tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56384139449830683582024-02-20T20:57:02.327+04:00Dew PointDewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17618123767557603812noreply@blogger.comBlogger99125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638413944983068358.post-65886969872881718902018-11-06T14:16:00.000+04:002018-11-06T14:19:13.047+04:00Sufi Healing and Embracing Pain<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Through the tears welling up in my eyes, I looked down at the opening and closing of my hand.<br />
<br />
First I wrapped my four right fingers over my thumb and pressed them against the centre of my palm into a fist. I examined it for several seconds, then slowly released the fist until my fingers were outstretched. For a few moments more, I gazed at my open hand, before closing it again.<br />
<br />
After several minutes I started to sync the motions with my breath so I inhaled as the fist closed, and exhaled as it opened. With every in breath I silently repeated <em>Ya Qabid (The One Who Constricts)</em>, one of the 99 Qualities of Allah, understood as the Divine Reality in the Islamic Sufi tradition. <br />
<br />
With each out breath, <em>Ya Basit (The One Who Expands Our Hearts)</em>, emerged in a whisper from my lips.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-1296" height="406" src="https://wp-media.patheos.com/blogs/sites/674/2018/11/Qabid-295x300.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://attributesofallah.blogspot.com/2010/06/" target="_blank">Ya Qabid</a>, The Constrictor</td></tr>
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I concentrated on this meditation long after the sobbing had ceased, mesmerized by the incredible workings of the human body. Rumi's poetry frequently references the harmony between expansion and contraction. In a physical sense, it keeps us alive: the rise and fall of our diaphragms brings forth breath and the heart constricts and expands to move blood through our veins.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>And yet, when it comes to emotions, how often in life have I clung to joy and sought to prolong it, and deemed pain as "bad" and sought to keep my sojourn in grief and sorrow as brief as possible. In my meditation, a more visceral understanding of the importance of accepting the difficulty and ease of life with equal graciousness settled into my heart.<br />
Rumi alludes to this in the verse <em>Two Wings</em>:<br />
<blockquote>
<div>
<em>Observe the qualities of expansion and contraction</em></div>
<div>
<em>In the fingers of your hand </em></div>
<div>
<em>Surely after the closing of your fist comes the opening. </em></div>
<div>
<em>If the fingers were always closed or always open,</em></div>
<div>
<em>the owner would be crippled.</em></div>
<div>
<em>Your movement is governed by these two qualities:</em></div>
<div>
<em>They are as necessary to you as two wings are to a bird.</em></div>
<div>
<em>(Mathnawi III, 3762-66)*</em></div>
</blockquote>
Working with Divine Names like <em>Ya Qabid</em> and <em>Ya Basit</em> has been transformative for my spiritual practice this year as I engage with some old psychological wounds that had been buried in the depths of my subconscious. In the Sufi tradition, we understand the Names as Qualities of Reality which we can activate in ourselves by consciously holding them and allowing their essence to unfold within us.<br />
<br />
The beauty of some, like <em>Ya Karim (The Most Generous One)</em> or <em>Ya Wadud (The Infinitely Loving One)</em> is easy to grasp. Others like <em>Ya Qabid</em> and <em>Ya Basit, </em>are trickier because they express the fluctuation between opposites. Along with pairs like <em>The</em><em> Abaser (Al-Khafid)</em> and the <em>Exalter (Ar-Rafi)</em> or <em>The Bestower of Honour (Al-Muizz)</em> and <em>The One Who Humbles (Al-Mudhill)</em>, they remind us that Divinity encompasses all human states, pretty and ugly alike.<br />
<br />
<img alt="" class="aligncenter wp-image-1299" height="400" src="https://wp-media.patheos.com/blogs/sites/674/2018/11/IMG_1252-300x300.jpg" width="400" /><br />
<br />
At first, this realization shook me. I’d spent a long time unconsciously leaning on spiritual practice to avoid facing and healing unresolved emotional pain and psychological wounding, falling into the dreaded traps of spiritual bypassing. Hiding behind a veneer of positivity was easier for me than peeking at the difficult emotions dwelling just beyond the thin veil I pretended wasn’t there.<br />
<br />
My relationship with suffering has changed with the understanding that in order to live my highest truth, I need to dive into the wounding that separated me from innermost heart in the first place. That’s meant engaging with some raw pain that’s been with me since I was a little girl who didn't feel worthy of unconditional love. She’s the part of me that tends to seek perfection because she believes without it she won’t be loved. Fearful of being rejected if she expresses her voice, she chooses silence over authenticity.<br />
<br />
Admitting these and other truths, let alone allowing myself to feel them, has been challenging. But only when the torment of these wounds is felt deeply and held lovingly can the spiritual healing offered by Sufism genuinely unfold.<br />
<br />
Reading Rumi, we often come across the imagery of humans being akin to diamonds or rubies at our core, that is, our highest potentiality. Mining these valuable gems from the Earth requires drilling through layers of hard rock that settled over centuries and, frankly, are impossible to move without heavy machinery. Similarly, the inward spiritual journey demands burrowing through the embedded beliefs forced onto my psyche by family, religion and society that are blocking the radiance of my truest self.<br />
<br />
So, like a miner, I drill. It’s painful and yet I instinctively know that even in the depths of agony, I’m not alone. I’m aware of the Divine Quality <em>Ya Rahman</em>, <em>the Infinitely Compassionate One, </em>holding the pain with me. The Arabic word <em>Rahman</em> derives from the same root as the word <em>womb</em>. When I learned this a couple of years ago, I began to conceive of God as a Loving Womb connected to all of creation with an invisible umbilical cord, holding each of us in all of our states.<br />
<br />
Feeling attached to <em>Ya Rahman</em> at my core has given me the courage to be vulnerable enough to sink into the mine shaft of my psyche. Surrendering to <em>Ya Qabid</em>, I know I’m being guided through my wounding to the ruby nature that lies beneath, so I’m less distracted or irritated by the anguish of the journey. Rather, the pain I feel and the tears I shed have a strange sweetness to them now. The Quranic promise, <em>with every difficulty comes ease**,</em> rings in my ears.<br />
<br />
Each time I emerge from a wound, the immense ease of <em>Ya Basit</em> fills my chest and torso. My Truth comes into view more clearly and vividly, as though dust has been brushed away from the surface of my mind’s eye. More than ever, I can savor the periods of expansion with gratitude. And when sorrow returns, I'm getting better at patiently wading through the contraction to listen to the lessons it contains, gently guided by Mevlana’s words:<br />
<blockquote>
<div>
<em>When a feeling of spiritual contraction comes over you,</em></div>
<div>
<em>O traveler, it's for your own good.</em></div>
<div>
<em>Don't burn with grief,</em></div>
<div>
<em>for in the state of expansion and delight you are spending.</em></div>
<div>
<em>That enthusiasm requires an income of pain to balance it.</em></div>
<div>
<em>If it were always summer,</em></div>
<div>
<em>the sun's blazing heat would burn the garden</em></div>
<div>
<em>to the roots and depths of the soil.</em></div>
<div>
<em>The withered plants never again would become fresh.</em></div>
<div>
<em>If December is sour-faced, yet it is kind.</em></div>
<div>
<em>Summer is laughing, but yet it destroys.</em></div>
<div>
<em>When spiritual contraction comes,</em></div>
<div>
<em>behold expansion within it;</em></div>
<div>
<em>be cheerful and let your face relax.</em></div>
<div>
<em>(Mathnawi III, 3734-3739)*</em></div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
* From Jewels of Remembrance, translated by Camille and Kabir Helminski</div>
<div>
** Quran, Surah Al-Inshirah (The Expansion), 94, 5-6</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
Dewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17618123767557603812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638413944983068358.post-30989162866536771922018-08-12T14:32:00.000+04:002018-08-12T14:32:23.405+04:00Countering Islamic Extremism With Radical Love: Book Review<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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While reading Omid Safi’s new book, <em>Radical Love: Teachings from the Islamic Mystical Tradition</em>,
I was among editors from London’s media outlets attending a briefing on
how the British public perceive Muslims, based on research commissioned
by the Aziz Foundation. The book was sitting in my purse as we heard
some staggering statistics: nearly one in three Brits feel negatively
toward Muslims, three times higher than the closest religious group.
Among these sceptics, 91% feel more suspicious of Muslims after terror
attacks.
<br /><br />The findings were a jarring contrast to the passionate love that
drips from the pages of Safi’s collection of poetry from several dozen
Muslim mystics, passages from the Quran and sayings of the Prophet
Muhammad. I walked out of the meeting with a visceral sense that the
Islamic path of Radical Love, or Eshq, is the antidote for neutralizing
the violent associations that Islam is readily smeared with in the
mainstream imagination.<br />
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<br />
There are, admittedly, many books of sufi love poetry dedicated to
the impassioned verses of Rumi, Hafez, Attar and others — my own Mevlevi
spiritual teachers have <a class="decorated-link" href="https://sufism.org/product-category/books" rel="noopener" target="_blank">translated</a> stunning compilations of Rumi, in particular.<br /><br />
Safi adds something unique and important for this juncture of human
history. He brings together the voices of generations of lovers of God
into a single, richly nourishing anthology, translating them anew to
take into account modern language, references and sensibilities.<br />
<br />It’s like a tasting menu; the reader gets a generous sampling of
morsels of Islamic mystical wisdom drawn from sufis over the centuries.
It’s ideal for dipping into for moments of inspiration in our
fast-paced, distracting, consumer-driven lives, where spiritual growth
is readily sidelined.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>The Path of Radical Love, <em>madhhab al-‘eshq</em>, argues for a
different way of relating to God than is typically associated with
Islam. Emphasizing unity and oneness, it challenges human tendencies to
divide and erect barriers among ourselves, often in the name of
religion, culture or tradition. It is lived and breathed through humans
who have done the personal work of confronting their own egoism to
become reflectors of Divine qualities of on earth.<br />
<br />In his introduction, Safi posits that the lovers of God whose poems
fill his book are “boldly impatient.” While everyone is promised to meet
the Creator face to face in the Hereafter, these individuals long to
know God <em>here and now</em>. Lovers strive to make the Divine real in
their daily lives by living and breathing Love in every moment and
circumstance. He likens Radical Love to alchemy: it illuminates
everything in us that is cheap and base, transforming it into gold.<br /><br />
“As Rumi says, it is through this Radical Love that the bitter
becomes sweet, the thorn turns into a rose, the pain contains healing,
and the dead come to life,” writes Safi.<br />
<br />But Radical Love encompasses more than the inward psychological
journey to our innermost hearts. It’s also about engaging with humanity
by nurturing beautiful relationships and creating communities that are
harmonious, promote dignity and bring about justice in the world.
Radical Love needs to be lived and embodied here and now, in the
“messiness of earthly life.”<br />
<br />“For the mystics of the path of radical love, love (Eshq) is not a
sentiment or an emotion. It is the very overflowing of God onto this
realm. It is this radical love that erupts out of God, bringing us into
being. It is this love that sustains us, and it will be this cosmic
current that will carry us back home.”<br />
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</div>
<br />Safi’s book is an impressive undertaking. His delicate renderings
of the Quran and Hadith capture the essence that’s been sorely lacking
in the traditional translations many of us grew up with. I found his
rendition of the Quran’s first verse, <em>Al-Fatiha (The Opening)</em>,
poetic and enchanting. His approach reminded me how important it is to
consciously approach the Divine with love, rather than projecting our
own egoism onto Him/Her.
<blockquote>
<em>A God Closer Than…</em><br />
I created humanity<br />
I know what whispers into your soul…<br />
and I am closer to you<br />
than the beating of your heart<br />
~Quran (50:16)<br /><br />
<em>A Heart to Contain God</em><br />
My Heaven cannot contain Me<br />
Neither can My Earth<br />
But the heart<br />
of My faithful devotee<br />
suffices Me<br />
~Hadith</blockquote>
Dipping into Safi’s book feels like witnessing a spiritual conversation, or <em>sohbet</em>,
between a lineage of God’s closest friends, all seated around the same
circular table, united in their desire to “make God real, make love real
and let love shine.”<br /><br />
Opening it at random, you find Fakhr al-Din ‘Iraqi, a contemporary of
Rumi who died in 1289, seated next to Abu Abd al-Rahman al-Sulami, who
lived more than 250 years earlier. Elsewhere, a drunk Rabi’a — a woman
who lived during the eighth century in Iraq — staggers in intoxication
with God’s love beside the 13th century poet Farid al-Din ‘Attar. His
most famous work is Conference of the Birds, an allegory depicting the
collective journey of mystics making their way to the Beloved —
essentially, the very thing Safi brings to life in his book.<br />
<br />In our own times, Sufism is unfortunately sidelined from the
mainstream conversation. It’s not as contentious or eye-catching to talk
about ecstatic love of God as it is to give the spotlight to terrorists
who have polluted faith with their own toxic egoism. Yet the lovers of
God are always there, forming, as my teacher once put it, the endocrine
system circulating through the bloodstream of humanity.<br />
Several days after that media briefing, I tried to imagine what would
have happened if I’d been inspired to pull out Safi’s book from my
purse and had each editor seated around the boardroom table randomly
open and read aloud a poem. That thought came to me as I lingered at a
verse of Shams of Tabriz, the spiritual guide who ignited a flame of
love in Rumi’s breast.<br />
<br />While Rumi’s words are sprinkled dozens of times in <em>Radical Love</em>,
Shams makes only one appearance near the end of Safi’s book and — in
his characteristic way — pierces right to the heart of the matter:<br />
<blockquote>
<em>Remove the Ka’ba<br /></em><br />
<em> God commands us </em><br />
<em>to pray in the direction of the Ka’ba</em><br />
<em> <br />Imagine this:</em><br />
<em>People all over the world </em><br />
<em>are gathered </em><br />
<em>making a circle </em><br />
<em>around the Kaaba</em><br />
<em> They bow down </em><br />
<em> in prayer</em><br />
<em> <br />Now </em><br />
<em>imagine: </em><br />
<em><br />Remove the Ka’ba </em><br />
<em>from the middle of the circle <br /></em><br />
<em>Are they not prostrating </em><br />
<em>toward one another?<br /></em><br />
<em> They are bowing down </em><br />
<em>toward each other’s hearts </em></blockquote>
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Dewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17618123767557603812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638413944983068358.post-59982961154498722612018-07-16T14:26:00.000+04:002018-08-12T14:27:38.814+04:00When Prophets Come Alive<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">By Mariam Choudry</td></tr>
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I recently accompanied my murshid on a spiritual retreat in Turkey,
along with a group of dear friends and seekers. We sat in the presence
of sufi teachers and visited shrines, including the House of the Virgin
Mary in Ephesus and the tombs of Mevlana Rumi and Shams of Tabriz in
Konya.
<br />
<br />
One of the lessons that resonated with me was the idea that we can
relate to prophets and saints like Muhammad, Jesus, Mary, Buddha or Rumi
not merely as historical figures, but as sacred personalities who
belong to all humanity, rather than a particular religion, ideology or
nationality. They represent transcendent qualities accessible through
the collective human consciousness.<br />
<br />
We open ourselves up to a direct experience with these sacred figures when we bring our lower selves or egos (called <i>nafs</i>
in sufi terminology) into alignment with our hearts. In sufism, this is
achieved by cultivating consciousness of the Divine Reality, or
Allah, through <i>zikr</i>, or remembrance. Over time, such practices
heighten our spiritual radar and we grow more and more into our greatest
humanness, where direct experiences with the Beloved permeate all
circumstances of life.<br />
As Mevlana Rumi says:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>Our body is like Mary.</i><br />
<i>Each of us has a Jesus inside.</i><br />
<i>If a pain and yearning shows up inside us,</i><br />
<i>the Jesus of our soul is born.</i><br />
<i>If there is no pain, no yearning,</i><br />
<i>the Jesus of our soul will return to its origin from</i><br />
<i>the same secret passageway he came from…</i><br />
<i>If there is no pain, no yearning,</i><br />
<i>we will remain deprived</i><br />
<i>not benefiting from that Jesus of the soul.</i><br />
<i>(Translated by Omid Safi, in Radical Love: Teachings from the Islamic Mystical Tradition) </i></blockquote>
Understanding that prophets and saints reside in the potentiality of
every human’s experience opened a deeper dimension of intimacy and
connection for me. It’s also obliterated the cultural and religious
divisions that I’d grown up believing separated people.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>In my journey, I’ve felt connected to prophets and saints not merely
because I’d read about them and appreciated their stories. But because
shifts in my consciousness have given me a direct sense of who they were
and how their qualities have manifested in my own experience.<br /><br /><br />
One of my first such encounters was with Khadija, Muhammad’s first
wife. She came into view just as my consciousness was awakening to the
dimension of Spirit that I’d been blind to after a lifetime of being
trapped in my mind. A single mother managing a multinational business,
Khadija exuded strength and confidence, so much so that she had no
qualms about proposing marriage to the much younger Muhammad, her
employee.<br /><br />
More than admiring her audacity, though, I started to notice how her
courage to live outside social norms was transforming my own way of
being in the world. It was as though she came alive inside of me: I
gradually turned off all the cultural and familial noise and pressures
standing in the way of charting out my own path. A wholly
receptive feminine energy, Khadija revealed herself in the intuitive
part of me that feels an unbreakable heart connection to the Divine even
in the face of prevailing mainstream pressures that rejected this, in
her time and mine.<br /><br />
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Sacred breezes like Khadija’s have swept over me at many points on
my journey, awakening qualities I wasn’t aware existed. Recently, for
instance, I had my first deep contact with Imam Ali, Muhammad’s
son-in-law and cousin. I was initially startled because Ali is famed for
being a great warrior who fought many battles at the prophet’s side. I
didn’t fathom such masculinity could exist in myself.
And yet after spending some time reading about Ali’s devotion to
Muhammad, parallels emerged. Ali offers an example of how to arrive
fully armed to our inner battle ground where the fight for the soul, or <i>jihad</i>,
takes place. A big part of me, especially in the past couple of years,
has been bold in confronting many painful psychological wounds blocking
my path to spiritual maturity, always with abundant self compassion.<br /><br />
The Ali in me has the gentle courage to bring unhealthy patterns of
behaviour rooted in childhood trauma and religious and cultural
conditioning into conscious awareness and allow the spiritual alchemy of
<i>zikr</i> to transform and heal them. The more I peel away
the veils of my lower self and realign my psyche toward Compassion and
Love, the more I grasp Ali’s presence and appreciate why the Prophet
said, <i>“I am the city of knowledge and Ali is its gate.” </i><br />
<br />
Moments of insight like these remind me that journeying on the sufi
path puts me in direct contact not only with my living teachers, but
with a lineage of saints, prophets and friends of God. In my own
tradition of Mevlevi sufism, rooted in the teachings of Mevlana Rumi,
I sometimes imagine the dialogue between Shams of Tabriz and Rumi
happening within me.<br /><br />Shams ignited the flame of Divine Love in Rumi by daring him to view
reality from a different vantage point. I experience Shams, Arabic for
sun, as the inner witness objectively observing my thoughts, feelings,
sensations and emotions and shining a light on where I need to pay
attention. His luminous being challenges me to question familiar
patterns of thought and behaviour, and rub away the layers of tarnish
that separate me from my spiritual heart.<br /><br />
The more polished my heart becomes, meanwhile, inhibitions melt away
and I shock myself with creativity and ideas. Writing flows more easily,
and I’ve developed a love for singing, learning to play music and
whirling that I couldn’t have imagined possible even a couple of years
ago. It’s here that I catch a glimpse of the radiance of Rumi, through
whom that Divine Creativity surged in tens of thousands of verses of
poetry.<br /><br />
With each step I take to open in receptivity to wisdom coming in from
the Unseen, I’m pick up subtler frequencies of spiritual perception.
Sometimes it’s as though I can tune into an intimate and lively <i>sohbet</i>,
or spiritual conversation, taking place in my heart, where humanity’s
sacred teachers blow insight and truth, if I am still enough to listen.</div>
</div>
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Dewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17618123767557603812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638413944983068358.post-79846421883868096912018-06-06T18:45:00.001+04:002018-06-06T18:45:46.245+04:00Nurturing Intimacy During Ramadan<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">It’s well after midnight and burning candles
flicker in my dimly lit living room. Music hums quietly in the background, a
love song carried through the vibrating cry of the reed flute. My head gently
sways right to left to Oruç Güvenç’s sweet notes and we sit, me and my Beloved,
at the table overlooking the night sky as London fades into a deep sleep.
There’s a stillness outside and within.<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">No words are
spoken as I gaze at my Beloved with longing, seeing and thinking of no one but
Him. His Names are all around me, in the light of the candle, <em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Ya Nur</span></em>, the Essence of
Luminosity. In the delicious scent of the yellow and pink roses in the vase
next to me, <em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Ya Latif</span></em>,
the Subtle One. In the love exploding in my heart, <em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Ya Wadud</span></em>, the Most Loving One.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">After eating
my suhour meal — a boiled egg and a small bowl greek yogurt with acacia honey
and chia seeds — we move to the sofa. Not for a moment do I let go of his
Handhold, so strong it will never give way.*<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Unable to
find words to express the depths of my yearning, I open at random pages of
poetry drawn from the wells of masters. Who better than them can express the
urgings of my heart.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br />
First, from Mevlana Rumi, comes:</span><em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></em></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The real beloved is that one who is unique,</span></em></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">who is your beginning and your end</span></em></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">When you find that one,</span></em></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">you’ll no longer want anything else</span></em></div>
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<em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">(Masnavi III, 1418-19, translated by Camille
and Kabir Helminski)</span></em></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br />
Then Yunus Emre chimes in:<br /></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">You fall in love with Truth and begin to cry,</span></em> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">You become holy light inside and out,</span></em> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Singing Allah Allah</span></em></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">(The Drop that Became the Sea, p. 72)</span></em><em><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho"; mso-bidi-font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span></em></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br />
And Sheikh Abol-Hasan of Kharaqan offers:<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Nothing pleases the Lord more than finding himself in the Lover’s heart</span></em> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">every time He looks there.</span></em> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">(The Soul and A Loaf of Bread, p. 61)</span></em></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br />
I read each verse, aloud or silently, to You, <em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Ya Sami</span></em>, the One Who Hears All.
