Our Garden, April 2008

Well the sun peeped through the clouds for a few minutes, so I grabbed the camera and took a few shots (and realised I have work to do out there).

Another April

We first posted these photos on 16th April last year – that year when summer came early before the summer filled with April showers. Alhamdulilah, we’ve had plenty of showers this April, not to mention hail and snow. We’ll have to wait to see what the next few months have in store for us.

A day for wandering in the garden.

This was taken before we re-erected our fences which were destroyed in the gales while we were on hajj. It looks like we have a massive garden, but in fact we just have very kind and tolerant neighbours. We’ve fixed the fences now.

Nice place to take a telephone call in the sun.

If it brightens up later on, perhaps we’ll venture into the garden to take another set to document this year. Insha Allah.

God’s Generosity

This is the view from my front door. I took it this evening with my wife’s camera when I came home from work. I took it because it means something to me; something that I’ve been thinking a great deal about for the past few days.

It represents how much God has given me, how generous He has been to me. When I was younger I used to dream that one day I’d live in a house looking out on a cottage garden. Well, that’s pretty much what I got. This photo doesn’t really do our garden any justice. When you wander up and down those steps each day you’re just taken by the beautiful flowers coming into bloom and the delicious scent of the Daphne. The other day I was standing at my front door, looking out onto the garden and I couldn’t help but say Alhamdulilah over and over. Why? Because there are different coloured primroses, cowslips, tulips and daffodils flowering all over the place, and we didn’t do a thing. I stood there saying Alhamdulilah and then another thought came to my mind: what a disgrace I am.

God has showered the pair of us in great bounties, and yet look how I have behaved over the last few weeks, months and years. When I reflected on this, I felt ashamed.

There are funny things that happen to us in our home which repeatedly remind us of God’s great generosity. Just after we got married, my wife suggested buying something for the kitchen which I refused, saying that it would be extravagant, only for us to receive it as a gift a few weeks later from my grandmother. Indeed, in her boxes of cast-offs that she insisted on sending us away with were half a dozen items that we had thought of over the preceding months. After we moved into our home my wife discovered a Black Sea fruit tree in our back garden which supplies her with an unending stream of berries much loved in her village back home each autumn. Just a few weeks ago, my wife saw something in my mother’s home that she thought would be useful in ours, only for our first set of guests on our return back home to give it to us as a gift – somewhat surprising given that it was somewhat unusual. These things happen to us a lot and each time it is a reminder of God’s generosity.

Lately I’ve been thinking about this a great deal. Over the past two and a half years I had a job which made me extremely depressed. Now I’ve dwelled on the fact before that I should really have been grateful to have had an income and that’s all true and accepted, but if I am honest, I really hated it. On my first day there after resigning from my previous workplace I sat with my manager and listened as he went through my job description, crossing out all of the elements that were no longer required of me. It was pretty much everything that had led me to apply for the post. Over the months that followed I sunk into quite a heavy bout of melancholy. It was only natural then that I should mention my employment when I stood on the Plain of Arafat during my Hajj a year ago. My prayer went something like this, “Oh Allah, You know my heart better than I do. I have no idea what I want to do to earn my living, so grant me a job that will make me happy, in which I will work hard and that will be good for me here and hereafter.”

Well God is most generous. On the day of Arafat a year later I started a new job – I only realised the significance when I put the radio on in my car and there was a report on Britain’s Hajj delegation gathering on the Plain that morning. I didn’t do anything to get this job. The department in which I originally worked was merged into another and my role disappeared as a result. They had to find me something to do, but Alhamdulilah, Alhamdulilah. Each day now I find myself reflecting on this new role of mine, because I really love it. It’s a great job and I’m doing something I really enjoy. I work hard now and I’m happy. That is God’s generosity completely. I did nothing to deserve this. It is His generosity completely. His generosity and His mercy.

