Here I come!

The world turned upright?

I was reading another blog (here), and I was reminded of a story I heard recently.

For the longest time, I remember being in classes, and the teacher would be taking role call (aka attendance). My last name is relatively easy to pronounce, especially based upon the following.

- "L" - "N" -
(Hint: It is not Jacketelenextremesports)

Anyway, the teachers would still ruin my last name on occasion, but I really feel bad for those poor Muslims who had their names butchered regularly. Although it doesn't seem that hard to pronounce the names since becoming Muslim and learning some Arabic, I remember it was very difficult to do previously. That is why the name Salman often became Salmon.

So my friend was telling me about one of the happiest days of his life. He was in a new college course, and he saw that the teacher was a desi uncle. The uncle/teacher began pronouncing names and would say: "Smite, S-s-Smith, Joe Haan (يعني Smith, John) or While Yam (William). He continued to straight up slaughter the non-Muslim names, but when he came to Muslims, he pronounced them exactly right (same with the Hindu names).

My friend was exuberant. He could believe what he was hearing. After years of living in a small town and having the first day of school being a guaranteed laugh fest at his cost, a day of being confused with a fish, he now had the tables turned. If only the uncles could get my last name correct instead of sounding like they're choking on a chicken tikka bone each time they try to say it.

A small glimpse…

السلام عليكم

Here is a small glimpse at what takes place in my tafseer class. This is typed from my notes that were taken in class. It is amazing how much knowledge my teacher has. It makes sense that his grandfather had praised him so much.

وَإِذْ قَالَ رَبُّكَ لِلْمَلائِكَةِ إِنِّي جَاعِلٌ فِي الأَرْضِ خَلِيفَةً قَالُواْ أَتَجْعَلُ فِيهَا مَن يُفْسِدُ فِيهَا وَيَسْفِكُ الدِّمَاء وَنَحْنُ نُسَبِّحُ بِحَمْدِكَ وَنُقَدِّسُ لَكَ قَالَ إِنِّي أَعْلَمُ مَا لاَ تَعْلَمُونَ <>2:30

And recall when your Lord said to the angels: I am making a successor on earth. They said: Are you making خليفة he who will spread mischief in it [the earth] and will shed the blood despite that we glorify You by praising You. He [الله] said: Verily, I know what you do not know.

• Previous verses, الله highlighted His qualities and ordered humans to only worship Him because only He is worthy of that worship
  
• الإنسان on earth is خليفة of الله on the earth
  
  • Has obligations and responsibilities to follow
    
  • If he goes right, whole world will go right
    
• الله is the king of the whole universe
  
  • Gave free will (إختِيَار) in this دنيا
    
  • Whatever man wants to do, he can do it à bad or good
    
• الله informed الملائكة
  
  • مَلَك
    à literally delegate (messenger)
    
  • They are a real creation of الله
    à some say they aren't real
    
  • الله uses them for different tasks à weather, wahy (sunnah of الله is to do things through means as a system although He can do everything)
    
  • Used angels as وصيلة/سبب and if الله تعالى always did everything himself, there would be no miracles.
    
• خليفة
  à appointed by higher authority and has some free will but cannot do everything
  
• تقدير
  à
  الله knows all of what will happen and planned before
  
  • Humans can do whatever to some extent
    
  • Sheep/goat à human ties a goat to a tree and give one-hundred yard rope
    
    • Within the hundred yards, goat can go anywhere but not past hundred yards
      
  • Humans have some room to move (each human has a different amount of room/opportunities) but can move within that
    
    • We don't know how much room we have (غيب)
      
• Angels did not raise objection against His rule (no free will) but raised question to understand the حكمة
  
  • Understand this would be the only one with free will
    
    • Will use free will to make فساد and shed blood
      
      • Jinn made فساد on the earth and angels used them as a basis
        
  • Not saying they wanted to be appointed, but saying that since we already glorify You and such, what is the need to create such creation that has so much risk
    
• Two words:
  
  • (1) تسبيح
    à (I) to swim (II) to purify
    
    • Separating the negative: In hadith, used differently à purify الله by eliminating those characteristics that don't fit الله. الله does not sleep, drink, become sad, etc.
      
