. that darn mozlem .

Narrated Abu Huraira:

Allah’s Apostle said, “The example of a believer is that of a fresh green plant the leaves of which move in whatever direction the wind forces them to move and when the wind becomes still, it stand straight. Such is the similitude of the believer: He is disturbed by calamities (but is like the fresh plant he regains his normal state soon). And the example of a disbeliever is that of a pine tree (which remains) hard and straight till Allah cuts it down when He will.” (See Hadith No. 546 and 547, Vol. 7).

This is comforting. Very comforting. Why? Because I’m that green plant swaying in whichever way the wind blows. I actually wrote about something similar or related to this a while back, but it’s still a draft somewhere. SubhanAllah, how Allah knows us so well (well, he did make us, so it makes perfect sense, no?). My point in is that it’s normal, heck dare I even say the “standard”, to be afflicted with so many calamities and to survive those calamities is something we should be grateful for because lets face it, some people are tested so much and so severely that they never recover from it.

I recall a sheik saying that whatever trials we endure is a test from Allah that inshaAllah brings us closer to Him, and then someone asked if we can ask more for more tests in an effort to get closer to Allah, and the sheik strongly advised against it because of one simple reality -you may not pass that test. Then what? You never know how you will react or handle whatever calamity befalls you, so don’t even risk it.

Another thing to keep in mind is that not all test are the dark “find me in the dark corner with the cockroaches and bloody smear of demonic writings on the wall” kind. Beware of the time when everything seems right in your world -don’t forget to thank Allah and use all that He has blessed you in the right way (meaning just because you suddenly got a raise doesn’t license you to splurge on haraam, give to charities and sadaqh) so that you show you are grateful. You could’ve easily been on the other side of the token. Yeah,  I have weird phrases, but I’m sure you understand.

Plain and simple point: remember Allah in the bad and good times.

It’s undoubtedly easy to run to Allah when something devastating happens or even for something we want, but isn’t that like we’re just using Him, although He certainly doesn’t need us? It’s us that need Him. So let’s step away from just asking and asking and asking and asking….

and remember to be thankful.

I started doing something when I took my very first real Biology class back in middle school. When I learned the real miracles our bodies are, I began to thank Allah for every pump of blood that flows through my veins, for every second my heart beats, for every breath of air that I take, and every millisecond of life He has given me because I realised that I’m not guaranteed any of these things, these mundane, under-appreciated things.

Dang it, I don’t like getting into preacher mode.

So you get the point, right? InshaAllah let’s worship Allah through everything that we do and remember Him at all times.

Alright, I’m done.

Man, I hate when this happens. Have you ever had this mental block you couldn’t get rid of? Now imagine that for …like all of your life.

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How frustrating! Because I know I’m not any less capable of doing something than anyone else, but it doesn’t turn out that way. WHAT AM I DOING WRONG? Don’t tell me that some people are just better at somethings than others because then it means I suck at everything I do.

What I find weird and contradictory is that I tell people/friends things and I really mean it when it comes to them, like “Dudette, I know you can do it, of all people, you can definitely do it!” or “It’s no big deal” and then set out a easy plan for them, but when it comes to me, I’m fresh out of enthusiasm. I do try to pump myself up and convince myself that I am capable of accomplishing whatever I want to, but there’s just this negative mental block for some reason. A good friend of mine told me to never fear trying things and don’t let anyone tell you what you can handle, as in however many hours you can take and still do well for example. And I think it’s easier to say that to others, heck I say that to others, but when it comes time for me to eat my words, I can’t.

 I wonder if that makes my encouragement any less sincere because they are genuine. I just can’t get myself to believe them when it comes to me.

You know what? I think it’s because I get discouraged very easily with some things. That’s something I try to fight all the time. It’s the same old story: I work hard at something then I don’t do as well as I wanted or needed to and then I start feeling like it’s hopeless because if I gave it my all and it wasn’t enough, then what am I supposed to do?

SubhanAllah (and mashaAllah) my husband is the exact opposite. In fact it’s down right unreal how motivated he gets when he has to work harder. Here’s the difference in our approaches:

Me -I do badly or not well enough and I’m depressed and losing hope

Him -well he never does badly because he’s a licensed nerd (mashaAllah), but let’s say he makes a A- instead of like a 110 or something, he actually studies longer and harder and does better.

…………………..

I wish I had that kind of mental work. Maybe I’m just weak willed? I don’t know. But what I do know is that I don’t have a choice from now on especially with the upcoming events. This cowgirl’s gotta ride the big horses and not fall off.

