sdrawkcab epyt i

found this joint off of somebody's post on islamica:

If honor be your clothing, the suit will last a lifetime; but if clothing be your honor, it will soon be worn threadbare. The well-dressed man is he whose clothes you never notice.

Quran -- Surat AshShura (Verses 1-16) -- sheikh Fahd Al-Kandari

From taraweeh prayer (Ramdan 1427H/2006), a recitation by sheikh Fahd Al-Kandari of the first 16 verses of Sûrat Ash-Shûra (The Consultation) (Surah 42 of the Holy Qur'an). There is an English translation of the meaning of the verses of Sûrat Ash-Shûra (Al-Fatihah is not translated) BTW, i've been going on a google video hopping spree.

word up son.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6094846957551566977&q=quran&hl=en

there's another one guys. 2 raka'as of taraweeh it seems like.

1 2 3!

CHA CHA CHA! ^^powerful. seriously. just do it, ho-mie. !! ....

UPDATE part 2.

salaamu alaikum

thanks for the feedback, i made sure to exclude any and all such suggestions from my considerations. so after brief contemplation, i've decided to keep the hair for a little longer, that is the rest of ramadan (cuz the hair looks gangsta under a kufi and even more so under an imamah - i'm guessing though since i haven't tried that second one yet) and possibly the rest of this semester. reason? well, i kinda like my new nickname on the basketball court at school and other places and i want it to set in before i change my look.

i've only been called by this name twice however, once on the basketball court and once by a fellow muslim at a janazah i recently attended........

which reminds me, inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi raji'oon. just this past friday, i got the news that a brother i've known for so many years passed away in a motorcycle crash, who we would play basketball with on the REGULAR, in fact i had just played basketball with him the VERY DAY before he got in the accident. and it was crazy how we would be chilling and talking and he would tell us how he loved his bike and how he could get from bmore to columbia in like 5 minutes flat and everyone would say, "one slip on that thing, and its over man." and we would laugh and just be like, "yeah. when you gotta go you gotta go." the janazah brought out so many old heads who i used to see back in the day when i was so young just chilling on the courts watching the older dudes play. and i met his father for the first time, and it was crazy how father and son both had that same smile. his father was smiling the entire time at the janazah, the burial, and every time he would greet somebody who came up to him and hugged him. and i heard a brother greet him before me and say exactly what i was thinking, that Saif was always smiling just like his father, and his dad was like, he's probably smiling right now.

may Allah reunite all of us in Jannatul Firdaus, ameen.

UPDATE (sike)

salaamu alaikum

a couple people have told me that i should update. prepare to be disappointed, guys.

- ramadan is in like 2 days or something, and i'm really not ready for taraweeh. last year and the year before, when it came down to about this time, i took out a day and did like a crash course review, but this year i don't have the time.

- i've been thinking about cutting my hair. not just trimming it, but cutting that joint off. note that i've been growing it out since hajj so it's got pretty long. its so big that only 2 of the numerous kufis i have fit me now without stopping the blood circulation to my brain. feedback is welcome. but not required.

PS: i don't really care.

woohoo

salaamu alaikum

yeaaaah, so today was funny. i had to give a lil khutbah at the darul taqwa summer camp right, so i looked up the hadith on the seven types of people that will be shaded on the day of judgement and decided to explain it and stuff. so i got up there, explained the seven types, and then sat down closing the first khutbah, and realized while i was sitting that i had nothing else to say. i didn't even think about what i was going to talk about for the second part. i had said everything i wanted to in the first part. greaaaat.

clock was ticking tho, so i got up, and started saying random things, and then tried to re summarize the hadith, and forgot it. so i stood up there for at least 10 seconds trying to figure out what the 3rd type was and i just couldn't, wouldn't come in my mind, and this is after i just gave a whole talk about this hadith. i was laughing at myself, (inside of course) and i'm sure the kids were too. and the older guys, and girls... haha, whatever. so i just said i forgot the rest and closed up with some more random stuff. i don't even remember it.

lesson: if you're not bringing notes, at least make sure you know the hadith well enough by heart.

then i came back to bmore and had all-you-can-eat crabs at loafers. heh, what a looser.

walaikum assalaam

"khutbah time" cont.

assalaamu alaikum

anyways, after the prayer i left the place. btw, the place is actually a car dealership with a musallah in the back. my teacher is the imam there, and i don't know if he owns or works at the dealership, but he's definitely in charge or whatever. i went to his house once for class (yes all the way to VA, 70 miles) and then dinner, and then we went to the dealership to check out the cars and pray and stuff, and we ended up playing cricket in the backroom. i came to find out those guys play cricket from maghrib to isha every single day at the dealership. chill job. anyways, that trip deserves a post in its own.

so i left the place, got stuck in traffic on the way back, was starving, so i stopped by pizzaroma, told a friend to meet me up there. met some heads from the area over there, chilled and left.

fast forward an hour or two, and we're running around trying to look for a showing of pirates of the caribbean that is NOT sold out. everywhere we went, it was sold out. EXCEPT, security square mall, right next to my house, and you KNOW how bad a place sucks if every real theater is sold out, but this place wasn't even half full. either way, i gotta go see it again, cuz i didn't see the ending. i had no idea how long that movie was going on for, and when there was 5 minutes left in the movie, i thought there was at LEAST 30 minutes left, so i looked down at the time and was like, ohhh snap, cuz maghrib time was almost over. so i went outside the theaters, prayed, and by the time i got back in, the movie was over. so i haven't seen the ending.

then i came home, ready for a basketball all nighter as is usual on fridays. but as soon as i walked into the house, i was getting a lecture on how my phone never rings and i don't tell anybody where i'm going or where i am the entire day, and how nobody knew if i was even alive. which perplexed me because every friday, i'm out the entire day and don't come home till like 2:30 AM and nobody worries, and then i was made to realize that i had gone to VIRGINIA in the morning, and never reported back AFTER THAT, which i totally forgot about by the way, but that is why my parents were so pissed.

so i ended up NOT being able to play ball, and went to the gym and just watched, assuring everybody that i could play after 12AM because at that time, technically, the "you're not gonna play basketball TODAY" rule would expire. by the time 12 o clock rolled in though, i still had no shoes and half the people left and i didn't even feel like playing forreal. so that was my half-eventful friday.

alhamdulillahi Rabbil Aalameen.

PS: I DON'T KNOW WHY THE FONT IS ACTING WEIRD. first it was black and pretty much invisible, so i had to take paragraph by paragraph and make it a different color. friggin blogger.com...

khutbah time

assalaamu alaikum

yeaaaaaa, so before it becomes too late (not that it's not super late already) to make this post and i forget all about it, i will. earlier last week my teacher calls me up and leaves me a message saying that it's important and i should call him back. so i do, and it turns out he's in buffalo and won't make it back in time for jumuah, and i gotta go to manassas, VA and lead. woohoo. lesson: never call back when things are important...sike? sike sike.

anyways, i prepared the joint on friday after fajr. it was very simple, just enough to get through. here it is:

Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the Worlds, He who has humbled and broke the stiff necks of tyrants from before us with Death, who has reminded us by sending to the grave those who wished immortality, sending them from the greatest of palaces to the lowliest of graves, that none of us is exempt from this fate of death.

