1. What happened to your face?
2. How much do you weigh?
3. I haven’t seen your spouse in a while, where is (s)he these days?
4. Are you pregnant?
5. Did you find a job yet?
6. Weren’t you married?
7. Is all that food for you?
8. You’ve put on some pounds, huh?
9. Is that what you’re wearing to the party?
10. Did your parents mind that your spouse is from [insert region of the world here]?

By the way, all of these questions weren’t directed at me.  I’ve heard others being asked and it made my jaw drop.

Please feel free to add to this list.

I guess that’s the most important part about the last 10 days or Ramadan.  Really cutting back on the luxury of sleep and using the few eight Power Hours of night we’re given to truly feel Ramadan and worship Allah in the best possible ways.  Here are some of activities that are easy to do, that I like:

1)  Making extra dhikr at any free opportunity–really restrain yourself from useless talk (especially gossip).  Just saying something as simple as subhanAllah wa bihamdihi, subhanAllah al atheem is light on the tongue but heavy on the scales

2) Read Qur’an as a form of dhikr–recite it outloud and try to make your voice beautiful.  Then make sure to read the meaning to get the most benefit from the activity.

3)  Pray in the last third of the night–even if it’s just one set of two rakaah.  Take advantage of your sajjud and closeness to Allah by asking Him for ANYTHING for this life and the next.  Be honest with yourself and realize that He is truly the only One who can give any of us what we want, and more importantly, what we need.

4) Make du’aa for your parents–you and I both know they deserve it.

Allahumma a’inee ‘ala dhikrika, wa shukrika, wa husni ibadatik! (O Allah, help me remember You, expressing gratitude to You and worship You in the best manner, ameen.)

First:  AbdelRahman did a couple things from a speaker’s end vital for a good event.

1)  The speaker was on time (read, early) greeting people as they came in–this is VERY important as a teacher.
2) The speaker was prepared and organized with a power point presentation–also VERY important when teaching.  It shows your audience/students that you cared to prepare something a head of time, that it required thought, and effort.

3) The speaker asked for the sisters to be seated in the main masjid–this gave us a better opportunity to focus and pay attention
4) The speaker was interactive with the audience, asking questions and seeking different ideas and opinions–this made the class a group effort, and not just your average “boring” lecture
5) The speaker provided a break in the middle of class–people could check phones, and say salaam to people that walked in after them
6) The speaker encouraged people to seek knowledge, not just on the topic he was given, but in general–this gives the audience/students the idea that the subject does not only exist in the masjid between 11:30AM-1:30PM on Sunday, but it’s something that is always on-going and has many facets.

Second:  I personally enjoyed the class because of the warm fuzzy feeling in the room.  I hadn’t had this feeling in a long time–being in a room and knowing that angels were surrounding us.  Surrounding us because we gathered to remember Allah.  Knowing that almost 100 people got out of bed, came out of their houses and drove to ICN to learn something about their religion.  We all came with the intent to improve ourselves.  We all came knowing that there was more about Islam than we knew at the time.  We all came knowing that someone could teach us what we wanted/needed to know, and all we had to do was make the effort to attend.

On top of that, considering the age of the teacher, it was a joy, a true joy, to see a student of knowledge give back to his community.  How often have we seen students enthusiastic about learning about Islam, but not able to share his/her enthusiasm with others?  Whether it is because their local community will not accomodate them to teach others, or because the student themself just likes to sit on his/her new knowledge.  It is so refreshing to see someone take knowledge from a scholar, and pass it on to his community back home.  I wish more people would do this.  I truly wish they would.  Otherwise, what’s the point of all of us learning anything in the first place?

I know it’s kind of a weird way to wish you a blessed Ramadan, but I’ve been going through some changes in thought when it comes to eating in the past few months. And it’s all I can think about now that Ramadan is upon us.