So inshaAllah keep me in your duaa’s pretty please.

Narrated Ibn Mas’ud:The Prophet used to take care of us in preaching by selecting a suitable time, so that we might not get bored. (He abstained from pestering us with sermons and knowledge all the time). Narrated Anas bin Malik: The Prophet said, “Facilitate things to people (concerning religious matters), and do not make it hard for them and give them good tidings and do not make them run away (from Islam).”

Ah, anther example of rationality in Islam yet with even concrete evidence such as the above from the Prophet himself, some still make Islam some high maintance religion that it simply is not. Anyhow, I like this particular hadith because I used to have these guilt trips for not attending a halaqa or some “muslim thing” because as a muslim I had too, right? Wrong. The guilt was just a part of my strive to become more practicing, especially when I began wearing the hijaab (scarf). But I was just too tired sometimes or wanted to relax and I thought it was horrible of me to miss out on those “mozlem things” just because I was tired.

But chill….you don’t have to attend every single event/halaqa/whatever. Just do your best to continually seek a nice cup of knowledge and things will be fine, InshaAllah.

I’m a bitter fool.

I’ve been grouchy lately only because I’ve seen the hubz-man probably for a total of an hour and a half over the last couple of days. His job is slowly sucking him away into oblivion. This stinks.

Up until this point, we’ve spent at least half the day together and now to see him so sporadically is like holdin’ it to go to the bathroom for so long and then being allowed to pee one drop at a time. Is that too gross? Ah, get over it.

Anyhow it feels awkward and ….well, just awkward to not see or even talk -I mean, c’mon if I can’t see you, then at least let me be able to talk to you- to him like this. But I guess it’s good preparation? I’ll explain that when the time comes because I don’t even want to think about how close it is. This makes me think about a friend of mine, actually two friends of mine, who were married, but didn’t get live with their husbands right away. One of my friend’s husband is across the ocean and the other’s is up north, but I often think about what they must be going through and how they’re dealing with it. Sometimes it really is just a “take what you can get” type of thing, because I would rather be married and not with him temporarily than not with him at all (unmarried). It’s got to be difficult to be away from someone you love, and then add kids into the picture and it’s a recipe for a meltdown.

There’s a sister who’s doing her residency and her husband is working on his PhD.D in a different state so they’re already busy with work and living in different states, but on top of that they have, I think, three kids, which must intensify the situation even more so. Another thing that I’ve thought about is the thousands of wives who have husbands over seas fighting this stupid war with the real chance of their husbands not returning. Man, SubhanAllah I don’t think I would be able to handle that. And then imagine the wives and children who have lost their husbands and fathers because it’s like the fourth time they were deployed. Real nonsense destroying real families. I pray that Allah eases their suffering.

So for me to not see my special beanhead due to working is something I should shut up about since there are far greater circumstance others are facing that I’m not.

At least his (hubz-man) job is temporary and after this I’ll never let him take this kind of offer ever again. I know his job is for both of us; he’s working really hard so that I don’t have to and I do really, really, really appreciate it so I’m going to shut myself up when I feel the urge to pout.

Whaaaaa? You’re leaving again!?!?!!?!

Tuck that hanging lip back in…..remeber we don’t pout anymore.

Mayn.

Narrated ‘Abdullah bin Mas’ud:

I visited Allah’s Apostle while he was suffering from a high fever. I touched him with my hand and said, “O Allah’s Apostle! You have a high fever.” Allah’s Apostle said, “Yes, I have as much fever as two men of you have.” I said, “Is it because you will get a double reward?” Allah’s Apostle said, “Yes, no Muslim is afflicted with harm because of sickness or some other inconvenience, but that Allah will remove his sins for him as a tree sheds its leaves.”

Narrated ‘Aisha:

(the wife of the Prophet) Allah’s Apostle said, “No calamity befalls a Muslim but that Allah expiates some of his sins because of it, even though it were the prick he receives from a thorn.”

How sah-sweet. SubahanAllah, He continually saves us from our sins. In the case above, it’s not like you’re directly asking Allah to remove your sins, but He inflicts something upon so that He can remove your bad deeds and inshaAllah leave you room to fill them in with good ones. He’s helping us out and we don’t even realize it.

Makes PMS worth it.

