May bless all of us this Ramadan and make it a constructive one inshaAllah.

      This Ramadan started off with the death of many dear people. Many of you may have heard of the deaths of 17 year olds Nasir Sheikh and Adnaan Rehman (May Allah azzawajjal grant them Jannah tul Firdaus and make it easy for their families). I have also heard of the death of my mother’s best friend’s father, Imanul Huq, may Allah grant him Jannah tul Firdaus inshaAllah. These deaths were followed by one or two more in our own community as well as countless amounts of death world-wide.

    I believe that it is very important to understand and realize our mortality especially during the month of Ramadan. Many of us believe that we will live forever even though we don’t realize it.  Will we live to see the next Ramadan? How fast does death come? Many folks always say,”I want my death to be fast so I don’t feel it.” Oh brothers and sisters, make du’a that your death is slow. Make du’a that you can prepare fo your death and understand your death as well as remember what you done wrong so you can use that time for dhikr. du’a, and salah.

    The Arab shuyookh of used to share a story, a fable, so that people would understand the spontaneity of death.

    There used to be a very young and wealthy king. He woke up one morning and got breakfast on his bed. He said, ‘I do not want this’. He got the next choice of food and said ,”I do not want this.’ He kept saying no to the meals until he finally got what he wanted.

     He then goes to get dressed. He opens up a long closet of clothes and says,”Oh I have nothing to wear!” He keeps looking for clothes to wear in his huge collection of clothing but keeps finding faults in them.Too bright, too dull to small to large, etc. Finally he picks something up and says. “Fine I’ll wear this.”

     He proceeds to his horses to get on a horse. He looks at his large collection of horses and is frustrated as to what horse to get on. Too fat, too slow, too fast, too thin, too tall, etc. He finally gets on a horse and proceeds.

     Here is this great king so distracted by the dunya that is displayed in his daily routine.

     He starts his riding until he sees a man who looks at him and says salaam. The King, however, is too big and important for this peasant and has better things to do so he ignores him. The man grabs on to the reins of the horse. He says to the King, ‘I have something to tell you.”

    The king says,”I have to be somewhere, let me go!”

    THe man replies,”It is very important! It’s important for you.”

    The king finally accepts after many refusals, and says,”Make it quick!”

      The man says,”Bring yourself closer.” The King comes closer. “Closer.” The king comes closer. “Closer”

      The king exclaims,”Just tell me already!”

     “Closer.” The king angrily comes closer. The tells him,”I am the Angel of Death, where are you going?” At that moment, the King dies. No more time for forgiveness, no more time for another Astakhfarullah, no more time for two more rakats.

       This story tells us to be grateful with what Allah has given us, to use our time wisely, and well as showing us how sudden death comes.

      My brothers and sisters, May this Ramadan be a time where beg for forgiveness and purify our souls as well as repay our debts. Our ummah is in a state of constant flaw these days that we have to fix. Let this Ramadan be a time where we start fixing our own hearts so that we can fix this ummah.

     If we look to purify ourselves, than we will await death by preparing for it through our lives, which is what our aim should be. A story was told of Ibrahim (A)’s calling to death. (I do not know the authenticity of this story, so take it as good content iA)

     The Angel of Death came to Ibrahim (A) and said,”Your time has come.”

     Ibrahim, who was known to be Khalil Ullah(The friend of Allah) replied,”Does of a friends take the life of a friend?”

      The Angel of Death was confused and told Allah what Ibrahim said. Allah sent the Angel of Death back with a message to Ibrahim in where he responds, “Does a friend refuse the invitation of a friend?”

      Subhannallah. May Allah make our death as comfortable as this inshaAllah, Ameen.

Shabba Khair, have a great Ramadan inshaAllah

Wasalamualaikum

Assalamualaikum

All this Lebron hater stuff is killing me. Why can’t people leave him alone? I bet another ‘Leave Brittany Alone’ video is gonna come out for Lebron.  I’m not gonna defend Bron or bash the “self-proclaimed king”, I mean king. I’m gonna set the facts straight.

When Dan Gilbert wrote a letter that called Lebron a “coward” and a “traitor”. He went a little to far. I have to admit that Lebron gave his heart and soul to that team every night and Gilbert never did anything to help improve that team. When they went to the Finals, it was Lebron vs. the Spurs. There was no team. Gilbert when as far as to say that he ‘guarantees that the cavs will win a championship before the self-proclaimed king does.” Shut the hell up man. No one even knows who you are.

