Ramadan Mubarak

moment of truth

It’s finally here! I have my counselling course interview this Wednesday although the course starts in September. Talk about last minute but I had to rearrange my July interview because I had the flu. So here I am waiting for a life changing decision for the first time in a long time I actually REALLY want to do something so please lots of du’as this way and inshallah khayr.

2 weeks on

I have been back in my own room, sleeping in my own bed, eating my mummys food, socialising with friends i have not seen for a long time and ones who came to Egypt, Evertheidealist wedding came and went. I am supposed to be job haunting but honestly i have not yet activiely tried am too busy enjoying the rain in manchester there is such a thing as getting too much sun.

To add to it all i have been having a long-term sleep over with newbie in my room as her manchester home is being renovated by the land-lord. Shukri had a girlie party on saturday, and i have another party to go to in two weeks time. Any excuse for food, music and all girlie fun.It it really any wonder that i have not been job haunting.

For the first time ever in one of these bring a dish parties i actually cooked and didn't just pop to a supermarket an hour or two before. I was so proud ;)

This weekend am going to sheffield to visit family. I am really looking forward to that. Eventually i will have to get on with some reading for the up coming counselling career!

I am back

Yep am back in rainy ole manchester, alhamdulilah couldn't be better family, friends and my beloved rain. i have arrived

when things go wrong

The girls have been here for two weeks and a bit now and the non beautiful highlights of the trip are

1)The girls arrived a day earlier then I had planned for and where stranded in luxor airport (which by the way is so much cheaper and you can fly directly from Manchester airport only takes 5hours)

2) The travel agent messed up my ticket changing my surname to HUSSEIN but I still managed to fly from Aswan to cairo as Nhussein domestic flight eh…am not sure how I feel about that, or how save these domestic flights are especially as people who are not who they claim to be can board, but I was grateful I made it to cairo.

3) A taxi driver tryed to drop us of on street corner in Cairo at 2am because we wouldn’t go to his overly priced hotel. His reasoning was that he was going home to his wife the little ******** and to his thinking it was okay to leave a group of females on a deserted street corner. I have never felt so angry in my life and the brother knows about it the little…..

4) Katrina, Asia and I where in a taxi when a man threw what looked like a piece of rubbish into Asia’s window. The girls start shouting at him when Asia unravels the piece of paper and we realise it’s his mobile number and name…MEN!

5)Katrina and Amina lost their digital cameras so we went to the police to report it, then the consulate only to be told they need 350 L.E to translate each statement and verify it. I wonder just how helpful they would be in a real emergency. Pathetic

6)Three of the girls got mild food poisoning (from a kofta sandwich), I stayed with them and we all missed Mount Sinai poor loves.

7) Some of us missed the train to Alex and had to catch the Superjet which although is rather luxurious simply doesn’t give you enough room, take the train every time.

8)In Luxor Sarah (aka newbie) called my name and within second the whole market was chanting my name…weird I tell you.

9) A group of the girls got locked in a hotel room, the handle broke and they where stranded. All this happened on our first night of arrive and the hotel staff had to break the handle and get the girls to throw down the key from the 7floor.

10) I had a mini breakdown in the first week where I walked of and left the girls in a market in Aswan because I couldn’t handle so many differing voice and the indecisions and simply taking so many into account. Talk about need to be reintroduced to society. I wondered around Aswan to re-centreJ

11) Beenish had her phone stolen 2hours before leaving for the airport!

luxor,Aswan and now cairo

Dear lord

am sooo old and the longer this crazy trek continues the more i realise that Newbie and i are old beyond our time. Any given opportunity we find a cafe and have a tea fix!The girls have so much energy and are so much fun alhamdulilah that sometimes we just don't realise were the time has gone.

After level 3 i needed sometime to just let loose and this has certainly been it. You can imagine how excitable 9 girls become...it all makes me laugh alhamdulilha

I have a lot of tails to tell but its past 2am and i have a 6 hour bus ride to sinai and then a climb so am going to go to sleep and see just how fit i am now as compared to 2 years ago when i got to the top by foot.

trying 48 hours

There are testy days and then there are trying days, the 25-26 of June was an incredibly trying 48hours . First we had to go and extend Newbies visa which was of course a barrel of joy especially as the day before we had been lying side by side on make shift hospital beds (a.k.a hotel room) taking turns to visit the bathroom with threat of vomiting hanging over our heads. There is nothing quite like standing around while you feel like your dying

We asked our parents to put money into sarah’s account (I lost my card a while ago..AGAIN) the past week we shopped and just generally used up our flight to luxor reserves because we had money. So went to the HSBC as other cash machines kept rejecting Newbies card (should have been the first sign that not all was well)

Anyho we walked in, used the cash machine except it also rejected her card, then we went to take it out as a point of sale and nope! Her card had been rejected by the issuer (bloody HSBC) so after about an hour of trying to sort the situation out the hard fact was we where stranded in Alex with 4oo LE between us!