The goosebumps on my skin and underneath a visceral reminder that You are, as
the Quran says, closer to me than my jugular vein.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"></span></div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">The Sufis
are lovers and Ramadan is the time when this seeker makes efforts to cultivate
greater intimacy with God, the kind that nourishes my heart year round and
guides me on how to honour the people in my life through that Divine Love.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">While
Ramadan is typically a time for companionship with family and friends, I’ve
spent it in solitude for many years. My immediate family is scattered across
the world and I’m not currently in a relationship. So aside from a weekly
gathering with friends, most nights I sit down for an iftar meal alone. Before
the break of dawn, I wake on my own to prepare for the coming day of fasting.<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">There are
times when I wish to share the sweetness of this blessed month with another
soul or souls who share this connection. And yet my gratitude for the gift of
having this space to cultivate greater nearness with God is immense. Ramadan is
above all an opportunity for intimacy with the Divine Reality, or Allah.
Sleeping less, I spend more time consciously seeking my Beloved and Friend, <em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Ya Waliyy</span></em>,
trying to know Him/Her more and more deeply, simultaneously seeing and being
seen.<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Beyond
reading, prayer and <em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">dhikr</span></em>, this intimacy is about
doing things with greater intention, care and presence of heart. Gently kissing
the Holy Quran and Mevlevi prayer book before and after dipping into them each
day. Lighting a candle with a <em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Bismillah</span></em> (In the Name of
God) on my breath to honour its being, and then laying it to rest with a <em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Huuuuu</span></em>, the Divine Pronoun.<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">In such
small and tender ways, I try to honour the love in my heart. It’s akin to that
feeling of being love-struck by a budding romance, when we pay attention to
each detail of our new darling and want them around in every moment. The
difference is this Love is perpetual, encompassing and nurturing all the rest.<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">We even sit
together, me and my Beloved, to do finances during Ramadan. During the 30 days
I distribute my zakat, the giving of at least 2.5 percent of my assets to those
less fortunate. After calculating it, I call on <em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Al Karim</span></em>, the Most Generous, to
bless my path with those who would most benefit from it, and watch in awe as
the way always opens.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br />
As we enter the final 10 days of the Holy Month, I hope to pursue this Love
Affair with greater intensity. I’ll spend longer nights in worship and
reflection as we search for the wonders of <em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Laylat Al Qadr</span></em>, the Night of a
Thousand Months, when Prophet Muhammad received his first Divine revelation.<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">It is he,
peace and blessings be upon him, who offers the greatest sign of potential
depths of a human’s intimacy with God:<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
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<em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">“Neither the heavens nor the earth can
contain Me;</span></em><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">only the heart of My faithful servant can
contain Me.”</span></em><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">— Hadith Qudsi<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
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<!--[endif]--></span></em><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: white; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">* Quran, Surah Al Baqara, 256<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Dewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17618123767557603812noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638413944983068358.post-80999989999833295812018-03-25T00:06:00.000+04:002018-03-25T00:06:44.466+04:00My Journey From ‘Moderate’ Muslim to Seeker of Love<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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For many years starting at around the time of the 9-11
terror attacks, I referred to myself a “moderate Muslim.” I used the
term on my Facebook profile and pronounced it if asked about my
religious beliefs.
<br /><br />The label was in many ways a reactive disclaimer to popular opinion
about Muslims. It meant for me that I was raised in an Arab, Islamic
household in the West, I rejected extremism and was tolerant of
diversity and multiculturalism. I was an approachable and modern
professional who didn’t take religion too seriously. I still felt a deep
connection to my inherited identity, albeit with limited critical
reflection. I believed in God, fasted during Ramadan and prayed on
occasion, but rarely with a deep amount of presence or the Divine at the
center of my consciousness.<br />
<br />I suppose the label also insinuated that I wasn’t fully Muslim in the
way people perceived Muslims. Becoming “fundamentalist” in following
the tenets of the mainstream religion was seen as synonymous with being
radicalized. So I didn’t bother.<br />
<br />Several years passed and life, as it does, handed me one setback to
negotiate after another. Each of them, slowly but surely, pulled me
further and further away from God. I was left questioning what the point
of faith, and for that matter life, was at all. Then, just as I was
abandoning the religion I’d known my whole life, I had my first
encounter with spiritual Islam.<br />
<br />It was almost eight years ago, and the tender sensations that coursed
through my veins still induce goose bumps. Unable to sleep, I’d been
sitting on my living room floor trying to decipher how to cope with my
latest misfortune and understand why I deserved it. Then, in a burst of
inspiration, my perception shifted. I saw that what I’d perceived just
the moment before as a disappointment was actually a blessing, for it
led me to be receptive to the guidance that was unfolding within me.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-849" height="449" src="http://wp.production.patheos.com/blogs/sites/674/2018/03/Thistle-by-Jacqueline-Secor-300x300.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="450" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Thistle, by <a class="decorated-link" href="http://www.jacquelinesecorart.com/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Jacqueline Secor</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />In that moment of clarity, my consciousness awakened to the
realization that it was futile to search outside of myself for
fulfillment, because the transience of relationships to things, people
and places can never offer enduring satisfaction. All at once, I became
aware of being held in the arms of a Love so great it encompassed
everything. The burden on my heart was replaced with an immense sense of
peace. That moment changed the course of my life for it allowed me to
grasp the true magnificence of my own consciousness and its ability to
come in contact with the realm of Spirit.<br /><br />
Islam came alive. It wasn’t a rigid, dogmatic system of rituals,
dress codes and obligations, but a direct experience of Divine
Compassion and Mercy. It wasn’t a religion of fear, but a tender,
beautiful path toward Unconditional Love. Rather than a label or
identity, it was a state of being in surrender to the natural flow of
the Divine Reality, or Allah.<br />
<br />As I embarked on this stage of my journey, the word “moderate”
dropped out of my vocabulary and off my Facebook profile. Simply being
Muslim satisfied me for a handful of years. I didn’t miss a prayer,
fasted regularly and truly began to encounter God in my daily life, in
nature, in interactions. Immersing myself in that energy increased my
generosity, compassion and patience.<br />
<br />And yet, as much as my connection with the Divine deepened, I became
aware of an agitation in my heart, as though the peace I felt was skin
deep. I knew then I needed a spiritual guide to help me understand what I
couldn’t see. My journey led me to Mevlevi Sufism, first through
reading the books of a couple who would later become <a class="decorated-link" href="https://sufism.org/threshold/kabir-camille/kabir-and-camille-helminski-threshold-society-founders-2" rel="noopener" target="_blank">my beloved teachers</a> and simultaneously feeling inexplicably drawn to the whirling dervishes during a visit to Turkey.<br />
<div class="ad ad-container hidden-xs">
</div>
<br />What I didn’t realize until later is that I’d bypassed some
entrenched psychological wounds and couldn’t see the ways I was beholden
to my false self: to the shame that comes with growing up in a
patriarchal Islamic doctrine that belittles women and left me feeling
ashamed of my femininity and sexuality. To the constant cultural
hammering that if I wanted to be seen and accepted, I couldn’t be
myself; I needed to be an obedient girl who didn’t get angry, didn’t
challenge others, was always polite, and never showed too much emotion
or disappointment.<br /><br />Sufism is a spiritual psychology that calls on me to be a constant
witness to my states. It involves zooming out of my thoughts, feelings,
emotions and sensations and observing them from a more objective vantage
point. I acknowledge the grip that shame and fear had/has on me, as
well as a mix of envy, pride and resentment. Then, slowly and gently,
they are transformed in the alchemy that is <em>zikr</em>, the repetition of Divine names and attributes that transports us into another realm of conscious awareness.
<br />Essentially the sufi way is about knowing myself and my wounds more deeply, something our beloved Prophet Muhammad, <em>peace and blessings be upon him</em>, counselled is essential on the path to truly knowing the Divine that is closer to us <em>than our jugular veins</em>. What
I’ve discovered is that I’m someone, like anyone, who has
idiosyncrasies and mental knots, obstacles and conditioned behaviors
that I need to decode with care and compassion.<br />
<br />In dervishhood, I’ve come to find the label Muslim no longer feels
appropriate. Paradoxically, the more I hone my inward presence and spend
time in worship, the less in <em>Surrender</em>, or Islam, I realize I
am. It’s a state I aspire to, but that feels further away as I more
honestly acknowledge my humanness, my delusions, my shifting states and
degrees of separation from Reality.<br />
<br />So, after shedding my identity as a “moderate Muslim.” After moving
away from my definition as a Muslim who has things figured out. I find
myself sitting at the threshold of my innermost heart, longing to be
guided by it in every moment: a seeker of the Infinite Love that threads
together all existence.<br />
<br />Engaging with each day, I realize more and more the depth of my need
for the Sustainer in every breath of this journey and, as Mevlana Rumi
describes, aware of the immense suffering and the boundless Love that
reveal themselves while traveling it:<br />
<blockquote>
Whether one moves slowly or with speed<br />
the one who is a seeker will be a finder.<br />
Always seek with your whole self<br />
for the search is an excellent guide on the way.<br />
Though you are lame and limping,<br />
though your figure is bent and clumsy,<br />
always creep towards the One. Make that One your quest.<br />
By speech, and by silence, and by fragrance,<br />
catch the scent of the King everywhere.<br />
<em>(Masnavi III, 978-981, translated by Camille and Kabir Helminski)</em></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</section></div>
</div>
<span></span></div>
</div>
Dewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17618123767557603812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638413944983068358.post-17715184514922041062018-02-10T16:37:00.000+04:002018-02-10T16:37:06.195+04:00Thanking Big<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
I’d just finished getting my hair cut and styled at the one salon in
London that specializes in curls only to walk out the door to find it
was pouring rain. The nearest Tube station was shut that Saturday for
engineering works, so I scurried down the side streets of the West
London neighborhood to the closest alternative, about a 20-minute walk
away.<br /><br />
<div class="copy-paste-block">
Determined to protect my neatly defined coils from unravelling into a
mass of frizz, I huddled under the red umbrella with a duck-head handle
I carry with me every day. Google Maps recommended I walk through
Portobello Market, where merchants selling vintage clothing, handbags
and antiques seemed as unperturbed by the rain and near-zero January
temperatures as the hundreds of would-be shoppers crowding the length of
the road.<br />
<br />With no interest in shopping, my entire focus was to protect my hair
from the rain. I tried carefully to navigate my way through the sea of
umbrellas without poking anyone in the eye with the exposed metal spike
that never failed to come undone from the nylon canopy at inconvenient
moments like that one.<br />
<br />Before entering the final stretch of the street market, I came to an
intersection. The pedestrian signal had just turned red, so I waited at
the corner of the sidewalk, oblivious to the large puddle of water that
had accumulated at the curb beneath my feet. Before I had a moment to
look down or back away, a car sped through the pool of rainwater, which
splashed up and left me totally drenched from the waist down.<br />
<br />I paused for a moment from the shock.<br />
<br />But I didn’t get angry.<br />
<br />I didn’t feel moved to curse out loud at the driver or complain bitterly to whoever was close enough to hear.<br />
<br />Nor did I feel embarrassed at being the only pedestrian at the
intersection who seemed to lack the foresight to leave a little distance
from the curb.<br />
<br />I felt — <em>grateful</em>.<br />
<br />“<em>Alhamdulillah</em>,” I mumbled to myself as I looked down at my skirt and tights that were soaked through to the skin. “<em>Ashukrlillah</em>.”<br />
<figure class="wp-caption alignnone" data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_1149" style="max-width: 2048px;"><img alt="WS Squared Photography" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1149" data-attachment-id="1149" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-description="" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1517776105","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="WS Squared Photography" data-large-file="https://daliahm.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/ws-squared-photography.jpg?w=736?w=736" data-medium-file="https://daliahm.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/ws-squared-photography.jpg?w=736?w=300" data-orig-file="https://daliahm.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/ws-squared-photography.jpg?w=736" data-orig-size="2048,1152" data-permalink="https://daliahm.wordpress.com/2018/02/10/thanking-big/ws-squared-photography/" height="225" src="https://daliahm.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/ws-squared-photography.jpg?w=736" width="400" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">“Splash” by WS Squared Photography</figcaption></figure>
The reaction surprised me. Not that long ago, a similar sequence of
events would have sent me spinning into feelings of self pity,
self-consciousness and whining at how unfair the universe was.<br />
<br />But something is shifting in me now. I
hear Dede’s voice in my head urging us, as an important first step to
spiritual transformation, to stop complaining and seeing the problems in
everything. Each moment <a class="decorated-link" href="https://sufism.org/library/articles/gratitude-kabir-helminski" rel="noopener" target="_blank">contains a reason</a>
to be grateful, he says. Gratitude to be alive, conscious, breathing.
Even when we’re irritated and dissatisfied, we can be thankful for
whatever the Divine Reality, Allah, has in store for us each day.</div>
<br />
<a name='more'></a>The sufi way encourages us to do a lot of self-reckoning in order to
allow God to flow through every moment and circumstance of life. For me,
the most profound breakthroughs in spiritual maturity have happened
during those everyday moments when the impulse to complain is most
palpable. Instead of grumbling, I can make a conscious choice to be
patient and grateful.<br /><br />Sure, my ankle-length water-proof boots were now dripping wet, but
the torrent had just missed the bag hanging off my shoulder in which I’d
been carrying around a couple of precious books. They managed to stay
dry, <em>Alhamdulillah</em>. My hands and legs felt icy, yet I imagined
the cozy apartment awaiting me and the cup of herbal tea I would make to
warm up my frozen fingers. It’s a comfort I often take for granted.<br />
<br />
Even my newly highlighted hair somehow managed to stay dry. The
unforeseen splash was a reminder of how much I appreciate the shifting
of the seasons. Just a few years ago, I’d yearned for spring, autumn and
winter after living for eight years in the desert climate of the
Arabian Gulf.
<br />
<div class="copy-paste-block">
One of the 99 Names of God is <em>Ash-Shakur</em>, the Rewarder of
Thankfulness. <br /><br />We learn that this name — as all the others — is manifest
in the Divine Reality and latent in humans. By invoking a name
repeatedly and meditating on it, we can activate the quality within
ourselves to the point that, over time, it becomes second nature. Doing
so is helping to make me more aware of abundance and less fixated on
lack, as Rumi captures beautifully in the poem, <em>The Net of Gratitude</em>:<br />
<blockquote>
<em>Giving thanks for abundance</em><br />
<em>is sweeter than the abundance itself.</em><br />
<em>Should one who is absorbed</em><br />
<em>with the Generous One</em><br />
<em>be distracted by the gift?</em><br />
<em>Thankfulness is the soul of beneficence;</em><br />
<em>abundance is but the husk,</em><br />
<em>for thankfulness brings you to the place</em><br />
<em>where the Beloved lives.</em><br />
– Rumi, Mathnawi III, 2895-2897<br />
(Translation by Camille and Kabir Helminski)</blockquote>
I recently became re-acquainted with a story of the Prophet Muhammad,
peace and blessings be upon him. It describes him awake in the wee
hours of the morning, weeping as he reads the Quran. He’s been standing
for so long that his feet are swollen. His wife Aisha inquires why he is
putting himself through such hardship when Allah has already forgiven
him for his faults, past and future.<br /><br />In a response that is equally powerful and humbling, he asks: “Shall I not be a thankful servant?”<br /><br />
I can see now that complaining is a choice, one that I spent a
lifetime mastering. I understand that I am my own obstacle on the way to
grace. So instead of complaining in a big way, I’m striving to be
radically grateful. To express my thanks for even the smallest of
blessings by the measure of all the stars in the sky … all the leaves on
the trees … all the cells in my body … even all the raindrops on a cold
winter’s day.<br /><br />Somehow, <em>thanking</em> big is widening my consciousness and
perspective. It’s not that difficult thoughts, feelings of being dealt a
short hand, “poor me” impulses, or the urge to blame someone else go
away. Yet I’m getting better at witnessing the arrival of these feelings
and acknowledging their presence without being pulled into them in a
heated reaction.<br /><br />After the big splash on that Saturday afternoon, the crossing light
turned green. As I made my way to the subway station in my soaking-wet
clothes, I was struck by a strange sensation of being grateful for
Gratitude itself. What a blessing it is to realize it resides within. <em>Alhamdulillah</em>.<br />
</div>
</div>
Dewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17618123767557603812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638413944983068358.post-74273417018953696802017-12-08T19:40:00.000+04:002017-12-08T19:40:36.346+04:00Awakening the Sacred Feminine in All of Us<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Vollkorn, Palatino, Georgia, serif; font-size: 20px; margin-bottom: 16px;">
Huddled at the back, left-hand corner of a large hall, me and a handful of other women would gather to take part in the Islamic Friday prayer at our university in British Columbia the early 2000s. Meanwhile at the front of the room, where light streamed in from the windows, dozens of young men stood side-by-side in rows.</div>
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We recited the same prayer, but the gap in our experience was far wider than the swath of carpet separating the masculine and feminine in most Islamic religious spaces. As soon as we would say our final <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">salams</i>, I would dash for the door as quickly as I’d arrived.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Vollkorn, Palatino, Georgia, serif; font-size: 20px; margin-bottom: 16px;">
Attending congregational prayers — where women are typically relegated to back corner, behind a partition or in a windowless room of a mosque — has always been an awkward and disheartening experience for me. The rigid segregation of religious spaces made me hyper aware of the limitations of my feminine identity, which I realized only years later were imposed on me rather than intrinsic to the tradition. That gnawing sense of discomfort made me ashamed of my girlhood, and eventually my womanhood in ways I can only now begin to articulate.<span data-ccp-props="{"134233117":true,"134233118":true,"201341983":0,"335559740":240}" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />I was so immersed in patriarchy during my childhood that I assumed messages of faith could be communicated only through the masculine voice. After all, most references I encountered of God were as “He” and all the prophets in Abrahamic traditions were men. <span data-ccp-props="{"134233117":true,"134233118":true,"201341983":0,"335559740":240}" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Vollkorn, Palatino, Georgia, serif; font-size: 20px; margin-bottom: 16px;">
Yet as I got older, my most intimate moments with Allah in personal sacred spaces had an entirely different quality. During early-morning prostrations before my Beloved, I had a deep sense that our connection was beyond constructions of gender and beyond my supposed inferiority. Rather, it was an exchange of energies that was deeply loving and nourishing. Something wasn’t right with the prevailing, masculine narrative of Islam, but I was unable to put my finger on why.</div>
