerios because the Zikr (God-Consciousness, Remembrance) associated with the eating of the Cheerios pleased Allah and fulfilled a right that his body had over him. We will call this The Cheerio Theory.

The Cheerio Theory also applies to other things, such as:

• Smiling (is considered an act of charity in Islam)
• Doing homework (learning more about Allah’s creations and the world, striving to become the best at whatever you are for the sake of utilizing the brains Allah gave you.)
• Working (making more money because more money made means more money can be spent on charity.)
• Taking a shower. (with the proper intention and order, your shower can he turned into Ghusl, which is like wudu, and washes away sins from your head to your feet.)
• Writing a blog. (I get blessings for anyone who reads this and makes sense out of it, Allah is Most Generous, Most Kind.)

In Islam worship encompasses every aspect of human life that’s done with the proper intention, and there is no concept of ascetics or monks or hermits who have to withdraw from human society and live in forests wearing hair-shirts to further ‘mortify the flesh’ because they found they could not overcome the desire to live in a house, sleep in a bed and have the comfort of a wife or family. These things are all natural human inclinations, and to deny them all for the sake of ‘worshipping’ by withdrawing entirely for society is impossible. This concept- withdrawal from society to worship 24/7- is not Ibada, and is found in Early, Middle, and even Modern Christianity (nuns? Jesuit priests?) but not in Islam.

Which brings me back to the original point I had: that although the purpose of life is worship, worship is not restricted to the prayer rug, and worshipping God 24/7 is neither contrary to human nature nor impossible. Which is why I love being a Muslim. Now excuse me while I go eat some Cheerios…

(1). Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him says in a Hadith: “Actions are but by intention, and every man shall have but that which he intended…” Bukhari and Muslim

Ok bloggers and bloggerettes, here’s the deal. Every year, the super-shiny Muslim summer camp where Aniraz and I were campers (and then counsellors) puts out a camp book. It’s a collection of articles geared towards readers about 14 years and up. The book covers the basics of Islam and also includes crazy quizzes, jokes, poems, and general goofiness.

Though there is no shortage of Islamic articles circulating online and in print, the problem is that they are usually written way above or way below the teenage level. And very few of them are humorous or written in a way that will command attention from a 14 year old. The challenge is to write concise, interesting, and sometimes funny articles that simplify things without insulting the reader’s intelligence. That’s where Aniraz and I need help. If you can write, or have read any article that would fit the above requirements, please, please, please email Aniraz or myself. Or, if you have any questions, leave them in the comment box. We have 60 pages and three weeks so gentleman, start your engines…

In the mean time, here’s a sample article from one of the camp books from a few years back. If it seems sort of odd, remember it was written for young girls, published in a book that was distributed only for girls.

Myths, misconceptions &

blatant ignorance about Hijab: A Dialogue

What is hijab? That thing on your head?

Well, that’s called a scarf, but a lot of people do call it a hijab. Hijab means modesty, and hijab is the clothes you wear and a way of speaking and behaving in public.

So you never, ever take that off, right? Not even at home?

No, of course not. It’s been welded to my head using a state-of the art grafting system. I even shower with it!

People who ask that question are silly. The hijab is worn only in front of non-immediate-family member males, whether they be outside, at school, at home, or in the shower.

Can you hear what I am saying?

Huh? I can’t hear you, I have my scarf tucked into my ears.

If I can answer, then I can hear. Yes I hear you. The scarf goes over your ears, not in them. Sometimes I tuck my scarf behind my ears, even if it does make me look like dumbo…

Do you stop wearing that off when you get married?

No, a married woman’s beauty is private property (not the husband’s property, hers) as much as a non-married woman’s. The Hijab isn’t worn out of obedience to men, it’s worn out of modesty and obedience to God.

Are you already called for?

Yes. When I was born my father traded me for three goats and a chicken that gives sour milk.

Ok, Not really. Getting ‘called for’ early on is not the most recommendable practice in the world. First off- you choose who you marry. Your parents can suggest people, but forcing you is completely non-Islamic. The whole idea with Muslim girls being passed off as goods the moment they are marriageable is a bit of an ignorant stereotype. Although it may happen in some cultures, it is not part of Muslim belief, which clearly states that a woman can only be married according to her choice and free will.

Have you been forced to wear that?

Not anymore than I am forced to put pants on before I walk out the door. Without a hijab, I consider myself naked, well, head-naked is the appropriate term.

Does wearing a scarf mean you’ll go to heaven?

I don’t know about myself personally, since only God can judge, but as a practice, no. Wearing a scarf does not guarantee a fun after life any more than wearing a cross or a yarmulke. Looking religious is only part of the deal. You can’t just look pious, you have to be pious.

Why hide your hair and beauty? God gave them to you, so why be ashamed?

I am not hiding, I am protecting. You don’t desire what you can’t see…hint hint. About being ashamed, I am not ashamed. I have enough respect for myself to keep my dignity. I have no intention of turning myself into a walking sex-symbol. Now that’s shameful.

So wait, the whole purpose is to make yourself ugly?

I am not ugly!

Are too.

Shuddap! Ugly are the women with fake faces and clothes they need poured into. They represent the degrading of women all over the world. Even business women wear short skirts. You can’t even be successful unless you’re half nekkid! Women go along with this, and that is what’s ugly.