“Every soul shall taste death.”

However, today, it seems that we have no problem listening to hours upon hours of discussion on politics, or hours and hours of vain talk full of gossip and hate that show us how different we are from one another, yet we can’t bare a few minutes worth of talking about how similar we are, because every single one of us is going to experience death. And we hate it to the point that if somebody reminds us of it, we begin to complain, and tell the person to talk about something else.

Allah SWT says in the Quran: “Say: (As for) the death from which you flee, that will surely overtake you, then you shall be sent back to the Knower of the unseen and the seen, and He will inform you of that which you did.”

And the Prophet SAW encouraged us to remember death. He said, “Frequently remember the destroyer of all desires.” Why? The entire reason for this type of remembrance is NOT so that we leave everything and sit in our rooms and think about how we are going to die, but it is to take away the love and attachment of our hearts to this world so that we can make preparations for the Afterlife. We still have jobs, school, family, and lives, but we won’t allow these things to take us away from the remembrance of Allah. What is this life besides play and amusement? Someone who is heedless of death will only indulge in worldly desires, because he feels he will live forever. He knows he will die. Because statistics show that on average, people end up dying. But he doesn’t REALLY know. He has the information in his brain that he could die any second, whether it be in a car accident, sickness, or he simply drop to the ground as his heart stops beating, but he doesn’t REALLY know. And few of us do, because we do not remember death.

Among the knowledge of the Unseen, which is only with Allah, is the hour of the trumpet being blown. The day of judgement. However, know that for each and every one of us, the Akhirah, starts as soon as we die. And the topic of death and the journey through the different stages are so long and detailed that it would take days to try and relate everything that has been revealed to us by Allah and his messanger and collected by the scholars of the past. So we will talk about death itself.

Imam Ghazali talks about death in his section of Ihya Ulum-ul-Din and says, Know that there is no terror, calamity or torment except that of the pains of death alone, that would be enough to render a person’s life miserable and would it impossible for him to live in happiness.

Take for example a man who is enjoying himself at a party, with the finest luxuries and delights, but he knows and is expecting someone to come in later that night and kill him, he would not be able to enjoy his party. Yet with every breath, the Angel of Death draws nearer to us, and the pains of death come closer, but we pay this no mind.

We all know of the flimsy excuse as to why our brother is not practicing. Because I’m still young. InshaAllah when I get older, I will start praying. Or the notion that when I’m about to die, all I gotta say is the kalima, and I go straight to paradise. It’s in the hadith, right? The Prophet (SAW) said: Advise the dying person to say, (There is nothing worthy of worship except Allah) because a dying Muslim who recites this will be saved from Hell. So a person can do whatever they want in their life and then right when they are about to die, say the shahadah? That is completely false. A person will die with their life on their mind and on their tongue.

There are so many accounts of people lying ready to die, having entire conversations, singing their favorite songs, asking about loved ones, but when told to recite the kalima, their throats lock up and their voices are stopped at their throats, and they simply cannot say it. Right now, anybody can say the shahadah by their lips but not really mean it, but over there, you won’t be able to even say it with your lips unless it was constantly on your tongue.

Just a couple weeks ago, an Imam was giving a talk to some youth, and he told a story about how he was going to the masjid for Salah, and he was in his car making dhikr, and while he was driving around the curve, a drunk driver came and hit him in a head on collision. And at that second, when he could do nothing to control his thoughts, when everything was just instinct and he had no chance to prepare what he would say, he said, SubhanAllah, I think I’m about to die. And he said the shahadah, and he COULD, because it was on his lips constantly. His tongue was wet with the dhikr of Allah constantly; it was like he was training himself; you know how fighters do, they train so hard so that when it comes down to the punch, its all reflex. Its not fake. Its natural and smooth. Because they have been practicing. The same way we cannot expect to be able to have Allah on our lips upon our death if we have music in our ears all day long, or useless talking, backbiting, gossiping, slandering, all these stories playing in our minds all the time. We need to start practicing. Make dhikr. May Allah make us from those who keep their tongues wet with His remembrance.

And do not think that death can come easy, for the Prophet SAW himself used to say, “Oh Allah, Lessen for Muhammad the agonies of death!” The Prophet, upon his time of death had a vessel of water nearby him, where he would dip his hands and rub his face and say, “Oh Allah, alleviate for me the agonies of death!” An then Fatima would say, “How great is my sorrow at your sorrow, father!” But he said, “There shall be no more sorrow for your father after this day’. If the prophet SAW himself sought refuge from the pains of death, and he was the purest of the pure, imagine us who’s souls are foul with the muck and grime of sin.

Umar RA said once, “O Ka’b, Speak to us of death!’ Certainly O Commander of the Faithful, Death is as a thorny twig made to enter the stomach of a man, so that each thorn becomes attached to an artery. Then a powerful man pulls at it, and it takes what it takes, and leaves what it leaves.’

Such are the agonies of death, and we ask Allah to ease the pain of Death for us and make us from those for whom death is a gift from Allah.

Allah SWT says, Oh you who believe, Fear Allah the way he should be feared. And do not die except in the state of Islam.

And Taqwa, which is translated as fear, is more than just fear. It is a balance between both fear and hope. And the Prophet SAW warns us about the fire and the punishment of Allah, as well as gives us hope by giving us the glad tidings of Paradise. And I end with a narration of the Prophet SAW telling us of the last man to enter paradise.

Narrated Ibn Mas'ud: Verily the Messenger of Allah said: The last to enter Paradise would be a man who would walk once, stumble once and be burnt by the Fire once. Then when he passes beyond it, he will turn to it and say: Blessed is He Who has saved me from thee. Allah has given me something He has not given to any one of those in earlier or later times.

Then a tree would be raised for him and he will say: O my Lord! Bring me near this tree so that I may take shelter in its shade and drink of its water. Allah, the Exalted and Great, would say: O son of Adam, if I grant you this, you will ask Me for something else. He would say: No, my Lord. And he would promise Him that he would not ask for anything else. His Lord would excuse him because He sees what he cannot help desiring; so He would bring him bear it, and he would take shelter in its shade and drink of its water. Afterwards a tree more beautiful than the first would be raised before him and he would say: O my Lord! Bring me near this tree in order that I may drink of its water and take shelter in its shade and I shall not ask Thee for anything else. He (Allah) would say: O son of Adam, if I bring you near it you may ask me for something else. He would promise Him that he would not ask for anything else. His Lord will excuse him because He sees something he cannot help desiring. So He would bring him near it and he would enjoy its shade and drink its water.

