They Need to Go. For Sure.

The Best and Most Beloved Wife.

"she believed in me when all others disbelieved; she held me truthful when others called me a liar; she sheltered me when others abandoned me; she comforted me when others shunned me; and Allah (SWT) granted me children by her while depriving me of children by other women." (Prophet Mohammed, Peace and Blessings be Upon Him, about his beloved wife Lady Khadija.)

And That is Enough

I've learned I will almost never get it right first time,
I've learnt not to give up, to change my methods and try again, and again.
I've learnt to trust my instincts,
I've learnt that my greatest inspirations are deeply rooted to my fears,
I've learnt that ugly people will always be ugly, and beautiful people can be even more ugly.
I've learnt that giving up on love is not the answer, nor is chasing the love that never existed.
I've learnt that I should never try to change for the sake of people's ego.
I've learnt that my inability to walk away reflects on my weak Imaan, and what I do walk away from will pursue me. Iv learnt its hard not to look back. Its really hard.
I've learnt to smile and laugh at myself when the world seems dark,
I've learnt that you will feel Allah's love at times when you are feeling so unloved, and that that love is enough.
I've learnt that in the end, the truth always comes out, no matter how hard someone tries to make you look bad. That Allah sends the rain to wash away their black lies and criticisms. I love the rain.
I've learnt that in silence I find solace...but also fear.
I've learnt to protect myself by building a wall, yet still allowing myself to watch the world and lives around me through a gap...I've learnt anyone can get in that gap.
I've learnt that I never knew what I wanted, that I was easily influenced, that I tried hard to please others and agree to their way of thinking, even if I thought otherwise, and that not knowing what I wanted led me to the wrong people. I've learnt to know what I want.
I have learnt that there are people who want you and then there are people who need you. Its better to be needed.
I've learnt the people that are furthest away will always be the ones you miss most.
I've learnt to remember the bad times and not just the good. Because in the good you have regret, and in the bad you have relief.
I've learnt that the people that harmed you will have that same harm caused upon them, that what they took
from you will undoubtedly be taken from them too in the same form or another.
I see the innocence in those younger than me, I have learnt that time will teach them too, regardless of my warnings to them.
I have learnt that I strive to always find solutions for others, but give up when I can never find them for myself.
I have learnt that not every one will understand me. Nor do I want everyone to understand me. And the ones who do, only do because, they have learnt too.

Guantanamo is killing me (Samir Naji)‏

ONE man here weighs just 77 pounds. Another, 98. Last thing I knew, I weighed 132, but that was a month ago.

I’ve been on a hunger strike since Feb. 10 and have lost well over 30 pounds. I will not eat until they restore my dignity.

I’ve been detained at Guantánamo for 11 years and three months. I have never been charged with any crime. I have never received a trial.

I could have been home years ago — no one seriously thinks I am a threat — but still I am here. Years ago the military said I was a “guard” for Osama bin Laden, but this was nonsense, like something out of the American movies I used to watch. They don’t even seem to believe it anymore. But they don’t seem to care how long I sit here, either.

When I was at home in Yemen, in 2000, a childhood friend told me that in Afghanistan I could do better than the $50 a month I earned in a factory, and support my family. I’d never really traveled, and knew nothing about Afghanistan, but I gave it a try.

I was wrong to trust him. There was no work. I wanted to leave, but had no money to fly home. After the American invasion in 2001, I fled to Pakistan like everyone else. The Pakistanis arrested me when I asked to see someone from the Yemeni Embassy. I was then sent to Kandahar, and put on the first plane to Gitmo.

Last month, on March 15, I was sick in the prison hospital and refused to be fed. A team from the E.R.F. (Extreme Reaction Force), a squad of eight military police officers in riot gear, burst in. They tied my hands and feet to the bed. They forcibly inserted an IV into my hand. I spent 26 hours in this state, tied to the bed. During this time I was not permitted to go to the toilet. They inserted a catheter, which was painful, degrading and unnecessary. I was not even permitted to pray.

I will never forget the first time they passed the feeding tube up my nose. I can’t describe how painful it is to be force-fed this way. As it was thrust in, it made me feel like throwing up. I wanted to vomit, but I couldn’t. There was agony in my chest, throat and stomach. I had never experienced such pain before. I would not wish this cruel punishment upon anyone.