Hijab does not make you ugly! It focuses on your inner beauty, and there is no visual standard that you could possibly come up with. Hijab represents the dignity and strength that come with being a good Muslim woman, not ugliness. The most beautiful Muslim women don’t need make-up, they have Noor.

So if the Muslim God said women have to cover their hair, how come not all Muslims do?

Does every Christian go to church? Do all Jews eat Kosher? Does every Hindu stay vegetarian?

I’m glad I’m Christian. I don’t have to cover my hair.

Oh yeah? Read 1 Corinthains 11:3-10. The bible calls covering the head a mark of respect.

What color is your hair?

What color are my eyebrows?

Why can’t you just tell me what color your hair is?

That would ruin the whole purpose of wearing the scarf. That’d be like wearing a loose shirt and then telling everybody your waist and hip measurements.

So, what are your waist and hip measurements?

How would you like your remains displayed?

So, what are you doing on Saturday night?

Kicking your butt.

You’re standing in front of a tall Tower. You reach out and feel the foundation, it’s real enough. You rap against it with your knuckles and the solidness of it kind of hurts, send shivers into your hand. You pass your palm along the wall and it is smooth, flawless. There is no question at all about whether the Tower exists. You smile to yourself and lean against the building whistling a happy tune.

Then someone comes along and looks at your Tower. They pay no attention to the nice, strong foundation, but they look up to the sky where the top of the Tower vanishes and ask, “So, what color is the roof?”

You’re a little confused. “The color?” you ask, “I don’t know. I’ve never been that high up. I don’t know about the roof. Some one else around here might…”

“How about the windows? Does this Tower have windows?”

“I’m not sure,” you admit, “Maybe-“

“Hey, who built this Tower anyways?” the person cuts in, “And what’s it made of? I’ve heard it’s nothing but matchsticks, and it could come crashing down at any second.”

Questions come at you rapid-fire, so many questions that you don’t have answers to- about cornices on the tenth floor that you’ve never seen, about building permits you know nothing about, about carpets in halls and rules about living there that you didn’t know existed. You shake your head, bewildered. Seeing you distressed, the person smugly smiles and then wanders off.

You sit down on the ground and put your head in your hands, thinking. It seems as though you know so little about the Tower. You were so sure about it, and then this person comes along and shows you how little you know after all. I mean, does the Tower even have windows? What color is the roof?

You thought you knew it all. But now you’re not sure. So much is unknown to you, and from where you stand at the bottom of the Tower you have no way of finding out. You try to see the top of the Tower but it curves away from you, high into the clouds. You look for a long time, straining to see the windows, wondering about the roof. You finally start walking around the base of the Tower, looking for answers. It’s tremendously wide, and along the walls you find people leaning against it that you never knew were there. You ask one of them, “So, what color is the roof?”

“The roof?” the man says, “It’s blue. And anyone who tells you otherwise doesn’t deserve to lean against the Tower like we do.” A few people who are leaning on the wall beside him nod. Then you hear a voice coming from a few feet up the wall.

“Blue shmue!” someone cries. “The roof is green!”

The man and his followers call back, “Blue!”

An argument begins that you have no desire to hear. You walk away. Still walking, you come upon a group of women who have their backs turned to the Tower. They see you coming and roll their eyes.

“Excuse me,” you venture, “But I was wondering if you knew whether the Tower had any windows…”

“Windows!” a woman shrieks, “Did you know that in this Tower women are not allowed to look out of the windows!”

“But how do we know?” you mutter. “We don’t even know if the Tower has windows. No one has mentioned them.”

“I’ve heard that the windows are round,” another woman says, “But very high from the floor.”

“Oh don’t be silly,” the first woman says, “If there are windows they’re square. The saint in my village told me so.”

The women start bickering.

“Round!”

“Square!”

“Round!”

“Square!”

The women’s voices are strident and harsh, they seem to grate against your nerves. You back away from them and start running, trying to put as much distance between you and the fighting as possible. In your haste, you bump into a simple old man who had been standing with his forehead on the Tower. He falls to the ground.

“I’m so sorry!” you say, bending over to pick him up.

“Oh don’t worry,” he smiles, standing up and dusting himself off. “You were running quite fast there, everything alright?”

In the distance the women are screaming at each other and you’re pretty sure you can hear the word ‘kafir’ being thrown about. Your knee is bleeding. Or maybe it’s the old man’s blood. You might have hurt him when you knocked him over. You look at your palms. They’re scraped and there are little rocks embedded your skin, and they burn. You feel tears come to your eyes. No, everything’s not alright. You shake your head and feel a build-up of frustration that is bursting to come out. Just as you open your mouth to speak you see a movement out of the corner of your eye. It’s the first man, the one who had asked about the Tower. He waves.

“You again?” the old man says without warmth in his voice.

The other man nods and smiles. “So,” he says, “Ever figure out what color the roof on your so-called Tower is?”

You look to the old man. He shakes his head. “You know that I don’t care what color the roof is.”

“Come on,” the other man challenges, “How can you pretend to believe in this Tower when you don’t even know about the roof. I bet you never figured out the windows either.”