Then a tree would be raised for him at the gate of Paradise, more beautiful than the first two. He would say: O my Lord! Bring me near this (tree) so that I may enjoy its shade and drink from its water. I shall not ask Thee for anything else. He (Allah) would say: O son of Adam! Did you not promise Me that you would not ask Me for anything else? He would say: Yes my Lord, but I shall not ask Thee for anything else. His Lord would excuse him for He sees something the temptation of which he could not resist.

He (Allah) would bring him near it, and when He brings him near it he would hear the voices of the inhabitants of the Paradise. He would say: O my Lord! Admit me to it. He (Allah) would say: O son of Adam, what will bring an end to your requests to Me? Will it please you if I give you the whole world and a similar one with it? He will say: O my Lord! Art Thou mocking at me, though Thou art the Lord of the worlds?

Ibn Mas'ud laughed and asked (the hearers): Why don't you ask me what I am laughing at. They (then) said: Why do you laugh? He said: It is in this way that the Messenger of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) laughed. They (the companions of the Holy Prophet) asked: Why do you laugh, Messenger of Allah? He said: On account of the laugh of the Lord of the universe, when he (the desirer of Paradise) said: Art Thou mocking at me though Thou art the Lord of the worlds? He would say: I am not mocking at you, but I have the power to do whatever I wish.
[Sahih Muslim, Vol. 1, #359, 361]

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and then i gave the Arabic khutbah. that was the Bayan in english.

Subhanalli wa bihamdihi, subhanallil Adheem

long time coming

Anonymous said...

wow.. assalamu alaikum,
im at the point in my life where everything is going up & down. somedays i am so enthusiastic about islam, but other days im just plain neglectful. these posts and other muslim bros/sis, writings really allow me to come back to myself. but how do maintain a strong imaan without fading off and on??

walaikum assalaam

first of all, i gotta say something. and to do so, i'm gonna paraphrase what one of the speakers said at the ISNA regional conference in DC a couple months ago. it's interesting to note that while the other muscles in the body all go through (insert name of process that muscles go through and use up energy etc - biology major my foot) the tongue is the only muscle that does not go through this. so while you can only do so many sets of curls until you're muscles get tired, you're tongue doesn't have to worry about that, so it can talk and talk and talk and never get tired. this is the way Allah SWT has created us, and it's almost a neat way of telling us that, "talk is cheap!"

and by the way anonymous, i thought about replying as another comment, but i started thinking and decided that this warranted a post of its own, so yeah, i am kinda singling you out (which doesn't matter cuz you're anonymous :D). but anyways, the reason i mentioned what i did above is to say that obviously, talk is cheap, and your words only take life through action. so basically i can give advice, but it's only the same advice that i have to give to myself, cuz i go through the same thing, and everybody else does too.and it's really crazy sometimes how Allah sends people to remind us even if they don't know they're doing the reminding.

the thing is, everybody goes through this same thing that you're talking about. the Prophet SAW himself has mentioned that Iman will increase and decrease. i remember IBOO posted something about this, so i went and dug it up:

Muhammed al Shareef once said that the iman is not a static thing, it is something which goes up and down constantly and the trick is to not allow the lowest valley, of your iman line graph if you will, to get lower than any other previous point your iman has been at. In other words your iman never gets as low as its previous lowest point, and therefore in the long run will ultimately always go up.

so iman is going to go up and down. some days you will feel the sweetness, and some days you won't. both curves are equally important though. they say it takes 23 days to make or break a habit. ramadan is an entire month of spiritual high where we can make and break habits. the same way, there really is no benefit for us to listen to talks and lectures, or read articles, or attend a halaqah or an event if we're just savoring the "feeling" or the EmanRush (TM) that comes afterwards but then do nothing with it. that's like getting a free summer pass to your local gym but you never go to start working out. or getting that free 20oz coke bottle top but never taking it in and getting that free coke. ya'll see where i'm going?

what do we do with this pass? this rush of eman that comes into us? we USE it to bring something into our lives that wasn't there before. take it gradually, but take a sunnah and make it a habit. look at how many of the prophet SAW's sunnah we neglect and are basically nonexistent in our lives! can you imagine living just ONE day doing everything the Prophet SAW did? incorporating all of his practices in a day, into our day? what is wrong with us that we adhere to the sunnah after salah only because the scholars say that if you leave a sunnah mu'akkadah, you are sinning. why can't we adhere to these things because the PROPHET SAW DID THEM, and we want to emulate him??

so back to the topic. we've gotta take steps forward. we can't stay in the endless loop of nonproductivity. we gotta take one thing, and start doing it. take that rush, and use it to start fasting. use it to start making dhikr after fajr, every fajr, everyday. use it to start praying all of your sunnah, every prayer, every day. step by step. and in the beginning, we're going to enjoy it. heh, and this is reminding me of that quote i posted up a while ago, because once you start doing it, you're going to hit the opposite curve, the low end, the dip, the iman "low". Shaytan is going to try and stop you, by hitting you in places you didn't see coming. make you focus more on this stuff than your fardh, or beat you in a couple battles and simply depress you, and this is where Allah will be testing you:

"and so we would pray and taste the sweetness of prayer and iman until Allah decided to test us. and he took away that sweetness to determine whether we were worshipping Him or the sweetness. and that was the struggle, to pray with the same type of resolve, dedication, concentration, even when we didn't exactly 'feel' like it. and so Allah tested us and when we passed this test, he returned that sweetness to us."

~ severely paraphrased. this was actually the same dude who i was talking about earlier, ISNA DC, "talk is cheap"? ya'll remember don't you? don't know his name.

but this is where we have to pass the test. when our iman is "low". stick to it. these things are our lifelines, each one an extra rope thrown into the water for us to hold on to. we gotta hold on to em though.

=================================

heh, i actually wanted to make this post a while ago, it just never happened until now. Ya Allah, make us from those who put into practice the things they hear and say. and make us resolute on this deen. Ameen.

