Comeback Story

In everything that happens there is some good. We just don't know what it is, and may never know till we go back to Allah subhana wa ta'ala.

Two days left...no matter how much I tell myself that time will fly, I am not able to understand it, just like a baby floating in his mother's stomach cannot understand how big the world really is. I float between exuberance and fear. I am joyous because I am insha'allah going back to Ammi and Abdullah and Khadija and Sauleha and Khala and Khalloo and Nana and Iman and Amin and everyone in Edmonton. What a great city we have. Our numbers are small but we are such a strong and active community, and the people who live here are role models for me. At the same time I fear the judgement of others, which is silly, because I didn't learn Arabic for people. I know that when I go back that there will be people who come to me and say, "Oh, you learned Arabic?" and then start talking to me in aamiya . What will I say then? "Oh well, actually you aren't speaking Arabic!?"

Abu gave me some advice. He said, "Treat what you've learned like treasure. Don't expose it to just anyone. Just like you keep jewels in a safe place, keep you Arabic hidden. That way all your work isn't destroyed in the fire known as showing off."

The trouble is, a lot of people love to wear their all their jewels, spattered all over their bodies. The gaudy look has a way of enchanting the viewer, making him believe that the wearer is truly wealthy. In Pakistan some ladies, if they see someone else wearing a certain kind of necklace or earrings, will go to the jeweller and ask him to make the same one just so they don't have to feel inferior.

I look at the stars, and ready myself for the dawn.

~Ameer

I wake up after only seeing the beginning of my dream...but I will grasp whatever happens after that with both arms.

~Ameer

My field of vision blurs as life roars ahead. I cannot imagine that my four and half months are up, that this is it, I'm going back. I'm waking up now after my dream, that period between sleep and wakefulness where you want to do both. Fear dominates my horizons; will all the work I've put it in go to waste where I go back to land where the bakers do not speak to me in the language of paradise? Will I forget?

Will I forget what I've learnt? Will I go back to being the same as I was, the little kid who wanted to stay in Canada so that he could play soccer all summer? Will I actually now take what I've learnt and apply it, use it like I've dreamed of?

Insha'allah.

Labayk Allahumma labayk.

~Ameer

Ahh...what it is this thing we call human beings? I can't understand it. The thing that really is me, the real me, who is it? Where is it? As I was walking to class, and watched all the people working on their various things, it occurred to me that I won't even be here in two weeks. And no one will even notice. Our lives aren't like that. No more what kind of people we are, we affect the thing around us, for better or worse. My teacher has changed me; I've absorbed his habits and ideas without even noticing.

Another crazy idea is that this body that I have, the one that I am always trying to make stronger, will only stay with me for a limited time. The real me, Ameer Omar Farooq, will leave this physical vehicle and go on somewhere else, someplace eternal. When you actually think about that...there is much that we do not understand.

Anyways, please pray that we benefit from what we've learned.

And that we persist.

~Ameer

Sleepy camel, woken up

Abu, in the shadow of the pyramids (maybe the other way around)?

New arrival, in the focus. My Abu.

Reading Qura'an, on a Golden Day, in the Golden City

Prone. Exhausted. Very Tired. Sleepy. Alhamdulillah.

Now

Saving the world...the dream of every young person with blood and a heart. We want to lift the suffering from people, remove poverty, wipe out injustice, and help everyone to live in peace and serenity. Too many of us tire ourselves out waiting for that moment when we can start that movement, make that discovery, and do something "really worth doing." People my age live their lives depressed because we are afraid that we will end up working our whole lives for "the big fridge" or "shark tank" or whatever term you want to use for living your life for the here and the now.

But don't abandon your dreams.

Start living them. Now.

Farooq bhai, or Omar bhai, or Murtada bhai, may never get awards for advising us to go Egypt. No one will probably ever know, or ever really care. But those few hours they spent with us did change the world. My life, and Mustafa's, will never be the same now that we've at least got a basic grasp of Arabic. A part of everything we read and enjoy and benefit from will go to them in terms of rewards.

So I've decided...I will live my dreams. Only I will start now, insha'allah. I will help the people around me, the people that I know and the people that I don't. Because if I do that, a wave starts; it begins with me and I feel its ripples come back to me. So oh my brethren, don't wait for the opportunity that never comes, the ideal job that doesn't exist, the period of leisure where you'll be free to do what you want, don't wait for it. Life is too short. One minute you are fine and the next you're gone and you can't delay that moment for even a second.

And to a certain lady out there, I pray for you everyday, everytime I read my Qur'an. I pray for your health, and I am certain there is something good in whatever happens.

And to certain other people out there, your effort is never lost. But please, make sure you rest and recharge and don't try to do everything. As the Arabic saying goes, only someone who has something can give it.

And please pray for me, all of you.

~Ameer

5 Things I Would Have Done The Same, Cont.

3.) I would have bought the same apartment.

Alhamdulillah, this is one thing that Allah really made easy for us. I know that the rent is pretty high but it definitely has been worth it. Alhamdulillah the apartment has really become (oh boy I am about to use a really horrific cliche) "home away from home"; whenever we go travelling to the pyramids or the museum and stuff we always have a huge sense of relief when we arrive home. It has a vibrant vitality to it. Alhamdulillah. I haven't seen a nicer apartment than ours in our entire trip. Having a place where we felt comfortable helped a lot with helping us to keep fresh and rested.

4.) I would not take any roommates.

I know that a lot of people really enjoyed having roommates, like Arif bhai and Atiq bhai. They said their stay in Egypt was more exciting when their friends were still with them. I also think that if I had a roommate who was better at Arabic than me, it would have helped me to improve my conversation skills (which I think still remains my weakest area).

But on the other hand, knowing myself, I probably would have despaired of ever being able to reach the same level as my roommate. It also would have been hard to adjust to another person's schedule, ideas, and suluk. The advantage with Mustafa and me (other than that I can boss him around :) ) is that we both can read each other really well and we know when to back off and give a guy his space.

5.) ....

I can't think of anything right now. Those were the most important things, I guess. In all, the trip I think was successful alhamulillah. The only thing is that it might have been good to stay a little longer, but I don't think i would be able to handle staying away from Ammi and Abu any longer.

Well, insha'allah Abu is coming tomorrow night. I pray he get's here safely with no problems.

Marhaban bikum fi misr!

~Ameer

It's That Time

Now that I have only one month left in Egypt, it's time to step back and take a look at the trip. Please forgive me for the belly-gazing, but I think it's important that I try to analyze and soak up all that's happened.

10 Things I Would Have Done the Same

1.) I would still travel to learn Arabic.

Alhamdulillah on the whole I've really benefited from the trip. I know that this is not the end of our Arabic learning curve, there's no question about that, but it's a good way to put down the fundamentals. I also think that it was important that we travelled to an Arabic country. Even if the average person doesn't speak proper fus'ha Arabic, at least distancing ourselves from Arabic helped. Also, the fact that we were away from our family helped us to focus because we knew how much everyone had sacrificed in order for us to be here. Travelling brings with its own sweetness and barakah and you can flatter yourself into believing that you are travelling on the same path as the scholars of the past. (At least you can try.)

Appreciation for having learned some Arabic I think will come after time. Right now everything is so condensed and you're so focused on Arabic you don't really realize all the doorways that the language can open for you. Insha'allah we'll finally be able to read tafsir of the Qur'an in our morning car sessions, we can listen to Arabic lectures, we will able to taste a little more of the sweetness of language without needing an intermediary. Alhamdulillah. And this is only the beginning...I can only imagine how much fun it will be to have Arabic classes with Ammo Rafik now.

2.) I would still travel to Egypt.

I'm perhaps a little bit unqualified to say this, considering I've only ever learned Arabic in one place, but I think I would still come to Egypt again. I really enjoyed learning Arabic in such a unique place. Egypt has a large percentage of Christians living side by side with Muslims. It's a place of ancient history, with *obviously* the pyramids and many ancient artifacts. There's the Nile, a part of which (I've heard) flows in Paradise. And most of all, there are the Egyptian people. A more generous and open-hearted people would be hard to find anywhere. And despite all the hardships they've faced, they remain optimistic and welcoming.

In addition, Markaz Al-Diwan is a top-notch place to learn Arabic. I've heard tons of criticism about Al-Diwan: it's too expensive, they try to hurry you along, you have to go to class instead of the teacher coming to you etc. etc. but I've realized that having a good, orderly system makes a huge difference when learning the language. I've met some students who have been studying for a long time but still can't speak Arabic. The qualified teachers in Al-Diwan make a world of difference, irrespective of whether the student is just looking for a little improvement or if the student has not seen an Arabic letter in his/her life. My teacher, Ustadh Ibrahim, is more than just an instructor now; he's my friend, and I'll never forget him for the rest of my life.

Man, belly-gazing is fun! More things I would have done the same later insha'allah.

~Ameer

A Few Important Things:

1.) Mubarak to Zacharia bhai. May Allah put lots of barakah and happiness in his life.

