Hayaatu - Dunyaa

A little girl named Bara'ah

2010-02-12T08:39:00.000-08:00

I received this in an email this morning. Normally I pass these off as chain letters and silly forwards, but this isn't one of them...

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This story is of a little girl named Bar`ah who is 10 years old, her parents were doctors who moved to Saudi Arabia in search of better life.

At this age, Bar`ah memorized the whole Quran with tajweed, she was very intelligent, her teacher use to tell her she should be in middle school not primary school.

Her family was small and committed to Islam and its teachings....suddenly one day the mother started feeling sever abdominal pain, after tests and checkups she found out that she has cancer, but in its late stages.

The mother thought she should tell her daughter, specially if she wakes up one day and didn't find her mother beside her... so she told her: "Bar`ah I will go to paradise ahead of you, but I want you to read the Quran you memorized every day since it will protect you in this life..."

The little girl didn't really understand what her mother was trying to tell her... but she started feeling the change in her mother's status, especially when she was transferred to stay in hospital on a permanent bases. The little girl use to come to the hospital after her school and recite the Quran for her mother till the evening when her father used to take her home.

One day the hospital called the husband and informed him that the his wife's condition was very bad and he needed to come as fast as he can, so the father picked Bar`ah from her school and headed to the hospital, when they arrived he asked her to stay in the car... so that she wouldn't get shocked if her mother passed away.

The father got out of his car, with tears filled in his eyes and while crossing the road to enter the hospital, he was hit by a speeding car and died in front of his daughter who came crying to her father...!

The tragedy of Bar`ah is not over yet... the news of her father's death was hidden from the mother, but after 5 days the mother passed away leaving Bar`ah alone in this life. She become alone without her parents, and her parents' friends decided to find her relatives in Egypt so that they can take care of her.

Suddenly, Bar`ah started having severe pain like her mother, after a few tests and checkups it was confirmed it was cancer... at the surprise of every one she said: "Alhamdu Lillah, now I will meet my parents."

All of the family friends were shocked and surprised, this little girl being faced with calamity after calamity and she is patient and satisfied with what Allah ordained for her!

People started hearing about Bar`ah and her story, and a Saudi decided to take care of her... he sent her to the UK for treatment of this disease.

One of the Islamic channels (Al Hafiz - The protector) got in contact with this little girl and asked her to recite the Quran... and this is her beautiful voice with recitation...

They contacted her again before she went into a coma and she made dua for her parents and sang a nasheed...

The days passed by and the cancer spread all over her body, the doctors decided to amputate her legs, and she is patient and satisfied with Allah's ordains... after a few days the CANCER spread to her brain, upon which doctors decided for another urgent brain surgery... and now her body is in a UK hospital in full COMA...

So pray for her health and speedy recovery...

Another recitation...

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It was actually her recitation and choice of ayat that hit me the hardest. In the first video, she chose that same passage of Ibrahim (AS) when he is tested by Allah (SWT), and in the second, she recited the last ayat of Surah Furqan, where Allah describes the عباد الرحمن (the true servants of Allah).

Just one of the countless reminders that there are so many others, countless others, who are tested in ways that we - or at least I - could not even imagine, and they are more patient with their trials than I am with mine.

May Allah give her Shifa and 3afaa, and join her with her parents in the highest levels of Paradise; May Allah save us from extreme hardships that we cannot bear, and give us the strength and patience to bear what trials we do have to face with the patience of the Prophets and Sabireen. Ameen.

Ishq vs. Aql

2010-02-09T10:19:00.000-08:00

Assalaamu Alaikum,

I thought this was pretty cool. I was having breakfast with my parents today - on a weekday of all days thanks to the snow - and I'm not exactly sure what we were talking about, but I think someone mentioned the word "heart", and possibly something about the home, and so my mother dropped a couple lines of Urdu poetry about Aql (intellect) and Dil (the heart):

اچھا ھے دل کے ساتہ رھے پاسبان عقل

لیکن کبھے کبھے اسے تنھا بھے چھوڑ دے

Now my Urdu isn't strong enough for me to understand what that meant, but I knew that it sounded cool, so I had her repeat it to me ~~hundreds~~ several times and I asked her to translate ~~all of it~~ some of the words for me. My rough translation would yield:

"It is good for there to be present with the Dil (the Heart), as a Guard, the Aql (Intellect)

However, sometimes, sometimes, just leave it (the Heart) alone as it may be..."

So I asked, "And when would these times be?" And she replied with another couplet of poetry. "Like when...":

بے خطر کود پڑا آتش نمرود مے عشق

عقل ھے محو تماشائے لب بام ابھے

"Fearless, jump into the fire of Namrood, did Divine Love,

While Aql still stands aside the spectacle, astounded."

First of all, the poetry blew my mind. I tried to stay true to the structure of the sentence, which is why it might sound awkward, but it is basically saying that "Ishq" or Divine Love jumped fearlessly into Namrood's pit of fire, while Intellect stood back on the edge, dumbfounded and amazed.

The first one is pretty straight forward minus the awkward structure, but it says that the heart needs the mind and intellect to govern it so it doesn't run wild and have a person become someone of whims and desires, but there are some occasions, when intellect cannot help any longer, and the heart needs to be left by itself to do what it must.

I don't know where the first one is from, but the second is an excerpt from some of Iqbal's work. It is in reference to the story of Ibrahim (AS), when he was cast into the fire. It was at this moment, that he had to desert his intellect, which for any man would scream with every fiber of its being that this fire will burn, and he had to free the reigns on his Heart, in which this Love for Allah and believe in Him resided, and it was through this love and belief, he was able to say even in the midst of his ascension into the pit of fire:

حسبي الله و نعم الوكيل

"Allah is enough for me, and the best Guardian!"

SubhanAllah. Back to the topic of poetry. In the brief explanation that my mother provided for me, I was able to pick up at least a little bit of appreciation for Urdu poetry. These are the same poems that I'll hear at a Desi wedding, and hear the uncles and aunties cry sighs of awe and amazement at lines that I do not understand, yet sound very short and simple to my ears.

After having these lines explained to me, I can't claim I am able to gauge how advanced or how eloquent the language was, or the style, due to my embarrassing limits of the language, yet I was still impressed, simply by gauging how well it flowed, and how it sounded to my ears, and how I hadn't heard of half the words before. I can only imagine how these lines impact a person who is well versed in the language. And I can understand their amazement at the meaning and depth. And I can envy it.

More so, I can imagine then, the wonder of the Arabs, who's lives were revolving around the strength of their language and their expertise in poetry, with the Ayat of Qur'an, which perplexed and amazed them, because it was like nothing ever seen or brought forth before, and it shook their hearts, challenged their minds, brought them to tears, to the extent that none were able to bring the likes of even one Ayah like it, and it changed an entire nation. I can imagine. And more so than the envy before, is the desire for this.

This is why we MUST thoroughly learn and immerse ourselves in Arabic. Not just to be able to understand the Qur'an, but to be able to actually experience it. May Allah make this path easy for us all, Ameen.

And so coming back finally to the story of Ibrahim in light of the Qur'an, it's only fitting to share the story as it is told best, by Allah (SWT) himself.

I spliced these into short clips. This first one is from Surah Anbiya:

From Surah Saaffaat:

Surah An3aam

2010-02-03T18:42:00.000-08:00

It's always refreshing to listen to Mishary's old stuff: (if this doesn't work...)

old tales

2009-11-21T21:51:00.000-08:00

considering the temporary and volatile nature of harddisks and computers, i used to save my documents that i really wanted to save by emailing them to myself. there is no fool proof solution though, since data becomes corrupted, hard drives fail, computers crash, papers are lost, servers crash, and YAHOO DECIDES TO DELETE YOUR ENTIRE FREAKING EMAIL ACCOUNT FOR NOT LOGGING IN IN 3 MONTHS.

and just like that, a LOT of stuff that i really liked to go back to read (or not read but at least know it was there for old times sake) is gone, from AIM conversations dating back to the 1990s, to hilarious email exchanges, and particularly, a whole LOT of writing.

see, i'm secretly a huge nerd, and i was an even bigger one many years ago, especially during the years i was in hifdh. my life consisted of going to qur'an class, not doing any school work (i wasted my mom's homeschool program money), and WRITING. i used to be a member of a forum in which people would create different characters and write stories about them and interact with other characters. i was actually really good, and it helped my writing a lot, and even though it might be classified as lame, i had some good times writing some pretty cool stories. i saved these stories to my yahoo accounts: gangstaeskimo, and dragonsworn00 (lol), but now both of those are gone, and those forums do not have archives that old anymore, and i'm pretty sure i will never see a lot of it again.

today though, i decided to look through some old CDs i had lying around, and lo and behold, one of them had one of the last stories i wrote. i'm thinking about posting it up here, as well as saving it somehow so i don't lose it anytime soon, and i'm gonna go look for other CDs that might have other remnants of my past, one that was far superior to my current state in its literary richness.

Pen vs Paper

2009-11-21T21:22:00.000-08:00

Stuff from a couple semesters ago:

Pen

Sometimes I gotta get loose for the part,
Stretch out my limbs, blow a little on the tip,
Give a small tap, take a tiny sip, remove my cap,
And then I start to start, doodle (do-a) little bit of art,
Get my blood flowing like ink through my heart!
That was a little hint, but incase you haven’t figured it,
I’m your pal, pen, and this paper here’s my nemesis!
Been around since genesis, before sins and sicknesses
Weaknesses and wickedness, and you shall be my witnesses
Because it’s quite simple, that paper’s not my equal,
My audience be fickle, I influence the people!
So now you see the way I see, me, the clear superior,
At will I paint plain white sheet to black exterior,
At will I scratch and bleed, impose my will and soul true,
Paper sits helpless; push hard enough I cut through,
Lean and tall, strong and all, truly the best,
Now watch as I carve my name on Paper’s chest…

Paper

My ancestors are dried leaves; I am born from the ancient trees,
Lofty pillars great in height, severed to their knees,
With sap and splinter do they bleed, still gracious to their seed,
Bear fruit for Axe to eat and through this sacrifice succeed!
And in their wake I breathe, thus a truly blessed being.
And through this history I live, I feel, I see, I read
They claim we’re fragile; paper-thin, and thus that we are weak,
I’d say we’re gentle, flexible, durable during times of need,
Not the bursting rage of inferno flames, destroying its own seed,
But the water that can flow yet crash, that undoes fire’s deed,
The sweet caress of a blistering wind, when it donates its breeze,
The gentle lap of wave on shore from the deepest currents of the seas,
Water over Earth, and Wind upon Fire; a Strength not easily perceived
And so I am of this legacy, a proud member of this creed,
Yet humble in my way to life, sacrifice my services to need,
Greater still like our folks of old, making into Books that people read,
Or even when the pen strikes through, tearing wastefully with greed…
This is how we lead.

2009-11-12T21:23:00.001-08:00

Ibn al-Mubarak said:

‘How many people carry the Qur’an in the hearts but the Qur’an curses them from inside their hearts! If the bearer of Qur’an disobeys his Lord, the Qur’an calls him from inside his chest saying, ‘By Allah, you have not carried me (i.e. memorised me) for this! Will you not be shy from your Lord?’

new link

2009-10-19T08:41:00.000-07:00

i find myself loving this dude's blog on marriage in islam and in the west, and his personal sometimes-too-honest journey while looking for the 'one'.

http://islamicsouls.blogspot.com/

post-nights

2009-09-17T11:12:00.000-07:00

I've realized the past couple nights, while I drive back home in stupid 495 traffic from the furthest possible places I decide to go, that although Ramadan should be the month of Quran, and is for many, in my case, due to Taraweeh, I might actually end up reading LESS Quran in Ramadan. Preparing for the night leaves little leeway to read other than that portion that will be recited...

Long term solution: and I might as well call this a goal: not have to review for Ramadan.

Current solution: there's still a couple days left.

About the last 10. The first couple nights, I don't remember which one in specific, but the moon looked like it was crying while I drove home. 25th night was amazing though. Last night, not like the 25th. 2 more.

oh my mind

2009-09-10T14:36:00.000-07:00

Competition, wack judging.
Intentions. Intentions. Intentions.
School.
Taraweeh.
Quran.
Ramadan.
Last 10 nights.
Khushoo'.
al-Nafs.
Nafsi.
Arabic.
Quran.
Slacking.
Classes.
Teaching.
Graduation.
Job.
Internship.
Computers.
Tahajjud, here or there.
Quran.
Review, sunnah of Sahabah.
Friends.
Heart.
Brain.
Travelling.
Homework.
Assignments.
Projects.
Should get to that.
Balance.
Waking up.
Going to sleep.
Qira'ah.
Fahm.
Balance.
Intentions.
Intentions.
Chill.
Play.
Work.
Cha-ching.
Bills.
School.
Work.
Lazy.
Iftar.
Light.
Moderate.
Dead.
Click, click, click.

Old rhymes.

2009-01-23T13:25:00.000-08:00

During the fall semester, I took the last of my humanities requirements. A 3-credit creative writing and poetry class. Here is the one piece that I actually managed to finish in that class.