I don’t like to show too much, if any, of my true sappy-ness (yeah, I made that word up too, I make up a lot of words….you’ll get the hang of it), but lately it’s been harder and harder to choke down my tears.  I’m not one of those women who bawl their eyeballs out at everything, but something touching will water my eyes and if it’s that time of the month expect me face down in my pillow drowning in my tears, snot, and whatever else leaks out of my face. But to choke on my tears over a CVS pharmacy commercial? Give me a break. But I know what did me in…it was the dang song. Something about a beautiful day and then the bird flew by and a seed grew into a beautiful flower – that kind of stuff. Dang, so corny yet it had me sniffling.

But that was a couple of weeks ago.

Nowadays all it takes for me to bit my lip and blink profusely as I fight the urge to bawl is something related to pregnancy, babies, or kids. I saw a Flinstones commercial earlier today and this cute little boy in the most adorable voice asks his mom “Mom, do Flinstones go here?” and points to his elbow or something and as the commercial continues I had to put my spoon down and swallow my tears. Yes, you adorable little amazing miracle of life, …..Flinstones do go there…

Waaaaaaaaah.

I was thankful when the commercial ended not only so save myself from embarrassment, but to get back to normal. Although my “normal” changes from day to day.

It’s weird. I hate being so sappy, but I have to admit I’m better off than my sister who’s first response to confrontation or disaster used to be, if not still is, is to cry. When watching a tear jerking movie or something water works worthy, my mom and sister(s) -yeah, they got to the youngest too- are usually red in the face and one tear drentched tissue away from falling out and cry all over the place. But me? No, I stay composed -as long as possible at least. I may tear up, but I don’t (or won’t allow myself) to cry openly. So I suppress it all, the tears, the chokes, the urge to heave, and the runny nose -that one gets a little hard to do…you just need a tissue sometimes.

But I am a cryer and accept it as a part of myself. I can only surpress it for so long before it explodes one day and I spend the entire day or night sobbing into my pillow often confusing my husband as to what the heck is wrong. Nothing and everything is wrong. But alhamdulilah for it all.

Sometimes a girl’s gotta cry.

But nowadays it’s only beh-beh  related things that send me whirling into water works. It’s a crazy ride simply because when I was obsessed with having a baby, none of these things  (the dreams, daydreaming, the cry-because-I-just-saw-a-baby) affected me to the magnitude they do now. When I’m finally learning to just be patient, this sorta stuff happens. Talk about timing. It’s like I’m just emotionally shot about this, but my head is delicately dropping hints that I’m not over it in everything else in my life.

But in the mean time I guess I’ll walk around with some tissue in the event I see a pink or blue anything and it reminds me of a teeny tiny beh-beh. 

Here it goes again.

Okay I’m fine now.

Narrated Sa’d bin Ubaid:

(the Maula of ‘Abdur-Rahman bin Azhar) Allah’s Apostle said, “None of you should long for death, for if he is a good man, he may increase his good deeds, and if he is an evil-doer, he may stop the evil deeds and repent.”

 As hard as life can be, death wouldn’t be one door I would want to open. I like the simplictiy of this hadith (and Islam in general, but some dang fools make it so unbelievably more difficult that it is- chill goodness). It just makes me think of how we can never have enough good deeds because it’s not because of our deeds that we are granted Jannah (InshaAllah), but Allah’s mercy on us. So the way I think of it, and I’m no scholar …heck not even a student of knowledge, but the way I see it is that our good deeds inshaAllah will help us attain Allah’s mercy which would ultimatley lead to Jannah. But that’s just how I look at it.

In regards to the bad deeds, nothing like Allah’s promise to forgive us as long as we ask for forgiveness and try not return to the deed, to give you hope.

proud mozlem,

amira

My brain has officially crossed the fine line between “Oh I think I’d like a cute little baby” into “I *twitch* need *twitch* baby!….*twitch*” I don’t know what could trigger these -and I doubt it’s what I’ve been eating …for like five months straight-but holy baloney, my beh-beh dreams are getting not only more vivid, but extremely complicated. I wake up thinking “what the Jahannam is happening?”

Anyhow since the last time I had that dream about Subway Muslimah and her “condition” there have been about three more and in each one my face is utterly confused because I know I’m dreaming, but I can’t figure out why my head won’t let go of this infatuation. I’m not going to go into detail mainly because I can’t remember anything right now except that I wasn’t the only one pregnant at the time. In one dream, I think there were about five other ladies that were pregnant at the same time. We were one big -literally- group of jolly preggers waddling our way through the buffet. In another dream, everyone in the whole dang universe was knocked up, but me. Look to my right, pregnant people, look to my left, more pregnant people, behind me, in front of me, even above me-EVERYWHERE! I look at myself and realize I’m the only person without a baked bun in the oven. That dream probably raised my blood pressure.