Allahumma A'innee bi thikrika wa shukrika wa husni ibadatika. Ameen.

walaikum assalaam

92 degrees outside

assalaamu alaikum

so my fam and i have been in in the midst of a battle of temperatures. here is the situation. it is summer time, and naturally, the weather is getting hotter and hotter. as most people would, my family turns on the air conditioning, and like the house very cool. but me, i'm warm blooded or something. i prefer summer over winter all year long. i'll get cold quick, but i'm usually the guy that says, "what? its not hot out here!" when people start complaining about the heat. i would rather be hot than cold. i think usually, its the other way around for people, well desis at least. which is weird, cuz isn't pakistan hot as a mess?

but anyways, that's why when i'm in the house alone, or when the air conditioning is on blast and it's like a freezer in the house, i'll go and turn the AC off, or set it to like 85 degrees, open up all the windows, and have fans running throughout for circulation. that's the ideal setting for me; fresh, real summer air, fans running. i love it. then my sister will come home and start complaining about how hot it is, and will turn the AC on and set it down to like 65 degrees, ready to have icicles form on our ceiling and what not, so i'll just wait till they walk out the room and turn the AC back off. it's like that constantly. when its confrontation time, i'll just bust out the "i'm saving us energy AND money, BUDDY!" argument. they can't say much to that, and near the end, i'll quickly throw in the, "what would you do if we didn't have AC, huh?"

and no it's not cruel, cuz during the winter, they use the same argument to leave the house below freezing, while i defrost my hoodies over a fire in my room.

random thoughts from the weekend

assalaamu alaikum

and i mean random:

it was a tiring camp. but a good tiring. a "cleanse the soul with mud, rain, sweat, basketball, and lack of sleep" tiring. there were times when we had the choice to go back to our cabins and sleep for 2 hours, but each time, we ended up playing basketball, either in the dead heat, or the rain.

we also played square of death. in the process of tackling somebody, my finger got cut somehow. now i'm not usually somebody who cares about getting cut up, cuz usually i just leave them and don't even think about washing them up, much less putting a bandaid on em. but this cut HURT man, and it was on an area where it wouldn't close up and the blood wasn't clotting. i guess cuz my finger kept opening it up every time it moved. so i'm trying hard to bear the pain while still playing. next play, i almost get rocked and the dude rips like a whole layer off of my shirt. aH ala thalik. i used the strip of cloth to wrap up my finger and the cut, n keep the dirt out and stuff, and kept on playing. i felt like i was in the movies, getting stabbed and tearing off a piece of his shirt to wrap the wound. on a smaller scale of course. but still. oh yeah. :coolguy:

one of the things that hit me in one of the talks and i mentioned later on during the closing reflections session was how each and every one of us has been chosen to be muslims. and every time we pray, we were chosen for that prayer, and seperated from the millions of people who do not know what prayer is. when we wake up for fajr, we've been chosen while so many people are still sleeping. when we decide to do dhikr or read quran, so many other people are completely neglectful. there is so much to be thankful for, and so much to work on.

Allah swt has a plan for each and every one of us. every single situation we are put in, we have been placed there for a reason. everybody we meet, say salaams to, just make eye contact with has been placed there at that certain time for a reason, maybe as a test for us, or us a test for them, or maybe as an oppurtunity for us to make a potential lasting impression. just one smile can do so much. and i know this because there were people at that camp that made lasting impressions on me without them even knowing. just by doing something as simple as smiling.

during one of the talks, the question was raised as to how many people have a regular halaqah they attend. a lot of people raised their hand. i wasn't one of them. so i need a halaqah.

didn't i say this was gonna be random?

the best thing about these camps is the brotherhood thats built. [i just decided to erase some of the entry just cuz...]

what hit me the hardest during those 3 days was on the last day, when we sat in a circle and after each of us shared our reflections about the camp, the brother who went last said that he hopes that he can be with these same brothers under Allah's shade on the day when there is no shade but his. and i began to picture myself on that day, so utterly terrified and confused, only to find solace in the shining faces of these brothers that were here with me in this circle so close, smiling. words can't begin to describe the humbling feeling of being with such good people, and having them make duah for the group, which happened to include me at the time.

so we wrote letters to ourselves that were gonna be sent to us in a years time. first thing i wrote was, hey, you might be dead by the time this things comes back to you. we were supposed to give ourselves advice, but i ended up writing about the state of mind i was in at the time, what plans and goals i had made coming out from the camp, and overall, the things that have been on my mind and what not, so that i could guage my progress or lack of progress. see what had changed, or if anything had changed at all.

by the way, i'm getting kinda sleepy.

a couple months back i made a post about a poem that i had been inspired to write. with that rock picture? remember? well i do. anyways, i started writing it during a 3 hour long psychology class session, then left it alone for a couple months, and finally finished it sometime last week. well, i read that poem at MAS. aH, it went real well. i tried reading it again when i got back, and stuttered so much that i was surprised i even got past the first couple paragraphs at the camp without getting stuck. clutch performances, zindabad.

Ya Rabbi, lakal hamdu kama yambaghi lijalali wajhika wa adheemi sultanik.

oh, and i'm still sore.

foremost to myself

assalaamu alaikum

we've all heard the stories of the prophets and heard of their miracles. and we think that surely, if we were present when Musa AS split the red sea or Eesa AS cured the sick and brought dead back to life by Allah's will, we would have no doubt as to who our creator was, and we would be complete and utterly perfect believers. wouldn't it be cool and so strengthening to witness one of those miracles? and so we neglect the greatest miracle of all, namely the Quran, that is right under our noses. and sometimes i think, we are the last nation. but say for instance, IF there was going to be a nation after us, or perhaps on the DOJ when everything is told, those who came before us would probably be dumbfounded as to how we could have neglected such a clear and obvious sign and miracle such as the Quran, the same thing we say and think about them when they killed the cow.

how could they be so stupid?

now although we have a tendency to follow others footsteps, right into the holes they crawl into and get stuck in, some of us claim that we try and learn from others mistakes. well i do, at least. so i have to be careful to not develop an attitude that prides itself on not falling into the same holes that everybody around me, my friends and peers, have fallen into, and continuously and repeatedly fall into. and so i remind myself, that every person has their own test. and where one person has failed, and i have succeeded, does not mean anything. that might have been easy for me and hard for him. and i look at myself now and see a hundred different things that i fail at everyday and others have no problem with.

its like when people say, "i can't marry somebody from back home, because they haven't faced the same struggle as i. they've lived around muslims their whole life, they haven't been exposed to the trials of the west, etc" this always bothers me, because Allah clearly says in the Quran, do you think you will be left alone saying you believe and not be tested? the people before you were tested until their foundations were shaken and they were left saying, when comes the help of Allah? sure, maybe you have been through certain things that other person hasn't, but you can bet your nikes that that person has been through a hundred things you have never experienced also.

the same way, our parents came here and aH, they established the deen. they built masajid, and now schools, and now institutions are being set up everywhere throughout the west. that was their job and their test. we can't just retake their test, because the answers are already on the sheet. we can't just keep on building masjids and schools. its our job to take it another step forward. and we have to figure it out and pass this test on our own. because its YOUR test. and MY test. in the end the judgement is for Allah. he tests whom he loves, but its not my job to figure out whether he loves me or you more.

paraphrased

"and so we would pray and taste the sweetness of prayer and iman until Allah decided to test us. and he took away that sweetness to determine whether we were worshipping Him or the sweetness. and that was the struggle, to pray with the same type of resolve, dedication, concentration, even when we didn't exactly 'feel' like it. and so Allah tested us and when we passed this test, he returned that sweetness to us."

word

salaamu alaikum

i took a break from studying for this math test and decided to eat breakfast. omlet and roti. don't know exactly how, but from that, i ended up on the comp. not to mention the plate that committed suicide by jumping from a great height and is now shattered all over the kitchen floor which i am now going to clean up.

anyways, my new favorite website.

