Inna lillahi wa inna ilahi raji’un.

We never know, of course, when our chances will cease. I have just seen the CCTV footage showing the moment when a car driven by a drunken driver sped through red lights at a junction and ploughed into the car in which my brother-in-law was travelling the Sunday before last. The speeding car hit the rear passenger door and killed my brother-in-law’s best friend, who happened to have swapped sides with him on this one occaison. Indeed we belong to Allah, and indeed to Him we return.

A Second Chance

As the years pass by, there is always a part of us that wants to look backwards, to reminisce about a life we have left behind now. We travelled up to North Yorkshire this weekend to visit my parents and I had in mind to take a detour to Hull on our return: to remember old friends, revisit old streets and see how much has changed. We didn’t get to go there as it happened, but I did realise another desire of mine: to return to York mosque.

We left the Rectory half way through the morning on Monday and made good progress back past York and towards the M1. We had travelled about 30 miles and were about 10 miles short of the motorway when my wife suddenly remembered that we had forgotten our coats. She insisted on going back for them since they are all we have to protect us from the cold through the winter and my asthma medicine was with mine. Grudgingly I took the next slip road off the bypass, crossed the bridge and headed back in the opposite direction. We had travelled for forty minutes already and I was mindful of the 200 miles still to go ahead of us, but it was the only way.

Alhamdulilah for that. Though perhaps I was irritated as I counted an extra sixty miles and another hour added to our journey, I can only say Alhamdulilah. This time, setting off for home once more I gave more thought to the nagging within which asked me to revisit that old mosque of mine. I don’t know how many times over the years I have told myself that I must pop in to whisper salams, but it seems that I was never able to. Alhamdulilah; had we not forgotten our coats we would never have returned perhaps.

I am so glad that we did. We arrived there in time for dhuhr prayer and just before a lovely gentleman arrived to open up the doors and let us in. Last time I visited, the mosque committee was raising funds to build an extension for women and the growing community at large. As I skirted the small building I wondered if they had ever realised that goal, for it was a long time since my last visit. It was only after standing in the prayer hall for a couple of minutes that I realised just how tiny the original mosque had been, recalling the tight dimensions of those Friday prayers I had once sought out so keenly.

I realised that it was eight years since I last visited and yet this kind man somehow remembered me. He greeted my wife with salams, opened the prayer room for her and switched the amplifiers on without any intervention on my part (we have to specifically ask at my local mosque). His warmth and beautiful nature reminded me what I so loved about that modest little mosque as a visiting stranger almost a decade ago. Although I was travelling, I just had to do dhuhr with them and stay for a little time in that now slightly bigger mosque before our long journey onwards.

My brief return made me so happy and it was alhamdulilah-for-forgetting-our-coats all the way home. Alhamdulilah that Allah gave us a second chance. Thinking about it now, it seems a rather fitting parable for our lives.

O son of Adam, so long as you call upon Me and ask of Me, I shall forgive you for what you have done, and I shall not mind. O son of Adam, were your sins to reach the clouds of the sky and were you then to ask forgiveness of Me, I would forgive you. O son of Adam, were you to come to Me with sins nearly as great as the earth and were you then to face Me, ascribing no partner to Me, I would bring you forgiveness nearly as great as it.

Hadith Qudsi reported in the collections of Tirmidhi and Ahmad.

"BBC claims of hadith reworking unfounded"

Salam alaikum,

Some of you might have seen an article / heard a report on the BBC which suggested that the Turkish Government is preparing to “revise” Islam. I think this article in today’s Zaman (a mainstream Turkish newspaper) sheds some light on the BBC claims:

http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=135202

Speaking with Today’s Zaman on Wednesday, Dr. Mehmet Görmez, the directorate’s deputy director, said: “Our project is not aimed at effecting a radical renewal of the religion, as is claimed by the BBC. Our objective is to help our citizens attain a better understanding of the hadith. Though I underlined several times during our interview with a BBC reporter that our project cannot be considered a reformation of Islam, he distorted the facts, saying Turkey is preparing to publish a document that represents a revolutionary reinterpretation of Islam — and a controversial and radical modernization of the religion.”

The hadith texts are not considered by Muslims to be God’s word, as the Quran is. Regardless, they are seen as qualified attempts to collect a body of reliable texts for Muslim scholars to use in adjudication. Scholars such as Bukhari and Muslim traveled throughout the Muslim world gathering and evaluating oral reports that had been passed down through generations from the Prophet Mohammed and his contemporaries. Each of these scholars then evaluated the chain of transmission of each saying, taking into account each individual reporter’s reputation, memory, etc.

