Now, again, I haven’t been writing for a long while. I have a pile of drafts that I should publish but don’t seem to get around editing what  I’ve written (yes.I do edit. Somewhat). Writing just aint what it used to be- mainly because my one-year-old decided to practice her engineering skills on my keyboard (leaving half of it torn out. How very sweet and creative she is. The little possum).

Someone (probably she was a bit suicidal) asked me to write about myself and to tell her about my life, of course she most likely regretted it a lot later (not that my life has been that exciting- but the amount of facepalming it initiates might be dangerous and cause a permanent damage to your forehead.) However, writing about myself worked as a brilliant tool for self-analyses and made me realize some things about myself that I might have forgotten along the way- mainly that I’ve made some down right dumb choices in my life (ok. make that a LOT of dumb choices), but the outcome has always been good, and in most cases better. I’m not saying that making bad choices is a good thing, what I’m saying is that there is hikmah (divine wisdom) in the things that happen to us, and if you take your life as a lesson (not saying I do- I’m not there yet) you’ll eventually become quite…wise. I suppose.

Now you might have noticed that I’ve written a fair bit on marriage and divorce. It seems to be somewhat of a favourite among muslim writers and public speakers in general- mainly because we’ve strayed so far from what it should be we don’t know how to do it anymore , and there’s a dire need to get the people back on track. (Mind you, the failure of marriages is just a reflection of a much bigger issue; the lack of taqwa, adab and tazkiya (awe of God, manners and spiritual self-development- but I’ll come back to this later inshaAllah.)

Every couple has their problems and not even the happiest of marriages comes without trials; now some couples work their way around the problems and succeed in building a lasting marriage ( I won’t say happy,because not all lasting marriages are happy at all- and not all happy marriages last.) Others end up divorcing. What then happens to these divorced people? I know I’ve written a lot about marrying, but what about marrying after having divorced? I know not everyone relates to this, since what I’m about to write about is more of a problem among the converts than those born muslim, but I think it’s one of those conversations that has to be had, although no one probably really wants to.

You see, your typical convert will get married quite soon after becoming a muslim (in my case it was about 6 months after- which was much later than most). Usually it’s because they a) need to build or re-enforce their islamic identity b) they have already been sexually active for years before becoming muslims and have certain needs  or c) they feel pressured by the muslim community (that often has a good, but badly directed, intention to protect the converts faith,especially if they’re young and live with a non-muslim family). Unfortunately most converts won’t, at that point, have even nearly enough information on their responsibilities and rights as a spouse. The person they will most likely be getting married to will be a someone who’s been born a muslim and thinks he/she knows everything there is to know about islam, and usually it is a person with not that much knowledge at all (Now I’m trying to be politically correct here, but everyone knows these are issues more commonly faced by women than men). That someone could even be an old boyfriend (or girlfriend) – and it often is. Another very common scenario is when a non-muslim woman gets married to not-so-very-practicing muslim man, and then converts to Islam. In either case there is usually no family to back her up, and more importantly, no wali (or the “wali” maybe the husbands friend or relative- who has no objective stand point and no clue on his responsibilities as a wali). The mahr paid, if paid at all, is usually ridiculously small (not that it should be millions of chooseyourcurrency but because it’s an obligation that should be fullfilled and it’s the woman’s right to decide how much mahr she wants. )

Now, generally converts will have this thirst for knowledge and implementing what they learn. Most of the time they will end up having learned more about Islam than their muslim-born spouses ever have (especially those who don’t really practice at all), of course this is a very broad generalization – but bare with me I AM coming to a point with this. When the new muslim learns that ” not everything this guy’s telling me is islamically correct and actually most of it is very cultural (or not from a “right” source- converts seem to have this thing with daleels (proofs, evidences))” Most converts go through a period of convertitis (men and women alike)- a condition that causes unrealistic views about the status of oneself and ones state of knowledge. It can be detrimental to the marriage, especially if the spouse hasn’t got the tools to deal with it wisely.

Many such marriages fall apart – and here’s the point of the blog – then these people get married again. But what they are looking for now is someone who’s a “perfect” muslim. They associate religion with the same traits they have themselves – a sunna gear, big talk and a lot of apparent knowledge. It’s the inability to recognize internalized knowledge from externalized knowledge that will, again, prove to be a pothole for some. The second spouse is usually someone who appears to be deeply religious, either another convert or a born-muslim who strated practicing later in life. This is what I call “the deeni-crush” .

Now the deeni-crush ain’t always doomed to fail, if by chance the personal chemistry of the people involved matches (and yes, I say by chance because usually in a deeni-crush situation the object of the crush isn’t so much the person, but the apparent practicing of that person)  and the level of practicing stays the same for both (i.e. both adhere to the same kind of views of Islam; if a woman in this situation would, let’s say suddenly take off her abaya and start wearing jeans, it would probably result in a marital crisis). It is sad that a lot of these marriages seem to fail too. A person soon realizes that as much as their spouse may be “strict” that’s in fact all he/she is, on a more personal level there is very little in common between the two – very often we have this idea in our heads that two practicing muslims will automatically make a great couple. That’s an incredibly silly notion though, since each human being is an individual and comes with a baggage of how life’s been for them so far and a set of personal truths of what they see themselves to be.

I know I generalize a lot. Many converts, of course, get it right the first time around. And many succeed on the second. Many never realize that the problem is not in the men (or women)they marry but in themselves- the lack of self-development, realization of the rights of others over you and doing the things for the right reasons, seem to be the root cause of why some people get stuck in a cycle of marrying non-practicing spouses, only to divorce to marry “strictly” practicing spouses, only to burn out emotionally and marry not-so-practicing spouses etc.

it’s a vicious cycle

And then there are those who succeed in realizing that there needs to be a different set of priorities; for example if you already have children from a previous marriage, you’re not simply looking for a partner for yourself but also, and maybe more importantly, a step parent for your children. It’s not about finding the guy with the right kinda clothing and bank account balance, but finding a partner who will help you along on this path of ours to Allah ( this doesn’t mean you should marry a guy who’s broke or a girl who’d be better off wearing a paper bag over her head. It means you should be realistic in your demands and realize that were you married or not, the person who you need to work most on is you. )  Those are the ones who go on to build truly successful marriages and raising productive, bright and delightful children. This does not, of course mean their life will always be blissfull and happy- don’t be fooled by the culture that tells you that happiness is a goal, it’s not.

….morons.

I have to say though that the younger generation of converts seems to be doing way better on the marriage front than we did at their age. Most of the converts who converted around the same time I did have been married at least twice. These new kids, however, seem to be so much better informed, so much more aware, and so much more careful that I can only really see success coming their way. The ones that have already gotten married (and however young they might have been they’ve usually been in their 20′s where as we mostly were under 20 ) have made, what seem to me to be sensible choices – marrying people of their own age group, who come from the same cultural, educational and socio-economical sphere as they do.  Smart. And certainly more realistic. I pray for the newbies ; may Allah guide them gently through this world to the next. Aamiin.

I thought of going against my policies here and writing about something that’s actually a headline.

France banned the niqab last week. Surprised? Well, I wasn’t. France’s liberty, equality and franternity has always represented one of those cheesy slogans (such as USA’s in God we trust) that, if it was invented now, would probably be printed on a t-shirt.

will you look at that, it already is!