Gangsta

Khutbah Vol. 2

salaamu alaikum,

Khutbah time...can't touch this tananana:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"There is in the body a clump of flesh - if it becomes good, the whole body becomes good and if it becomes bad, the whole body becomes bad. And indeed it is the heart."

As Allah said in Surah Az-Zumar (39:22), "Woe to those whose hearts are hardened against the remembrance of Allah." They are in obvious misguidance. Woe to those whose hearts hear the Quran and they do not become fearful and humbled as a result of it. Woe to those whose eyes are reminded of the Words of Allah, but they do not weep in fear of Him. Woe to those who are reminded of the Warnings of Allah and they do not humble themselves to His Words.

Why are our hearts so hard? The prophet Muhammad SAW mentions that whenever someone does a good deed, a white spot comes onto his heart, and if he continues to perform good, his heart will become so white with Noor and light that it will become like shining marble. The same way for the person that commits a bad deed, his heart is afflicted by a black spot of sin, and as he continues to sin day in and day out, his heart becomes completely blackened by these sins and it becomes hard to the point that his sins do not affect him anymore.

Isn’t this how we are now? Sometimes we wonder how when we hear stories of the Sahabah about how they would be up all night in prayer, weeping and crying and begging for forgiveness…and then to find out for what? Their minor sins! The tiniest things that they did that they thought to be enormous on their records that they would spend entire nights crying and seeking forgiveness from Allah. Most of us, we do not think twice about the person we backbited a few minutes ago. Sometimes we DO think twice, and with a quick astaghfirullah, its all good. A lot of times, we do not even take notice to the sins that we commit because they have become so regular to us. They don’t even bother us.

Sheikh Husain Abdul Sattar gave his own example to illustrate this point. Once while he was driving, another car came from behind him and hit him. Nothing happened to the car that hit him, but the back of his car was all banged up. So he gets out of the car and goes towards the two teenagers that step out, obviously nervous wrecks. And so they ask him to move his car out of the way so that traffic can pass, and he knows what’s up, but he obliges, and as soon as he moves his car, they peel off and drive away. The point of the story was that if his car had not been so beaten up already, he might of cared a little more. If he was driving a brand new BMW or Mercedes or something, he might have been a tad bit more concerned and upset that two kids with no insurance had just come and put a dent into his vehicle. But his car was already so beat up and dented up, that it just didn’t matter to him that another dent was just put in.

Our hearts are just like this. When our hearts have so many dents in them by result of the sins that we do so frequently, another sin, another Haram glance, episode of backbiting, or anything at all, will not bother us at all, because our hearts are already so hard; they are already so banged up and dented and dirty. But if we made our hearts into those beamers and shiny new Lexus’s, then the tiniest scratch would put us through the roof. The smallest sin would bother us to the point that we would want to seek forgiveness from it immediately as to not chip the paint on our souls. And not only would the sin bother you, but like the person you’re watching trying to back out of a parking space next to you, and is cutting it a tad bit too close? Just being close to the sins, in an environment of sins, just the notion of being succeptible to commit an injustice to your self, your heart, and that new Lexus, would cause you to begin to sweat.

Br. Nouman Ali Khan made 3 points regarding roadblocks towards softening our hearts, 2 of which I remember.

- Desensitization. Why are there some people who when a verse of the Quran concerning the Akhirah or the horrors of the fire of hell, break down and are moved to tears, while the vast majority of us remain unaffected. Even if we try to cry, sometimes, the tears just do not come. And its actually a very sad case in the west where we have been desensitized to any type of pain and injury by means of the media. So when Allah mentions the punishments of Hell, we are unaffected because of how desensitized we are. That is why when a person is making a conscious effort towards softening their hearts, a big step is to refrain from filling their minds with excess media.

- Intellectual arrogance. This is something that is very relevant to most of us who are living in the west and are studying in universities and what not. We have this false notion and idea of intellectualism, which suggests that a person who is intellectual and learned is somehow above these emotions that are triggered by the verses of the Quran or the remorse of a sin. And by this we develop a type of arrogance to say that it is beneath a person who has their emotions under control, is calm and collected, to cry out of the fear of Allah. Allah mentions heaven and hell, sure we believe in it, but we cannot be moved to tears because supposedly that is for the uneducated layman of back home. SubhanAllah. On an equal note, most of us brothers have developed the shell of a sort of apathy and disregard for emotions, and everyone knows what I am talking about. None of us would dare cry in front of his boys. So we fail to realize that the best generation ever, namely the Sahabah, whom no intellectual can surpass in status, would weep at the mention of death or the Akhirah. This is something that we, myself first of all, must get over.

"Do you then wonder at this recital (The Quran)?

And you laugh at it and weep not.

Wasting your (precious) lifetime in pastime and amusements." Surah Najm

“Had we sent down this Quran upon a mountain, you would surely have seen it humbling itself and rending asunder due to the fear of Allah.” Surah Hashr

Are our hearts harder than mountains? Have sins made our hearts so hard that a mountain would crumble by the weight of the Quran, yet we do not even feel our hearts flutter?

How can we cure this?

1. Make sincere Duah that Allah softens all of our hearts as individuals and as an Ummah. Ameen. And ask others to make duah for you. The Prophet SAW made duah for Umar bin Khattab, the hardest of hearts in Makkah, somebody who buried his own daughter alive, and Allah accepted and turned Umar’s heart around. [Quran, Surah Al-Baqarah 2:186 : "When my servants ask thee concerning Me, I am indeed close to them: I respond to the prayer of every suppliant when he calleth on Me; let them also, with a will, listen to My call and believe in Me: that they may walk in the right way"]

2. The Prophet SAW said it best, “Remember the destroyer of all pleasures.” Which is death. Death is certain upon every single one of us, and it does not discrimate age, health, or wealth. And know that the Akhirah for every one of us, starts at the point that we die. Remember death.

3. Read the Quran! And try to understand it. It’s so important for each and every one of us to make a sincere attempt at learning the language of the Quran. Because that is how the Quran is preserved. A translation of the Quran is not the Quran anymore, and can thus be touched without being in the state of Wudu. Quite simply, only the ACTUAL Quran, is the actual Quran. It’s like the lines of Urdu poems that my parents will decide to drop on me at random times, and then when I ask them to translate and they do, I am not able to recognize the same depth and beauty of the verse, and most of the time, I’m just thinking, “That’s it?” [Quran Az-Zumar 39:23 : Allah has sent down the best statement, a Book (this Qur'an), its parts resembling each other in goodness and truth, oft-repeated. The skins of those who fear their Lord shiver from it (when they recite it or hear it). Then their skin and their heart soften to the remembrance of Allah. That is the guidance of Allah. He Guides therewith whom He pleases and whomever Allah sends astray, for him there is no guide.