First, it all started with taking Precious Provisions in June.  It’s a class about the fiqh of food and clothing taught by Sh. Yasir Qadhi for AlMaghrib Institute.  One of the things that he mentioned was that it is in the perfection of our character to not over do it when it comes time for eating.  Of the hadiths that he mentioned, one stuck out in my mind especially.  There is no container more evil to fill than your stomach, and just a few morsels is sufficient to keep the back straight [Tirmidhi and Ibn Majah].  This is referring to, of course, over eating, and taking way more than is necessary to survive.

After that class I felt a little embarassed to take a big plate of food and eat it like it was my job.  Embarrassment faded, and disgust rolled in after I watched the documentary Super Size Me where I witnessed what an obscene diet of too many calories can do to your body!  Since then I don’t really like eating out anymore, and I definitely try to keep in mind how many calories I’m consuming.  I was convinced… smaller portions are better for me spiritually and physically.

So, I spent the past two months of summer trying to cut back on whatever I could.  Unfortunately at a party or two, or while visiting relatives, I ended up indulging a little, but not too much.  I’ve been pretty good, alhumdu’lillah.  And I hope to continue in this routine insha’Allah.

Ramadan was around the corner a few weeks ago, and I thought to myself, “Will I be able to keep up this down sized diet in Ramadan?  The fasts are almost 15 hours long!  I’ll need to eat more to keep myself alive, for sure.“  But then I attended jumuah at IFS where Sh. Abdool Rahman Khan gave everyone an ear full about over eating in Ramadan.  He said Muslims today waste more food than ever, especially in the month of Ramadan– a time when we are trying to learn what it is to be thankful for the bounties of Allah by restraining ourselves per His request.

My God, he was right.  I thought about how much iftar people make, and how if we regularly eat to our fill of pakoray, fruit chaat, patties, samosay, cholay, dahi baray, etc… we end up wasting dinner.  Or on the flip side, when we make a conscious effort to cut back on iftar food… we end up wasting that because someone inevitably is going to prepare tons of it because, “It’s Ramadan, and we have to make it.  It’s what we do in Ramadan.“  What a tragedy!  Wasting so much food on ourselves or in the trash.  (A lot of the food does end up in the trash because there are hardly any opportunities to eat left overs in Ramadan)

Then I heard another speech just a few days before Ramadan by Sh. Muhammad Alshareef called The Fasting and the Furious.  He specifically mentioned over eating in Ramadan.  His main point was that some of us consume so much food when we break our fasts, that we feel absolutely lethargic during the night prayers.  Even worse, we are unmotivated to get up for sahur, a Sunnah of the Prophet sallalahu alayhi wasalaam, because “Well, I ate so much last night, I don’t really need to eat in the morning.“  We are doing our bodies and our souls a disservice by consuming so much food in Ramadan.  When we don’t eat all day, our metabolism slows down dramatically.  So when we gorge ourselves on fried foods and plates of dinner, all that food just sits in our stomachs like a rock when we go to pray, a short 15 or 30 minutes after our meals are done.

Anyway you look at it, over eating is a bad idea, ESPECIALLY in the month of Ramadan.   Just because we’re fasting doesn’t mean we can binge on food during the night hours.  Instead we should try to maintain our regular eating habits, and really focus on increasing our taqwa–the main purpose of this month.  I don’t know about you… but massive indigestion and over eating might get in the way of that for me.

May Allah help us to truly benefit during this month and may He make us more thankful servants to Him with increased taqwa, ameen.  Ramadan Mubarak to you all

December 6th, 2008

Through this new series I hope to share with you my thoughts on the epic weddings that I attend, one failure at a time.  But I also want to hear about experiences with epic weddings that turned out to be epic failures.  I don’t want to this become a series where I just bash on people who spend a lot of money on weddings.  I want there to be some good to come from this and come up with ways to advise the people on how to make their weddings more Islamically sound and socially acceptable.

So hold on to your ghararahs and shirwanis, because this is going to get interesting!

My first topic of choice is going to be targeting the program of an epic wedding, and what causes it to become an epic fail.

