A dying world

The world has officially gone mad, the Muslim world that is! Not only do we have the longest list of occupied countries, countries in conflict, countries ruled by the worst that humanity has to offer, but now even in places where there was hope of unity an inkling of brotherhood appear to be falling apart under our stare.

I am struggling to take it all in, its breaking my heart. Palestine the olive of the Muslim world, the symbol of struggle against unimaginable aggression epitomized by the picture of a boy with a stone standing before a tank! Our symbol of struggle, What went wrong when did brother turn against brother simply because they come under the name of Fatah or Hamas! Now the Egyptian government is sending weapons to Fatah to be used against hHmas and surprise, surprise Israel has opened the border so that this can take place.

A little closer to home and Somalis are turning on each other AGAIN. Was it not bad enough when we simply slaughtered each other the first time? The South verse the North. And now it’s the struggle for power! What makes a brother take sides with an invading force?

Our problems as an Ummah have grown such that hope is all we have to hold on to. Allah says that we will not change the situation of a people until the people change within themselves. We have immense work to do! Each and everyone of us counts so lets get back to the basics so that our creator hears our du’as and enables us to live with the light and justice of Iman once more.

Awww....

I am so touched, I had moaned about my lost cookbook at work especially as I have been making progress in the feeding oneself department. Today I walked into work today to be handed a "beginners cook book". The team got together to buy me a replacement cookbook, how incredibly sweet and thoughtful is that!

In her shoes

The best vantage point for understanding behaviour is from the internal frame of reference of the individual.

Little toe

Too weeks of being on the early shift at work are finally starting to take its toll, especially as am making up for two weeks of doing the late shift, effectively meaning that I have not seen anyone other then those brave enough to drop by at my house. So for the past week and half I have been making up for the lack of social life, burning the candle at both ends as such.

Bearing in mind that I am incredibly tired, I made arrangements to meets Newbie and Liz yesterday but first maghrib was due so we made arrangements to meet at the MYF. I got to the myf bone tired, met Whitey’s dad on the way had a bit of a chat then made my way to the ladies area as isha was approaching.

I pulled of my boots, practically fell onto to the door which is incredibly heavy and while I was pulling on it I whacked by little toe. Which was incredibly painful so I screamed (how undignified), pulled the door and fell into the room, clutching my sock clad foot, hopping on one leg, pulling faces contoured with pain. And all this unwarranted exercise along with my 3jumpers of varying thickness made me feel hot so I started pulling of my coat and jumpers discarding them all over the floor till I could breathe.

Then I went to the wudu area, made wudu and prayed a very slow maghrib because I was so tired to only finish praying then realise by bag and clothes where on the other side of the room. It was an utter mess yet I really just didn’t have the energy to get up and collect them. I didn’t want poor unsuspecting woman walking into the room with my mess all over the floor. I was torn as to what to do and in the end I could only muster up enough energy to crawl across. So I collected a jumper and then carried on crawling to pick up my bag and the rest of my unassorted items. I got a hold of my bag only in mid crawl to realise that I had absolutely forgotten about the cctv camera in the room!

Oh my lord, I froze, I know the brothers who work in the MYF, and one of them is married of my friend!!! All I could think of was what did they see? What did they see? Oh god very slow version of my demented antics I must have temporally lost the ability to reason because instead of getting up composing myself and walking away I crawled backwards! Why? Walahi I don’t know I think somewhere in my beleaguered mind I must have though if I did it backwards I could have reverse the days events! How can I ever return?!

My Daddy

How can I write a piece to document the greatness of a 66 year old man. Its impossible to describe how much I love and respect my dad, I have stars in my eyes when I look at him the man is perfect in my eyes. He is all I could have hoped for as a father, as a wise friend as a permanent guardian.

