Thoughts of a Hijaabi

So I teach at these Qur’an classes and teaching is a good way to get an insight to our future Ummah, and all I gotta say is the future scares me. I think we need to pay attention, a lot more attention to the kids, they’re our future, and we can’t ignore them or push them off to the side. I work with kids from ages 4-16 and each one of them are different. They each have to be understood- know where they are coming from, what kind of background they have, so that you can know how to properly teach them, how to approach them with the materials and lessons that need to be taught. I think the most important thing that we need to do is be very careful with how we approach the young ones with Islam, the other day one of my very young and bright students said to me “I don’t want to be Muslim anymore, I quit.” I was juss shocked, I didn’t know what to do or how to respond. I asked her why she wanted to “quit” and she said she juss wants to be “a normal girl, an American.” I said you can be an American Muslim, and she said, “No, I just want to be a normal American girl and that’s it.” I was so sad, she juss turned 7 years old, so smart, knows very much for her age and was saying that she doesn’t want to be Muslim anymore. I asked her why do you feel like you’re not “normal,” and she said that she doesn’t like to wear “this!” “This” referring to the hijaab and jilbaab that she was wearing. I juss thought to myself and said hm, I can’t give this little girl a lecture on hijaab, and hayah-modesty. I asked her why do you come here and she said because she needs to read “this book”-referring to the Quaa’idah. I asked her why do you have to come and read this book and continued asking why until she finally answered back “because I am a Muslim.” That made me feel better hearing her say that she is doing this because she is Muslim and I thought hm I’m sure that can count as her coming to masjid for the sake of Allah

Khayr what does all of this rambling mean? We need to be very careful with kids. Kids are so delicate, my friends and I have siblings that are much younger than us and we would joke around saying oh watch out don’t do this or that because they will be scarred for life. But jokes aside you don’t wanna do anything that will scar kids and make them not like the Deen. We live in scary times, there is Islamaphobia all over the place, and people try to act or dress in a certain way that is accepted and apparently juss being Muslim is an unacceptable thing for both kids and society these days.

We need to make kids love our deen, we need to get kids excited to learn more about our Deen and get through to them that being Muslim isn’t weird. Khayr, make du’a for ourselves, our Ummah, and our future Ummah.

Take care inshaAllah.

-radf

Allahumma sali ala sayyidina muhammadin an-Nabbiyil ummiyi Wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa salim.

This is one of my favorite Talib al-Habib nasheeds, Hilya. The lyrics are so beautiful, watch/listen to it or juss read the lyrics.

Lyrics:

Hilya- A Pen Portrait of the Prophet

Balagha al-`ula bi kamalihi
Kashafa ad-duja bi jamalihi
Hasunat jami`u khisalihi
Sallu `alayhi wa aalihi

For his face, that shone like the sun and moon
For the smile, that lightened a darkened room
For his life, that turned night to brightest noon
Send peace on him and his family.
As his hands brought fragrance to all they touched
With a perfume sweeter than rose or musk
His remembrance perfumes the dawn and dusk
Send peace on him and his family.

For his hair, that shone ebony and black
That like streams cascaded towards his neck
For the seal of prophecy upon his back
Send peace on him and his family.
For his teeth, that shone with a diamond’s gleam
For his neck, like silver and ivory
For his wisdom, priceless beyond all things
Send peace on him and his family.

For his hands that toiled yet were smooth and soft
For his feet that swelled as he worshipped God
For the marks on his back that brought tears to Umar
Send peace on him and his family.
When his blessed body was pierced by rocks
With blood streaming forth, he gave this response
‘Oh Allah, forgive them, for they know not!’
Send peace on him and his family.

For his name is Ahmad and Muhammad
He is praised in heaven and praised on earth
Though no praise can reach to his true worth
Send peace on him and his family.
All who came to him were in awe of him
All who stayed with him fell in love with him
Oh! How fortunate to have been one of them
Send peace on him and his family.