<figure class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_695" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Vollkorn, Palatino, Georgia, serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 0px; width: 500px;"><img alt="Image by Irina Naji" class="wp-image-695" height="375" src="http://wp.production.patheos.com/blogs/livingtradition/files/2017/12/IMG_4244-3-300x225.jpg" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: middle;" width="500" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #96959a; font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; line-height: 16px; padding-top: 6px;">Image by Irina Naji</figcaption></figure><div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Vollkorn, Palatino, Georgia, serif; font-size: 20px; margin-bottom: 16px;">
<br />That changed when I became acquainted with the powerful women who have been largely erased from our spiritual histories. Their voices are muffled and faint not because they didn’t exist, but because they’ve been hidden and written out of relevance by patriarchal readings and writings of Islam.</div>
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</div>
<a name='more'></a>In the past two years, I’ve attended <a class="decorated-link" href="https://rumiscircle.com/2017/09/13/sacred-pattern-balancing-the-feminine-masculine-kendal-nov-10-12/" style="border-bottom: 2px solid rgba(247, 67, 79, 0.4); box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.4s ease-in-out;" target="_blank">conferences</a> in the U.K. Lake District focused on the theme of awakening the Sacred Feminine within ourselves and the world, including inspired key note addresses by author and spiritual guide <a class="decorated-link" href="http://www.thewhiterose.org/" style="border-bottom: 2px solid rgba(247, 67, 79, 0.4); box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.4s ease-in-out;" target="_blank">Elizabeth Anne Hin</a>. She brought the idea of the “prophetess” alive for me in a way I’d never experienced before.<br />
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Vollkorn, Palatino, Georgia, serif; font-size: 20px; margin-bottom: 16px;">
As she recounted stories of great prophets like Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon them all, I realized the versions I’d been taught severely neglected to honor the role of the feminine in bringing the Divine message to the world.</div>
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Jesus couldn’t have emerged as the grace to humanity he was without the blessed Virgin Mary’s bravery and devotion to God. The Prophet Muhammad’s wife Khadija was integral to the revelation of the Quran as she was inspired to tend to, nurture and support him so that he could bear the message of grace. “It was the two of them together who were held to receive the blessing of God,’’ Elizabeth said.<span data-ccp-props="{"134233117":true,"134233118":true,"201341983":0,"335559740":240}" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><br /></span>In describing the story of Abraham, she highlighted how he brought to the world a message of the Oneness of humanity through two women — Sarah and Hagar — each nurturing a son to bring a different faith and language to name that universal Oneness. But instead of realizing the underlying unity that Abraham’s family represented, “we created armor,” Elizabeth says. “Now the work is how do we hold the two mothers, and the father and the two boys so the weapons come down.”<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In the story of Moses, three women — his birth mother, Pharaoh’s wife and his birth sister — worked together selflessly, without competition or deceit or treachery, to “hold one boy to move forward as a father of all humanity.’’<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </span></div>
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</div>
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Elizabeth revealed to me the ways prophetic history is rich in descriptions of the embodiment of feminine and masculine energies in action. More importantly, though, this interplay between the Prophetess and Prophet is a metaphor for our inner experience as human beings comprising both feminine and masculine energies. I’d never really thought about how the two coalesced in me before, yet hearing it somehow made sense intrinsically.</div>
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The feminine energy is the receptive part of me, and all of us, that’s open to surrendering to what is, to <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">being </i>in the moment. It does not seek power or control, yet like the prophetess, it is the inspiration imbuing that which is power. The masculine is the actor that embodies the gesture generated by the feminine, the <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">doer</i>. When in harmony, there’s a natural ebb and flow of the feminine receiving and masculine acting.</div>
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Unfortunately, the feminine has been so devalued for centuries that a false masculinity dominates, driven by our deepest insecurities and fears. It’s that part of me that is defensive, that wants to control events and people, to accumulate possessions and that prompts those around me to put up their armor. <span data-ccp-props="{"134233117":true,"134233118":true,"201341983":0,"335559740":240}" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </span></div>
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The devaluation of the Sacred Feminine in men and women not only damages our inner experience and relationships, it leads to the degradation of nature, war, the abuse of women, and the exclusion of the feminine from influence.</div>
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“The heroine in most people has been thirsty for a very long time,” Elizabeth said, urging men and women to “open her up to simply receive grace and then embody it. There’s a great deal of argument around the world. What I observe occurring in that argument is the incomplete understanding of how to let the Sacred Feminine move through us.’’</div>
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The Sacred Feminine is wise, creative, life-giving and in contact with her intuition and heart. When I allow her to flow through me, I am receptive, nurturing, empathetic, resilient, patient and open to receiving and embodying grace in the moment.</div>
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When she is present, the Sacred Masculine, which is guided toward qualities such as courage and honor instead of conflict and suffering, has space to unfold within me. Those around me feel secure enough to put their figurative weapons down. Arguments, defensiveness and negativity are replaced with understanding, unity and the ability to see the Divine in each other. We encourage one another to live from our highest selves, beyond competition, envy, pride and vanity.</div>
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While our shared spiritual histories have long placed a great deal of emphasis on the stories of the heros, the heroine has always been there, intrinsic and essential to the narrative. Each step I take to embody her in my life today is, for me, a step toward writing <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">her</i>-story back into history.<span data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":160,"335559740":259}" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </span></div>
</div>
Dewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17618123767557603812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638413944983068358.post-50648538652879848762017-02-13T13:46:00.001+04:002017-02-13T13:46:30.492+04:00Translating Love’s Confusion: Hollywood and Misreading Rumi<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;">The 2010 Hollywood celebrity fest chick-flick <i>Valentine’s Day </i>opens with Reed Bennett, a florist played by Ashton Kutscher, proposing marriage to Morley (Jessica Alba), as she wakes up on Feb. 14.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;">Evidently startled, Morley initially accepts, sending Reed on a joyful mission to let everyone know his sweetheart said “yes”! But his elation is short-lived. A few hours later Reed finds Morley in his apartment packing her bag as she hands back his ring and walks out on the relationship entirely.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;">Just then, as movie’s downtrodden protagonist leaves the scene, the narrator — a radio show host named “Romeo Midnight” — drops a word of wisdom that sounds a tinge sufi.</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;">“It’s Romeo Midnight back again. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;">And if those topsy-turvy feelings have got you twisted inside out, think of the poet Rumi who 800 years ago said: `All we really want is love’s confusing joy.’ </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;">Amen, brother.”</span></i></blockquote>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXr7L6pVozbr7o8g4b_zjIrl8DEtL5Mm7T1a8Gez3HTMxarsfhFLCLb7tbCqtSVumBeazYOKe0K2KG9FXHg4L2nqw85QON8HyteKEiZlW_mGjlewX74gHQr12IU8-tozTJ3udgtsDt7ck/s1600/Livlu+Ghemaru+--+Heart+of+Steel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXr7L6pVozbr7o8g4b_zjIrl8DEtL5Mm7T1a8Gez3HTMxarsfhFLCLb7tbCqtSVumBeazYOKe0K2KG9FXHg4L2nqw85QON8HyteKEiZlW_mGjlewX74gHQr12IU8-tozTJ3udgtsDt7ck/s320/Livlu+Ghemaru+--+Heart+of+Steel.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">Heart of Steel, by Livlu Ghemaru</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;">When I watched this movie shortly after its release, I was bemused at the irony of hearing a 13th-century Islamic poet and scholar quoted in a cheesy American blockbuster seemingly unwittingly. A Persian poet of love, Rumi is often uprooted from his historical context and polished for resale for Western audiences who may not realize his object of affection isn’t a romantic love interest, but the Divine Beloved.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;">Rumi writes in a transcendent and inclusive way about love and loss, so his wide-reaching appeal isn’t surprising. Yet it can be frustrating to see him conspicuously taken out of context. Not only is he often divorced of the Islam, or Self Surrender, his poetry conveys, Rumi’s words can be used to propagate unrealistic ideals of how romantic love is the magic key to personal fulfilment and happily ever after.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;">I’ve certainly been swept up in these sentimental pursuits, especially in my 20s. My upbringing combined Egyptian influences and North American popular culture (Hollywood and Disney included), particularly in the late-1980s and 90s, both of which dictated I needed to find love, get married and have children to be whole.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;">Measured against these standards, I was a failure. Before 25, I’d broken off two engagements, and for many years after that my love life was one long dry spell punctured by a handful of dates and a couple of agonizing encounters with unrequited love. A resentful inner critic insisted I was to blame, and that persistent hollowness in my core could only be filled with romantic love, which I felt I couldn’t be worthy of; I couldn’t get the part.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;">Rumi’s was one of the first voices that rescued me from these dark delusions. We crossed paths as I started exploring Sufism, Islam’s spiritual tradition, in my early 30s, drawn by its persuasion to open my heart to God through love rather than fear. Quite fittingly, it was a broken heart that forced me to take a hard look at my miserable inner world that was hoarding years of guilt, shame and disenchantment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;">The remedies to my suffering began to reveal themselves in sound bites.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;">“You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens,” Rumi said in one.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;">“The wound is the place where the light enters you,” he mused in another.<br /></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ65hE8FzeGnUXuE5kbPZSqSslJNF8Kwy_ZSYZr6WrrADEx5sLLInxyzHN_SMzWVjgJr_d8L2WeVRFhrENgWaEGJDSpL2DwqluLuVnLpi3QD3pmprHwYElMj1EC-kxaHjHyLtcVTo2LI4/s1600/Vinoth+Chandar+The+Drongo+Love.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ65hE8FzeGnUXuE5kbPZSqSslJNF8Kwy_ZSYZr6WrrADEx5sLLInxyzHN_SMzWVjgJr_d8L2WeVRFhrENgWaEGJDSpL2DwqluLuVnLpi3QD3pmprHwYElMj1EC-kxaHjHyLtcVTo2LI4/s320/Vinoth+Chandar+The+Drongo+Love.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Drongo Love, by Vinoth Chandar</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;">In the months I spent reading and reflecting on the wisdom of Rumi through translated segments of his 25,000-verse Masnavi, as well as the Holy Quran and other historical and contemporary spiritual scholars, something changed in me. Outwardly I was still a single woman navigating societal and familial pressures that held me responsible for my relationship status. But I began to comprehend how the affection I sought to direct to others was desperately needed by someone more worthy of my compassion and consideration: me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;">I had been too preoccupied with reprimanding myself for relationship mishaps to notice the remedy to my inner emptiness was embracing my circumstances without limitations. Each step I took toward this shifted my consciousness, enabling me to perceive the Beloved I’d been searching for all along. God wasn’t an abstract being existing outside of me, He was, as the Quran teaches, closer to me than my jugular vein. Yet only through self love and acceptance did I begin to discern the Divine’s presence.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;">Curious about the origins of the Rumi quote that appeared in <i>Valentine’s Day</i>, I first encountered it in a longer passage carried in the 1995 book<i> The Essential Rumi</i>:</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;">If you want what the visible reality can give, you’re an employee. </span></i><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;">If you want the unseen world, you’re not living your truth. </span></i><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;">Both wishes are foolish, but you’ll be forgiven for forgetting: what you really want is love’s confusing joy.</span></i></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;">What fascinated me about this translation was seeing the two lines that preceded the Hollywood snippet. They spoke to me both of the dangers of relying on transient attachments for a false sense of wholeness and hiding in a spiritual bubble to avoid feeling human sensations, like heartbreak. I have been guilty of both.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;">Yet I was recently directed to a version of the quatrain translated by <a href="https://sufism.org/threshold/kabir-camille/kabir-and-camille-helminski-threshold-society-founders-2" target="_blank">Kabir Helminski</a> and Lida Saeedian that more closely honors the original poem in Persian, and notably makes no mention of “love’s confusing joy.”</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;">O you who study the world, you’re just a hired worker. And you who want Paradise, you’re far from the Truth. </span></i><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;">And you who are happy with the two worlds, but unaware, </span></i><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;">because you have not experienced the happiness of His sorrow, </span></i><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;">you’re simply excused.</span></i></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;">The first translation reflects a reading of Rumi that’s designed to appeal to the sensibilities of New Age spirituality, even if that disconnects his words from their authentic backdrop. Herein lies the predicament of reducing Rumi’s poetic tradition into quotes that can be appropriated to fulfil a purpose not only divorced from its original language, but also the intended meaning.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;">I imagine I’ll spend my lifetime bewildered by Rumi, and what I can learn from him on how to strike a balance between my role as a lover of the Beloved and as a romantic partner. Yet even simply the process of pursuing intimacy with God has transformed how I approach human love. I’m more open to giving love with fewer conditions and embracing the confusing and messy realities of relationships that Hollywood often glosses over.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif;">As I learn to appreciate the divinity within myself, my capacity to perceive and honour the divine qualities unique to my partner expands too. It’s this radiant continuum between human and divine love that regrettably gets lost in contemporary translations.</span></div>
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Dewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17618123767557603812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638413944983068358.post-89059200193444811102017-01-19T11:59:00.000+04:002017-01-19T11:59:15.357+04:00Spiritual Wisdom In A Treasure The Burglars Left Behind<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
In the heap of objects strewn across the dining room floor, I spotted
a sterling silver sugar bowl that was part of a four-piece tea set my
mom bought about three decades ago to entertain guests. I picked up the
bowl with one hand, while using the other to rummage through the pile of
papers, cloth napkins, tupperware and cutlery scattered beneath my
feet. I was curious whether the rest of the silverware was somewhere in
the mess left by the burglars.<br /><br />
When I couldn’t find it there, I
turned my head toward the tall oak buffet beside me, whose contents had
mostly been dispersed onto the carpet. Nestled in the corner of one
cabinet, the tea pot, tray and cream pitcher lay untouched.<br />
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The
sight of them startled me. A thick layer of black film had formed on
the surface of the silver, making it unrecognizable against the
shimmering exterior in my memory. It was no wonder the burglars who
ransacked our family home in Canada several weeks earlier had
disregarded the ensemble as they hauled away several electronics,
appliances and gadgets.<br /><br />
At that moment, a saying of the Prophet
Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, crossed my mind. “There’s a
polish for everything that takes away rust,” he said. “And the polish
for the heart is the remembrance of God.”<br />
<br />That was perhaps the
first time I’d considered this Hadith in a literal way. Acting on an
impulse, I grabbed an old bottle of silver polish from the mess on the
dining room floor and a soft sponge from under the kitchen sink, and
started to vigorously rub the tea pot. I was determined to make it shine
again like it did during my pre-teen years in Lethbridge and Calgary,
when my mom would fill it with her favored Red Rose tea to serve to
visitors alongside a slice of vanilla cake or syrup-drenched Egyptian <em>basboosa</em>.<br />
<br />Part
of me was grateful for a distraction from the pangs of sadness I felt
at seeing almost every corner of our four-bedroom family home turned
upside down. After learning of the break in, my sister and I made the
10-hour plane journey from London to Vancouver to assess the damage. We
found the contents and memorabilia contained in closets, cupboards and
drawers sprawled over our maroon-colored carpets.<br />
<br />Yet I wasn’t
mourning stolen possessions. The home I’d lived in as a student, and
visited almost every year since moving away after university, just felt
different. During those first few nights, each creak of the walls and
squeak of the furnace would cause a stir inside me. I envisioned we were
on the verge of another invasion of our privacy.<br />
<br />So as I hunched
over the counter top removing years of residue from the silverware, part
of me was nursing feelings of guilt for failing to safeguard our family
sanctuary. We’d made it easy for the robbers, who shattered the window
next to the front door and let themselves in when no one was in town.<br />
<br />There
was another motivation, though, for my spontaneous urge to shine the
silver. I was seeking reassurance that the polish would work when up
against years of neglect visible on the surface.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />It reminded me of
my spiritual journey, which also involves a lot of polishing. Instead
of grime on silver, Sufi polishing is about cleansing the habits of the
lower self, or nafs, that prevent our hearts from reflecting Divine
qualities. The polish I use is a mixture of prayer, conscious breathing
while reciting God’s names, and careful introspection to take a hard
look at my “poor me” impulses.<br />
<br />But I find it hard at times to know
if I’m on the right track because the more I think honestly about my
inner state, the more I notice habits formed from a young age that coat
my heart not unlike the stubborn stains on the silver I was trying to
clean. I’ve come face to face with emotions like fear, shame, envy and
pride that I used to pretend weren’t there. Other layers of build-up are
tendencies like seeking validation from outside myself, avoiding
conflicts as a way of coping with life, or underestimating my self
worth.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Silver tea set photo by Mandy Merzaban</td></tr>
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As
I polished the silverware, marveling as the black marks rubbed off onto
the sponge and my fingers, glimpses of my reflection started to appear
on the surface. I realized I was about the age that my mom was when she
used the tea set, yet the trajectory of my life seems so different from
hers. Her friendship circles were severed as we moved from one North
American city to another chasing my father’s jobs. Consequently,
conversations over tea and cake occurred less frequently, before
stopping almost entirely.<br /><br />
Eventually, when the silverware became
unsightly, we concealed it in the oak buffet. Yet hiding something
because it’s uncomfortable to look at doesn’t make it disappear. It
somehow resurfaces at an unexpected time, in an unanticipated way, and
requires cleaning anyways.<br /><br />
So as I diligently rubbed for almost
two hours, it struck me that acknowledging the presence of blemishes is
the first, and thus most important, step of the polishing process.
That’s probably why Rumi says "if you are irritated by every rub, how
will your mirror be polished."<br />
<br />While I couldn’t restore its
original brilliance in one sitting, the silver tea set looked pretty
good. Pleased, I set it aside and carried on with the many tasks my
sister and I undertook in the following days to restore our family home.
We had double-cylinder dead-bolt locks installed on all the doors,
replaced the shattered window with new break-resistant laminate glass,
and added steel security gates at the front and back entrances to act as
barrier against future attacks. These buffers around our sanctuary
provided me with a feeling of protection not unlike the sense of safety I
get by reciting <em>Ayat Al Kursi</em> after every prayer.<br />
<br />I also
found some surprisingly fitting spiritual advice while researching tips
online for how to maintain silver. Tarnish, I learned, is impossible to
avoid since it results from a chemical reaction that occurs naturally
when silver comes into contact with air. So the best thing you can do is
use those antique tea sets frequently. Unlike the rust on some metals,
the black coating on silver doesn’t destroy the underlying surface.