2.) One week till Abu jee arrives.

3.) A Plague on Fast Food Chains

4.) Cleaning the Apartment on Tuesday insha'allah.

5.) Duas.

~Ameer

Pretty cool lesson today.

Hayy ibn Yaqdhan (the living one, son of the awake) searches for his Lord by Ibn Tufayli al-Andalusi.

It's interesting because it's a story that explores a philosophical concept: how do we come to a knowledge of Allah, our Creator? (I think the concept is called gnosis in philosophy. Possibly.) In the section we studied, the author explored how the boy, Hayy, drifts onto an island and is raised a female gazelle who recently lost her baby. The boy compares himself to the animals around him and notes a lot of differences between himself and them. Then his mother, the gazelle, dies. Hayy tries to figure out what happened to her and goes through a whole series of logical deductions to eventually conclude that something has left her body, and won't return. And he wonders: who is the one who put that thing inside her body in the first place, and then took it out?

Like I said, a unique way of exploring philosophical concepts, although the section in the book was kind of long. Yeah, really long.

I am really going to try me best to work on my conversation skills before I leave. All the words are there but I just have to drag them out by force and use them, and try to get my conversation speed up to the same level as English. As usual, "I want the impossible" (i.e. it's only been three and a half months) but if you aim for the stars, you'll at least make it to the moon. Insha'allah.

~Ameer

What did I learn today...

I learned today that not everyone has to live the same kind of life as everyone else. Today our lesson was about Ibn Battuta and his 175 000 mile travels from as far west as Morroco to as far east as China. Everyone always talks about with him with hushed amazement (making me a little irritated in the process) but after having travelled a little bit myself I start to appreciate Ibn Battuta a little more. Most of all I appreciate the fact that he actually decided to do the whole travelling thing. Some people might have thought that his life was frivolous; I mean, what's the point of just travelling from place to place, with no family, no set place, no constancy? Where is his contribution?

That's precisely the point. His contribution was his book that became a bond linking the huge Islamic empire together. Everyone could read his book and get an idea about the life that other Muslims were living in other parts of the world. And the best thing about his book is that it's not like many of the other history books written at the time; it's more a like a travel diary (and in reality it's also like a dictated autobiography; Ibn Battuta didn't actually write the book, but someone else wrote down his lectures on his travels and compiled them in a book) that describes the people and cultures that he explored. It has no pretense of flowery or figurative language, but talks to in a style that is surprisingly similar to modern fus'ha (i.e. something I can understand).

I myself probably wouldn't like to live a life like Ibn Battuta. You have to have a certain penchant for travelling to go on like that for 30 years of your life. But I'm inspired by the fact that he managed to do it...although I can't really understand it. Somehow, he never complains like us Canadians in Cairo about every little thing: the lack of home food, being away from home, etc. etc. And everywhere he went, he worked as a qadi , ruling according to Islamic Shariah.

Nota Bene to some little people close to me: I'm not talking about Islamic Civilization! This is just your older brother talking inside his head. Cool? and let's not let other people dictate to us how we should look at ourselves, our past, or our future.

~Ameer

Alhamdulillah, today we actually started Book Three, but it was a little bit like being in a desert, seeing a pool of water and not being able to drink it. My teacher insisted that we should read very carefully the whole structure and manhaj of the book so that it would be easier for us to benefit from the book as we read on. But you can imagine how impatient I was to get started; the introduction, then the first lesson, talked about all the different stuff we're about to read and...we've arrived.

You can feel the tidal wave of student about to arrive. New teachers come all the time and sit in our classes. I'm not worried about speaking in Arabic with anyone, but somehow when someone is with me during classes I feel nervous because I want to make Ustadh Ibrahim proud, but generally that has the opposite effect. The other thing is that this new book has no harakat, so it's constantly like a chess game, trying to figure out what the function of the words are in the sentence. It's harder than it sounds.

Also, alhamdulillah for Draino.

~Ameer

40 Days

The countdown is on.

Alhamdulillah we finished the balaghah book and are moving right along to Book Three of Kitab-ul-Assassi. I feel like I am getting ready to learn Arabic all over again. It is a mark of the specialness of this new stage that my teacher said, "We're going to take it real slow now." My teacher never says that. But I'll give no quarter and ask no quarter bi'idhnillah.

40 days isn't much anyways.

After studying balaghah, I appreciate the Qur'anic language more and more. It's amazing that the beauty of the Qur'an can be appreciated on so many different levels. Before I started learning Arabic, I was amazed by the Qur'an, but now I see it on whole different way. For example, we learned about qasr, which literally means "to imprison" or "to confine." In balaghah it is when we describe someone or something by having only one kind of attribute in order to emphasize the attribute. (Ok, that didn't make any sense.) An example might help.

For example, it says in Surah Dhariyat, "And We did not make jinn or human beings except for worship." That sounds pretty straightforward, but knowing that qasr is being used here emphasizes the fact that there is no other purpose for human beings. If it had been written, "And We made jinn and human beings for worship" in Arabic that might also mean that they were created for other things to: eating, playing, etc.

Alhamdulillah everything else is fine, except that it's getting a lot hotter now. Mustafa and I both use the air conditioner at night now and in the day time you really feel muggy. What scares me is how much hotter other places are, like Karachi and Saudi Arabia.

As always, we need your duas.

~Ameer

The funniest thing about writing on the blog is that as soon as I sit down to write, everything goes zip right out of my head. There's so much I would normally like to write about, like the hopefulness of the morning sunlight, the kittens who play in the shop of a bike mechanic, and little boys hugging my legs, but I forget it all as soon as I see the one eye of the computer staring at me.

Today, as usual, we went to go play soccer. Regretfully, we gave up playing with the Turkmenistanians because there really is no point anymore. None of the old guard comes to play and those that do aren't really serious about playing, which is in stark contrast to the crazy Student group we play with. The inimitable "Sheikh" Hamza from Russia was in fine form today, holding his arms aloft like a bird after he scored his goal. I just shook my head. We form some pretty strong mental stereotypes about people. The fact that Hamza is studying "Usul-ul-Din" in Al-Azhar doesn't jive in my head with the fact that he is a really good soccer player that occasionally (like most soccer players) loses his temper on the pitch. You envision people who study the din as very skinny and quiet, or alternatively jolly and very unfit. Soccer: broadening your horizons.

I bought the third volume of Kitab ul Assassi and started reading it. Alhamdulillah I can read the newspaper and stuff, but reading those old texts made me feel like I was going to have start learning Arabic all over again. There is much that I don't know; well, yeah, that's kind of obvious, but it becomes more and more obvious all the time.

But like Ammi said, I should be more thankful for what I have instead of always thinking about what I have to do. At the game I was talking with one of my teammates when we our team was off the pitch in Arabic, and it was alhamdulillah not difficult at all. *Ameer attempts to grin weakly but the smile slides off his face and his eyes refocus on the balagah book in front of him*

~Ameer

It's not often that money can buy you what you truly need, so be thankful when it does.

Alhamdulillah I am so glad that I got Ustadh Ibrahim as my teacher. He truly helps me through everything that I go through. He and I can now read each other, we can sense each other's moods and know when the other is tired, sad, or preoccupied. And our relationship is not just limited to Arabic; Ustadh Ibrahim encourages me when I am sad, reprimands me when I am lazy, gives me advice on my life, and helps me in anything that I need, whether it be something important like getting my visa or a simple as buying a belt.

Mustafa and I were talking today about our lack of true empathy towards others. We think that we meet people, but really what we are doing is meeting a shadow of our own egos reflected in someone else. We hate people for no reason whatsoever, and when you think about it, it's not that you really hate them, but that you are angry at yourself because you think you are not as good as them, or as smart as them, or as physically strong as them. It's also hard to accept the fact that just as you change, others change also. We want to control people, we want them to always remain the same so that you don't have to change your perception of them. But in order to really relate to people, you have to be able to accept them as they are without asking them to be something that you want them to be. That's something I really admire about Abu. Whenever he meets someone, he simply meets the person. That's why after about five minutes Abu becomes that person's friend.

Alhamdulillah.

~Ameer

Shakwa wa Jawab Shakwa

"My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer," the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked up at the moonless sky.

"Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity."

"Every second of the search is an encounter with God," the boy told his heart. "When I have been truly searching for my treasure, every day has been luminous, because I know that every hour was a part of the dream that I would find it. When I have been truly searching for my treasure, I've discovered things along the way that I would never have seen had I not had the courage to to try things that seemed impossible for a shepherd to achieve."

The Alchemist by Paul Coelho

~Ameer

Why do people change so much?

It is almost painful in a way. You don't know who they are anymore, you lose that connection that you once had. That's why I guess it's so important to keep in touch with someone often, even if it's just a letter once in a while, because then you know he's around, you feel like you still know them. Otherwise when you meet them you feel like you've met an entirely new person, not the person you once knew.

I think part of it is that you change yourself, without realizing it.

