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  • Labels and Life

    For everyone that thought my points about labels were uncalled for, take a look at this video if you haven’t seen it already. Positive affirmation is as powerful as negative affirmation. Continuously telling someone that they can’t do something or be a certain way eventually convinces them that it is true. I wish people would stop being so reckless with their lives. I wish people would stop believing that they always need fixing. I wish people would just learn to be real and stop pursuing the fake ideals that they gluttonously swallow from Hollywood, Bollywood, etc.

    (Source: http://www.youtube.com/)

  • About that moon sighting…

    The sweetness of this month of Ramadaan is always tainted at the beginning and at the end because of the stubborn insistence and double standards of the people that proclaim themselves  to be the leaders of the Ummah. Their very own offices will release perpetual salaah time tables that can be used throughout the year, publish calendars that include to-the-minute exact times for starting and ending fast, all based on scientifically calculated methods, while still insisting that the moon for Ramadaan cannot be accurately predicted and therefore must be sighted with the naked eye.

    But the ridiculous double standards don’t stop there. They go on further to accept that if someone in another part of the country sights the moon, we can accept that as sufficient proof that the month of Ramadaan has started and therefore we can act on that. However, what they fail to acknowledge is that once again, a double standard exists. On the one hand, they’re trying to leverage off the permissibility of acting on the sighting of the moon in another town close to your own, but fail to acknowledge the practicality of the time taken for travel between the two towns during the time of the sahaba relative to our own experiences now. 

    For example, in South Africa, if I’m living in Johannesburg and the moon is not sighted in time for Esha salaah, it is common practice to check with the Muslim communities in Cape Town if they possibly sighted the moon since sunset is usually 45 minutes to 2 hours later than Johannesburg. Given that they’re on the coast with low humidity, their skies are considerably clearer as well making the conditions perfect for sighting the moon. However, Cape Town is 1200km (750 miles) away, which means that it would have been physically impossible to travel from Cape Town to Johannesburg in a single day on horseback or camel back or any other means of transport available during the time of the sahaba. In case I’m not making sense here, the double standard that I see in this is simple. We’re willing to exercise the leniency of making news of a sighting from another town a permissible indicator to start Ramadaan, but we’re allowing scientific/technological progress to be the basis on which we confirm it? Put differently, we’re happy to apply one part of the Hadith while relying on modern technology to fulfil the means. 

    There’s a verse in the Qur’an that always echoes in my head when this debate comes up. It says in Surah 21 verse 33:

    Sahih International

    And it is He who created the night and the day and the sun and the moon; all [heavenly bodies] in an orbit are swimming.

    Muhsin Khan

    And He it is Who has created the night and the day, and the sun and the moon, each in an orbit floating.
    Yusuf Ali

    It is He Who created the Night and the Day, and the sun and the moon: all (the celestial bodies) swim along, each in its rounded course.

    Anyone want to hazard a guess as to what will happen to this earth if the moon suddenly floated in an orbit disproportionate to that of the earth or the sun? Yet we’re willing to abide by calendars that tell us to-the-minute when to start and when to stop performing each salaah, but still insist on having pointless debates about the sighting of the moon whose cycle can be predicted as accurately as the sun?

    In the interests of unity, the Sunnah is that we follow the majority opinion of our community so that we don’t create divisions. For this reason only do I continue to follow the decisions published by our local masjid. But I pray that in time, this issue as well as the insanity around the use of the moon and star symbols will become a thing of the past and that Muslims around the world can move beyond the pettiness that erupts every single year without fail just because we can’t separate principles from rituals and apply them consistently. Insha-Allah. Ameen.

  • A Brain Dump

    Looking across the table at my daughter leaves me wondering if she’ll ever grasp the extent of the struggles and sacrifices that I and many others have gone through just so that she may have a normal life. She already takes so much for granted which goes against so many principles that I always thought were established laws of nature, so much so that I foolishly assumed that she would automatically adopt them as her own.

    I’ve been cautioned before about not being able to change the genes of a person, but being the pragmatic idealist that I am, words like that do nothing more than spur me on to prove that idealism still has a place in this world. I’m not so sure any more. There was a time when I was unshakeable in my views about what principles could or could not be compromised in life, but these days it seems as if nothing is sacred any longer. Reciprocation is a luxury while selfish individual rights supersede everything else. 

    This must sound extremely selfish since a parent’s role by default is supposed to be a selfless one. I don’t think selflessness exists. It’s a nice idea, and makes for really wholesome use in the embellishment of people’s efforts, but at the root of it all, of everything we do, lies a single common thread that contains just two words. Gratitude and affirmation. There is only so much any individual will do for the sake of the greater good, before we expect that greater good to return the favour. 

    There is no balance any more. The echoes no longer just remind but now they taunt as well. Echoes of what this world is and for what it was created. I once heard a wise man say that this world was created for respite, not justice. I hate how true that statement is. For this reason the good will always be trampled upon while the usurpers will continue to flourish – in this world only.

