Road to Jannah

Ramadan 1432 AH : A Method to its ‘Madness’?

Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Raheem,
Assalaamu Alaikum,

Ramadan for me is made up of good days and ‘bad’ days, difficult moments, and soaring moments, spiritual moments and physical moments, awkward and funny and touching and heartbreaking moments (and sometimes all of the above).

One of the hardest moments for me this year was seeing my friend’s husband carry his father out of the Mosque here. The father has had Parkinson’s disease for years and has been slowly deteriorating, but recently it’s been very difficult to watch. The father, who was at one time a Dawah pillar of his community, is now extremely emaciated and fragile bone like. His body is bent over and constantly shaking and mentally he comes and goes. The son gently lifted him out of his wheelchair and helped move his father’s shaking feet patiently one by one down the cement stairs. It just brought home the fact to me that all our parents are older now and their time to leave will be soon.

I also had the chance to pray Taraweeh at my old childhood Mosque, which is actually a multi-million dollar center now. It’s quite a different experience from praying in a backroom of a converted house or borrowed gym! The building itself is beautiful with marble floors, double glass doors and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the woods. Inside the entire second floor is used for Taraweeh. Even the carpet is this beautiful deep rose color with sprigs of flowers. The whole area could probably fit 1 to 2,000 praying people. There’s no barrier between the men and women, just one of those bank line separator things and there’s still a lot of empty space because it’s so big! They have very organized babysitting services. The a/c and sound system is amazing and the recitor is a Morroccan Hafiz that has a very beautiful professional recitation. It almost feels like the Middle East because everything is just so well done. Praying there I could feel space and time roll back and remembered all the Duas I made in this same place as a teenager and as far back as I can remember! To be able to pray seeing our childhood dreams realized was definitely a soaring moment.

In a coincidence, a few days later at another Mosque I walked in and saw this little girl that looked exactly like an old childhood friend when we were little. The same as probably the day we met when we were like 5 years old. The likeness was so startling, it was again like flashing back in time. So strange how Allah reminds us of the happy times in our lives.

One of my more heartbreaking moments this Ramadan was when my baby nephew was really sick. His face was all flushed and he was listless and crying. (Alhamdulillah he’s much better now and back to his bouncy self!) but in that one moment I just realized how much pain mothers in countries like Somalia must be going through, to see their children sick and dying just because of hunger. And even to have to choose which of their children lives and which dies! How can we live in such a world where this goes on? It’s not right that we let such things go on when in it’s in our ability to at least make some kind of effort even if monetarily.

A touching experience for me was praying behind a boy in our community whose father is in jail. I still remember his little face and big eyes the days after the raid and Alhamdulillah with all the troubles he’s been through, we’ve always been worried he’d end up ‘messed up’. But there he was now 15 and looking like a ‘man’, reciting Surah Qaf (my favorite Surah!). It was really a moment that I wish his father could see and be proud of.

There were also some wonderful spiritual moments with Khutbahs and deep reminders by excellent Imams in this area. One Khateeb talked about the death of one righteous predecessor. Two people went to bury him, covered him and started to leave, and then they saw him praying in his grave! They were so astonished and went to ask his sister ‘what is special about him’ and she told them that he used to pray the night prayers every night for 40 years, and at the end he would ask Allah ‘If there is anyone to whom You allow an Ibadah after death, please allow me to pray to You in my grave’. And Allah granted his Dua, and made two witnesses to it so we could know about it!

One day after reading more bad news about something happening in the Ummah, I came across the Ayah: “If a wound hath touched you, be sure a similar wound hath touched the others. Such days (of varying fortunes) We give to men and men by turns; that Allah may know those that believe and that He may take to Himself from your ranks Martyr-witnesses…Did ye think that ye would enter Heaven without Allah testing those of you who fought hard (in His cause) and remained steadfast?” Sometimes the Quran just talks to you and gives you reassurances about what you’re thinking without you even asking!