  • (2) تقديس
    à to purify
    
    • Associating the positive: Associating those attributes that do fit الله
      علم الفيب, etc.
      
  • تسبيح is more important
    
    • لا إله إلاّ الله
      à eliminates شرك
      
• Despite angels fulfilling orders, الله has an objective to be fulfilled and angels cannot do it (no free will)
  
  • Have to choose between right and wrong
    

The Types of Heart

The Types of Heart

Imaam ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah rahimahullaah

---

Just as the heart may be described in terms of being alive or dead, it may also be regarded as belonging to one of three types; these are the healthy heart, the dead heart, and the sick heart.

The Healthy Heart

On the Day of Resurrection, only those who come to Allah with a healthy heart will be saved. Allah says:

"The day on which neither wealth nor sons will be of any use, except for whoever brings to Allah a sound heart." (26:88-89)

In defining the healthy heart, the following has been said: "It is a heart cleansed from any passion that challenges what Allah commands, or disputes what He forbids. It is free from any impulses which contradict His good. As a result, it is safeguarded against the worship of anything other than Him, and seeks the judgement of no other except that of His Messenger. Its services are exclusively reserved for Allah, willingly and lovingly, with total reliance, relating all matters to Him, in fear, hope and sincere dedication. When it loves, its love is in the way of Allah. If it detests, it detests in the light of what He detests. When it gives, it gives for Allah. If it withholds, it withholds for Allah. Nevertheless, all this will not suffice for its salvation until it is free from following, or taking as its guide, anyone other than His Messenger."

A servant with a healthy heart must dedicate it to its journey's end and not base his actions and speech on those of any other person except Allah's Messenger. He must not give precedence to any other faith or words or deeds over those of Allah and His Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. Allah says:

"Oh you who believe, do not put yourselves above Allah and His Messenger, but fear Allah, for Allah is Hearing, Knowing." (49:1)

The Dead Heart

This is the opposite of the healthy heart. It does not know its Lord and does not worship Him as He commands, in the way which He likes, and with which He is pleased. It clings instead to its lusts and desires, even if these are likely to incur Allah's displeasure and wrath. It worships things other than Allah, and its loves and its hatreds, and its giving and its withholding, arise from its whims, which are of paramount importance to it and preferred above the pleasure of Allah. Its whims are its imam. Its lust is its guide. Its ignorance is its leader. Its crude impulses are its impetus. It is immersed in its concern with worldly objectives. It is drunk with its own fancies and its love for hasty, fleeting pleasures. It is called to Allah and the akhira from a distance but it does not respond to advice, and instead it follows any scheming, cunning Shaytaan. Life angers and pleases it, and passion makes it deaf and blind (1) to anything except what is evil.

To associate and keep company with the owner of such a heart is to tempt illness: living with him is like taking poison, and befriending him means utter destruction.

The Sick Heart

This is a heart with life in it, as well as illness. The former sustains it at one moment, the latter at another, and it follows whichever one of the two manages to dominate it. It has love for Allah, faith in Him, sincerity towards Him, and reliance upon Him, and these are what give it life. It also has a craving for lust and pleasure, and prefers them and strives to experience them. It is full of self-admiration, which can lead to its own destruction. It listens to two callers: one calling it to Allah and His Prophet and the akhira; and the other calling it to the fleeting pleasures of this world. It responds to whichever one of the two happens to have most influence over it at the time.

The first heart is alive, submitted to Allah, humble, sensitive and aware; the second is brittle and dead; the third wavers between either its safety or its ruin.

From here

Graphic arts

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

قال رسول الله صلى الله عليه و سلم: لا يؤمن أحدكم حتى يكون هواه تبعا لما جئت به

The Messenger of Allah (saw) said: None of you believe until his desires follow what I brought.