I have to say though we took it exceptionally well and even laughed about it and joked about how if worst came to worst we could trade Newbie for a few camels On a serious note though we saw a young boy looking through bins for food and that definitely put things into perspective we went home and prayed the prostration of thanks.

Then I got a text saying "salam we are here" from a UK mobile number, Dear lord!!! My little sister and her friend arrived a day earlier then I had booked the pick up from the airport and the hotel for! I have to say I was really panicked the money thing I took in my stride but the girls being stuck in luxor undid me. Older sister responsibilities came flooding through the gate that had been locked for almost 6 months.

I got on the phone and for some reason the lady who sent for the pick up sent the man to the national airport as she thought they were arriving from Somalia, They had been waiting for about an hour and a half now, by the time they were picked up they had been hanging around the airport for over 2 hours!

Newbie called the bank and as she had neglected to tell them she was coming to Egypt they had put a stop on her card incase of fraud so alhamdulilah we have money again.
Oh and to top of our glorious day just as the Aadan for fajr was called our electricity died ( just our room and the room next door) which went we couldn’t see anything and the airconditioning had gone, a not so fine layer of sweat was now our companion. Newbie opened the door and there was a beautiful breaze but then we were woken up again as the sun coming through our balcony had burned our feet!!

Then we missed our train to cairo and when i tried to buy another ticket the man told me that they were all booked. But alhamdulilah he found two tickets on the next train and we jumped on that. Got to liz's in cairo stayed up with her and then 3.30am we hailed a taxi put all our luggage on and the taxi broke down! But alhamdulilah the taxi after a lot of dua it re-started and we jumped on the plane

We are now in luxor ( all 10 of us) phew....

General update

By god its getting hot now! although i can't complain too much its topping up on my tan like nothing i have ever seen. For the first time a few days ago someone asked me if i was Aswani :) that fulfilled on my long sought after ambitions here in egypt!

i have 5 more days before i complete my level 3 and then start travelling around egypt with 8 girls including me. How these trips get so big i have no idea but since i now know its extortionate to go with a tour company i have take it on my self and sarah to lead this tour.

i have been planning the itinerary, the hotels and a flight from aswan to cairo so inshallah its should be smooth but if its not then its part of the experience.

I know its premature and am not home yet but i have been trying to evaluate the crazy girl who came to egypt not knowing a soul to the woman who is now leaving! some of the changes are obvious and am aware of but some i guess only time and the people who know me well will tell.

But taking on this tour is one of the many changes that has taken place. I would never have taken on such a task before but know that i have developed a no nonsense attitute am not actually apprehensive about the possibilities.

All in all am looking forward to just partying with the girls level 3 has been hard on me and incredibly intense so letting loose and just sipping minute tea sounds wonderful.

youml jumm'a wa suratul kahf

Another jumm’a has come and gone and since reading surah Al-kahf on jumm’a is recommended I thought I would become reacquainted with this surah so there I am reading it from my copy the qur’an that combines the English translation with the Arabic text side by side (courtesy of native female, May allah never cease to reward her)

Near the end the surah talks about Musa (AS) meeting with khidr whom Musa asks to go travelling with because of his knowledge. The first thing that Khidr does Musa (as) is shocked by because it appears to the deliberate damaging of someone’s boat. Then it gets worse when they meet a boy along the way and Khidr kills him! Then finally before they part, they come to a town, asked for food but the people refused. They then came to a wall about to collapse and Khidr set it straight when Musa (As) said surely you could have taken wages for that. At this point they parted ways because Musa( As) could not be patient with Khidr and what he was doing.

Khidr revealed to Musa (As) the wisdom behind what seemed like abhorrent acts.