And there is something else. Over the last few months I have been really stupid. My stupidity ultimately drove me to heavy tears under the strain of a heavy heart. Maybe it was looking out onto my front garden which brought me to a halt: those Alhamdulilahs followed by that feeling of shame and regret. Those thoughts of God’s incredible generosity followed by the reflection on my ingratitude. I prayed for God’s help, for His forgiveness, for His Guidance, for His aid. I think, just maybe, we have just witnessed His generosity once more. A wise friend has come to visit us and it seems he is setting us straight, helping us start each day in a good way and end each day in a good way too. I consider it God’s immense generosity.

When I think of what He has given me, showered on me, I can only feel ashamed. Has my conduct been any way to say Thank You? No, but perhaps recognising His generosity is the first step towards rectifying our affairs.

Snow time like the present

Snowfall after Fajr means there’s a snowball fight before Qur’an class.

There’s not a lot, but enough to hold us for a few minutes.

Superman harvests snow from Tim’s car.

Snow covers our scented daphne,

the tree over the pond

and everything else,

just as the camellia was coming into bud.

But it won’t last long.

At last, Tim has emerged with our teacher.

On our return from class all the snow has gone.

Jihad

1. Jihad is the struggle to remove all those things from one’s life that incur Allah’s displeasure, and to replace them with those things that will gain His acceptance.

2. Jihad is the struggle against one’s inner self and it’s bestial inclinations. It is this struggle, in fact, which the Prophet of Islam (Allah’s blessings and peace upon him) dubbed “the greater jihad.”

3. Jihad is the struggles against the villains in our hearts which include: arrogance, avarice, pettiness, selfishness, jealousy, greed, self-delusions, and vain passions.

4. Jihad is the struggle to replace the villains in our hearts with goodly traits, such as mercy, honor, humbleness, generosity, gentleness, dignity, love, and other qualities that are aptly described as “heavenly.”

5. Jihad is the struggle to fulfill the rights and responsibilities of one’s family as well as those who are close, such as neighbors and relatives, to make sure that one does not harm them either with his hand or tongue.

6. Jihad is the struggle to forgive the wrongs of others, to overlook their misgivings, and hide their faults.

7. Jihad is the struggle to help the needy, the orphan, the widow, and the homeless by sacrificing our wealth.

8. Jihad is to show love and gentleness to our young ones, and respect and dignity to our elders.

9. Jihad is to protect the honor and property of every single member of society, whether man or woman.

10. Jihad is the struggle to speak out against injustice, to help the victims of oppressions, to ensure that everyone is given just measure, regardless of gender, ethnicity, or religion.

11. Jihad is to submit our will to Our Creator, thereby achieving peace and unity with the rest of the cosmos in celebrating His Majesty and Glory.

12. Jihad is ultimately that struggle in which we are willing to give our lives in the name of Allah so that these ideals will endure and bring peace and justice to countless others, thus truly bringing the harmony of the heavens down the earth.

Taken from http://lessonsoftheday.blogspot.com/ 3 April 2008.

Killing our future

I will make no secret of the fact that I begin this in a low mood, with a cloud of melancholy descending on me. I have been off work with a viral infection for the past few days, so I suppose a weakness of spirit is only to be expected, but it is not that. Sometimes you tell yourself when you are ill that at least the time off will give you time to do some other jobs, but it doesn’t work that way: the headaches and dizziness just make you lethargic, driving you into a meandering state of mind that seeks lazy entertainment in day-time-television and glossy magazines. Well I don’t own a TV and you can only flick through the Misco catalogue once before it strikes you as rather pointless. But there is still the Internet, temporarily restored for the sake of a broken laptop.

Thus this afternoon I have had my fill of social heresy, delving into the latest offerings of Pilots for 9/11 Truth, Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth and Scholars for 9/11 Truth, which was all brought on by my watching the 60 Minutes clip on CBS about the detention of an innocent man at Guantanamo Bay for five years. I know, I know, I’m playing with fire, there will be an inquisition shortly to determine how I even dared type it into Google. And when I did, why I didn’t choose to learn about Stuttgart’s advances on the 966 (and particularly when I have been driving that battered old Fiesta for the past seven years; do I not aspire to anything, for crying out loud). Yes, I know, I shall be cast out for such brazen heresy, but I pray my alibi will suffice: ‘It was the Lemsip. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was asleep at the controls of the machine.’ Actually I didn’t have any Lemsip today because yesterday my Doctor said it was terrible stuff packed with adrenalin and useless junk, so I just had paracetamol instead (and that was in fact after watching nonsense, which I will get to in a little while).