Roll up my sleeves, try and squeeze carefully through these
Perilous woods, danger forests, thorny bushes and trees,
Gnarled branches reach and snatch, hungry for knees,
Or an arm, shoes, fingers…anything from me.
And as ridiculous as it seems, this isn’t just a scene
From a dream that I maybe had at the age of fifteen,
This is the unseen, reality of life, stepping light, moving right,
Keeping clear of sight,
One eye on the thorny path, and two for the Light,
Oops! My balance wasn’t right, so suddenly I stall,
As I fall on my face, lose my fervor and my might,
And then I begin to slip in this sand that I sink in,
Must escape quick so I claw and I bite!
But the sand now surrounds me, the sounds are now drowning,
I can’t see around me, and the squeeze is so tight…

And like this sand I slipped and slid down quicksand ditches ,
Tanned witches, sandwiches, pyramid scheme pitches,
Fabled riches, oily dishes, the whole deal, man wishes,
To pick and choose, but this quicksand rules him,
It fools and abuses him, it uses him and screws him,
I'm losing, I’m reaching for my tools can't use ‘em,
My eyes can't see but my mouth keeps moving, my hands keep feeling,
For a feeling that’s fleeting, and my heart’s still bleeding,
So suddenly I’m tearing, from underneath these torrential seasons,
Can’t see, so I feel and I hear these screams screaming,
Then I see that it's me, but I can see no vision,
My eyesight is weakened through its acts of treason,
But my heart is still bleeding and teardrops are tearing,
I'm pleading and feeling for a hope, still dreaming,
But my dreams are confused, many opinions and views,
So I’m drowning, I’m dozing, I’m falling, I’m failing,
I’m fighting, I’m dueling, I’m losing, I’m losing….

But I can hear the gush from the springs and the chirps from the trees,
And I see that it's near and the skies are now clear,
And feel the warmth from the sun and the cool from the breeze,
Feel the sun from the sand and the breeze from the sea
And I can see once again, warmth from tears as i cry,
My blood rich running red, my sight cool as the sky,
And so I look to my side and see my Book in the sand,
Planned to reach for it, maybe even speak to it and,
Maybe cry, maybe laugh, maybe nothing, what a plan
But I turned to see it was already holding my hand,
Pages wrinkled and cracked just like old times as i flipped,
And felt compelled to say something, like a line from some script,
But i couldn't dream to describe what went on in my chest,
Flipped the script on my friend, who truly told the truth best,
He read: Truly in the remembrance of God, do Hearts find Rest.

2009-01-14T08:24:00.001-08:00

Maybe I'll start updating this thing again.

Laa tushriku bihi shai'aa.

2007-06-27T13:50:00.000-07:00

Narrated Abu Huraira:
A Bedouin came to the Prophet and said, "Tell me of such a deed as will make me enter Paradise, if I do it." The Prophet said, "Worship Allah and do not associate any partners with him." ... (to be continued)

Ta'budu Allaha wa laa tushriku bihi shai'aa.

Worship Allah and do not associate partners with him. This was the first thing that the Prophet SAW mentioned as his recipe for Jannah. The first part of this step is, worship Allah, acknowledge Allah as your lord, and the second part is to not associate any partners with him. The Prophet is basically telling us to not commit shirk.

Now all of us know what shirk is. And we feel that we know it so well that it gets to a point where we feel it is elementary for us to talk about shirk, right? 'This is baby stuff, tell me something that I don't know', right? However, we have to be careful, because there is a tradition of the Prophet SAW that is extremely powerful in conveying a certain message, and it goes something like this:

On the Day of Judgement, the first to be brought forward to Allah will be the one who died as a martyr, and Allah will make known to him His favors and the man will recognize, and then Allah will ask , 'What did you do about this?' And the man will reply that he fought for the sake of Allah until he died a martyr, and Allah will say, No, you have lied, but you fought so that the people would say look at this man, he was so brave, he fought and died in the path of Allah, and you got what you wanted. So he will be dragged on his face and thrown into the Fire.

And then he will be brought who had memorized and recited the Qur'an, and Allah will ask him what he did about the favours that he granted him, and the man will say that he learned the Qur'an and recited it for Allah's sake and he seeked and gained knowledge and taught it for Allah's sake, and Allah will say, No, you have lied. But you learned and recited the Qur'an so the people would say that this person is a Qari'! And you gained knowledge and taught it so people would say that this person is an Aalim! And you got what you wanted in the Dunya. And so this person will be dragged on his face and thrown into the Fire.

And then he will be brought who never had an oppurtunity pass him by without him giving his wealth for the cause of Allah, and Allah will ask him what he did with His favors he bestowed upon him, and he will say that he donated and gave generously in the path of Allah, and he will be told, No, you have lied. Instead you gave that money so that people would say that this person is so generous! And you got what you wanted in the Dunya. There will be nothing left for him in the Akhirah. And he will be dragged on his face and thrown into the Fire.

This is the reality of Shirk, because this is what the Prophet SAW feared for his Ummah more than the Dajjal. It is the hidden shirk, which is none other than Riyaa', or showing off. And this is an issue for all of us, whether we be the layman or the greatest scholar, it is equally incumbant on all of us to correct and constantly strive to perfect our intentions. And the scholars say that this is the hardest thing for a believer to control! And all of us will know this to be true by experience!

So when we read or hear an Ayah that says Worship Allah alone, or a tradition such as this, where the Prophet SAW says Worship Allah and do not associate any partners with him, we've got to pay attention! Take heed! This isn't a point we can just skip because we're not in our houses worshipping idols, but this is such a crucial matter that it can turn the greatest of deeds, the martyr! The Hafidh! The one who gives his wealth for Allah! This minor shirk of showing off can turn these things into absolutely nothing!

Summer camp started over here, and I've been working with the kids as a counselor/teacher and what not, and our theme for this week is Niyyah or Intentions. Today the Imam took over Islamic Studies and talked about intentions and how we should make sure our intentions are pure. And so a kid raised his hand and made a comment where he said that this is so easy to talk about, but so hard to do. This kid said out loud what we all know and feel in our hearts. Easier said than done.

And so the Sheikh replied, that THIS is the struggle, for us to constantly renew our intentions, constantly ask WHY it is we are doing what we are doing, struggle with the whispers and plots of Shaytan to turn our deeds into wasted energy and wasted breath, and IF one day, some day, you are able to do this, to purify your intentions in whatever you do, know that you will be going to sleep that night as one who will enter Paradise, because you have purified yourself from the inside out.

Ya Allah, help us in our battle against ourselves and the whispers of Shaytan and help us purify our intentions and make everything for Your safe alone, Aameen.

Ata A'rabi...

2007-06-18T18:41:00.000-07:00

Al-Bukhari, Volume 2, Book 23, Number 480:

Narrated Abu Huraira:
A Bedouin came to the Prophet and said, "Tell me of such a deed as will make me enter Paradise, if I do it." ... (to be continued)

The bedouins of Arabia were known for their simplistic and often rough or frank approach to issues and questions, as was a reflection of their rough and humble lifestyles. However, this question that he asked, a bedouin from the desert, was almost the exact same question another man asked the Prophet SAW also. This man was known as A'lamul Halal wal Haraam, the most knowledgeable about what was Halal and what was Haram, Muadh Ibn Jabal, the scholar of Islam, HE asks the Prophet SAW this exact same question on one occasion:

"O Messenger of Allah, tell me of a deed which will take me into Paradise and will keep me away from the Hell-fire."

And what did the Prophet SAW say about his question? He said that you have asked me about a GREAT MATTER. Sa'altu 'an 'adheem!

What does this show us, that the bedouin and the simple man and the scholar of Islam Muadh Ibn Jabal are asking the SAME QUESTION, that this is what is important! A lot of times we miss the point of our existence and what we are working for. Bust out a question and answer session and you'll get every question in the world but something like this! And this is an issue and a question for everybody! Not just the laypeople and not just the scholars but everyone!

So from this tradition of the Prophet SAW we can immediately learn one thing, and that is, 'What do we ask?' What is the value and the point of what we are asking, and is it benefiting us in the long run or is it just trivia and facts that we can throw down on people when we want to sound smart?

Another point to be made from this tradition is a question that stems from the first, and that is, 'Who do we ask from?' Many times people will have questions, but they just don't know who to go to? Allah SWT mentions in the Qur'an that we should ask the people of knowledge when we do not know. So we go to the scholars. That is who we ask. But then who is a scholar. And so it comes down to who is an Aalim...is it the person sitting in an interview on Fox News or Oprah, or the person with the beard who wears a thobe and kufi?

One time a person asked this same question to Sheikh Saleh Ibn Abdul Aziz, and he responded in two words. He said: Al-Aalimu NAAQIL. He said the person you should go to, the true scholar is the NAAQIL. Now what is that? The root of this word naqala means to transmit something, and even in urdu, it is said that if a person is doing naql of somebody else, they are copying them. What the Sheikh was giving this person was a criteria to judge who was a scholar and who wasn't, and this was not based on their reputation, what school they went to or their appearance, but it was in the way they actually answered the question. Were they doing Naql of somebody else, somebody before them? Were they doing Naql of the chain of transmission of all knowledge, namely that : Allah SWT says in His Book this, the Prophet SAW has said this, his companions they said this, the Tabi'een said this and those after them said this, the great Imams said this and the scholars of the past said this, the scholars of today say this, and finally, my understanding from this...is this.

Al-Deenun Naseeha

2007-06-18T00:00:00.000-07:00

Assalaamu alaikum

Tameem ad-Daaree RA narrates:

“The Prophet SAW said, (three times) “The Religion is naseehah.” We said, “To whom?” He said, “To Allaah, His Book, His Messenger, and to the leaders of the Muslims and the general people.” Related by Muslim (no. 55)

The Prophet SAW mentioned these five categories that we should have this Naseeha towards. Allah, His Book, His messenger, the leaders of the Muslims, and the common folk. The first three were discussed already, so now the fourth category is the leaders of the Muslims. How can we perform this Naseeha towards the leaders of the Muslims? First of all, the leader doesn't necessarily have to be the Khalifa, but it can be anyone in authority over a group of Muslims, whether that be council members of a community, or the Imam of the masjid. These people are considered the leaders of the community, and we must do this Naseeha towards them.

3 things were mentioned in this Naseeha. The first was that we make Duah for our leaders. It seems like every time something goes wrong in a community, we all like to point our fingers to the authority, right? And not only do we point, but we begin to talk and criticize. The leaders did this, and the leaders did that. Why don't we ever think to follow the tradition of Rasoolullah SAW and firstly and primarily make duah for our leaders? That Allah guide them and us to the correct way and correct their mistakes as well as ours and reward them for their continuous efforts.

The second was that we ADVISE them, and when we advise them, we do so in the best of manners. That doesn't mean in front of the entire Jama'ah with hundreds listening, or during the Jumuah khutbah! It means to advise them under circumstances that would actually allow them to listen and take into consideration what you are offering to them.

The third was that we OBEY them. This means that the final decision is in the Amir's hands. We can advise them, but the decision is theirs. How can we expect to choose an Imam and make him in charge, and then all of sudden come Ramadan time, his authority has been revoked? This is just an example. If there is an issue with a person's methodology, let it be an issue from the very beginning right? We can't say that this person is our Imam, we listen and we obey, but then when a decision has been made that is contrary to our interests or preference, then this person is no longer in charge? This is part of the Naseeha that we must have towards our leaders, that we obey them when they make a decision. We see this in Masajid a lot today, that the people do not fulfill this Naseeha towards their leaders, whether it be the general people towards the council, or the council towards Imam, or whatever. And this leads to nothing else but division.

Ummul Mu'mineen Aisha RA said that she had never seen the Ummah of Muhammad SAW ABANDON a verse of the Qur'an the way they abandoned the verse, "And if two groups of believers quarrel or argue or fight amongst each other, then RECTIFY the matters and do ISLAH between them."

Rectify. Not choose sides and add to the problem. Remember that Allah mentions both parties are BELIEVERS, even though they are fighting each other, which is why we need to work to settle the differences in the best of manners.

Imam Abu Ja'far Al-Tahawy was a famous Imam who wrote a manual on Aqeedah and the belief of the Ahlul-Sunnah which is still used universally till this day. In it he wrote 105 points of belief, and in point 102 he says:

وَنَرَى الجَمَاعَةَ حَقًّا وَصَوَاباً، والفُرْقَةَ زَيْغاً وَعَذَاباً

And We understand and believe that the JAMA'AH, or the congregation and majority is the TRUTH and that which is CORRECT. And disunity is a DEVIATION and a PUNISHMENT from Allah in this life.

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

May Allah forgive me for anything that i have said or paraphrased incorrectly. This is the first installment of many to come iA excerpts from the hadith halaqah's given after Maghrib prayer at our Masjid. As you might of noticed, these points were only for one part of the hadith, and that's because this was the only one i was able to catch for this specific hadith. iA, the ones to come will be more complete.

Hopefully this will benefit you and I both...wasalaam

Ahmer Hussain

2007-05-03T10:44:00.000-07:00

Assalaamu Alaikum

It wasn't a suicide. Alhamdulillah!

Here is the note posted by Iboo on facebook:

Assalaamu alaykum bros and sisters,

I just wanted to convey to you all the latest about
the cause of death of Ahmer Hussain who was presumed
to commit suicide last week.

According to the medical report it has been confirmed
that Ahmer did NOT die of any self inflicted hanging
and/or any other form of suicide. The initial report
of suicide being the cause of death was relayed to the
community through the family of Ahmer, and this cause
of death was presumed because they found him in the
basement with cord slightly around his neck, and he
was apparently suffocating. The father then
administered CPR and he passed away after that.

The report now says that there was no sign of any
trauma on his neck (ruling out any type of hanging)
and there was no other evidence of self inflicted
harm. Therefore, they are looking at the possibility
that he passed away due to his severe asthma, some
sort of allergies, or some other cause which caused
him to suffocate.

I am sending this email because I feel that this is
great news, and must be conveyed to everyone who may
feel that Ahmer committed suicide. This is a great
relief to his grieving family and friends as well as
the community in general which is still recovering
from this tragedy. Let me know if there is anything
that remains unclear, though you gotta realize, I am
just as shocked (and happy) as you all are.