1) In the case of the boat it belong to a miskeen (poor person) working in the sea so he defected it as there was a king who was seizing all the boats by force so as to make it undesirable to the king enabling the miskeen to repair it and continue with his source of lively hood. (Subhanallah I can imagine that from the miskeens point of view this would have seemed like a major disaster, his only source of lively hood was now damaged, what was he going to do, was his life not hard enough etc etc. But inactual fact allah loved him and was saving his means for him and in fact what seemed like a disaster was a mercy.)

2) And as for the boy, his parents were believers and we feared that he should oppress them by rebellion and disbelief so we intended that their lord should change him for them for one better in righteousness and nearer to mercy. (Subhanallah, I can’t imagine anything worse then losing a child and the pain and grieve that must accompany that, Yet the all mighty who gives life and take life only wanted to spare these believing parents long-term suffering but was also going to replace that which he took with something better and more comforting for them. What ordinary person would consider the death of their child a mercy or a blessing but that is what it was.

3) As for the wall, it belong to two orphaned boys in the town; and there was under it a treasure belonging to them and their father was a righteous man, and your lord intended that they should attain their age of full strength and take out their treasure. (subhanallah but here were two orphans seemingly without any protection but they had the greatest of protector looking after their interests and regulating their affairs)

So all in all what seemed like calamities were in fact Allah bestowing his mercy and blessing upon these people and when we make du’a for Allah to grant us the best of this world and the next do we really understand that what is best for us in this word and what will gain us the best of all prizes in the next world may not always appear to be good and may infact appar to be a disaster?!

I guess the true manifestation of “allah is the best disposer of affairs” to be thankful and pleased with your lord even when it would appear that all is lost or that something terrible has happened to you. So be it the loss of your job or the loss of a child or the loss of our parents allah is truly the best of all providers.

May he make us of those who are continuously patient and thankful….Ameen

Visa madness

I was speaking to one of the girls from the institute a couple of days ago and she was telling me about the horrors of extending her visa here in alex. Which reminded me of my fateful morning when i happily walked to the “al-jawaazaat” to extend my visa. Now I have to admit that I was a tad late and was prepared for a slap on the wrist fine for flout Egyptian law etc but what I did not expect was the 3 hours ahead of me. In fact It was so bad that I dug my pen and pad out of my bag and kept a note of the preceding for the intention of blogging but never got around to it so here is my experience.

I walked into the building asked the guy sat next to the door where I needed to go, he looked at my passport and directed me upstairs. i had to pass a crazy number of booths mostly with French and Arabic words on top ( the Arabic looks like a scribble so that’s no help)

I asked a guard when I went upstairs where I needed to go next he directed me to window number 7 entitled “Resident Touristique” so I bobbed along happily, gave the woman one of my ecstatic smiles (which usually makes people so much more amiable) only to be met by a hard unsmiling, scowl wearing face of an elderlish woman. The next 3 hours proceeded like this.

1) window number 7 ( most unfriendly woman I have ever met)
2) sent to window number 10 ( to buy 2 stamps and a form)
3) sent back to window number 7 ( was told to fill in form, proceeded to fill the form in, was told by the hellion to move off her window and fill in my form across the room, how rude)
4) filled in the form, returned to window number 7 ( were she practically took my arm off whilst trying to take the form from me, at this point I was forced to raise an eye brow)
5) She then sent me to window number bloody 10 to get another stamp, at this point I had a 100 note was the woman at window number 10 was getting irritated with me but a smile and a sorry was enough to restore her humour (normal human there then)
6) Back to window number 7 except she is not there, I had to stand there for 15 mins while she held a rather heated conversation with one of her colleagues ( bless the poor man)
7) She returned, snapped a few words of ammiya far beyond my grasps at me, at this point am contemplating if prison would be more pleasant. She throws my form back at me and sends me to window number 8
8) Window number 8 is now occupied by the man she had that scathing argument with ( oh joy) so I stand there and try a smile, old man isn’t affected by my attempt at civility but he doesn’t swear at me so am thankful (she conditioned me to expect abuse in under an hour)
9) Window number 8 the man takes my papers and picture, I brought two but they only need one. He had read over my details and asked me if my mum was Egyptian, then I try and joke with him by responding with “if I say yes will it speed up the process”. He said nothing and continues scribbling on my form ( note: never smile or joke with a government official)
10) Then its back to window number 10 to buy more stamps
11) To window number 8 again to be handed a letter and was told to take it, go downstairs and pay my fine then return.
12) As I am descending i ask a man which window I needed to go to pay my fine, he points to a window entitled “cassie” window number 6.
13) I paid and was then told to go back up, a return to window number 8 and was told to go and photocopy the receipt and the letter he gave me. ( by now am ready to punch the first non- government official to cross me)
14) There is a convenient photocopy guy just outside the building (praise the lord) so I stand there queuing like a polite Brit when people start pushing in front of me ( wrong day) so now am telling people to move out of my way! And when the photocopy guy took the papers of the guy behind me I took a step towards him, I must have looked really angry because he took my papers from me and copied them promptly J
15) Then I return to window number 8, he scribbles a few more things and then sends me to
16) window number 7 ( at this point she is the one who is met by a scowling non-smiling face, serves the wench right )
17) She hands me my growing papers and tells me to get the “Captain” to sign them, she directs me to a room, I turn up and find the captain, give him my wad of papers he asks me a few things, I look blank, he shouts for a Hasan (by now am not contemplating the merits of prison over this ordeal, the captain looked like he could pull of all ten of my toe nails without flinching once)
18) I go back to window number 7, she tell me to return in an hour without any explanation as to why so I stand there demanding why and she says to collect your visa and passport. At which point I mutter a strained shukran and exit.
19) Found the nearest coffee place and grabbed some well deserved tea passed my time there, regain control of my temper.
20) Returned! Took my passport with my visa and left the place ( alhamdulilah)