I think one day my brother and I were talking about something and then he started laughing and I asked why and he said nothing he juss remembered something from this blog so I asked what blog and he said Stuff White People Like. With a title like that who wouldn’t be curious to go see what the blog is about. So I went on the blog, its pretty funny. The blogger has a section called Full List of Stuff White People Like, so for a good laugh read the list below or go to the site and read the article of whichever one you find funny.

• #102 Children’s Game’s as Adults
• #101 Being Offended
• #100 Bumper Stickers
• #99 Grammar
• #98 The Ivy League
• #97 Scarves
• #96 New Balance Shoes
• #95 Rugby
• #94 Free Healthcare
• #93 Music Piracy
• #92 Book Deals
• #91 San Francisco
• #90 Dinner Parties
• #89 St. Patrick’s Day
• #88 Having Gay Friends
• #87 Outdoor Performance Clothes
• #86 Shorts
• #85 The Wire
• #84 T-Shirts
• #83 Bad Memories of High School
• #82 Hating Corporations
• #81 Graduate School
• #80 The Idea of Soccer
• #79 Modern Furniture
• #78 Multilingual Children
• #77 Musical Comedy
• #76 Bottles of Water
• #75 Threatening to Move to Canada
• #74 Oscar Parties
• #73 Gentrification
• #72 Study Abroad
• #71 Being the only white person around
• #70 Difficult Breakups
• #69 Mos Def
• #68 Michel Gondry
• #67 Standing Still at Concerts
• #66 Divorce
• #65 Co-Ed Sports
• #64 Recycling
• #63 Expensive Sandwiches
• #62 Knowing What’s Best for Poor People
• #61 Bicycles
• #60 Toyota Prius
• #59 Natural Medicine
• #58 Japan
• #57 Juno
• #56 Lawyers
• #55 Apologies
• #54 Kitchen Gadgets
• #53 Dogs
• #52 Sarah Silverman
• #51 Living by the Water
• #50 Irony
• #49 Vintage
• #48 Whole Foods and Grocery Co-ops
• #47 Arts Degrees
• #46 The Sunday New York Times
• #45 Asian Fusion Food
• #44 Public Radio
• #43 Plays
• #42 Sushi
• #41 Indie Music
• #40 Apple Products
• #39 Netflix
• #38 Arrested Development
• #37 Renovations
• #36 Breakfast Places
• #35 The Daily Show/Colbert Report
• #34 Architecture
• #33 Marijuana
• #32 Vegan/Vegetarianism
• #31 Snowboarding
• #30 Wrigley Field
• #29 80s Night
• #28 Not having a TV
• #27 Marathons
• #26 Manhattan (now Brooklyn too!)
• #25 David Sedaris
• #24 Wine
• #23 Microbreweries
• #22 Having Two Last Names
• #21 Writers Workshops
• #20 Being an expert on YOUR culture
• #19 Traveling
• #18 Awareness
• #17 Hating their Parents
• #16 Gifted Children
• #15 Yoga
• #14 Having Black Friends
• #13 Tea
• #12 Non-Profit Organizations
• #11 Asian Girls
• #10 Wes Anderson Movies
• #9 Making you feel bad about not going outside
• #8 Barack Obama
• #7 Diversity
• #6 Organic Food
• #5 Farmer’s Markets
• #4 Assists
• #3 Film Festivals
• #2 Religions their parents don’t belong to
• #1 Coffee

Chocolate, ‘Part of a Balanced Diet’?

By: Mike Nizza

In a British newspaper today, a 37-year-old man claimed to have settled into an extraordinary lust for Mars chocolate bars. A 12-bar-a-day habit, which began 17 years ago, is fortified with orange juice and vitamins, Keith Sorrell claimed.

Far from some dire plea, Anne Sidnell of the British Nutrition Foundation offered a surprisingly evenhanded assessment. “He seems to get enough vitamin C and the bars could provide enough calcium and protein,” she told The Sun. “But he’s missing out on fiber, which will have an effect as he ages.”