I am still being force-fed. Two times a day they tie me to a chair in my cell. My arms, legs and head are strapped down. I never know when they will come. Sometimes they come during the night, as late as 11 p.m., when I’m sleeping.

There are so many of us on hunger strike now that there aren’t enough qualified medical staff members to carry out the force-feedings; nothing is happening at regular intervals. They are feeding people around the clock just to keep up.

During one force-feeding the nurse pushed the tube about 18 inches into my stomach, hurting me more than usual, because she was doing things so hastily. I called the interpreter to ask the doctor if the procedure was being done correctly or not.

It was so painful that I begged them to stop feeding me. The nurse refused to stop feeding me. As they were finishing, some of the “food” spilled on my clothes. I asked them to change my clothes, but the guard refused to allow me to hold on to this last shred of my dignity.

When they come to force me into the chair, if I refuse to be tied up, they call the E.R.F. team. So I have a choice. Either I can exercise my right to protest my detention, and be beaten up, or I can submit to painful force-feeding.

The only reason I am still here is that President Obama refuses to send any detainees back to Yemen. This makes no sense. I am a human being, not a passport, and I deserve to be treated like one.

I do not want to die here, but until President Obama and Yemen’s president do something, that is what I risk every day.

Where is my government? I will submit to any “security measures” they want in order to go home, even though they are totally unnecessary.

I will agree to whatever it takes in order to be free. I am now 35. All I want is to see my family again and to start a family of my own.

The situation is desperate now. All of the detainees here are suffering deeply. At least 40 people here are on a hunger strike. People are fainting with exhaustion every day. I have vomited blood.

And there is no end in sight to our imprisonment. Denying ourselves food and risking death every day is the choice we have made.

I just hope that because of the pain we are suffering, the eyes of the world will once again look to Guantánamo before it is too late.

Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel, a prisoner at Guantánamo Bay since 2002, told this story, through an Arabic interpreter, to his lawyers at the legal charity Reprieve in an unclassified telephone call.

Advice for Husbands/Men/Brothers/Dads...

(This made me laugh. Probably because it sounds like me...)

" It is currently ‘that time of the month’ for my wife and she has gone off in a huff over a picture of a lemon (or so I think). This is nothing new and something that I have become used to over the period of our marriage. Things like this are trivial to me, but seem to tip her over the edge. 

However, I then remembered that one of the qualities of all good Muslims is patience (sabr). I know that at ‘this time of the month’, I need to just let her be rather than make a bigger issue about this. She will eventually calm down and things will be normal again."

http://www.purematrimony.com/blog/2013/04/a-dads-discourse-have-a-little-patience/

My First Day Teaching.

So who would have thought, me teaching? Yes, I can hear all of my big sisters laughing from here. Because you can ask them, and they will tell you that out of all of us sisters, I was probably the one who was least suited to be a teacher. The little baby of the family, who could never cross the road alone, who never did anything without a sister at her side doing it for her, whether it be going to the shop for sweets - from fear that the scary shop keeper man would actually talk to me and ask me my name! I just always remember someone being there.

My little 5 year old Egyptian student, reminded me of me when I was young. As he walked into the classroom, with a cap on his head, making sure that it covered his eyes, he would not look at me as I asked him his name. I got a reply "Adam" but his cap remained down. His mum had told me previously that he was a very shy and easily scared little person, and I replied to her "Don't worry, I understand, so am I!"

So Adam and I sit in the classroom, His eyes still down, I can only see the bottom half of his face, and I chat away, he has no idea what I am saying, but I chat anyway, and I don't invade his space by looking under his cap into his face, because with shy people, you will find, that the more "in their face" you are, the more they will shy away from you, you have to wait for them to be comfortable and make a first move. I get a result eventually, as he does peek up now and again to see what this crazy woman is going on about.

"Soooo Adam, I think you know your ABC?" I say, and I see a smile creep on his face, which I guess is an indication, that this is something familiar, thank God. And so I start; "A, Apple, B, Boy, C, Cat." I get no response at first, but as I go along he cant help himself but to say a few along the way, and his cap is raised a little this time, to peer at the colorful pictures I show him.  Suddenly the door opens, and his big sister rushes in (almost like to rescue him) and she sits right beside him. And everything changes. His cap is right up and he is looking straight at me, and with prompts from his sister (who is small too) he even sings the whole alphabet to me on his own.