    Looking at my daughter tonight made me realise how insignificant we can be in the face of the most significant challenge in our lives. How oblivious others can be about the sacrifices we make on their behalf, while they live as if the world owes them everything leaves me staring vacantly at the future. 

  • Dua for Repentence

    Dua for Repentence

  • The Prophet Muhammed (pbuh) in the Bible

    cynicallyjaded:

    Comparative religion has always been an interest area of mine. This discussion is quite an interesting one, and if you don’t have enough time to watch the video, here’s a link to the dialogue referred to in the video. Such dialogues are not uncommon between leaders of various faith groups in South Africa. Although it is a lot less prevalent since the passing on of Ahmed Deedat.

    Here’s the introduction to the video from the Youtube posting:

    According to the Bible, God said to Moses, on whom be peace: I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. (Deuteronomy chapter 18, verse 18 – King James Version).

    The prophet described in the above verse must have the following three characteristics: 1. He will be like Moses. 2. He will come from the brothers of the Israelites, i.e. the Ishmaelites. 3. God will put His words in the mouth of the prophet and he will declare what God commanded him.

    The question is; who is this prophet? Let us find out…

    (Source: http://www.youtube.com/)

  • We Want Your Freedom

    americawakiewakie:

    Or, maybe it’s U.S. bombs destroying sovereign peoples’ homes, or U.S. drones murdering their children. 

  • Consolidating my blogs

    cynicallyjaded:

    After some thought, and considering the feedback I received from a whole three followers to my previous post about this, I’ve decided to go with consolidating my two blogs. On the one hand, keeping them separate allowed me to share my views about universal themes without triggering the prejudices of those that will feel repulsed by any Islamic undertones in what I say.

    The truth is, my views about the world have been very strongly influenced by the philosophy that Islam engenders towards leading a balanced life. This is evident in the posts that I have shared on the72sects regarding my disagreement with the way in which Muslims conduct themselves relative to what Islam requires of us. 

    One of the reasons I’ve decided to consolidate the two blogs is because by keeping them separate, it may give the impression that I am suggesting that Islam and universal issues of my daily life belong in two different domains. That’s not true. The two are inextricably interwoven. However, when we approach Islam, or any religion for that matter, as a spiritual guide independent of life itself, it ends up being practised as a set of rituals with the principles being lost in translation.

    The numerous debates that rage between Muslims of differing schools of thought bears testament to this unhealthy separation of the two. Someone once asked me what my view was regarding a specific issue that had religious connotations. I can’t recall the specific issue at hand, but what I said was that being a Muslim, the Islamic view is my view. If I try to divorce the two, then I would be guilty of being selective in what I practised based on personal preferences. This is not as ‘extremist’ as it may sound.

    Too many times we go on the defensive and try to justify our actions when those actions fall short of the prescribed behaviour. However, in accepting that we’re human, and therefore flawed by nature, we need to accept that our actions may not always be in line with what is required. Accepting that we’re wrong, and acknowledging that improvement is required in some spheres of our lives will automatically keep us grounded and sufficiently introspective to dissuade us from focusing on judging the actions of others. 

    With these, and so many other thoughts in mind, I’ll stop publishing new content to the72sects with immediate effect and will share my views on everything in this blog only. I look forward to reading the views of my Muslim and non-Muslims followers alike about any and all the posts I may share in future. 

    Does this mean that I need to change my blog title to ‘Ramblings of a Mad Muslim’ instead? 🙂

  • Victims and Oppressors

    It seems I created quite a stir with my views about depression and mental disorders. It’s somewhat concerning that so many people took exception to what I had to say, but hardly anyone was concerned about the vagueness and generality of the original post that encouraged professional intervention for ‘personality quirks’. 

    Worse still is the fact that hundreds of people were willing to reblog my post just to create a platform for them to hurl abuse and vulgarity at me without even trying to engage or understand the context thereof. There were a few exceptions, and where I felt it was worth my time, I dropped a note to each of them to either thank them for engaging sincerely, or to clarify my perspectives. 

    The reality is that victims are more likely to act aggressively than anyone else. In my life, whenever I was attacked physically or verbally by others, it was always plainly evident that they were responding irrationally simply because they were unable to  justify their position, or were too distracted by their self-defeating behaviours to realise that there can be an alternate view that holds merit.

    As Muslims, we believe that one of the signs of the hour approaching is that killing will become common place. Even just typing this simple line leaves me cringing at the thought of the feeble-minded that will use it to further entrench the stereotypes that they are force fed through the mass media. Nonetheless, the point is simple. The more we embellish our lives with half-truths, the less likely we are to be able to grasp the truth even if it stares us blankly in the face. 

    We live in extremes. It’s rare to find people that live as equals, but very common to find people living as victims or oppressors. All the shades of grey, let alone the colours of the rainbow, have been stifled out of our lives because we’ve become such a polarised species.