“You’re right,” the old man says calmly. “And I’ve often wondered but frankly it’s not that important. The Tower stands whether or not there are windows. The Tower is strong no matter what color the roof.”

The other man looks irritated. You look at the old man. He doesn’t seem at all frustrated or confused by his lack of knowledge.

“Hmmph!” the other man says, walking away.

“Strange man…” the old man mutters, leaning against the wall again. He seems completely peaceful, content with how he stands.

“But the roof,” you whisper, “How is it that we know nothing about the roof?”

The man turns so that he is facing you, and he leans with his shoulder instead of his forehead.

“Well,” he says, “You and I have never seen the roof, right?”

You nod.

“And we’ve never seen the windows.”

You nod again.

“So what?” he shrugs, “I say so what! I have learned all I can about the foundation of the Tower. I have learned that it is smooth, it is flawless. It is built on logic and cemented with wisdom. No one can deny the foundation.”

You drop your hand to one side and let your fingers graze the foundation. It’s still there, firm and cool to the touch.

“So someone comes along and asks you about the windows. You say you don’t know. Someone asks you about the roof. You don’t know.”

You think.

“I have never known what shape the windows are, and I have never known whether organ donation is allowed in Islam, and whether the Fida’een are wrong and I have never been sure about why Allah made the Tower exactly the way that He did, but that doesn’t mean that it is not real.”

“Your faith is built on logic the same way that a walls are built on a foundation, and so long as you remember the strength and perfection of the foundation, your walls can never be shaken.” The old man looks at you gently and then points to the sky, “You are standing at the base of a great and majestic Tower, and just because you can’t see the roof, doesn’t mean that the Tower does not exist.”

You nod and smile.

You lean against the wall.

You whistle a happy tune.

THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD’S LAST SERMON (sectioned by Amber. Hi Amber!)

Responsibility of conveying the message:

“O People, lend me an attentive ear, for I don’t know whether, after this year, I shall ever be amongst you again. Therefore listen to what I am saying to you carefully and TAKE THIS WORDS TO THOSE WHO COULD NOT BE PRESENT HERE TODAY.

Responsibility to another Muslim:

O People, just as you regard this month, this day, this city as Sacred, so regard the life and property of every Muslim as a sacred trust. Return the goods entrusted to you to their rightful owners. Hurt no one so that no one may hurt you. Remember that you will indeed meet your LORD, and that HE will indeed reckon your deeds. ALLAH has forbidden you to take usury (Interest),therefore all interest obligation shall henceforth be waived…

Being aware of the Satan:

Beware of Satan, for your safety of your religion. He has lost all hope that he will ever be able to lead you astray in big things, so beware of following him in small things.

Responsibly to Women:

O People, it is true that you have certain rights with regard to your women, but they also have right over you. If they abide by your right then to them belongs the right to be fed and clothed in kindness. Do treat your women well and be kind to them for they are your partners and committed helpers. And it is your right that they do not make friends with any one of whom you do not approve, as well as never to commit adultery.

Responsibility to Allah:

O People, listen to me in earnest, worship ALLAH, say your five daily prayers (Salah), fast during the month of Ramadhan, and give your wealth in Zakat. Perform Hajj if you can afford to. You know that every Muslim is the brother of another Muslim. YOU ARE ALL EQUAL. NOBODY HAS SUPERIORITY OVER OTHER EXCEPT BY PIETY AND GOOD ACTION.

Remember, one day you will appear before ALLAH and answer for your deeds. So beware, do not astray from the path of righteousness after I am gone.

O People, NO PROPHET OR APOSTLE WILL COME AFTER ME AND NO NEW FAITH WILL BE BORN. Reason well, therefore, O People, and understand my words which I convey to you. I leave behind me two things, the QUR’AN and my example, the SUNNAH and if you follow these you will never go astray.

All those who listen to me shall pass on my words to others and those to others again; and may the last ones understand my words better than those who listen to me directly. BE MY WITNESS O ALLAH THAT I HAVE CONVEYED YOUR MESSAGE TO YOUR PEOPLE.”

I’m not a conspiracy theorist. I don’t have to believe in conspiracies to acknowledge that they’re out to brainwash us. See? (grr. ressafrassa, dang dirty, low-down varmints…)

Neo-cons take up the task of ‘religion-building’

by Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON: One thing that can be said about US neo- conservatives is they do not lack for ambition. “We need an Islamic reformation”, Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz confided on the eve of the US invasion of Iraq last year , “and I think there is real hope for one”.

In a trip to Cleveland in February, Stephen Schwartz, a writer and former Trotskyite activist who claims to have converted to Islam in the mid-1990s, and Hussein Haqqani, a researcher at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, unveiled plans for a new “Institute for Islamic Progress and Peace” (IIPP) of which Schwartz identified himself as executive director. -Dawn/The Inter Press News Service.

Chai and I went to Jummah prayers today, and for me it’s the first time that I’ve been in a long time.

What’s interesting is the different types of people you get to see at the masjid on Friday. Like the guy in the blue satin pants, tie-die polyester shirt and giant green shades who was strutting down the cool white marble of the masjid with the sun glinting off his well-oiled hair. He seemed very pleased with himself. ‘You wear your nicest clothes to Jummah,’ Chai reminds me.