May ALlah swt admit Ahmer into Paradise, fill his
grave with light, ease the difficulties that his
parents and family are going through, and make us all
among those whom He loves...ameen.

PS: I am not just sending out a report or a theory of cause of death, but brother Junaid Hassan who is working on an article for the Muslim Link has done extensive research with the family of Ahmer who has been affirmed of this through the EMS services and the Medical Examiners. Imam Mahmoud will be addressing this (presumably) in his Khutbah this week, the postvention part 2 at Dar al Taqwa will address this issue, as well as the muslim link article to be published in the next issue of the paper (not the one coming out this week, but in 2 weeks).

Iboo

Unfinished bidness

2007-05-02T23:29:00.000-07:00

Assalaamu Alaikum

So I felt like reminiscing and went into my email account and started digging up old emails I sent myself or just reading up on funny/pointless conversations I've had with old friends. One of the emails I came across was one that I sent myself - btw, I only email myself to store documents with attachments or something, not to have conversations... - that contained a little rap that I was working on with my boy. The idea was that it was going to be a kind of duet, where he raps a bar, and I continue or finish it or add my own. "Shootouts"-esque, if you feel me. Just something we wanted to try. It wasn't intended to be lyrically astounding, but more "made by its performance". So I can't really say it was a failed attempt because we never got around to finishing it or even fixing it up to flow, let alone actually performing it. All I saved was the raw AIM version where we did it and sent it to myself. And here it is:

Our ummahs bleeding to death, we will never be whole//
we're walking around aimless no point no goal

Akhi, with talk like that you just killing your soul//,
stabbing your own feet,

We’re digging a hole// ;
cause death is all I see when I look deep in our souls

Gotta get that despair under control, cuz you really don't know//
what's gonna happen tomorrow, just gotta go with the flow//

You wouldn't say that if seen what I’ve seen//
gone around the world been where I’ve been//
how could you say to take everyday as it comes//
when all kids have seen is famine and bombs//

I know what you saying, but you gotta remain calm//

By singing songs and holding arms?//
nah akh we gotta stay strong//
cause its us against the world

That mentalities wrong,//
money is what lets these people sleep well at night,//
we gotta start making millions, and then use it for right

Yea right//money is a bounty already ordained before time//
so u need to shove this type of mentality out of your mind//
the Prophet alaihis salaam feared wealth more than poverty//
wealth isn't what gave the muslims their sovereignty

That’s true but remember that those were the best of people//
a nation the likes of us could never be equal//
let alone start a sequel//

Now that trap is evil//
these people were still people and made an ample example//
footsteps to follow and a blueprint as a sample

Yeah, but its just a great sorrow how we wait for tomorrow to follow,//

But without soul in our game

Or heat in our flame

Our words are just hollow//

Revisions

2007-04-28T23:08:00.000-07:00

Assalaamu Alaikum

Pffffft, thanks for letting me know that the recitation that I posted for Qari Salah Al Hashem just a couple posts ago was linking to the same recitation of Qari Tawfeeq Al Suwaaigh. NOT... *chirp chirp*

vatewer.

Anyways, that's fixed now.

Sheikh Hani Al Refai

2007-04-28T02:50:00.000-07:00

Word to Sami.

It's a cycle.

2007-04-27T23:39:00.000-07:00

Assalaamu Alaikum

I need to come out of this slump. I'm always waiting for something, and it never comes. I need to pack my bags and start on this journey. This life is temporary. But if I could just have that one staple, wouldn't it become so much easier? Or would I just find another excuse to remain the way I am?

Dose of Qur'an

2007-04-26T04:22:00.000-07:00

Qari Salah Al-Hashem

Got introduced to this guy from RE's blog. Good stuff.

Also, I'm supposed to find a recitation for my boy from http://www.szaharna.blogspot.com of the recitation style dominant in the sub-continent known as Pani Patt.

I know someone with a recording of it on his computer, but I haven't seen him this week at school (it probably has something to do with me not being there too often)...but if anybody knows what kind of recitation I'm talking about and knows of any recordings online, hook it up.

Around the world...

2007-04-26T03:45:00.000-07:00

Assalaamu Alaikum

My boy just came back from vacation. That's something I really want badly right now too, a vacation. And that doesn't mean like a couple days off from school, because I skip classes whenever I want, and on a good week, I can manage to go to school on only 2 days, that is Wednesday and Thursday and not miss a beat. (Actually, I probably miss a lot of beats, but whatever...)

Anyways, he went back home, I don't know if that is Jordan or Palestine (haha I'm JOKING dude....sike...sike sike...) and also got to perform Umrah, may Allah accept from him all of his good deeds, ameen. He came back the other day and we got to chill for a bit, and he told us stories and his experiences etc, this kinda got me to think back also about my time out there and reminisce. So inshaAllah, if I can muster up enough energy or motivation, my next few posts might be telling a random story from Hajj or something else from the trip.

However, the point of this post is a little different. And the point of this post is about something we've heard countless times and lately I've seen a couple facebook groups emerge. But this time, I'm not hearing it from people who've heard from people, who've heard from people, or from sensationalist Muslims, or at the annual family dinner where everyone sits into the late night with tea and talks about politics and conspiracy theories. This time, I'm hearing it from a friend I know personally who's just been there and saw this stuff with his own eyes, and that is that, PEOPLE ARE DYING IN PALESTINE EVERY DAY.

I've heard that before. And I guess I kinda got desensitized to it for some reason, maybe cuz hey, there's about 364 murders a year in Baltimore last I heard, that's pretty much one every day with a day off for Christmas. Or maybe I just hadn't really HEARD it from a personal source...

But no, just in Nablis, in the little neighborhood that my friend stayed in, he told us that every single day, after Isha, the occupation would roll in and all night long, there would be gunshots and explosions less than a block away. The kids would be up on roofs reporting to their parents what was going on, "Oh, they're at so-and-so's house now!" "Oh, they just destroyed this-person's house!" and every single day, school was cancelled, and every single day, people were killed, and this is just in their neighborhood. And he said that the people there were used to it. Find out the neighbors were killed. Oh, they were cool peoples. Go on with your day, etc.

And what's crazy is that I hadn't heard a thing about Palestine on the news in a while. Did any of you?

the quest baby

2007-04-17T00:18:00.000-07:00

Salaamu Alaikum

Recently, I joined a facebook group called 'Greatest Quranic Recitations' and I have to say that it was probably the only group I've joined that actually benefited me somehow. And that is by leading me to some great Qurraa' that I had never heard before.

Insha Allah, I wanna share a couple of them, though I'm thinking that I should post them one by one in seperate posts and at different times so that it's not overkill and none are overlooked. Nahmean?

First round: Qari Tawfeeq bin Sa'eed Al-Suwaaigh

awwwesome swagger

2007-04-14T20:51:00.000-07:00

salaamu alaikum

ultimate swagger? nothing close to that. game's got a long way to go. gotta be able to do things at will. but it's growing. should i check it? or let it be proportional to it's supposed requisite: skill, and make sure it stays on the court? is it necessary?

interesting what a haircut and new mindset for the game can do.

PS: i'll be put in my place soon. probably tuesday. haha.

MIST 07'

2007-04-09T22:02:00.000-07:00

Salaamu alaikum

What's it been now, a little more than a week after MIST 07 weekend? I intended on making this post earlier, but I couldn't really get around to it. This past week was super busy, and reason goes back to spring break, which I'll take a quick second to rant about. Spring break is stupid. I came into this semester strong, like every one and their mama's do also, with the firm intention of staying consistent and up to speed with my classes/assignments until the end. For me, that attitude usually lasts a couple days. But this time, I was ACTUALLY staying consistent with what I was doing...until spring break comes along. It destroyed all my desire to go back to school. I came back from spring break with a week of school before MIST weekend, and literally skipped more than half of my classes, still stuck in spring break mode. So that is probably why my last week was pretty crazy, cuz I had mad stuff to catch up on (back in school mode), foremost of which was a comp sci project that I spent 11+ straight hours on today, only to get an extension at the last moment, word to iboo...but anyways:

MIST is MIST. I competed in the tournament for two years. Last year, I couldn't compete, so instead I "volunteered", which was more like chilling on campus and being bored the whole weekend, and every couple hours, being sent on random assignments like moving art projects from one building to another (some projects are missing till this day)...but yeah, it wasn't the same. Competing, and volunteering? No way.

So this year, I brought a team. It wasn't for me, though during the competition I realized that it kinda made up for not being able to compete with at least having a team that was competing. Among the reasons was to get my community, ISB, involved in other activites besides its own. Its like they live and operate in a bubble, and a lot of the times, the lack of representation from one of the largest communities in MD at certain events or fundraisers is embarrassing to say the least.

But still, that wasn't the main reason I brought a team. But before I go into that, I'm going to mention my biggest challenge as a coach in the tournament and the weeks that led up to it. It was being patient.

I had a sick team. I picked guys that I knew had potential. But I see most of these kids every day at the masjid. I play ball with them, talk trash, get some back, etc. They consider me their peer, and I'm only like a year or two older than most of them, so I had to deal with them a certain way. I couldn't exactly scold them for not doing what they were supposed to be doing, or not coming to a meeting, or coming to me with a week left before the tournament with some completely garbage, effortless, project/piece that OBVIOUSLY wasn't even done by them, and I'd have to ask them if they were retarded and tell them they needed to go back and actually do something. There was one day where I was almost regretting trying to put a team together and just praying that they didn't embarrass themselves at the tournament. Frustration and Patience.

It was even worse once the weekend started. My license is still suspended, and it was suspended during the weekend too. You can only get so frustrated when you have control of the situation, but when you have no control over it, you've gotta leave everything in Allah's hands. I had to set up rides for 10 kids, make sure they were at the masjid for the rides, figure out how they were supposed to get the project they left back at home or the last minute supplies they needed in time, or how to fit them in the cars and make sure everybody had a ride and space and later how everybody was going to get home when I didn't have a car I could drive or a ride to get home myself. And then if the ride that was supposed to be there had an emergency and had to leave in the middle of the tourney, and I was responsible for getting all these kids back home safe, it was definitely a struggle.

I literally found myself talking to myself saying, "Alright Hammad, it's easy to be patient when nothings happening. Be patient now man, be patient."

And that was my theme for the weekend. Now I know how Iboo must of felt coaching us. I seriously needed to consciously make an effort to reply to the guys when I was being bombarded by questions left and right, the same questions, multiple times, one guy after the next, as if I didn't just answer the same question 50 times to every single other person on the team! Seriously, I was just repeating in my head, "Be patient ninja..." over and over and over. I told the guys that their theme for the weekend was HUMILITY (this had to do with us being the powerhouse basketball team that nobody could see :D), but mine was PATIENCE.

aH, it was good stuff.

And we did win basketball. First place? Yup. We played my former team, Taqwa, in the finals. And there couldn't have been a better possible championship game than the one that took place outside in the freezing cold at 3AM sunday morning in college park, Taqwa vs. Al-Rahmah. They recorded that joint in HD, and trust me, its a classic, and I can't wait to get my hands on a copy. It's funny because that's what guys at Al-Rahmah wanted the most, to play Taqwa in the finals and beat them. They had some type of rivalry going even before the tournament. They didn't know who half the people on Taqwa were, but they just knew that they had to beat the defending champs, and that's what they would talk about at least once every meeting when Basketball came up. "Taqwa thinks they're so nice". "I just wanna smash Taqwa in bball." etc. I would just laugh, cuz I knew what was going to happen by the end of the tournament. Taqwa and Al-Rahmah would be like this "ll".

And that's the main reason I wanted to bring a team, and this is what I told the guys at the end after the awards ceremony. I didn't bring them so that they could win an award in art, or poetry, or study some packets and gain knowledge on Qur'an, Seerah, Prophets, or CAIR, or even to win first place in basketball, because not everyone won something. Not everyone on our team got an award or a trophy. But what they all got, and I knew this to be true because I heard it from their own mouths, was that they got to spend a weekend with all these other Muslims from so many different areas and communities, and got to meet people they would have never even known were it not for MIST. And I reminded them that they told me themselves that they met all these cool new people, and that was the point. The building of brotherhood and ties between our community and its youth and other communities and their youth. These guys weren't too fond of Taqwa walking into the tournament, but by the end, at the award ceremony, they had one big joint Al-Rahmah/Taqwa table.

alHamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen.

And finally, the team smashed in the competitions, with mad top 5 standings and MIST national qualifications. The only regrets they had were the regrets that everybody has and had, those who are graduating highschool wished they had another year since this was their first and only, and those who aren't wished they had put a liiiiiittle bit more effort into their work, and bumped up from 4th or 5th place to 2nd or 1st. But one thing everyone got from the weekend was inspiration.

2007-04-03T16:41:00.000-07:00

Assalaamu alaikum

MIST 07 post coming soon...

wsup yall

2007-02-22T22:37:00.000-08:00

Assalaamu alaikum

it's been a while since i posted here last. don't ask why because i couldn't give you a real good reason and i don't know myself. i don't really have a great update in store right now either, but let's not get hasty, right? baby steps...

old news:

i got through a pretty crazy fall semester (sick load + ramadan), which also happened to be my first at UMBC. transferring in from a community college, it was a pretty big change, mainly the difficulty in classes. let's just say i learned a couple things. but what is knowledge without implementation, right? ...hopefully we can answer that at the end of this semester, and it'll be a good answer.

new(er) news:

since i want to be a man of my word, i am bringing a MIST team from baltimore this year. cuz that is what i said i would do last year. so i'm doing it. there's a lot of things i can say about MIST, but i'll make it simple and say i learned a lot from being a part of it, whether it was the tournament itself, or the people i was around at the time. but either way, its a source of inspiration for many youth, and i think it's about time the kids from this area get something like that to draw from. so insha Allah, there shall be a team. and it will be called Al-Rahmah.

i just watched Pan's Labyrinth. it was sad. and weird.

smh.

thoughts:

maybe some other time. holler.

uno. dos. tres.