~Ameer

We went to get our passports today and alhamdulillah, as I predicted, it was a lot easier than I expected. Of course, there were a few interesting moments, such as when the taxi driver dropped us off in some totally different place, but alhamdullillah it could have been a lot harder. The Markaz Al-Diwan guide helped a lot as we kind of knew what to expect in terms of the whole process. First you have to fill out the application, then buy stamps for it, and then finally submit the entire application along with a photo, and photocopies of the visa and front page of the passport. We were a little tense when the lady who was reviewing our application got up and went to talk with her supervisor. We knew there might be problems because of us having two passports, the new and the old, but everything turned out alright. We even managed to get a three month visa instead of just a one month.

We realized what a blessing to know at least some Arabic when we saw this lady from America trying to get her three-month visa. The officer was trying to help her, but he hardly knew any English and she didn't know any Arabic. That tension...you could cut through it with a knife.

~Ameer

Just as I was about to finish my post on taekwondo, there was a problem with the internet and it shut down. Alhamdulillah.

Anyways, please pray for us all as the Canadians in Cairo travel to renew their visas.

~Ameer

The Fight Goes On

Normal men die once.

Cowards die a thousand times.

Martyrs never die.

~Ameer

Here We Go...

The moment we've all been waiting for...the most enjoyable part of being in Egypt...we will finally see the true reasons behind the greatness of Egypt!

We're going to get our visas renewed, insha'allah.

According to our Al-Diwan guide, it's all part of our "Egyptian experience". Oh boy. We need two get two passport-sized photographs, our old passport and visa, money, and a lot of patience. Insha'allah I'm trying to make it seem a lot more arduous than it probably will be because that way when I actually go insha'allah it won't seem as difficult.

Today the two Muhammads who work at Markaz Al-Diwan were cleaning out one of the rooms on the fourth floor. The room was previously being used for storage but now since summer is coming with its accompanying wave of new students the teachers need to use it for a classroom. There was tons of stuff inside it. Both of the poor Muhammads were complaining that every two months they have to move all the stuff right back into it. I had a good laugh with my teacher.

When they were moving all the stuff I also found an excellent little pamphlet written by Ustadh Islam Aly on learning Arabic. It clears up so many misconceptions that foreign students have when learning Arabic, and actually addresses language in general. For example, it talked about the fact that some students always care an English-Arabic dictionary around and try to learn as many complicated words as possible. They believe that a good understanding of a language entails knowing lots of words no one else knows. But eloquence, as Zachariah bhai always reminds us, is using the right words in the right place, no more, no less.

I met one student who was leaving Egypt and I asked him, "How do you feel about your progress in Arabic? Do you feel that it's been worth it?"

He said, " Yeah, I'm really happy with my progress. If I stayed any longer, all I would do is simply be memorizing new words. I can do that anytime with a dictionary in my own country."

I thought about that comment a lot and realized that it was wrong. The most important thing is to learn the correct context to use the word, especially in Arabic. In Arabic you have to worry about a lot of different things when you learn a word: does it need an object or is it lazim (certain verbs are "stand-alone"; for example, "I went," doesn't require an object)? What place does it occupy in the mushtaqqat? And most of all, customarily how do we use this word?

Another important thing I learned from the book is that learning from old and important books is not always a good way to learn Arabic. I always personally use to think that the best thing to do is study a book like Ihya Ulum al-Din or something like that and after that your Arabic would be tip-top. But as Ustadh Aly points out, language is about communication. It's important that we remember that Arabic is a living language. Some people think, "Well, I only want to understand the Qur'an; why would I need to learn to speak in Arabic?" Until you've lived in an Arabic country you don't really a get a full taste for the language. There were some articles from students who had learnt Arabic at Markaz Al-Diwan included in the book and one student gave the example of the word nazar. In Urdu the word nazar literally means, "sight". But contextually it also means evil eye, jealousy and a host of other things. The Qur'an is the same way. The more we live with the people of the language, the more potent our understanding becomes.

I can already forsee people saying, "Well, the Arabs today are a lot different than from before. Arabs don't even speak fus'ha anymore!" But I still contend that if your only contact with Arabic is in a book, your understanding will serious lack fruitfulness.

(Yeah, I am an expert now. I've spent my two months and now I can be crowned as Sheikh Toad-ud-Din. :D)

Everyone keep praying for us. Our visit to the greatest Egyptian monument, the Mujamma, awaits.

~Ameer

The Ascetic on the Fourth Floor

I really admire my teacher. The more I learn from him, the more I appreciate him. He's not so unreachable as to be impossible to talk to, but at the same time he has a strong sense of dignity that is appreciable by everyone who meets him.

These days our classes are mostly us talking about all sorts of random topics, such as the state of the Markaz-ul-Islam fire escape, Fidel Castro, and soccer.

To all the soccer fans out there, recently Al-Ahly, the biggest Egyptian soccer team, had a match with Barcelona. Al-Ahly actually is not a bad club, considering they beat Real Madrid back in 2001 or something like that. And no, Real Madrid wasn't fielding their second-string, at least I don't consider Zidane and Roberto Carlos to be second-string. But to the disappointment of the Egyptians, Barcelona whipped Al-Ahly 4-0. It would have been okay if the game had actually had some intensity to it, but Barcelona fielded all their substitutes and debutantes in the first half. A 16 year old scored and someone else headed in a ball while being completely unmarked. By the second-half when Ronaldinho and co. appeared Al-Ahly was so demoralized they were unable to stage any kind of comeback. Eto'o scored two goals in revenge of Cameroon's loss to Egypt in the African Nations Cup. Of course my teacher had to draw this all back to the decadent state of Egypt i.e. Egyptians lie to themselves, they have no idea what they are actually like.

"There is no life with despair, and no despair with life."
-Mustafa Kamel, the great 19th century Egyptian revolutionary

~Ameer

p.s. I know that was kind of random, so forgive me.

Footsteps

Alhamdulillah we are doing fine. I know we haven't written on the blog for a while, but we've just been a little busy recently. Things don't slow down much, I guess, they just keep going. You keep waiting for the time in your life when you won't busy, but it never comes. Like Imam Siraj Wahaj says, "We'll have plenty of time to rest when we're dead."

Maybe. Depending where we are.

Speaking of death, my lesson today in the Muhaddathah book was about funerals in Egypts and the Arab world and the customs and traditions surrounding it. It's basically the same anywhere in the world; we visit the family of the deceased and try to comfort them, and we pray for the deceased. These days when we do lessons in this book it's not so much the lesson that's interesting but the conversations that we have about different topics related to the lesson are extremely fruitful, especially in this level. We've talked about stuff related to history, tourism, marriage (that was very fruitful *smiles bashfully*) university, and finally, death.

Death.

Like my teacher was saying, some people think that talking about death is really morbid or depressing. It is, if you don't believe in a life after death. There's nothing you can do about it, see, unless you know that it's the thing that separates us from our ultimate end.

My teacher was telling me that last week his friend's brother died, and he went to his funeral. Apparently in Egypt it is a custom in some villages that everyone pray in a particular masjid that was built over the body of a pious sheikh. This, of course, is abhorrent to my teacher, who always errs on the side of caution, and besides, this is getting close to shirk anyways. So to get on with the story, this particular young friend of my teacher is extremely pious; when he believes something, he does it. So he announced on the microphone (in the village, things are announced by microphone; nice, eh?) that everyone should pray in a particular masjid, but not in the one where the sheikh was buried. So everyone did as he said, no problem.

Next day, in the Jum'a khutbah, the khateeb vehemently attacked the boy's decision and said he had acted without any knowledge. Oh by the way, in Egypt, generally people come to the deceased person's house for three days after the funeral. Some people also have the custom (also faulty in the view of my teacher) to read Qur'an with the intention of sending the rewards to the deceased. My teacher says that that's not from the Sunnah; the Sunnah is to pray for the deceased. Anyways, the point is that that everyone went again to the young boy's house, and everyone was abuzz with the recent criticism of the sheikh. Everyone was wondering, "Will this guy relent and follow the customs, or keep it up?" The boy got up, and spoke into the microphone again.

"The Prophet (PBUH) ordered us to make dua for the deceased person, because now he is answering for his actions. So make dua for my brother."
And the boy began to cry.

A hush fell over the crowd. My teacher said that everyone suddenly began making dua for the deceased. Probably the way I told it was mumbly-jumbly, but when we were talking about it in class both of us had tears in our eyes. I remembered my grandmother, Allah have mercy on her. That's the reality. It's the last journey, our last step...

The only thing that remains is Allah's face...

~Ameer

Ameer after a haircut.

Looks a bit different, eh?

Cairo Courses

"And now with some favorite recipes from our Master of Disaster, Gracie Heavy Hand," or so the script from my favorite Canadian radio show goes, The Dead Dog Cafe (now Dead Dog in the City). Alright, bismillah, let's get cracking on the food that makes people's mouth's water in Egypt!