The most famous reasons I’ve heard, from those who support the ban to be spread elsewhere in Europe and the US, have been mainly the concern of the oppression of women and/or lack of public safety, if there are people around who are allowed to walk to a bank (etc) with their face covered.

Both reasons are stupid.

Oh did I have to elaborate?

Well, saying that the women wearing a niqab are oppressed and someone’s forcing them to do that is stupid because, in fact, very few women are forced to wear a niqab. Especially in countries like France where people are mostly forced to drink bad wine and talk about something called “culture” and admire a pile of nuts and bolts as a hight of architectural achievement (decide for yourself whether it’s the pompidou or the eiffel.)

There are countries where women are, if not by law than by custom, demanded to over their faces.  Funny that there don’t seem to be that many people demonstarting against that in front of embassies… I suppose the concern of ones fellow humans streches only as far as your local media covers (not that they need any “rescuing” – oh hold on, wasn’t that one of the reasons for going to war in Afganistan? The liberation of women? At least that’s what a lot of media said… Right. Point made).

well these guys might be on the case- of course.

And yes there are some women who are forced to wear a niqab , just as there are women who are forced to wear a certain kinda mini/boots/outfits because their abusive redneck idiot of a boyfriend wants them to. (And so as not to be judged for being gender-biased; there are a lot of men whose wives insist they won’t wear brown socks with black shoes or buy humorous ties- I realize that this is a horrible breach of the basic human rights of these poor souls and demand these wives to be fined, put inna slammer and preferably executed staright away). From now on these women are going to be locked inside their houses, without the little access to the world outside their home they are used to.I’m sure they’ll be real happy to be “liberated”.

Now some people claim it’s an issue of public safety. It’s not safe if a person can walk into a bank with their face covered, or to a plane, or to… well, anywhere really, right? Right… But think for a while, how many criminals have you ever seen wearing a niqab? I can think of one incident of a terrorist attack in Russia some years back. One incident, as compared to all of those terrorist attacks, bank robberies and hate crimes committed made by people who, for example wore pantyhoes on their heads. Not even mentioning those awful school-shootings and stuff. So let’s ban nailon, teenage-depression and halloween masks first- those seem to be a way bigger threat than a random woman covering her face, if you take it statistically (btw, kudos to the local coppers for banning halloween masks from over 18-year-olds in the UK- great law. I’m so happy people younger than 18 never commit no crimes. especially not in essex o_O) . Most of what a dictionary would define as a terrorist are not even muslims, btw.

I talked to a friend of mine about the ban lately. She wears niqab herself and was really annoyed by the interviews of muslims on tv saying how they support the ban since” wearing a niqab is just an extremist view” and how they “don’t believe there are that many women at all who would choose to cover without someone telling them to.” The media, of course, gives us only one side of the story, as it tends to do, especially when it comes to muslims. But it is true that there are plenty of muslims who are such a product of their environment that they actually believe this stuff. This same sister told me how, at a sister’s gathering, a lady had come up to her while her face was uncovered, to say “oh so that’s what you look like, you know I’m so glad you took that off, I can’t really talk to you when you’re dressed like that.” Seriously. I have problems talking to people with bad teeth but it ain’t like I go around saying that to people who have dental problems (partly because it would be rude and unnecessary and stupid and partly because… well, I like in the UK- do I have to explain?)

I know many niqabis, but I have yet never met any woman who was forced to wear it. As a matter of fact I know a lot of people from either non-muslim or non-practicing families who wear niqab, and have been doing so for years, without anyone forcing them to. I know many men who choose not to buy humorous ties and wear flipflops so as to not have the shoe-sock issue.

Now why would a woman cover her face? Isn’t just covering the hair enough? Isn’t wearing a niqab just some extremist thing?

nope. that’s extreme.

- I think it comes down to what you think of extreme really. What people (muslims and non-muslims alike) should understand about Islam in general, is that Islam is NOT, in it’s essence, a lifestyle. Islam is about God- the belief in and the submitting to Him who exsists beyond beginning or end. The lifestyle that comes along is there to make things easy- it’s a bonus.

It’s a bit like being offered a dream job that comes with a company car. You’ll drive the car to work and in most scenarios you’d never get to work without the car. you’ll take care of the car and you love having it, but you wouldn’t take the job just because of the car. You’ll take the job because it’s what you’ve always dreamed of.

As a muslim, I dream of having Allah- His pleasure, His love and His attention. The path to Him, in my knowing, is the path of Islam and that of the sunnah of the Prophet (saas), I can’t get to Allah without following this path, but it’s not necessarily a path that I’d take if the goal wasn’t Him.

I don’t know if that makes any sense. Probably it don’t. But the bottom line is, if you wear a few inches of clothing in front of your face and, on the bases of that piece of cloth you think you’re a better muslim than someone else, or you’re more radical, or more practicing or more anything really- it’s not serving it’s purpose. If you’re wearing the few inches in front of your face because according to the interpretation of the Islamic law that you follow claims it to be wajib, so you do it to please Allah and gain His closeness- you’re doing well. If you’re doing it because your husband wants you to and you figure that in order to please your husband to please Allah you should wear it, you’re doing equally well. And I know the two latter reasons are the reasons most women cover their face, in countries like France and England- it’s as simple as that. And there is no need approve of, or to accept it- there’s a lot of things this culture I live in deems normal that I won’t ever understand- but if you really believe in things like:

Liberty;

“Liberty consists of being able to do anything that does not harm others: thus, the exercise of the natural rights of every man or woman has no bounds other than those that guarantee other members of society the enjoyment of these same rights.”

Equality;

The law “must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes. All citizens, being equal in its eyes, shall be equally eligible to all high offices, public positions and employments, according to their ability, and without other distinction than that of their virtues and talents.”

(Frances Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789 defined Liberty in art. 4 and 6- no mention of fraternity, more can be read here )

You will recognize that despite of your dissaproval or lack of understanding why, people have the right to dress as they want in this society. The women in these countries have undergone huge struggles to have the freedoms that they have- and maybe partly because they so desperately wanted to bury the Angle in the House, they feel threatened by what seems to be other people wanting to be just that (I say seems, because I know darn well we’re not quite as they think we are). But isn’t it silly to parade for the right to uncover in one century and then to parade against the right to cover in the next?

In the end of the day, there are way better things to go all scitso about, than a piece of fabric in front of someone elses face.

and get over it.

(ps. Im fully aware what the real reasons behind the ban are- this is a simple take on the idiocy of the media and it’s attempt to  brainwash the idiots who follow it. Do me a favor France, ban idiots next- they seriously violate my human rights. like.)

I’m trying to avoid going to my usual rant on why I haven’t been writing. I actually thought of stopping this blog, I just didn’t get around doing it (like most things in my life, for that matter).  Although the feedback I’ve been getting has been mostly positive, I have, apparently, hurt some feelings too (especially with the latest posting on facebook) and there are a lot of people who seem to be quite annoyed by the attitude I seem to display.

I realize what I say can and will be used against me on Qiyaama. If anything I have ever said has insulted YOU (yes you as in you you, not as in you the general) please, do accept my most sincerest apology.