For the love of all that is good if this is the system is Cairo as well anyone thinking of staying in Egypt for longer then a month please get your visa from your home country, it’s a matter of downloading a form and posting it!

Rage against the institute

Today I learnt what it means to be a professional in Egypt and although I had long ago learnt that a junior doctor earns at 250 egyptian junay I couldn’t understand how they managed to live on it, and the person I am closest to I know has been saving for an apartment along with her husband so they can finally move in together what I didn’t realise was what she was earning.

I assumed all was financially well as she was working in a international school and I paid in euros not even in the standard dollars! So when yesterday my lump sum tuition fees ran out we started to talk about Egypt and the current situation when I asked her how much she earns an hour. She looked really uncomfortable and being even more curious now I got her to tell me.

Honestly I was not prepared for the shock its ludicrous, and she doesn’t even get paid for holidays or sick leave. I am royally peed to say the least. It been me and sara for 4 months now, I don’t see anyone else from the institute nor do I have any contact with them, nor do they enrich my life in anyway so where my money is going I don’t know but its not going to the one person it should.

I am considering pulling out of the school now since my 4months advance payment has run out. I do have my level 3 wad sitting around but the payment system is soooo unjust that there is no way am going to contribute to it and I don’t give a toss what that may mean for my Arabic while am here!!!

farewell shari khalid ibn al-walid

I have had the craziest week since packing my bag and heading for Alexandria. The best bit being that it feels like half of Manchester is here. I had a beautiful two days with sarah and liz in my ex-flat and met mariam and salma two of sarah travelling buddies.

The stressors of the week were being almost homeless, the flat I had planned to move into to with sarah fell through mainly because someone went back on our agreement this is were it helps to have a man doing your bidding again! The poor girls had to help me move to bangles and Md’s old hotel with the famous ‘adil.

While all this was going on I had my end of level exam to revise for but I had to put school on hold. I have never revised in so many different places before, on trains, in cafes, at tourist attraction sites and so forth.

But Alhamdulilah and as I write this am sat in my hotel room about to go in search of breakfast/lunch since I slept in. I just found out who does the laundry and cleans the rooms, they are both really sweet elderly man which is totally crap as I can’t deal with the idea of someone in there sunset years cleaning up after me! Looks like its lundary in the institute as usual and keeping my room incredibly tidy.

Amina and Alex

Amina had been here since last Saturday, a total of 10 days and its been greeting having her, she is one of those amazing house guest that you hope could just stay on. We didn't know each other all the well so it a lovely experience spending some quality time together. The following are the highlights of trip.

On the night she arrived we went out to dinner at Balba this amazing Syrian restaurant which in the middle of a very ordinary looking area but my is it amazing, you are served at least 10 starts before you even order, definitely a must experience in alex. We had a beautiful meal and the waiter could tell from Amina’s Arabic that she wasn’t Egyptian and asked the usual question “where are you from” which then lead to the debate of whether Somali is an arab country and the linguist classification of Somali.