1. Koshari.
It's scary, looks like a combination between cookie/cream ice cream, chickpeas, and little black pebbles, and is highly under rated. It's like the perfect food, where a whole bunch of things looking not so good turn out to be amazing.

Verdict: Mouth watering.

2. Tomatoes
Okay, to the people who started reading this blog at the beginning, you'll know that we won the Best Customer Award there and everything, but after a while, it just started to go down in our rankings. Probably eating Chicken Foukasha sandwitches isn't the most well rounded meal anyways.

3. Ustadh Ibrahim's Chicken Supreme

This one is from Ameer's teacher, Ustadh Ibrahim, trying to convince, or perhaps dissuade, Ameer from cooking at home. I guess it's up to the reader to discern his true intentions.

1. Buy a chicken.
2. Cut the chicken.
3. Put the chicken in a pot full of water.
4. Boil the chicken.
5. Test whether it is cooked or not with a fork. If red stuff comes out, not good.
6. Add salt.
7. Serve.
8. Eat.

While the first 7 steps seem very simple and easy, I somehow doubt the last one is.

Alrighty,

Wasalam,

Mustafa.

The American Dream

Judge: Cleaner owes me $65 million for pants
2 years of litigation x 1 pair of trousers = headaches for family business

WASHINGTON - The Chungs, immigrants from South Korea, realized their American dream when they opened their dry-cleaning business seven years ago in the nation's capital.
For the past two years, however, they've been dealing with the nightmare of litigation: a $65 million lawsuit over a pair of missing pants.
Jin Nam Chung, Ki Chung and their son, Soo Chung, are so disheartened that they're considering moving back to Seoul, said their attorney, Chris Manning, who spoke on their behalf.

"They're out a lot of money, but more importantly, incredibly disenchanted with the system," Manning said. "This has destroyed their lives."

The lawsuit was filed by a District of Columbia administrative hearings judge, Roy Pearson, who has been representing himself in the case.

Pearson said he could not comment on the case.

According to court documents, the problem began in May 2005 when Pearson became a judge and brought several suits for alteration to Custom Cleaners in Northeast Washington, a place he patronized regularly despite previous disagreements with the Chungs. A pair of pants from one suit was not ready when he requested it two days later, and was deemed to be missing.
Pearson asked the cleaners for the full price of the suit: more than $1,000.

But a week later, the Chungs said the pants had been found and refused to pay. That's when Pearson decided to sue.

Manning said the cleaners made three settlement offers to Pearson. First they offered $3,000, then $4,600, then $12,000. But Pearson wasn't satisfied and expanded his calculations beyond one pair of pants.

Because Pearson no longer wanted to use his neighborhood dry cleaner, part of his lawsuit calls for $15,000 — the price to rent a car every weekend for 10 years to go to another business.

"He's somehow purporting that he has a constitutional right to a dry cleaner within four blocks of his apartment," Manning said.

But the bulk of the $65 million comes from Pearson's strict interpretation of D.C.'s consumer protection law, which fines violators $1,500 per violation, per day. According to court papers, Pearson added up 12 violations over 1,200 days, and then multiplied that by three defendants.

Much of Pearson's case rests on two signs that Custom Cleaners once had on its walls: "Satisfaction Guaranteed" and "Same Day Service."

Based on Pearson's dissatisfaction and the delay in getting back the pants, he claims the signs amount to fraud.

Pearson has appointed himself to represent all customers affected by such signs, though D.C. Superior Court Judge Neal Kravitz, who will hear the June 11 trial, has said that this is a case about one plaintiff, and one pair of pants.

Sherman Joyce, president of the American Tort Association, has written a letter to the group of men who will decide this week whether to renew Pearson's 10-year appointment. Joyce is asking them to reconsider...

To the Chungs and their attorney, one of the most frustrating aspects of the case is their claim that Pearson's gray pants were found a week after Pearson dropped them off in 2005. They've been hanging in Manning's office for more than a year.
Pearson claims in court documents that his pants had blue and red pinstripes.
"They match his inseam measurements. The ticket on the pants match his receipt," Manning said.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18471265/GT1/9951/

Something Less Than Spiritual

Manchester United to Win Premiership and Champions League!

Abu, I am also supporting your favourite player to score...Cristiano Ronaldo. He has seriously improved this season.

Sea

The world pours around me, blinding me with its lights and motion and sheer brilliant movement. I sat on my balcony this morning, reading Qur'an, and could see the thousands of sand-coloured apartment buildings stretching away into the distance as the sun beat down its rays, sending warning of summer. It seemed I was still in a desert, only a desert full of people and cars and buildings. The only consolation was the occasional kite (not toy-kite, hawk kite) soaring above, flying far above the ordinary and normal.

Before that I was drowning in another kind of sea, a black and white kind. Various ministers, prime ministers, presidents and other species of the jam'a ghair aqil stared up at me with their fake smiles as I slammed my gaze against the articles, hoping somehow to find a way through. I did manage to read one article..."Laughter, the Magic Cure". A little ironic, I would think.

I didn't have class today because someone in my teacher's family died. Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un. Mustafa was overjoyed because I now longer had any excuses left...the bathroom was awaiting in all its beauty. I am also going to try to get some clothespins before all our clothes flutter freely in the wind. insha'allah.

If we could see the end results of things, we would act a lot differently.

We would pull the hair out of the drain every day.

~Ameer

p.s. Okay that was disgusting even I admit it, but the small things are the ones that are by far the most important.

Am I Here, Exactly?

Today's class was a little less than extraordinary. My teacher was tired, but in truth I couldn't really concentrate. These days we are trying to read the newspaper, and I realize how much I have to learn just be able to read the most basic standard newspaper Arabic (ugh, I don't read newspapers in English!). I am worried: do I really deserve to be finished Book Two? I worry that my teacher rushed me just so I can say, "I finished Book Two of Kitab ul Assassi." I trust my teacher...well, that's contradictory because if you trust someone you don't worry about it. You just go along with their judgement. But when I have trouble reading simple newspaper articles, I get worried.

It might just be that my lack of confidence influences my ability to understand. I'm not sure. In any case, I need you all to keep the dua's coming, insha'allah. I'll give it my best shot, no matter what. I guess the level doesn't matter anyways; all that matters is that I've learned enough that I can come back to Canada and keep on studying without too much trouble. I think among the most important things I have to be able to do is to use the dictionary really well. If I can do that I should be able to get by. Insha'allah.

I was reading Muntaka's blog and I think that I can understand his feelings exactly: the feeling that you want to be more than just a successful professional, that you want to truly make a difference in the world and help those who need the help most. The trouble is, it's difficult to figure out what to do exactly. It's easy to say, "I want to help people," but what exactly is it that you do? Volunteer at different organizations? Teach people Qur'an? Make lots of money and spend it in the way of Allah?

Sometimes I wish I could be certain of myself, like some people are...no, appear to be. Life is uncertain, and we have to be ready to change and transform. You need to know where the boundaries are, but inside the garden there are countless types of plants and animals.

I am going home soon, insha'allah.

~Ameer

Mind Reading

Throughout history, people have dreamed of developing our psychological powers. Books like The Chrysalids explore the idea that eventually some day human beings will evolve a higher level of society, where people can communicate without talking, where people understand each other from the inside. Dozens of superheroes have been invented with the power to read other people's minds and influence their behaviour. Scientists believe that someday we will truly be able to tap into the power of our brains and talk to each other without words.

I already know how...and so does Mustafa.

The boy and I can communicate without words. Alhamdulillah, Allah made us like a team: one complements the other. Where I am reckless, Mustafa is careful. Where Mustafa is weak, I am strong. A clear example of that is simply coming to Egypt. Mustafa was the main driving force behind the fact that we are here in Egypt. Without his campaigning for it, we'd still probably in Canada. Now that we here in Egypt, I am really enjoying Arabic, and when Mustafa is down, I buck him up. Alhamdulillah Allah made us that way. It's definitely not something that happens by chance.

Even when if we are ever apart, we will still be together.

Remember that.

~Ameer

Failure

Ahhh....the word is painful.

But there is no such thing.

Most of our lives we struggle to catch up to our society. We want to be recognized for something. Deep down we have a fear that we'll live our lives in mediocrity, that our lives don't really mean anything because no one knows what we've done. That especially goes for sports or any type of competition. Unless we win gold, all that effort is useless.

Till I was about twelve years old, I hated sports and loved eating, with predictable results. After my uncle visited me from Pakistan (cue in teasing galore) I decided to change and ever since then I've been obsessed with sports and exercising (at least I like to think that). But because I was motivated by the sheer desire to look good, to stop getting teased about being fat, I didn't have the right reasons. In 2002, I trained seriously for the first time in my life in preparation for our annual taekwondo tournament. I wanted to win badly. I ran, I lifted weights, I practiced my patterns everyday...

I lost.

That was a turning point. My hopes of ever winning any competitions was shattered. "What is the point," I asked myself, "of putting effort into anything if it all comes to nothing?"