Sarcasm is the lowest form of comedy. And I know I’ve resorted to it- not only is it sinful (to make fun of other people and hurt their feelings) it’s simply bad taste. When I read proper writers, such as br.Naeem, I feel terribly down right ashamed for the lack of my own writing skills as well as the fact that I don’t seem to possess a sense of humor that would actually come with an intelligence attached.

However I have decided to continue blogging (although yeah, I’m real slow these days- life sorta gets in the way of my writing. phshh), I have realized though, that the attitude has to change.

Making fun of people, ideologies or phenomena is what a person does when they’re afraid to make fun of themselves (well, ok,  sometimes it’s just cos the things are funny- but i’m sure we all know the difference). This person is on the defense of getting hurtful remarks thrown at her and thus represents the modernized version of a good ol’school bully. There is no need to resort to sarcasm if  you a) let alone that which does not concern you  b) realize no one’s perfect and lest of all you.

(the new version of ol school bully?)

I think this is the point I’ve come to with this life of mine- to realize that everyone walks the path at a different pace- sometimes it’s even a different path.  But even the people who see themselves as similar viz a viz religion, are very different and hold different values. Now, that’s just common sense, you say. But is this really how we act as muslims though? Or do we automatically expect everyone to have the same world-view as we do just because we share a belief? As a matter of fact as muslims we should all share the same world view . These days we have been so brainwashed by feminism, liberalism, capitalism and what’s worse, disneyism, that we have, by and large forgotten that islam comes as a ready package; with a world view, manners, and a perfect codex on how to be as a person. Yes, we still have the freedom, as individuals, to choose our “accerssories”, but never the less the guidelines are extremely clear.

Unfortunately, as we have lost the plot of it all, it’s silly to assume that people would automatically understand what you have understood. I was watching a play the other day, a delightful little piece put together by some brilliant little sisters, about a girl who refinds her islamic identity. It started of with this girl at the uni, living her life “to the max” hanging out with her friends, with extremely materialistic values. Then her dad dragged her off to Mecca for Umrah and it was such a life changing experience (as I’m sure it is in reality too) that she chose, at the spot, to abandon her old ways and start practicing her religion. On returning back home she realized that her friends, still loyal to the bling, could not understand the change in her at all and left her.

This is an experience many of us can relate to (well, I can’t, I never lost friends cos I became a muslim- but I know many who have lost, not just friends, but even their families). The play ended in a modified Native Deen song ( “I am not afraid to stand alone” – I so saw that coming), and I realized that that’s it really, the curtains fell  for that sister in the play but what they didn’t act out is how do you deal with the rest of it. Becoming a (practicing) muslim is the beginning; it’s easy, in the end of the day, to wrap a scarf on your head, to pray five times a day, heck it’s even easy to learn how to read Arabic (something that, 9 years ago, I never though I would be able to do). It’s way more difficult though, to grow into Islam (to grow into it physically is inevitable, everyone I know who’s started wearing lose clothes has gained weight. I gained about 10 kg during my first year of being a muslim. * shudder* ). Some people never do.

So there, I can’t really make fun of those who are still in the beginning of this process of growth, nor do I have the guts to make fun of those wiser than me. Islam is, after all, about the choices we make, I have chosen to let go of my defenses, every day, for the rest of my life. It’s not like you do it once and your life miraculously changes into something beautiful and serene. It’s a bitter pill to swallow for the first 10 times or so, but when your nafs rebels you ow it to yourself to kick it back down. At 11th time, the pill becomes the sweetest thing out there.

As I have mentioned in almost every piece I’ve ever written; people only find troubling in others the same things that trouble themselves in themselves. I find feminism infuriating since that’s what I used to be. It’s like reading your own diary a couple of years after writing the entry; your own stupidity slaps you in the face (and we all know how hard it is to fix stupid). And I wish, with all my might that the tales of my stupidity would reach others so that thy could take heed- but along this path of ours there are some potholes everyone inevitably fall in to (most common being self-deceit and arrogance). That’s human nature. But the other more obvious ones that come with huge warning signs, sirens and flashing lights should be easier to go around.

good photoshoppin guys! *facepalm*

I’m trying to think of the pot holes I might be in right now. It’s unfortunate but some of the buggers are hard to notice before you actually get out. My commonest enemy is the pot hole of laziness, my nafs takes care to dig one of those on my way within 2 steps from each other. With a big shovel too. Damn you nafs.

Maybe a series on “the most typical pot holes  on the path and how to avoid them” should be written? Hmm. I’ll give that a though. Or two. Seriously. Slow. These. Days.

Happy birthday to you,

You’re dropping dead soon,

Another year wasted,

Congrats, you’re a fool

Now there’s a lot of things that bother the hem out of silly old me, one of them being the changing of times. Time flies by. There’s no two ways about it. In my head I’m still 16 (anyone looking at me will probably find it hard to believe I ever was 16 at all).

When I became a muslim (7ish years ago.Yes.I’m old.Thanks for making a point) I used to admire those sisters who’d been muslims longer than I had (which was, at the time, pretty much everyone).I still do, of course, they’re amazing sisters the lot of them and I don’t know where I’d be without them. But times have changed.

Trends have changed too. You’d think that muslim women with their binbaglookalike wear hardly follow fashion (well, they do- but that’s another topic) there is, however a fashion of ideologies out there that seems to hit home with many (not just sisters, brothers too, but I can’t talk about them cos I ain’t one).  Calling it a fashion may seem diminutive to many, but hey, I never was one of political correctness.

I remember a time when it was the thing to be “strict”. Strict in covering, strict in dealing with the kaafiruun, strict with not listening to music, strict with not wearing colours, stirct with makeup… Strict. It wasn’t just the “salafis”, but a bunch of “new” muslims being on the first high of islam.

The salafis (so called salafis, it wasn’t really salafism. But in the want of a better term…) came later, and we went from being “strict” (without knowledge) to strict (with knowledge but without understanding). Everything became an issue of haram and halal (although I bet  few of us even knew the real meaning of those words), and we became more concerned with how wrong the born-muslims etc. act (so totally not islamically like audhubillaah, cultural, like) than how much adaab we had ourselves (because we didn’t understand the meaning of adaab half the time). In it’s essence it was only yearning for a more structured approach to deen, but since knowledge without the intention of self-purification is destructive, the price we paid for our insta-scholarism was heavy.

For then the glorious age of modernism dawned. And it was all glitter and glamour and “enhancing the muslim lifestyle” and being liberal. Suddenly it was “extreme” to wear black, “extreme” not to listen to music, “extreme” to not watch tv, and so on.  In many ways this is where we still are, of course the spells of strictness, where we deem everything that  we gladly did last week as haram, still occur every now and then, but they are less intense- no one really gets that much into them any more.

I’ve been watching these changes, as if from a crowd, not that I haven’t been a part of the scene, but since I’m way too slow and stupid to catch up with the latest thing I’ve always been one step behind. I’ve changed, a lot, not all for worse (of course growing up played its part here, when I became a muslim I was a brat). If nothing else at least I’m firm with what I follow now (instead of those days where I just happily picked up a Bukhari-translation  or turned to shaykh google) alhamdulillaah. Some people probably view me as extreme. Most people most likely view me as an idiot.

humm…

Now, with the help of Allah I do my best to refrain from judging others, you never know where you might find yourself tomorrow, plus what ever it is I’ve usually been there, seen it, done that and waiting for the 4od to come out. But I’ve noticed how these “fashion statements” spread like a wildfire amongst the ummah (especially the sisters). The new social networks, such as Facebook, play a huge part in making things socially acceptable. A friend of mine calls it fasad book. I prefer to call it fitna book, since that’s what it’s becoming to a lot of people.