4. Do good deeds. And first and foremost, before all other actions, we must establish our prayer. If we aren’t praying 5 times a day, then we need to start lest our hearts become stones. If we ARE praying 5 times a day, then we need to ask ourselves, “Is going for prayer the highlight of my day? Is it what I look forward to?” The Prophet SAW, whenever afflicted with a hardship, the first thing he would do is go and pray. Prayer was a blessing for them, and for us it is a burden. The quicker we finish, Alhamdulillah. When on the Day of Judgement, we will WISH that we could pray again. This is the time for prayer, because over there, there will be no more chances to pray. Allah talks about the disbelievers in who will wish that they could go come back to this world and pray, and do good deeds, and not do what they used to do, but their time will be up, and Allah says that they have lost and destroyed their own selves by these things, and also that they are liars who would go back and do the same exact thing if they were given the chance. Ya Allah, save us from such a fate. Ameen.

[Bukhary, Volume 8, Book 76, Number 486: Narrated Abu Huraira: The Prophet said Allah will give shade to seven (types of people) under His Shade (on the Day of Resurrection). (one of them will be) a person who remembers Allah and his eyes are then flooded with tears.]

I pray that Allah grants all of us soft hearts, and makes us from among those who are granted His shade.

sticking like ducttape

assalaamu alaikum

man talk about being hungry.

i dropped off my sister at her college early this morning, and then went straight to my campus to study. i didn't eat breakfast or anything so i come home hoping for some fresh rotis or something, but there is nothing. after looking around the fridge for a couple minutes, i end up pulling out a container of raw chocolate chip cookie dough, and begin my assault. its been in the freezer forever so its hard as a rock, and i didn't know it was possible to mutilate a fork so badly until i tried to hack away at the cookie dough and get a few bites in. and then by accident, i threw the fork into the trash can, and i'm too lazy to go dig through the trash and take it out, so its gone.

finish strong or dont finish at all

assalaamu alaikum

so the day finally came. the time for a decision. today is the last day to withdraw from classes, and after performing istikharah and debating the pros and cons of dropping math all yesterday and today, at the point of actually getting ready to drive up to the college and drop math, i decided to stick with it. there is no turning back now. i'm just going to have to buckle down and study.

3 weeks left in the semester.

in basketball, i want the last shot - more like every shot, shhh - but when it comes down to the clutch, i want it and i go for it. the same way, my entire life in schooling, whether it was the "last minute, up all night science fair project that wins", or the "did not study all weekend but come in monday morning 10 minutes before qari sahab gets there and memorize my lesson out of sheer terror", or the "last minute essay that keeps you up half the night" i've always come through at the end. maybe this spoiled me, but the thing was, i always KNEW that i could do it.

this one is different, because i hate math, and i really do NOT know if i can pull this one off. and now as the clock ticks, its almost dhuhr time. after dhuhr is class with the sheikh. then i gotta go to DC, and by the time i come back, who knows if i will still have time to reverse the decision.

but its done now. if i was to drop, i should have gone half an hour ago. then again, anything can happen, and at the end of the day, i might be writing an entry bout how this whole post was garbage, but as of now, its on. ball in.

prayer time.

walaikum assalaam.

assalaamu alaikum

dang homie

you know its bad when spring break's been over for 2 days, and you finally decide to look for your bookbag.

AND only to make it look like you were studying the entire morning and not wasting time eating roti with ice cream...

aha...dang homie

salaamu alaikum

back from the MIST party, aH, which is always good times. this was the first time during this "spring break" that i've actually went somewhere, and it was definitely a blast of fresh air. the thing is i feel so unproductive when i am at home. and when i started thinking about it and tried to figure out why, i came to the following conclusions (theories):

1. i don't really feel like my day has "started" for REAL until i've showered up and changed clothes and all that jazz. when i'm at home, i just sit around all day long, eat cereal, and sleep. do i ever leave the house? of course. five times a day at LEAST, which brings me to the next point.

2. i live 15.4 seconds away from the masjid. i sleepwalk to fajr, sleepwalk back, and hit the sack again. days that i'm off or when this is possible, ill waste time at home doing nothing until dhuhr, and ill still go the masjid without actually "starting my day". i could go the entire day like this, cuz the masjid is my backyard.

which really makes me wish that we lived a little further away. another reason is that living this close to the masjid has spoiled me. one of my boys would ask how its possible for me to be late to prayer, miss a rakah etc. he understood once he moved into the house next to mine. of course there are so many benefits of living so close to the masjid, but i can't help but wonder or hope that if i lived a little farther away, i would be so tortured by boredom that i would have to get out and come to the masjid, which would then not actually be my backyard, but me coming out to the community. it would make me a lot less lazy and teach me how to manage my time.

3. i am procrastinator extraordinaire. and my house has a lot to do with that. i cannot do a lick of work inside of the home. i can come home from college with a weeks worth of assignments to do or catch up on, and really have an intention to start on it, but once i step in the house, i see the sofa in the living room or the nice empty floor next to the computer, and oh wait, the COMPUTER. so you guys are prolly like "computer? i can understand that...but the sofa or FLOOR?" very simply put: i sleep there. all my room is to me is where i change my clothes, and maybe hit the bench when i'm feeling lucky. i sleep downstairs either on the sofa, or on the floor. therefore, when i am at home, i cannot study. its either sit on the comp, or feel very sleepy and just lie down.

4. i don't know what four is. maybe its because i'm not even going to a real college. CCBC is just 13th grade. which is why i need to transfer as soon as possible, which i cudda done a semester ago, but chose not to for who knows what reason.

this semester started as a fully loaded killer for me. next thing i know, the darul uloom classes became less structured/scheduled and more "sheikh says come at this time tomorrow...ok." and i found out i didn't need my anatomy&phys class, resulting in me dropping it, and all of a sudden, i have so much free time, and i am so unproductive its not even funny. and whats really sad is that i'm still near failing math when i could be smashing it. (see all of the above post)

so, let me end with an intention and the crux of worship: duah.

Ya Allah, make us from those who You take Your work from. Accept us for this deen.

Ya Allah, purify my intentions and help me act when action is needed, and restrain when restraint is needed. Take away my laziness and make easy for me my endeavors.