Since it’s a precious metal, stains can always be wiped away.<br />
<br />Days before we made our way back to London, my sister Mandy remembered a poem she once read in her<em><a href="https://sufism.org/product/pocket-rumi-reader" target="_blank"> Pocket Rumi</a></em>. As we shared a cup of coffee, I read it aloud and we marveled at how Mevlana always seems to know what to say:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The Thief Will Enter<br /> No matter what plans you make,<br /> no matter what you acquire,<br /> the thief will enter from the unguarded side.<br /> Be occupied, then, with what you really value<br /> and let the thief take something else.<br /> - Rumi</blockquote>
</div>
Dewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17618123767557603812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638413944983068358.post-75286144853791501802016-11-04T00:09:00.000+04:002016-11-04T00:09:19.914+04:00Lessons on living from my late uncle<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Turning on a tune by Egyptian legend Abdel Halim Hafez, my sister Mandy handed her iPod to Uncle Hoda and gestured him to place the headphones over his ears. Seconds later, an expression combining astonishment and glee came over his face while listening to a melody that must have taken him back at least three decades. Our uncle laughed and sang along to the words of “Gana El Hawa, the Love Came to Us,” while swaying his head from side to side, fully mesmerized in enjoyment of the moment.</div>
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If there’s anything that I will always treasure about my Uncle Hoda, who passed away last month following a battle with cancer, God bless his soul, it is that he was among only a small number of people that I’ve encountered who lived for the present.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCfmqYswduFC0r5kyIEWS5VrAJHUxF40NmQSOQbeO9tsrw3S6fL3X7iFwf-PIBCUL7PD-_cQ-MndCTLe-iLZhtR8QsFImnMCYvQDHBeJ0ths-qIHItRTM9NKcYtvbkSmcCgDTN89rCgj4/s1600/Sunrise+in+Egypt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCfmqYswduFC0r5kyIEWS5VrAJHUxF40NmQSOQbeO9tsrw3S6fL3X7iFwf-PIBCUL7PD-_cQ-MndCTLe-iLZhtR8QsFImnMCYvQDHBeJ0ths-qIHItRTM9NKcYtvbkSmcCgDTN89rCgj4/s320/Sunrise+in+Egypt.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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I imagine it was Uncle Hoda’s deep connection with God that enabled him to embody this state of being. He spoke with great reverence of the Divine, and the love that sprang from that bond was contagious. Positivity and optimism radiated from him; whenever he entered a room, it was with the lightness and calmness of a person who was content with the joys and patient with the challenges of his life.</div>
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As my two sisters and I reminisced in our <em>Whatsapp</em> chat room about our beloved maternal uncle in the days following his passing, we alternated between tears and laughter. I was struck at how profoundly he had affected each of us, given we lived far apart most of our lives, Uncle Hoda in Egypt and us in a scattering of cities around North America, the Arabian Gulf and Europe.</div>
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It was joyous to reunite with our uncle during summer holidays, the distresses of our childhood dissolving away in his playful presence. He was consistently ready to offer a smile, which would make his small eyes almost disappear beneath his bushy eyebrows. Whether he was getting us to hum and sing along to the latest Egyptian pop song or sending us into an endless round of giggles during an afternoon drive around Cairo by swerving his car to the right and left in a zigzag pattern, Uncle Hoda always made us feel like the centre of his attention.</div>
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As I got older, the ease with which our beloved uncle yielded to the flow of life was deeply inspiring for my spiritual journey. He would constantly seek divert attention away from himself to calm the often-frayed nerves of his siblings.</div>
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When a car accident took our beloved uncle to within a hair’s breadth of death 16 years ago, I remember how on emerging from his coma, Uncle Hoda would downplay his pain to calm his rattled and restless sisters. Even as he battled the painful side effects of treatments for pancreatic cancer this summer, our uncle tried to reassure our worried mom that the symptoms were bearable and he was infinitely content with whatever God willed.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<img src="cid:D2A44089-7953-4500-8AF5-BEC0136335F8" />Losing a loved one brings the importance of my bond with God into crisp focus because I am forced to confront how near, present and palpable death is. In the past decade, reminders of mortality have become central to my consciousness as I endured the passing of my father, two aunts, and now five uncles.</div>
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The more time I spend recalling the transitory nature of existence, the more fulfillment I find, even in mundane daily pleasures. I remember to slow down, pause and be grateful, to breathe, to express love and to strive to be patient, gentle and generous. I’m less likely to hold a grudge for long, and more likely to apologize quickly if I feel I’ve hurt someone. Rather than agonize over each possible outcome of a struggle at work or in a relationship, I’m more able to let circumstances unfold as they’re destined to.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Yet I still grapple with replicating the serenity of my late uncle. His spirit was so entwined with the Divine that he embodied the attributes of a lover in harmony with the Absolute: humility, kindness, contentment, gentleness, charity and faithfulness among them.</div>
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One of my other fond memories of my music-loving uncle includes the time that he blurted out, “Yalla Beena Yalla” to the full room of loving and loud relatives gathered one evening at my grandmother’s ground-level apartment situated just minutes from the Pyramids, which smelled of a combination of jasmine flower and guava. He sang and danced to the chorus of Mohamed Fouad’s newly released 1985 hit, “Come on, let’s go!” Shortly afterward, we ventured to a nearby hotel for a slice of <em>gateau</em> and <em>haga sa’aa</em>, a cold soft drink. As a six-year-old who was normally in bed by 8 p.m., it was probably the most thrilling night of my life.</div>
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I shared this story in our <em>Whatsapp</em> group, and my elder sister Jasmeen recounted another visit to a Pyramid-side hotel 15 years later with our uncle, parents and cousins. It was our first trip to Egypt in seven years, and my modest uncle, who rarely treated himself , remarked on how blessed he felt to be sitting with loved ones sipping mango juice in a five-star hotel overlooking a world wonder. By neither dwelling on the past nor worrying about what might happen even an hour in the future, Uncle Hoda made us feel the beauty of our present surroundings.</div>
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“Stay up a bit longer and wait until the sunrise,” my uncle advised me more recently, when I told him I had started to cultivate a closer relationship with God and had fallen in love with the fajr prayer at the break of dawn. “That’s where the beauty lies.”</div>
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This advice crossed my mind as I gave supplications for my uncle at sunrise the morning after his passing. While I mourn the loss of one of the greatest lights to grace my life, I also rejoice from the certainty that Uncle Hoda has found peace in being reunited with the Creator he dedicated his life to serving with humility.</div>
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For he who is living in the Light of God,<br />The death of the carnal soul is a blessing.<br />-Rumi (Mystic Odes 833)</blockquote>
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Dewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17618123767557603812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638413944983068358.post-26550993843269213552016-09-16T00:52:00.000+04:002016-09-16T00:52:35.867+04:00Forgiving my reflection<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: georgia, helvetica, tahoma, sans-serif;">Sufi stories and poetry often allude to mirrors. Not the ones that immediately come to mind which we look at each day to see the outer image we project to the world. Rather, they refer to inner reflections that enable us to see our true nature. Sometimes this happens when we encounter a different perspective of ourselves revealed in another person’s heart and, through this, come to better understand the presence of God within us.<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia, helvetica, tahoma, sans-serif;">The image I saw glaring back at me that evening a few weeks ago was one I quickly turned away from on account of its unpleasantness.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia, helvetica, tahoma, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Candle’s reflection, by Andreas Kusumahadi</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, helvetica, tahoma, sans-serif;">Someone I cared for deeply, and who reciprocated this affection, spoke in anger and anguish of how they felt hurt by my actions. My instant reaction was to refute the criticisms outright to myself. I didn’t deserve these words, my injured ego protested. The comments delivered in fury simply could not be true since they were a far cry from the compassion, honesty and kindness I was striving to embody.<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia, helvetica, tahoma, sans-serif;">It’s at moments like this when I’m shaken by an interaction with a loved one, friend, colleague or even a stranger that I feel compelled to spend time in silent contemplation to reflect on the words that were exchanged and the events that unfolded.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia, helvetica, tahoma, sans-serif;"><br />In his poetry, Rumi describes how it is through the wound that the light of truth enters us. “Don’t turn your head,” he says in his Masnavi, an epic Sufi poem conveying a message of Divine love and unity. “Keep looking at that bandaged place.”</span><br />
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<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: georgia, helvetica, tahoma, sans-serif;">Unable to sleep, I tended to the agony inflicted on my heart into the early-morning hours. In the process, I dared to take another look at that mirror and examine it, this time peering back at myself through the eyes of my loved one. It was then, when I was focused and present, that I saw the glimmers of truth nestled within the harshness of the confrontation.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia, helvetica, tahoma, sans-serif;">While we were trying to balance certain constraints in this relationship with virtuous intentions, it dawned on me that I hadn’t paid adequate attention to how my inner struggles were quietly gnawing away at this dear one’s heart. I had unwittingly inflicted distress.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia, helvetica, tahoma, sans-serif;"><br /><i>“Astaghfirallah,”</i> I said aloud upon making this realization.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia, helvetica, tahoma, sans-serif;"><br />By then it was nearing the time for the Fajr prayer. I sat cross-legged in the dark on my couch, clutching a string of glossy burgundy prayer beads. Closing my teary and tired eyes, I began to slide each of the 33 beads along the string with my index finger and thumb, repeating 100 times <i>“Astaghfirallah,”</i> Arabic for “I ask God’s forgiveness.”</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia, helvetica, tahoma, sans-serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Reflections, photo by Andy Arciga</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, helvetica, tahoma, sans-serif;">Embarking on a spiritual path requires that we be willing to do a great deal of self-examination, or <i>muhasabah</i>, and take accountability for the often subtle tendencies, prejudices, judgments and reactions that we’ve developed over the years that nurture our egos. It is when I’ve striven to polish certain behaviors and habits that God’s presence has felt most palpable.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia, helvetica, tahoma, sans-serif;"><br />That night, I yearned to be in the embrace of Divine mercy. I reached over to my iPhone and opened the <a href="http://sufism.org/heartspace" target="_blank">Heart Space</a> app that I’d tuned into daily for months. Turning on one of the meditative zikrs related to forgiveness, I focused intently to <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/livingtradition/author/khelminski/" target="_blank">Shaikh Kabir</a>’s words. While I had listened to my teacher’s invocations many times before, this was the first time I really felt I was hearing them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia, helvetica, tahoma, sans-serif;"><br />“Listen to these words with your heart,” Shaikh Kabir said, the vibration of his voice echoing in my guilt-ridden conscience. “As long as I am embodied in this world, I am not perfect. I am capable of mistakes, faults and wrongs. I take refuge in the love of our Sustainer, and humbly beg forgiveness.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia, helvetica, tahoma, sans-serif;"><br />The idea that the Divine, one of Whose Beautiful Names is <i>Al Ghafoor</i>, or the Most Forgiving, is graciously waiting to relieve me of the burden of my wrong actions sent a wave of calm through my body.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia, helvetica, tahoma, sans-serif;"><br />Before I started nurturing my spiritual connection with God, I could not have grasped the depths of Divine compassion. I used to imagine that He/She weighed my good deeds on one side and my bad ones on the other. Over the course of my life, I envisaged the scales on both sides getting heavier and heavier, and somehow conceived that in the end the bad would outweigh the good.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia, helvetica, tahoma, sans-serif;"><br />That evening, I experienced the process of infinite forgiveness in action. When in a moment of sincere realization of wrongdoing we turn in repentance, the Divine’s mercy is bountiful, forgiveness is vast, and we are free to let go of the burden. As my Shaikh continued to speak, I continued to hear.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia, helvetica, tahoma, sans-serif;">“When by means of presence we awaken from our unconscious state and begin to see the reality of our situation, this is the beginning of turning in repentance. Conscious presence is enough to cause a shift in our state. Then the knots of the heart are loosened and we are free to turn from the behaviors and desires that separated us from God. And the moment that we see them in their objective and often ugly reality, they also begin to lose their hold on us. True remorse for time lost and opportunities missed is itself a form of worship. It is a healthy, positive form of distress because it turns us toward spiritual health.”</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, helvetica, tahoma, sans-serif;">I ruminated on these ideas for hours, repeating my <i>Astaghfirallah</i>s and realizing the subtle ways that I could alter my behaviors and awareness to get closer to the spiritual maturity that characterizes Self Surrender, or Islam. The pain in my chest was slowly replaced with a sense of tenderness and peace.<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia, helvetica, tahoma, sans-serif;">When sincerely seeking forgiveness from another person, we cannot be guaranteed they will accept it. Yet over time, I’ve found it possible to forgive myself, to gently make changes that will brush away a little bit more of the dust that stains my heart, and be grateful for the mirrors all around reminding me of the work still left to do.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia, helvetica, tahoma, sans-serif;">“Let me give you the mirror, but if you see some fault on its face, do not blame the mirror, but something reflected onto the mirror. Know that it is your own image; find the fault in yourself!”</span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, helvetica, tahoma, sans-serif;">–<a href="http://sufism.org/lineage/sufism/writings-on-sufism/the-conversations-maqalat-of-shams-of-tabriz-2" target="_blank">Excerpt from The Conversations</a> (Maqalat) of Shams of Tabriz</span></blockquote>
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Dewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17618123767557603812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638413944983068358.post-39849133701845617152016-08-22T12:40:00.000+04:002016-08-22T12:40:29.077+04:00A Smile's Worth<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">He smiled at me, revealing a row of impeccable pearly white teeth. I’m not normally moved by a grin to stop in my tracks, but on this occasion a saying of the Prophet Muhammad, God grant him peace and blessings, flashed in my mind on how smiling at a fellow human being is an act of charity. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Since stumbling on this Hadith several years ago, I've become more receptive to how I share and respond to the simple gestures of kindness I encounter. In that moment, the young man’s vibrant smile and welcoming demeanour felt like a gift that I should acknowledge. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">So I stopped, and we briefly exchanged niceties about how wonderful it was to be outside on an especially sunny August afternoon in London. He was a street fundraiser and I had willingly entered his open-air office, the door quickly closing behind me. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 12px;">Photo by Andreea-Elena Dragomir</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">I imagined this gentleman, whose name I soon learned was Dale, spent much of that afternoon on the busy intersection in London's financial district, trying to attract the attention of the streams of well-paid professionals leaving their offices, in hopes a handful of us would agree to donate to a cause that would no doubt be a worthy one. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Usually, I would be one of the hundreds of souls rushing past, smiling back but politely declining to entertain an interruption. Yet on that afternoon, as Dale described how his charity was seeking donors to help ease the burden of the worst refugee crisis since the Second World War, the look of genuine concern on his face moved me to listen intently.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">The statistics are harrowing; one in every five Syrians has escaped the country, according to one estimate. That’s more than four million people, many struggling for basic survival in refugee camps scattered from Jordan and Lebanon to Serbia and Croatia. Dale’s charity is one of dozens trying to ease that pain by providing basic amenities like hygiene kits, water, food, blankets, clothing, as well as psychological support.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Having emerged from Ramadan just weeks earlier, I had already distributed my annual zakat, 2.5 percent of my assets, to various charitable causes, with the biggest proportion going to various refugee-relief efforts. So as I stood there on that Wednesday evening, I hesitated to drain my savings further. I had already done my part, hadn’t I? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Perhaps he could sense my indecision, for just as I tried to wiggle myself away, Dale interceded gently with words that rushed into my heart, drowning out any doubts circling in my head: “If you feel that you can spare the £8 a month and not affect your lifestyle, then it would be great if you can contribute.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">When he put it that way, I realized I surely could spare a sum that would buy about 3.5 cappuccinos or, as he suggested, a weekly loaf of bread. There were several charities already taking quantities of cash from my bank account each month, yet I couldn't deny that I was blessed with a financial freedom I would not have fathomed only a few years ago.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Since embracing Islam, a state of presence where I strive to surrender to the Divine, in the past six years, I've developed a soft spot for responding to pleas for help. In the Quran, prayer and charity are continually mentioned together in the symmetrical rhythm of the Holy Book’s verses. We’re reminded often in the same line to be steadfast in prayer and practice “regular” charity. Since I pray five times a day I naturally presumed I should consistently give generously from my possessions.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">My understanding of wealth changed during this spiritual transformation. I moved from claiming ownership of my possessions to regarding them as tools of my worldly existence which ultimately belongs to God. As my income grew, I regarded it as a sign that my Sustainer was entrusting me with resources not simply to improve my personal wellbeing, but to look out for the welfare of my loved ones and my community.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">The more I shared, both materially and spiritually, the more I discovered that every morsel I gave would be returned to me in abundance, a process beautifully expressed in this Quranic verse.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">The parable of those who spend</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">of their wealth in the way of God</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">It grows seven ears, and each ear has a hundred grains.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">God gives manifold increase to whom He pleases;</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">And God cares for all and He knows all things.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">(Quran 2:261)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">In the Hadith describing the power of a smile, the Prophet spoke of how every person has the obligation to be charitable each day of her life. His definition, while including monetary contributions, was much more vast.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">“The doors of goodness are many,” he said. “Enjoining good, forbidding evil, removing harm from the road, listening to the deaf, leading the blind, guiding one to the object of his need, hurrying with the strength of one's legs to one in sorrow who is asking for help, and supporting the feeble with the strength of one's arms. All of these are charity prescribed for you." </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">There's an inherent equality nestled in this idea: We all have a role in ensuring we build a society where love, affection and generosity flow freely. Since each person has equal access to God in all moments, I’m trying to take to heart the idea that I should do whatever I can to dismantle the barriers that prevent individual assets from moving between people to alleviate disparities.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">After filling out the forms on that Wednesday afternoon to add another small monthly contribution toward easing the massive refugee crisis, I was humbled by the sense that I had received far more than I gave. Before walking away, Dale and I exchanged smiles once more. I found myself carrying that grin on my face all the way home.</span></div>
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Dewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17618123767557603812noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638413944983068358.post-49709846752075683272016-07-26T01:45:00.000+04:002016-08-06T01:49:01.790+04:00Opening the Door to Surrender<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Each time I open the door to leave my apartment, I recite three poignant yet simple Islamic phrases in a subtle whisper that’s only audible to me.</div>
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<em>“Bismillah,” </em>Arabic for “In the name of God,” I say in a quick breath as I rotate the lock to the right and grasp the door knob. I continue with <em>“Tawakkul ‘ala Allah, “</em>I place my complete trust and reliance in God,” as I step into the hallway and gently close the door. And <em>“Laa Hawla Wa Laa Quwwata Il-la Bil-laah</em>,” or “There is neither might nor power except with Allah,” glides along my tongue as I turn the key fasten the lock until, by God’s will, I return.</div>
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It takes about seven seconds to recite these lines before dashing to the elevator to rush to work, run an errand, attend a social gathering or take a trip to a grocery store. The words are modest for the richness and tremendous power they encompass when reflected upon. They embody the essence of surrendering to God, which is what Islam is principally about.</div>
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<a class="ext-link" data-wpel-target="_blank" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/bradmontgomery/4038985402/in/photolist-79URDm-artYp3-BNdvUm-9SEY3m-9kn5hN-pSBcX5-rqiAHH-aF44QB-sBbErx-n2jmxB-84CEbB-rEcycj-puvSaW-e64pRT-sBbG64-84FGxw-6wHvD2-8nXox5-4RiSVF-bmDuWa-cPPNqE-eybm1o-iD74WS-cPQ4bf-cPPEoY-554nP7-ra39DH-ctrQLY-4CxYfH-625Y6x-cPPXzw-5ZKYSR-7YMicY-4RGSEv-8fKPLx-e6a4gj-6xEv8T-4Xm6i1-84CDZT-6nU5QS-pU6c93-d9u7HY-pf3RGH-eS2ZA4-pf4YSk-c8x1Lu-bXoz5v-iH98pX-84CDgk-pf3QGr" rel="external" style="color: #0066cc;" title=""><img alt="Open door, photo by Brad Montgomery" class="wp-image-294" height="375" src="http://wp.production.patheos.com/blogs/livingtradition/files/2016/07/Open-Door-300x225.jpg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); margin: 0px 0px 10px; max-width: none; padding: 4px;" width="500" /></a><div class="wp-caption-text" style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 12px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
Open door, photo by Brad Montgomery</div>
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In the basic definition, a<em> Muslim</em> is one who consciously lives in a state of presence with the Divine. When the prefix <em>`mu’</em> is attached to a verb of four or more letters in Arabic grammar, it changes the meaning from the action to the doer of that action. For example, the Arabic word “to teach” is <em>“darris,”</em> and a teacher, the one performing the act of instruction, is the <em>“mudarris.”</em></div>
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A <em>Muslim</em>, then, is one who performs <em>“slim,”</em> or “surrender.” When I discovered this simple grammatical rule six years ago while studying my mother tongue for the first time in an academic setting, it provoked an understanding inside of me. I realized that to truly <em>be</em> Muslim rather than simply label myself such, I needed to really <em>experience</em>surrender to the Divine, and that meant God should be the focal point of my consciousness.</div>
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At the time, I couldn’t have been further from this state of being. God rarely crossed my mind. While I believed the Divine existed, I would only turn to His/Her help when I was struggling to find a new job to escape clashes with a cantankerous boss I couldn’t see eye to eye with, or cope with a broken heart after a failed relationship, or pray for a loved one who had fallen ill or passed. Thoughts of the Almighty would flicker then quickly recede to the backburner of my mind once these desperations were resolved.</div>
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It dawned on me then that my faith lacked the depth and sincerity that comes when a human being is mindful enough to accept and be grateful for the blessings of life at all times, whether the circumstances are easy and difficult.</div>
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The Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, once described how<a class="" data-wpel-target="_blank" href="http://islamicreminder.tumblr.com/post/23470621883" rel="external" style="color: #0066cc;" title="">“wonderful”</a> a sincere believer’s circumstances are: If something good happens to her she expresses gratitude, and this is a blessing. When something negative occurs, she bears it with patience, and this too is a blessing.</div>
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Aspiring to draw nearer to this genuine form of Self Surrender, I started to infuse my daily routine with <em>zikr</em> – repeated acts of remembrance recited silently or aloud – until they became habitual.</div>
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Which brings me back to the door of my apartment. Quietly expressing the three simple lines above in my heart is an acknowledgement that from the moment of utterance, I’m leaving it to the Gracious One to guide, protect and guard me. By doing so, I try to accept whatever happens during the day as a reflection of that state of Surrender, whether it is good or bad, easy or challenging, unpleasant or comforting, agonizing or healing.</div>
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Several minutes after stepping out of my apartment, I may look up at the sky and admire the stunning formation of cumulonimbus clouds adorning the London skyline, foreshadowing the impending rainfall. The awe inspired by this and other marvels of nature will compel me to utter <em>SubhanAllah</em>, or God is Subtle Beyond All Knowing, remembering His/Her role in all creation.</div>
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London clouds, photo by Bulut Unvan</div>
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Later in my office, I may pause several times during the day to recite the opening line of the Quran, <em>Bismillah Alrahman Alraheem</em>, “In the Name of God, the Infinitely Compassionate, the Most Merciful,” to give me confidence before dialing into a conference call, calm my nerves before a difficult chat with a colleague or to help me overcome a bout of writer’s block as a real-time news deadline lurks over me.</div>
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There are many many other simple invocations that now stitch together my days, beautifully described in the Mevlevi Wird, a daily litany of Sufi prayers:</div>