It’s not that there isn’t any benefits on Facebook (hem, I’m on it, I’d know) but we should understand our responsibilities when using such sites as well. It has become very common to declare all ones unacceptable acts to the world in facebook. Where as most sisters wouldn’t have really advertised the fact that they, for example, listen to music or celebrate birthdays  (even if they did, it wasn’t socially appropriate and most refrained from mentioning it to others), now it seems that via Facebook it’s completely fine.

Am I telling you to stop celebrating birthdays? No. I’m not in the position to tell anyone anything, celebrate birthdays, Christmas and Hanuka for all I care. Am I telling you to stop listening to music? No. I’m still in no position to tell no one nothing, it’s all the same to me whether you spend your whole day listening to whatever’sthecoolthingtolistennow. What I am kindly requesting though, is that you’d stop mailing your unislamic agendas on public sites, not because it offends me (because it really doesn’t, I’m good at ignoring) but because it will make those things that have nothing to do with islam, and that we deep down in our hearts know we shouldn’t be doing, as acceptable and cool. If you go to a rave or a concert or to the movies then that’s your choice- if you think that’s islamic, you should probably chck your values (the “I think it’s islamic”-pretext doesn’t work. We don’t decide what goes unders islam and what doesn’t. Allah has already done a pretty good job at that) I’m not the one shoving haram down your throat (actually it’s you pushing it in your ears, but that’s another story). I’m not going to say that listening to music will automatically resolve in immoral behaviour (although it does, eventually(I could go through a long explanation as to why, but  that’s a whole other subject), I’m not saying that watching commercials will shape the way you think (although it does, sooner than you think), I’m not saying that throwing a birthday party for your kids will make them automatically rebellious teenagers who’ll never pray when they grow up.

What we don’t think of is, that when we listen to those songs, and watch those programmes, we’re actually keeping company with those people. Now, those of us who know how important sohba (company) is in Islam, should see my point already. Those of us who don’t may refer to the saying ” judge a man by his friends”. Those people, the singers and the actors, are mostly non-muslim (and God forbid if they are muslims, that’s even worse), and they lead the most immoral of lives; we all know how those people live (and yes they may give millions of pounds to charity, may have had horrible childhoods or addanotherexcusetosympathize, that does not make them subjected to Allah). If we keep company with them we will eventually become like them. It goes both ways; if you keep company with the pious- the ones who have taqwa- you’ll eventually become like them too. (This is a whole topic in itself again, but there is bound to be someone better than you in the community you live in, if you can’t find anyone, become that company yourself. What do you mean “you can’t?” , of course YOU can’t. Allah can though. Hah. got you.)

A bunch of you’s already hating on me for this. But think about it for a while. Now you’re in, what, you’re late 20′s?30′s?maybe even 40′s? You live your life from one zumba-class to the next, from this iPhone to that iPhone, from MTV to Youtube… And you pray, you fast, you do your “muslim thing” too, maybe attend an occasional halaqa, it’s not like all you do is listen to music or watch tv or celebrate birthdays all day all night. You gotta give something to your nafs too. Right?

Right… But we’re supposed to give to our nafs from the things that are halal. We have two Eids per year (and no one in the world stops you from having a party every other day if you so wish!) and anyway it’s sunna to give presents. Why is this not enough? What is there to be celebrated about the fact that you get older? You’re just a year closer to the grave.If anything we should lament the time that’s passed in idleness, and even that doesn’t make much sense since it’s bygones anyway. Is it intelligent to get our children used to these practices that Islam does not entail since sooner or later they will find it out anyway and you wouldn’t want your kid coming to you in 10 year’s time blaming you for trying to give him nice childhood memories by practicing things that are not islamic. And that’s teh scenario if you’re lucky.

Our ears, eyes and mouths are all venues to our hearts. What ever goes in our ears (ie. music) will automatically also enter our hearts (whether you’re in denial of it or not). On Qiyyaama our hearts will be presented to Allah. Shaykh Hussain Abdussattar gave the above example (in a much more elegant manner) and went on saying that the heart is like a sponge; everything goes in will be squeezed our on that day. Are you comfortable with the thought that Allah, instead of squeezing our His rememberance will squeeze our a mud-puddle of pop?

We get so caught up in this life, nurturing these things as our birth rights. But you’re, what, in your late 20′s?30′s?40′s? How much longer do you think you have to make yourself ready. 10 years? maybe 20, maybe even 30 or 40. However long it might be, you can’t be sure. What if this was your last birthday. Would it matter how many candles there’d be on your cake?

I remember myself as a new muslim (and a chain smoker, back inna day), got seriously cheesed off when a brother (and may Allah bless him) told me off for smoking in public, since dressing like a muslim made me a representative of the whole muslim community(obviously it wasn’t him telling me dircetly, but his wife). I, the rebel that I was, told her to tell her husband to lower his gaze (*facepalm* Allah forgive my arrogance).

The same thing applies to facebook. You might think that you have all the right to post what ever you want and share what ever you want to share and who am I to tell you you don’t. But please think of the consequences of your actions. We often make normal to ourselves what we see the others doing. If you know that listening to music, watching tv and gossiping are not islamic practices then don’t expose your sins or makroohs even if you commit them . Don’t think you can outwit shaytaan. You may be smart but that’s what he’ll play upon.

Ramadhan came and went and here we still are, hopefully slightly less spiritually dead than we were before. I felt this Ramadhan affected my heart more than the previous ones, although not nearly as much as it could have, had I struggled a bit harder. May Allah give me, and the ones of y’all who feel the same way, a chance to try again next year. In case this was our last, may Allah accept our fast, despite it’s deficiencies.

It’s not given that our fast is accepted, it’s not given that we’ll see next year. We take things for granted a lot. Our families, our houses, our cars our jobs… We feel that everything we have in the material sense belongs to us and is due to our own achievement. A while ago I listened to someone talking about their success in the world , describing how they worked their hand to the bone and pushed themselves despite the lack of support from their community, got an education, got a job and worked hard and worked even harder, so the house that they live in, the car they drive, the clothes they wear and the food they eat is something they’ve earned. They worked for it, so it is theirs and they ought to be proud of it because after all it’s all their own achievement.

If that sounds familiar to you, dear reader (because apparently there are some. Go figure.) don’t worry, it’s not you I’m talking about. I could, in fact, be talking about myself (exept that I never did any of those things because I am a prime example of an academic failure.) Let me give you another example that maybe those of us who ain’t got no careers can relate to; I have two children, a boy and a girl, the other’s four and they other’s four months, so the converstions I have go along these lines a lot “Oh, you had a baby! Congratulations! Was it hard? Was it easy? How is she?A good baby? Now you have two kids then! Oh do you want to have to more? So… What method of contraception do you use?

Why didn’t anyone tell me about this a year ago?