The company offered another surprise, warning against such extreme loyalty to their product while also making clear that some was clearly warranted. “We encourage people to enjoy chocolate as part of a balanced diet,” a spokesperson said.

Chocolate? Part of a balanced diet? The assertion is vague enough to be true, of course. And Mars Inc. happens to be the chocolate company that is crusading to find ways to prove its product is healthier than widely assumed.

Two years ago, the company unveiled CocoaVia, a chocolate bar rich in flavanols, a natural chemical that has antioxidant properties. The product line was expanded a year later, not that there was any doubt that Mars officials were very serious about the idea of healthy chocolate. From a New York Times article in 2005:

“Heart disease is the No. 1 killer in the world, and chocolate is the No. 1 favorite ingredient in the world,” said Jim Cass, Mars’s vice president of marketing. “When you put those two giant macro trends together, we know this is a big idea.”

While boldly recommending two servings of CocoaVia a day, Mars officials were also aware that they had a steep hill to climb in winning over consumers. Here are two revealing quotes from a 2004 piece in The New York Times magazine titled Eat Chocolate, Live Longer?:

As Carl Keen, at U.C. Davis, put it: “If Mars were some sort of juice company, they would find this far easier to market, but they’re in a difficult position because they’re a confectionary company. The marketing here is much, much more difficult than if they were selling a fruit or a vegetable.” [Harold Schmitz, chief science officer of Mars], too, has no illusions about what’s ahead. “Nutrition is already controversial,” he said, “and you can imagine that chocolate nutrition is about 1,000 times more controversial.”

Nevertheless, the company is aggressively pushing forward by funding independent studies on the health properties of chocolate. “Mars has become the world leader in cocoa science,” one official recently told The Pioneer Press.

Last week, people lined up in London to join a Mars-sponsored study that asked them to “eat a bar of chocolate daily for a year, guilt-free and all in the name of science,” as one paper put it. Indeed, Mr. Schmitz said in a recent interview that more than 100 peer-reviewed papers had been published on chocolate with financial help from Mars.

Last week, one of the studies sparked promising headlines for diabetics who love chocolate. Flavanols may increase circulation, scientists said, though more research was needed before any final conclusions. Mars may have smiled at the result, but it came with a note of caution from the study’s author to diabetics to stay away from the chocolate for now.

“This research focuses on what’s at the true heart of the discussion on “healthy chocolate,” Malte Kelm said in a news release. “It’s about cocoa flavanols, the naturally occurring compounds in cocoa.”

Aside from the scientific questions that remain, there’s a supply problem as well. The product in stores — and in the pockets and cabinets of Britain’s chief chocoholic, Mr. Sorrell — contains far less flavanols than in the stuff in the labs at the moment.

Source: The New York Times

Poem Dedicated to al-Imam Abul Hasan ash-Shadhili Radiya Allah ‘anhu
September 5th, 2006
Dedicated to al-Imam Abul Hasan ash-Shadhili Radiya Allah ‘anhu

By Muhammad al-Yaqoubi

This is a rough translation of the poem that I wrote yesterday (14th Aug.) on the way to the shrine of al-Imam Abul Hasan ash-Shadhili, may Allah be satisfied with him and may He allow us to benefit from his secrets and knowledge. The shrine is on the old hajj road in the southern part of Egypt five hour drive from Luxur through a town called Idfu. We were five - four people accompanied me from Cairo. When we were few hours away from the shrine, I found the words coming on my mouth so I jotted them down. When we arrived, I recited the poem before him in the blessed maqam where his presence was felt and it was overwhelming. I spent sometime making du’a for many people and I mentioned most of my student by name. The song in Arabic is written after the pattern of the famous song (ya imam rusli yaa sanadi).

Poem follows below…

The Qutb of all Qutbs throughout times is Abul Hasan ash-Shadhili; An Ocean of Secrets and an Imam of Guidance For whom the soul is the least price.