Ameen.

dasss wasss goooooooood

salaamu alaikum
this is the 1st place winner for poetry in MIST 2006. congrats to my boy hasan, known also as baller4life. here it is:

In my head I’ve got these dreams, these depictions, descriptions
Barrages of collages, colors outside the spectrum of sight, just light beyond the range of my vision
But they fill me to the brim, no use to suppress them, no way to win
Except through the burning of my soul, the fat of laziness dripping off its end
By expending this newly born piece of flesh and muscle into its truer function
As it pumps my blood and life through these wrinkled veins into these flashes of imagination
No, more like personalized personification of a reservoir of emotion
Dampened, barred and hidden behind a veneer of the visage of men.
So instead I intend to attempt to paint this picture of thoughts and feelings with words
Because my fingers and hands cannot fathom subtleties left to the mind, hold, or grasp this burden of worlds
This sketch of a solemn soul sitting in solitary at the strand of a stream, holding stones
And it might seem like a dream, but if you know what I mean, he’s grinding them down with scorching coals.
This fiery heat of struggle, dirt falls away as it bubbles when he experiences trouble,
Sharpened and shaped by all the times that he felt prone to the suggestion, that he should just lash back in an act of reactionary aggression, because he can take revenge and avenge his pride for that snide comment or the backbiting from behind, but to swallow that coal, and take the cold in his eyes and lump in his throat and throw it away, disregarding the pain of bowing low and letting go of the hate, the ire in his gaze, the daggered words on his tongue, the fire in his ways, the urge to simply stain a steel sword red, or put a gun to a head, or just return what was said, and what’s been said has been said, so to take this to bed and forgive and forget without remorse or regret grants a greater reward, far more whole than the black hole of revenge, gratification of a soul with a spine that can bend like the kind tree that bears its fruit low to even the lowliest of men.

And no its not the end, he knows that rest is not his friend, he dodges a bullet from a gun, its the whisper of shaytan, to leave his stones alone and show his own that this is what he’s done, unless he wishes to undo the labor that he has done to none, by leaving his stone, his soul, his whole, outside in the sun, because the stagnant heart is nothing but a degenerating one.

So now he’s back, he was never gone, with this same stone clutched,
Grinding viciously with a heated coal that burns him to the touch,
Crouched over and working fiercely, because his mentality’s such,
That he knows he started this job, and finish it he must,
So with another chafe of his scrape he unveils the glitter of past times and present dates,
And takes a step forward when he couldn’t contemplate
The leaving of his prayer for the next time he would wake, because what if he didn’t wake and met his fate and his lord in this most miserable state, of heedlessness
So he wakes from his warmth in the cold air of the night,
And prays to his Lord takes the sweetness of Light when no one saw or heard
He took another step forward when he curbed his desires, blasting through the doors of vile indecency, by fasting on the day in which he would eat normally, or all the times that he felt the tug of this world come at him so bold, he’s hanging off a single strand while stranded at sea in the midst of a storm that swarms him so, that he surely would not persist in his hold of this string, but he does and that’s what strengthens his resolve and drowns his remorse and remolds his whole soul into a resilient slave and a true mortal.

And this rock that he shapes with his bloody hands and welling eyes, feeds his soul to mold one simple characteristic goal: Patience in relations, in frustrations, in temptations, bearing not the limitation of reactionary situations, but patience is pro-active like meeting your enemy with a smile, or walking that extra mile, plunge headfirst into that trial, and with this you turn that first rock in your pile into a rock no more, and you see that your efforts are worthwhile because you have just won one battle in a war and these metaphors can’t fully store the heat of this metamorphosis, but this process will be hard and bitter, sometimes even torturous, to take your sweat and time put your heart and mind to the test, you need a map? take the Quran and look up your coordinates, and become of those fortunate enough to read and actually learn from it,

And then if you see your rocks you’ll find that the stones are now refined, gleaming with light of Allah’s Noor and his signs, and you know in your mind, that this is small victory and you have so many more stones to find, and to grind each and every one will be just as tough, but for that you have just carved Patience into a Diamond from the Rough.

car woes vol. 32

assalaamu alaikum

after dhuhr, i was coerced into going to grab a frosty from wendy's and drop my friend off at bally's on the way back and make it in time for class. so after we get the frosty and what not, i pull into the parking lot for bally's and some guy with a huge ram 1500 is reversing out of his parking spot and reverses right into the side of my car. the rear right door panel pops off and is slightly dented. i got all the insurance info and the popo came and all that jazz. after it was all done, when he pulled off and left, some black bag fell from his cab and i picked it up. it had important documents (...) so i plan on returning it to him. after i got home and told my parents what happened, they were like too bad you only have liability, so insurance isn't gonna give you any money. oh hell no. even though it was HIS fault? how am i supposed to fix this thing up then? meh. so my plans of someday pimping out the bonneville and making it more gangsta than it is by default have been replaced by getting this door panel fixed somehow.

maybe i should sell him his bag back for the cost of repairs. yeah, that'll work. hustle baby.

gimme da rock

salaamu alaikum

i dont write when i want to, i write when i must.

poetry isnt a hobby for me, but sometimes ill be inspired to write a piece if ive seen something or i got certain thoughts or emotions to express. i just made a poster out of this picture on the side via a program called "rasterbator" (dont ask me bout the shady name) and hung it up in my room, and during my 3 hour long psychology class on thursday, i started writing a piece for it. its not done yet, but iA, when it is, ill put it up or something.

diagnosis

assalaamu alaikum

leaving out the details as to why i had to put this off for so long, i finally went to the doctor on wednesday, and after she did her checkups and what not, she was like its either a hernia or avascular necrosis. now BEFORE i even went to the doctor, i was telling ppl that based on my own diagnosis i thought it was a hernia, and simply "knew" how a hernia must feel even though i've never had one before. after an ultrasound (shutup) and xray, i was right. i have a hernia, and today i'm supposed to go to a referred surgeon doctor dude to see what hes gonna do about it. pretty obvious right?

now the thing is, the doctor told me that i shouldn't do anything physical, meaning lift heavy things, work out, or PLAY BASKETBALL. man, thats what i look forward to the entire week. i rest myself just so i can play ball on fridays and sundays. and i've had this thing for 6 months now, and i've been playing ball with it on the regular. i understand not playing AFTER the surgery to heal up, but if this thing isn't gonna go away without surgery, what harm is me playing like i always play gonna do BEFORE the surgery? its not gonna affect whether i gotta get the surgery done or not, cuz thats a given.

i dont know. odds are, that if i roll up into the gym tonight with everybody playing, i won't be able to just sit on the sidelines and watch. this will probably be my last week to play before i gotta lay off for surgery n crap too, so i might as well...

whats that like 2? i got 68 more excuses to go...