In fact I will get onto it right now. After watching a short presentation that I shall not bore you with, I stumbled upon a film by some bloke called Alex Jones, who seems to be a kind of Michael Moore of the lunatic fringe and I ended up watching a few minutes of two of them. I was quite surprised because a Salafi friend of mine thinks Mister Jones is pretty much on the money most of the time. Well perhaps he is because he does a nice range of sweatshirts and mugs, but I’m not sure this is what my friend means. I can’t even remember what the first one was about because it’s become a bit of a blur, but the second one explained how every war over the past few centuries has been instigated by one secretive family and its supporters, whose ultimate aim is to establish a one-world-government, evident in the creation of the United Nations. The Bush family are all in on it, which I suppose is why the President tried to get around the UN in order to invade Iraq. Oh no, sorry… Well never mind.

The point is, this is happening right here, right now and we have to wake up and smell the coffee. However I am not sure that producing a boring two and a half-hour long film is the best way to get people to wake up, even if it has a cool sound-track. And there is a little part of me that wonders whether some people have been inhaling something other than the chocolaty aroma of FairTrade coffee. But I digress. I watched this second film for about fifteen minutes (about thirteen minutes longer than the first) and it spent quite a long time focusing on the black limousines carrying the members of the Bilderberg Group to a meeting where they were gathering to plot the next stage of their secretive scheme for total world domination. What I couldn’t quite work out was how we have so much information about this top secret plan, given that it is top secret. But maybe if I had bothered to watch the remaining one hundred and thirty minutes I might have found out. Who knows? Maybe the Rothschild kids have a blog on WordPress.com or a Facebook account. Maybe they keep poking people they think are their fellow-conspirators because they have the same name. It’s easy to make that mistake.

Which sort of brings me onto what I actually wanted to write about, before this peculiar digression in which I amused myself so well that I almost forgot I was feeling a bit down at all. But I suppose I had better return to it, for otherwise I will have to delete my opening paragraph, which will mean I will have to delete the one that follows, which will ultimately mean there will be no need for this one and thus it could have stayed all along. So I’m leaving it as is. So yes, the low mood.

Not only did I stumble upon Mister Jones through the magic of hyperlinkamation, but I also encountered social networking websites. More specifically I encountered Muslims using social networking websites. More specifically still, I encountered our children, our ‘yoof’, our next generating using social networking websites. Maybe I am just suffering from early-onset middle-age slipperdom, but I have to say I was utterly shocked by what I read and saw there. It is not really the websites themselves: these are simply a tool, although Islamically speaking we could certainly identify problems there. Maybe it was the character and behaviour of these teenagers that really shocked me. Websites such as hi5.com are not closed environments like Facebook, and so anyone can see anyone’s profile. True, maybe tis just the drugs and not enough Lucozade. Maybe in the battle between the intellect and the virus, the virus is winning. Maybe I am over-reacting. But my reaction was just this: how do we reach out to our children if this is where they have reached?

Maybe you will experiment with hi5.com, typing in a Muslim name or two. Perhaps you will see nothing wrong. Perhaps it was just me, having bad luck on a bad day. Maybe the relationships pages of an Asiana forum are an extreme aberration. Perhaps the groups of Bengali boys obsessed with the gangster life and groups of Bengali and Pakistani girls obsessed with modelling are but an isolated pocket, a mere aberration. I hope so. I hope that my reaction is purely the fog of a feverish illness which seems to be descending almost as soon as it was lifting. I hope I am just mistaken, for these words came to my mind a couple of hours ago: ‘We are killing our future.’

And so how will we reach out to our children?