I made this poster for fun (or to suck up to my hadith teacher). Although my photoshop skills (actually I used open source Gimp for this) are a bit lacking, I was still pretty impressed with the way it turned out. I want to make a bunch of posters for the ahaadith we are memorizing with each poster representing the concept that is discussed in the hadith.

For this poster, I thought the hole in the wall fit appropriately because the Prophet (saw) is mentioned a deficiency, or hole, in our imaan.

Additionally, the place looks dirty and rundown which seems to suit the hadith which mentions a person whose desires are not aligned with the shariah. If this is the case, the person will be following his nafs and will most likely be involved in heinous and improper actions.

This reminds me of something that Mufti Kamaluddin (db) mentioned in one of his talks. He said we should make the makroohaat of shariah into the makroohaat of tarbiyyah. Thus, whatever is haraam in the deen should be haraam and disgusting to us, and whatever is makrooh (disliked by Allah and His messenger) should be makrooh (disliked) to us as well. We should actually feel a repulsion from anything that is disliked in the deen, and we should love whatever is beloved in the deen.

May Allah (swt) allow us all to follow His beloved Nabi (saw), give up our own desires for what he brought, and enter us in to the Jannah that Allah (swt) has prepared for His servants.

Just like the moon paled in comparison with beauty of the Messenger of Allah's (sallahu alayhi wa sallam) mubarak face, the events and celebrations of this life pale when compared to the amazing victory of the believers on the Day of Judgement.

Please make dua that I can be among those people on that Day.

039.073
And those who are careful of (their duty to) their Lord shall be conveyed to the garden in companies; until when they come to it, and its doors shall be opened, and the keepers of it shall say to them: Peace be on you, you shall be happy; therefore enter it to abide.

039.074
And they shall say: (All) praise is due to Allah, Who has made good to us His promise, and He has made us inherit the land; we may abide in the garden where we please; so goodly is the reward of the workers.

039.075
And you shall see the angels going round about the throne glorifying the praise of their Lord; and judgment shall be given between them with justice, and it shall be said: All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of the worlds.

Also: http://www.inter-islam.org/hadeeth/stmenu.htm

A Piece of a Classic

Assuredly those who fear their Lord in secret, while they are absent from people’s eyes, being
obedient to Him in secret, such that openly [before people] it is all the more likely [that they fear
their Lord] — there will be for them forgiveness and a great reward, namely, Paradise.

067.012 from Tafsir Jalalayn

insha'Allah

The Prophet (sallullahu alayhi wa sallam) said: "None of you believe until his desires are following what I came with."
-Mishkat al-Athar and Bukhari

And I've only been driving fast...

Hadrat Ali (rah) used to say that the Messenger of Allah advised haste in five areas.

1) Establishing prayers before they expire.
2) Seeking repentance before death.
3) Completing the funeral rites of the deceased.
4) Discharging any debts upon you.
5) Marrying your sons and daughters upon finding a suitable match.

Oh Allah, enlighten my heart!

A man came to Hadrat Hasan Basri (radiullahu 'anhu) and said, “Hadrat, I do not know what is the matter with us. It seems that our hearts are asleep.” Hadrat Hasan Basri (radiullahu 'anhu) asked what was the matter. The man replied, “Our hearts are not affected when you recite the Holy Quran and Hadith to us.” Hadrat Hasan Basri (radiullahu 'anhu) said to him, “If reading of the Holy Quran and Hadith do not affect your hearts, do not say that your hearts are asleep. Instead say that your hearts are dead. Even a sleeping person awakes when shaken awake. If someone sleeping does not awaken when shaken, he is not asleep but dead.” - Shaykh Zulfiqar Ahmad (db)

The Prophet (sallahu alyahi wa salam) said:

الظلم ظلمات يوم القيامة

Oppression will be darkness on the Day of Judgment (Bukhari).

This place is about to get much brighter...

National Poetry Month...