I could most definitely see myself in little Adam. Timid and shy when all alone, but once I knew someone was there for me, that gave me the courage to accomplish and be successful. And isn't that the case with us younger siblings who are almost always reliant on the older ones, and its only until we are alone that we realise how much that they actually unknowingly helped us, even if it was just with giving us confidence to buy sweets from the scary shop keeper man next door or cross the road.

Overall my first day teaching was a sweet experience, I look forward to watching my little student grow, and perhaps even myself inshallah.

Regrets

Its not that we regret the past, nor do we regret the people we meet, its just that we regret not knowing then, what we know now.

Sometimes a person can go to school, college and then university. They study for years in a particular field to enter into a certain profession. But it doesn't matter how much preparation you do, you never really learn until you start practicing in that profession. And suddenly all that study was almost a waste, it didn't prepare you even half as much as you needed, to be fully equipped to deal with what you have to deal with on the job.

I guess marriage is like this. You may feel like you know how to be the perfect partner, you may go to all the marriage talks that will equip you with an understanding of marriage, what kind of person to marry, how to deal with obstacles, how to deal with the mother-in-law and family members, you may have even walked away with a certificate stating that you attended such and such marriage course. You have read all the books so your now convinced that you are now fully prepared for whatever "Happily ever after" has to throw at you. And then you get married. And your like "Hang on, it wasn't quite like this in the book, or I don't think he was meant to quite react like that.." and your at square one again.

No one is really taught how to have a successful marriage until they are actually married and put under the turmoils of that marriage, only to come out from those turmoils - more educated, more learned, more prepared. We only know how marriage should be through seeing how other people are with each other, our parents, our siblings, our friends, however we don't really see what happens behind closed doors, the arguments and such, and our parents have spent years building such a close relationship like that, you can't expect your marriage to be as strong as theirs at the initial stages.  Attending courses and reading books can only really give you an insight, but the real teacher is marriage itself.

We learn how to become a better spouse to our partner through every obstacle, every misunderstanding, every argument, every silent treatment, we learn the likes and dislikes of our partner, we learn what makes them tick, we learn how to make them happy and content, we learn how to deal with family members, that your mother-in-law wants a phone call every day, that your father-in-law likes his coffee strong, that your brother/sister-in-laws are total nut cases, but you learn to love them anyway - you can't possibly know any of these things before you have even met your spouse, and its this, which makes us so under equipped for a successful marriage. And to those who criticise you for being a bad spouse, say to them that no one taught you how to be a good one, you are still learning, tell them to be patient with you, for you have an urge to make your partner happy, its just that you may not always know the means of doing so, you are so to speak, "learning on the job".

Its only with persistence and perseverance, with being firm with every lesson that comes to teach you and not so weak as to run away and give up when you think you don't have the answer, believe that the answer will come to you, so long as you are sincere, and once you know what you didn't know then, you are on your way to a successful marriage inshallah.

The Sunnah of S....Most Beautifully put

"I guarantee you that you will fail in this endeavor, most likely many times. You will make mistakes. You will feel guilty. You will feel awkward. You will feel misunderstood. You will feel like it is too much of a struggle. But it we stop trying to do the right thing, and stop trying to treat other human beings in the right way, and stop trying to be thankful for the beauty that God has placed in this world, then we will just fall deeper into the darknesses that Islam was meant to lead us out of, and we will never reach the point where everything falls into place and we realize why God made us the way He did, how He did, when He did, and why He surrounded us with certain souls. Was not Muhammad for Khadija and Khadija for Muhammad, for all eternity, from the moment their souls were created by God (may everlasting peace and blessings envelop the Prophet, his wives, and their children)!"

http://islamatbrown.blogspot.com/2013/04/on-sex.html?m=1

Find Yourself.

After a few down days I have had an up day. Sometimes you have to give back to others in order for you to get back up there again. And although it may seem a hassle to you, and that you may have to spend some money, and time, the smile on other peoples faces from your efforts for them makes you feel Allah's blessings. Everyone is alone, and everyone feels it sometimes, but when you help people find each other, I think that helps you to find yourself.