And then there were the women whose outfits were bright enough to outshine the sun, but far too small to rival it in size. And there were people who stared at other people. And men who stared at women. And women who stared at men. And there were people who paid more attention to the chandelier than the prayer, but there were all there. I was there too, and I fit in perfectly with the other sinners.

Allah alone is perfect, and though that isn’t any excuse for a congregation behaving badly, it is hope. And it is relief, and it is a mercy from Allah that He should be Gracious and Forgiving, and Insha’Allah bless whatever of our intentions were good and pardon whatever of our intentions were not.

Ameen.

There’s a certain mental peace one finds while sitting on the prayer rug. Even after the prayer is finished and the dua has already been concluded, the boundaries of the prayer rug mark a sanctuary, a small space on this busy earth from where the noise, the chaos, and the tension of the world are held at bay. There you are free to stay in sajdah as long as you like, to place your face on the floor and whisper into the softness of the rug, “Here I am Allah.”

And if you happen to fall asleep that way, if the drowsiness from sleepless, worried nights catches up with you on the prayer rug, it’s alright. And if in sleeping, you forget the anxiety that had given way to nausea, and you find five or ten minutes of peace, that’s alright too. You’ll wake up in the same position you fell asleep in, and though your legs may be heavy and numb, your heart will be calm and your pain will have lost its edge.

The only drawback is that eventually, you have to get up. You have to brace yourself and step off of the prayer rug, back into life and the uncertainty that hounds it, back into family and the friction that inevitably results from the politics. Rising from the rug you must go back to work, back to the meaningless grind that nags and preoccupies.

And if in doing so, you find your mind taxed and your nerves frazzled, if you realize you are being driven deeper into distress and distraction than you ever thought possible, that’s alright. And if the world drives you to tears, that’s alright too, because the prayer rug is right where you left it, and its borders still mark the beginning of sanctuary that is always open. You’ll be free to stay as long as you like, to place your face on the floor and whisper into the softness of the rug, “Here I am Allah.”

(Results of the Sensei’s Rhyming Rumble will be announced in three days. ‘Till then, feel free to enter a submission. – Sensei)

This blog is an elaboration of yesterday’s in light of some comments and questions that have been raised in the comments box.

One thing that came up is that Populo- errr, ok, Democracy, is not to blame for Cuba, for Vietnam, for Korea. You know what, that’s true. The principals of democracy themselves say nothing about waging unjust wars as a matter of policy, in fact, they say basically nothing at all about such matters. That’s the problem. They have no such manifesto or creed that outlines where war can and cannot be justified. There is no concept of approving military measures only under certain circumstances, the motive behind a certain war doesn’t matter, the only thing that matters is- can it be supported by popular opinion?

Like in the cases of Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, the motives behind those and other conflicts are unimportant, (regardless of whether they were justifiable or unjustifiable, capitalist or nationalist) the fact is those conflicts were approved, not on the basis of a just cause, but on popular support. The only principle of Democracy is that whatever the majority votes for will happen, and the fact that a majority can be emotionally swayed with government propaganda to support an unjust war is something that should be taken into consideration when looking at the system. On the other hand, a just cause without popular support will go un-fought for unless the populace changes its mind, as in the case of Bosnia (which took years to gather support), and like many places in Africa now where genocide and human rights abuses definitely warrant third-party intervention and peace-keeping action, but there has been no action on the US’s part simply because the average citizen will not approve.

I would ask anyone who stood up for democracy what they would say if suddenly laws were passed against them. What if you, Joe Average Muslim, were suddenly ordered to be deported because new anti-Muslim laws were voted into power? Of course, they might be called something fancier, like Muslim Exclusion Acts, or Homeland Security measures, but these laws would still be calling for you to be arrested and uprooted without compensation because popular opinion decided you were dangerous due solely to your religious inclination. Or what if you, Joe Muslim, were fired from your job because it was illegal to have a beard? What if you, Joe Muslim, had your daughter expelled from school because she refused to remove her head-scarf? What if you were legally forbidden from reading or teaching the Qur’an in Arabic?

Heck, what if Islam was suddenly made illegal because it “promoted terrorism,” as many Americans believe. It wouldn’t matter that you know better, and even some Americans know better, because you guys are a minority and the minority is doomed. Would you still stand up for democracy then? Even though it had betrayed you? It would be no fault of democracy’s, because rule by popular opinion is the foundation of democracy, and the principle then would be no different than it is now.

It is the main principle of democracy, government by popular opinion, that is fundamentally flawed. There are no social guidelines, there are no limits to how low a society can go so long as a majority approves. There is no concept of morality, or right or wrong, and depending on how popular opinion is feeling, the pendulum can swing between the puritanically ferocious (she’s a witch, burn her!) and the irresponsibly lax. It won’t matter if the ozone layer is eroded to an ozone doily, the environmental protection laws won’t be passed unless you can convince at least 51% of people that they shouldn’t be environmentally-unfriendly, and most people don’t like you telling them what to do. Joe American likes his SUV. Good luck.

The alternative to democracy for Muslims is Shariah, which is typically accused of being harsh, brutal, and discriminatory to non-Muslims. But this blog is long enough today already, and I’ll talk about Shariah and these accusations in my next post, InshaAllah.