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<em>Facing all fears, “There is no God but God.” (La illa Illah Allah)</em><em><br />Facing all sorrows and sadness, “May it be as God wills.” (MashaAllah)<br />Facing all benefits, “Praise be to God.” (Alhamdulillah)<br />And facing all abundance, “Thanks be to God.” (Shukr lillah)<br />And facing all astonishment, “God is subtle beyond all knowing.” (SubhanAllah)<br />Facing all sins, “I ask God’s forgiveness.” (Astaghfirallah)<br />Facing all scarcities, “Allah is enough for me.” (Hasbi Allah)<br />Facing all calamities, “We belong to God and to Him we shall return.” (Inna lillahi wi inna ilayhi raji’un)</em> <em><br />Facing every event of destiny, “I trust in God.” (Tawakkul ‘ala Allah)<br />Facing all obedience and disobedience, “There is no means or power in anyone except through God who is the Most High, the Most Great.”( La hawla wala quwwata illa billahil aliyyil azim)</em></div>
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It is these concise, momentary dialogues with the One who is closer to me than my jugular vein that I have found draw me nearest to Self Surrender, beyond the prayers I perform at the five corners of the day and night. Remembering God with simple gestures continually truly does polish the heart as Hadith teaches. While apprehensions and anxieties will naturally fill my mind each day, zikr unlocks the door to continual remembrance.</div>
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Dewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17618123767557603812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638413944983068358.post-2917761429265584422016-07-01T01:34:00.000+04:002016-08-06T01:37:17.368+04:00The night of a thousand months<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: 21.6px; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">In the name of God, the Infinitely Compassionate, the Infinitely Merciful<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />We sent it (the Quran) down on the Night of Destiny<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />And what will make you comprehend what the Night of Destiny is?<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />The Night of Destiny is better than a thousand months<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />On that night, the angels and the Spirit come down by the permission of their Lord with His decrees for all matters<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />It is all peace till the break of dawn<br style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0px;" />(Quran, The Night of Destiny, Surah 97)</em></div>
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During Ramadan, my perceptions of time somehow become more magnified.</div>
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At the onset of the Islamic holy month, the 30 days of fasting that lie ahead look lengthy and daunting, especially now as they coincide with the Summer Solstice and many Muslims in the Northern Hemisphere refrain from food and drink for 18 hours or longer. Yet even as we endure some of longest days of fasting of our lifetimes, Ramadan has once again hurried by and I find myself embarking on the sprint through the final 10 days. As the finish line comes into view, I can’t help but wish that it was further afield to give me more time to extract spiritual benefits from the month.</div>
<figure class="wp-caption aligncenter" data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_1066" style="-webkit-margin-after: 0px; -webkit-margin-before: 0px; -webkit-margin-end: 0px; -webkit-margin-start: 0px; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; height: auto; line-height: 25.2px; margin: 0px auto 1.1em; max-width: 100%; width: 487px; word-wrap: break-word;"><img alt="laylat al qadr foto" class="alignnone wp-image-1066" height="536" src="https://daliahm.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/laylat-al-qadr-foto.jpg?w=487&h=536" style="border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-sizing: border-box; display: block; font-family: inherit; height: auto; line-height: 1; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 100%; padding: 5px;" width="487" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #999999; font-size: 0.8em; font-weight: 700; margin-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0.5em; text-align: center;">Mosque by moonlight, (Photo courtesy of Vicky TH)</figcaption></figure><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32.4px; margin-bottom: 1.1em; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.7;">With little room to scale back my working hours, I rely on evenings and weekends to dedicate more energy to prayer and reflection, Quranic readings, Sufi remembrance and meditation, and the giving of zakat, a redistribution of 2.5 percent of my wealth to the less fortunate. Carving out the hours needed for these acts of worship means I spend less time resting my head on my pillow and more on my prayer mat.</span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.7; margin-bottom: 0px;"> </span></div>
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There is something pliable about the passage of time while fasting. Every second and minute tends to become more palpable when I’m craving a 10 a.m. caffeine fix to get me through then next wave of conference calls and news story pitches, only to look up at the clock and realize there’s another 11 hours and 24 minutes until <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Iftar</em>, the meal to break the fast at sunset.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span id="more-1063" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In this way, my perception of human time is heightened. Yet Ramadan also encourages me to perceive the expanse of eternity. One of the final nights of Ramadan is <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Laylat Al Qadr</em>, or the Night of Destiny, described in the Quran as being “better than 1,000 months.”</div>
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While the 27th night of Ramadan is said to commemorate the historic night when Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, received his first Divine revelation in 610 AD, there’s also the belief that <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Laylat Al Qadr</em> comes once in a year, most possibly during Ramadan, and most likely during the last ten nights of the month on one of the odd numbered nights.</div>
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It can be puzzling to think that a few hours in the tranquil evening stillness could hold such immense power as to encompass 1,000 months, the equivalent of 83.3 years. That’s more than the average human life expectancy in most countries. How could one night of spiritual reflection fathomably be greater than an entire lifetime?</div>
<figure class="wp-caption aligncenter" data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_1068" style="-webkit-margin-after: 0px; -webkit-margin-before: 0px; -webkit-margin-end: 0px; -webkit-margin-start: 0px; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; height: auto; line-height: 25.2px; margin: 0px auto 1.1em; max-width: 100%; width: 551px; word-wrap: break-word;"><img alt="Minaret at night" class="alignnone wp-image-1068" height="738" src="https://daliahm.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/minaret-at-night.jpg?w=551&h=738" style="border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-sizing: border-box; display: block; font-family: inherit; height: auto; line-height: 1; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 100%; padding: 5px;" width="551" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #999999; font-size: 0.8em; font-weight: 700; margin-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0.5em; text-align: center;">Mosque by moonlight, (Photo courtesy of Vicky TH)</figcaption></figure><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32.4px; margin-bottom: 1.1em; padding: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">
To begin to comprehend this idea, I turn to the Quran, where God appears to call on me to regard my perception of time as relative and flexible rather than linear and constant. For instance, the word for <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">day</em> in Arabic is <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">youm</em>, which I often think of as a 24-hour period. But<em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">youm</em> in the Quran refers to eras or epochs of indefinite lengths, rather than a single day measured by the rotation of the earth on its axis. The earth, then, was created in six periods, not necessarily six 24-hour days.</div>
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“A Day with your Lord is like a thousand years of your reckoning,” the Holy Book says of how humans will conceive the length of a day when they reach the Hereafter. While our lives in this world may seem extensive to our intellect, when we return to our Creator, we will regard our time here as spanning merely “a day or part of a day.”</div>
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After first reading the Quran six years ago and realizing how transitory this journey of life truly is, my receptivity to God became amplified. I started to dwell less on the daily agitations that once consumed my thoughts, realizing how miniscule they were in the grander scheme of eternity. I’ve sought to be more conscious and attentive of my actions, prioritizing prayers, fasting and charity, while striving to treat those around me with kindness, respect and fairness.</div>
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For me, participating in <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Laylat al Qadr</em> is about attaining a spiritual connection with the Divine that transcends well-ingrained notions of units of time. Many Muslims will spend the night in prayer and quiet reflection, some secluding themselves in mosques for the last 10 days hoping to seek the unparalleled benefit of a night when sincere worshippers are forgiven all sins and angels descend on earth.</div>
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In many ways, the first 20 days of Ramadan prepare me to be receptive to this possibility. Fasting forces me to confront my vulnerabilities and attachments to the ego. Pangs of hunger and thirst improve mindfulness; beyond the emptiness of my belly, I seek something within myself that isn’t starved in the same way, something that at other times of the year can get muffled behind consumption and external comforts.</div>
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“Fasting is meditation of the body, just as meditation is fasting of the mind,” writes <a href="http://sufism.org/kabir-camille/kabir-and-camille-helminski-threshold-society-founders-2" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #dd1717; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.1s ease-in-out, background-color 0.1s ease-in-out;" target="_blank">Shaikh Kabir Helminski</a>. “Hunger,” he says, “reduces the need for sleep and increases wakefulness. Eating our fill hardens the heart, while hunger opens the heart and increases detachment from material concerns. We become more free of needs, qualified by God’s name, the Self-Sustaining, <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Al Qayyum</em>.”</div>
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While Prophet Muhammad continued to receive revelations for more than two decades after the momentous first Divine exhortation to “Read,” the beautiful messages contained in the Quran will always trace back to <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Laylat Al Qadr</em>.</div>
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More than 1,400 years later we’re still invited to taste a hint of the sweetness of that momentous evening. For me, seeking to participate in it is a chance to traverse the world’s limitations to where time is incalculable and endless: where a moment of connection with the Divine Reality is so unfathomably rich that it surpasses lifetimes.</div>
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Dewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17618123767557603812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638413944983068358.post-77444249612456594962016-05-30T00:36:00.000+04:002016-05-30T00:36:47.933+04:00Of Saints and Matchmakers <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="line-height: 18.4px;">As I was growing up, Islam’s benevolent female saints existed in my imagination as otherworldly matchmakers. </span><br style="line-height: 18.4px;" /><br style="line-height: 18.4px;" /><span style="line-height: 18.4px;">Common features of my family’s infrequent summer holidays with relatives in Egypt were visits to mosques enclosing the shrines of Sayyida Zainab and Sayyida Nafisa, two descendants of the Prophet Muhammad who have come to be regarded as Cairo’s patron saints, may God grant them peace and blessings. My mother, often with her sisters who lived in smaller cities along the Suez Canal, would arrange mini pilgrimages to these grand Cairene mosques for a single purpose: to pray for suitable partners for their unmarried children.</span><span class="" style="line-height: 18.4px;"> </span></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimAsQaP-LjBTFQJ1u3okiiCzL1b3q9KjfUGHjr0Gg5bcITD-7RlUjoi-Wn9MQd5aVNU56_92PRAtj5eFK0IXrH1EzqztRd-i4SYTXt0Ar5j4Ye2IStRuHGUaYN-2PcHmgco8PzjXs4lHc/s1600/SAYYIDAZAINABCAIRO.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimAsQaP-LjBTFQJ1u3okiiCzL1b3q9KjfUGHjr0Gg5bcITD-7RlUjoi-Wn9MQd5aVNU56_92PRAtj5eFK0IXrH1EzqztRd-i4SYTXt0Ar5j4Ye2IStRuHGUaYN-2PcHmgco8PzjXs4lHc/s400/SAYYIDAZAINABCAIRO.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #999999; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 14.4px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 25.2px;">Female </span><a href="https://lilyasussman.com/2009/07/22/moulid-at-sayyida-zinab/" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #dd1717; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 14.4px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 25.2px; margin: 0px auto; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.1s ease-in-out, background-color 0.1s ease-in-out;" target="_blank">worshippers</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #999999; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 14.4px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 25.2px;"> gather around Sayyida Zainab’s mausoleum in Cairo</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">Amidst weeps and whispers, they would gather around the mausoleums of these saints offering earnest prayers to rescue their single daughters and sons from the matrimonial side lines. </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">From beyond the divide between this world and the next, these venerable women of faith would intimately identify with the anguish of being the mother of an unwed child and act as intermediaries with God in removing the obstacles blocking the perfect partner from springing forth – at least that was the hope of my female kin.</span></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">While my own memories of these visits are vague and likely layered by personal accounts relayed by my mother over the years, the urgency placed on marriage left me feeling perplexed. The more I found myself becoming the focal point of the prayers, the more frustrating and painful these pilgrimages became.<br /><br />By my mid- and then late 20s, the cultural pressures to wed young and my inability to make it happen </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">inadvertently alienated me from faith, and obscured my view of the spiritual significance and prowess of these female saints. My only encounters with them were a manifestation of socio-culture pressures that dictate a woman’s value lies solely in her success as a wife and mother, a line of thinking that left me jaded and confined rather than empowered by their presence.<a name='more'></a></span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQFF3EFijS_X9WJEK_jMUd0YOnfmLup7mDL8cWMF0mcoqQ7-c4PCv4Px3uZEO2iYef8ufdu5Z4-W68a9kIL7sXaWaTt3Cki-5CXKZ5IFMRJW19XXyLLwFUtc7olxYfYvWlW0QFmHfBPF8/s1600/DAMASCUS+SAYYIDA+ZAINAB.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQFF3EFijS_X9WJEK_jMUd0YOnfmLup7mDL8cWMF0mcoqQ7-c4PCv4Px3uZEO2iYef8ufdu5Z4-W68a9kIL7sXaWaTt3Cki-5CXKZ5IFMRJW19XXyLLwFUtc7olxYfYvWlW0QFmHfBPF8/s400/DAMASCUS+SAYYIDA+ZAINAB.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #999999; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 14.4px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 25.2px;">Another shrine </span><a href="http://www.eslam.de/arab/bildergalerien_arab/z/zainab_bint_ali_bildergalerie.htm" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #dd1717; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 14.4px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 25.2px; margin: 0px auto; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.1s ease-in-out, background-color 0.1s ease-in-out;">dedicated</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #999999; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 14.4px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 25.2px;"> to Sayyida Zainab is found in Damascus</span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px;">It took a </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.4px;">serendipitous encounter with Sayyida Zaynab, the granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad, and Sayyida Nafisa, who descended from the Prophet through his grandson Hasan, many years later when I was 31 for me to reimagine their places in my life.</span></div>
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<br />That year I experienced a profound spiritual encounter with God which I often refer to as an “awakening”. Following a moment of discerning clarity one morning in late May 2010, I was consumed by ecstatic Divine love and yearned to surrender myself to Him/Her, a state of existence known as Islam.<br /><br />In the days that followed, I sought to understand the transformation taking place in my heart and found nourishment from two sources.<br /><br />The pages of the Quran, which I read from cover to cover for the first time, enlivened my soul with lessons on how orienting my life around prayer, charity, fasting, patience in adversity and good deeds would bring fulfilment. I found comfort in assurances that the Almighty places no burden on a soul greater than it is able to bear, and that He/She<span style="background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"> provides believers <span class="">“a light to help you walk in.”</span></span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"><br /><br />The first of many lights that illuminated my journey I discovered in a Dubai bookstore just days after my awakening. Called “Women of Sufism: A Hidden Treasure,” the book conveyed Islam’s honour and respect for the feminine through a compilation of writings and stories about mystic poets, scholars and saints. Its author, <a href="http://sufism.org/kabir-camille/kabir-and-camille-helminski-threshold-society-founders-2">Camille Helminski</a>, has since become one of my greatest living spiritual role models.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPvYJbaeBHkrGs-MN2uv84clOUqc1oA21xKaZOoQkgbVHEOP1ayGzMxEFaHaAJfm3NOKJ7FgP8rNOQQY6kEVsnyVwj94DM_U94KzocGFF3CZckNofCmE0gg_UL4HaNjvWkTjtdELSokRc/s1600/Woman+in+Prayer.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPvYJbaeBHkrGs-MN2uv84clOUqc1oA21xKaZOoQkgbVHEOP1ayGzMxEFaHaAJfm3NOKJ7FgP8rNOQQY6kEVsnyVwj94DM_U94KzocGFF3CZckNofCmE0gg_UL4HaNjvWkTjtdELSokRc/s320/Woman+in+Prayer.png" width="255" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">It was in a <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=GRxmt8XSKuAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=women+of+sufism&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjDgYWJ8P_MAhXMERQKHS49AnQQ6AEIJTAA#v=onepage&q=women%20of%20sufism&f=false">chapter</a>
entitled “A Jewel of Knowledge” that I was reacquainted with Sayyida Nafisa and
Sayyida Zainab. Nafisa, I read, was renowned for her ability to cure eye
ailments and dedication to acts of worship like prayer, fasting and charity. So
immense was her religious wisdom that “even her great contemporary, the Imam
al-Shafi’i, used to come and listen to her discourses and enter into
discussions with her.”<br />
<br />
In later readings about Sayyida Zainab, I discovered she was a teacher known
for her eloquence and clarity. Her defiance against oppression and injustice
and devotion to God were so monumental that even witnessing the slaughter of
her brother Hussain, the Prophet’s grandson, during the Battle of Karbala only deepened
her Self Surrender.<br />
<br />
These stories and many others of Islam’s remarkable women left me wanting to emulate
rather than run away from them. While Islam holds marriage in high regard, my
new spiritual role models weren’t revered for their successes at being wives
and mothers. They were venerated for their active roles in society, their use
of knowledge to inspire and teach their peers, men and women, their ability to
face incredible hardship with patience, and truly surrender their souls in a
union with God.<br />
<br />
Learning about the lives of the saints whose shrines I shirked at visiting
years earlier liberated me from the cultural pressures that regarded being
unmarried as a failure and a fault. Rather than denounce my marital status for
not conforming to social norms, they taught me to accept the path God had
chosen for me and start looking inward for fulfilment because the transience of
relationships to things, people and places rarely offer enduring satisfaction.<br />
<br />
As prayers for my marriage from my female kin continue to accumulate, I could
say that Cairo’s patron saints have already interceded on my behalf as
matchmakers of a different sort. <br />
<br />
Peering into their lives inspired how I would seek to forge the most
significant union of all, my bond with God. I’ve become more receptive to the
echoes of Divine Love reverberating across the universe, and, I hope, more
generous in sharing them in my roles as a daughter, sister, friend, manager and
God willing someday, partner.<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it”</span></i><i><span style="background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">- Rumi</span></i></blockquote>
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Dewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17618123767557603812noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638413944983068358.post-61385279593382461332016-03-06T23:21:00.001+04:002016-03-09T14:03:58.898+04:00Seeking the Kaaba Within<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I was fully aware that within seconds my body would be drawn into a mass of humanity unlike any other in the world. “Surrender to the experience,” I thought while stepping into the overflowing main courtyard surrounding the Kaaba. The barriers that divide us in our daily lives are lifted here at the seat of the holiest site of Islam.</div>
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No honorary titles or entitlements have worth or function, there’s no distinguishing based on whether you are a woman or man, whether your income bracket is high or low. Rather, the bracketing qualities that contain us outside–our nationality, ethnicity, age, or skin tone–are shed at the door. Wherever our outward journeys have started, we all walk barefoot inward into a single circle, devoid of these unnecessary parenthesis appended to our identities.<br />
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“The goal of all is the same” no matter what road we took to get here or what quarrels we fought on the way, Rumi writes in Fihi Ma Fihi, It is What It is.<br />
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We are both universal and singular, each worshipper an equal soul before the Creator of all humankind and all being. Here we consciously move together in a unified mass, circling seven times around this stone cube as our prophets, peace and blessings be upon them, and our predecessors have for centuries. It’s become a timeless procession connecting us to the scattered cosmos. With the right kind of openness, the pilgrimage is a truly humbling, enchanting and purifying act of dedication to God, The Gracious One.<br />
<br />
The ritual starts at the eastern corner, where the Black Stone is situated, a stone that Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessing be upon him, said was blackened by the sins of humankind after descending from heaven as white as milk. I’ve certainly swerved from the path since I was last graced by the opportunity to visit the Holy City five years ago. My soul yearns now for nourishment as I circle the four corners of the central cube draped in black.<br />
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I yield my body to the crowd that surrounds me in every direction, letting it move my limbs. I’m here for my soul, after all, and as we give thanks and make prayers to the Infinitely Compassionate One, drawing our attention to the Kaaba as birds circle above us, I concede any claim to the personal space that I normally protect.<br />
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Sometimes I find my body being drawn inward with an uncontrollable force, and it is suddenly so close to the edge of the Kaaba I can almost touch it.<br />
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Almost, but not quite.<br />
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The mass has a different idea and my body is abruptly yanked back, the edifice drifting further away from view. At times, I sense how densely packed it has become, I’m unable to move my arms and can barely take a step. A few droplets of sweat trickle down my cheek, which must be bright pink from the scorching sun beaming down on us.<br />
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This incredible constriction often happens as we approach the eastern corner as many worshippers form indiscriminate lines to attempt to get near enough to the Black Stone to kiss or touch it. An inevitable traffic jam forms, making crossing the corner sometimes a physically excruciating exercise.<br />
<br />
Yet we pay little heed to our physical state, undeterred by whether our bodies are free on inhibited. With our hands in the air, we say “Bismillah, Allahu Akbar,” “In the name of God, God is Great.” I can sense the grin on my face get brighter with each circumambulation.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://daliahm.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/kaaba-ashfias-piece.jpg?w=736" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><b><span style="color: black;"><img alt="kaaba-Ashfia's piece.jpg" border="0" height="304" src="https://daliahm.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/kaaba-ashfias-piece.jpg?w=736" width="400" /></span></b></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; line-height: 25.2px;">“This is the Kaaba of lovers…whoever comes here broken, leaves whole” — Artwork by </span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/ashfia_ashrif/" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; line-height: 25.2px; margin: 0px auto; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.1s ease-in-out, background-color 0.1s ease-in-out;" target="_blank">Ashfia Ashraf</a></b></td></tr>
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And just as I feel my body couldn’t become any more squeezed by the mass, the path opens up once more and I sense I am floating, arms free as a breeze cools my cheeks. I continue to supplicate and make prayers for myself, my loved ones and those in need.<br />
<br />
By the time I’ve finished the seven courses of the Tawaf, the first part of the Umrah pilgrimmage, my body has moved with ease and gotten swept into jams more times than I can count. It’s all the same to me. There’s a tranquility in this surrender that I wish I could bottle and sip from whenever I find myself knotted and constrained by daily events.<br />
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The short journey has become a parable for how I must try to live my life beyond the parameters of Mecca: to regard each event that causes constriction and every period of ease as a grace necessary to complete our blessed journeys. How grand would it be to maintain the vantage point offered at the heart of the Kaaba, to genuinely achieve this Self Surrender, or Islam, in the face of every act of destiny during our worldly existence?<br />
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Although I am now far away as I write this, I hope to continue to see my experience at the Kaaba as a kind of compass; one that reminds me that the spiritual journey toward the heart of Islam is one that can only truly take place in my own.<br />
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<blockquote>
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Circle the Kaaba of the heart</div>
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if you possess a heart.</div>
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The heart is the true Kaaba,</div>
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the other is just a stone.</div>
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God enjoined the ritual</div>
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of circling the formal Kaaba</div>
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as a way for you to find a heart.</div>
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But if your feet walk</div>
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around the Kaaba a thousand times,</div>
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and yet you injure a heart,</div>
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do you expect to be accepted?</div>
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[Divani Shamsi Tabrizi: 3104, Love’s Ripening, tr. by Kabir Helminski and Ahmad Rezwani, courtesy <a href="https://rumiscircle.com/2013/10/15/eid-mubarak-2/" target="_blank">Rumi’s Circle</a>]</div>
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Dewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17618123767557603812noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638413944983068358.post-62175186026210680202016-02-01T02:23:00.000+04:002016-02-01T02:23:01.725+04:00Between 33 Beads<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span id="docs-internal-guid-bb005d5e-9960-e5e5-70cd-aff704452ab0"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My glossy burgundy </span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">subha</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> had been dangling there for weeks, unused, upon the embroidered cushion resting casually against the Malaysian wood chair in my living room. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The prayer beads were almost camouflaged as they nestled into the tawny-coloured pillow cover I purchased during a trip to Istanbul six years ago, the image of a traditional Turkish tunic woven upon it in numerous shades of brown, gold, red and grey.