In Egypt, I've learned the answer. Because you love doing it. When I don't exercise, my body feels like a Safeway cake; soft with no substance and no energy. There's no carrot-on-the-stick now, no competition driving me on to exercise because I want to win. If I exercise or not, it makes no difference to anyone but me. But any effort I put in now is not without benefit. Someday I'll realize that any action I've done, no matter how small, helped me in some way. Before I came to Egypt, I thought that the three years we had spent studying with Ammo Rafik were useless. We weren't consistent, we couldn't understand anything; we were studying simply to make ourselves feel good. But no action is ever wasted. Ever.

It was not fitting for the people of Medina and the Bedouin Arabs of the neighbourhood, to refuse to follow Allah's Messenger, nor to prefer their own lives to his: because nothing could they suffer or do, but was reckoned to their credit as a deed of righteousness,- whether they suffered thirst, or fatigue, or hunger, in the cause of Allah, or trod paths to raise the ire of the Unbelievers, or received any injury whatever from an enemy: for Allah suffereth not the reward to be lost of those who do good;-

Nor do they spend anything that may be spent, small or great, nor do they traverse a valley, but it is written down to their credit, that Allah may reward them with the best of what they have done.
-Surah Taubah (120-121)

So for some little kids out there, don't worry. The pain you feel will dissipate, but your efforts, bi'idhnillah, will not.

~Ameer

p.s. Sauleha once told me, "I will win and I will lose, but I will never be defeated."

Ironic Immortality

Salam. Mustafa here. I'll pick up from where Ameer left off.

By the time we finished our applications, it was 2:00, and we were starving. After praying Namaz, we started walking around the vicinity trying to find a decent resturant. With traditional Ameer and Mustafa luck, we stumbled out of a sideroad into a gigantic traffic circle. It reminded me a lot of the area where the Agha's Supermarket is in Pakistan (sorry for non-Agha patrons. It's fairly hard to describe.) At the one end of the circle (I know there are no ends to a circle, but this was more like an oval) was a massive concrete building, built by a highly utilitarian Egyptian without a grain of fashion sense. This monster, we later found out, is the Mugamma, the place where we are going to have to renew our visas (not loking forward to it.) One the other side, we found out, after much pointing, gesturing, running away from bakseesh seeking police guards, was the Egyptian Museum.

(Sorry to cut it off here. will continue later).

Passports, Our Style

Yesterday was some adventure.

There is no such thing as laww ("if"), but it perhaps we should have renewed our passports before we left for Egypt. In any case, we should have at least renewed them as soon as we got to Egypt. But in uniquely AmeerMustafian-style, we left things to the last minute and so on Sunday we had to take a day-off and go to the Canadian Embassy. In the morning we feverishly checked, double-checked, and triple-checked our passports. Then as we were signing the declarations on the passports, Mustafa suddenly slumped, his body sagging as he put his forehead on the table.

"What's wrong?" I asked him.

"I signed, 'Mustafa Farooq, signed in Nasr City, Canada.'"

We thought we were in trouble then because the Internet cafe was closed and if we waited till it was open to download our forms, we might not make it to the embassy. Alhamdulillah Mustafa came up with the brilliant idea of ummm....getting another application at the embassy. (Please don't laugh). So with the name of Allah we left our apartment, walked down the road to Dhakir Hussein, hailed a taxi, and started our journey to Tahrir Square.

It was far, and the streets were packed with cars on their way to downtown Egypt. Suddenly the taxi driver pulled over and got out of the car. Mustafa and I were a little surprised, since we hadn't noticed anything wrong with the taxi, other than the fact it sounded like it was twenty-five years old, the transmission croaked like a frog, and someone really busy had done the paint job. The driver opened the hood and looked inside, pulled a wrench out from somewhere, dropped it back inside, whacked the horn a couple of times, went to his trunk, and pulled out a pair of pliers. After messing about in the engine for a bit more, he honked his horn to make sure it was it's usual blaring magnitude, then closed the hood. I am almost positive that he left both his wrench and the pliers inside his engine. Then we set off again, walhamdulillah.

I won't bore you with all the gory details of waiting in the embassy, but alhamdulillah it went well. Insha'allah we'll get our passports after a month.

I think I'll let Mustafa describe the next part, as I'm sure he knows more about it than me.

~Ameer

For My People

Nota Bene: I saw a cage perched on a balcony. The little canary inside it was singing with all its might.

Caged Bird

A free bird leaps

on the back of the wind

and floats downstream

till the current ends

and dips his wing

in the orange sun rays

and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks

down his narrow cage

can seldom see through

his bars of rage

his wings are clipped and

his feet are tied

so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings

with a fearful trill

of things unknown

but longed for still

and his tune is heard

on the distant hill

for the caged bird

sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze

and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees

and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn

and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams

his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream

his wings are clipped and his feet are tied

so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings

with a fearful trill

of things unknown

but longed for still

and his tune is heard

on the distant hill

for the caged bird

sings of freedom.

-Maya Angelou

~Ameer

Flow

The days pass by without any of us noticing it. My Bangladeshi friend, Mo'een bhai, is leaving to attend his wife's brother's wedding in America on May 1. That made me realize, we've been in Egypt for more than two months.

"Time is a two-edged sword. If you do not cut with it, it will cut you."

Alhamdulillah everything is going well, although my test today was a little crazy. I knew most of the grammar rules but still managed to make some really inventive mistakes. My teacher was in awe of me. I have a feeling that I know more about Arabic grammar than I do English, which I guess isn't really saying much anyways.

I think I need to do something different now when I'm studying Arabic, because for the first time I'm feeling a bit...not bored, that's a swear word, but a little uninterested. I don't know why. Maybe it's just that stage in the middle that Farooq bhai told me about before I came.

I really pray to Allah that tomorrow's soccer game is good. Last time there were too many players and as a result you don't get to actually touch the ball very often, and when you do, you want to keep it for as long as possible, which leads to indegenerate smashing and bashing.

We need all your dua's, especially right now.

~Ameer

Attempts

Life is a series of attempts, groping in the darkness sometimes with no sense of where you are going. Other times you think you know where you're going but you actually are going in circles.

And then sometimes you have a light with you.

Heart

Salam,

Mustafa here again. It's time to turn down the satire a bit and tap into the heart.

Because when it really comes down to it, that's all that there really is. Muslims are like hearts to one another. We feel each other beating, and when one heart is ill, the other heart aches. Sometimes our hearts ache with other things. Myself, I feel it all the time. Even in Egypt, so far away from time, trying to achieve my dreams, I still get envious when I hear about the achievments of others. I still get angry or irritable when I think about people I dislike or have disagreements with, and that's almost ludicrous if you think about it.

Another thing is the homesickness. One thing that's almost never mentioned by people who come from Egypt or Syria or what have you ever mention the homesickness. What exactly is this feeling? I mean, there's no conscious area; we just feel the pain. Sorry if my writing gets a bit jumbly here, but we're talking a language of the heart that my language skills are not up to describing. Sometimes I wish I could leave Egypt and just come home for a day. Just spend a day with Ami and Abu and the family. But I guess that's the way it's sometimes meant to be. We have to make sacrifices in order to make gains.

When I was younger, I guess I didn't understand that as well. I wished to have everything; play, leisure, happy days, high marks, achievments, my 15 minutes of fame, and ten hours of sleep. Now I'm starting to realize that they are "the things dreams are made of". What we get is proportional to the amount of work we put in and the amount that Allah helps us with.

I hope my writing isn't hypocritical, and I know it sometimes, "lacks depth, lacks worth/ lacks the distance to travel between heaven and earth" ect, but I hope it conveys what I feel. And here's a word from Tennyson's Ulysses:

I am a part of all that I have met;...

Come, my friends.'
T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,

We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,
--One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

-Bismillah

Mustafa

Jobs

Bismillah,

Salam.

Mustafa here. And to get things straight from the start, I am not the one who wrote the "Love" post.

I'm not brave enough.

I value my neck.

Anyhow, I decided today was a great time to submit a List of To Do Things when I get back to Edmonton, and a list of job possibilites. We'll start with the less pressing topic to get my writing fingers warmed up.

In the modern day world, young Muslims are being forced to re-examine the possible job opportunities out there (Doctor, Engineer, Taxi Driver, and every so often the lone corrupt politician.) To help the cause, I decided to make my own list after much hard thought, to save others the trouble- to find an occupation that will cause personal self fulfilment, a 7 digit salary, something that will help the Muslim ummah, and doesn't require to much work.

1. Business Conglomerate.

Seriously, we need more people like this. Imagine, if you will, a team of Uncle Syed Hasan's. Now that is something to seriously be afraid of. Twelve more guys like him, and the Edmonton Muslim community will be something to reckon with. We might even be able to employ someone to clean the masjid washrooms full time!

2. The Arts (AAAAAAAH!!!!)
If there are any people still left reading, please proceed to job number 3.

3. Mad Scientist

If we could get a mad scientist, the Muslim community would get a lot more positive coverage. Instead of constantly telling people that our religion advocates peace, we could say that our religion advocates progress. We'll put up a big sign outside the masjid "The Muslims Are on The Move!"