From the more funny moments, as a single girl in the community inevitably I get the ‘Why aren’t you married? Don’t you want to get married? I have this nephew/uncle back home in eGypt, etc’ type questions. Sometimes I just want to move somewhere and go to a Mosque where no one knows anything about me! I can’t deny Ramadan also gets lonely as you get older and all your friends and siblings move away. I miss the days we used to have Iftar together or when my friends and I used to go to restaurants for Iftars or meet up for Taraweeh.

On one of the days I made the mistake of getting in the middle of a shouting match between two women about the kids in Taraweeh. One Egyptian tante was yelling the kids were making too much noise and should be with their parents. Then one of the African mothers started yelling back that they have to bring their kids and where were they supposed to put them! Alhamdulillah it didn’t get too ugly, unlike at Iftar time where unless there are strict rules in place the women would probably come to blows! I try to explain it away to myself by saying this is just their culture and they don’t know any better, but I mean it’s not! It hurts for me to see people treat the Mosque like a garbage dump, not teaching their kids any manners or etiquette at all, pushing their cultural back home mentality on others or being completely defiant about things even when they know it’s wrong. We should be working to change these things in our Mosques. If Mosques have to implement strict rules and Imams have to talk about basic etiquette every of the 30 days, so be it. If we can’t use this month to improve ourselves as people, and as an Ummah, then what really is the point?

At a Halaqah one day the Shaikh asked us about the Ayah: “Indeed, Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves.” First, he pointed out that this is a personal responsibility for each of us, not a collective one. Then he asked what does “in themselves” mean? It means everything that is inside of us in our hearts: Inclinations, intentions, desires, feelings, objectives, plans, direction, attitudes, characteristics. We have to ask ourselves what we are inside, what we harbor and move our hearts forward towards Allah by attaining different characteristics that Allah loves – like moving from being angry to being calm; from being impatient to patient; from being miserly to being generous; from being vulgar to having Haya; from being greedy to being selfless; from feeling sovereignty to being humble; from being agitated to being composed. We should be adorning our hearts with these beautiful characteristics so that before we die we’ve attained a pool of characteristics that are “divine like” (because the Divine likes them), so we are worthy of being with the Divine. Is this not a true expression of the whole purpose of Ramadan?

Lastly, the scariest moments for me this Ramadan was post-the earthquake we had here. During the earthquake you’re just immobile, almost enthralled as realization dawns on you that this really is an earthquake. It’s actually fascinating how everything that is solid moves… the floor, the desk, the walls. For some seconds you’re just amazed, almost as if the matrix that holds our world together is blipping on the disk and the mirage of Dunya bends. Then it comes back together and is gone. That’s when you feel fear, of what could have been. That small shaking could easily have been huge shaking bringing down the entire house and everything in it like paper. They said 12 million people felt this quake. Definitely a reminder from Allah showing us that this Dunya is indeed illusory.

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In the end, I think I realized that Ramadan isn’t meant to be easy for us. I think it can be a difficult month to kind of make us go through a trial by fire and come out cleansed at the end. It can almost be Hajj like in its intensity with all the Ramadan crowds, the annoyances, the screaming kids, the amount of work, the long days, the physical hardships of just being tired, hungry and thirsty. Sometimes it can be really lonely for single people, converts, or those without big families. We often have to deal with other wack Muslims, cultural ideas and even judgmental aunties!

I can understand why some people would want to just stay home, but I believe that they would be missing out on many of the blessings of the community and being together. Like when someone shares food with you or you help cleanup together or when everyone cries when Surah Rahman is read in Salah or you meet someone you haven’t seen in a long while or someone new. When you hear something that enlightens you spiritually or someone brings a whole bowl of jasmine flowers picked from her garden just for you because she thinks you’re sweet. (Yeah I raised my eyebrows too ;D) Despite all the problems in our world, we can pray to Allah side by side and say Ameen to a beautiful Dua at Witr together.