If you didn’t get the point and wonder why I’m ranting about having casual conversations about things, I’m sorry for being so oblique. Now, the point is this. (drums…) Nothing that we have (our house, our job, our education our children our spouses our iPhones etc.) are in no way the result of anything we have done. Allah has given us the resources, the chance, the circumstances and the environment to achieve what ever we have and it’s only by His Grace and Mercy that we have the children we have. It’s only by His Power that we move, see, breathe and do the things that we do. We have no power to do anything, in fact we don’t even have the power to exist. It’s only the name of Allah that keeps this world going around. Yes, yes… I’m preaching.

And yes, I know you’ve heard it all before. But stop (just for fun) and reflect  on it for a second (done? ok.) I’ve heard more stories than I can count of how someone/their family/their community leader etc went from rags to riches and made their way in the world. We talk about these matters with an incrdible passion and feel very strongly that that is the peak of a persons succes- to become rich, or at least reasonably well off, and have a nice place,nice car, nice holidays, nice gadgets and so on. And once you’ve achived all this you go to the mosque and do some praying, you will do some charity too, you’ll make sure your kids learn  some  Qur’an (with a good teacher, a proper one, who got their tajweed from the best teachers in Egypt) and you’re very content with yourself, seeing that you’ve earned both- this world and the next.

Having property and stuff is all well and good, sending your kids to the best of schools or sports clubs is all well and good too. There is absolutely nothing that even implies haram in these examples right? Since Islam does allow one to better their social status. It’s in fact a great thing to get educated, get a job and serve the community and ones family. So what the fan am I going on about?

We get it detrimentally wrong. All our thinking, every single thing we do- be it at work, at home, with our kids, at school, you name it, we see as something eminating from our selves. Now you might “say it’s not a big deal, it’s just the way we say it, it’s just a way of speech, we all know in reality that this all comes from Allah alhamdulillaah.” But words mean something. If we keep ascribing these things to our selves (such as “I passed all of my exams because I studied very hard” or “I got this job because my CV was better than anyone elses”) we will eventually start believing it as well. Humans are extremely word-dependent. We can only (and I know I’ve probably said this before) understand the world in the categories of our language (ie, if we can’t talk about it, we can’t truly understand it either).

The truth is, you wouldn’t have been able to score that A, had it not been for the power of Allah that empowered your brains to work  and the muscles move your hand to write. You would have never been employed by that company, had it not been for the mercy of Allah that allowed you to earn a livelihood for your family. It’s not all about you (or me)- in fact, it’s not about you at all.

I have noticed how the pious always listen more than they speak, and rarely speak about themselves. This is because their nafs, the self, is not th driving force anymore, they see their place as the mere servants of Allah. When you ask a slave, who is happy with his master, how he’s doing, you will only hear them praising their Lord- alhamdulillah. They understand that they are not the true actors of their actions. When they ask me how I am I talk for an hour and every single sentence usually starts with either me,I, my or mine. See the difference?

Since we are, in many ways, living the “yeah-but”- age, it is very probable that a lot of you feel like I’m belitteling your efforts. That’s not at all the case. Islam does not encourage anyone to just sit at home and wait for money to start falling from the sky, nor does it Islam teach that we should only concentrate in studying the Qur’an and skip our degrees-alhamdulillaah. We should, in fact, do everything we do in the best way possible- only after you’ve done your best, can you afford to have tawakkul. Of course one has to bear in mind that none of these things- jobs,degrees, motherhood etc.,are goals as such. Not even learning Qur’an, or studying the deen or learning all the ahadith by heart will be of any benefit, if it’s not acted upon and understood correctly. The goal is Allah, whether we want it or not.

We say that those of us who are succesful in dunya have made their way in the world. In reality, we all make our way in the world, one way or the other. Our destination is the same, whether we aim for it or not. Sooner or later, and probably sooner than later, we will all find ourselves in the court of Allah, and there it will not matter what education, job or how many children one had. In the Qur’an the phrase “Neither their wealth nor children will avail them” is repeated often. Do we really understand the meaning of this though?

Honestly speaking I had never even thought about it that much till I listened to Shaykh Saleem Dhorat’s bayan on the 27th night of Ramadhan (you can find it on http://www.idauk.org somwhere). He was talking about the final day and how you will not have any friends on that day, and the way he said it made the whole congregation cry, including the shaykh himself.Alhamdulillah Allah enabled me to understand something valuable, despite the hardness of my heart: since that’s where we’re headed anyway, do we have any other choice but to make Allah as our friend?

yep.

It’s been a while again, it seems like there’s no time for useless activities anymore. Although for all fairness I must say they’ve just been taken over by other useless activities.

worthless as tits on a boar. right on.

May a day come when the uselessness of this will fully enter my heart and I’ll stop doing it all together. Meanwhile I still have the urge to tell the world how it is, whether it wants to hear it or not.

Muslims are probably the single most annoying bunch of people out there. They demand tolerance, yet they are unbelieveably intolerant when it comes to everyone else. We want to have the right to take our kids off of school because they teach xmas/easter/sex ed/music and so on. We want the right to have halal food (not simply vegetarian cos a man gotta have his beef) where ever we go. We demand the right to wear what our religion tells us to wear.

Yet we are extremely intolerant when it comes to gays, jews, atheists and disney. And oh boy fo people find it frustrating

.

“How do they (ie. us muslims) have the audacity to come to OUR countries, and demand OUR culture to be changed just so that they can have what they want? Why don’t they just stay in their own countries? The government should just ship them back to where they came from,” and such comments are what we often hear. Fortunately I have an explanation ready. (by no means don’t think it’s the right one.)

Yes, most of the muslims in Europe are still immigrants. But where did they immigrate from? In cases of countries like England and France, most of the muslims came from coutnries previously occupied as colonies such as Morocco, Algeria and Pakistan. In those countries, at that time, the muslims living there had no say on the immigrants (i.e. the white man) coming and living in their country, and without getting into the deepest pits of whiteman’s guilt with my expressions, treated the natives pretty much like rubbish (not to say they gained nothing form it cos they did. Hooray for Commonwealth College…) . So in a way these countries brought it on themselves. I call it the contra-invasion, where the natives of the colonies come and in a  more or less subtle manner conquer their conqueror, to the point where the old colonizer couldn’t cope without the immigrants anymore. (if you don’t believe me, try taking out all the subcontinental people of England. If nothing else this country would be fresh out of doctors and fish n chips in no time).

(but if it was the case, meet my new GP dr Juma. No offence Dr.Gopal but this guy’s got it down to the point. He’s a casino specialist and all.)

The children of these immigrants are more of less integrated into the culture of their new home country, so much so that they identify themselves as French or British rather than Algerian or Indian(such cruel stereotyping…As if everyone’s the same. But bare with me, there is a point to this..).  This creates a dilemma, since they’re still very much involved in their own culture (at least, most of them are), so the society can’t strictly label them as “succesful intergates” and yet they themselves are unable to recognize any other “home” than the country they were raised in.

Now, to the annoyance of the general white public, there are the darn converts as well. Us who, according to their view have “abandonned” our own culture to embrace that of x (insert name of chosen “islamic” country). What brings about even greater dismay is that these proselytes are often stricter in their views of Islam than their immigrant ukhtis and akhis.

strictness has the tendency of resorting idiocy whithin certain groups of people.