Then we left and walked around to explore a hijab shop when a man stumbled out of an alleyway next to the shop amina and i were in, clutching his stomach because he was dripping blood, it looked like he had been stabbed! The Egyptian ladies looked horrified as we did but I have to admit there reactions were a little more animated then ours, it was all over in a split second and a taxi took him to the hospital but what an experience on your night of arrival especially as I had been telling her how ridiculously save alex is and how nothing happens and people are out with their families in the wee hours of the morning, but there is nothing like an incident like that to make you doubt.

Then the day after we went to discover the zoological gardens at somuha, I have never been a fan of zoo’s I think its unnatural to cage wild animals for our pleasure but I have never had a crazy urge to either cry or run around the zoo unlocking doors whilst shouting, be free be free.But that’s just what I felt there so Never again I say

Then because I had breakfast at 7am by out 4pm I was really low on sugar and needed food. I got my food first took my tray and found a place for us to sit, when I amina approached I tried to stand up so I could move my bag and I have no idea what happened but my tray tipped and one minute my food was on the plate and then next I was wearing it. I stood there with rice and chicken covering half of my upper body and lap thinking “oh joy” then I grabbed my napkin and started to wipe it of when amina realised what had happened, the miskeena walahi she looked sooo embarrassed and quickly ushered us away from the scene of the crime then I had to walk all the way back to the Chinese food outlet and re-order the exact same meal whilst covered in it and left amina to wait for it while I walked into the bathroom to sort myself out.

I walked into the bathroom and the first girl to see me looked horrified and then she looked at me with concern and pity, which made me wonder if I should be embarrassed but the strange thing was I wasn’t fussed at all. When my skirt was semi dried (all the layers I wear certainly came in handy) from the hand drier I went out, ate my meal and then we moved across to Cilantro and carried on as normal. Maybe I should have felt a twinge of something but nope. Hmm is that healthy to be so unconcerned especially when amina and random strangers were embarrassed on my behalf.

We managed to do Islamic and pharaohnic cairo in one day, needless to say when we made it back to alex just before midnight we both collapsed and woke up at 12pm the next day. Definitely an experience and now we know it doable if somewhat unhinged.

I have been revising for the end of my level 2 exam but amina being so resourceful got in touch with her emiratie school mates and managed to see the whole of alex. It turns out that in my time here I have broken sooo many Egyptian etiquettes and have frequented the dodgiest of place. Etiquettes such as girls do not go to the beach by themselves…opps am planning on still doing that. And apparently montazah gardens after sunset are a place were ladies of the night frequent toting for business…Astagfirallah but I have to say the sunset is incredible there. And Ibrahimya where I shop for tops and shoes and things is apparently not the safest of area. I am I planning on changing my ways..hmmmm

kitchens and accidents

So there I am exploring my culinary skills!....okay I was making beef stir-fry from my beginners cook book but it was the first time I marinated anything so leaving the beef in a concoction to marinate was a colossal achievement. 30 minutes later I completed the stir-fry and saying Its scrumptious is an apt description. This explains why at the point of my little accident I was skipping around my tiny kitchen putting things away.

I retrieved a plate from a cabinet and went to the sink to run some water over it while singing along to cat stevens “oh very young” in a tone deaf, rhythmically challenged, no one should ever be subjected to kind of voice when the plate slipped out of my hand fell on the edge of the sink and slit my wrist opened (or so it felt like at the time)

After staring at my wrist for a life time I had to turn down the rice I had boiling, try and shove a top over my head and don a hijab all with one hand whilst trying to stop the bleeding with a bit of paper towel, put some shoes on, grab my keys and purse and went to the pharmacy downstairs.

Only to be met by a lady on the phone who seems content for me to bleed all over her counter while she conducted her very lively and amusing conversation. By the time I was ready to break the glass on her counter and grab some plasters myself she turns around to me with a beaming smile and asks me what I wanted, Arggh so short of assaulting her I showed her my gaping wound and she looked at it in that nonchalant Egyptian ma-lesh kind of way. Which made me want to throttle her, she then offered me the only size plasters she had which were ridiculously small for the size of my injury. I also had to grab so cleaning solution and some cotton wool which I was informed was 100% Egyptian cotton, at this point who cares am about to lose a limp.