He led to the Master and climbed
in virtue to highest peaks
And brought in this discipline what
Made it more august than all branches.

Knowing Allah is his End,
So follow him through this path
And the Messenger of Allah is his Means
So, stick to his Sunnas.

The foundation of his way is built
On the Purification of the Heart from all stains So, journey with the Single Name O, You, Sufi! And seek assistance from Allah.

Be absent, and annihilate from all beings, as No one remains save he who is annihilated in Him; And enter the doors of the Unseen and ask Whatever you want, but guard the secrets

Drink the glass of Gnosis and taste
The Secret of Tawheed and be not
Make due the love for the men of Allah
And the love for the Imam of all of them Abul Hasan

Stick yourself to the pure thresholds
If you come to Humaithara, where is the home And in ‘Aydhaab stop and sink your cheeks in the soil And put your soul in the grave and a guarantee

Be thankful to Allah and pray on
Taha in secret and in public
And on Ahlul bayt all,
O friend and give salutations while you humble yourself

The son of al-Yaqoubi has come with
No claims, dressed only in the cloths of his coffin So, turn to him O my master And to all of us with your bounties

My brother showed me this. Ya Rubb, this video hurts to watch. As much as the media tries to cover up things like this the truth ends up coming out-guilt is very strong and no matter how hard the press or the government tries to hide what is really happening, eventually the truth it will come out. This video hurts to watch,  it brought tears to my ears and hurt my heart. The fact that unarmed and innocent people are being murdered, the fact that masaajids are being fired at for no reason… ya Rubb what a cruel world we are living in. Watch the video and spread it to all you know. Watch the video, it is certainly worth the time, and see how it makes you feel.

-radf

Ya Rubb, Ya Rahman, Ya Raheem, protect the innocents of the world.

Source: MujahideenRyder

Unfortunately I don’t have many elderly around me. My grandparents on my fathers side passed away quite some time ago-my grandmother on my fathers side passed away when my father was young and my grandfather on my fathers side passed away when I was a little girl. My grandparents on my mothers side are alive, hamdulillah, but they live all the way in California and I can barely see them. I always wish that my grandparents were here, so that I could help them out or even juss listen to their stories. It sounds a little strange but I always love listening to the elderly talk about “back in the day,” stories about when they were kids. We should respect the elderly, and realize what an honor it really is to be able to take care of them. To have the elderly present in your home shouldn’t be thought of as a burden, rather it should be thought of as a blessing from Allah. It is written in the Qur’an, “Your Lord has commanded that you worship none but Him, and that you be kind to your parents. If one or both of them reach old age with you, do not say to them a word of disrespect, or scold them, but say a generous word to them. And act humbly to them in mercy, and say, ‘My Lord, have mercy on them, since they cared for me when I was small.” (17: 23-24) It makes me so sad when I see nursing homes, how kids, or adults rather, today simply send their parents off to nursing homes and see them about once or twice a year. Our beloved Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) advised us to be kind towards the elderly. Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) said, “Any young person who is kind to an elderly because of his age, Allah will send him someone who will be kind to him when he becomes old [Tarmazi].” You know how when we were little we were always told “Treat others as you would like to be treated,” well we should be in this mindset all the time. Something we tend to forget to do is to put ourselves in others shoes. Imagine being old, like really old, would you want your child or children to say “Ok thanks for everything, take care and go have fun with all the other elderly in your new nursing home.”