I really think something is going on, or that I’m being sent these messages from the one above, but I’m not reading them correctly OR that I’ve passed the point of obsessive compulsive and my brain is slowly turning into a “get a baby” machine. It’s really not like I’m thinking about kids all the time either. I see a baby, I have my moochie moochie moment and say “inshaAllah” then move on with my day. I’ve stopped compulsively thinking about it like for a couple of minutes now. Just kidding, more like a couple of weeks. On the same token, although I’m not thinking about a baby all the time nor fighting to stay concentrated, my dream world is all about those little lovely boogers. It’s like all the “repression” throughout the day comes back with a fury while I’m sleeping.

What’s weird about all of this is that the only -and I mean ONLY- reason I’m not with a beh-beh is because the hubz-man and I need to “wait”. What kind of bs is that huh? I’m young and at the peak of my fertility and inshaAllah could’ve been knocked up like forever ago, but because of me starting college and him applying to graduate school, we thought it only made sense to wait until there was some certainty in our future, well at least as certain as you can get because you can drop dead right now. At this very instant. Seriously.

Anyhow I’m tired of waiting and I’m not getting any younger (because we all know hitting 21 is pushing it, right?). InshaAllah I’ll have the patience to get through however much longer I need to because Allah knows I’m about one lullaby binky blanket diaper booties onesies waaaaah breast pump stroller Parenting Magazine away from going into a furiously ugly meltdown.

babies callin’ my name,

amira

Narrated Abu Huraira:

While the Prophet was saying something in a gathering, a Bedouin came and asked him, “When would the Hour (Doomsday) take place?” Allah’s Apostle continued his talk, so some people said that Allah’s Apostle had heard the question, but did not like what that Bedouin had asked. Some of them said that Alllah’s Apostle had not heard it. When the Prophet finished his speech, he said, “Where is the questioner, who enquired about the Hour (Doomsday)?” The Bedouin said, “I am here, O Allah’s Apostle .” Then the Prophet said, “When honesty is lost, then wait for the Hour (Doomsday).” The Bedouin said, “How will that be lost?” The Prophet said, “When the power or authority comes in the hands of unfit persons, then wait for the Hour (Doomsday.)”

 This particular hadith struck me because of a presentation we had in my History class by Norman Solomon. Unfortunately, he isn’t as well known as such “experts” as Rush Limbaugh and Shawn Hannity, yet he’s the only person with experience in journalism and media. Anyhow his documentary was about the change in journalism to portray what those at the top want to be portrayed and mostly about the false pretenses gov. officials use to lead us into war and that it isn’t a new practice etc. I thoroughly enjoyed it and spoke with him after class. He also gave me (and some other kids around) sites to check out as alternative news outlets and of his own works.

Anyhow, there’s the hadith.

-amiraaaaaa

You know what? I’ve decided to do something so simple and so rewarding that it’s crazy that I never thought of it before. Well actually I have, infact I think it was my husband who came up with the idea when we were engaged oh so long ago. What we used to do in the midst of our two months engagement was send each other “hadith of the day” emails, which was a fantastic idea. I think I still have them collecting internet dust somewhere in a folder, but it just hit me like an anvil that we don’t do that anymore. I don’t remember why or when it stopped. Oh wait, I think it was when we didn’t have to communicate through emails and a CC.

Anyhow I’ve decided to, inshAllah, restart that with him and here on my public coffee table in which I talk about my thoughts and you have to listen because you can’t say anythign unless you leave a comment but you tend not to do that so I get to have the talking stick until someone wants it

Wait, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, so inshaAllah this is the “grand opening” or beginning of  “A Hadith a Day Will Keep Shaytaan at Bay” Lame title, maybe. Good idea, hecks yeah.

I don’t know if I should make a category out of it or…nah, it falls under “Islam-isms” but you’ll catch one starring at you everyday inshAllah, or at least everytime I post something. If you don’t see a hadith, then something’s wrong….that’s how dedicated I plan to be, inshaAllah.

Besides I think it’s a nice daily dose that we should all try to have. Do you remember that thick bubblegum flavored cough medicine from your childhood? Oh, that wasn’t medicine? Was I chuggin’ Pepto Bismol?. Anyhow the point is that inshaAllah the hadith will serve the same purpose -good for you and good to swallow. Inshallah I won’t post anything that’ll take longer to read than to pee; they’ll be simple and beneficial, inshaAllah.

Do I say “inshaAllah” too much?

So that’s my promise to myself and to you internet peps. It’ll do us both good, no?

-amira