Your hope in my heart is the rarest treasure
Your Name on my tongue is the sweetest word
My choicest hours
Are the hours I spend with You --
O Allah, I can't live in this world
Without remembering You--
How can I endure the next world
Without seeing Your face?
I am a stranger in Your country
And lonely among Your worshipers:
This is the substance of my complaint.

- Rabi'a Basri

Army of one

Last night I went on a long excursion to Appleton, WI. The ride took around 4 hours, and some coffee. The point of my trip was to see a poet I really enjoy and have posted his poems on here before: Billy Collins. He read numerous poems including a wonderful selection of hilarious haikus. Below are the pictures I took there.

Billy Collins explaining his poems.

He had the audience cracking up.

I was surprised to see no statue of Jesus (as) in there. Only the really nice organ.

Outside view of the church.

There he is signing books. I got two books signed on behalf of my school. The picture quality is bad because I was shaking after meeting him. Not because he's so great or anything, but only because I'm a spaaz.

Lastly some deer I saw by the edge of the road.

She's looking at me.

National Poetry Month

The Country
by Billy Collins

I wondered about you
when you told me never to leave
a box of wooden, strike-anywhere matches
lying around the house because the mice

might get into them and start a fire.
But your face was absolutely straight
when you twisted the lid down on the round tin
where the matches, you said, are always stowed.

Who could sleep that night?
Who could whisk away the thought
of the one unlikely mouse
padding along a cold water pipe

behind the floral wallpaper
gripping a single wooden match
between the needles of his teeth?
Who could not see him rounding a corner,

the blue tip scratching against a rough-hewn beam,
the sudden flare, and the creature
for one bright, shining moment
suddenly thrust ahead of his time -

now a fire-starter, now a torchbearer
in a forgotten ritual, little brown druid
illuminating some ancient night.
Who could fail to notice,

lit up in the blazing insulation,
the tiny looks of wonderment on the faces
of his fellow mice, onetime inhabitants
of what once was your house in the country?

National Poetry Month

Facing It
by Yusef Komunyakaa
My black face fades, hiding inside the black granite. I said I wouldn't, dammit: No tears. I'm stone. I'm flesh. My clouded reflection eyes me like a bird of prey, the profile of night slanted against morning. I turn this way--the stone lets me go. I turn that way--I'm inside the Vietnam Veterans Memorial again, depending on the light to make a difference. I go down the 58,022 names, half-expecting to find my own in letters like smoke. I touch the name Andrew Johnson; I see the booby trap's white flash. Names shimmer on a woman's blouse but when she walks away the names stay on the wall. Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's wings cutting across my stare. The sky. A plane in the sky. A white vet's image floats closer to me, then his pale eyes look through mine. I'm a window. He's lost his right arm inside the stone. In the black mirror a woman's trying to erase names: No, she's brushing a boy's hair.

sometimes I mumble

Sometimes I mumble to myself
a simple mumbling
concise and beautiful
full of wisdom

I am not the only one who does this
Bigger than me, many have done this
and still do
But it is different for me.
One, can’t question
the others have no choice
But I, I can sing songs
I can talk on the phone
But I choose to mumble

So let the lookers look
and let the scoffers scoff
I do it out of love
The Truest Love

-Written by me

No Hoes

No Hoes
Originally uploaded by seekerofallah

This is a picture that was taken by a dear friend of mine. It is supposed to say "NO SHOES ON CARPET," but it is funnier this way.

If only I knew what it said...

I'm not sure exactly what is being said in these, but it sounds so beautiful. Thanks to MM for these since he plays it on a continous loop.

PART I

PART II

P.S. I'm on flickr now thanks to the birthday present my parents gave me.

Reflections on the past...

This was written by me towards the end of October in 2003. In March 2004 I embraced Islam.

What keeps a man from believing in god?Stubbornness, pride, fear?I am unsure why I don't but I have nothing in my gut that tells me there is one. Often, I wish I did believe. I feel somewhat empty without it and it would give me something to hope for, an afterlife. Right now, I do not know what happens when I die and for all I know, I simply rot away.