Any way… the reason I thought of this is because today I was outside cleaning my car and my parents cars and I saw my neighbor come outside. Next door to us lives this elderly couple, Victor and Barbra, they’re so sweet and ever since I was little I would go say hi to them and talk to them. When I’m outside and when I see them I go up to them say hi and talk to them for a bit. I really do love talking to them, it’s so interesting to listen to them and their inputs, they’re such nice people. Today when I saw them Victor, or Uncle Victor as my father has taught us to call him, he said “You are like my grand daughter and you still look like a little girl to me.” I realized that hamdulillah, my family has done a good job, we treat our neighbors like family and they treat us like family too, in fact they treat me better than some of my family members. I remember last year when I graduated from high school they sent me a card and a gift congratulating me on graduating high school. When I talk to the lady she always gives me amazing advice that really helps me out- she is a retired teacher, and I would like to be a teacher inshaAllah, so it’s very helpful to hear her input. It’s really nice to have them as neighbors and there were also other elderly people that lived in our neighborhood who were also very nice. The thing I love the most about this lady is that she is so open minded and she was telling  me how she is so proud that I dress the way that I do (hijaab and jilbaab) even though it may be hard to do it in the town that we live in-a pretty white town, or as she said “plain mayo and white bread is all you see around here.” I always enjoy talking to her and in the end she always advises me to read a book, this time she advised me to read, “Lies My Teacher Told Me,” I’ve read a part of it, I’m gunna have to go hit up the library pretty soon.

I really like my neghborhood, hamdulillah I have such great neighbors- they’re always there if we need help or anything and hamdulillah my parents have such a great relationship with them. Our beloved Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said, “The rights of the neighbor is that, when he is sick you visit him; when he dies, you go to his funeral; when he is poor you lend him (money); when he is in need you protect him; when he is in happiness you congratulate him; when he is struck with a calamity, you condole him; don’t raise your building above his to cut off the wind from him; don’t harm him with the good smell of your food unless you let him have part of it” [Tabarani]. SubhanAllah that hadith pretty much outlines how we should be interacting with our neighbors. My parents always check up on our neighbors and because of that they do the same, it’s a good feeling that there are still people that care for one another. We live in a society where tempers can’t be controlled, where family can’t tolerate each other and where compassion and sympathy for one another is at an all time low. Knowing that the people next to you, behind you, in front and even across from you are there for you when you may need help is a very good feeling. The family that lives across the street from my house came up with this neat idea last summer, they came up with something called movie night. Each weekend or so that family sets up this huge screen and plays a movie, and all of the neighbors get together and bring food and chat amongst each other catching up and talking about whats going on. When I first heard about it I juss thought, subhanAllah, and when you see how much work the family puts in for these nights its really a cool thing. They go through the trouble with putting up the big screen, setting up an extra tent for all of the food, setting up the back yard, making sure everyone’s comfortable-its juss amazing to see how great these people are. I’m so thankful for the neighborhood that I live in, and that my parents follow the Sunnah especially in their interaction with our neighbors. So if you have neighbors try to check up on them every so often, take a plate of food introduce yourself to them-but don’t scare them and constantly show up that might be a little scary. It’ll make the Ummah look a little better and what an amazing dawah opportunity. You’ll have friends who can defend Islam, they’ll see the way you act and you can break some misconceptions. There is such a big gap between people who are different. We the Muslims are the “different people” and we make up the majority of the gap; and the only way we can fix it is if we put ourselves out there and educate people. Who knows maybe inshaAllah we can end this Islamaphobia

Take care inshaAllah.

-radf

Allahumma sali ala sayyidina muhammadin an-Nabbiyil ummiyi Wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa salim.

The other night my brother and I were sitting around and reminiscing about our childhoods. Things were so different when we were little, we were thinking about all the differences there are between us and our younger siblings. It made me think about what I used to do when I was little. I remember being a kid- I used to play those hand games and cats cradle. I would always have fun dressing up my Barbie dolls-mostly juss fixing their hair and trying to figure out why some of them had such small clothing. I also loved bead work and making bracelets and such, actually I still do make bracelets (it’s very relaxing and fun ). I realized that little girls, or juss kids in general, don’t really do things like this anymore. Hamdulillah my youngest brother doesn’t play video games, and we try to keep him away from them, but when I go outside I see how addicted kids are to games and stuff.