All of which underscores the pre-eminent wisdom of the Qur’an once more:

“O ye who believe! If an evil liver bring you tidings, verify it, lest ye smite some folk in ignorance and afterward repent of what ye did.” Qur’an 49:6

“O man, follow not that whereof thou hast no knowledge. Lo! the hearing and the sight and the heart–of each of these it will be asked.” Qur’an 17:36

In other words we ought always to verify our facts when news comes to us, lest it cause others harm. May Allah forgive us all.

Kindest regards, salams and duas,

Zeynep

Gel Tevbe Eyle (Come on Make Repentance)

As Selaamu Alaikum,

Everything happens for a reason and nothing occurs without Allah’s (SWT) plan. I was feeling a bit down because of some problems at work. I was studying Qur’an with a friend. We had some questions and needed some answers, so looked in to various Islamic sites. While searching, this link popped in first, Allahu Alim. I clicked in as I recognized it’s language. While I listened to it something came out of my system and I could not hold my tears. It is so beautifully said if you only understood the language. As with any other language, it is difficult to translate it fully as you can never translate the feelings when you read it in the original language. It loses its taste, elegance and beauty. However I will translate it as best I can inshaAllah. I hesitated to put the link initially because of differences of opinion about “it is haram” or “not haram” argument. I decided to put it up in the end. It is for people who will/may benefit from it and Allah (SWT) knows best.

Fırsat bu fırsattır ömür geçiyor
Günahların senden tevbe istiyor
Farkında değilsin kalbin ağlıyor
Ecelin gelmeden gel tevbe eyle
This is the opportunity, your lifetime is passing
Make repentance as your sins are wanting
You are not aware that your heart is crying
Before your death, come repenting

Nefsin derki daha zamanın çoktur
Kimsenin elinde senedi yoktur
VALLAHİ BİLLAHİ hesabın zordur
Son nefes gelmeden gel tevbe eyle
Your Nafs-ego say you have got time
Nobody has a contract in hand
By Allah your situation is difficult
Before your last breath, come to repent.

Bütün delillerle KURAN dır ayan
Ateşin söndürür kalpteki İMAN
Bu çirkin gafletten gel sende uyan
Kabrin açılmadan gel tevbe eyle
The Qur’an is the whole proof
Your heart’s IMAN will put out the flames of the fire
From this heedlessness, come, and you too wake up
Before your grave is opened, come and repent.

Kalibinin kabzını dinle ne söyler
Duy seni rabbine şikayet eder
Bulanıklığını tevbeyle gider
Can tenden cıkmadan gel tevbe eyle
Listen to the voice of your heart
It is complaining to your Lord (RAB)
Take your senility away with repentance
Before your soul leaves your body, come and repent

ALLAH sevgisidir ruhun gıdası
Bunu feryad eder arşın nidası
Savarmı tevbesiz gaflet yarası
Cehennem tutmadan gel tevbe eyle
The nutrition for your spirit is love of Allah
This is what is cried out loud from the Throne
Would the wound of heedlessness be cured without repentance?
Before the Fire takes you, come and repent

Nefsin derki daha zamanın çoktur
Kimsenin elinde senedi yoktur
VALLAHİ BİLLAHİ hesabın zordur
Son nefes gelmeden gel tevbe eyle
Son nefes gelmeden gel tevbe eyle gel tevbe eyle gel gel ne olursan ol yine gel kurtuluşa gel, affet yaa “RAB”
Your Nafs say you have got time
Nobody has a contract in hand
By Allah your situation is difficult
Before your last breath, come to repent.
Before your last breath, come to repent,
whoever you are come to salvation. O Lord, forgive us.

ALLAHUMME Lebbeyk ALLAHUMME innel hamde vel niğmete vel mülk La şerike leke lebbeyk La şerike lek

O my Lord, here I am at Your service, here I am. There is no partner with You, here I am. Truly the praise and the provisions are Yours, and so is the dominion and sovereignty. There is no partner with You.

Mrs Neurocentric, WS.

Me… Unplugged

In just a moment I am going to disconnect my personal computer from the internet; I am going to unplug the network cable from the back. In the Qur’an we read that there is good and bad in alcohol, but the harm outweighs the benefit. Just now, at this moment in time, the internet is my wine. Its harm is outweighing its benefit to me.