Now, my comments link is as follows, and I don’t expect everyone to agree, but I do expect all of you guys to behave yourselves!

(Don’t make me give you time in the corner, the English teacher said.)

Before I get down to the nitty-gritty of this blog, I want to make a disclaimer. There are good and bad people everywhere in the world, and it is not my intention to discredit or insult Pakistani Muslims. Though Pakistan may be a country of Muslims, Muslims (unfortunately) do not represent Islam, and the fact that there are hyprocrites and losers here doesn’t mean that there aren’t any good Muslims or that there isn’t any benefit in living in a Muslim society. But that’s another blog. Now on with the show.

Right, so today another restaurant opened up next to my father’s restaurant. We’ll call that place Café X. So Café X had their grand opening today. They put up a tent, invited a district Nazim (local council member) and the Nazim gave a nice speech about running an honorable business that’s good for both the owners and community. Then there was a recitation of the Qur’an, and then the owners of the place thanked Allah, without whose help none of this would be possible, etc etc. Then there was free food, and then the restaurant was officially opened, and everything was well and good. Then the guests went home and the owners and the restaurant staff went into the restaurant.

A note about this restaurant, the front of it is all glass, from the ceiling to the floor. It’s brightly lit too, so you can see who’s eating there from a hundred feet away. You can also see who’s drinking there, especially when they break out dozens of huge bottles of liquor and get raging drunk, everyone, all the way from the owner down to the waiters, and during business hours. At eleven o’clock, which is roughly dinner-time in a Pakistani restaurant, they were all sloshed and making quite a fuss. They were also feeling generous, so they invited my father (and anyone who came to the restaurant door) in for drinks. My father gave them an earful of vitriol (tsssss) and then went back to Chez Daddy.

Then, at closing time, midnight, my father passed by Café X again and was nearly shocked out of his socks. The big screen TV that they have in the dining hall (the one that you can see from such and such a distance through that great glass window) was on, and they were watching porn. And of course, they were all still drinking and having a lovely time with their chairs pulled straight up and around the TV set.

So what do you do when you live in Pakistan and the people next door are getting drunk and publicly showing pornography? Do you call the police? No, the police come to the plaza every weekend and get drunk, and they bring their prostitutes too. Do you tell the superintendent of police? No, because he’s the one who throws the parties they’re attending. Who do you tell? The higher up you go, the lower you find people on the scale of morality. Could you even take it to the President? No, because he likes his Johnny Walker, and he doesn’t mind saying so.

So who do you tell? Your daughters. You come home and fume and rage because the country you love, the people that you want to call your own brothers are betraying their religion and their selves. They’re spreading the disease, the internal rot that’s causing our Muslim communities to collapse on themselves in a festering heap of corruption and depravity, in love of sin and weakness of Iman.

And right now, as I’m typing this blog, the guys at Café X are still drinking and still watching filth and they’re still inviting anyone who passes by the restaurant to come in and join them. They’re not just being corrupt &^#%$#’s in private, they’re getting other people to join them, people who might never have drunk before or might never had head their minds polluted with hard-core pornography. Those guys are hurting this community, my community, the people I live with in the place I live in, and there’s nothing I can do about it. The police are useless in this matter, and we’re powerless to do anything to stop them.

I know that there’s no compulsion in religion, but there sure as heck is accountability, and justice, and both are in short order at Café X. People complain about guys with sticks- moral police or militant mullahs or something like that. But you know what? Right now, I’m starting to wonder why we don’t have any.

“…and she went on and told me all about the good place [Heaven]. She said all a body would have to do there was to go around all day with a harp and sing for ever and ever. So I didn’t think much of it. But I never said so. I asked her if she reckoned Tom Sawyer would go there, and she said not by a considerable sight. I was glad about that, because I wanted him and me to be together.” -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Mark Twain may not be a legitimate source for Christian theology, and he may have been dead for quite a while now, but I think his bitter and slightly sacrilegious view of religion may still be relevant. After all, I’m sure that everyone knows someone who’s said, “Who wants to go to heaven anyway? It’s all boring, sitting around on clouds and singing.”

As a Muslim, I pitied the Christians and their limited heaven, but at the same time, I could relate to the ones who thought Heaven was absolutely the dullest thing that could happen to you post-mortem. I never said anything about it though, and kept that foolish sentiment to myself. I told myself that even if I wasn’t too enthusiastic about striving for Heaven, I should at least realize that I’d rather not be in hell. So I opted for heaven by process of elimination, and secretly hoped that it would have video games.

I’m not joking, I wish I was, because when I write this out it sounds monumentally stupid, but it’s the truth. I was hoping that Heaven had video games, and roller-blading, and snow-boarding, and anything and everything entertaining that my lil’ heart could possibly desire, because at the time, I wasn’t interested in eternity with a spouse, righteous company, refreshments and the favor of Allah.

My God, I was such an idiot. How long did it take me to realize that video games are an empty, mind-numbing vortex that provide no real happiness. An hour or two of entertainment, yes, but no happiness. It’s the same with all other ‘entertainment,’ it’s empty. It can busy you for a bit, but it can never make you happy. It doesn’t matter what you talk about, whether its video games or fast cars or collecting expensive crap, none of it can make you truly happy. How many people are there in the world that have everything that money can buy, all the entertainment, all the material wealth, and still turn to drugs or suicide out of misery? Things and stuff can’t make man happy, so what does? What would you surround yourself with if you had an eternity to fill?