When I was little I used to carry around with me my string and stuff and I would work on my bracelets, now when I look around kids are all wired up- their i-pod in their ears and their DS in their hands. And don’t blame the kids. For example in my own personal experience I text message a little too much and when I go out sometimes I can be completely oblivious to what is going on and juss stand somewhere and continue to text-it’s pretty sad. My parents always ask me why I can’t simply pick up the phone and call my friends and call them, I really don’t know why, I guess texting is juss more convenient.

Technology is taking so much away from us, people would rather sit on their couches play the Wii and pretend that they are fishing instead of getting up and going outside and really go fishing. Technology is so advanced, I mean remember when the i-pod came out and we were juss like “WOW,” and then more and more versions came out and it juss got ridiculous. The other day I went to a Macy’s and there was an i-pod vending machine! Who thought of that?!? Today I don’t even use my i-pod anymore, all I do is put everything I want to listen to on a memory chip, put that in my phone, plug in the adapter to my phone and I can listen to it in my car or plug in my head phones.

I think that it’s so sad that girls don’t play with dolls, or make jewelry or any of the other things that I used to do, maybe technology is a little too much-or maybe I juss don’t like feeling old, who knows maybe both. But technology is making us a lot more isolated. I mean there are certain people that I only e-mail, or some people that I only IM, it’s a little sad how there are people that we talk to online but never make time to see them in person. Recently I’ve been looking for a job, and a couple of the places that I went to they gave me a website and told me to apply online and wait for an e-mail response, they said that they don’t even have interviews because there is a section online that takes cares of that!

But there are some benefits to technology, I mean SunniPath Q&A’s help us out, having newspapers online is convenient and free so there are also some bright sides to it.

Khayr I ramble too much.

Take care inshaAllah.

-radf

Allahumma sali ala sayyidina muhammadin an-Nabbiyil ummiyi Wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa salim.

SubhanAllah this is such an amazing video. It is such a beautiful story, watch/listen to the story told by Shaykh Muhammad Bin Yahya Al-Husayni Al-Ninowy.

Updated: Here is the whole lecture thanks to Br. Sufyan Yunus.

Updated 5/31/08.

It’s crazy how time flies. This time last year I was a senior in high school and I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my life and I had no idea where I would be going to college. If you were to tell me this time last year that I will be attending SUNY Old Westbury for my first year in college and that I will like the school, make some good friends and know what I would like to do with my life I would have probably laughed in your face. SubhanAllah time is crazy. On Tuesday (5/13) I completed my first year in college. I remember walking out of my last final thinking “I’m done…I’m done?!?” So much has happened in one year, and I learned many lessons. I remember this time last year I would be with some friends and we would say that we will come back and still be friends, but since high school ended I’ve “re-united” with about 2 friends and talked to some other friends through facebook-which really doesn’t mean anything. It goes to show that you can never know what the future holds for you. My parents always told me that I should be very careful with who I chose to be my friends, and who I chose to hang out or associate with. People come and go in your life, but the one’s that are there for you, that call or write to you no matter how far they are, the ones that check up on you, those are the ones that are your true friends. In high school we associate ourselves with groups, I think it’s in college when we learn that it’s better to have a couple of close friends that are there for you, care for you, change you in a positive way, and who understand you than to have a huge group of people who you call “friends.”

It seems that each year of my life goes by faster and faster. I can remember my freshmen year of high school, and I thought to myself wow I’m done with my first year of high school-and now I’m done with my first year of college. Time goes by so quickly, its a pretty scary concept. This year went by so fast I can’t imagine how fast next year and the year after that will go by. It shows that we need to make the best of each moment, never waste any time because time is something that we can’t control, and once its gone, its gone forever and we can never get it back. Khayr summer is here and well I avoided taking summer classes so now I might get a second job, but at least I can catch up on my deen, review the books that I have and try to go to as many lectures and stuff as possible over the summer-which reminds me, I need to go sign up for ICNA!

For those of you who are still taking finals, good luck and inshaAllah you’ll get A’s! For those of you who are done for the year, congratulations! Go take a break, relax, reflect on your accomplishments and give thanks to Allah for everything that you have.

Take care inshaAllah.

-radf