American-Desi Wedding

Weddings in the motherland don’t normally run into this problem.  People back at home know what is important at a wedding–the marriage contract and dinner.  The problem starts stateside, where desis are now trying to incorporate American cultural norms and traditions into our cultural norms and traditions to create some type of blockbuster summer wedding program extravanganza.

What do I mean?  Well at a typical non-Muslim American wedding there is the actual wedding ceremony in a church followed by a reception.  Usually at the reception there are some set parts of the evening:  the bride and groom are received by guests as the new Mr and Mrs; the best man and the maid of honor each propose a toast; the cake is cut; there is the first dance; and last but not least, the bouquet is thrown into a crowd of the bride’s friends.  Each of the moments is expected and takes very little time.  There are only two speeches–which are toasts, and only take about a minute or two max.  All of these practices, by the way, are appreciated by all the guests, because there are only about 100 of them there!  Nothing takes up a lot of time because there is not a huge crowd to manage.

In our weddings, on the other hand, there are about 500 people, average.  So if there is going to a be a program, it requires a lot of planning–planning on a conference-size level.  Planning that requires all the guests have arrived (on time, not a chance), that they are seated (busy eating a samosa, sorry), that they’ll all show interest in what you have to say(not going to happen, because no one cares what your chacha has to say about you.) 

Too Many Speeches

As it is, maybe if desis stuck to having the TWO toasts/speeches it’d be manageable.  However, at some weddings I’ve seen a list of 17 names lined up to give a speech.   And what is it?  Usually someone’s nana is calling in via conference call to say salaam.  Someone’s old mamu gets up to read a poem in a language half the crowd doesn’t understand.  The father stands up to give a list of who came from where, and how much it was appreciated they could make it.  The best friends come up to bash on their bride/groom friend.  Siblings reveal embarrassing and horrible stories about living with you, playing it off as “loving advice” to your new spouse.  A slide show plays featuring some of your ugliest pictures and some of your best… both types something you’d probably not want a crowd of hundreds to see.  And so on, and so forth.  It’s a night of “laughs and tears”…

Let’s be honest, no one besides your closest friends or family cares about the program.  Therefore, if you wanted to say all your loving/embarrassing words to the bride or groom say it at home where people want to hear it.  Don’t bother your guests with the longest program ever that is going to keep them from dinner.  After a while it just feels like each person on the microphone is a hurdle between the guests and their dinner plate… guests shouldn’t be forced to feel this way!

The Walk In

Besides speeches, desis have also adopted some of the other traditions of an non-Muslim American wedding.  For example the bride and groom are received by all the guests as a new Mr. and Mrs.  Okay, that’s fine if all the guests are there on time.  The couple just has to walk in.  But as we all know, no one comes on time to a wedding, so the bride and groom are sometimes forced to wait for everyone to arrive to be received by the guests.  This is rather ridiculous because they’re missing their own party!  And what’s worse is, that 17-name speaker list I mentioned earlier isn’t going to start until the bride and groom are there to witness it all happening.

Okay, so what if everyone is there on time, and the bride and groom walk in together to be received by their guests… that’s all fine. But desis don’t usually know where to draw the line, so we have this new common trend of the entire immediate and sometimes extended family making a grand entrance.  People, this party is not about you!  Stop acting like you’re walking down a red carpet.  Instead, take some attention away from yourself and be more hospitable to your guests.

Conclusions

These are the feelings of guests attending a completely mismanaged wedding.  We are hungry, upset, unamused, and kind of annoyed that your program is taking up so much time.  Guests come to weddings to socialize and give glad tidings to the new bride and groom.  The longer your program is, the less time we have for what we came to do.  Unfortunately a lot of guests stop cooperating with the hosts and talk through programs and speeches, which makes the whole thing slightly more ridiculous.

Please, if you aren’t married, or if it is too late for you and your siblings aren’t married yet, consider these thoughts when planning a wedding program.  If you want to make an entrance at your wedding, I’ve found it helps to mark it on the invitation with a hard and fast time that you’re going to stick with.  If you want someone to talk at your wedding, try limiting it to two people.  Maybe a local imam and your father to welcome the guests.  Other friends and family will continuously tell you how much they love you throughout the wedding weekend, so there is no need to have them come up to the microphone and tell everyone else… what’s a Hallmark greeting card for after all?