4. Bounty Hunter

5. Soccer Player

Muslims need more soccer players. I mean, that would take our shebab who sit and laze around all day, and convert them into mindless minions who enthrall millions by putting balls into nets. That reminds me- on my "To Do List"- I better advocate for Al- Ikhwan Youth to change their name to Al- Ahly. This would accomplish two strokes in one go ; erase negative publicity for the Ikhwan and 2. Get more Egyptians on the team.

6. Car Maker

Someone needs to tell Toyota to pick up a few of the taxi driving engineers and get them to refit the Toyota Corolla. Thousands of dollars are wasted each year by Muslims customized their cars to fit the Muslim cause. If Toyota could just make a couple of changes, Muslims would start buying their cars even more (move from the 90% of the market to 95% of the market). Here are some changes which we Muslims want:
1. Large CD with Quran ayats hanging from the rear view mirror
2. Cut the GPS scanners. Instead, put in a Halwa cooker in the dashboard
3. A tea proof cup holder
4. Clocks set automatically to MST (Muslim Standard time)- 1 hour behind everyone else.

Well that's my list. Of course, Criminal Mastermind, Lyers, and Janitors still rank among the top, but I worry. Some people are already picking up on the job that really is going to spice up our community in the coming years.

Religion Toting Thobe Wearing Police.

Wasalam,

Mustafa.

Sandstorm in Cairo

April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers....

And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in winter.

-from The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot

~Mustafa

(No, this is not describing a state of mind, but a state of weather. The picture kind of evoked it. the sandstorm in Cairo today was bad enough to shut down the airport.)

Love

Today our lesson in Kitab-ul-Assassi was about "Majnoon Layla". It's the real story of Qays and his uncle's daughter, Layla. They were born about two centuries after hijra (eight century common era) in the harsh landscape of the Hijazi desert. Qays and Layla as children worked as shepherds together until the time when Layla became of age and withdrew from her work as a shepherd. But by that time, without either of them realizing it, a deep and powerful love had sprung up between them.

When Layla started wearing hijab, Qays realized his love for her and wrote a poem praising her that became famous. But that was his greatest mistake: at that time, if a young man wrote a poem in praise of a woman, he would not be allowed to marry her because that would destroy her reputation among people. Qays begged his uncle to let him marry Layla, but to no avail. In the end, Layla married another man in order to protect her family's honour, despite the fact that she loved Qays also. Qays lost his mind and fled to the desert, and became known as "Majnoon Layla" (The Insane One of Layla) or simply "Majnoon" (The Crazy) (that translation is really bad, I know, but I don't really know if there is a word in English to describe majnoon; psychopath doesn't really cut it). Layla becomes sick and dies, and upon hearing the news of her death, Qays dies also.

I know some people would be astonished that I wrote about this story on the blog, but I think that's because today we don't really know what love is; we only know about lust. You can't imagine someone actually dying or wasting away because of love. I think it's because as Muslims, we've had to force ourselves to actually go completely the opposite way; we've made the entire subject of love as taboo and forbidden in order to protect ourselves from all the filth that we see around ourselves. And I think that's better than us falling into dangerous situations, but at the same time we've denied a part of ourselves that actually exists. Human beings have hearts, and are meant to love one another, but we have to ensure that our actions stay within the limits set by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

The story of Majnoon Layla in my opinion is more a story about society than anything else. When I was reading this story with my teacher, conflicting thoughts were running through my head. What's better? Is it better that Layla protected her family's honour, but caused Qays to go crazy? Or would it have been better that she marry him, but have to live with the stain on their honour? Personally, I think what Layla did is better, because otherwise we wouldn't have this story.

I also think that the whole story reinforces the concept of hijab. With hijab, there are far less chances of something like this happening, and that would save a lot of people from a lot of pain.

But I hope my analysis doesn't obscure the most important point of the story: love is the most powerful force in the universe. It can move mountains, cross deserts, and change fate.

I pray that Allah gives us his love, and the love of the people he loves, the love for the actions he loves.

The Red Stuff From Outer Space

I got the bawwab to clean the apartment and I found this strange stuff when we lifted up the carpets. I seriously hope I'm not about to morph into "Arabicman" or something like that.

Qasem Amin

Assalam u alaikum,

Qasim Amin is the only television series that I have ever really followed closely. It's interesting because it gives me an insight into Egytian history that I don't think I could have got any other way. It is based on the true story of Qasim Amin, an Egyptian writer and thinker who lived from 1868 till 1903 . At that time the British were occupying Egypt and many famous scholars were present at that time, such as Mohammed Abdo and Jamal al-din al-Afghani (both featured in the series). The show focuses on the political, social, and intellectual conditions present at the time and amazingly for an Egyptian program, features a really strong cast of actors and actresses.

The shows are always thought-provoking. Qasem Amin obtains a law degree from France and consequently full of 'enlightened' ideas about the freedom of women: they should know how to run their own affairs, they shouldn't be forced to stay in their houses all the time, etc. etc. He wrote about his ideas in a book called Tahrir al-Mar'a (Freeing the Woman). The problem with Qasem Amin (at least how they portray him) is that he mixes up things: parts of his ideas on women are correct and others aren't. For example, he correctly identifies the fact that women should be educated becaused they're the basis for our society. They raise children and shape their character. "Behind every great man is an equally great woman." But that doesn't mean that there should be mixing between genders or that women should have to join the work-force or other things that Qasim Amin advocated.

I have to say though, even the most just laws can be twisted to oppress people. One of Qasim Amin's friends is named Hassan. Hassan's father marries women, then divorces them after he gets tired of them, then marries someone else. Of course, he still provides for them and therefore it's his "legal right" according to Islam to have four wives and marry and divorce as he pleases. The spirit of the law is just as important as the letter, if not more important. The show is really well-made in the sense that it isn't just a long diatribe; they illustrate their point through the characters and situations that arise during the course of the story. The only thing I worry about is getting indoctrinated with ideas that aren't necessarily correct, so there's a on-goingwrestling match that I have with the show.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there is an article on Qasim Amin on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qasem_Amin

The most important thing I've taken from watching Qasim Amin is that a true revolution starts with the thinkers and the people first. Qasim Amin, Mohammed Abdu, and company are constantly planning and thinking about how they can awake people from their slumber and encourage them to revolt against the British occupation. I think what's even more important is to motivate people to revolt against the erosion of our identity and our connection with Allah. It's easy to dream about going back to the 'glory' days, the days when Muslims ruled from Spain till India, the days when we decided the law, when we had the power. But that's not truly what we've come for.

The real revolution is the revolution of the heart.
Ma'asalam,
~Ameer

A Still from the Television Series

An Actual Portrait of Qasim Amin

The Usual Suspects (A Juha Story)

This is a Juha story. It would work well in a modern thriller, I'm sure. And if you're wondering, it sounds worse in Arabic, believe you me.

The title of the story is open to speculation. Intially I toyed with "Nice Story" then "Juha Strikes Back" then "The Great Juha Returns". Finally, I just named it after one of the world's movies famous for making you feeling empty inside.

Once upon a time, Juha was riding his donkey through the desert. Suddenly, he heard approaching footsteps. Juha kept his cool, and rode on as if he didn't hear them. In fact, he listened carefully to their conversation (my teacher said it's bad adhab to eavesdrop, but I suppose there are no eaves in the desert, and Juha doesn't follow any adhab rules, so it's safe to proceed without getting commented on by the super radical religious police we have going in Edmonton "blearily reads an email regarding the tawhid of the Nation of Islam, based on a Wikipedia article"). Anyhow, he found out that they were theives, plotting to steal his camel; perhaps they would kill him in the process.

Juha immediatly intiated a plan that would have stunned Keyser Soze; he pretended that he was majnoon and insane. Then he quickly hopped off the donkey and ran into the desert, singing. At night time, the theives unloosed the harness of the donkey and intiated the Brilliant Master Plan of the Master Criminal. One theif ran off with the donkey, and the other hooked himself up to the bridle. (I guess this was a ploy to confuse Juha. Go figure.)

Anyway, Juha comes back in the middle of the night and manages to mistake the man for the donkey. He runs off into the desert, all night. In the morning though, the man reveals himself as...you guessed it...a man. The theif claims that he was changed into a donkey in the past because his mother made dua against him because he never listened to her (que in Sami Yusuf "Mother, I'm Blessed Without You"). He claims to have been caught and sold into Juha's ownership. Now, his mother has apparently asked for his forgiveness, and he is back into a man. (sounds just like a steal from Beauty and the Beast). Juha tells him cryptically "Alhamdullilah. You're free. Don't ever offend your mother."

The next day, Juha is walking in the market when he finds the theives selling his donkey. Instead of calling the police, Juha walks up to the donkey and whispers into it's ear, "Why did you offend your mother."