I think when we are patient and turn back to Allah in these turbulent times of riots and earthquakes, when we swallow our anger, or forgive, or do Ibadah even when we’re tired or hungry, each of us becomes a better person, closer to Allah and that, that is worth all the madness!!

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May Allah bless you all. I ask Allah to reward everyone who went through some hardship, sadness or loneliness this Ramadan. May Allah grant respite to those suffering through drought in Africa, and those living under oppression in Shaam, Libya and Gaza, and those under enormous difficulties, individual and collective, in other places in the world. O Giver of refuge for those who seek refuge, Beloved of those who love, Hope of those who are cut off and the One who is with broken hearts; Ya Allah.

Rabbighfirlana, Taqabbal Minna wa Astajeeb Duaana.

P.S. Please, please make a Dua for me in one of these last few days of Ramadan left. I could really use them for the coming year ahead. Jazaks!

One sunny summer’s day I found myself parked in front of a yellow house. I could not stop staring at it. I was mesmerized by the way the sun and shadow danced its way across the chipping paint. This was my childhood friend’s house. Her name was Z. All my memories of her flickered across the walls of the house as if there was a projector. Doing each other’s hair, trying out our first eyeliner together, finding out about periods. Hanging out at the Mosque, going to camps together, writing in our yearbooks. Sleepovers and crushes, decorating my house for my 16th birthday. How she looked at her Henna party. Beautiful almond eyes and a white lace dress. Parting forever.

I felt an unbearable sense of lost.

She was a Cambodian Muslim that came to the US with her family as refugees in the 80′s.  Their family was big and crazy and ethnic and I loved her like my own sister and she loved me.

They said the chemicals from the war must have affected her when she was little. That’s why she got sick. She got married at 17, normal for their culture she said. And this was actually a love marriage because he was a friend of her brother’s whom she had met and talked to on the phone. She showed me her photo album of him with his picture cut out into hearts. She left and got married. I saw the pictures. The Cambodian traditional orange-red ornate wedding dress and the white bridal dress. The gold necklace. The happy contented face.

Then the phone calls. She’s sick. She was taken away in an ambulance. She fainted. She has cancer. She’s gone.

At 18 you don’t see any wisdom in losing one of your best friends. You only feel anger. Angry at God for taking away your best friend. Someone who had everything, who was so innocent and pure. Why take her out of all people? Were there not rapists and evil people on the Earth? Why take her? And then… why didn’t God take me? What did I have to live for? She had everything and I had nothing.

Whenever I am at a low point in my life or death comes close to me, I think of her. Allah kept me here for something, I tell myself. To do something. I can’t leave yet. I can’t just give up. She would be so mad at me if I just gave up.

The wisdom of years and now…I think now… she’s safe, at peace. It was khair. She doesn’t have to live out our worldly trials and concerns. Our struggles and pains. She’s happy. She’s waiting for us.

Pray for my friend, pray for me.

Wsalam.

This past September two unlikely events took place that I’m sure no one reading this remarked. The first was the demise of the soap opera ‘As the World Turns’. It stopped spinning the world of Oakdale, IL on Sept 17, 2010.

As a young wife my mother came to the US in 1979. The 1980′s were very hard for her with 3 young children and 1 on the way. She didn’t know the language, the people or anything else. The amount of Indian families here at that time were a handful. She used to watch ATWT every day. She said the character of ‘Steve’ a Greek, tall dark and handsome reminded her of her beloved brother an ocean away. She watched the storyline of Steve and Betsy (a then unfamous ‘Meg Ryan’) and their famous wedding along with millions of others. And even learned a lot of English from watching.

Over the years, I remember watching on and off when I was home sick or we had a day off. (I think the storyline of Shannon the beautiful dark haired/green eyed Irish girl who was one of the runaways at a Scottish castle halfway house (yeah I know u’d have to watch it to get it lol!) started my love of all things British.) It was something that was on in the background, familiar friends who had their share of ups and downs, excitements and troubles. We’d tune in every so often and notice that some familiar characters never seemed to change! Lisa always had a new husband, James the villain always mysteriously seemed to survive. Lily and Holden’s love story seemed unending.