I know this is a common feeling people have because I’ve actually heard people complain about that exact circumstance before.  I’ve even heard people say that it makes them feel unimportant, kind of loserish, and even slightly rejected.

Is that the way a host or hostess should feel?  Someone who is so kind as to invite you over to his or her house?  Apparently not, according to our beloved Rasulullah sallalahu alayhi wasalaam

Abu Hurayrah (radhiyallaahu ‘anhu) narrated that the Messenger of Allaah (sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) said, “The rights of the Muslim upon the Muslim are six.” It was said, “And what are they Oh Messenger of Allaah?” He replied, “When you meet him, give him the greeting of peace, when he invites you, respond to his invitation, when he seeks your advice, advise him, when he sneezes and praises Allaah, supplicate for mercy upon him, when he becomes ills, visit him, and when he dies follow him (i.e. his funeral).”  [Sahih Muslim]

Imagine that, as a host it is your right as a Muslim that when you give an invitation, your guests respond.  It is your right that if they don’t have a valid excuse, they must attend your invitation.  It is your right that if your guests tell you they are coming, that they come on time.

This problem of not RSVPing, not attending parties, or not even coming on time, is very common in the Muslim ummah.  Now stop for a minute, before you start to visualize an old uncle or auntie showing up late.  This is now a problem amongst OUR generation–a problem that we complained our parents had about proper etiquette and manners.

If we know how horrible it feels to have people flake out on our parties or come late, we shouldn’t be doing this to others!  If we are invited somewhere, we must respond and go on time.  We need to tell our hosts as soon as we know that we can or cannot come.  A host has preparations to make, and if we think that we can wait until the last minute to figure out whether or not we want to show up, we are most definitely not giving our Muslim brother or sister his or her right that we respond to his or her invitation.

Please keep in mind that once we say we are going to attend, we need to fulfill our promise! We can’t just disappear at the last minute and not attend. We need to make every effort to make sure we are there where we’re supposed to be.  Afterall, doesn’t it hurt to be stood up?  Why hurt our Muslim brother or sister?

And another thing, once we’ve RSVPd, and really make it out the door, let’s make sure we arrive on time!  A party doesn’t start when we show up.  The world does not revolve around our schedules.  If someone goes out of their way to kindly invite us to a gathering, we had better come on time to show that we respect our host. There is so much that goes into planning a party or any gathering.  Making food, planning activities, speeches, whatever.  When people are late, it is very stressful for the host.  It isn’t fair that a host should be worrying about when the guest will arrive so that they can start their program.

This is the case in social and public gatherings, or private parties.  All hosts have a schedule they want to run by, including preparation time (which starts well before the party), serving dinner/starting a speech, having time for socializing, and also getting cleaned up at the end.  When we decide to come late (because let’s be honest, it really is a decision we make.  Being late is very rarely an unavoidable accident) we are throwing off the schedule, and quite possibly making our over worked host not only stressed out, but also tired and worried about how late the event is going to go until.

Do not think our choice to be late doesn’t effect others.  By arriving late, we are making those who had the courtesy to arrive on time wait around for us!  Why is that the people that show no concern for timeliness have everything hang on their arrival?  This is a common occurrence at public speeches.  The speaker arrives on time to an audience of five people.  So what happens?  Instead of rewarding those who made the effort to come on time, they are forced to wait around for everyone else who didn’t care to do the same.  Do you know what the result is?  The people who once cared to come on time realize there is no point of being there, and they’ll start coming late, too.

Guests and audience do not get to decide how the schedule is going to be.  And for some reason, people think this to be true.  We all know the case with weddings:  invitation says 7:00PM, “Oh, we’ll leave the house at 7:15, no one is going to be there on time anyway.  And they can’t start without the guests.”

So that’s that?  The guests get to control the timing of the party?  NO!  The host does because… it’s their right!  