 Lebron isn’t chasing the money Wade isn’t chasing money, neither is Bosh. They all know that they can’t make nearly as much money if they all play on one team. They all want to win games and I think there is nothing wrong with that type of attitude. If this was your team, you would be ecstatic. As a die-hard Bulls fan, I’m very anxious to watch the Bulls vs. the Cavs.

Many of us Chicagoins are doubting the Bulls. But think about this is the first time the Bulls have ever had a dominant post player. They never even had a great post player in the Jordan Era. I believe that the Bulls would be a pretty big threat in the Eastern Conference. Who knows? Maybe even a Finals contender….

But back to Lebron, as much as I despise the guy. you gotta give him some credit. He did what many players would never do, Join to create a trifecta of superstars. I gotta give him props for this. If this team manages to break all of the potention politics that will surround them, they could potentially be one of the greatest teams to go down in history.

At the end of it all, I ‘m sure Lebron did what he thought was best for himself and his family. I unerstand the Cavs fans’ pain,  but he wasn’t getting anywhere in Cleveland. Live and let live. Shabba Khair

W’salaamualaimum

Assalamualaikum(May Peace Be with You)

    Islamically, there are seven destroyers of a man. This means , that if a man does any of these seven sins or dies in that state, he will not enter paradise. One of these destroyers are cutting blood ties. Allah(SWT) says, “Family ties (Rahm) is from Rahmaan. Whomsoever maintains family ties, I will maintain him and whosoever breaks family ties I will break him.” So if cutting the blood ties is one of the destroyers of man, it’s only natural that maintaing blood ties is a huge part of Islam.

     The issue here today that is killing communities all around the worls, especially in the U.S is the breakage of family. Rasullah (S) said, “‘Whosoever loves his wealth to be increased and his life to be increased, he should maintain ties.” Unfortunately today, forget about the last part of this hadith. 

    Rasullulah(S) loved maintaining the ties of family and friends. He used to travel (by foot) across mecca tomeet and greet his family and friends, even when they hadn’t accepted Islam as yet. When was the last time you picked up your ohone and called you grandma in India or Pakistan for just two minutes? When did you last go out of your way to see a family member at his/her home? Are we really that busy? We can’t take two minutes out of our busy lives to make a simple phone call? Seriously?

     Have you ever experienced Family Fued in your own family? Yeah, it gets pretty nuts. Especially when they stop talking to each other. Yeah, cuz that’s really gonna help. As the youth of our families, it;s our duty to rekindle the fading lights of hours family and retie the loose knots.  What people often forget is that thes familybreak ups lead to the huge community break ups. If you can break away from your own brother or parent, how hard would it be to break away from a fellow muslim who your don’t even know, but is on the opposing side in the Ramadan moonsighting argument? It should be fairly easy?

    InshaAllah, I ask you all to  make a conscious effort  to make a small phone to call to your family members every now and then and try to reconnect with them as much as you can , especially the elderly. After they pass away (may Allah(SWT)  grant them paradise) you might just regret not talking to them as much.

May Allah help tie us all together and save from the trap of cutting blood ties. Ameen.

Shabba Khair. W’salaam.

It’s about two years or so since I last posted on this blog, but inshaAllah, I’m going to be posting regularly. This post should be fairly short.

I was at an event the other day known as ‘Takin’ it to the Streets’, an event that has been going on in the south side of Chicago annually for a while now and is powered by IMAN (Inner-City Muslim Action Network). Allhumdulllilah the event was a success. However, every time I go to these types of events, I ask myself, how do we benefit from this stuff? An event like ‘Streets’ has food, bazaar, and concerts. It’s purpose it to attract muslims and non muslims to a place where they can be with a  large group of Muslims and celebrate talent.  But the question remains, ‘what is the benefit?’

The answer to this question is right in front of us, and no, the answer isn’t ‘entertainment’ or ‘just chilling’. The answer to this question is only displayed through a question asked prior to this one; Where would all these people be if they didn’t come to this event?  If groups like IMAN didn’t have events with attractions like Mos Def and Lupe as well as the smaller, more regular events that they hold, where would all the “non- religious” or the generically labelled “misguided” kids be? You know it. They would be at the clubs, hitting up the bars. Probably smoking that sheesha and other stuff as they intermingling with the opposite gender in ways I scarcely dare give utterance.