A loving spouse. The company of good people. The best food you have ever eaten in your entire life.

Does it still sound boring? Not to me anymore. I can think of nothing more beautiful, more peaceful, than reclining in a garden with my head on the shoulder of a loving husband, in a relationship made whole and perfect by Allah, who has removed all enmity, bitterness, or rancor from our hearts. (7:43) I can think of nothing more enjoyable than the company of righteous friends and the righteous members of my family (52:17-24), seated in honor and ease (37:41-49), in perfect security and with no fear of illness, fatigue, or death. (56:11-38) Imagine never again having to feel the heart-breaking ache of watching someone you love suffer, or the people you cherish grow old and near death.

Haven’t you ever been somewhere and had such a nice time, such a lovely time, that you sighed, “I wish this would never end?” In Heaven it’s always beautiful, it’s always lovely, it’s more perfect than you could ever imagine, and it never ends. (50:31-35) There is no stress (43:68-73), there are no worries, and what’s more, there is the unbelievable feeling of having accomplished the greatest thing you could possibly have achieved in your life- the Pleasure of Your Creator. There is no fear of sinning or of displeasing Allah. The test is over, you already passed. You have been freed from the trials of your worldly life and your reward- your loving spouse, the good people and family that were separated from you by death, and an eternity of absolute happiness awaits you.

“That,” Allah says in the Qur’an, “Will be the Supreme Achievement.” (44:51-57)

Sounds like a good place to me. Too bad nobody every told Mark Twain about Islam…

This is blog attempt number 7. I have begun six separate entries and deleted them all, one by one. I have a head-ache, and a head-cold, and a head-scarf (wait, that’s there all the time) and on top of it all, I got a speeding ticket today.

*groan*

And my medication causes sleeplessness, which means I’ve been sleeping very badly for the last two days- waking up every hour, on the hour, the whole time with a pounding headache.

*sigh*

Ok, time to push the reset button. Here we go.

*pokes self in forehead*

All praise is due to Allah, the Most Gracious, Most Generous, my Lord, my Guide, my Protector. He it is who gave me the headache to test my patience and to remove from me some sin, provided I pass the test. The head-cold was by His leave as well, because nothing reminds you what a blessing health is quite as well as illness. The head-scarf, well I rather like this scarf. It’s warm and fuzzy. So Alhamdulillah for it all, even the headache and the headcold, because:

“Any trouble, any sickness or disease, any worry, any grief, any problem or anything sad or painful, even the prick of a thorn to a Muslim results (due to patience) in the forgiveness of his sins.” Hadith according to Abu Hurairah and Abu Sa’eed, on the authority of both Bukhari and Muslim.

I remember this lecture that I attended once, it was about how having the right intention for something can make the difference between blessings and sins. For example, if you go to the Masjid to pray just so that people can see you praying there, that’s a sin. However, if your intention was just to earn extra blessings by joining the Jamaat prayer, going to the Masjid is a blessing. This applies to everything, absolutely everything that we do. Being sick, I can moan and complain and wallow in self-pity, losing blessings, or even earning sin depending on what I moan about (“God, why me?”). Or, I can remind myself that this is a test, and if I pass, I have traded some of my sins in for a mild headache and a cold, neither of which compare to the hell I could have traded them in for instead. And it literally is a trade-off. Or rather, a trade-in. You earn either blessings or sins, depending on what you’ve been up to, and then you cash them in after you die, either for eternal paradise with people you love and the pleasure of Allah, or for eternal inferno (crackle crackle) with the Angels of hell (btw, did you know that there were nine, total?) and Allah’s displeasure.

Yeah, I know you know this. I know it too. And I know, that you know that I know, so there. It’s just that my brain gets addled and I forget it. So I’m reminding myself, first and foremost, to take all stress in a grateful and patient stride, and to remember my Lord in times of both hardship and ease. InshaAllah.

I was going to write a blog about how Eid here is one day later than everywhere else in the world, and how some of our leaders –ahem ahem- are complete morons. But then I remember that my momma told me that if I couldn’t say anything nice, I shouldn’t say anything at all.

:::glares silently in the direction of the Moonsighting Committee:::

Then I was going to write a blog about how Eid has become depressingly commercialized, glitzified, and saturated with dancing, dancing, and more dancing. Every channel here airs special Eid shows, all of which consist of giggling movie stars and swinging singers (who in spite of being dressed, appear to be naked), and guess what, they’re all dancing. Bloody hell. Where’s the Taqwa? Where’s the nur and barkat of Eid? Where, if any, is our Islam? And last but not least, where is Aniraz’s slingshot?

I never thought I’d be one of those angry fundu types. I knew I was a FUNdu, I just didn’t know I could be so angry, but when I see an actress in a skin-tight, paper-thin, shoulderless, backless dress bounce on screen, jiggle to the music and then wish me a blessed Eid, I want to hurt something. Lots of something and plenty of someone, whichever someone is in charge of taking all of the religiousness out of our religious holidays. This would be the same someone who has pop stars singing hamd, naat, and nasheed before Iftar, and then the same obscene and haram songs right after the Maghrib azhan has been called.