(sp?)

sdrawkcab epyt i

2006-11-28T01:13:00.000-08:00

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

2006-11-16T19:17:00.000-08:00


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.

2006-11-15T15:30:00.000-08:00

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!

2006-11-04T23:06:00.000-08:00


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

UPDATE part 2.

2006-09-25T21:38:00.000-07:00

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)

2006-09-20T16:58:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-14T15:46:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-07-12T09:48:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-12T08:57:00.000-07:00

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]

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

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

Subhanalli wa bihamdihi, subhanallil Adheem

long time coming

2006-07-10T09:50:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-04T09:14:00.000-07:00

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

2006-06-26T21:56:00.000-07:00

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

2006-06-13T23:38:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-30T02:33:00.000-07:00

"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

2006-05-11T08:40:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-05T16:12:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-27T09:40:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-19T10:19:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-17T10:05:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-12T21:54:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-06T21:14:00.000-07:00

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

2006-03-21T20:07:00.000-08:00

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

2006-03-18T23:24:00.000-08:00

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

2006-03-17T07:05:00.000-08:00

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

2006-03-08T21:26:00.000-08:00

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

2006-03-05T21:07:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-26T20:38:00.000-08:00

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!

2006-02-25T20:56:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-20T21:17:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-04T11:05:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-02T21:27:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-01T00:03:00.000-08:00

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

2006-01-30T04:18:00.000-08:00

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

2006-01-30T04:08:00.000-08:00

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

2006-01-23T05:12:00.000-08:00

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.

beeline from beemore

2005-12-27T20:37:00.000-08:00

assalaamu alaikum

inshaAllah, i will be leaving Bmore for NY tomorrow at 12:30PM. make duah that i have a safe trip there and back, and that my Hajj and Umrah is accepted by the mercy of Allah, ameen. i won't have my phone on me, and probably won't touch a computer for 3 weeks, so right now, i want to ask anybody and everybody who knows me, if i have done or said anything against you, please forgive me, as i have done for everybody, and Allah will reward you.

Jazaakumullahu Khairan.

'tis a sad day

2005-12-26T21:59:00.000-08:00

assalaamu alaikum

i played ball today, came home, showered, and cut my hair. man, it was like parting with an old friend, cuz this was the first time that my hair got a little long without me getting dandruff, head getting all dry and itchy, and just being forced to cut it from frustration. it was nice hair. and long hair. i hadn't had long hair for a few years actually. and now its gone. back to the shape-up sized hair, just with no shape-up (i was lazy). but yeah, my intention of growing my hair out sunnah style is still on, but the reason i cut it was cuz i was going to have to cut it anyways for hajj. and since i'm about to travel, long journeys and the works, i don't need to make it worse by having long hair that's gonna get all dirty. so its gone.

my head is cold.

s-m-h

MARRIAGE post #1

2005-12-18T23:03:00.000-08:00

SIKE...made ya look.

assalaamu alaikum

Imam Irfan mentioned something very interesting the other day, and it really scared me:

(paraphrased)

Imam Suyuti mentions that when the Prophets die, their miracles go up with them and are no more. for example, Musa AS's staff that he could throw down and turn it into a serpent; once he died, that miracle was also lifted up. when the Prophet Muhammad SAW died however, 2 miracles were left in this dunya after he departed, the first of which is obviously the Quran.

the second miracle has to do with the stoning of the Jamarat, the stone pillars that we pelt during hajj that represent the three places Shaitan came to Ibrahim AS. now for the servents of Allah who's Hajj is accepted, angels come down and take away the pebbles that they have thrown. that is why you are not supposed to pick up pebbles from the area of jamarat itself, because these are the pebbles that have been rejected.

and just think about it. if each and every one of the hujjaj throws around 49 pebbles into this same area, shouldn't there be mountains of pebbles piling up? even if before we didn't have the same number of people performing Hajj, say it wasn't in the millions, but still tens of thousands right? shouldn't the pebbles have started to pile up with all these people throwing them into the same place? but the saudi government has never had to do anything about this pile, because it simply never existed. until now. and thats the scary part. just recently, the saudi government has been required to remove the pebbles from the area of the jamarat, because the piles have begun to grow.

ya Allah, accept our Hajj and Umrah, and do not make us from those who's Hajj or Umrah has been rejected. Ameen ya rabbal Aalameen.

six feet deep

2005-12-16T20:42:00.000-08:00

assalaamu alaikum

dr. iqbal passed away yesterday. inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi Raji'oon. he was in a coma for nearly a year and just recently woke up a few months ago, only to have a heart attack. may Allah make his sickness and suffering a means for his Forgiveness and grant him the highest of ranks in Jannah, Ameen. his family is awesome. his sons are all huffadh, 2 of them still studying their aalim course in buffalo, and one of them already a mufti in his twenties. he's my teacher and brother. we play football and basketball together. he would always be coming back and forth from the hospital, spending the entire day by his father's side and would only leave to come and teach us fiqh. inshaAllah, he will be one of the teachers in the Dar-ul-Uloom, may Allah bless him.

the janazah was today after jumu'ah. we went to the graveyard for the burial. there were so many people there, and not only from our community but from other communities in silver spring and laurel too. i was thinking about the concept of brotherhood, and how Allah could take into account the shere number of people attending a janazah to forgive His servants sins. when the Sahabah were asked about their fellow Muslim brothers, what would they say? "We know NOTHING about him but GOOD." really, how many of us can do this? and its such a big deal, because when a person dies, and people talk about him, Allah takes that into account as well.

i dunno, its always good to visit the graveyard and see the dirt that will become our bed very soon. the craziest thing is when you're actually inside the grave and helping prop the body up on its right side. sure, the 6 feet high walls of dirt that are surrounding you, the limp body (man dead weight is really heavy) draped in white sheets right next to you, the sides crumbling as dirt and mud fall into the hole as people try to get in and out have their affects, but what you won't notice until you are inside the grave is all the insects. there are so many insects, roaches, centi/milipedes, all those multi legged things you see on fear factor n stuff, they're crawling down there. waiting. just waiting for the body so they can feast on it. and you realize that that is what is going to happen to your body as well. you're gonna be eaten by tiny roaches in your grave. your mouth, ears, nose, hair, is going to decay and be food for the insects in the dirt.

"Every soul shall taste death."

check it out though. i got this problem every time i go to the graveyard, and its always clawing at the back of my mind. aren't we supposed to bury our own dead? aren't we supposed to bury the muslims? the muslims bury the muslims? if we are not even supposed to bury the muslims along with non muslims, should we let non muslims bury our dead?

...

then why do we let them use the machines to finish up what we started? after the body is placed into the hole, everybody is told to take 3 handfuls of dirt and throw it in, reading the ayah:

Minhaa Khalaqnakum, wa feeha nu'eedukum, wa minha nukhrijukum taaratan ukhra.

"From it We created you, and into it We shall return you, and from it We shall bring you out once again."

and then after that, they take shovels and start dropping down the dirt. it only lasts like 5 minutes tho before random uncles are like, "beta, leave it, they will do the rest." c'mon now. are you serious? we got like 100 heads over here! how long and how hard can it be to just finish the job? it seems so superficial to do a lil bit and then QUIT, and let the graveyard ppl come with the machines to finish it! whats that mean? we just wanted to feel good by thinking we were making a difference by scooping in a few shovelfuls of dirt?

i've felt this way ever since i followed a random janazah to the graveyard. it was still during my days in quran class. after prayer, my teacher told me to go to the graveyard with the janazah because there were only a handful of people going. literally, i could count them on a hand (and a half) if i wanted to. but anyways, we went to the graveyard, and after we put the body in, we started filling up the grave. after five minutes, the machine dudes came, but this handful of brothers i was with told him that they would do it themselves. it took a good 30 minutes of just shoveling dirt, but we did it. and wallahi, it feels so much more real and doing justice to the deceased by letting the muslims bury them. and its not hard or impossible. we did it with a few brothers. but when it comes to janazahs that have so many people, we can't take a few minutes and just finish the job instead of leaving it half done and giving up.

i dunno if i'm just making it unnecessarily hard on myself and others, but thats how i feel. i know that i would want to be buried by the people i knew and loved, and not some bobcat machine.

back to the future

2005-12-16T19:46:00.000-08:00

assalaamu alaikum

alhamdulillah, i'm done with finals. finally. the last few weeks i haven't been able to think. like my mind is just foggy for some reason, and i'm just waiting for the semester to be over so bad that it just numbs my brain. i couldn't even get as hyped as i should be about going to hajj. iA tho, i can start now.

my body felt so bogged down during the week, and today we played some serious ball for the first time in a good 3 weeks. my legs are shot. i was out of breath. sweating. bout to have a heart attack. the whole works. it felt so good. came home. hot shower. fresh clothes. and it feels like i just released a whole lotta pent up something. stress? maybe or maybe not, cuz i don't think i was stressed out. more like i was in the slums. lack of stress or activity. i hate having nothing to do and just sitting in the house. i gotta be busy. i feel the best after a long (somewhat) productive tiring day.

all-nighters

2005-12-04T19:07:00.000-08:00

after being super lazy for maybe a year now, i finally decided to go ahead and install photoshop again. so now those MIST pictures that are like 4 megs each can be easily cropped and resized for normal human viewing.

this was our MIST banner. a masterpiece that is no longer with us today. i believe it was flushed down the toilet or used to soak up a basement flood. (wussup iboo)

after some photoshopping:

big ups to iboo lal

2005-11-08T15:43:00.000-08:00

imma try to find the mp3 of this somewhere and link it.

فرشي التراب يضمني وهو غطائي
حولي الرمال تلفني بل من ورائي
واللحد يحكي ظلمة فيها ابتلائي
والنور خط كتابه أنسى لقائي
والأهل اين حنانهم باعوا وفائي
والصحب اين جموعهم تركوا اخائي
والمال اين هناءه صار ورائي
والاسم اين بريقه بين الثناءِ
هذي نهاية حالي فرشي الترابِ
والحب ودّع شوقه وبكى رثائي
والدمع جف مسيره بعد البكاء
والكون ضاق بوسعه ضاقت فضائي
فاللحد صار بجثتي أرضي سمائي
هذي نهاية حالي فرشي الترابِ
والخوف يملأ غربتي والحزن دائي
أرجو الثبات وإنه قسما دوائي
والرب أدعو مخلصا أنت رجائي
أبغي إلهي جنة فيها هنائي

Rough translation I found on the net (some of it doesn't make sense):

Dust is my bed, embraces me and it’s my cover now
The sand surrounds me even behind my back
And the grave tells a dankness of my affliction
And the brightness draws a line……………
Where is my family’s love? They sold my loyalty!
And where is my group of friends? They left my brotherhood!
Where is the bliss of money? It’s behind my back now
And my name (reputation) where is it shine between praises
This is my end and this is my bed

And love farewells its longing and my elegizing cried
And the tears went dry after crying
And the universe became narrow and so is my space
And the grave became my ground and sky
This is my end and this is my bed

Fear fills my estrangement and sadness is my illness
I expect firmness and I swear it’s my cure
And for Allah i pray faithfully, you are my hope
Allah! I desire heaven, to find bliss in it

And for Allah i pray faithfully, you are my hope
Allah! I desire heaven, to find bliss in it

no countdowns here

2005-11-01T22:16:00.000-08:00

assalaamu alaikum

tonight was the 29th night (for some of us) and theres only at the most, 2 days left in ramadan. i was chilling with my boy earlier and i kept hearing him say, "finally, ramadan is almost over. i can't wait for eid man." i usually feel the same way. i did last year, and all the years before that. this ramadan is different. and you know whats funny is that while we were having our bootleg MSA meetings early on in the month, we had a lil discussion about how this ramadan was different from all the rest, or if it even was different at all. well at that time, i wasn't sure if it was different at all. i was just getting through each day and night one by one, and it didn't seem any different. but now i can honestly say that this is the first time where i REALLY do NOT want the month to end. i wish ramadan went on for the rest of the year. i wish it never stopped.

i wish taraweeh could go on for the rest of the year. i wish the rest of the months and every single day of the year could go by like a day of ramadan, drenched and surrounded by the recitation of Quran. i finished the Quran on the 25th night in annapolis, and the morning after, i was straight depressed. and just a few hours ago, we finished again at ISB, and i got that feeling again.

i could describe it as fear. fear of getting high off ramadan, and then hitting the low in the months following. i never really made ramadan or post-ramadan resolutions or any of that stuff, but this time... i dunno. i just wanna keep this up.

taraweeh man.

my arabic is garbage. but its 20 times better than last year, and recitation was the funnest thing in the world, cuz i was actually understanding it. my goal for next year (if i live that long) is to have arabic down, insha Allah. im gonna be studying it either way in the darul uloom, but i really wanna study it WELL. i wanna KNOW the language and be able to speak it, so basically that means that i wont be just "barely getting by" with my hour of studying a week or the way i usually procrastinate.

i got so much stuff to do and improve on. will i do it tho? i think bout all this stuff constantly, but i dont really act on it. today while i was waiting at the MVA for *4* hours, i was chillin in the car listening to Ghamdi's, Muhammad Jebril's, and Ajmy's khatm duah, and asked Allah to give me death right there if there was nothing good for me any more. basically, like if i was gonna slip up and become more worthless than i already am this following year, save me from it. and then i was thinking, i need to constantly make duah for Allah to make me die in a state of Islam, and the best state possible. almost like, oh Allah, if this state that i am in right now is the best state i will EVER be in, make me die in it. no i'm not wishing for death, but i'm juss saying that i'd rather die while i'm ahead rather than go backwards and die in an unfortunate situation.