The point of the matter is that these events may not give the kids that  already somewhat have a connection to some of religious group, class, or social circle the same benefit that they get during an MSA lecture, but it’s a means of refuge for the other kids. They may not necessarily know it, but its the duty of the the ambassadors of the faith to open there eyes. As many of you know after coming to an events like this, there are a lot of people who don’t have the fortunate connection to a network of “practicing” muslims or to a halaqah of some sort. They aren’t “bad” people, they just don’t have the connection to a religious type group or friends. Events like Streets, ISNA, the bazaar at your masjid, etc attract a certain group of individuals. Take that chance to invite them to your groups and circles.

I hope you guys benefited from this post inshaAllah. Feel free to leave comments and criticisms on any of my posts.

Shabba Khair, wasalaamualaikum( May Peace be with You)

It’s been a while since a posted something with more than ten words in it. Anyways, this entire month has been one hell of an eye opener for me.

My  dear aunt, Anees, and my dear uncle Saleem, had come to visit from the States. About a week later, his mother was taken to the hospital after a bad fall. She was in serious condition. We all made du’a. She had to go through surgery. She was became fine by the grace of Allah (SWT).

While she was in the hospital, something else had happened concurrently, my grandfather’s elder brother, the Ameer of our family, the captain of the sailing ship, had died in his mid 80s. He was a man who I’ve never seen frown. Everybody told me that he was a patient man. He had four wives and them and all of there children were there at the time, crying over the death of one of the wisest and oldest man in the family. It had been the first time in my life that I have been to a graveyard. It was probably the most fearful time in my life. There were no memorials, no grave stones, and no lush grass. There were small mounds of dirt. Millions of mounds of dirt.I was scared that I might step on someone’s grave. We had taken the body to the grave. The grave was only six to seven feet low. We placed the body in the grave. I could not help but to picture myself in there. What a feeling for a dead man that would be. His face was only showing. We then put banana leaves and hard cloth sheets one side and stuck bamboo sticks to it to hold them up. We then covered the top of the body with about a foot of gap between his head and the cover so that dirt won’t fall on him. We then started to but the dirt on him. It seemed like he was just sleeping and we were throwing dirt on him. His beard was trimmed and his head was covered with cloth. After he was fully covered, we made du’a, a part from attaining Jannat-ul- Firdaus, I prayed that he would have the window of Jannah on his right side and the cool and soothing breeze of paradise cooling his face. My Grandfather was extremely close to his brother. He was depressed for the last two years since he is getting old(please make du’a for his recovery insha’Allah). He had felt it the most. For the first time his head was on my chest. He was weeping. It had been the first time I’ve seen my Grandpa shed a tear, It was unimaginable for me. He had always been the tough guy for me.  He was a well built man with hefty biceps and a strong chest, but he had become weak because of his depression. Non the less, that image of him stayed in my mind forever. I saw the weakness of the heart one when lose a loved one. He was Superman, and he was holding kryptonite.

The next day, something that had hurt me more than anything had happened. One of my aunts from my father’s side lived in Sligiri, an Army Base in India. Her husband, Riaz, was plastic surgeon. He had fixed faces for civilians who had faced bombing and war Afghanistan and Kashmir. He had gone to do this great work in Africa. Subhanallah may Allah(SWT) reward him for all the work that he has done. One days after the death of my Grandpa’s brother, Riaz uncle dived in a pool, and never came back up. He was a great swimmer. No one knows what happened. He was taken to the hospital. Three hours later, we got the news that he died. Apparently he died two hours before, but his wife was in such bad shape, that the doctor didn’t know if he should tell her or not. He was 36-37 years old, his daughter is ten, his wife is now a widow, They were happily married with a great life allhumdullilah. His body asked Allah if it could breath, Allah said no, and that was it.

This got me to realize the value of life and how thing can break down like buildings being demolished. It is at the snap of a finger. But what got me thinking was when people are alive, others gossip and say bad things about them, but when they die, they realize how good he person was in reality. It’s sad how it takes death to make people realize the goodness of mankind. It’s a great time to say,”wow we suck!”