This same someone tones the TV programming down a notch out of ‘respect for Ramadan,’ and then once Ramadan is over, pulls out all of the moral stops for the Eid shows. That’s not respect for Ramadan. And that’s certainly not any respect for Islam or Allah, halfway obeying for only as long as a holy month lasts, and then more than making up for it on the holy days. You get the idea that PTV is repenting for its moral behavior.

Aside from the Eid shows, there are also the special Eid commercials- brainwashing ditties about this holiday being about new shoes, about face lotion, about clothes, about a new cell phone, about gold jewelry, and about shopping until your pockets are empty and your credit card is maxed out. (MCB Bank says, celebrate this Eid with a new car, with only 10% interest!)

You hear the words ‘Eid Manaein’ followed by ‘*product name* kay sath.’ Celebrate Eid with *your product name here.* Never once do you hear, Celebrate Eid with gratitude for the favors your Lord has given you freely, or Celebrate Eid with a commitment to improve your Deen, or by adopting an orphan, or planting a tree, or even giving a bent nickel to your local charity. Eid is now about excessive consumption- of food, of goods, of clothes, and of course, entertainment. It’s about having fun and letting your hair down from all the self-denial of Ramadan.

Of course, there’s a huge mistake right there, that people think of Ramadan as one month of self-denial simply for the sake of asceticism. They’ve missed the point. Ramadan is about retraining, reminding, reviving the religion and discipline that we may have let slide during the last year, and it’s not supposed to last only for a month. It’s supposed to START in the month and last all the way until the next one.

-Sigh-

Don’t let my negativity ruin your Eid. Just don’t turn on PTV, I beg you. In the mean time, Eid Mubarak. I wish you all, every single one of you, a most happy, joyous, blessed Eid, illuminated by the light of ‘Ilm, secure in the fold of Deen and content with the will of Allah. I pray that you are found in good health and ever-increasing Iman, I pray that Allah saves us all from the darkness around us and does not let us die except as Muslims in a state of Iman. Ameen.

Now where’s that slingshot…

My lips cracked today while I was fasting. It didn’t feel very deep at the time, but when I saw a small red drop suddenly appear on the floor by my feet, I realized they were bleeding. My first thought was, gross.

My second thought was, Oh My God. One drop of blood. This may have been the first time in my life when I have ever shed a drop of blood for something, anything remotely Islamic.

I have bled before, gotten bloody knees from rollerblading, given myself bloody palms from crashing my father’s motorcycle and a bloody leg from a bicycle accident, but none of this blood had any meaning.

But this blood though, it meant something, that I was suffering for Islam, right?

Maybe.

But how can I compare my one drop to the rivers of it that practically flow out of other places, out of Iraq, out of Afghanistan, out of Palestine, out of Algeria. How can this tiny little splotch measure up to bloody handprints on broken concrete walls and deep maroon stains on the floors where my brother has tried to break his fall? One person alone has enough blood in them to stain the front of my house, and I got all happy over my one drop of blood, my little blot of inadvertent and inconsequential suffering from fasting in pleasantly cool weather. My little sacrifice.

Ramadan is about introspection, about not only looking at one’s soul, but seeing as well. Let’s have a look then. Who am I? What, if anything, have I done to help the Ummah I claim to be a part of? Where am I going? Am I making any effort whatsoever to grow spiritually? Or have I been stagnating at this level for years? I took a few steps up the ladder a while back, but I haven’t climbed for a while. There’s a long way to go, but I’m not even looking up any more. I’m looking around, wasting my time, staring at the ground- this same ground with one drop of blood.

This all points to the question of sacrifice, and why I don’t seem to be making any. Why have I not been better about realizing what needs done, and then just doing it? Why am I waiting for someone else to take action for me? Why am I sleepwalking through the only chance I get to prove my soul worthy of Paradise?

Why am I clinging to my spot on the ladder like it’s the destination and not the journey?

Up the ladder, where the rungs disappear into the clouds, are footsteps of those who have gone before me. And they are marked in blood.

Ok, now I’m really writing about Ramadan. One thing that’s come up on the tagboard (many thanks to Choco Bean) is the idea of preparing for Ramadan. What exactly does ‘preparing for Ramadan’ mean, anyway, making a month’s Pakoras in advance? Stockpiling enough RoohAfza to last until the Mehdi comes? (in my Khandaan, yes. He he)

-ahem-

Ramadan is a time of spiritual renewal: Allah does us a favor by locking Shaitan up for an entire month so that it’s easier for us to fast and also to get back into the Islamic habits we may have let slide since last year. True, we’re capable of doing stupid things and neglecting our Islam without the help of Shaitan, but for those of us who are trying not to, the removal of the ‘Shaitani factor’ from our brains is a big help. It’s one less mental battle to fight on the way to the prayer rug, or when passing by the TV, or staring longingly at the CD’s that you know have haraam music on them.