Allahumma innaa na'oothu bika min 'AINIL LAA TUDMA'.

"Oh Allah, surely we seek refuge in You from the eye that doesn't tear."

* * * * * * * * *

oh, but i am looking forward to this sunday. tackle football, cedar lane park. i feel like merkin some cats. insha Allah.

2005-10-28T08:55:00.000-07:00

khatm-ul-Qur'an tonight yall.

be there or be square.

(dont hesitate to shoot me if i ever say that in real life)

juss a lil bit

2005-10-26T23:08:00.000-07:00

salaamu alaikum

gotta let out a big: WOOOOOOO (loud sighing "woo" o_0)

i. am. beat. yo.

we ended just now, 2:00AM man. its like coming back from a good hard game of ball. it feels good. but you're straight mopped.

the green ranger

2005-10-22T08:05:00.000-07:00

salaamu alaikum

http://thatvideosite.com/view/969.html

aw man i would put this up on islamica, but the site that its on has some haramish ads.

ahh the old school days of saturday morning cartoons... :faint:

oh so close...

2005-10-21T21:03:00.000-07:00

salaamu alaikum

i think there was a topic on islamica about where you see yourself in 10 years. i dunno, but my initial response was: prolly be dead. i dunno, is it just me, or does anybody else get the feeling that theyre gonna die real young? i do. the other day i was so tired when i was driving, i almost got into a nasty car accident, but alhamdulillah Allah saved me, and my car. but after that i was thinking, you know, that coulda been IT. and i wudda died in Ramadan. how many close calls have i had? im thinking about it, and im like, every day, im dodging bullets. we all are. its so easy to die.

i was planning on going for Hajj this year, thinking hey, if i have the money, let me do it, fulfill my obligation, and be ready to "die". but now im not going, cuz i asked the shaykh about students who wanted to go to hajj (in the aalim program) and he was like nah, theyll miss too much. ALTHOUGH, now that i think about it, since i HAVE already somewhat studied Nahw and Sarf (sure its garbage but hey i did take the course) i might be allowed to kinda miss a lil bit since im "ahead" right? at least this first year. im starting late anyways tho. its starting after ramadan, and im not gonna come in until my semesters over. i dunno.

im gonna start rambling now.

past few weeks ive been thinkin bout this stuff a lot, dunno why tho. but the whole notion of living this life as a traveler seems so hard in todays society, where you're grounded to this dunya by so many things. all these shiny things we have, fancy homes and clothes and cars, just tie us down. it seems almost impossible to truly "live this life as a traveler".

but im beginning to think, sure its got to do with material things, but also nonmaterial things, like attitudes. sometimes we take things so seriously. little dents in our egoes or emotions, and we get hurt so bad. is it really gonna kill us? even if it does, it doesn't matter, we're just travelers. people get caught up in dramas to such an extent that it affects their health and its all they think or talk about. dude you're a traveler.

now that might sound like im holding an opinion that you shouldnt get attached to people in this life, and that feelings dont matter because in the end, everybodys gonna hurt you and you will only be truly happy in the afterlife, inshaAllah. the latter part may be true, but i dont doubt things like sincerity, brother/sisterhood (such a powerful thing), piety, being TRUE and REAL and all that good green stuff. im tellin you, that stuff is real. its not imaginary. and just because we one day come into contact with the "real world" where things are ugly and gritty, we forget all these things and say "i have never experienced any good."

middle path.

sure we're all gonna die. the Prophet SAW knew that better than anyone, and yet the amount of love and genuine compassion he showed towards mankind in general was nothing short of amazing. why spend hours upon hours of qiyam at night time until his heels would bleed, begging Allah to help and save this Ummah - THIS UMMAH, that means every single one of us, you and I - why would anybody do that if "lifes a [bleep] and then you die"?

...[more if it comes to me]

comedian

2005-10-19T11:21:00.000-07:00

salaamu alaikum

so yesterday after coming back from the district court and receiving my penalty/fine/wutever, i went through a depression that lasted a few hours while i slept, went to school for class, but decided not to go and just sat on the computer for 2 hours bored as crap in K building. alhamdulillah tho, iftar time rolled thru, i came back to the masjid and played playground football with the hafidh school kids, and realizing that i hadn't reviewed for the day, ate iftar, took a shower, and crammed in the juz at the last second. then after taraweeh, i went to the gym and lost in a game of basketball (now wait and calm down, because obviously, ShakirSahab doesn't lose games of basketball, so one must understand the underlying notions that ShakirSahab actually let whoever he was playing win, and then everything fits in place again.)

but anyways, now that im not as blown as before, ill relate how it went. first of all, i should be a comedian, because i had the entire court room laughing (with me >_>) and im pretty sure i made the judge's - who was a pretty ok lady (dont wanna say "nice" cuz she did give me that point at the end) - day. im serious, she shoulda dropped the thing just for being funny.

so i go up and start talking. i had written something down the night before, but when i went up there, any coherency i had on paper was lost.

i was like look, i know i shouldn't have been speeding, but i was on 29, and it was completely empty, im driving my dad's car, and i was late for a class, so i didn't notice how fast i was going. she asks me:

* * *

you have a class at 9:00PM?

yea, and class at my local community center.

at 9:00??? what kind of class is this?

an arabic class.

oh really? when does it end though?

around 11.

oh ok (satisfied)

* * *

so then im like, see the thing is I NEVER SPEED, i just get caught at the worst times. everybody starts laughing. so does the judge. im thinking 'good'. so then im like LOOK, i KNOW that 29 is the LAST place i wanna speed, cuz thats where the cops camp out, i KNOW THAT, so i dont even think bout going over the speed limit on that highway, especially when its empty, its just that that day, i was late for a class and i was just trying to make it on time.

meanwhile theyre all having a pretty good laugh, and shes like, "oh so you never speed but you get caught at the worst times?" im like yea. at this point im thinking, man i gotta use everything i got. so i pull the "i was going with the flow of traffic" card, and everybody is laughing at my great excuses. im like whatever, no use stopping now. so then i tell her how my 18 months are gonna be over in 2 months, and she just simply says, "not any more". i was like barrrrrrrrrr. bastard lady.

so as a final resort, before she can issue a sentencing i pick up the citation and im like, YO, (i actually did say YO in the court room by accident while i was explaining how i never speed and am such a good driver) my name is MISSPELLED on the citation, so TECHNICALLY, i dont even know who this guy is!!!

shes like, oh really, how do you spell ur name. i tell her, she writes it down somewhere, and says, they got ur last name right right? "yes". its all good then.

then she asks bout my previous ticket, and im like i got none. and shes like yea you do. and i go i was not guilty for that. and shes like yea you were. i go no i wasnt. and she goes did you pay a fine? i say yes. and she says that if you paid, then you were found guilty, but were on probation.

and then she says so youre on your provisionals? yes.

you're under 18????? yes.

so you know your parents were supposed to be notified about this? yes.

do they know? yea.

where are they? uhh, at home?

so they know about the ticket? yeaa (wth does she want?)

what did they say? to come here

(audience laughs)

SMH, what the hell do my parents have to do with anything. anyways, that was it. in the end, she said shed bring the speed down to 64 and that makes it one point, and that i should be careful. i stepped away from the podium thing and half expected applause and was thinking about bowing, but i decided not to...

instead i walked into the middle of the room and yelled, "[bleep] THE POLICE NIGGGAAAA!!@!!!" then stole their donuts and ran away.

EDIT: i just posted this on islamica, lets see if i get rep points.....

cuz i'm young and i'm black and my hats real low...

2005-10-18T07:05:00.000-07:00

salaamu alaikum

man one of these days imma run from the police, just so i can provoke them to DO SOMETHING while theyre on the job and getting paid besides sitting and chilling in their fancy crown vics and clocking people for going 2 miles over the speed limit. bastards. no really, they dont do anything but sit on the side of the highway and give ppl tickets. go stop violence, stop the drug traffic, do something else besides exploiting other ppl's misfortunes. SMH

yes, i just got back from the court house after a near accident and death experience (another story) trying to fight my ticket. FIRST OF ALL, they had my name wrong on the citation. i tried that card but the judge lady was like, well ur last name is correct, so its all good. nice excuse eh, not my fault the officer can't spell my friggin name. technically i dunno who the hell HAMMOND HAI is...

to make a long story short, even though i had the entire court room laughing at my pretty elaborate excuse for speeding, she didnt drop it. instead she took it down to 1 point. SOOOO, that means that my 18 months are gonna start over again!!! bastards.

and soon i got the court thing for the old geezer lady thats sueing me after half a year. 10,000 dollars, mashaAllah. you old rich lady, what do you need all that money for!?!??!?!?!??!? to give to your son so he can go to a fancy private school!?!??! maybe im wrong and shes not rich. either way, shes exploiting me. i wouldnt have sued her. cuz shes old.

lemme go play some killer instinct to vent this frustration.

lets go fulgore.

reminiscing on the past times

2005-10-16T21:38:00.000-07:00

salaamu alaikum

ahh today i went and beat killer instinct and super street fighter 2 on Super Nintendo. i used to play those games like a fiend. i swear, me and my boy would ditch taraweeh to come and play video games for hours n hours. good times.

that was back when i had enough sleep that i could wake up at 7 AM automatically and watch sonic or ronin warriors or something. man im laggin on sleep, and its bad. cuz its not the "no sleep in 3 days" type of thing, its the "too little sleep over the course of about 2 weeks now", and i know its hittin me now cuz the other day, while driving, i got spots in my vision. it looked like how when rain hits the windshield, cept there was no rain or water, and it didnt happen on my windshield, just random spots in my vision and then they disappeared. 3 of em. pop pop pop, and then gone.

and today, during taraweeh, all of a sudden i couldn't feel my legs. my entire lower body became "detached" and i was having an outer body experience. im serious, i could feel my (upper) body still while it was reading quran (im still reading while this whole bizarre thing is happening) and it feels like "I" am spinning slowly in circles, away from my body, and outside of it. then the fan came around towards my body and blew air at me, and i almost stumbled. i was like whoa man, lemme hurry up and go into ruku so i can feel my legs again.

never happened to me before in my life man. and now imma go and do my homework for tomorrow.

2005-10-14T04:58:00.000-07:00

salaamu alaikum

man im so screwed today. thanks to a certain classmate of mine, yesterday i got no sleep, "studying" for our philo discussion today. ya right. just killed brain cells trynna argue with him. and this morning? no suhoor. why? first 100 cars at the shell on 40 today got free gas. starting at 5AM, i was waiting in line for an hour. suhoor time is over, and i drive out of there with 20 bucks of free gas. was it worth it? i dunno

i just woke up from about 45 minutes of sleep, which is the worst, and i dunno if i should be operating machinery. oh well, time to go ahead and try.

2005-10-09T21:42:00.000-07:00

salaamu alaikum

my plan failed. :-(

i read pretty slow today, hoping that the same uncles that were talkin to me yesterday bout going too fast would get tired of standing the whole time and ask me to speed up a lil bit. after 4 rakahs i heard them talking in the back, saying SOMEthing about the length of the rakahs, but then they just said that it was a good pace. something something something. we only finished like maybe 10 minutes later than usual too. i guess thats just how its gonna be now. its cool with me, the only thing that semi-not-even-really bothers me is that they got me.

yup, they got me.

2005-10-08T22:42:00.000-07:00

salaamu alaikum

so today after Taraweeh, some dude kinda "went off" on me in a milder sense tho, about how i should slow down my recitation and how im reading too fast and stuff. first of all, i try to read as fast as i can WITH ALL the tajweed rules INTACT. second of all, what am I supposed to do? they only give me 12 raka'at, and i gotta read the wholeJUZ and a HALF in those 12. the first 8 they give to the students of their sunday school, and they read random short surahs from random places, and then when theyre done, then i get to lead the remaining 12.

honestly, i dont care. if they want me to read slower, ILL READ SLOWER. the ONLY reason i try to read fast is for THEIR sake, because the Raka's are ridiculously long even with the speed im reciting at. if they want me to read slower, they better be prepared for some reallllllllly long raka's. when i told them this, they were like you don't even have to read a juz and a half! just read a QUARTER!? its not fard to finish the quran! thats just desi mentality.

after that i stopped talking and just gave them the stoneface. -_-

i remember they told me that last year when they first met me. i was like yo, im finishing the quran. no its not cuz i think its fard. but because its a goal for ME. it superglues my quran back together.

on a sidenote: im on a ramadan high.

2005-10-07T21:46:00.000-07:00

salaamu alaikum

be honorable in victory and defeat

cuz you know its real when your enemies like you

2005-10-06T14:16:00.000-07:00

salaamu alaikum

theres more to life than an education, job, and money

more to what i do everyday, than a wifey, and a house

more to it than settling, sitting back and getting fat

theres more to sport than sport

more to it than just that

2005-10-05T20:40:00.000-07:00

salaamu alaikum :D

ahh, always good and bad.

good news: i just got a whole rack of 50$ gas cards, so I won't have to worry bout paying for gas for a while.

bad news: the old lady involved in my accident from a while back finally decides she wants to sue me.