So I come up find that my rice is surprising cooked and the plasters she gave me actually fit my wound while the 100% Egyptian cotton felt rather nice. Ah well ….

solitude

The need for solitude has always been very short lived with me. I am at my best in a social setting, I am when of 7 so from as long as I can conceivably remember I have always been surrounded by noise, tears, arguments, discussions, but mostly laughter and I grew up associating laughter and happiness with people. So I have to admit living alone in a foreign country in the beginning was difficult and I did what I do best, make several arrangements to go out and meet with friends and work on new ones.

But being alone as strange and silent and avoidable as I wanted to make it it was most noticeable and present at night and more so at the early hours of the morning, especially at Fajr. When you’re in a large flat by yourself the presence of your lord is almost tangible, it’s special and there is a bare vulnerability that radiates from you that the world normally masks with all its noise and crazy commotion.

When all that is striped away you have the opportunity to look at the core of you, with all that makes you, the beauty, the imperfections, the failings, the success. An insight such as that forces you to take a fresh look within yourself in a way that if you choose to will allow you to illuminate the good and work on the bad. Essentially you become truly re-acquainted with yourself and what a canvas to work with the human soul is.

The cave of Hira was the sanctuary of the Rasul (saw) and I have come to internalise that we all need a place where we can simply BE in the presence of the creator.

Venezuela quits IMF and World Bank

I just had to share this story, Hugo boy makes my day everytime. Here are snipts of the Guardian article.

The Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, today severed ties with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. In doing so he distanced Caracas further from what he described as Washington-dominated institutions.

The populist leader, (popular indeed, i would vote for him if i could) who took office pledging to pursue radical political reform and an economic "third way", said yesterday that Venezuela no longer needed institutions "dominated by US imperialism". (true true)

Venezuela has been loosening its ties to the IMF and the World Bank since Mr Chávez took office in 1999. Venezuela recently repaid its debts to the World Bank five years ahead of schedule. In doing so it saved $8m (£3.99m) and cleared all its debts to the IMF shortly after Mr Chávez was elected. ( Can you imagine the positive effect this would have on the world if every country followed suite)

Mr Chávez said the takeover marked the end of an era of Washington-dictated policies and returned Venezuelan resources to national control.
"The wheel has turned full circle," he said. (way to put it Hugo, now lets just replicate this world wide)

Pomp and amusement

I had Tajweed this morning and sara and I have started to sit on a green mat usually probed against a corner of the room. We thought we would imagine ourselves sat in a Qur’an Halaqa studying with the Asshaba. Sara informed me that it was an old MD (mari) practice when she was here last summer. I can see why there is something so much more spiritually uplifting reciting the Qur’an and practicing the rule on the ground with your legs crossed then sat on a chair.

I had a really precious moment when I was practicing a rule called qalqala I was concentrating on the repeating sound when sara made me repeat the ayat again and suddenly I stopped in the middle of the ayat because I realised I understood it. Subhanallah but I understood it. It’s the ayat in which Allah was ordering musa (AS) to go to Fir’aun, he has transgressed. It reads roughly ihba ila fir’auna innahu daqaa (verse 15 surah 79).

Almost 3months of studying and I understood one ayat but to me it was infinitely so much more, it’s what that one ayat represents. The misery of getting up at 6am to be in work for 8 am in the height of winter were despite all my layers I had never felt such penetrating cold but this memory has been supersede by the memory of this morning. Subhanallah but it was worth it for that ayat alone.

My father when I was young used to say to me that the worth of something that you have been give and the worth of something that you have worked hard for can never be of comparative value, one will always out live the other in your memory. It took me 23 years to "get" it , may allah grant him jannatul firdaws.

I was reminded of when allah asks the inhabitants of jannah if they experienced any hardship on earth and they say not for one moment oh lord ( or something therein) Am also reminded of the ayat that says "And the life of this world is only a deceiving enjoyment"

Then I came home and crashed out in front of the sofa and switched on the tv which went automatically to the Qur’an channel which was at this point playing surah yusuf with the English translation running at the bottom of the screen. It was on the bit when the woman of that town heard about the wife of Al-Aziz’s failed seduction of Yusuf (As) so she invited them to a banquet and gave them knives. Then called him out and because of his beauty they cut themselves and stated that he couldn’t be a mortal and he must in fact be an angle.