EDIT: so who wants to school me on how to embed audio files on this page? i've seen ya'll do it, so share the knowledge.

i suck at school

assalaamu alaikum

so today i successfully failed my first biology exam. woohoo. too bad its not over. i have a psychology test tomorrow (more like today) and since i missed my last math class, i gotta catch up with 2 new chapters of stuff i don't understand by tomorrow (more like today). and then for bio, i have a paper due on monday which i gotta do over the same weekend as MSA EZ, and that same day, i have a lab practical for which i gotta memorize like a billion and one random greek derived bone names and be able to identify slides and junk.

yo i'm the worst student in the world.

oh yeah...

well at least i know what NOT to do next semester

madina market

Assalaamu alaikum

this is what i'm using for my hair so it can grow all nice and pretty. it never does. its always all thick and messy so that i just keep it cut mad low.

but this stuff is nice. it smells off the hook too.

i am the anti-you

assalaamu alaikum

cousin: do you ever dress up?
me: ... o_O
cousin: like in nice dress clothes?
me: uhh yea, whenever i go to court.

is that often? not really. 3-4 times in the last year? your call.

but i gotta go again tomorrow. dunno for what. these dudes just keep summoning me. if i say anything stupid like "yo" or "man", i'll let you guys know.

woo!

assalaamu alaikum

my phone is back. it fell in the toilet yesterday, and i had to watch it bubble as it filled with toilet water. for a second i thought of just reaching in and grabbing it, but i decided that whatever had happened to the phone had already happened, and there was no need for haste. so i flushed the toilet to drain the water and tried a variety of tools to fish the phone out. eventually a metal hanger did the trick. i washed the phone off and let it dry over night. this morning it still didn't work. so i used the blow dryer on it earlier while watching a college game and then left it alone, being told that it prolly short circuited or something geeky like that. came back home right now, turned it on and voila. its back.

alhamdulillah

kitchen chronicles

assalaamu alaikum

so i did it again. i made paratha again. by myself. and yes, i ghouned the atta too. my fam left food on the table for me when i got back, but for some reason that chicken didn't taste right, and i was starving (i used my last 50 cents in school on a tiny cup of hot chocolate to keep me from falling asleep in class) so i go around the kitchen and through all the drawers until i find the atta, add some water and start mixing it. i'm actually looking forward to trying out our new stove. after like 10 years of living in this house with the same busted up stove, the thing finally broke down and they finally replaced it for us, giving us this brand new fancy stove that has a shiny plastic (?) stove top and is all sparkly and what not. it looks mad out of place in our kitchen but whatever. i'm ready to try this thing out.

i swear, i've never been pissed off at a stove until this day, and i'm convinced that this thing is the worst stove in the world. our old one was better. bring it back. after i do all the atta stuff and roll it out into roti shape (and yes, it was round and proportioned) i throw that thing on the roti pan and set it on the stove and crank it up to "high". this thing sucks. i ended up spending at LEAST HALF AN HOUR on making ONE paratha because it just wouldn't cook. i go out the kitchen and walk around the living room expecting a burning smell any moment so i gotta run back, but when i look back after 5 minutes, this thing isn't even smoking.

30 whole minutes for 1 paratha. and finally i was so hungry, i think i ate that thing half kachi. i couldn't wait any longer. i started eating that thing and put the next one on the stove. the second one is taking just as long, and i'm over here wondering how in the world i can make this thing go higher than its highest setting. after a good 10 minutes of wasting my time with the stove, i was like man screw this, and i scrap the middle man. i take the roti on the spatula and just cook it over the stove place like a smore. meanwhile the metal spatula is getting hotter and hotter and i'm getting ready to burn my fingers. so i switch hands while this thing is cooking and i can see the smoke and everything, and even thought about putting on those grandma mittens but finally the roti was done. it took maybe 30 seconds for it to become pakki (cooked) after i took it off the pan and just cooked it gangsta style.

with hardship comes ease though, and i was rewarded with a delicious meal of hot nihari and fresh paratha. i washed it down with a glass of cold water, but only after i was almost completely done with the water, i looked in the glass and saw all the foreign objects that were inside of it.

yum. just another weeknight.

alhamdu lillahillathee at'amnaa wa saqaana wa ja'alnaa minal muslimeen. ameen.

wassalamu alaikum

carson palmer syndrome

assalaamu alaikum

aH, its no where near as bad as what happened to the bengal's quarterback, but thats the idea. we were playing football, i was QB, i'm in the pocket, i try and step up through the gap, and get hit; my forehead smashes into the mouth of another dude and his lip splits open causing him to have to go to the hospital and get stitches.

i hit the ground with a cut on my forehead, but that wasn't what i was worried about. my knee got hit somehow from the side and bent inward; a pain that i'm familiar with cuz that was the same knee that i dislocated 3 years ago. nothing broke and no ligaments tore, alhamdulillah, but i'm sure they stretched.

(btw, i didn't go to the doctor, but i've been injured so many times that i can do my own simple diagnosis by now. seriously.)

so that's why i'm limping. and that's why i won't be able to start taking kung fu again. and that's why i probably won't be able to play in the Darul Taqwa vs. ICCL game next week.

soo make duah that i recover quickly and fully and can get back on the field/court as soon as possible!

friday

salaamu alaikum

i just remembered earlier today that i gotta give a khutbah tomorrow (actually, its now...LATER TODAY). and i have no idea what its gonna be about.

yes. the excitement.

PICS

assalaamu alaikum

the pictures are up with small captions for the ones that need em:

SLIDESHOW

EDIT #1: BY THE WAY, during the slideshow, just click on the pics to read the titles and captions and stuff.

EDIT #2: AND, there are two pages on the slideshow, once the first page is done, it'll ask if you want to loop or see more. See more. (a few people thought there was only this many pics, and i'm like no, theres another 50 so yeah.)

enjoy

duah

salaamu alaikum

PLEASE make duah for brother Alucela, dude is 19 years old, recently married, and got shot on saturday night. the bullet hit his jaw and shattered his bones and he was in for reconstructive surgery last night. just last year, his brother was killed also. aH he is stable tho, but make duah that Allah gives him a speedy and full recovery, eases his pain, and forgives him his sins. Ameen.

photography

assalaamu alaikum

the pics are in. not ALL of them, but i'm only missing a few. and the videos are not uploaded yet. last time i talked to adnaan he said he'd make one big clip of all the videos and put it up. but anyways, i don't know whether i should just link to a photo album or post the pics in here with stories or what not.

back too soon

assalaamu alaikum

alhamdulillah, im back yall. the whole trip and experience was awesome. i arrived in bmore on saturday late night, an hour or two before it was officially my birthday: Jan 22. what could be a better birthday present than a trip like this?

i took me a little journal there, which also served as a duah list, and i was planning on writing about the stuff that went on in it, keeping it updated and all that good stuff. but i guess im just not a journal type of person, cuz i wrote absolutely nothing in its time. so i didn't write a single entry about our trip to Aqsa until i was in madina. and nothing about anything else, until my last days there where i just went and kinda recapped when i had some extra time.

theres so much to tell, so im not gonna do it all in one post. im gonna break it up into a number of posts so it doesnt become a drawn out run-on.

i got pictures. adnaan ahmad, photographer and worker for the Muslim Link was one of my fellow hajj partners, and so we took a whole rack of pictures and videos with his vicious digital camera. he has yet to give them to me, but once i get a hold of em, ill put em up on a gallery or something, insha Allah, and show yall.