Writing to prisoners

I've recently begun correspondence with some Muslims who were imprisoned in some high-profile cases in the States. Ali al-Timimi is one and Ismail Royer is another. They've been in prison for a little while now and what prevented me from writing to them previously was worry that if i wrote to them it would get my name put on some government watchlist. But then i thought, screw it, the government is so intrusive nowadays that anyone who prays 5 times a day is bound to be on some government watchlist. But more important than that, if i weren't to write to even one of the brothers i would feel that i was in a sense washing my hands of them. And thats bad enough because i've spoken to some of these guys before in person or over email, so i kind of know them. But more dangerously, how would such an "abandonment" be viewed in the sight of Allah. Not very well, methinks.

I'm writing to them because i believe they're innocent of course but also because i realise now that a simple letter can cheer up someone who is in their situation. In fact, some of them have encouraged me to get other people writing to them. So it will come as no surprise that i'm going to ask you guys to mosey on over to the cageprisoners site and write to a detainee. Just even send a letter with a du'a in it.

And if you can't do that, at least say alhumdulillah that you're not in that position.

Italian women urged not to marry Muslim men

The BBC News reports today that a number of Cardinals in Italy have urged women to exercise extreme caution before entering into "mixed-marriages." What they really mean is marriage to Muslim men.

One wonders whether their advice is based on concern for the marital well-being of the Italian woman, or out of fear that the Italian women will convert to Islam. How often is it that you hear of a non-Muslim woman marrying a Muslim, who despite not practising properly will expose her to the Islam in a way that the media rarely does, and ends up converting. [Alhumdulillah, quite often :)]

On another note, we've passed the shortest day of the year and summer is now officially coming. A couple of years ago i planned to spend the summer visiting different places in the UK, but somehow that plan fell by the wayside. I'm hoping that this summer i can visit some places... anyone got any recommendations?

Hi i'm Kash

When i came back from JIMAS earlier this year, i made a few resolutions (uhmm... that sounds like a bid'ah- what i meant to say is that i set myself some targets ;)). One of these was to start to get to know my neighbours. Although quite a few of the residents on my road are renting, there are loads who have been there ever since i can remember and these are the ones i wanted to get to know better. This Monday as i arrived back from work, an English fella who lives further up the road was passing by the house, so i caught his attention and said to him that we've been living close to each other for so many years yet i've never said even said "hello" to him. He laughed and then we introduced ourselves to each other. He seems like a nice chap, and he said he'd pop over sometime.

I'm setting myself a target of getting to know 10 families by the next time JIMAS comes round. So far, i'm on 2 :)

I hope getting to know the neighbours will also help us understand each other's cultures and all that. I know that sounds quite corny, but its quite obvious that if you stick to your own people in totality and aren't exposed to others and their ways, you're bound to view the "others" with some degree of prejudice or fear, or negative feelings. I'll give you an example. In multicultural London, if you walk down the street in a thobe no one will look at you twice. However, when driving back from Leicester some time ago i had a friend who is a portly Arab man from the Middle East dressed in thobe and ghutra, and i could see a look of amazement and not-so-friendly looks on the faces of lots of the English people when we stopped at a petrol station. They must have been thinking "these Arabs are weirdos."

But the reverse is also true because just before we got to the petrol pump, we stopped at some traffic lights, and the one person who happened to cross the road right in front of the car was some weird hippie looking woman wearing some freaky fluorescent-pink skin-tight bottoms, holding some glittery hula-hoops in one hand and the leashes of three greyhound-like dogs in the other. My friend just laughed. I bet he was thinking "these Westerners are weirdos."

Look what i found on the floor...

in an East London Mosque ....

Don't give up

I read a nice story about Kisa'ee, a scholar of grammar. He says "i studied grammar a number of times, but never really succeeded. So one day i was sitting and i saw an ant carrying a small date seed trying to scale a wall. Each time it climbed up the wall, it would fall down to the bottom because of the weight of the seed. But it carried on trying to do so again and again until it got all the way up and crawled away with its seed. So i said "Subhanallah! This little ant never gave up in its task until it finally succeeded. So i will now go back to my study of grammar until i too succeed."

In fact he succeeded and became the Imam of the Grammarians of Kufa.

SPT editorial

There is a new article written by Babar Ahmed (may Allah hasten his release) here:

http://www.stoppoliticalterror.com/index.php?pageid=57&id=24

Do you notice that when someone calls a spade a spade, how much easier it is to accept what they're saying?

Soaps

Some of my relatives are hooked on watching Indian dramas, and over the months (perhaps years) i've caught glimpses of the different series on the box. Despite the change in name, and the change in faces, one thing seems to remain unchanged: the storyline. Its eerie that *every single* indian drama revolves around the lives of scheming and cunniving mothers- and daughters-in-law who are trying to outdo each other, to separate the son from the daughter, and cause all sort of family mayhem in general.

I wonder what it says about the indo-pak culture? You find the storylines of these dramas played out in real life in real families which leads to the question: is it that the dramas are simply portraying what indo-pak culture is really like, or do the dramas inspire viewers to behave in such a way? I've certainly heard one pakistani woman (from the elder generation) say that these dramas can teach you lessons in how to behave with your relatives. Now thats quite shocking given some of the behaviour of on-screen mothers-in-law.

Fund raising

I think one of the major challenges that we face as a community is that of fund raising. There are just so many good projects going on but they all require money. Donate for the Tsunami appeal, donate to the Timimi legal fund, donate to HHugs, donate to the victims of the Earthquake, donate to the mosque, ...... sometimes i think we're in a constant fund-raising cycle.

Giving in charity is a great virtuous act, but i wonder how much longer the community can sustain it, there is only so much money within the community. Thats why i think we need to think of ways to tap into money sources outside of the community. There are 2 million Muslims in the UK surrounded by 58 million non-Muslims. We should start thinking of services we could offer to the non-Muslims which would bring money in.

An example that springs to mind is a school teacher who could make the intention to spend 1.5 hours a week offering him/herself as a private tutor to some kid with the intention that the proceeds from this work would go to good causes. How much would they earn? I'm not sure, perhaps £10/hour. If they were to stick to such a plan it could mean that every month they could be donating the sizable sum of £60 to good causes - all for only a weekly commitment of 1.5 hours. They might even decide to send just 50% of the proceeds to good causes, but even that is a nice sum of £30 a month.