Ramadan is a Shaitan-free Zone: Allah makes it easier for us, He gives us a whole Shaitan-free month to strengthen our resolve and to kick the counter-Islamic habits that Shaitan has worked so hard to trick us into. People often use Ramadan to jump-start their efforts to quit things, smoking is a big one. So is swearing, listening to haram music, lying, etc. The idea though, is to not resume them when Ramadan ends. The idea isn’t to behave ourselves just because it’s Ramadan, but to behave ourselves starting in Ramadan and lasting all the way till next Ramadan.

Ramadan is a Reminder: The fasting itself plays a big part of this spiritual renewal, because being hungry and uncomfortable is a shocking reminder of the blessings and comfort that we take for granted the other 11 months of the year. You stumble around with dry mouth, bloody cracked lips (I do anyway), growling stomach, and you remember that there are people who live like this, or much worse, every day. Going through this discomfort, no matter how temporary it is, still causes you to feel genuine sympathy for those Muslims who are in straightened circumstances. If we didn’t have Ramadan, there’s a very good chance that none of us first-world Muslims would ever go hungry for a single day in our lives. We wouldn’t have a reminder, or a clue for that matter, of how very much others are suffering and how very much our help is needed.

Ramadan is Boot Camp: Additionally, putting your self to the test by fasting and abstaining for all haram possible is like boot-camp for the soul. The purpose of boot camp is to try you, to train you, and to make you do your best by putting you through hardship. That way, if you come across something difficult later, you can be like, “This isn’t so bad, I did harder things back in boot camp.” It’s the same thing with fasting. If you miss breakfast one day and find yourself getting cranky, you can just relax and say, “No breakfast? Big deal. I went without breakfast, lunch, and coffee, and I didn’t get grouchy.” At least that way Shaitan can’t goad you into losing your temper just because your tummy is rumbling.

If you find yourself in a difficult Islamic test you can say, “I can do this. I fasted for thirty days. This is nothing compared to that.” So you do this once a year, to remind you of what you’re capable of, of how strong you should be, how strong you CAN be. You prepare for it by cutting out everything from your life that’s haram. And you don’t just resolve to do this for only as long as Ramadan lasts, because otherwise you’ve wasted the whole opportunity and missed the point.

Ramadan is Spiritual Fitness Month: A lot of Muslims believe the myth that spirituality is something you’re born with, or that some people just have it and some people don’t. The truth though, is that spiritual fitness is rather like physical fitness. There may be a few people to whom it comes naturally, but the rest of us have it because we work on it. If we pray it’s because we’ve trained ourselves to, the same way an athlete can train themselves to jump hurdles or run a 400 meter sprint. If we don’t train, then we shouldn’t blame our spiritual flabbiness on lack of ‘religious tendencies,” we should realize we’ve been lazy and we’re neglecting our spiritual health.

So, Ramadan is:

A time of Spiritual Renewal and a Boot Camp-like Reminder to exercise your Spiritual Fitness during one Shaitan-Free month.

With Pakoras.

The fridge is a dangerous place and I blame my Grey Crayon for it, sending me home with party leftovers, chocolate-peanut butter pie, breadsticks, yummy rice, and bon-bons. Bon-bons for corn’s sakes! Sheesh! I think I left the party with more food than I brought.

But hey, I sneaked some of the food she was trying to send me home with back into her refrigerator while she wasn’t looking, so at least I haven’t brought home any Panini. And somehow, she’s ended up with my watch. It’s all very complicated folks, party politics usually is.

I’m going back to her house to negotiate the release of my watch tomorrow and to return one of her backgammon pieces and I’m worried that she might try to send me home with her first-born child. Crazy, lovely, generous people.

I had a friend in the states that was SOOOOOO sweet that if you complimented anything at all she was wearing, she would try to take it off and give it to you. Absolutely anything really, earrings, watch, clothing if she thought they would fit you. She gave away one of her favorite rings to a stranger once, just because she told her it was pretty. She was just so totally nice. And whenever I think of her I remember all the stories you hear about people converting to Islam just because of the generosity of a Muslim stranger.

I read the account of a woman who complimented a shirt that a hijabi on her train was taking out of her shopping bag, and the hijabi just gave it to her, absolutely insisted she have it. Of course the woman tried to refuse, then tried to pay her for it, and in the end she was made to take the shirt home and then wonder about what kind of religion made people who just gave stuff away to perfect strangers. Of course that wondering led her to Islam, and Alhamdulillah, she converted.

(drops breadstick on floor)

I’m also reminded of one of my cousin’s uncles. (who was also my uncle by Pakistani standards, or maybe he was my brother, you never really know) He frequently bought out the entire stock of whatever a child-vendor was selling on the street (child-vendors are very common in Pakistan) and then brought it home and passed it out to the horde of cousins. Sometimes it was flowers, sometimes it was plastic toys. In doing so he made the child-vendor’s day and made his pack of nephews and nieces deliriously happy at the same time. Another crazy, lovely generous person. He died a few years ago, of cancer. No one even knew he had it, he just passed out one day from the effects of an unchecked brain-tumor and that was it. Inna lillahi wa inna ileihi rajioon.

Allah has said: “…so let each of you protect himself against Hell-fire, be it with even half of a date (worth of charity)- and if he find it not, then with a kind word.”

-Hadith Qudsi 13 of 40, narrated by Adiyy Ibn Hatim on the authority of Bukhari.