The people inquired why Juha was talking to a donkey. Juha told his story, and the police made the approriate arrests. The story ends with Juha walking out of the police station to the donkey waiting outside.

"After that, I don't think you'll see him again."

Wasalam,

Mustafa.

Various

Assalam u alaikum,

I've finally discovered the secret reason behind the arrogance and pride of mankind.

They don't clean washrooms.

I guess you all won't want the detail.s

Alhamdulillah everything is going well. I'm writing on Thursday night in the Siraj Mall internet cafe. I don't like this cafe as much as the other one, because the other internet cafe run by Ammo Hazim and Co. is always full of Pakistani students wearing topis and jubbas and laughing their heads off as they play Fifa-Pro on xBox. However, the only advantage here is that the connection here is a lot faster. Otherwise Siraj Mall is a really weird, exotic, and undesirable place to be in. Mustafa and I realized that the reason why it is so big is because it is actually three or four buildings connected together. It's even worse than West Edmonton, actually, never mind, nothing is worse than West Ed.

Why is it that the only thing famous in Edmonton is a giant mall? The only thing you have to lose is your chains! Proletarians, unite!

The weather here in spring is really strange. Sometimes it gets really windy, the sand blowing across the streets and turning the sky gray. You almost feel sometimes like you're on another problem. But then it rains..."mercy like the rain" (I haven't seen the nasheed video but I love the title). It drizzles lightly and I bare my shoulder, remembering how Prophet (SA) used to bare his shoulder because the drop were recently with Allah. What a beautiful thought.

I have to take some pictures of Cairo as I go to my class in the morning. Cairo is definitely at its best in the morning. All the little children are on their way to school, the boys sleeping in the car, while the little girls smile with pearly white teeth. Insha'allah I will take some pictures and post them.

Today I was thinking about coming back to Edmonton and began to shudder piteously. The thought of Khala Su'ad of first testing my Arabic, then talking to me only in Arabic and giving me more Arabic poems to memorize is enough to make anyone scared. (I'm just joking, of course. I'm looking forward to coming back and talking to people in Arabic, Ammo Rafiq in particular).

Keep those duas rolling boys.

Ma'asalam,

~Ameer

What I listen to at Isha

http://english.islamway.com/bindex.php?section=echapters&recitor_id=236

The Past, The Present, and The Future

Assalam u alaikum,

The lessons in Kitab ul Assassi are getting pretty heavy ("fatty," as my teacher would say). I know a lot of people, especially the many foreign students studying here, hate Kitab ul Assassi because it is "non-Islamic" and all the women do not have hijab and it is boring but I personally thought that the people who wrote the book were smart. They started with things that would be important for foreign students to know: eating, sleeping, finding an apartment. Now that I'm in the second book alhamdulillah things are getting more interesting and more serious. Today's lesson was "The Dialogue Between Nations". Basically it was taken from an article in a magazine that called for people to engage in conversation and dialogue in order to save our world from the problems that face us all. The author makes the point that the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the pollution of the earth, and explosion of the human population are problems that face us all and do not discriminate between race, social standing, colour, or religion.

Some of people I've met tend to have a pretty hard approach to things: either our way or the highway. They want everyone to accept Islam automatically. They're not willing to talk to non-Muslims respectfully and consider them to be dirty and totally unintelligent. What they don't understand is that without dialogue, without good communication, without give and take, no one will be accept another person's position. Learning Arabic has helped me realize that changing yourself is not impossible: the mind can grow and stretch and change dimensions. But everything takes time and effort, without which change is artificial and sometime impossible.

Today I listened to Surah Ma'arij in Salat ul Isha and I realized also that besides all the shared problems we face, we also all share a common destiny: we all have to face our Lord someday. A day when there are no excuses, no more dialogue, no more conversation...

The guilty man will long to be able to ransom himself from the punishment of that day at the price of his children,

And his spouse and his brother,

And his kin that harboured him

And all that are in the earth, if then it might deliver him.

By no means! for it would be the Fire of Hell!


Truth is painful.

Ma'asalam,

~Ameer

Loyalty

Once there were was a green jungle, full of animals and trees (this is an Arabic jungle, okay? so it's a little idealistic). In this jungle there lived three bison: one white bison, one red bison, and one black bison (you'll see why I had to modify this story; there is no way one of these placid Egyptian bulls could fight off a lion; besides, I think this story should become a little more multicultural and adding a little Canadian tinge always spices things up). There also was...you guessed it...a lion. And the lion tried to eat the bison, but was unable to do so because when he would attack one, the others would rake him with their horns or trample him with their hoofs. The bisons' motto was always, "All for one and one for all."

But being an Arabic lion, he thought up of a plan to eat all the bison. One day he went to the red bull and black bull and respectfully addressed them.

"Look guys, I got something important to say."

The black bison pawed the ground and the red bison lowered his horns.

"Wow, steady there old fella. I really think you should listen. See, that white bison, he's a huge source of danger for us. All of us blend in together (red, black, and golden somehow blend of course) but that whitey over there, he's gonna get us killed by those hunter chaps! What do you say, let me eat him and we'll be free of danger forever!"

The bison stared blankly at each other and said, "Okay."

The lion ate the white bison, licked his chops, and came back to the red bison.

"Look, bud, you were pretty smart to listen to me the last time. But I've been thinking: the black bison doesn't camouflage so well either. Besides, he's pretty dumb, and I think this jungle will be a lot better if only you and I are living in it."

The red bison continued chewing, and said around a mouthful of grass, "Yeah, sure whatever."

The lion ate the black bison, licked his chops, and came back.

"Hi old boy. You know something, I'm gonna eat you, and there is nothing you can do about it."

The red bison looked around for a long time, being slightly short-sighted. His slow brain finally realized that he was all alone and he had no one to help him. The bison sighed, and said the saying that would becoming famous among Arabic proverbs,

"I was eaten the day the white bison was eaten."

Brotherhood

Assalam u alaikum,

Since coming to Egypt, I've realized that I don't appreciate the people around me. When I'm in Edmonton, I'm sort of grouchy. I don't enjoy meeting people. I go out of my way to try and avoid people, just stay at home, do my own thing. It's not that all the people in Edmonton aren't amazing: quite the opposite actually, but somehow when I meet other people I'm always trying to size them up, compare myself to them, figure out ways I can put myself over them. I never actually meet them: I just meet my own bloated image of myself.

Here in Cairo I feel completely different. When I meet other students I feel excited to be able to talk to other people. We meet someone and after five minutes it's like we've known them for our entire lives. I think other people who have travelled can relate to this. There is something purifying in leaving your own home: you're not secure anymore, you know that you hold nothing in your own hands, so when you meet other students like yourself, you know that they will help you and you will help them. And the stories of their lives are enthralling.

I met this British guy named Kaysar the other day. This guy has like I don't know how many degrees, he's worked in this place and that place, and here is, studying Arabic like Mustafa and I. I guess we're pretty lucky that Ammi and Abu trusted us to come here and study all by ourselves. It's not so simple sometimes for parents to do that, and I realize that after I meet different students and hear their stories.

Sometimes when I write I have a whole bunch of thought crowded up in my head and it comes out in a big jumble. John Milton was blind for the last part of his life while he was finishing his magnum opus, Paradise Lost. He employed a secretary to write down his poetry lines as he composed them in his head. One day his secretary was late and he reprimanded her, saying, "I need to be milked!" I start to get an idea of what that's like.

Today we started the lesson on Arabic proverbs. This I think will prove to be rich in ideas and wisdom, so insha'allah I'll try and post some of what I've learned soon insha'allah.

So until next episode of Crazy Canadians in Cairo, Stay Calm, Be Brave, and Wait for the Signs.

and meet people.

Ma'asalam,

~Ameer

Travels

Assalam u alaikum,

Today we went to play soccer, ka al-aada, and alhamdulillah as usual it was great. Mustafa and I have a kind of routine now: we leave at about six o'clock, arrive at the suq al-sayarat (car park where they sell cars; they just park their cars and I guess people just randomly select cars and then buy them? It's always packed but right after Fajr it's empty) and play with Turkmenistanians and Ramiz, an Egyptian who used to play soccer with one sock and one shoe (don't ask me why). We use that as a warm-up, getting our touches and passes flowing, pulling off a few dekes. Then at around 7:15 we leave and cross the street to the most beautiful pitch in the world; well, it is a car park also but we actually have NETS!

The people that we have met at soccer have been incredible. My favourite is Hamza, a Russian who has lived almost his entire life in Egypt. I could never have told from his demeanour, but he is studying Usul-ul-Din at Al-Azhar. I asked him about Russia, and he was saying that there are very few Muslims, but in Dagestan where he is from, there are lots of Muslims but in name only. I was amazed at the fact that his entire family left their homeland for a strange place just so their son could get the knowledge of the din. And I thought I was on a journey.

Alhamdulillah studies are going well. I have an oral test tomorrow insha'allah so please pray for me.

Ma'asalam,

~Ameer

Call that humiliation?