Allah truly blessed us with a man who could take on the task of raising 6daughters and a son firstly in his native Hargaisa and then in his adopted mancheser. He raised us to think with our heads and our hearts. He taught us what it means to be a family and to love each other unconditionally, to be able to fight and bicker but make up in a few hours later. He taughts us about our creator and our Deen. He told us stories about a world in which Allah’s religion was upheld and practiced and made us long for it and wants to strive for it.

He tried his best to prepare us for this world and the next. We got dropped of at school early everyday and we were picked up by him everyday after. A constant pillar of wisdom and discipline, I never feared my daddy I feared his displeasure because he means so much to me. My daddy lived his life for our success not necessary in money or materialist things but our success as humans.

Having 6 daughters, living in a foreign country his worst fear has always been our welfare when he passes away. I remember my daddy very early on in my teens sitting me down and telling me that a father leaves his children 2things in this life, The deen and the means within which to look after themselves and since he wasn’t leaving us money he was leaving us with an educated, strong willed mind so that he could be confident that no matter what we could look after ourselves. He would never want us dependent on another human being.

I will never forget your gentle way of correcting my behaviour, of patting me on the head as your said “may allah grant your father paradise”. I will never forget you trying to teach me the value of time and at 22 am finally learning to be on time. I will never forget your reflective face or your vast knowledge, I will never forget the way you hum your istikhfar, or your love for the Qur’an. I will never forget the way you understood your responsibility as the head of the household, I will never forget the way you made us present our case when we wanted to do something you disagreed with instead of simply saying no! I will never forget the way that you love and respect my mother, your understanding of the worth of your woman. I thank you for making our childhood stable, we never feared that you or mummy would ever separate or divorce. We never saw you fight or disrespect each other, am sure you had almighty rows and fights but we never witnessed one! My friends say i live in a rainbow coloured bubble thats because my childhood was so special. Daddy you are the standard by whom I will judge the father of my children.

My father now a days likes to talk about being in his sunset years, According to him he is in his Maghrib years. He likes to remind us that death is inevitable and one day he will pass away. I can’t say I won’t be heart broken or cry for him but I am truly humbled by Allah’s blessing upon our household when he chose to grant us my daddy as our father. It is said true love never dies and my father will always be the one man I have loved above all men. After Allah and our prophet it most definately is you and my mother.

I LOVE YOU simply does not do justice as to how I feel about you! You have made me all that I am. I make du’a that Allah grants you a place in jannatual-firdaus amongst his most beloved, amongst his prophets, his martyrs, and the heroes of Islam because you are my hero.

Terminated

Hot of the press, my computer system at work has been defunct for 3days now. On Thursday when the problems started I thought it was heaven but occupying yourself in front of the computer purposelessly for 7.5 hours a day for 3 days is starting to take its toll.

Today is Monday and as usual the Monday blues are rampant and as it gets colder and colder its becoming more and more arduous. This morning I literally had to tip myself out of my bed and it was only the proceeding bump and subsequent pain of landing on my bag that woke me!

The beautiful bus journey was made even more exciting by getting stuck in traffic! Now that am on the early shift for the next 14days I have an immense amount of joy ahead of me every morning, bring out the voluminous books.

To then walk into work with a pass that isn’t working so I can’t access anywhere in the building. I approaching the reception area which doubles as the security hut I was …erm…how shall I put it surprised to find out that I have been TERMINATED! What on earth! Well apparently when someone leaves NTL their pass is terminated, So now that am an not actually working at NTL anymore my poor bereaved manager had to come down and vouch for me.

I finally made it into the building only to find out that my computer system that hasn’t been working is shockingly still not working, or rather acknowledging my existence. Oh joy.

The light of a day came in the form of my temporary contract coming to an end in a week and a half’s time. After I have another interview on Tuesday along with a few psychometric computer tests! The ultimate blow is that I will now be paid monthly!! Why oh why! Counting my pennies and turning the them into Egyptian curency in my head every friday is what ensures I actually get out of bed.

So to some up my Monday
The waking up almost killed me
The stupid bus almost killed me
NTL has terminated me
My weekly pay as well and truly been terminated