Ya Allah, please correct my affairs in the best of ways. Ameen.

2005-10-04T09:17:00.000-07:00

Salaamu Alaikum

posted this on Islamica just now:

Assalaamu Alaikum

Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem

Al Hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Aalameen.

Islamicans, I need your help in refining this argument. Basically the other day in my philosophy class, the professor was talking about how God is associated with certain attributes, such as All-Good, All-Powerful, All-Knowing. And he was like, even if you could prove the existence of some diety out there, how would you prove that he has such qualities? Thing is, he uses Christianity as an example of ridiculous claims a lot, and sometimes he'll talk about Judaism, and it looks like he actually knows some stuff about both. But he has not mentioned Islam yet, and I'm beginning to think that he hasn't studied or looked into Islam yet. Either way, I wanted to form an argument about the existance of God along with His attributes by using the Quran:

Before I start, I just wanna say that these are numbered cuz thats the order. Until I establish each one, I would not go to the next one, because it would circle back to an earlier point. I'm sure everybody knew that.

1. First thing I would establish is that the Prophet Muhammad SAW was an unlettered man, and maybe throw in a bit about his character. But really establishing that he was no philosopher or anything like that; he could neither read nor write. I wouldn't go past this issue until it was established and agreed upon, and for that I'd need outside historical sources. Where would I find those?

2. The Arabs lived in an isolated society. They were not advanced in their thinking, but were sinking into ignorance and vice. Again, outside historical proofs would be needed so these things can be established. Basically establish the scenario in which Islam popped off.

3. The Quran: How it has been unchanged for 1400 years. How the Prophet could not have written it. How his companions could not have got together and written it. How the Muslims in later times could not have slowly completed it, adding things here and there. How it is memorized and preserved.

4. Because it is unchanged and original, then discuss its miracles such as the prophecies that have came true. The scientific facts it provides that have only recently been discovered. The challenge that it has issued and which still remains today.

Thus, ESTABLISHING the legitimacy of the Quran, and proving it could NOT have been written by Men. Now here, I'm kinda confused as to how to make the leap from "Not Man Made" to "Divinely Revealed by God". The line of logic I was planning on using was like this:

Everything that can be proved true or false in the Quran, (such as the prophecies, scientific facts) have been proven true, and none have been proven false. So as for the things that cannot be scientifically TESTED, like God being Allah, Allah being One, His Attributes, it would be unfair/unethical/dishonest (dunno the correct word that I'm trying to use) to say that these parts are FALSE based on mere POSSIBILITY. Because if everything else in the book is true, why say these parts are false without proof? (Makes sense in my head.)

SO THUS:

5. Since the Quran is true, the Quran claims that there is a God, and that God is Allah, and Allah has such and such attributes.

I asked a brother bout this logic and if it was flawed, and he said yes it was. I'm not sure how exactly, so maybe somebody can explain. InshaAllah, I'm hoping you guys can help me with a few things.

1. The argument. Flaws. Help me refine it. Anything at all.

2. The Proofs. HOW do I ESTABLISH beyond argument that the Prophet SAW was unlettered. And the Arabs lived in such a society. And that the Quran has been unchanged. I can't use religious proofs like the Hadith for the Prophet's life. I would need outside sources. Same for the Arab lifestyle. What's good Islamica?

WHATS GOOD!?!?!??

Oh, and try and keep it simple for me, please. I'm really pretty stupid, so if you decide to go Russell status on me, I'm gonna hafto skip your post.

Jazaakumullahu Khairan.

2005-10-03T08:42:00.000-07:00

Salaamu alaikum

taraweeh. starts. tomorrow.

O_O

holy crap.

gas is gonna be ridiculous.

(i should be going back to school soon. not before some jishanda tho.)

2005-10-03T08:21:00.000-07:00

salaamu alaikum

so since the maxima broke down on me (transmission died) we had it towed from the highway where it left us stranded to some gas station. after finding out how much a new tranny plus labor would cost, (starting from a G and going up) we decided we wouldn't bother with it, and its going to the junk yard. so im like, hell no im not donating the speakers to a junkyard so some random fiend can go and pick em for 10 bones. so me and a friend go to the gas station to take out the nice, Pioneer, aftermarket speakers (which i never really got to use cuz i never installed a tape deck OR CD player after the first one got stolen). so ive opened up the door panel before to fix the busted window motor, so i know where the door speakers are. i take those out easily. almost there.

the ones in the back however, i have absolutely no idea how to take out. you can see them if you open the trunk - thats where the wires all all hooked up - but theyre screwed in from the top. and when you go from inside to somehow remove the top, its like impossible. it just wasnt happening. so my friend has the ingenius idea to "take out the back windshield" so we have more room to work with. so he unscrews some random screws n stuff, and then starts peeling away at the rubber lining surrounding the glass. he takes a flathead and tries to prop the windshield up. meanwhile, im still trynna figure out how to remove the top without using an axe or something. all i hear is BOOOM, like somebody juss busted a cap into the windshield, and this big piece of glass falls on me and the place im workin. i jump back, look up and theres a huge hole in the glass, and the rest of it is just splintering and getting ready to shatter. you can see the lines snake thru the wholllle thing, and you can hear the tiny cackles and cracking.

woohoo. whats done is done. i was actually thinking about maybe selling the car for parts, like you know, get 100 or 200 bucks off the vehicle, but now i was juss like whatever, this thing is junk. oh and we were getting raped by mosquitos this whole time too, and since the doors were open, im pretty sure they found a whole lot of new places to live. anyways, so he busts out his phone that has a slick lil recording camera thing, and records us taking screwdrivers and just busting thru the rest of the glass, then we proceed to rip apart the top thats denying us access to the speakers, while shards of glass are falling all over us and our hands are getting lil tiny cuts everywhere.

in the end, we did remove the speakers safely. alhamdulillah. :D

2005-09-28T08:43:00.000-07:00

salaamu alaikum

"pocket qurans are cool but how do you manage to carry it around so taht it doesnt suffer any disrespect? loosely being thrown around, etC? isnt it kinda hard? ive been wanting to bring a quraan with me to school but its semi risky i feel. "

i used to have the same dilemma. how to carry it around without disrespecting it? i was always taught to not even hold the quran like any other book, and hold it up to my chest with my right hand, just for respect. for pocket qurans tho, its all gravy if you got the upper shirt pockets, as long as you dont go in the bathroom n stuff, but i dont always rock shirts with pockets up there. i usually dont actually. so for me, its a matter of necessity. i havent been reviewing lately, at all, and ramadan is less than a week away. i dont put the quran in my bookbag cuz that thing gets thrown around, put on the ground, etc. not in my back pocket cuz id sit on it. i do put it in my regular side pocket, and i try to take as much care of it as possible.

an extreme example is the super glorified, glitterified, shrined Qurans that adorn the top of people's shelves, but theyre never taken down. never read through even once. They just collect dust. i think thats the greatest disrespect. you see a student of quran's Mus'haf, and you can tell how many juz they know. Because half the pages will be in perfect shape, and then when it gets near the end, the pages are ripped, half coming out, SWOLLEN. because these pages are sifted through everyday, all the time. they are read, all the time. the Quran is not just the book, but the words.

WALLAHI, i'm not any more attached to the quran than anybody else. and of all people, I should be. but i'm not. during the time of the sahaba, if you would walk through the streets at nighttime, the houses would be radiating with the recitation of Quran, during tahajjud hours. like the buzzing of bees. i remember a brother gave a small talk on how the sahaba would review their quran. they would have a set amount they would read every NIGHT, and finish every week. this is only how they would review. recitation was their passtime, their hobby. Imam Shafii read the quran like six times in a day JUST to find an ayah that was proof for Qiyas. these people lived the quran. and today, we can barely read a few ayat besides what we read in prayer without feeling tired.

yea, so i kinda went off on a tangent. it wasnt aimed at anybody but me though. i gotta say this stuff sometimes so i can get affected too. but back to the topic, i need this pocket quran to review. i keep it in my pocket, and even though thats not the best place, its better than me not reading at all. especially during ramadan.

ramadan: here comes the challenges i was talking about earlier. i cant refuse challenges. basically, a brother came up to me last night at isha, and told me to finish taraweeh in annapolis early. like the 21st or something. then come back to ISB, and do a late session taraweeh for the cats who are gonna be staying in I'tikaaf. last year, this one brother did that. his taraweeh would be after the main taraweeh ended, starting at like 11:00 and ending around 1 or 2. but he read 5 juz the first night. 3 the second. etc. finished in 10 days.

yall are prolly like why? basically, even though it isnt required, people wanna hear the entire quran during Ramadan. but they also wanna go masjid hopping and hear different ppl. different masajid go at different paces. so if they leave one night to go to a different place, and they come back, they might miss a small portion, because the two jama'ahs might be at different places. so they just wanna finish the quran, so then they can go around and go to any taraweeh they want. something like that. cept this is not gonna be in the beginning, but at the end. so its more for the ppl of i'tikaaf.

but dude asked me to do that. finish in annapolis, then come to ISB and do these late night sessions and finish again in a few days for the brothers in i'tikaaf. they will listen to an entire quran. they wont be up at night gossiping like little girls (it happens). and itll be a form of tahajjud. and itll only help me as well. i was like hey

i'm game.

i gotta talk to my teacher about it today so he can talk to the annapolis ppl and tell them when im finishing n stuff. but about challenges, theyre fun. occasionally, i like pushing myself. (not in school tho, god forbid 0_0) its the priceless feeling of adrenaline as youre scrambling to make ends meet, get ready, be ready, and make it thru, and then relaxing afterwards. the best time of the day during ramadan is RIGHT after you finish witr. like yessss, i actually made it thru THIS juz! its all easy from here. then the next morning youre worried bout that night.

haha, funny how i started this off as a comment to the previous post and it turned into this. i got class in 20 mins. so imma end this off riiiiight here.

walaikum assalaam

EDIT: i just read thru this, and i realize how incoherent this whole thing was. s-m-h.

2005-09-27T21:06:00.000-07:00

salaamu alaikum

i was actually gonna come in here and post something real. about challenges that i got presented with today. but i dont feel it right now. it would only be half hearted. ive been staring at this screen for maybe half an hour already. completely lost my appetite for this.

i did get a pocket 15 liner (quran) today. but that wudda been part of the stuff i was going to talk about.

its whatever.

Astaghfirullah. Astaghfirullah. Astaghfirullah.

2005-09-21T11:05:00.000-07:00

salaamu alaikum

ahh back from a full day of classes. today was interesting. walking out after my health class was done, some dudes sitting down with a bunch of his homies, sees me and hes like, "Yo's got the bin laden man, i want that!" im walkin past him and look at him like the bin laden? hes like yeah. im like grow it out and itll come son. itll come.

its the best tho when you find out that some of these ppl are muslim cuz when they see you, theyll stop and be like salaamu alaikum. and im like hey, mA. Walaikum assalaam.

greeting a fellow muslim is like a breath of fresh air.

"spread salaam amongst yourselves."

2005-09-18T21:21:00.000-07:00

salaamu alaikum

"A man who thinks he can and a man who thinks he can't are both right.

Which one are you son?"

~ somewhere

2005-09-14T12:14:00.000-07:00

salaamu alaikum

eating sheermal with coco roos cereal milk and it tastes good. i had my first two tests in health and i think i did pretty good on both, alhamdulillah. and psychology is getting more interesting, and is really easy. philosophy is starting next monday, and ive heard from a number of people that my professor is really easy. its physics thats killing me. first test is tomorrow, thursday. and if i were to take it right now this instant, i would get a big fat 0. yousaf, if i find you at the masjid today, prepare for some chai and biscuits, cuz you're gonna help me out. if i still dont do well, this is the first class ive contemplated dropping for later. and i really might have to. dropping the class has been a very real option for me for another reason too. and thats the fact that im not rushing college anymore, like i had planned before. originally, my plan was to straight overload all my semesters and get an AA by the summer, and then continue on and finish college as soon as possible, maybe another year and a half (this plan had absolutely no motive behind it, really.... >_> )

but now, thats off. not because i lost the interest, or because it was a phase and it burned out and passed over, but because something came knocking at my door. before, students would travel across entire countries on foot or horseback, just to attain a single hadith or ask a question. today we have mountains of knowledge at our finger tips, and easy and quick accessibility to traditional schools overseas, but we don't reach out and take it. myself included. i went to a madrassa, but i didnt go overseas to become an aalim. ive been talked to so many times by so many people, everybody with a different opinion on what i should do. but all of them agree and see this one thing in me, and that is me not living up to my potential and settling for something so much less. and for me, its like, "if only these people knew how incapable and STUPID i really am, they wouldn't bother me."

to not get into a rant, lets just say ive wasted a couple of years, which goes back to the reason why i wanted to overload and finish up college in 2 some years. but now ive got an oppurtunity. ISB is starting a full time aalim program at Al-Rahmah, taught by qualified teachers, the same syllabus used in South Africa, with the certificate/degree and everything. it started off with the hifdh school, and now its this. how far away do i live from ISB? about 30 seconds if i walk BACKWARDS. if i decided to let this oppurtunity pass me by, i would not just be guilty of not reaching out and grabbing this blessing Allah is bestowing upon the community, but it would almost be as if i were running away from it. My teacher always taught me to make this duah: Ya Allah, accept me for Your deen.

can i handle it? im pumped already. cant wait for the semester to be over.

YA ALLAH, PLEASE MAKE ME AMONG THOSE WHOM YOU CHOOSE TO LEARN THIS DEEN AND IMPLEMENT IT IN THEIR EVERYDAY LIVES...

Ameen!