I have been told by certain representatives of the general white public that I am not, in their mind a “real” muslim. I suppose I’m the wrong… Erm… Something. A friend of mine told me that she had her share of this when,whilst walking down the street to the Railway Station a couple of kids actually called out “Hey! Look! A fake muslim!”

Like the second (or third or fourth ) generation immigrants, the converts find themselves in a strange limbo where, to an extent they really have had to have left their own culture, especially if it’s based on pagan beliefs, christianity and beer- such as most european cultures are (or in the case of France Libérté, Égalite et Fratérnite which translates as Idiotism, Wine and Cheese). We often find ourselves quite rootless, hanging somewhere between the west and the east (the twain have met. Sorry, Kipling). They tell muslims to go back home. But there is no home for us to go to. They tell us all to move to Islamic countries, unfortunately there’s none avilable (what there is, is a great number of countries with muslims in them. That’s not the same thing. I suppose there’s a topic for another post here..). So what we do is:

a) Try to turn into insertnameofchosennationalityofacountrywithmuslimsinit.

This is just plain sad. We are trying to fit into a culture that, in most parts has nothing to do with islam. Take the pakistani one, for example. It’s all well and great and a fine culture like they all are, but it doesn’t mean it’s Islamic (allthough some aspects of it might have been influenced by islam there’s still no sunnah of fruitchaat. sorry to break it to you).

b) Try to make Islam agree with insertnameof achosennationalityofacountrywithnomuslimsinit.

This is even sadder. Out of ignorance some people might think arabs, for example, are better muslims because they’re arabs (this is a very popular belief, especially amongst the arabs). But there’s no such a thing as Swedish/Finnish/German/Danish/Romanian/Arab etc. Islam. What there can be is a muslim who is of that background, but that’s another thing. What these people try to do is desperately trying to put together a puzzel where no pieces fit. Whine all you want if this hurts you but there’s no sunnah for letsalljumpinthesnownakedaftersauna (yes.they do that in Finland).

c) Get orientalist.

This is just annoying. Islam is NOT a culture, it’s a religion. It’s a bit like using an ensyclopedia as a coaster and calling yourself civilized cos at least your lager has stood on something smart.

Islam is a profound belief in One, Supreme, Ever-Lasting God. It’s is a lifestyle where everything you do can be made a deed of worship. This belief overtakes everything in a man’s life and transforms it to something better and deeper- making it way more than a bare exsitence. In the eyes of Islam, man is a mere soul cage; a transportation device of the soul, which will, in it’s time dissolve and mix back with the ground it was made of. Where as the soul, the breath of God will continue to exsist.The reason we live our lives a certain way is because we follow our Prophet, then one loved by God to the extent He called him His beloved. He tought us what deeds are loved by Allah, may the peace and blessings of Allah be on him, and how, by these deeds we can achieve closeness to Allah.

A muslim is, first and foremost, a muslim. Before anything else his life should be based on the rules dictated by the Creator in His great wisdom and the sunnah of the Prophet who brought those rules to us. A muslim does not question these rules (or at least, he shouldn’t) because wouldn’t the All- Mighty Creator know better?

In Islam it’s not man who changes religion- it’s religion that changes man.

And because of this we will continue to make our annoying demands on halal food, segregated driving schools and leave for kids on Eid day- it’s not us coming to Europe, trying to change the European culture-it’s us trying to do what God has told us to do. Unfortunately even most muslims won’t see it that way but hey, that’s not my problem. Not every muslim (I in the least) is a good representative of muslims… And even fewer would be a good representative of Islam. We are not trying to change other peoples cultures, what would be the point of that? We are merely trying to survive in a cultural environment trying not to mix our culture, or any other, with our faith, that is prominent. Let’s say I moved to a “muslim country”, such as Egypt. Now I wouldn’t celebrate their independece day, listen to Umm Khulthoum or cheer for their football team. I would not send my children on a field trip to Cairo Opera House. And I would be as much of an outsider (culturally) there as I am here- A muslim, that happens to be converted and white.

odd one out-because this life’ll crack like an egg;it’s a small price to pay.

Of course I can’t go with the flow and write about the same topics as everyone else- at least not at the same time. But hey, what’s better than stale complaining ?

Lately there’s been (as a matter of fact laltely here means something like “for the past let’s say 10 or so years”) a lot of discussion on the freedom of speech, when it comes to muslims. A lot of people seem to be of the opinion that muslims are being drastically unfair because they won’t let themselves, their faith nor their Prophet (saas) to be trashed in public.

Muslims, according to some, are such a taboo in this society we live in, that to talk about them is absolutely forbidden- it seems to be ok to ridicule everyone else, but ah beware if you fail to respect the sanctity of the muslims. You’ll soon find yourself amongst a whole lotta burning flags, protests, and if annoying modernist jews making annoying documentaries of the whole thing (if you don’t know what I’m talking about here, you’re really lucky and I suggest you don’t waste your precious time on finding out).

I really don’t get where these people get their stuff from. They must have missed the whole “ban this, this and this muslim thing” -trend that seems to be going on through out Europe. Of course if they are from a country like Finland they can hardly be blamed since people there seem to come a few years behind anyway when it comes to trends. I think most of you would agree that instead of being the city foxes of Europe (who, no matter what idiocy they do they seem to get the unwavering support from the idiots who call themselves animal rights activists) we are more like the rats (who, in case you haven’t notice gain no support from no one. Animal rights activists only seem to concentrate on the cute and cuddly creatures of our sewers). It’s ok to openly sanction, attack, question and label all muslims as being either terrorists, oppressed or just dumb. Well, I’m sure my husband would agree on me being a terrorist, and as I’ve said before, the hight of feminism is when women don’t need men to oppress them because they do it so brilliantly themselves- this works on muslim women as well. And most of us certainly are dumb (to put it nicely).

But these days they seem to have taken a step further; it seems that today the ultimate measure of ones intelligence, freedom-of-speech-activism and civilized persona seems to be how much bull they can write/say about muslims before getting a fatwa on their heads. I suppose the person with most street cred in that scene would be someone like Salman Rushdie (who manage to get a fatwa) – a completely useless  writer who’s famous for writing scum. Remember the days when you actually needed to have some talent to become famous?

yep. that really says it all.

Recently we were all shocked and disgusted by the “Draw Mohammed day” thingy. So we all got ready; we dug the old war paints out, got the barricades going and then realized that Facebook is… Not really something you can protest against. Half of the world’s population’s on Facebook,  but untill they’ll form their own independent state (coming soon, right next to Googleville, behind Youtubestan) there won’t be a flag to burn (which is a pity, since even the most ignorant of us would probably get it right- when the Denmark thing was protested agains, people burnt flags or Norway and Iceland. Seriously. At least you could wiki it or something).  The only way you can protest against Facebook is by removing your profile, and I highly doubt whether they’re going to give a toss if you do.