Sophy Burnham said something that really sticks with me and allows me to be patient in my search for a higher power, "To believe in God or in a guiding force because someone tells you to is the height of stupidity. We are given senses to receive our information within. With our own eyes we see, and with our own skin we feel. With our intelligence, it is intended that we understand. But each person must puzzle it out for himself or herself."

Although I'm sure that this will take me a long time, and I may never even find what I search for, I am willing to wait since I'm positive the result will be worth it.

SubhanAllah

"He [Al-Bukhari] wrote Kitab at-Taariikh [Book of History] at the grave of the Messenger of Allah (sallullahu alayhi wa sallam) during the moonlit nights" (Bustan al-Muhaddithin).

big bad brother nassir

I finally got fed up with the attitude and actions of some of my students. We call it an Islamic school, but the morals seemed to be lacked. Therefore, on my part, I decided to crack down on two things : lying and improper gender interaction.

Although the latter is only a few select students, the former is a common problem. Most students do not even understand what counts as lying. It is always "I was just joking."

First time will be a simple warning, but the second is a detention. I'm hoping that this new policy will help to fix the problems.

Anyway, I announced this policy today, and most students didn't seem to care. Then, one student who has been guilty of the latter problem (and most people know it) asked for me to name the kids who have been involved in this. I said I would not. When the student asked why I told him/her I did not want to expose the people's sins in front of others.

I think this really hit her (although only time will tell). She was silent for the rest of the period. I just hope that it really does stick with her.

I found the most amazing note today.

I was in the library and looked through a random drawer, and I found a note. It read:

Hell yeah. What kind do you do?
ghetto a lil like BS u?
All kinds. Tango, salsa, break, etc.
awsum can u do da heel toe teach me
Y? Usually kids think that a tomboy shouldn't be doing that type of dancing!
yea wat the hell

Imagine a 6th grader asking another 6th grader to teach her the heel toe. As the students love to quote me in saying, Amazing.

I ate quail last night.

Unrelated to the title, I had a student observer today. He's actually a friend of mine from UIC. He's clearly Desi, and I'm clearly not. He is walking around the class, helping students with their group work, even though I'm English and he's History. One student yells out the question:

"Is he your brother?"

I just started laughing. My students are so darn cute. I will miss them. It is really hard to leave the students at the end of the year. You spend so much time with them that they begin to feel like your children. They act like they hate me, but then they get upset when I mention not being there next year.

"You can't go. Who's going to teach us? We don't want Ms. ***** back."

I'll miss the kid in 1st grade who clings to my leg and the 2nd grader who looks like I did when I was his age, completely adorable ;).

I'm sure there will be a water works from my side come June.

Ticking...

I'm not really enjoying language arts. Grammar rules do not excite me so much.

The past few days we've been moving to studying the writing of short stories. 6th grade had "They're Made out of Meat," 7th grade had "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," and 8th grade had "The Cask of Amontillado." All I got from the students was "I don't understand this" and "This story is dumb." Then, once I explained it, they thought it was pretty cool.

Next we'll begin writing stories. This should be fun. The imagination of these kids is so limited. They get bored at every moment. Even when we took a field trip to the zoo, some kids were playing PSP rather than looking at everything. They had to tear me away from the gorilla cage; I was having so much fun.

I'm still counting the days until blast off. Preparations are underway.

Dua (supplication) of 'Omar ( ra)

اَللَّهُمَّ اجْعَلْنِيْ صَبُوْرًا

وَّ اجْعَلْنِيْ شَكُوْرًا

وَّ اجْعَلْنِيْ فِيْ عَيْنِيْ صَغِيْرًا

وَّ فِيْ أَعْيُنِ النَّاسِ كَبِيْرًا

Oh Allah, make me patient

and make me thankful

and make me in my eyes small

and in the eyes of mankind great.

Counting the days...

SubhanAllah