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<span style="font-size: 18.6667px; line-height: 25.76px;">It was almost camouflaged. But mostly just overlooked.</span><br class="kix-line-break" /></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy2fnaTMUkfcaW3CLw-EoqETban1eurNszSmyPObb5yUe2Y9t-UZkyEUsrjoEU3qZhUB4yICP_J9QkV_TnogGoFAhVyoYsh2DJ8Pxoh-_es3ZYiDJurKX7IusjHaAMLe9zsryV20cGhA8/s1600/prayer+beads+two.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy2fnaTMUkfcaW3CLw-EoqETban1eurNszSmyPObb5yUe2Y9t-UZkyEUsrjoEU3qZhUB4yICP_J9QkV_TnogGoFAhVyoYsh2DJ8Pxoh-_es3ZYiDJurKX7IusjHaAMLe9zsryV20cGhA8/s400/prayer+beads+two.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I knew it was there, after all, for that is where I always placed the </span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">subha</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> once I'd finished with it following a early-morning or late-night period of worship. Gliding each of the 33 beads slowly and methodically along the string with my index finger and thumb, I would repeat some poignant devotion between each click of a bead: one of the 99 Glorious Names of God, or a Quranic verse, or a phrase of sufi remembrance, all in an earnest effort to draw my attention to the Divine. </span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yet supplications, as important as they are in maintaining a consistent state of peace of mind and presence in Islam, are all too often left to fall by the wayside as I get swept up in my life. </span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I find excuses for being too busy to do more than my daily prayers, and too distracted to remember that </span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">dhikr</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, a form of devotion involving repeated acts of remembrance recited in silence or out loud</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, is just as important to sustaining a well-rounded spiritual routine.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For as many times as I may neglect them, though, those beads always lure me back, usually when a circumstance of life reminds me of my fragility.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So, there I was again, in the quiet of the early morning before sunrise, padding the pillow with my hand in the darkness to locate and grasp the prayer beads. I needed them now to help calm the turmoil gripping my heart; to soothe my thoughts from the distractions that were tugging away at my mind and pulling me from the Source.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghsuRPKDK33JIeZNIOUafL0Bd6raXoTPVADe8Xe2xp4gwnERXF5rRTMZHA9zZJjYxYi-XlwkoJFNXlvVNNXxvdE5y1SI1BZfrGUUyBBDWRiRsY6uv6Uu2pDEaF83WdLLzqsSGD0epVq5M/s1600/prayer+beads.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghsuRPKDK33JIeZNIOUafL0Bd6raXoTPVADe8Xe2xp4gwnERXF5rRTMZHA9zZJjYxYi-XlwkoJFNXlvVNNXxvdE5y1SI1BZfrGUUyBBDWRiRsY6uv6Uu2pDEaF83WdLLzqsSGD0epVq5M/s320/prayer+beads.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I sat there dangled on my knees in my favourite place of prayer, near the balcony window overlooking the western London sky. Clasping the </span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">subha</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in my right hand, I prepared to move each bead slowly to count the times I would repeat aloud, 40 to be precise, the Surah of the Quran known as </span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Al Inshirah</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Some translate the chapter’s title from Arabic as</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> "The Relief.”</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Others refer to it as</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> "The Solace” </span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">or</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> “The Comfort"</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and still some interpret it as</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> "The Expansion."</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is one of my favourite Surahs of the 114 that make up the Holy Book. In eight poignant and succinct lines it reminds me of all the instances God has graced my life with blessings at times of trial, filled me with love when I was in despair, brought me wealth when I was in need, or success when I was mired in the throes of doubt. More than anything else, it reminds me to be grateful and patient.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Bismillah Al Rahman Al Raheem (In the Name of God, the Infinitely Compassionate, the Most Merciful),”</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I said aloud, while asking Him inwardly to grace me with His exceptional tranquility, to relieve the ache in my heart and bring me peace to my mind.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then, moving the beads one by one, I started to repeat the lines of </span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Al Inshirah</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in Arabic:</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" />
</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Have we not expanded for you your breast? </span></blockquote>
<span style="line-height: 1.38;"> </span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And removed from you your burden? </span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Which weighed heavily on your back?</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And exalted for you your reputation?"</span></blockquote>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yes, yes. To each question, YES. You </span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">always</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> have God. Over and over again in my life, as I look back, I see how You transformed a burden or difficulty into a blessing. During unrelenting periods of darkness, You shone on me your Abundant Light. I remember each broken spirit and heart of mine that You mended and healed, repeatedly, and filled with Love. I recall the arduous journey I took in to attain professional success and acquire wealth, and how You rewarded my hard work with an esteem that I could never have imagined I would deserve. </span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As I repeated the lines of the Surah, almost singing them and interrupting the stillness of the night, I asked myself: “Why should this time be different?” </span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Surah continues:</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Then surely, with every difficulty is ease
</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Surely, with every difficulty is ease
</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So when you have finished with your tasks, strive hard
</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And to your Lord turn all your attention"</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And like that, as I lost myself in my chant, I found I had repeated the Surah just enough times and with enough intensity to internalize and understand that the pain in my heart could be converted into joy </span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">at that very moment, </span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">if I chose to listen to the message in these beautiful lines. </span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The relief that we seek is not in the future. It doesn’t come </span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">after</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> hardship. It comes </span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">with</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> it.
</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i><b>"The wound is the place where the Light enters you" - Rumi</b></i></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
Dewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17618123767557603812noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638413944983068358.post-36039671056961565242015-11-28T22:46:00.000+04:002015-11-28T22:55:34.901+04:00Everything is a blessing<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">For the past four years, every time I open the door to leave my apartment, I've
almost consistently recited three poignant yet simple Islamic phrases in a subtle
whisper that's only audible to me.<br />
<br />
<i>"Bismillah" </i>(In the name of
God), I say in a quick breath as I rotate the lock to the right and grasp the
door nob. I continue with </span><i><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">"Tawakkul</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> ‘</span><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">ala Allah</span>"</i>
(I place my complete trust and reliance in God), as I step into the hallway and
gently close the door. And <em><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">"Laa Hawla Wa Laa
Quwwata Il-la Bil-laah</span></em><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">" (There is neither
might nor power except with Allah) glides along my tongue as I turn the key
fasten the lock until, by God's will, I return.<br />
<br />
It takes the whole of about seven seconds to recite these lines before dashing
to the elevator to rush to work, run an errand, attend a social gathering or
take a trip to a grocery store. The words are so simple for the richness and
tremendous power they encompass when reflected upon.<br />
<br />
They embody the essence of surrendering to God, which is what Islam is all
about. When we say them, we are acknowledging that from the moment of
utterance, we're leaving it to the Gracious One to guide, protect and guard us.
And by doing so, whatever happens during the course of the day becomes a
reflection of that state of surrender, whether it is good or bad, easy or
challenging, unpleasant or comforting, agonizing or healing.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br />
Everything becomes a blessing. While it is hard to imagine and accept
the heartbreak, illness, loneliness, professional struggles and relationship
setbacks that dot our paths as anything more than torment and nuisances, these
trials enclose gifts. <br />
<br />
There's a stunning and thought-provoking Hadith, or saying of the Prophet
Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, where he describes how
<a href="http://islamicreminder.tumblr.com/post/23470621883" target="_blank">"wonderful"</a> a sincere believer's affairs are because, ultimately,
that person accepts with the certainty and the trust of all of her being that
the good and bad occurrences of her life are two sides of the same coin. I will
paraphrase and elaborate on this Hadith here.<br />
<br />
For this person, this true believer, when something good happens to her, she bubbles
over with thankfulness. She doesn't lose sight of God's role in granting her
this gift. Rather, she acknowledges genuinely that He is the Source of it.
Perhaps the relief that she finds at her fingertips follows a period of immense
disappointment, the kind that drains your vitality and challenges your hope and
faith. Or maybe the joy comes to her during a period of relative peace and
harmony in her life, the very time when it becomes easy to dismiss remembrance of God.
In either scenario, the believer's response is to appreciate the gift with
humble gratitude to Her Creator. This is a blessing.<br />
<br />
For the same person, when something burdensome befalls her, as will inevitably
happen, she bears it on her shoulders and perseveres. She carries the
heartbreak, loss, loneliness, illness, anguish with delight, embodying the
patience of "beautiful contentment" that the Quran refers to. That
patience isn't reluctant, but willing. It is full of pleasure because she
understands and exemplifies another message that radiates throughout the Holy
Book: that God will place <i>no</i> burden
on a soul greater than it can bear. The more daunting the burden He lays on her,
the stronger He regards her soul. So, rather than get filled with resentment,
this believer is glad. She smells the rose while grasping its thorny stem. She
knows with certainty in her heart that while the clouds may be blocking the sun
from view, its brilliant unmatched Light is there all the same. Her state of
patient being and acceptance is a blessing.<br /></span></div>
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi77dgfxZZoyjVIGCqXi9OcLxGirD6cvS8LHBpmR_vraWisWc7Ow8PzEakmQCga2Oz7f5ODPoaYAOv_ihCYumk700pMP_G17oOzIv_dYtvLCGFmynpyI_M07jWmy1FopWPwqfwBhQmdZbY/s1600/Patience+verse.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi77dgfxZZoyjVIGCqXi9OcLxGirD6cvS8LHBpmR_vraWisWc7Ow8PzEakmQCga2Oz7f5ODPoaYAOv_ihCYumk700pMP_G17oOzIv_dYtvLCGFmynpyI_M07jWmy1FopWPwqfwBhQmdZbY/s400/Patience+verse.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">"Therefore do hold patience, a patience of beautiful contentment," Quran, Surah 70-5, The Ways of Ascent<br /><a name='more'></a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">
As I reflect at the end of a week that presented me with a good dose of both
sides of this tale -- the anguish and confusion, and the happiness and hope --
I pray I can aspire to surrender in the beautiful way of this believer that the Prophet described. I pray
that I can find the strength to consistently, without hesitation, see the
delights and toils of life through the same lens. To see them as one coin that
once flung into the air, whether it lands on heads or tails is a blessing all
the same.<br />
</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt;"><i><b>The Hiding Place</b></i></span></div>
<i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt;">The most secure place to hide a treasure of gold</span></div>
</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt;">Is in some desolate, unnoticed place</span></div>
</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt;">Why would anyone hide treasure in plain sight?</span></div>
</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt;">And so it is said "joy is hidden beneath sorrow"</span></div>
</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt;">--Jalaluddin Rumi</span></div>
</span></i></blockquote>
</div>
Dewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17618123767557603812noreply@blogger.com0London, UK51.5073509 -0.1277582999999822351.1912379 -0.77320529999998222 51.8234639 0.51768870000001777tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638413944983068358.post-17696682898180711222015-11-15T00:58:00.001+04:002015-11-15T16:59:59.438+04:00Light Upon Light<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , "serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">In the moments before I first learned of the darkness unfolding in Paris on
Friday, I was sitting in a circle of light.<br />
<br />
Some fellow seekers and I were seated as we often are on Friday evening, pondering on the path of those yearning for closeness and presence with
God. <br />
<br />
On this particular occasion, we were discussing a passage of Islamic poet
Rumi's Masnavi called <i>Veils of Light</i>.
<br />
<br />
Each rich line reminded me of what drew me to this path of Islam in the first
place: a crystal clear moment of understanding in 2010 when I first encountered
that Light. When the first veil was lifted, revealing a love that transformed
how I would perceive everything from that moment.<br />
<br />
We seekers will often squint, blocking the light from coming through, as we
endure the trials and tribulations that life hands to all of us. But there it
is, shining in once we gain the strength to open our eyes again. <br />
<br />
This Light doesn't blind us despite its brightness, it transforms our vision
and allows us to see the next step on the path more clearly. This Light does
not bring darkness. It brings mercy, compassion and justice. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , "serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br />This Light does not harm another soul, for harming one would be as damaging as
harming all, as the Quran teaches. It forces us, rather, to look within and
battle our own demon, the ego that prevents us from seeing the Light.<br />
<br />
A wise, humble and loving Shaikh speaking on Islamic extremism to an audience gathered at a London church
in September described political Islam as "collective egoism: nafs (ego)
magnified on a social scale." <br />
</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "cambria" , "serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">It breeds a toxic pollution of egoism that masquerades as self-righteousness
and leads to individuals wanting to change things through force, hate and
judgement of others. The result is grim, despicable darkness, which is the
opposite of Light.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">Jara Mosque in Tunisia, with El Seed's <a href="http://elseed-art.com/minaret-of-jara-mosquee/" target="_blank">Calligraffiti</a>. It reads, from the Quran: "</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">Oh humankind, we have created you from a male and a female and made people and tribes so you may know each other"</span></td></tr>
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Be not mistaken, then, that the true Path is the one that leads toward the
Ocean of Light that Rumi wrote so elegantly about. It is the one that promotes love, tolerance
and humanity. It is embodying the Divine Beauty in our actions, our words, our
patience, our forgiveness and most importantly, our embrace of diversity and
love of every one and every thing. <br /><br />This is the challenge that God seeks for each one of us to pursue and take on.</span><br />
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"</b><b>Oh humankind, we have created you from a male and a female and made people and tribes so you may know each other. Lo! The noblest
of you, in the sight of God, is the best in conduct." (Quran 49,
13)</b></span></blockquote>
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We must welcome and embrace this light and carry it with us. It is, in the end, the <i>only</i> way.<br />
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Light upon light. Noor ala Noor.</div>
Dewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17618123767557603812noreply@blogger.com2London, UK51.5073509 -0.1277582999999822351.1912379 -0.77320529999998222 51.8234639 0.51768870000001777tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638413944983068358.post-45083483643857061142015-02-12T00:51:00.000+04:002015-02-12T00:51:57.729+04:00Sitting in Tuileries<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
My late father never visited Paris. Yet for me he is always here.
Back in July 2010 during my first visit to this magnificent city, I
called my father while sitting in Tuileries, the beautifully manicured
gardens situated beside the Louvre. <br />
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What I didn't know then was that we were having our last proper conversation before my dad passed away,
suddenly, four weeks later. That bright and warm summer afternoon would be the final time he was alive
for me.<br />
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God has, miraculously, blessed me with the ability to
visit Paris numerous times since then. I have walked through Tuileries, pictured here yesterday, in every season. Whether summer, winter, spring or autumn, I sense my father's presence as I stroll across this elegant garden. Each time I have paused for a moment of reflection and remembrance. <i>Al Fatihah</i>, the opening verse of the Holy Quran, I have read for my father's soul.<br />
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While the details of our conversation are now a faint memory, the nearness that I sense to my father in this garden on which he never tread remains timelessly poignant.<br />
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Dewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17618123767557603812noreply@blogger.com0Paris, France48.856614 2.352221900000017748.6894645 2.0294984000000178 49.0237635 2.6749454000000177tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638413944983068358.post-67786638540520067222014-11-09T21:56:00.000+04:002014-11-09T21:56:20.954+04:00Praying before payrolls<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt;">On the first Friday of every month, U.S. non-farm payrolls data are released at 8:30 a.m. in New York or, for me in London, 1:30 p.m. This influential economic indicator outlines the health of the U.S. jobs market and, depending on whether the results are weak or strong, they can send asset prices across the world -- from currencies to stocks, bonds, and commodities like gold -- either rallying or sliding.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt;">Since my job at a real-time news wire involves covering financial markets in EMEA emerging countries, the figures on U.S. job creation and unemployment inevitably unleash a period of frenzy in my office as we rush to report on the repercussions for riskier developing-nation assets from Russia to Turkey.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt;">This past Friday, I panicked as I looked at the clock in the lower right-hand corner of the oversized monitor in front of me to find it was 1:14 p.m. Just 16 minutes to payrolls -- <i>16 minutes</i> -- and I hadn't yet prayed the noon prayer, known as <i>duhr</i>, because I'd gotten caught up writing and editing a series of stories virtually non-stop since arriving nearly six hours earlier.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt;">Quickly doing the math in my head, I realized that if I didn't seize that moment and rush to pray, the next window of opportunity wouldn't open until about 2 p.m. By then, the afternoon prayer, <i>asr</i>, would have just started.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt;">"I need to pray before payrolls," I said anxiously to myself, fully aware of how absurd and contradictory that statement sounded. If I waited even two minutes longer, I wouldn't get back in time for the release. I swiftly called a courteous colleague and asked him to look over and publish the story I was almost finished editing, while I scurried off to my company's quiet room, where people break away for a calm moment to pray, meditate or be alone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt;">I admit, it wasn't the most attentive or mindful prayer I've ever prayed. I typically prefer to spend 20 minutes for the <i>duhr</i> to give me time to perform optional prayers that require extending my focus.</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt;">Yet speeding up my spiritual breaks is often unavoidable in the autumn and winter. The days become so short that Islam's five prayers draw nearer together, with the <i>duhr</i>, <i>asr</i> and <i>maghrib</i> prayer at sunset falling during working hours. Whereas in the summer I have about five hours for <i>duhr</i>, by the start of winter in mid-December, when the sunset is earliest, the gap between noon and afternoon worship drops to less than two hours.<span style="background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt;">Luckily for me, Islamic prayers are succinct and straightforward nothwithstanding their resonance; what really matters is maintaining presence of mind in the performance than the length of time spent in worship.<br /><br />At its best and most beautiful, this presence is like being pulled into a long embrace with the one you love most </span><span style="background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt;">and where all your thoughts align to absorb the present moment</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt;">. Imagine never having to be separated from this being by illness, travel or even death, and you can begin to uncover how warm and enduring this embrace can be. It isn't so much a physical encounter, even though my body will at times <span class=""><span style="background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; font-size: 11pt;">experience a</span></span><span style="background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; font-size: 11pt;"> sensation comparable to being covered in goosebumps. It's more like entering <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;">a tranquil mental state of incredible peace.<br /><br />Whatever chaos may be swirling around me, in the presence of God I find myself </span><span style="background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; font-size: 11pt;">i</span>n an incredible stillness.<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt;"> I feel the inspiration and privilege of being graced by His light and guidance. My spirit is lifted, and for those moments, the troubles, trials and demands of life are cast aside and I understand with clarity and certainty that whatever reality is here and now is exactly where He wants me to be, so I am able to face them with greater patience.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt;">Prayer time isn't always quite so profound in a back room at the end of a silent office corridor. Sometimes presence is more akin to the quick peck on the cheek that you give your mom, sibling, partner or child prior to darting out the door. You let them know in a simple yet thoughtful way that you love them above and beyond the mad rush of modern life that is about to sweep you away. It is these gentle moments of sharing, the little touches, that bring warmth to their hearts and let them know you truly care.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt;">That's kind of like what my payroll-type prayers are like. There is nowhere on earth that I want to be for that 10 or 15 minutes than in prostration to God. It's not so much in the words I speak, but in the act of being there and wanting Him to know that I am choosing our space of love over anywhere else.<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt;">So last Friday, just as quickly as I had dashed to the prayer, I found myself rushing back, while repeating the <i>zikr</i>, or statements of remembrance of God, that I say after each prayer quietly under my breath. Thirty-three times each, I recited <i>SubhanAllah</i>, Arabic for "Glorious is God;" <i>Alhamdulillah</i>, or "Praise be to God;" and <i>Allahu Akbar</i>, "God is the Greatest One."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt;">By then I had returned to my desk, sitting before the wall of monitors with about a minute to spare, ready to be drawn back into the whirlwind as the U.S. jobs data wreaked their havoc on financial markets.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt;">Since discovering the beauty of prayer more than four years ago, I always seek to take myself back to that place of clarity and contentment each morning, afternoon and evening. When I make the effort with sincerity, I've discovered that God usually blesses me ways to keep the still rhythm of prayer in my life without interruption. Payrolls day is just another part of this constant endeavour to find ways to weave a really hectic career into my rigorous spiritual routine.</span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-size: 11pt;">“The prayer of the lover of God is like the condition of a fish in water. As a fish cannot live without water, the soul of a lover of God cannot find peace without constant prayer. Therefore, the expression that “visit me not much!” is not for the lovers of God. The soul of the true lovers always remains thirsty.”</span></i></b><span style="font-size: 11pt; text-align: left;"> </span></blockquote>
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<b><i><span style="font-size: 11pt;">-Jalaluddin Rumi</span></i></b></blockquote>
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Dewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17618123767557603812noreply@blogger.com2London, UK51.5073509 -0.1277582999999822351.1912379 -0.77320529999998222 51.8234639 0.51768870000001777tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638413944983068358.post-83847659081545601472014-10-13T00:50:00.000+04:002014-11-09T22:00:12.809+04:00The doubt essential to faith<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Lesley Hazleton, a British-American author who wrote a profile of the Prophet Muhammad, pbuh, gives a stimulating TED talk on the importance of doubt to acquiring faith. She points out that Muhammad's first reaction to his divine revelation was one of terror, uncertainty and conviction that it couldn't have been real.<br /><br />This modest man who became an ardent advocate for social and economic justice in Arabia started his journey to Islam trembling with fear, overwhelmed by doubt, panic and disorientation. It was this visceral human reaction that "brought Muhammad alive" for Hazleton. Doubt, she says, is essential to faith. Without it, what's left is heartless conviction that risks devolving into dogmatism and fundamentalism. And absolutism, she rightly argues, is the opposite of faith.<br /><br />"Real faith has no easy answers, it involves and ongoing struggle, a continual questioning of what we think we know, a wrestling of issues and ideas. It goes hand in hand with doubt," according to Hazleton.</div>
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The 13-minute video brought my thoughts back five years to 2009, to the immense doubt that filled my mind in the months before I discovered Islam, a state of surrender to the Almighty.<br /><br />Beleaguered by anger and despair over a series of personal and family struggles, I made a conscious decision to abandon my relationship with God. While I didn't stop believing that He existed, I was frustrated by the constant stream of obstacles and challenges that He had lined along on my path. Upset and full of uncertainty about my faith, I sought comfort and solace in books, physical exercises like swimming and friendships. These succeeded at provided distractions. Yet the underlying frustration and sadness in my heart lingered.<br /><br />After eight months or so of rejecting His presence in my life, I found God pulling me toward Him. In spite of my best efforts to stop it, I was drawn to Him not <i>again</i>, but in many ways that I would discover, <i>for the first time</i>.<br />
<a name='more'></a><span lang="EN-GB" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 11pt;">At first I vehemently resisted the pull. But a power within me, that I hadn't been aware of before, knew there was no going back. That was the first time I learned how to listen to my soul. Beyond my angered mind she sat yearning for comfort, answers and guidance.<br /><br />In February of 2010, while attending an economic conference in Jeddah for work, my sister, who lived about an hour's drive away from the Saudi Red Sea port city, came to pick me up so that we could go together for an umrah pilgrimage in Mecca. I refused at first, feeling deeply that I had no need to visit the sacred site due to my detachment from God.<br /><br />In the end, I was coaxed into going. I performed the rites without a flash of inspiration -- not even when I found myself being thrust in a mob of worshippers toward the Black Stone on the eastern corner of the Kaaba. The stone first descended from Heaven whiter than milk before the sins of humankind turned it black, according to Prophetic tradition. Every year millions of pilgrims, usually unsuccessfully, try to touch or kiss it as the Prophet had. And there I was, pressing my lips against it without conveying a shred of emotion.<br /><br />What happened in the following months was nothing short of an extraordinary and exceptionally personal spiritual awakening that nourished my soul's desire for guidance. </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 15px;">My faith sprung from </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 15px;">seeds of</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 15px;"> doubt, and my progress since then has rested in constantly questioning my actions to discover how they can be modified to honour my relationship with God.<br /><br />Being Muslim isn't about having all of the answers. Doubt is </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 15px;">not only </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 15px;">a crucial part of the process</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 15px;">, but also a key ingredient in sparking curiosity and discovery. Doubt is not an inhibitor, it is a stimulus. Having doubt in my </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 15px;">ability to comprehend, coupled with a certainty that this is a journey rather than a destination </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 15px;">is, in a way, a crucial part of keeping the faith</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 15px;">.</span></div>
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Dewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17618123767557603812noreply@blogger.com2London, UK51.5073509 -0.1277582999999822351.1912379 -0.77320529999998222 51.8234639 0.51768870000001777tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638413944983068358.post-79653249925982745602014-07-27T05:44:00.000+04:002014-07-27T22:40:13.565+04:00A patient melody<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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“الصبر من كل الصبر أشتك مني”<br />
"From all of (my) patience, Patience complained about me"</blockquote>
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This is a lyric from a song that Egyptian singer and actress Laila Mourad performed in the 1948 film Anbar (عنبر), which I watched last night with my mom. The poignant words caught my attention and I immediately made note of them. Laila's character Anbar begins to sing in a room in the basement of her home, where some relatives are holding her captive as they seek to track down her dying father’s hidden fortune. While a lot of the lyrical richness of rhyme and metaphor inherent to the Arabic language gets lost in translation, essentially Anbar is expressing that patience itself had grown impatient with all of the trials that she had endured while awaiting release from her current turmoil.<br />
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This melody unfolded for me in a moment where I could appreciate its poetry. I had been reflecting on the concept of patience a day earlier as I perused the final chapters of the Quran to complete my reading of the holy book for the month of Ramadan.<br />
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In verse 5 of Surah 70, Al Miraj (The Ways of Ascent), God advises us to "hold patience, a patience of beautiful contentment." My thoughts often linger after reading this line. The words are simple and beautiful, and yet attaining patience is often fraught with complexity and difficulty.<br />
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According to their wisdom, we should find joy in the trials that demand our patience and perseverance because these events are a test from God of our devotion and endurance. Being patient grudgingly isn't enough. Instead, we should strive to find happiness in the challenges that God presents us with, understanding that He doesn't place a burden on any soul greater than it has the ability to bear. Circumstances that we find to be unpleasant often carry great blessings for our souls and should be endured with insight and appreciation.<br />
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Accomplishing this is no easy feat. In the four years since I started actively seeking to live in Islam, a state of mind where one surrenders to the Almighty God, I have found honing a consistent state of calm and patience to be my biggest challenge.<br />
<br />
It is easy on a daily basis to fall into the trap of feeling sorry for ourselves and complaining about the aspects of our personal and professional lives that aggravate us. Despite my best efforts to be patient, I am often confronted with moments of despair and frustration where I react with great self-pity and seek sympathy rather than express gratitude for my ability to endure. It’s also difficult to resist the urge to lose our tempers in the face of the deep injustices we are witnessing daily in places like Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Nigeria.<br />
<br />
This is precisely why attaining true submission, or Islam, is a process that requires constant interaction with God, a meticulous consciousness of our words and actions, and self-reflection. We need to tackle each feeling of anxiety, anger and self-pity at the moment it occurs, and ponder and apply the concept of "beautiful patience" before reacting. This requires an incredible presence of mind that ultimately involves a lifelong journey of trial and error. <br />
<br />
I have found that achieving genuine patience is absolutely essential to
attaining Islam, a state of mind that is meant to promote tranquility
and spiritual freedom. Without it, gestures from daily prayer to regular
fasting and the giving of charity would be out of tune. <br />
<br />
"If you are wholly perplexed and in straits, have patience, for patience is the key to joy," writes Jalaluddin Rumi, the 13th century Persian Sufi saint and poet widely regarded as one of the greatest spiritual masters of Islam. <br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="more"></a><br />
Anbar sang her sombre lyrics without realising that a few steps away, peering through a cleft in the door, was a listener. Anwar, played by actor Anwar Wagdi, took heed to her voice and like many love stories, fell in love with Anbar. In the hours that followed, he succeeded in saving his beloved from clutches of captivity. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO8iRL3H471kGWRTPOxow1kUcxD4lNTUxAPpsqlR3UjMTcmoqp5Oo2D3rZyZsq-IGc_hSaynctakPd5vw7FYN8h8uW3ZoWLMQqGLMHy8Q8MEIlbVFx7FrPiAXJ5oE0Nbm1sX9tevOAh9Q/s1600/s320095185411.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO8iRL3H471kGWRTPOxow1kUcxD4lNTUxAPpsqlR3UjMTcmoqp5Oo2D3rZyZsq-IGc_hSaynctakPd5vw7FYN8h8uW3ZoWLMQqGLMHy8Q8MEIlbVFx7FrPiAXJ5oE0Nbm1sX9tevOAh9Q/s1600/s320095185411.jpg" height="168" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Laila Mourad and Anwar Wagdi</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The relief we are seeking may not occur quite so elegantly or in the form of someone else coming to the rescue. What's important to remember in our moments of despair is that patience doesn't have a time limit; God will answer our prayers at the time, place and manner that He wills. In the meantime, it is up to us to earnestly turn to the Almighty to help us endure and overcome each trial. When I remember to do this, He inspires me with a composure that lessens the burden and gives me the adequate perspective to regard it as a blessing rather than an affliction.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Patience does not mean to passively endure. It means to be farsighted
enough to trust the end result of a process. It means to look at the
thorn and see the rose, to look at the night and see the dawn.