2005-09-11T19:58:00.000-07:00

salaamu alaikum

im back home, watching the ravens vs. colts game. theyre losing, and its annoying. boller just got hurt, and wright is doing his thing, boutta get us a touchdown iA. anyways, im sore as i dunno what. went to the mas-camp and played a good game of football. i matched up against hasan, and we were basically schooling each other all game long. being sore is a good feeling tho, i think. because you know that you're muscles broke down, and they're going to rebuild stronger. so it hurts, but its a good pain.

i performed at the camp. and it went well. i wasnt sure i was gonna make it back on time. because on saturday, i was booked at ISB to recite for the fundraiser, and they had asked me like 4 months ago, so there was absolutely no way i could cancel, and if i was gonna cancel anything, it would have been going to the camp. so i left early, got to ISB on time. chilled, ate, prayed Maghrib, recited, and then dipped and went back to the camp. i got there just in time for the entertainment session, where hasan and them did our little skit from MIST 03. meanwhile, i was finishing up my poem. i got up there and performed, and it went good. i started, and all of sudden i had all this energy in my voice. i might have been going too fast, i dunno, but i definitely had the flow down. also, i went and edited the entry where I posted the poem and made it the version that I recited at the camp.

(NEWS: STOVER JUST MISSED HIS THIRD FIELD GOAL OF THE GAME. 16 YEAR VETERAN MY FOOT!)

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

(paraphrased from the after fajr/dhuhr (bad memory) khatirah)

Imam Ahmed ibn Hanbal was sitting in a gathering with his students and a man came up to him and complained that they were not getting any rain, and the drought was severely trying the people. Imam Ahmed said, "istaghfirillah", Seek forgiveness from Allah. The man left.

Another man came up, and compained how he was very poor. Imam Ahmed said, "istaghfirillah", Seek forgiveness from Allah. The man left.

Another man came up, and said that his wife was barren and could not have children. Imam Ahmed said, "istaghfirillah", Seek forgiveness from Allah. And the man left. One of the students in the gathering who was listening to all this got up and asked the Imam, all three of these people came up to you asking you different questions. And for each you said, Make istighfaar? Don't you have anything else?

And so Imam Ahmed recited these verses:

فَقُلْتُ اسْتَغْفِرُوا رَبَّكُمْ إِنَّهُ كَانَ غَفَّارًا

"I said (to them): 'Ask forgiveness from your Lord; Verily, He is Oft-Forgiving;

يُرْسِلِ السَّمَاء عَلَيْكُم مِّدْرَارًا

'He will send rain to you in abundance;

وَيُمْدِدْكُمْ بِأَمْوَالٍوَبَنِينَ وَيَجْعَل لَّكُمْ جَنَّاتٍ وَيَجْعَل لَّكُمْ أَنْهَارًا

'And give you increase in wealth and children, and bestow on you gardens and bestow on you rivers.' "

Simply by seeking forgiveness from Allah, something the Prophet SAW used to do at LEAST 100 times a day, Allah promises all this.

May Allah make us among those who keep their tongues wet with the rememberence of Him. Ameen.

2005-09-08T21:48:00.000-07:00

salaamu alaikum

so much. but for now, im trying to finish up a poem that I have to perform tomorrow at the mas-camp. i dont know why i said yes to this, but now its late night, and I have yet to finish up my poem....and it seems to keep getting longer and longer, and it doesn't want to finish. or i dont know how to finish.

here it is so far:

the mind is a terrible thing to waste
but most wait and waste their time
in supposed liesure, while we find
that most minds, and these minds both
continue to wither and die
spiritually, if not at the intellectual level
hearts like metal, only brief envy
for hearts that bubble, at the briefest,
slightest mention of their Lord
just a thin sheer sheet of silk wrapped around steel
one verse, and they're already bored
and whats worse, than a hard heart
that curses its own roots
that yearn for these divine verses
but he pines to break loose
and he dies, trynna sever ties
that cannot be severed
bonds that cannot be broken
lineage that cannot be better
because in the end
we all came from the same person
we from the same place
the same hood
so then why is it, that when the hood's real low
the fitted cap fit, fit to the absolute lowest
and your eyes won't show
without you having to lean back real slow
and it might hurt you so
because my back might break my pride
when I lean down to prostrate to the Divine
and when I say salaams to my brother
why does it gotta be with the thug mug
and the sweeping eyes
or from afar, the gaze of Hasad, the icy stares
break ice with more ice, now its only icy care
only numbs the pain, and you have yet to realize
see me through real eyes
because I'm just you're brother
bonds of blood
just a different father and mother
but my arrogance, refusal to see my sins
suck it up, give in, and give greetings to kin
its not hard
just impossible for the same reason
that it seems not possible
to wake up for a single prayer on time
but pray late, no sleep, cuz we were stuck online
the night before
missed congregation Salaat
so for this we vaguely hate ourselves for,
but the effort is too great
so we grate and grind our teeth for the next time
and we eat, sleep, live, and forget our meaning for being,
our meeting with the Benevolent Being
the next morning we do the same
shed no tears but show a little shame
with a sham of a frown made possible
by the tear in my gown or the brown stain
on my jeans, while we look in the mirror
and shave and shape up my pretty little name
for some street fame
and i play this like a trivial video game
and I say I'm sincere?
I got heart right?
i just gotta do my share and my part right?
but i like it, why? because I get to fight
and I get to tell my brothers the wrong from the right
I grew up on a playground, so I can throw some fists
and speech is easy, i've taken classes for this
so with hands and words, i fight this evil
and with my hands and words, i abuse the people
no i fight the people
but do i fight myself?
now thats an odd thing
for that I can procrastinate and wait for the last possible date
as long as my chest got breath and my soul got flesh, I'm straight
so I can come back to myself
cuz thats an easy win
for now its these heathens
and theyre lack of fear
i got so many questions for 'em, it'd take a couple of years
for for now, heres one, for right now and right here
why is the applause always louder than the takbeers?

* * * * * * *

.... im in trouble man. tomorrow after fajr, inshaAllah.

2005-08-23T09:49:00.000-07:00

Salaamu Alaikum

WOW, its 12:53 afternoon, and its been a lonnnng day. this is gonna require a brief history lesson. earlier this year, while the spring semester was drawing to a close, my 98 nissan sentra died. inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi raji'oon. i killed it. by accident. really. there was nothing i could have done to avoid it >_> ...except maybe not go on the road. but whatever, Allah is the best of Planners. so i survive the rest of the semester without a car, getting rides from friends, and nearly walking home from work (out of boredom and lack of patience to wait for a ride) a couple of times.

so we're looking around for another car. we go to this local public auction. its vicious cuz im seeing some good cars for like 100 bucks n what not. this part is a whole nother in itself, so im gonna just go to the end. i bought a Lincoln Mark VIII, and my dad who was pretty angry that i did that went ahead and got a 87 volvo station wagon, talkin bout volvos are the best and what not. the Lincoln served a purpose, basically i traded it for the Max that i got now, alhamdulillah. but for the volvo, somehow we managed to lose the keys the first day. it wasnt me, but i still took the heat for it. by the time we went to the dealer and got another copy of the keys and came back (a few days) the car was stolen. police report. they didnt find it. whatever. i didnt want the volvo anyways.

2-3 months go by, i manage to get this Maxima of mine, things are settling down. yesterday, we get a letter from some impound place talkin bout your car has been sitting here for this many days, and you have to pay this much money. today, we gotta go take care of this.

thats the history. this is today:

so im up early and i take my dad to the MVA, where I wait in line for like 40 mins. we're trynna get temp tags so we can move the car once we claim it. but when we first got the car, we already GOT temp tags, and when it got stolen, we returned the tags, not before they expired tho. so the ppl at MVA are like you already got tags once, you can't get em again. blah blah, so the trip to the MVA proves useless, and now its to the impound place. i take my dad there, and we claim the car, show the title, ID, and that it got stolen and what not. they show us the car, i try to turn it on and it needs a jump. my dad still wants it. im still wondering what were gonna do with another car? especially since this thing is an 87 and it probably wont pass inspection without us dishing out a good amount of money. but my dad wants it. we cant get tags. we gotta get it towed.

lines and more lines. dude offers to tow. they dont take credit cards, we gotta go get cash. their "detectives" have to double check to make sure the car was stolen, cuz then we wont have to pay the 300 dollars worth of storage fees. this and that. just running around everywhere.

anyways, by the TIME we have some cash and are ready to pay to release the car and get it towed to an inspection center, a cop is there. and they're like, "you cant get the car."

what? why?

it was used in a homicide.

GREAT.

may Allah take forgive our sins and alleviate our hardships and make us from among the Dwellers of Paradise. Ameen.

* * * * * *

2 of my college classes got cut cuz of insufficient enrollment. man they were gonna be the 2 easy classes too. one of them was about islam and muslims in the west, and the other was some community service thing (both of which I DO need as electives :D) but now im gonna have to replace them with something harder. i gotta do that today.

what else.....Fiqh of Love. haha thoughts on this one later.

Allahumma Inni Astaghfiruka bi Rahmatika, Yaa Arham al-Rahimeen.

2005-08-18T14:19:00.000-07:00

Assalaamu Alaikum

these last few days i started going back to quran class in the morning. to review. cuz i got time. cuz one of my friends has just started hifdh school elsewhere and sorta motivated me. and cuz RAMADAN is around the corner! and this is precious review time right here. 2 weeks off? i wont have this type of time for a MINUTE once the semester starts. just yesterday after maghrib, the brother who did the hadith (the imam is away on vacation in south africa, back in his hood where he studied at, where his wife is from, and where his father in law lives (basically mashaAllah HES CHILLING - and he definitely deserved it) so the hadith was the famous hadith where the Prophet SAW mentions that there are two things that people dont take advantage of when they have them. Free time, and Health. Its usually one or the other. in youth, you got health, but you're at school and work all day. then you get married. providing for a family. etc etc. then you get old, and you got the time, but not the health. its truly a blessing to have BOTH free time and health, and an infinitely more precious blessing to have the tawfeeq to CHOOSE TO DO GOOD and sacrifice your health and time for the sake of Allah.

so anyways, i dont know HOW i overslept today. i went to sleep a lil bit after fajr, and woke up at dhuhr! 0_0 then i was at the MVA. ALHAMDULILLAH, i got the maxima is inspected, and i JUST GOT TAGS, and things with the car are finally seeming to fall into place. alhamdulillah. one of my friends offered to get me a super NICE CD player for the car for reallll cheap. like 50 bones. but im still thinkin bout it, since i know his hookups are kinda shady. i remember in fiqh class we talked bout that, i asked if it was jaa'iz to buy like a laptop off a crackhead for 50 bucks, even though it was obviously stolen. he said something bout benefit of the doubt (haha) but im not sure. though this is indirect...soooo....maybe i wont even get a CD player and juss hook my ipod up to the car. then ill have complete control over whats being played and random cats wont come in the car wit their Jada CDs like o_0?

i think imma go make a quick appearance at the masjid. :D im like alumni up there. i can still give the kids orders n stuff. tell em to read, stop talking. go get me a soda. haha. sike nah.

Rabbanaa Aatina fid Dunya Hasanah, wa fil Akhirati Hasanah, WaQinaa 'Athaaban Naar. Ameen.

2005-08-16T03:39:00.000-07:00

Assalaamu Alaikum

last night after isha, a brother I know personally told me that his wife was having complications with her pregnancy. man i cannot describe how my heart went out to him. Allah can test us with so many things, and it seems like the longer we live, the more we get nailed down to this earth, and the harder the tests become. Allah might test us with marriage. and then once we are married, Allah might test us with our kids.

Inna Maa Amwaalukum wa Awladukum Fitnah.
"surely your wealth and your children are trials."

man i can NOT IMAGINE how I would react in a situation like that. Allah does not burden a person beyond his scope, and this bro is one of the strongest ppl i know.

may Allah give this brother a fully healthy child and protect both him and his wife, Ameen.
may Allah protect us all from having to go through something similar, Ameen.

* * * * * *

this is the Ba'dal Fajr crew. everyone on my buddy list is away. o_0 inshaAllah my car should be ready by today, inspected n all that. i got these two weeks off before the fall semester starts, and im gonna have to get everything down and ready. they should be pretty chill, but man, i am not really looking forward to classes starting.

2005-07-29T08:45:00.000-07:00

i just came back from crazy rays. crazy rays is basically a huuuuuge junk lot, with junked, wrecked, salvaged etc cars just lying in rows and rows and rows. theres like thousands of cars over there, and basically what you do is you look for whatever part you want, take it out, and go and pay for it. ridiculous prices. and even then, i managed to waste my money. so i went there to get a hazard switch for my maxima. when the dude broke in, he didnt do any damage (besides a shattered window) to the wires and stuff, but when he ripped out the dashboard, he broke my hazard switch. so the car's turn signals wouldn't work. first i thought it was a short, but asking around, they said it might be the hazard switch. okay.

so i went to the junkyard to find a hazard switch, found one off a sentra in the first five mins. decided to keep lookin around, maybe some CD set was still in one of these cars right? well yea, all the CD systems were gone, but there were plenty of nice tape decks. so i took one out of a maxima, and then went on ahead to take off its windshield wipers too. my car's wipers are kinda messed up, so that if you close the hood of the car, they get stuck under them. so these wipers were a lil smaller, and they were off a nissan (not a maxima tho) so i said hey, whatever. i payed 36 bucks for the switch, two windshield wipers, and the nice tape deck, which also had like those sound manipulaters with all the lil switches and guages, kinda like what ull see at a studio o_0. GOOD PRICE? YEA! IF THEY WORKED!

its a junkyard. everything is as-is condition. no refunds, returns, etc. alhamdulillah the hazard switch worked perfectly, and i now have my turn signals again. but the tape deck doesnt work, i guess its broken. and the wipers are too small to hook into the motors. woohoo. i cudda got the switch in five bucks, but instead i used another 30, that cudda went to gas. i always look for lessons in things, you know something Allah wants to teach me. or maybe this is the Jazaa' of something i did earlier. but the only thing i cud get out of this was, "only get what you came for"?

yea, the summer is almost over, and i have no choice but to keep this car and fix it. i dont have the time, money, or energy to look for another one, and when the fall semester starts, we are going to NEED all 3 cars, running. so while i was figuring out how bad i wasted my 30 bucks, this brother who im real cool with and whos a mechanic, recently sold his shop though, came up and was like thats what you bought? im like mhm. i tell him the story, what it needs n wut not, and how im waiting for some guy to tell me his price to fix it up. i show him the inspection papers, and he had pretty much the same reaction i had. the guy who did the inspection overreacted like retard, and if i took it to someone else, they wudda passed that thing. so anyways, he was like, why dont YOU fix it? i was like, you wanna teach me? he goes, sure.