Please, no more lame excuses about generations of acceptable PST, DST, BST, AST, whatever.  The standard time is what is on the clock! We need to stop using our cultural baggage as an excuse because we are all fully capable of being places on time:   Don’t we go to the doctor on time?  or work?  What about college classes?  We don’t just stroll in when we feel like it, do we?  Didn’t think so… because we know it’s impolite and disrespectful to keep someone waiting.  But is that only our concern for non-Muslims?  We can be rude and disrespectful with our Muslim brothers and sisters?

That doesn’t make any sense, especially since it is every Muslim’s right that their invitations are responded to and upheld with respect.  And you know what? Since it’s a host’s right, unfortunately, they can hold all this injustice against them… against us on the Day of Judgment!  Seems like a pretty lame reason to lose good deeds when we’ll all be desperate for them?  Couldn’t make it to a party on time.  Strolled in late for a wedding.  Flaked out on a birthday party.  Never RSVPd for a graduation BBQ.  Showed up 30 minutes late to an Islamic lecture and kept everyone waiting.

It may not seem like a big deal, but it is a major injustice!  Keep it real, RSVP and be on time!

What do you do?  Turn the TV off?  Or leave it on?  Isn’t having the television on during salaah distracting for your friend?  And wouldn’t it be a courtesy to her to turn it off?  Or do you think that she should just have enough khushoo‘ to concentrate over the TV and that her imaan is strong enough to focus on her prayer.  You, after all, were sitting there first, and were enjoying whatever show was on.  And concentrating on her salaah is her duty, not yours.  You already fulfilled your obligation of praying, so now she must deal with the consequences of waiting, and having to pray in a loud environment.

You’re nicer than that, aren’t you?  And wouldn’t you agree that it’s easier for you to turn off the TV than it is for your friend to concentrate in her prayer?  We all know how hard it is to concentrate even when the room is quiet.

Now apply this story to the concept of hijab.  I’ve often heard girls complain that they have to wear hijab “because boys can’t control themselves.”  First of all, that’s not correct.  Muslim women wear hijab because Allah subhanu wa ta’ala commanded us to do so.  But, maybe as a secondary reason, we wear hijab to protect ourselves AND help our Muslim brothers to protect themselves from sideways glances.

It is a fact that it is easier for a woman to cover herself than it is for a man to lower his gaze.  Ask any man, and he’ll tell you this is true.  Lowering their gaze is difficult for them to handle, and Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala knows this, that’s why there is so much emphasis placed on it in the first place.  Secondly, I think that Muslim women know it isn’t that hard on us to cover ourselves better, ask any woman who has tried and they will tell you it isn’t that big of an accommodation to make.

Muslim men are our BROTHERS in Islam, it isn’t so much to ask that we look out for their best interest, and sacrifice a little to help them do a better job at lowering their gaze.  Let’s just face the facts, women are stronger than men in this regard, so it’s our job, Muslim women, to pick up the slack for our brothers.

I’m bored.  School is almost done and I need something to do this summer.  Any suggestions? Someone at school wants to be tutored over the summer, but I don’t know if I want to spend more time teaching, preparing lessons, and working around someone’s schedule.  That requires too much productivity, and I don’t think that word goes well with the summer.

Speaking of productivity, this past weekend I was productive with Osman and Hunno.  We painted their nursery   It’s striped!  And it’s also very well done, if I may say so myself… ahem

And speaking of coughs (are we really speaking of coughs, or did I just make a cough sound effect?) I’ve had an annoying cough that hasn’t gone away for three weeks.  It isn’t as bad as before.  Now it only acts up after I drink anything.  One or two coughs and it’s gone, but then it always comes back.

Speaking of coming back, I wonder when Shoaa’s coming back from her honeymoon?  I want to talk to her and see how married life is treating her.  I’m sure it’s sunshine, lollipops and rainbows… insha’Allah.