Impatience means to be shortsighted as to not able to see the outcome.
The lovers of God never runs out of patience, for they know that time is
needed for the crescent moon to become full" - Rumi</blockquote>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
Dewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17618123767557603812noreply@blogger.com0Richmond, BC, Canada49.1665898 -123.1335689999999749.000487799999995 -123.45629249999996 49.3326918 -122.81084549999997tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638413944983068358.post-19134979656687584432014-04-13T21:51:00.000+04:002014-04-13T21:53:27.078+04:00Living with less<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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--></style><span lang="EN-GB">I always had the impression that I was
pretty good at spring-cleaning. Never had any qualms about throwing away bags
full of the old papers and pamphlets, conference materials, note pads from
previous work interviews, and business cards that had somehow accumulated in the
drawers of my nightstands.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Opening up a closet teeming with clothes I
mostly didn’t wear, I’d cart bag after bag, year after year, to the nearest charity
drop off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once a neighbour in my Dubai
apartment block was preparing a shipment of clothing for a charity. I
contributed an entire suitcase full of suit jackets, pants, tops and skirts
that had grown too big on me after losing a few kilos after undertaking an
exercise program. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">De-cluttering my apartment always left me
with a sense of ease and relief. And yet, within a few months things would pile
up again, requiring another round of maintenance. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Before leaving my, in retrospect, oversized
one-bedroom apartment in Dubai last August, I trimmed down a lot of the, well,
baggage I had accumulated over eight years, thinking I was taking adequate
steps to prepare myself for the inevitably smaller space I would relocate to in
London. Let’s just say I overestimated the size of my new home – and
underestimated the amount of possessions I was lugging along with me to this
vibrant city of tiny Victorian conversions.<br />
<br />
About two hours into my house hunt in and around central London, I promptly flung
the notion that I had mastered the art of living simply out the window. After
choosing an apartment two weeks later about half the size of my place in Dubai, I waited in
dread for the arrival of the truckload of furniture, clothing, books and other
belongings that were making their way across the sea to squeeze into my new
home.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The shipment arrived one morning in late
September. I stood in the empty space that suddenly seemed much smaller than it
did when I viewed it, and watched anxiously as the movers brought up one box
after another. I number crunch on a daily basis, so I ever so anxiously
realised it was mathematically impossible for everything to fit, but wasn’t
quite sure at that moment what to do about it. All I did know was that I was
about to play game of real life game of Tetris in my living room. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I didn’t win, and the first thing to go was
the brown three-seater half-leather sofa I had purchased about four years
earlier as part of a living room set that, at the time, barely filled the space
in my generous seventh-floor living room. The couch didn’t even make it out of
the moving truck; its seven-foot length and bulky shape made it too large to
even toy with the idea of trying to navigate up the narrow staircase leading to
the second-floor apartment. For the sake of this game, we can say it didn’t
pass level one.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 4.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I would never label
myself as extravagant, but I suppose having more space for so many years gave
me the excuse to hold on to things and indulge in futile possessions. I wasn’t
particularly attached to the sofa, can’t remember a time that I even sat on it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 4.0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsBVxNQHaF4RHiVWDgLaURa5LPGyyejmRL_FDFEoVXHy-j8sunvd1AW-WTuUf_SB9d7E1RLhQJHRnZhhGJeHq9fZP1IS1C6_hdRBQlOLIXDYPFs8tB0rjhfHlWQ6HoXKkXJjU3O0tq_zA/s1600/Boxes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsBVxNQHaF4RHiVWDgLaURa5LPGyyejmRL_FDFEoVXHy-j8sunvd1AW-WTuUf_SB9d7E1RLhQJHRnZhhGJeHq9fZP1IS1C6_hdRBQlOLIXDYPFs8tB0rjhfHlWQ6HoXKkXJjU3O0tq_zA/s1600/Boxes.jpg" height="400" width="379" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Although my scenario is slightly cushier, I was reminded of a Hadith, or story of the Prophet Muhammad, blessings and peace
be upon him, that Umar Ibn al-Khattab, Allah bless him and grant him peace, asked
the Prophet why he slept on a matt made of palm fibers that left marks on his
side, rather than opting for a more comfortable alternative. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Cambria; font-weight: normal; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">“My relationship with this world is like that of a traveller on a hot
summer’s day, who seeks shade under a tree for an hour, then moves on,” was the
Prophet’s response.</span></b><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">My new home forced me to consider this idea
more seriously. I needed to live more like a traveller, carrying less weight
around, being more discerning about what I bring into my home, and not as tolerant of holding on to excess possessions. This challenge has become an
extension of my spiritual journey, which in many ways involves consciously
adopting changes in my lifestyle to introduce greater moderation and
simplicity. </span></div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">As I embraced my faith in the past few
years, I pray daily to de-clutter my mind and keep life’s struggles and
triumphs in perspective. Fasting regularly throughout the year helps me control
and rationalize what I eat – and I’m much leaner and healthier because of
it. Giving charity generously and frequently teaches me how to appreciate the
blessings in my life and keep my spending habits prudent. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">In many ways, my new living space, rougher around
the edges and immensely more humble than before, became a better reflection of
that state of mind I’m working hard to embody. Slowly and surely my possessions
have been shrinking to fit in a new frame.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I could no longer place the two night
tables on either size of my jumbo bed, and there definitely wasn’t room for the
vanity – which I had a charity pick up about a week after moving in. Then came
the arduous task of unpacking my clothes, shoes, books and dishes. In the
following weeks and months I sorted through piles and piles of things and
started distributing some of them to various charities and thrift shops. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij0QXO_SAYKzNDgwej-572bRsI9NHXNRHVMrAmcrSNkAWA4mP_3oRmuaGbFILojodMdxPGheUitI3yVaKYs3qFZ1S1VvUScwRub2EXj_l20Acs1K2vL280fjaTuCgp70EHsUoq2splA2U/s1600/CherryBlossom.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij0QXO_SAYKzNDgwej-572bRsI9NHXNRHVMrAmcrSNkAWA4mP_3oRmuaGbFILojodMdxPGheUitI3yVaKYs3qFZ1S1VvUScwRub2EXj_l20Acs1K2vL280fjaTuCgp70EHsUoq2splA2U/s1600/CherryBlossom.JPG" height="400" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">After undertaking the longest spring-cleaning
process of my life, I’m now able to bask in my first luxurious London spring
with, literally, a lot less baggage than I had before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s less time spent in shops, and
more time on park benches with my laptop or a book, birds jumping around in green
grass before me as the gentle breeze scatters cherry blossom petals from the
trees above.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Sure, I’m very <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">very</i> far from being a minimalist, adjustments of this nature take
time to materialize and require a great deal of practice. But the burden of my
worldly possessions is immensely lighter already, and that’s added buoyancy to
my spirit, something I’m very eager to keep afloat.</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Richness
is not having many possessions. Rather, true richness is the richness of the
soul” –Hadith of the last Prophet (pbuh)</span></div>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
Dewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17618123767557603812noreply@blogger.com5London, UK51.508515 -0.1254871999999522851.192402 -0.77093419999995227 51.824628000000004 0.51995980000004771tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638413944983068358.post-75601305084128923872013-07-21T20:13:00.001+04:002013-08-02T21:15:01.918+04:00My favourite things in the UAE: a bittersweet blog<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">About four months ago I started photographing some of my favourite
things in the Dubai, and neighbouring areas, where I’ve lived for the past
eight years. I took snapshots of locally available food items, unique restaurants
and cultural and social spaces that have become dear to me over the years and,
in the end, have made this place feel like home. I planned to compile the photos
into a blog, along with a short description of each of my choices, to give others
a glimpse into some of the valuable little discoveries that have enlivened my
daily experience living in the UAE.<span style="color: red;"></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I didn’t realise when I started the creative process that by the time I
actually got around to putting this blog together, I would be less than 10 days
away from leaving Dubai indefinitely. This project ended up being more for me
than anyone else – a way of capturing some of the fleeting colours and flavours
of my daily life that are easy to take for granted, but that I will miss dearly
when I move away early next month.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The key reason it took me so long to write the blog, or any other for
that matter, is that I’ve been channelling my energy and free time since late
March into building my first-ever scrapbook. A dear colleague of mine left me
with a book full of empty cardboard-coloured sheets before she moved to London
in the spring, and suggested I make a scrapbook of my time in Dubai. An
arts-and-crafts novice, I looked at the 60-odd blank pages with an overwhelming
sense of nostalgia and great enthusiasm. My mind started to whirl at random with
the treasure chest of memories I could include in this book.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc_J1YgBsV5pu-wtDM_Jy3m6aML0PoaILy5FZRUhkD41TBrWSHPfmiIwI0DwkQWoKWlGfVEQqLYU7OmpUIuBpfuW-G1Qrw8ib0O_Ijo-wgB-7g_FlhkLKuFWmmEMrjpxBM96eS7MM9TmY/s1600/scrap2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc_J1YgBsV5pu-wtDM_Jy3m6aML0PoaILy5FZRUhkD41TBrWSHPfmiIwI0DwkQWoKWlGfVEQqLYU7OmpUIuBpfuW-G1Qrw8ib0O_Ijo-wgB-7g_FlhkLKuFWmmEMrjpxBM96eS7MM9TmY/s320/scrap2.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">There were literally thousands of photos I’d taken over the years
languishing in dormant files on my laptop and external hard drive, lost in an
abyss of electronic memory, never to be printed or revisited. I immediately
started sifting through the dozens of photo files to piece together a somewhat
chronological tapestry of the past eight years. It was a daunting task. I must
have visited the Digi Photo studio in Dubai Mall about 10 times and printed more
than 250 photographs. Along with printed e-mails, letters, greeting cards and
notes, business cards, tickets, logos, maps and other trinkets I’ve collected
over the years, these pictures have since filled my Dubai scrapbook to the brim
with a whirlwind of documented moments.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">When I started my scrapbook in late March, I had no idea that within a
month, I would also be planning a move to London to pursue a sudden opportunity
within my company. The scrapbook I had started suddenly became much more
meaningful and urgent. I endeavoured to complete it before I left, as a way of
expressing gratitude and appreciation to the people, places and precious
moments that have fundamentally moved me over the years. It’s now more than 90
percent complete, with just a couple of blank pages remaining to fill with those
final moments that will round off this momentous chapter of my life.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Creating this book has been a labour of love that I’ve worked on quite
obsessively in recent months, very often spending hours sitting with scissors,
coloured paper, and double-sided tape as I diligently pieced together themed
pages in a somewhat chronological order. As I flip through its pages now, my
Dubai scrapbook provides an overview of the (four) jobs I’ve had since I moved
to this city, the many colleagues I worked with, the business and leisure trips
that I took, the precious friends I’ve made and the series of unforgettable
experiences that will remain with me for years to come. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOQ3Dd_NBkhVyQdPRFImi1Fimk4e1pgxXTR3L7NyBYzgLYg23S_5xZK96xwLbHIWhcREXVDMuBSAcZmahcKNsEC1rGYJt-0EfmUJ19DYvfDYDJIsf5h5CD9N3lAIK31868vP3ABH4NJC4/s1600/scrapbook.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOQ3Dd_NBkhVyQdPRFImi1Fimk4e1pgxXTR3L7NyBYzgLYg23S_5xZK96xwLbHIWhcREXVDMuBSAcZmahcKNsEC1rGYJt-0EfmUJ19DYvfDYDJIsf5h5CD9N3lAIK31868vP3ABH4NJC4/s320/scrapbook.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">During the process of searching for material, I stumbled upon a letter I
had written to God on my flight from Canada to Dubai in July 2005. I hadn’t
seen that letter in almost eight years and I realised, quite miraculously, as I
read the words that every wish and hope I had jotted down on that one-way trip,
had since come true. That note is now tucked away in the front sleeve in my
scrapbook, and serves as an unassuming introduction to the rich anthology of
experiences that followed. I also dedicated a few pages to my late father, God
bless his soul, who passed away three years ago, including a letter I wrote him
after he passed away. His e-mails to me during my early years in Dubai, when he
lived across the world in Vancouver, Canada, are dispersed throughout the book.