She then says admitted her intentions towards Yusuf , tells about his refusal and goes on to say that he will be punished and imprisoned hence being disgraced.While Yusuf says "oh my lord prison is dearer to be then that which they invite me to" When I had moment of realisation that his concept of being disgraced is disobeying allah , hence being akhiyra orientated while her concept of disgrace is a prison on earth thus being dunaya orientated. Subhanallah!

Being from the west it struck me just what Yusus (AS) was refusing, the attentions of one of the most beautiful woman of his time and more so of the entire woman in his area yet today we are so used to men being defined as a stud because of the number of woman he has been with, and it struck me the difference in thinking, how many men of our time faced with such temptation, a beautiful women or prison would turn to his lord and say

" oh my lord prison is dearer to be then that which they invite me to"!

A no is a no

A certain someone’s mother has marked Thursdays and Mondays in her diary as shock NM into speechlessness days. Last Thursday I thought would remain in my memory as the most unexpected day in Alexandria. This Monday however managed to supersede even that.
The lady in question called me to say that she has sent me an email for the engagement details and that she wanted my dad’s number and email address! Oh my god was just no were near expressing the horror of that moment! Huh!!

On the pervious Friday I thought I made it clear that I was only in Egypt to study Arabic and had a home and family to go back to. But the insistent lady asked me to pray the istikhara, I was also under the impression the prayer was for moments of confusion except for once am anything but confused!! It is hard to be insistent back with a 50 plus year old woman without sounding rude so I said I will get back to her.

3 days later the lady is sending me my engagement details and asking for my dad’s details! Like hell am going to give her my dad’s number, does the woman not realise my dad would be on the first plane out of Manchester to come collect me! In this email the lady is also giving me details of my dowry! like i can be brought! am getting really annoyed,stressed and even panicky now

Walahi its times like this I realise the need for a mahrem, clearly am perceived as not being able to make my own decisions, but if this was my dad or my brother I bet the first NO would have been the end of it!

As I write this I need a massive does of galaxy chocolate, a cup of tea and if I wasn’t Muslim something that would come from a boy on a bicycle from moss side!

Living alone

The choice of living with the two Romanian bintaan or staying in the flat all by my lonesome has vanished because the ladies are not satisfied with there flat so are also planning on moving and are currently searching for somewhere more to there liking and having seen that place and its proximity to the school (a 30minute walk ) and its proximity from the sea ( one has to take a taxi) I too am disheartened with the prospect.

So the question remains why the girls can not just move in to my flat since am exponentially satisfied with my dwelling. (2 minutes from the institute and the sea) Unfortunately my dwelling will quadruple in rental price in June meaning that even with the strength of the sterling I will also have to move.

So as things remain I am living by my lonesome till am joined by my fellow mancunian sisters. So how have I been occupying myself? Well I have become rather house proud mainly due to watching on satellite a British show called “ Anthea Turners’s perfect housewife” the title does of course not relate to me but she does have some amazing cleaning tips as well as being a very amusing showing although am not that’s its intent.

Cooking for one and eating alone is no joy so for a while I seized to cook at all and lived on take-aways a.k.a. utter crap till I started to feel rather weak and realised I had hit another phase of anaemia so am back to popping iron pills and cooking.

But first I had to go to the local supermarket and actually buy some food, why on earth do supermarket managers move things around. Just when you think you have got a handle on shopping efficiently they change things around. Shopping is such a chore if Fathalah had internet shopping I would jump at the chance but instead I had to contend with starting one end of the shop floor to the other end because I could not phantom the arrangements literally walking the whole supermarket floor.

When I finally made it home I was really excited to try this carrot, potato and ginger soup and it was an absolute success, just delicious except I do not have a food processor so it’s a little lumpier then it should be but the proof is in the tasting. I then continued to make myself some biryani and some bolognaise sauce for when the need for paste over takes me. So not only is the flat sparkling but my fridge is full of food, it’s like an outer body experience am turning into a domestic dream my mother will not recognise me.

Retraction

If your wondering what happend to my "what on earth" rant let me tell you, late at night i remembered that the sister of the brother concerned has my blog address to my horror so i had to take it off!

But its save to say that i didn't hide away all day as i had intended, although i didnt' really address the issue either but eh. The lady wants me to pray the istikhara, guess its the least i can do then in a weeks time i will just say " am sorry it wasn't meant to be"

end of issue inshallah