The other thing was the Israeli strike on that ship. I mean… I won’t even go there, but are you really surprised it happened? It’s about as surprising as there not being any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq- oh cheez . Really…

What made me write this post though was a link that I saw, referring to a new book (which luckily most of you won’t be able to read since it’s in Finish) that talks about muslims in the same “oh you poor idiots, when will you get real and join the rest of us on the 21 century”- manner. As lovely as it is that someone has bothered to waist their precious seconds of dunya to write such a thought-provoking piece (althought the thoughts will probably be in the lines of “i can’t believe some people waisted good trees to print this trash”), I do wish none of us will waist our time in reading it.

All these incidents are very different, and as much as I detest others making fun of the Beloved of Allah sallallahu aleihi wa sallam, killing innocent people and trying to give islam a bad name, I can’t understand why we, as muslims, must get so worked up over these things. Of course we do, and should, get offended. Especially when the target of ridicule is our Prophet sallallahu aleihi wa sallam; we are, after all, supposed to love him even before our own families. When it comes to killing muslims,  as much as I think it’s ridiculous that our attention is always directed towards Gaza and only Gaza, as if our brothers and sisters ain’t suffering elsewhere, it is like a limb torn away from the body of our ummah. And when these verbal accusations are made, of course we are hurt- there is so little we can do to fight back.

Being offended and getting hysterical are two different things though. It seems that muslims these days only know how to protest; at least that’s something they do really well, but  I can’t recall protesting being one of the five pillars. I mean, the “draw Mohammed day” would have probably passed unnoticed by most of the people if we wouldn’t have paid attention to it. Instead what we did was exactly what they wanted us to do; some of us probably even went to that page and saw the “brilliant” artwork. We’re the ones raising these issues on the front page- otherwise the world probably wouldn’t care much. We keep forgetting that the society we live in is, on large part, based on blasphemy. I mean… We’re surrounded by people who believe their God to have (what seems to be )a split personality syndrome (the Father, Son and Holy Ghost) , who cover their churches in pictures of, what they believe is the son of God (auudhubillaah). And that’s just the people who’re NOT trying to make a mockery of religion…A few years back (ok. maybe more like 10 years. I’m seriously getting old) an artist displayed Jesus Chirst (aleihissalaam) amongst a bunch of gays- I suppose the point was that Jesus loves everyone or what not. I can’t remember any muslims protesting on that. Jesus (aleihissalaam) is probably the most openly ridiculed person in the world and what do we, as muslims, do about it? We don’t seem to protest much when it comes to other prophets (aleihimussalaam)- heck, we don’t even condemn it. And by the way, I’ve never seen any muslims protesting against the Sistine Chapel (that pictures God Himself creatind Adam (alehissalaam)- auudhubillaah).

about as realistic.what took michelangelo years is done by icanhascheezburger.com. this. is. development.

I suppose we protest because protesting is easy; there’s something about it that makes you feel strong, united and most improtantly- important. When we protest we can look at our selves and say “I’ve done my part”. How ever that’s not necessarily at all true most of the time.

The Prophet (saas) is hardly going to be offended by some doodles by these idiots. But he is going to be offended of the fact that we, who so proudly claim to be his followers, make a mockery out of the whole religion by not even obeying the easiest of sunnas. We raise to the call as soon as the “kafir alert”-bell rings but forget that the real barricade we should be building is against our own nafs. If we remembered Allah is Ever-Watching over us, we would be more preoccupied in our lacks.

I’m not saying everyone should become as cynical as I am (and I hope you won’t since I’m pretty sure cynicism is a sign of a hardened heart), all I’m saying is we should put the things in perspective- The Freedom of speech won’t feed my children after all. Besides, weren’t we sorta ordered NOT to get angry…

What makes us look bad is we, in fact, really know what God says- It’s just that we forget a lot. Talking about a selective memory…

Nothing worse than a sarcastic doctor.

I went to my GP, having lost my voice completely and he goes “You’ve been yelling a lot?” With a knowing smirk on his face. Of course he was right in his assumption. My voice apparently got sick of listening to itself and took a break. After two days of numb silence  (even though it greatly dissapointed some of the people I live with) it’s back. Alhamdulillaah.

Sometimes Allah takes something away from us, so we’d understand just how valuable it is. Losing your voice temporarily is actually a small problem; breaking an arm would probably be a lot worse (not even mentioning breaking your finger- my splendid two-finger-typing-technique might suffer tremendously).

But it did serve as a valuable lesson of how much we really talk in vain. Even though I was able to whisper, I didn’t really even feel like talking that much (well I did, but couldn’t be bothered to).  There was much less useless joking, insluting and, yes, thank you GP, yelling in our home during my two days of forced sielence. Some people thought my quiteness was incredibly funny, and are now suffering from the same condition- what goes around… comes around.

If we would see what we have as an amana from Allah (this including all more or less used bodyparts) we’d probably use it in a way better manner. We very rarely remember to be grateful of things we have. In the hadith:

Amar bin Maymoon Al-Audi (radhiyallahu anhu) narrates that once Rasoolullah (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) gave the following advice to a Sahaabi:

“Treasure five things before five: Your youth before old-age; your health before illness; your wealth before poverty; your free time before becoming occupied, and your life before death. (Tirmidhi)

… That’s a pretty clear hint if you ask me…

yep,

But of course if we were to live according to the sunnah we’d have very little problems as it is. We wouldn’t, for example, lose our voices due to yelling too much since that’d be against the sunnah and thus wouldn’t happen. But man is weak. And woman is even weaker. And because we have been told that we are weak, we, without much shame, use that as a brilliant excuse and refrain from doing anything about it. How very crafty.

we is good at excuses… eh?

I’ve thought about letting go of my numerous issues and islamifiying this blog a number of times. But since that’d be extremely fake of me, I haven’t. I justify my ranting with “someone has to say it” and “just expressing my concern” type of, rather lame, reasonings.The fact is, there’s a diffrence between addressing an issue and dwelling on it. I hope one day I’ll learn the difference.

If losing my voice made me re-analyze the value of my talk in general, maybe the next thing I have to do is break a finger; maybe that’d be a way of controlling this inner urge of writing trash online. I could take heed before that happens- but that would require a capacity of intellect I don’t posses.

beats me…

The need to blog arises from the most basic feeling of the human mind- annoyance.

In Islam we are taught to be merciful towards each other, to tolerate each other’s mistakes, and speak to the ignorant in a peaceful manner. The importance of good manners, when dealing with others, has been emphasized to the extent that we’re even told to make 70 excuses to our brother/sister in Islam when we see him/her doing something unislamic.

…

But since most muslims regard this whole behaviour in islam thing in the same manner many christians regard the Old Testament (as in, not valid anymore since we got’s the new, easier stuff now), we nurture things like backbiting, takfeering, complaining, questioning, labelling and ridiculing other muslims as our birthright. And yes, I know I’m going against myself here. In this blog I’ve cruelly analyzed certain groups of muslims as well as non-muslims. The point of all that, however, has been to look inwards. After all, we will more readily notice the mistakes in others that we have in ourselves, or that we’re in denial of, or struggling to eliminate.

What annoys me the most in others is seeing the narrow mindedness, especially when it comes to religious issues,that I once had so strongly presented in myself. Especially if these people have been muslims for longer than me, or have (in theory) more knowledge than me, it’s hard to figure out why they’re not… There yet. I’m by no means saying I am, nor am I saying I’m getting there. Man, I don’t even know HOW to get there. However what I have realized is just that; I’m not there yet. And my only purpose is to struggle to be there.  (there can be a lot of things. The ultimate there is the closeness of Allah; one of the lesser theres is the realization that you know nothing. Oh, and for political correctness’s sake, my mind ain’t exactly a highway.)