</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Now that my scrapbook project is near completion, and before I leave
what has become a dear home for a new adventure in London, I thought I would
finally take the time to share some of my favourite things in the UAE. I will
hopefully have more time very soon to start writing about my evolving spiritual
journey after a hiatus of many months. Sometimes along that journey it’s better
to absorb and reflect than to emit. </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">15 of my favourite things in
the UAE:</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">1) Marmum yogurt</span></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4RQYywWDX5l85JaYlXNrZCSuLvV3uRiIVF8hLg-0KgPB71qNUJb-8A3nGaPTmKRpEFF81_AexbFMMjN2DJnn-lr2O0gBUfPu0_xJ5UBqYi7eKYGBVQNyb_VrRStVf-90OfNzM7K9k4_E/s1600/marmumyum.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4RQYywWDX5l85JaYlXNrZCSuLvV3uRiIVF8hLg-0KgPB71qNUJb-8A3nGaPTmKRpEFF81_AexbFMMjN2DJnn-lr2O0gBUfPu0_xJ5UBqYi7eKYGBVQNyb_VrRStVf-90OfNzM7K9k4_E/s200/marmumyum.jpg" width="161" /></a><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I absolutely adore yogurt and one of my favourite things about Dubai is
that it locally produces the best yogurt I have ever had. Hands down. I tried
virtually every type of yogurt when I first moved to Dubai and Marmum was the
clear winner very early on, boasting the perfect creamy consistency that I
adore. It is especially good when combined with some honey and Muesli. I
introduced Marmum yogurt to one of my closest friends a few years ago. Shortly
afterward she admitted to buying giant tubs of the stuff and eating it like ice
cream. I will definitely be missing that almost-daily dose of my favourite
yogurt.</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">2) Modern Bakery</span></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnVwHFjKoO6NhWJ7gari163Whc7EhN41tjjaADyAgJT8a2F-BU5dN11LqA5PhrekrNmUXKLrtpvzVMItNo07EPAi7evAg3qRHrMGXA_fEVMQWPxjZiFimcjxT_ZTKzenESzPRqZHTBy88/s1600/bread.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnVwHFjKoO6NhWJ7gari163Whc7EhN41tjjaADyAgJT8a2F-BU5dN11LqA5PhrekrNmUXKLrtpvzVMItNo07EPAi7evAg3qRHrMGXA_fEVMQWPxjZiFimcjxT_ZTKzenESzPRqZHTBy88/s320/bread.JPG" width="320" /></a><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">While we’re on the subject of food, I come to another of my favourite
grocery-store picks. Living in the Middle East means that you will eat a good
deal of pita bread and, after a process of trial and error, I always choose
Modern Bakery variety brown and white pita loaves. The flavour is SO much
better than all of the others, which tend to be too sweet an aftertaste for my
palette. (The exception being the Carrefour bakery’s fresh, white pita bread,
which is also amazingly good) A large brown Modern Bakery pita, heated on the
stove top and eaten with the Al Marai variety of white cheese (in the blue
package) and some black Syrian olives (from Union Coop) is a real treat.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirMSSDR650_MVTr-CoJdnOXN-jN1uTvYCoQelFAbilVUXjQ84CU2BlXSbknrxD00yaGrAsH-EocmZFsMYatS0OMIxEFXHr1WwN-jFV_n4DvdRCCuUrQHLMYkxLC2Q1q7G0T-jqaITtN14/s1600/photo+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirMSSDR650_MVTr-CoJdnOXN-jN1uTvYCoQelFAbilVUXjQ84CU2BlXSbknrxD00yaGrAsH-EocmZFsMYatS0OMIxEFXHr1WwN-jFV_n4DvdRCCuUrQHLMYkxLC2Q1q7G0T-jqaITtN14/s320/photo+2.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">3) Zabeel Park</span></b><br />
<div style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6QuPC1fXfApLPpHSzaBwkhXcfxzW9GhvpCiJfkk9VB06rC_lnx0BPFX6g1cXN4K7X1L_0nz3PViAsj0wtFuW2dkSQ5k3jssikuwAtRy1LdQFd5G7Z5bqyEofXxc9OUpqXusw9SECWiwQ/s1600/photo+4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6QuPC1fXfApLPpHSzaBwkhXcfxzW9GhvpCiJfkk9VB06rC_lnx0BPFX6g1cXN4K7X1L_0nz3PViAsj0wtFuW2dkSQ5k3jssikuwAtRy1LdQFd5G7Z5bqyEofXxc9OUpqXusw9SECWiwQ/s320/photo+4.JPG" width="320" /></a><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Let’s take a (short) break from food and visit Zabeel Park. Long before
the Dubai metro, this park in Bur Dubai offered one of the only bridges that
enabled pedestrians to cross a busy Dubai highway. I often visited Zabeel for
walks when I lived in Bur Dubai between 2005 and 2009, and enjoyed w</span>alking
across the pedestrian bridge that connects to two sides of the park separated
by the Sheikh Rashid highway. Since I hadn’t been to Zabeel in a few years, I
went last week to capture a photo of the bridge, which proved to be an arduous
task, particularly at 2 p.m. in mid-July. I admit it wasn’t as romantic as I
remembered it. My sister and I were literally drenched in sweat and panting
from (and cursing) the suffocating heat by the time we crossed it, and only
managed to gather up enough energy for the return trip due to a miraculously
cool breeze, some “accidental” walks into sprinklers, and a pretty tree with
gorgeous white flowers.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYVAqe288dALukY6LASrNdL1dAO1mmBWzT5Q_9u6-3eQ9kzMIvl140tWJQy1ki76No8tit2oCExoLFsGFr7kJfpZa0SBiZC0MSlt-Tctpv_CzrXoWzLs8_pm49gCuBFMj6ulD4Uh8Clk8/s1600/1e3b5b18e9a211e19b9b22000a1e86b3_7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYVAqe288dALukY6LASrNdL1dAO1mmBWzT5Q_9u6-3eQ9kzMIvl140tWJQy1ki76No8tit2oCExoLFsGFr7kJfpZa0SBiZC0MSlt-Tctpv_CzrXoWzLs8_pm49gCuBFMj6ulD4Uh8Clk8/s320/1e3b5b18e9a211e19b9b22000a1e86b3_7.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">4) Mosque-shopping</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I did a lot of “window-shopping” for a mosque before I found one that I
absolutely love to visit weekly for Friday prayer. It's called the Galadari mosque, located along beach road in Jumeirah, not far from the
Jumeirah Beach Park. The women’s prayer areas in too many Islamic places of
worship in the UAE seem to have been a complete architectural afterthought –
too small and claustrophobic for us to find any spiritual comfort. Many of the
imams can also be excessively loud and aggressive, making it stressful to sit
through Friday sermons. So, I was quite relieved to stumble upon this lovely
mosque in Jumeirah about two years ago. The women’s prayer area is large, and
has a lovely mashrabiya overlooking the gorgeous lower prayer space. The imam’s
voice is melodic, always leaving me feeling comfortable and happy. I will immensely
miss my weekly visits.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9DNv0ayNptQQKmP2Ax47XIwMIDJRT1cInOO1f2p8_H8v_8Lgh3zI45q4ilBrqW7-U9FHHE2TPd0gY5UDlEPWqR2-wuTnbpsh5hVk6hxxpFAtCTazzDWvBPwlDTyyeWR1evuzWd2Tg9vM/s1600/378954d2db3011e2a1c022000a9e06ab_7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9DNv0ayNptQQKmP2Ax47XIwMIDJRT1cInOO1f2p8_H8v_8Lgh3zI45q4ilBrqW7-U9FHHE2TPd0gY5UDlEPWqR2-wuTnbpsh5hVk6hxxpFAtCTazzDWvBPwlDTyyeWR1evuzWd2Tg9vM/s320/378954d2db3011e2a1c022000a9e06ab_7.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">5) Bangkok Town</span></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCa979mcxNlPFMhkzYYS7xIuMs0MmszncOeRwwS3amoT6rHhAwH8HZseMT6CpqpgdHPFtvhVD5IWq9eaCMjSYWmowphyOxQEydzbiE9iFAeQnI-GSNPI3OLa0r-xsn6zk5ArmB1JMGKRI/s1600/BangkokTown.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCa979mcxNlPFMhkzYYS7xIuMs0MmszncOeRwwS3amoT6rHhAwH8HZseMT6CpqpgdHPFtvhVD5IWq9eaCMjSYWmowphyOxQEydzbiE9iFAeQnI-GSNPI3OLa0r-xsn6zk5ArmB1JMGKRI/s320/BangkokTown.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Okay, time to get back to food. One of my closest friends introduced me
to Thai food at the Blue Elephant in the Bustan Rotana in 2007, and ever since
it has been my favourite cuisine. I’ve tried many Thai restaurants over the
years and my favourite, by far, is Bangkok Town. The food and ambience are
fantastic, and the chicken green curry, mango salad and Tom Yum soups are
absolutely heavenly. No meal is complete without a relaxing cup of green tea
and a bowl of Tab Tim Grob, an icy dessert combining sweet coconut milk, water chestnuts
and jellies. This level of quality cuisine isn’t available in Dubai--you have
to head down to the Sharjah Corniche to satisfy your taste buds.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSIxjBTG0wAhqwro_t9YvG6BpXHTQEhZO41Udqqj-bmRA75vdFLkMy4o0KGVxhCBOWSNFqs0jB2ucgWpIbjx_yyxwRHCOyWHns7Kw5eydaTlbvAxFy2FqbSpyroQ_4W3tEWWgvuFRiqUc/s1600/Sino+Chai.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSIxjBTG0wAhqwro_t9YvG6BpXHTQEhZO41Udqqj-bmRA75vdFLkMy4o0KGVxhCBOWSNFqs0jB2ucgWpIbjx_yyxwRHCOyWHns7Kw5eydaTlbvAxFy2FqbSpyroQ_4W3tEWWgvuFRiqUc/s320/Sino+Chai.JPG" width="236" /></a></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">6) Sino Chai</span></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiTwTzWakhB74_s2XL81jkWXa4oQdEz1UhwBaxd03_mwN4ewZOjmCvv1MOvih6xiBY9pxRDUyVPLmD95KjbixP6MbZ24Xh-P8-Vm9yGL8B7QzrdMI6IuScCZ5NSeSzxjWYlxS1YvpTQ1s/s1600/IMG-20121201-04453.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiTwTzWakhB74_s2XL81jkWXa4oQdEz1UhwBaxd03_mwN4ewZOjmCvv1MOvih6xiBY9pxRDUyVPLmD95KjbixP6MbZ24Xh-P8-Vm9yGL8B7QzrdMI6IuScCZ5NSeSzxjWYlxS1YvpTQ1s/s320/IMG-20121201-04453.jpg" width="240" /></a><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Dubai also has some great cuisine, although for the best you need to
seek out the nooks and crannies of Karama, Deira and Satwa (plus Dubai Mall has the city's best burgers at Ribs and Rumps). My favourite
restaurant in Dubai is situated in the Healthcare City of all places – a lovely
Taiwanese teahouse that offers a delectable menu of carefully prepared dishes,
including outstanding spring onion pancakes, tofu cubes, sweet and sour fish,
pineapple prawns, a variety of beef, chicken and tofu dishes, all served with
germinated brown rice. For dessert, the black sesame ice cream is light and
delicious. There’s even an entire separate menu for cold and hot teas. My
personal favourite is the glass pot of hot black tea served with milk and
tapioca bulbs. For those of you who can’t fathom driving to the Healthcare City
for dinner, Sino Chai will be relocating near Dubai Mall before the end of the
year.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicICIkAKcUrYYwzEaCqPaQIuKnaHoy9XfqOnZB_azHDKZAiJhyp40pHLnPDMEHSggLYkg8-URZHwT4__5z_OiGPNQOKVbMg5rk4MEM37CBEbRgo5m1DvlEsr70nionstjvzwAceBtgqBc/s1600/pool.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicICIkAKcUrYYwzEaCqPaQIuKnaHoy9XfqOnZB_azHDKZAiJhyp40pHLnPDMEHSggLYkg8-URZHwT4__5z_OiGPNQOKVbMg5rk4MEM37CBEbRgo5m1DvlEsr70nionstjvzwAceBtgqBc/s320/pool.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">7) Roof-top pool</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">After consuming all those calories, it’s time for some exercise, and
one of my favourite pastimes in recent years has been swimming in my rooftop
pool. I love to swim, but I don’t like many people to be around when I do.
Luckily for me, barely anyone visits the 40<sup>th</sup>-floor pool in my
building after sunset, so I can do my laps in peace, and the exquisite view of
the Burj Khalifa isn’t so bad either.</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">8) Majaz</span></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2UxEcgOc8yDhbRr1ZKH8lm5qrLeBKK7qsKIELctIP3ezdXXEzHgNbi5pu_-MWWWZpNzrlbw6PcKIEe5DG1xjLLzL0i9Fkp0-bjBrY-Y9ZRXAYp1iXq-FjvLV0ArbkJDFdJc9D1jzy9Cg/s1600/ShajrahCorniche.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2UxEcgOc8yDhbRr1ZKH8lm5qrLeBKK7qsKIELctIP3ezdXXEzHgNbi5pu_-MWWWZpNzrlbw6PcKIEe5DG1xjLLzL0i9Fkp0-bjBrY-Y9ZRXAYp1iXq-FjvLV0ArbkJDFdJc9D1jzy9Cg/s320/ShajrahCorniche.JPG" width="320" /></a><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Speaking of exercise, something else that I love to do is walk. Dubai
is unfortunately not the most pedestrian-friendly city, aside from the malls,
and who wants to walk in a mall? I admit to absolutely hating the Dubai Marina,
which I rarely visit unless it’s to meet a friend (and it must be a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">very</i> dear friend). What I do love is the
Sharjah Corniche, which offers a good balance of coffee shops and restaurants
at Majaz, situated alongside spacious sidewalks that stretch across the length
of the lake. I’m a big fan of Sharjah, as you’ve probably deduced. Dubai
residents tend to chide the neighbouring emirate, but as a result miss out on
some amazing museums, and delicious food options, including Iraqi
masghouf-style fish, fabulous Pakistani, and scrumptious Ethiopian.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGj4vAzFcdPZav23hxYPoOvBV-swlm8S3qFMgHlaTGMPqJ4LqzV1vXlyOnRYEhp5sUZL3ga-5wpNqpEBRShttiNwaMfnYCroHjLWJRs4hR4YIw2l55mP_FFiJND1EZ-TPYpY9a6LhbSbI/s1600/IMG-20121202-04572.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGj4vAzFcdPZav23hxYPoOvBV-swlm8S3qFMgHlaTGMPqJ4LqzV1vXlyOnRYEhp5sUZL3ga-5wpNqpEBRShttiNwaMfnYCroHjLWJRs4hR4YIw2l55mP_FFiJND1EZ-TPYpY9a6LhbSbI/s320/IMG-20121202-04572.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">9) Ice cream</span></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKeBM1Qdhjys0TzLQrdrdUz59uqowhQrdawMKhL4Bb04rQOHeGciTs-4zr8_WCys_nP-DA_zlgiFC2aWbtaw7DhOxcDh6NzktVRLNJpqnCRCSGlaMVN3c7sT_1QeYXEq3JLysxikeUzh0/s1600/2012-11-09+19.12.49.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKeBM1Qdhjys0TzLQrdrdUz59uqowhQrdawMKhL4Bb04rQOHeGciTs-4zr8_WCys_nP-DA_zlgiFC2aWbtaw7DhOxcDh6NzktVRLNJpqnCRCSGlaMVN3c7sT_1QeYXEq3JLysxikeUzh0/s320/2012-11-09+19.12.49.jpg" width="238" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The best ice cream I have ever had is at a mom-and-pop shop in Sharjah
called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bouza</i>. There are two branches
in the city and they’re always bustling with regular customers stopping by for
a cup of freshly blended ice cream in a variety of fruit and nut flavours. This
little shop is a child’s dream come true. There are about 12 flavours to choose
from, all made fresh daily, and if you want to try all 12 in one five-dirham
cup or cone, you can! My personal favourites are the melon, lemon, guava, pistachio
and almond. The special rosewater flavour they had there earlier this month was
also quite heavenly. Who am I kidding, ALL the flavours are amazing.</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">10) Mamzar</span></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJOxnLNjKqgBGEnqxAySZ3epvWGhwdk9cIqCs0Dk_O_HUMtCjHGMvz_tsYn2E11odYdk-HYqthPvign6Uzl5xcJDu95Gax0THeQ_sBZVJMr44_bqvOgsXlP4X36SSjt3Mbm2T2N9kv3iA/s1600/Ola'sMom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJOxnLNjKqgBGEnqxAySZ3epvWGhwdk9cIqCs0Dk_O_HUMtCjHGMvz_tsYn2E11odYdk-HYqthPvign6Uzl5xcJDu95Gax0THeQ_sBZVJMr44_bqvOgsXlP4X36SSjt3Mbm2T2N9kv3iA/s320/Ola'sMom.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">My favourite park in Dubai is Mamzar Park, located at the edge of Deira,
across from Sharjah. This park offers a gorgeous combination of beaches and
greenery, and something I LOVE, but didn’t get a photo of, are the swings. I
can literally swing for hours. </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">11) Love birds</span></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6AiC38mGZwhy7DtrTGFxRxxHKyU2pYbDCUtzAIHW9B8ulo2v6ywUghCXWlY_IaIoueGltsv4vu9-Ay1rl1zwux08gs2RfHpGsnHhgbthvaYahHswrERmVZZ-92B9ODSERXREoQvSdTBA/s1600/2012-10-07+08.26.15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6AiC38mGZwhy7DtrTGFxRxxHKyU2pYbDCUtzAIHW9B8ulo2v6ywUghCXWlY_IaIoueGltsv4vu9-Ay1rl1zwux08gs2RfHpGsnHhgbthvaYahHswrERmVZZ-92B9ODSERXREoQvSdTBA/s320/2012-10-07+08.26.15.jpg" width="320" /></a><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Time to stop at home again because I really enjoy spending time in my
apartment. Being from beautiful Vancouver, Canada, I’m used to being surrounded
by gorgeous vegetation, birds, bees and squirrels and other wildlife. Don’t
have much of that in the 40-storey, highway-facing concrete slab that is my
home. But there’s always a way to bring a little of God’s gorgeous nature your
way – especially with the help of some bird seed. I now have many daily
visitors outside my kitchen window and I’m praying they’ll find someone new to
keep them nourished when I move.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3afBqv2gDG4LFFEEOvHKq4E28JVGFtGkolyhIN420KdC0tuIFR4PystzmNXGl2cDlDawEVv5zAP8ZN_yGd5K75pflKJe9GeRDe2yxdxadzfljbqTAvsDxJoGHu9bloFu-AccXKGa_qLA/s1600/AlMerziban.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3afBqv2gDG4LFFEEOvHKq4E28JVGFtGkolyhIN420KdC0tuIFR4PystzmNXGl2cDlDawEVv5zAP8ZN_yGd5K75pflKJe9GeRDe2yxdxadzfljbqTAvsDxJoGHu9bloFu-AccXKGa_qLA/s320/AlMerziban.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">12) Housing developments named
after you</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Only in Dubai could I have an entire housing development named after me
– quite literally. It’s on the Palm Jumeirah, an artificial island shaped like
the frond of a palm tree and visible from space. One of the residential
neighbourhoods situated on the outer edge of the palm, just past the tunnel
near the Atlantis hotel, is called Al Merziban, named after a variety of sweet
date that’s apparently native to the UAE. Beat that!</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjahQACbZNpPxNJvUS9RlqYG-UTR80bgdrmZcYTBnxNlBeg5ta4VYq6ihH2E3eiQR_JOicVQmbG99dksBJH3UL1unt897mXWjz9BqumThAaru106_fg5UAomcjaFlrFjNeOrMvCZqzsl08/s1600/Desert.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjahQACbZNpPxNJvUS9RlqYG-UTR80bgdrmZcYTBnxNlBeg5ta4VYq6ihH2E3eiQR_JOicVQmbG99dksBJH3UL1unt897mXWjz9BqumThAaru106_fg5UAomcjaFlrFjNeOrMvCZqzsl08/s320/Desert.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">13) The desert</span></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjiUFq1-V_U6J4UQycd065VtUeU0NTp769-6eqgtRxaVMPYPIu5E0Ng0Y95wZk3Lo3yVir3WYB3liHTnhqJQ8X-QTZRpnDJhi-bxgQ5RzpGDcFXoGHtx6nL7S4oO3qNBRNdqUJuYBzqWM/s1600/Rihla.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjiUFq1-V_U6J4UQycd065VtUeU0NTp769-6eqgtRxaVMPYPIu5E0Ng0Y95wZk3Lo3yVir3WYB3liHTnhqJQ8X-QTZRpnDJhi-bxgQ5RzpGDcFXoGHtx6nL7S4oO3qNBRNdqUJuYBzqWM/s320/Rihla.JPG" width="320" /></a><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The deserts around the UAE and Oman are just glorious, not least for
the diverse shades of sand that can be found. Instead of speaking about the
deserts, I’ll spend a moment recounting an art installation that I saw earlier
this year at the Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilisation called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rihla</i>, or Journey. Elvira Wersche, a
German artist, went across the world and collected dozens of samples of sand. She
laid these multi-coloured sands down on the floor separately in fantastic
Islamic geometric shapes. At the end of the installation, all the sands are
mixed together into one greyish combination and given away – a reminder, for
me, of the oneness of all of the world’s richly diverse communities.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8-NzZhnnSAS34gKN48cs-d-vLwoSB8dDT_KLYU5W1SGJmMiWQP8FzjRomrG4YN_lFrhYQkZXEMg44uqfVhCtdCmgLH6earOprMzRCG8W-Fd1Pbqph5ALN8ZZ-L5P8-U4LuCsadsdHzWE/s1600/Islamic+Museum.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8-NzZhnnSAS34gKN48cs-d-vLwoSB8dDT_KLYU5W1SGJmMiWQP8FzjRomrG4YN_lFrhYQkZXEMg44uqfVhCtdCmgLH6earOprMzRCG8W-Fd1Pbqph5ALN8ZZ-L5P8-U4LuCsadsdHzWE/s320/Islamic+Museum.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">14) Museums</span></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9Av_KsowCoVfv21MTWDkFk_lczy1qoHGkxpB-DNkkYnbt3LCPShfkS7YWWKURNW2ENXEpRWI9Ir_JRby0iNTBdK_6tYuklG-5ECVjn1rVa-uAZNPlM4QOxgD84kz3pjW9hMLtfivoDTI/s1600/Camel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9Av_KsowCoVfv21MTWDkFk_lczy1qoHGkxpB-DNkkYnbt3LCPShfkS7YWWKURNW2ENXEpRWI9Ir_JRby0iNTBdK_6tYuklG-5ECVjn1rVa-uAZNPlM4QOxgD84kz3pjW9hMLtfivoDTI/s320/Camel.jpg" width="320" /></a><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">While we’re on the subject of cultural activities, museum hopping is
also possible in the UAE, believe it or not. But you have to be willing to take
a bit of a drive. One of my favourite spots is Arabia’s Wildlife Centre,
petting zoo and the Natural History and Botanical Museum located on Al Dhaid
Road, past the Sharjah Airport in the direction of Fujairah. Really worth a
visit, even if you don’t have children. Sharjah has about 16 museums to choose
from.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhirFQrvYfWDg_m_lWmB6Bm2bNEXj96lsI0zi5-g7BIq5Us4MBFeWtoXrY1jGUtEr5NyH_OlV_Mtg0b8_w09KiNE2pTcjBnKCtkv0XNhBb3s4wmu8EHLi50gUmPStfHOW-rRb9eTm4Zfec/s1600/photo+1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhirFQrvYfWDg_m_lWmB6Bm2bNEXj96lsI0zi5-g7BIq5Us4MBFeWtoXrY1jGUtEr5NyH_OlV_Mtg0b8_w09KiNE2pTcjBnKCtkv0XNhBb3s4wmu8EHLi50gUmPStfHOW-rRb9eTm4Zfec/s320/photo+1.JPG" width="239" /></a></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">15) Date Trees</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">While strolling through Jumeirah with my mom about six months ago, she
stopped suddenly in front of a date tree and admired it for a few moments. Looking
at the tree reminded her of her childhood in Egypt and how it differed vastly
from her adult years in North America. After living in various Canadian cities
for more than a decade, she recalled moving to California in the early 1990s
and how the sight of palm trees brought her immense joy because they reminded
her of the Middle East. Speaking to the date tree in front of us, she said in
Arabic: </span><span class="st"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">"I didn't know you were my love until I lived
far away from you.” </span></span></div>
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<span class="st"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I am almost certain I will feel the same way very
soon.</span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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Dewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17618123767557603812noreply@blogger.com3Dubai - United Arab Emirates25.271139 55.30748500000004224.3507025 54.01659150000004 26.191575500000003 56.598378500000045