Protestant Christians—brought up on Paul’s appeal to Grace and his sustained condemnation of legalism in his letter to the Galatians—are sometimes heard lamenting the Muslim’s insistence on living by the letter of the Law. Grace sets mankind free from all that, they will argue, but surely the state of the world around us bears witness to the fallacy of that view. Some people are indeed blessed with great self-restraint, but isn’t our Sunnah really just being realistic about the strength of individuals and communities?

Yes, some people are just good folk. And yes, some people can become good folk with the promise of reward. But it is true too that some of us must be deterred from deeds which are harmful to us and others. In truth it is few that live by Grace; like donkeys, most of us will only respond to a carrot or a stick, or both depending on our state of mind. I appreciate this. I appreciate possessing a faith which is realistic about human nature. I appreciate possessing a faith that doesn’t simply tell me that mankind is born in sin and can do nothing about it except rejoice that a ransom has been paid on my behalf. I appreciate possessing a framework through which I might overcome what holds me back.

I sometimes feel sad that I do not have the pure, beautiful, sound heart of some of my fortunate brothers and sisters in faith. Sometimes we meet people whose whole being oozes kindness. I envy such people a lot, but I also recognise that all is not lost for me. The Sunnah, the Law, this noble framework for our lives, is a blessing for those of us who need a little more help. In our lives we sometimes deprive ourselves from certain pleasures, for which we are often derided by those around us, but we do so because we know that in the long run it is good for us. At other times we expend our efforts on tasks which we may find a burden, which we may even dislike, but we persevere nevertheless because we know that it is good for us, our family or our community.

I doubt that disconnecting myself from the internet is a prescription of our Sunnah, but depriving ourselves of that which brings harm upon us most certainly is. My first step—of promising myself not to spend too much time on the internet—failed in rather spectacular fashion. I have great self-restraint in many spheres, but this is not one of them. To unplug is my next step. If that doesn’t work, then I may just have to cancel our service altogether, although that would deprive my wife of her online training, Turkish news, video conversations with her family and www.reciter.org (she manages to obtain all the good of it). Perhaps that won’t be necessary if I can get her to hide the network cable from me—I can’t imagine this being a problem because she already does it with the cakes.

In a moment or two I am going to disconnect my personal computer from the internet, not for an hour or two, or a day. For quite some time I hope. At least until I have achieved everything I need to. I can’t say I have high hopes, for I know myself too well and I know I have been somewhere like this so many times before. But I am going to unplug the network cable now, so let’s see how I go. And God help me, and us all.

Falling

When I moved down to Cambridge in 1995 to work as a software tester for an IT company, I encountered a programmer who said he was quitting IT, heading off to work for the National Trust instead. The new-fangled email system and nascent internet were loading too many pressures on his shoulders and he could not wait to get out, to drive a tractor or something. The world has completely changed since then—in the course of my career I have only known this always-online world—but I can appreciate his sentiments perfectly. I often wish I could just turn off and disconnect. I sometimes think I might survive those old dreams of mine to disappear into the hills to live a subsistence lifestyle.

I mentioned my current feeling about the internet to my colleagues the other day and they all looked at me somewhat stunned. I have just got myself a job as a web application developer. ‘Don’t you think you might have chosen the wrong career path then?’ they asked me. Quite possibly.. I had just told them that I often think about cancelling my broadband internet connection, except that my wife now benefits from it greatly for staying in touch with family and friends overseas. ‘Okay, put it another way,’ I said, ‘I use the internet all the time, and that’s the problem.’ It wastes my time and worse.

I remember that feeling of relief we had after we disposed of our television six years ago. I can imagine such relief returning for me personally if I unplugged from this giant network. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with television: there is good in it as well as bad. The same is true of the internet. I am not condemning it as the ultimate source of evil. I am just saying I could live better without it, I think.

Today my heart is weighing heavy in my chest and I feel like I am burning up inside, and a memory keeps on recurring in my mind’s eye. A few years ago my wife and I holidayed in south Wales. One morning we were driving down hill along a private road. For a split second we freewheeled and I quickly lost control of the car. We hit a sharp rock and ripped one of the front tyres open. I managed to get the car back into gear, slow it down and regain control. But a minute on down the road, just round the bend, came a walker, rambling up the slope. I realised in that instant that I could have killed that man. The past few weeks I have been free wheeling (or free falling) just like that in my life. And now I see that walker, standing in my path. I think this pain in my chest is going to accompany me for a while now. I want to head for the hills and disappear.