No hoods. No electric shocks. No beatings. These Iranians clearly are a very uncivilised bunch

(courtesty of Zachariah al-Khatib's blog, a.k.a Softest of Tongues)

Terry Jones
Saturday March 31, 2007
The Guardian

I share the outrage expressed in the British press over the treatment of

our naval personnel accused by Iran of illegally entering their waters.
It is a disgrace. We would never dream of treating captives like this -
allowing them to smoke cigarettes, for example, even though it has been
proven that smoking kills. And as for compelling poor servicewoman Faye
Turney to wear a black headscarf, and then allowing the picture to be
posted around the world - have the Iranians no concept of civilised
behaviour? For God’s sake, what’s wrong with putting a bag over her
head? That’s what we do with the Muslims we capture: we put bags over
their heads, so it’s hard to breathe. Then it’s perfectly acceptable to
take photographs of them and circulate them to the press because the
captives can’t be recognised and humiliated in the way these
unfortunate British service people are.

It is also unacceptable that these British captives should be made to talk on television and say things that they may regret later. If the Iranians put duct tape over their mouths, like we do to our captives, they wouldn’t be able to talk at all. Of course they’d probably find it even harder to breathe - especially with a bag over their head - but at least they wouldn’t be humiliated.

And what’s all this about allowing the captives to write letters home saying they are all right? It’s time the Iranians fell into line with the rest of the civilised world: they should allow their captives the privacy of solitary confinement. That’s one of the many privileges the US grants to its captives in Guantánamo Bay.

The true mark of a civilised country is that it doesn’t rush into charging
people whom it has arbitrarily arrested in places it’s just invaded.
The inmates of Guantánamo, for example, have been enjoying all the
privacy they want for almost five years, and the first inmate has only
just been charged. What a contrast to the disgraceful Iranian rush to
parade their captives before the cameras!

What’s more, it is clear that the Iranians are not giving their British prisoners any decent physical exercise. The US military make sure that their Iraqi captives enjoy PT. This takes the form of exciting “stress positions”, which the captives are expected to hold for hours on end so as to improve their stomach and calf muscles. A common exercise is where they are made to stand on the balls of their feet and then squat so that
their thighs are parallel to the ground. This creates intense pain and,
finally, muscle failure. It’s all good healthy fun and has the bonus
that the captives will confess to anything to get out of it.

And this brings me to my final point. It is clear from her TV appearance
that servicewoman Turney has been put under pressure. The newspapers
have persuaded behavioural psychologists to examine the footage and
they all conclude that she is “unhappy and stressed”.

What is so appalling is the underhand way in which the Iranians have got her “unhappy and stressed”. She shows no signs of electrocution or burn
marks and there are no signs of beating on her face. This is
unacceptable. If captives are to be put under duress, such as by
forcing them into compromising sexual positions, or having electric
shocks to their genitals, they should be photographed, as they were in
Abu Ghraib. The photographs should then be circulated around the
civilised world so that everyone can see exactly what has been going on.

As Stephen Glover pointed out in the Daily Mail, perhaps it would not be
right to bomb Iran in retaliation for the humiliation of our
servicemen, but clearly the Iranian people must be made to suffer -
whether by beefing up sanctions, as the Mail suggests, or simply by
getting President Bush to hurry up and invade, as he intends to anyway,
and bring democracy and western values to the country, as he has in
Iraq.

· Terry Jones is a film director, actor and Python
www.terry-jones.net

Discoveries

Assalam u alaikum,

"Every day is an adventure," as Mustafa says. I'm not sure why we always tend to see our normal lives as boring. Actually (theoretically, as I can't claim to be like this) a Muslim shouldn't ever be 'bored'. Nothing ever remains static. As my Arabic teacher was telling me, the heart is constantly moving and changing. The word qalb in Arabic means "heart" and also, as a verb, means "to turn" or "to flip". So that's how we are, actually, always turning and flipping and changing. Unless your dead, which a lot of people are.

Alhamdulillah among the greatest things that we found in the last couple of days is a sheikh who can listen to our Qur'an every day. His name is Sheikh Bilal. The masjid where he leads salah is, uh, shall we say, unfinished, but it is still worth it to pray there. Masha'allah he has really good recitation, really good character, and is surprisingly young. I pray that this will be good for us insha'allah.

We have also discovered...a new restaurant! Castro's is a restaurant that has absolutely nothing to do with Fidel Castro, although they have pictures of him and Che Guevara plastered everywhere. They have really good pizza and (oh boy) hot dogs. But I think we better take it easy, since for some reason I don't think pizza is a health food.

You know how Mustafa is always thinking up new ideas for a business? Well he was inspired by Castro's and decided he wants to open up a new restaurant on Whyte Avenue called "Che" (how original). The restaurant will specialize in a "revolutionary" diet that is vegetarian, organic and really cheap. I hate to think what he will think of next.

Today we played soccer in the morning as usual. It's even more fun now than it was before because we play with the Turkmenistanians and Russians first, then with a whole bunch of students from all over the world. Our games with the students are 10 minutes long and intensely competitive. The characters who play with us are unforgettable: Moin bhai from Bangladesh, Hamza from Russia; Abdul Malik, an African guy from Britain who has crazy ball control; Dawud, who almost cries if he misses; another wise-cracking brother from New York who's name I've forgotten, and the unparallelled DR. SAIF!!!! I'm gonna let Mustafa describe Dr. Saif because I'm sure he can do a much better job than me, but I'll just say that he is like a cross between Tanveer Phupha and Azhar Usman. Just You Think It!

Alhamdulillah everything is going really well. It's almost been a month and a half, but I think that it's gone well so far. We need dua's the same way we need water.

Ma'asalam,

~Ameer

The Pyramids

Assalam u alaikum,

The Pyramids. The word never meant much to me before, but now I know why it's ranked among the seven wonders of the world. It truly is a wonder. What I don't understand (and everyone who see them wonders the same thing) is how they built such collosal building with no bulldozers, no huge machines, nothing?! Just pure man-power. But I start from the wrong end.

Yesterday was Mustafa's day-off, so we decided that we would make use of the opportunity and at least visit the pyramids once. We knew we wouldn't have that much time, but we were kind of ashamed of the fact that we've been in Egypt almost two months and we haven't even been near the pyramids. So after I whizzed through my homework, we got a backpack, filled it with water-bottles and set out on our quest. It was a really neat feeling, like we were actually inside The Alchemist.

The weather was great, and we managed to get a taxi for only 25 guineas, which is pretty good considering that the pyramids are about one hour away from Nasr City. You don't realize it in Nasr City, but Cairo is built in a desert. The transition was really abrupt, we were in the city adn suddenly we were in the middle of a colossal desert. The highway then ran over the Nile River, and again there was an abrupt transition to the lushest kind of vegetation you can imagine, and then desert again. Egypt is full of contradictions, not least because the greatest river in the world runs through a desert.

The first glimpse of the pyramid was un-replicable. Mustafa saw them first and kept tapping me on the shoulder until finally I saw them. The sun above the pyramids made them shine brightly as if made of pure gold. You don't really understand how big they are until you see them. They tower above you, as if they are monoliths erected by aliens who left without explaining their purpose or meaning. Mustafa and I gaped at them with our mouths open. What kind of people were they? How arrogant they must have been, to make something like that.

The adventure truly began when we reached the pyramid. O Fellow Travellers, develop minds of steel! We were taken in by the Egyptian "guides" like Green Foreigners. It was horrific. The man accosted us as soon as we left our taxi.

"Do you speak English or Arabic?"
I was tempted to say Arabic, but thought English would be safer. I was wrong.
"Lookthepyramidstheygonnacloseatfouro'clockyoupayfiftyguineastogetinyounoseeanything. Come with us. We'll take you on a tour for only 40 guineas."
"Shukran Ammo, we're just going to check it out ourselves..."
"Are you calling me a liar?" Then his friend pipes in,
"He's a Muslim just like you!"

Things were getting serious. Worst of all, we had stopped to talk to them. When we tried to walk away, the friend started following us, reiterating all his various arguments about the pyramids would close and what's your name and who knows what else. See the problem is, as Canadians, we always are naive and eventually believe whatever we are told. "Farewell, my childhood, I know better now."

We capitulated and went with the man to ride the horses. To cut a long story short, I continued arguing with the "guide" the entire time while we are on the trip, making it impossible to really enjoy it. But even though we spent too much money and constantly argued with them, it was totally worth it. Riding galloping horses in the desert in front of the pyramids...picture it. It was nothing short of brilliant.

We returned home tired but satisfied. Finally we had been to a place that had lived up to our grand expectations. The one thing I've realized is that no one is more powerful than Allah. That civilization was the most powerful in the world, yet all that is left of them is a pile of stones. A grand pile of stones, no doubt, but just an eroding structure of sand. No power is too great to fall.

Ozymandius by: Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveler from an antique land Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert... Near them, on the sand, Half-sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal these words appear: My name is Ozymandius, King of Kings, Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Ma'asalam,

~Ameer