But the narrow mindedness of the ummah has reached such a ridiculous level that it’s hard not to notice it. There seems to be the two extremes… “In senescence, religions have two possibilities: Alzheimers (the amnesiac option of the secular elites) and manic-depressive (the false Salafism)” (Abdal-Hakim Murad) . Now, of course there is the third possibility; not going to either extreme, and actually obeying the commandment of our Prophet (sallallahu aleihi wa sallam), who forbade us from doing so. The problem is, that neither the modernists nor salafis (nor anyone else for that matter) see themselves as being in an extreme. They see themselves as being on the right. And who wouldn’t? That is, as long as the point of believing is not to believe- it’s to believe that you’re right.

I’ve been thinking about people and their need to have faith. In my soul searching days ( yes, I had those. Creepy.), I looked far and wide to find something that had been, in a metaphorical way, staring at me in the face my whole life. I tried to be an atheist once (because when you’re a teenager that has the most street cred) , but could never really seriously make myself believe in… Believing in myself. If you know yourself even a bit you’ll soon find out that you ain’t really all that suitable when it comes to targets of worship…

Being a convert you get asked a lot about your conversion. Lately someone asked me to write my conversion story for her to publish on her webpage. Unfortunately I can hardly think of any worse way anyone could waist 10 minutes of their lives than by reading something like that. Because no matter how much people want there to be a radical revelation, enlightement and drama about conversions in general, mine ain’t exactly box office material. It’d hardly make it to reader’s digest, to be honest. People seem awfully dissapointed when, to their questioning, I reply “it was simply the result of logical deduction and reasioning.” Somehow it just ain’t very… cool. The other annoying way to respond, by the way is to say “It was simply the hidayya of Allah”, to which the people react by saying “Yeah, of course BUT what was it REALLY?” See what I mean?

But all coolness aside, I’d much rather talk about the state of ignorance I was in for the next sixish years after becoming a muslim. The thing is, people make a fuss about one being a convert, but don’t necessarily realize that saying the Sahadah does not necessarily change you as a person. Now you may start living your life as a muslim outwardly, but internally the process is just beginning. However what happens often is that the new muslim, after adapting certain ritualistic ways and sayings, gets caught up in the whole “muslimlifestyle” and forgets that the path of the deen should be spiritual development.

modernist.trash.let’s.present.diversity.blah.

Of course in today’s society, if one dares to mention the pharse “spiritual development” they are likely to be soaked in the glorious rain of harambidaashirksm, that is abundantly poured over anyone who refuses to see religion as a mere set of rituals. If it’s not harambidaashirk, then it’s “oh, that. But that ain’t really necessary? I mean… We’re all supposed to be just muslims.Right?”

The whole word “spiritual” seems to have such negative connotations, especially amongst us converts, that we shudder at the mere thought of someone talking about it. Spirituality, in our minds is connected to things like Buddhism, Neo-Paganism, Some freakish Christian sects and Hare Krishna, or even worse, to Sufism (HOMG, the S word! harambidaashirk!). Spiritual development, therefore, has to mean… Worshipping some guru, shaykh, ascetic, or some other mantra-mumbling-combed-hair-last-century-only-eats-insects-n-lives-inna-cave person. Right? Right…

The point I’m trying to get to (though it’s a long, widening road) is that none of us is born with knowledge. The arrogance towards knowledge is… Stupid. I understand that people are extremely cautious of where they get the information they have, but abandoning the traditional, illustrious scholars, that have been followed by the majority of muslims for hundreds of years seems… Well, stupid. It’s like “well, this new guy who wasn’t really even a scholar, or who was but with whom everyone disagreed even when he was alive is the most knowledgeable of… everyone ever.” Dude, that’s like saying George W. was more intelligent than Gandhi, Einstein and Da Vinci and everyone else whose IQ level surpasses 50.

The end of the world is approaching.

Well it definititely is; the last time I checked time was still moving forward. I’m not going to start telling you to boycot Starbucks (though you probably should- you’d be mad to pay that price for a cuppa), however, since I hardly doubt that’s going to delay the end of the world much. (Boycotting McDo’s now… That’s another thing. ehem).

But seriously, it is said that towards the end of times the amount of people of knowledge will dramatically decrease. Alhamdulillaah we still have these brilliant, amazing scholars amongst us, but the way people see them has definitely changed.

The respect that muslims once had for the learned is pretty much non-exsistent these days. Instead of real answers and guidelines people want quick fixes, so instead of scholars we have this growing phenommenon of the dr.phils of islam. The difference being only that dr.Phil actually has an education to do what he does. These people provide a simple “feel good about yourself” type of answer to any problem one has. Instead of encouraging people for self-developement and getting closer to Allah, they boost you up with lectures of love and hope and compassion and blaablaa. Which all very well, but the problem with that is that the effects are not a long-term solution for anything.

sorry bout the a word… we’ll all pretend it’s athe animal. right?

And everyone has so many problems these days. Everyone I know seems to be depressed, bipolar, in a horrible marriage, having messed up kids, peer-pressured at work, dealing with parents/inlaws/relatives etc. Well pretty much everyone, that is. The funny thing is, the biggest problem these people really have is the distance they have created between themselves and the Solver of all problems. Instead of trying to improve themselves spiritually they focus on the physical improvement, whether it is by medication (often unnecessary), losing weight, excersising (excessively), or trying to look like you’re 10 years younger than you actually are. Now I’m not saying that any of those things is bad and unnecessary as such (you definitely shud take your pills if you’re bipolar for example, and we all definitely have the obligation to take care of our physical selves as well as the mental ones) , what I’m saying is, to see these things as the only fix to a problem is… silly.

Just the other day a sister complained about the lack of muslim psychologists. It’s wrong, she said, that when muslims have a problem they tend to either pretend it ain’t there or rely on non-islamic ways of dealing with it. To a point I actually agreed- it’s true that muslims tend to be really hushy about certain issues. Especially in certain cultures talking about some stuff ain’t accepted (whereas in the western one, unfortunately, talkin bout any stuff is). But it’s not true that there ain’t no one to go to. But since we refuse to see the spiritual gap that actually causes most of our problems, we also refuse to go to the people who could actually give us the solution. A heart that is not connected to it’s Creator will never be content. It will seek to fullfill itself with something.

yep.

But explaining these things, I’ve found, is useless. It took me longer than I want to admit to realize all that myself (and not just to realize, but actually to REALIZE. there’s a difference) and I suppose everyone else will realize it too, when the time is right. Or when they want to.

A big part of it is an attitude problem. As long as the yeahbutness dominates the mindframe, it’s hard to let anything else in. Everything nouvelle is swiftly brushed aside by a selection of yeahbuts, and your poor spiritual mind ends up wondering what the heck just happened. To move forward, one has to stop making excuses for oneself and face what’s really there. And then one has to work to make it better. That’s what, to most I suppose, sucks in the whole mashaikh thing… A spiritual guide can show you the path, but he ain’t gonna carry you down it.

yep. it sure does.