Well, today I have another school story. Talk about ‘experiences’. I was at the exam hall today and the teacher walks in for attendance. She is checking the ratios between hindus and muslims, muslims and christians, christians and hindus, etc. She came up to me and said, “Umair, must be backwards, no?” I didn’t understand what she was trying to say to me. So I replied ,”No, actually I’m Muslim.” She then says, ” Same thing.”

I was extremely confused at that point. I had no idea Muslims were called backwards! I was furious at that point. That comment was in my head the whole day. It then came to me and I asked myself, “Why do people call us backwards?”

A list of problems cam into my head;

- Our literacy rate is terrible, the last genration had only about 31.1 % of leterate Muslims in Tamil Nadu according to NDTV News Channel.

- We burn stuff when we are pissed, like during the release of the film Jodhaa Akbar(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jodhaa_Akbar) last month. In North India Muslims and Hindus had riots for a really dumb reason. That Jodha was not from Rajput, but from Jaipur. Is that valid reason for burning stuff? That’s not even a reason to burn your fireplace! India is hot enough!

-We don’t have enough Muslims in the Media! Wait, yeah we do… who are they again? Oh yeah, SRK, Saif Ali Khan, Salman Khan… They’re great Islamic icons. Yeah right. I’m talking about the big timers. Practicing Muslim versions of Ambani and Tata Birla.

-We are probably the most lazy race in the world. We need our nauker to pick up our damn tissues when we drop it.

Some may say, ‘Well, Hindus are rioting too, they are lazy too! It’s just that they are better off because they are Hindus, and we are Muslims.’ OBVIOUS. Think about it folks, if Muslims rules India today, which means if it was a total Muslim country, wouldn’t we do the same. Blame others all the time, give muslims the benefit of the doubt, put them in high positions? Yeah, 100%. We live in a Hindu country. Yes, Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal, Mughul were the greates rulers of India, but alas, India is a Hindu country. The national language is hindi, not urdu or arabic. There are more temples than any other religious place. Before Hindi movies, you don’t see Qur’anic verses (astakafarullah) or Jesus on a cross(for christians), you see Ganesh and something else (like Shiva or that monkey like figure or somthing). Muslims here proved that India as a Hindu country in 1947 when we made Pakistan. That was straight up saying India is a Hindu country. Our own family in India support Pakistan in cricket when they live in the south, have never been near Pakistan, or even tried Pakistani food. What does this tell you? This is like asking to be called backwards. How illogical is this? Blaming Hindus for bashing on us and saying we’re not Indians when we basically do unpatriotic things. I’m not bashing on Pakistanis because I’m tight with Pakistanis (represent). So ask yourselves, who’s fault is it that we are called backwards?

So, we just have to try 110% more than everyone else at everything we do. The things that the last generation did have fallen back on us. Now, the new muslim generation has to work extra hard, be extra patient, and have extra faith.

Shabba Khair

Today’s topic is about The Rope of Allah azawajjal, faith in Islam. Moving to India was a challenge for me. Nothing seemed to go right. Everything seemed to be out of place. I thought moving to India would be a cultural expierence and it was, it just wasn’t Indian culture. It seemed as if I landed in a Third World America. Every one seemed to emulating the west. This was fine, but what bothered me is tha they emulated the wrong aspects of the west. It was extremism to the evil light of the west. School, well, I thought school was going to be like a school in the Bollywood movies. I was afraid of the beating I might get daily, I thought no one knew english fluently, and I thought no one knew about the west. That was my ‘extreme’ way of thinking. I came there and saw a completely different school as how I had imagined it to be. People knew english better than me! That’s not the schocking part though. What schocled me was the fact that the school I thought was the other extreme of what I had imagined it to be. The kids had all the bad qualities of the west; drinking, gossiping, smoking, smoking pot in the bathrooms, buying condoms and porn,  everything. Astakfarullah you say? Well brother, let me tell you the bitter truth, half of these kids are Muslim. I then completely lost hope, even worse, I lost faith. Faith in everything. Faith in a better Ummah, freinds, and sometimes even in Allah (SWT). My hands were slipping off the Rope of Allah azawajjal. Then I realized that , I can’t do that. It’s not just just that it’s wrong. It’s completely HARAM!!! So I grabbed the Rope and made intense du’a. I went out and started a youth group. This was the craziest and misunderstood idea ever. Why? Because I started. I was a nobody. This was not even a legitamate group. No kid accepted it. No parent accepted. I made more du’a. I then found a group of five devoted kids who were at my doorstep. Allhamdullilah the mission was almost accomplished. Coencidently, Peace Exhibition was going on the following week. I had bumped into Zakir Ahmed (Chairman of Peace) and later Zakir Naik, both by accident, and I just brought the subject and they agreed to support us on our mission. Allhamdullilah after alot of du’a, everthing came to place. The kids coming to my doorstep, Peace coming up without me knowling, bumping into the Chairman of Peace and a Muslim Icon, coencidence? No. This is all because of Iman, a lot of du’a to Allah azawajjal. Allah (SWT) put things in place and gave it to us on a platter. Honestly, I barely did anything. Wallahi, it was all givin to us by Allah (SWT).  So always make du’a and hold on to the Rope Of Allah azawajjal.