So when I heard that they had canceled the show and it was going away forever, it made me very sad. Millions of women like my mother have watched the show for years. It’s comforted them and been their friends for so long. There have been women who watched the show for decades. I’m sure they are quite devastated about it, even if after all ‘it’s just a TV show’.

In the end it signals a real change in our world. Women just don’t have the time to sit and watch an hour show while doing laundry or feeding the baby like they did even a decade ago. Our world is so fast changing and career oriented. Even women who stay home with their kids just don’t have the time. Game shows and reality television are what will be on in the daytime now.

One day my mother was skipping around the channels and said, “I never see ATWT anymore, I don’t know when they show it now?” I just didn’t have the heart to tell her.

The second event that happened is that we got a new library! After some millions of dollars, 3 years of wait, our newly renovated neighborhood library opened its doors in September. This new library is supposed to have a new innovative green design with a main skylight, tiled floors and books arranged by subject (like at bookstores) instead of the Dewey Decimal system. It has a new teen section, dvd/music section, round table computer stations for adults and rows of computers for kids. It has boardroom like community rooms and glass office type rooms for the public along with a huge circulation desk at the entrance. And I hate it. Not just hate it, I loathe it.

When did libraries turn into community centers? or day cares? or public computer halls? It’s just so ugly… and tiles??? in a library?? The floors are just so dirty in winter and there’s no place for kids and babies to even sit. I just hate it. Did I mention I hate it? The sitting areas are all completely open so wherever you sit everyone else on the floor can see you. The computer desks are round tables that have 8 computers around them. They have tiny “privacy shields” for the sides but everyone walking by can see everything you’re doing on the computer. The one table with chairs is supposedly the study area for everyone. Last time I was there two girls incessantly talked for like an hour in Hindi, loudly, about their (boring) lives. The thin metal shelves are very low or extremely high and sparsely filled with books in a random fashion. They say it’s arranged by subject, but I never can find books I’m looking for. I sometimes find the next book in a series by the same author in a totally different place! There are no little desks tucked away or private nooks. There are also huge numbers of people there all the time. I feel like I’m in blockbuster or at the supermarket. People in and out, screaming, talking, whatever. It just does not feel like a library at all.

When I was growing up our library was in a beautiful restored Victorian mansion!! Wide double arched doors and you would enter this mysterious building with real circular towers. Inside there was a little circulation desk built into the side of the hall like a check-in desk at an old inn. Going through the house’s different rooms would be various collections of books, floor to ceiling in thick wooden shelves with little ladders or stacked around. Old desks and tables were everywhere. You could be in a room for a while and then only realize there was someone reading in the corner! Upstairs was the kid’s section with bean bags and tiny small shelves, fuzzy carpets and rocking chairs. The circular room’s windows would let lovely light and shadows into the room. It would always be quiet and creaking. Never dusty or dirty, just old and special.

Anyway again I’m really sad… I hate going there and it’s walking distance from my house! Now I drive all the way downtown to the main library which still has some real library elements left. Sigh, as the world turns indeed eh ……..

Have you ever walked into a building, met someone, or been in a situation where you felt every hair on your neck raise up. You feel panic, or that something’s not right. Or just scared, even though the situation is a completely normal one? You just have that intuition that everything is not as it seems? Do you feel like whatever happened in the past in a place can be felt by people now? Does the past give off vibrations or nuances that can be felt by people now, by just walking into a room maybe?

As Muslims, we do believe there is a whole host of activity outside our own senses. Such as the world of the Angels all around us, recording our actions, gathering together, charged with various tasks. The world of the Jinn seems to be right here as well. Not to mention the space-time continuum recording everything. Even in the world of the heart there is so much going on outside of what we know. The Quran describes things like a dead heart, a struggling heart, an ‘angelic’ heart. Things like evil eye exist in Islam and are very real.