Speaking of rainbows, it’s been raining a lot lately.   No signs of any rainbows though.  I remember last year after the MIA graduation there was a magnificently beautiful rainbow in the sky.  Fati tried to take a picture of it.  The camera didn’t do it justice.

I accidently ran a red light the other day.  Here in the wonderful state of Illinois there are cameras set up at most intersections just to take pictures of people who violate traffic laws… even the ones who do it accidentally!  I’m scared I’m going to get a notice in the mail.

Speaking of the mail, I flipped through the Meijer circular today.  It was sitting on the kitchen table.  There are a lot of good deals this week!  I wish I could go there and buy some groceries.  But I don’t think we’re in any need of discount cereal and chips.

Speaking of chips, I made myself a lunch–turkey sandwich, pineapple slices and juice.  No chips though.  We only had Cooler Ranch Doritos, and I’m not a big fan.

After eating her chips, the daughter wanted more.  The mom said no, but the daughter threw a fit.  So the mom caved in and gave her daughter some more chips, again saying that this time was the last.  Of course, the same thing happened at least two more times.  After the third time, the mom finally decided to tell her daughter there weren’t anymore chips… she lied!

Well, after eating her chips, the daughter wanted more.  So she started crying for it, again.  The mom kept telling her the same old lie:  there weren’t anymore chips.  But she finally realized her daughter didn’t believe her, so she turned to me and said, “Can you give her some more chips?”

I was a little annoyed.  Didn’t she just tell her daughter the chips were done?  I actually mentioned that to her, “You told her there weren’t anymore…?”  The mom said, “Yea I know, but she wants it now.”

Wow, way to lie to your kid.

When the mom lied, it didn’t even accomplish anything.  In the end, after the mom lied, the daughter didn’t believe her, and the mom ended up giving the daughter what she wanted, thus proving to the daughter that she was lying to her.  Now the daughter is going to have this idea in her head that if mommy says there is no more, it probably is a lie, and if she cries for it enough, what she wants will magically reappear.

It doesn’t matter how many tantrums your kids are throwing, parents should find an honest way to discipline their kids.  For example in this situation the mom could’ve said, “There aren’t anymore FOR YOU to eat .  You’ve already had your fair share.”  Simple.  That’s not lying.  Saying this does two things 1) she avoids telling a lie and 2) the kid learns the idea of eating his/her own share of the food and leaving the rest for others.

Also, I know sometimes we think that rules about lying can be bent on kids, but the Prophet sallalahu alayhi wasallam mentioned on multiple occasions that it is wrong to lie specifically to kids.

Lying is improper whether in earnest or in jest. (All lying is unacceptable) even if anyone of you promises his child something and does not fulfill his promise. (Al-Bukahri in Al-Adab Al-Mufrad and Abu Dawud)

This hadith shows how repugnant lying is viewed in Islam. Most people do not find anything wrong with not fulfilling a certain promise given to a young child. The child is bound to forget or can be easily appeased with something else. But deliberate unfulfillment of a promise given to a child is unacceptable. In order to emphasize this last point, let me quote this report by `Abdullah ibn `Amir, a young Companion of the Prophet. He said,

My mother called me one day when Allah’s Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) was in our house. She said, “Come and I will give you something.” Allah’s Messenger asked her, “What do you intend to give him?” She said, “I want to give him dates.” The Prophet said, “If you were not to give him something, your statement would be recorded against you as a lie.”

From islamonline.net

If there are specific prohibitions about lying to kids, it shows how much more careful we need to be about it.

Parents, please don’t lie to your kids.  They’re just like everyone else and deserve the truth.

Are there any parents out there that have any advise on how to avoid lying to your kids?  Or how being honest has helped you in parenting?

Anyone, huh?  What about themselves?  When someone doesn’t wear hijab, who is really stopping them?  A parent?  A friend?  A spouse?  Or the person themself?  Afterall, when a girl puts on a hijab, in my opinion, the number one thing she is fighting is not culture, nor pressure, but her own desire to be admired or adored.

So really, if you’re not wearing it, and you’d never stop anyone else from wearing it, why stop yourself?