Shabba Khair

Assalamualaikum ya’ll!!!

I wanna make this post short and sweet inshaAllah.

THE ISSUE

We all have issues with one another.  All of us disagree to one and other, right? That’s cool, the Prophet (S) incouraged a diversed ummah and Allah (SWT) encourages us to ask questions. But what happens when this diversity seperates us? We split up and for different sects of the religion and different groups and go to a seperate masjid and so forth. Some of refuse to pray behind some people who follow a different madhab that they follow!!! Imagine yourself as a madhab, say Hanafi. If Imam Shafi’ [may Allah bless him iA] came to your masjid, would you refise to pray behind him? Heck no you won’t. You’ll be running to the front row to pray right behind him, right? So why do this to an ordenary Muslim? One thing that I saw a lot of in India and a little in the States is that Muslims refer to there fellow Muslims according to what madhab they follow. This is called ‘labeling’. This little word or action seperates us from one an other. So try not to label your fellow brother or sister inshaAllah. So we all have differences, but as long a we stay in the fold of Islam, we are there is no major difference between us. The fold of Islam is the five pillars, Qur’an and the Sunnah, and our concept of Allah ( this is the surah Al- Ikhlas test, if the concept of Allah agrees to all the verses in surah Al- Ikhlaas, it’s fine.). If thse things are the same, then we are all Muslims and that’s our only label. If we only call ourselves Muslims and nothing else then inshaAllah, nothing can seperate us. These little differences like where we put our hands when we pray, the measurements of our beards, or if we play chess or eat zabiha or not shouldn’t bother us ss long as we are in the circle of Iman, we are fine.

WHY IS THIS SO IMPORTANT?

This is so important because we need each other to spread the light of Islam. All of need to hold hands as Muslims. If one Muslim is not practicing, don’t bash on him, that’s only gonna push himaway from Islam, hold is hand, and invite him. Hold your non muslims brothers hand when you have campaigns for HIV, Global Warming, etc. Show them your a Muslim and you are also invlolve yourself with this world. If they do something crazy like campaign for gay rights, then tell them, im sorry bro, that’s a tiny bit too extreme for me. Hold your brother’s hand and forget about our labels. Wehave one label, and it’s ‘MUSLIM’. Show the world that we are not evil and negative. Show them the light of Allah (SWT). Sh. Yasir Qadhi once enmphasised on a point of our lazyness. We can’t blame people and sit around do nothing. We can’t wait for a Khalid bin Waleed to come or a Salahuddin Ayoub to come. We have to do whatever we can. For example. if all of us were sitting in ISNA convention hall together and the lights turned off and it’s pitch black, what do we do? We can’t find the switch,so we panic and start blaming each other. But one person out of these thousands of people turns his cell phone on for a light, but its just a small light. Then, another person lights a lighter, then one man lights a match, and everybody start turning on small lights, what happens? The whole room turns bright again. We all have to do small things to make our light shine inshAllah. We have to looke at everything with a posotive light. Critisism, failure, getting kicked off your basketball team, look at these things with a very posotive light. Smile at everyone, muslim or non muslim. You never know who’s day you might make brighter. Make your mark everywhere and do good and let people know your a muslim, not by carryng a flag and destroying stuff, but by dressing, walking, talking, and acting qupon the guidance of the Qur’an and the Sunnah.

Insha Allah, I make du’a for myself, the ummah, and the rest of the world to hold each other hands and tie the knot of brotherhod. Ameen

Shabba Khair

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