Ya Allah, please take care of all my affairs, ameen.

Inna ma'al 'Usri Yusraa.

2005-07-28T21:47:00.000-07:00

As Salaamu Alaikum

just came back from the gym, played a lil ball. this is my second day of playing after like a month and a half of laying off my legs due to my ankle injury. man my legs are so weak now. two weeks of crutches and another month of just laying off of them really made them weak, so now when im playin, im puttin all this tension on them all of a sudden. so i feel like i ran a mile after one game. hows my ankle feel? its funny cuz my weak legs are bothering me more than my ankle.

so sunday (playoffs) is still in question. i was telling dude today that i probably wouldnt be able to play, cuz even though im moving normally, everthing is at like 70% speed. he said i was playin fine, but i know myself that i cant play at that level where i can help the team, take over, blow by someone, etc against a real defense.

honestly though, the ISB league isnt even that serious. its not something so important that im gonna risk myself gettin injured again just to play. if i feel good, ill play. if not, im not gonna risk anything. its just a summer league. but alhamdulillah im playin again. and inshaAllah, imma get back to my previous level and come back better.

may Allah give me a full recovery. Ameen.

2005-07-28T18:40:00.000-07:00

salaamu alaikum

i dunno what the hype is about. i finally had to use our new ORECK vacuum cleaner, and im convinced that my sister, mom and dad are all delusional. this thing sucks. you cant even move it properly. u try to go straight up, it goes right. its like at random times, it grows a brain, or maybe its supposed to be "smart" and has some type of "sensors" (which I doubt cuz its so skinny and raggety looking that i wonder how it costs so much) but it goes in wierd directions. and its supposed to be lightweight? what good is that if you can't manuever it properly. ok im done with that. here is one of my posts on islamica reflecting my thoughts lately:

* * * * * * *

alright, then can somebody please tell me

HOW THE HELL ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO RAISE YOUR KIDS!?

i mean, you can only do so much, and at the end, you just have to hope they have enough taqwa to make the right choices. but now theres children from "pious" families who don't give a crap about their religion, let alone practice. and then theres the brothers and sisters from completely non-muslim or culturafied households who are striving sincerely at such young ages? its scary to think that after everything you do for your child, they could end up either way? or is there something that these families are missing that the other ones are doing?

see i'm rambling, cuz i don't know exactly what i'm asking. but have you ever been at the masjid and you see the little kid who comes to the masjid with his father just out of love for the masjid? and you talk to him and he is just oveflowing with life and love for the sunnah? and you just wanna go up to his father and be like, how have you raised your kid?

wallahi i was thinking about this today in BIO class, where we were talking about recessive and dominant diseases. how would you feel if your child was born with a disease like that? and i got to thinking, what if they have an even greater disease? the disease of Nifaaq and hypocrisy?

aight ill stop now. may Allah give us all righteous offspring. ameen.

* * * * * *

2005-07-23T21:48:00.000-07:00

Salaamu alaikum

heh, can't say its been uneventful lately. weddings, halaqas, tests, cars gettin broken into, etc. but right now, this is about the Khutbah i gave at Dar ul Taqwa. First of all, it was for the kids of the summer camp, so it wasn't like anything big. yea it was the first khutbah i've given, and i started losing my voice throughout the middle of it like a retard. but I did actually get through the whole thing and finish it off. Alhamdulillah.

i started writing it the night before and finished it in the morning of Friday. it was all a jumble of stuff, but alhamdulillah most of the stuff was just things on my mind that i wanted to say, so I didn't have to look at the paper at all until the very end. so now that ive gone and fixed it up so that its readable to the human eye, im gonna post it here. note: it LOOKS long, but it really didn't take that long when delivering. also, I didn't include the usual Duaa that you say during the Khutbah, and I didn't include the Duaas at the end. so here it is:

* * * * * * * * *

Assalaamu Alaikum Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuhu

Allah SWT says in the Quran:

يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُواْ اتَّقُواْ اللّهَ حَقَّ تُقَاتِهِ وَلاَ تَمُوتُنَّ إِلاَّ وَأَنتُم مُّسْلِمُونَ

“O you who believe! Fear Allah as He should be feared. And die not except in a state of Islam with complete submission to Allah.”

Today, I wanted to talk about a topic that is discussed many times and constantly. And although, Masha’Allah I don’t think that any of you over here will learn anything new from what I am going to say, it will serve as a reminder. And this reminder is first and foremost to myself, because this is something that I need to be reminded about constantly. This topic is Taqwa.

Now what is Taqwa? I’m sure that all of the brothers and sisters here already know what Taqwa is: fear of Allah. Or that is the basic definition used by most people. And then if we go deeper into the meaning of Taqwa, we all know that it is not just fear of Allah, but it is a state between fear and hope. Fear of Allah’s displeasure, and hope for His pleasure and His Mercy. To lean too far on either side, for us to simply fear, and leave out the hope part, or for us to become so hopeful that we leave out the fear part, is incorrect and can be very dangerous.

So now for one to say that Allah is Al-Ghafoor and Al-Raheem. At least 17 times a day, I would hope more, but at the least, 17 times a day, we read Surah Fatiha. And in the second Ayah of Surah Fatiha, we say Al-Rahmanir Raheem. The Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful. Now some people, Subhan Allah, they take this to such a level that they say Allah is the Most Merciful, so why would he ever punish me. I am not like most of the people out there, going out, drinking, partying. I’m just a regular Muslim doing my part, so why would Allah punish me? They feel content with their deeds and Akhirah. This is incorrect. Of course, Allah says he is Al-Ghafoor and Al-Raheem, but then do we forget the verse where Allah SWT says:

وَلَكِنَّ عَذَابَ اللَّهِ شَدِيدٌ

“But Surely, the Punishment of Allah is severe!”

How can we be so bold to say that Allah will never punish us? We have to go back and look at the attitude that the Companions had. The Companions of the Prophet SAW were the very people who were given a status unequaled by others in the Quran. Allah says about them:

رَّضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُمْوَرَضُوا عَنْهُ

“Allah is pleased with them, and they are pleased with him.”

For Allah to say in his Book, Al-Quran, the absolute Truth, that he is pleased with a group of people is nothing to shrug off. It is a very big deal. During the second generation of Muslims, when the Sahabah started dying off, they were considered gems in the Ummah. If a group of people had the Sahabah on their side, it gave their position so much more weight. The Sahabah had a level of their own. And then even within themselves, there were ranks amongst them. The likes of Abu Bakr Al-Siddiq, Umar bin Khattab, Uthman bin Affan, and Ali ibn Abi Talib, (RA) along with the rest of the ten that were given the glad tidings of paradise in one sitting, had their own status. Imagine that, the Prophet (SAW) listing ten Companions, one by one by one, saying they will be in Jannah. And everything the Prophet (SAW) said, came from Allah, so they are getting a guarantee that they will be in the highest place in Jannah along with the Prophet SAW. And yet these same people, who knew that when they died, they were going to heaven, used to spend their entire nights in Tahajjud prayer, crying until their beards would drip with tears. These same people gave all of their wealth in the path of Allah. These same people use to fear that they were hypocrites.

Uthman bin Affan (RA), who was the third Khalifa of the Muslims, was murdered by the hypocrites of his time. The night before he was killed, he had a dream where he saw the Prophet SAW, sitting with Abu Bakr and Umar (RA), and he told him that tomorrow, you will break your fast with us. So that morning when he went out of the house, he was fasting. He has just received confirmation from the Prophet that he is going to be with him in Jannah. And this is the same person for whom the Prophet SAW said that “after today, Uthman can do no wrong.” And this is the same person for whom one day, when the Prophet SAW was reclining with his companions, just chilling, and some of his clothing had slipped and uncovered part of his leg, and Uthman walked into the gathering. The Prophet SAW immediately got up and fixed his clothing. The Companions asked why he did that. And he said, “Should I not be shy in front of the person whom even the Angels are shy of?” Even the Angels were shy to be in the presence of Uthman (RA). And this same person, when he was dying, what did he say?

“Laa ilaaha illa ant, Subhanaka, inni kuntu minath Thalimeen.”

“There is no god but You (Allah), Glory be to You, Surely I am from the wrongdoers.”

If Uthman (RA) considered himself, after all this, to be a Dhaalim, an oppressor, due to his fear and Taqwa, how can we, people who sin day in and day out and don’t even acknowledge our deeds, say that on the Day of Judgment, Allah will pardon our mistakes?

* * * * * * *

Allah SWT says in the Quran:

قُلْ يَا عِبَادِيَ الَّذِينَ أَسْرَفُوا عَلَى أَنفُسِهِمْ لَا تَقْنَطُوا مِن رَّحْمَةِ اللَّهِ إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَغْفِرُ الذُّنُوبَ جَمِيعًا إِنَّهُ هُوَ الْغَفُورُ الرَّحِيمُ

Say: "O My servants who have transgressed against themselves! Despair not of the mercy of Allah, verily, Allah forgives all sins, Truly, He is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.”

This verse gives us tremendous hope. Allah is saying that those who have transgressed against themselves! And in another place he says,

[وَمَن يَعْمَلْ سُوءاً أَوْ يَظْلِمْ نَفْسَهُ ثُمَّ يَسْتَغْفِرِ اللَّهَ يَجِدِ اللَّهَ غَفُوراً رَّحِيماً ]

“And whoever does evil or wrongs himself but afterwards seeks Allah's forgiveness, he will find Allah Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful”

Allah is describing someone disobeying Him as doing Dhulm (Oppression) upon themselves, because that is the actuality of it. We are oppressing ourselves when we choose to disobey Allah, because no one else will feel the ramifications of our deeds on the Day of Judgment but ourselves. And yet Allah is saying that those who have transgressed against their own souls, or wrong their souls and commit evils, to the point where they think they have mountains of sins on their scales, “but afterwards seek Allah’s forgiveness, he will find Allah Oft Forgiving, Most Merciful.” And in the first Ayah, Allah says, “Do NOT despair in the mercy of Allah, Verily Allah is will forgive ALL sins, and he is Al-Ghafoor and Al-Raheem.” To despair in the hope of Allah’s forgiveness is only weakness of faith. And it is wrong to do so. Why? Because think about it. Allah is describing himself with His attributes as the Most Merciful of all, and the Most Forgiving of all. So when we say that Allah can never forgive me, we are actually limiting the mercy and attributes of Allah SWT! He is saying he will do something, and we are saying he cannot. That’s a very big deal! InshaAllah I will end with a Hadith of the Prophet SAW:

Imam Ahmad recorded that Anas bin Malik, may Allah be pleased with him, said, "I heard the Messenger of Allah , say:

«وَالَّذِي نَفْسِي بِيَدِهِ لَوْ أَخْطَأْتُمْ حَتْى تَمْلَأَ خَطَايَاكُمْ مَا بَيْنَ السَّمَاءِ وَالْأَرْضِ، ثُمَّ اسْتَغْفَرْتُمُ اللهَ تَعَالَى لَغَفَرَ لَكُمْ، وَالَّذِي نَفْسُ مُحَمَّدٍبِيَدِهِ لَوْ لَمْ تُخْطِئُوا لَجَاءَ اللهُ عَزَّ وَجَلَّ بِقَوْمٍ يُخْطِئُونَ، ثُمَّ يَسْتَغْفِرُونَ اللهَ فَيَغْفِرُ لَهُم»

(By the One in Whose Hand is my soul, if you were to commit sin until your sins filled the space between heaven and earth, then you were to ask Allah for forgiveness, He would forgive you. By the One in Whose Hand is the soul of Muhammad, if you did not commit sin, Allah would bring other people who would commit sins and then ask Allah for forgiveness so that He could forgive them.)

2005-07-20T20:44:00.000-07:00

hehe, i was chillin wit the imam after isha' prayer today, juss talkin bout when he's leaving for his trip and some questions and answers, and well, he mentioned the Usool exam. basically it was confirmation that I passed, kinda. He was like, "I would have never given you guys that exam if I had had time to prepare my own. I just took the south africa exam and gave it to you guys. it was too easy. over there they don't even teach qiyas, that is why there were no questions from qiyas. and you guys saw, it was the easiest test yet."

i'm thinking, ALHAMDULILLAH.

so I have to give a khutbah to the kids at the Dar ul Taqwa summer camp this friday. I'm still trying to decide what to do it on. i'll prolly use this thing to brainstorm, when i'm not feeling so lazy. oh yea, mechanic dude was trynna rip me off. im like o_0, how bout no buddy.