I read not long ago about a study where they had people stare at someone in a concentrating manner for a certain period of time and then noted down if the person turned around to look at them. Their findings were never conclusive but they noted that there did seem to be some kind of correlation between someone staring at someone’s back and them turning around.

I used to work in an old office building here in downtown. It was our ‘temporary office’ until our beautiful new green building was completed. This old office building was ordinarily enough next to a few clothing and jewelery stores. A restaurant was near the corner. We were given passcards to enter and leave when we needed to. Our hours were in various shifts and sometimes that would be until 9pm at night. There was just something about this building that was so spooky. None of us wanted to be there alone. Even in the early morning at 8am I would always be turning around looking around me. At night I couldn’t wait to get out of there. After some time we found out that this building used to be an old-world nightclub in the ’30s and was always filled with gangsters, famous politicians and beautiful women of the time. But what it was most famous for we found out was many ‘assassinations’ at that location of politicians or mafia. Laugh if you want, but when we walked into our new quarters we didn’t feel anything. The place was brand new, clean and didn’t give off any vibes. Call that ambiance if you will, but I still feel like there is a lot going on that we can’t grasp but we sometimes feel.

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As you may (or may not) know, I try to post something every Friday. Just to spread things out a bit and in case I run out of things to say there’s always some backup for a bit! Now, I often have people that disagree with my posts, which I have no problem with (when it’s done in a rational appropriate manner). My problem would be when you make the disagreement personal (why do you think you know me, mr./ms. person on the internet?) or you ARE someone who knows me and write hostile things here on the blog (a person’s blog is definitely an appropriate place to attack them <./sarcasm>). Uhhhh? Can we say mental health issues. So basically I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. My website/blog/facebook whatever is not a democracy. You can’t write whatever you want here. It doesn’t belong to you. I run it the way I see as beneficial to everyone and myself. And if you don’t like it sorry, you are free to go elsewhere.

I know this sounds mean, but you see, I will be responsible for my actions on the Day of J. and I don’t want to be responsible for yours. If I see something wrong, inappropriate or not beneficial I will censor/delete/not approve it. I honestly can’t understand why someone wouldn’t and I’m sure if you thought about it, and you were in my place, you would agree as well.

So… long rant about my personal defects in the “guise of Naseeha”… delete. (delete “friendship” too) Inappropriate post about my personal life… not approved. Arguments and links that are pro-terrorism… banned. Anti-Islamic missionary post… delete. Reply on how Muslim girls in the west are all sl*ts… not approved. Detailed opinion of why everyone should take off hijab and why u think it’s not fard… not approved. Posts calling other Muslims Kafir… banned. etc etc. You get the picture.

So I’m just putting this out there. I know there are some Islamic sites out there where anything and everything is allowed. From inappropriateness, to outright attacks on people and I must add outright filth. Their philosophy is that ‘the cream will rise to the top’ and that these things will be weeded out by positive/negative peer pressure. Good luck with that. It does make for an active forum, but it also gives rise to clear Dhulm. Who will be responsible for it in the end? The poster? The others who participate? The moderator? The website owner? I’m going to say all of the above.

And I’m going to say that is what happens when there is no leadership, no clear vision, no values. Yes, a person in charge may make mistakes. They may err on the side of caution or liberality. They may not always be “fair” in your own subjective opinion. You may even be “right”, but your right may not be greater than the beneficial whole. Do you see what I’m saying? But without leadership and yes even censorship, things quickly dissolve into chaos, and as I mentioned wrong is put on a platform equal to right. And that’s something I’m not going to be responsible for.

Again, there are appropriate ways to dissent, disagree or even interact with someone you don’t like that I can totally be fine with. Learn them. Ok sorry to bring up this ugly underbelly of website business. But it needed to be said. If you have any questions on this, please let me know. Thank u, come again.