Eid and Dress

We're slowly approaching one of the most anticipated days for the Muslim, the joyous festivities of Eid! The environment of that entire day is different. You wake up to the waft of deliciously home cooked breakfast and as you make your way out of bed, you are greeted with warm hugs and kisses from your family. You eagerly race your siblings down the flight of stairs to get your favorite seat at the breakfast table. Mom is thanked for the first time in many accounts for her efforts and you reminisce about past Eids with your siblings. Everyone then rushes to clean themselves up and throw on their freshly pressed outfits they have been savoring  for this occasion. This is the biggest dilemma for a girl. You open the closet and you are stumped on what to wear. Parents and siblings are of no help, in fact they pressure you to make a decision fast because the front rows of the Masjid are going to fill up! Thankfully this year I am semi-prepared for this moment. Heres a look into my Eid outfit.

                                                                                   

Inshaa Allah, I hope everyone has a happy fasting and an especially celebratory Eid! Make sure to ring in the special day with Dhikr (increased rememberance and praise to Allaah)  and Takbir :)

Technology is.....INSANE!!!

The other day, a friend and I were discussing how the new iphone operates to make us illiterate as well as geographically ignorant. It comes with a feature that allows you to point to a building and both its address and directions are read to you by the monitor. What happened to reading street signs and road maps?!?!?!!! OMG I dont want to imagine what kind of world younger generations will grow up in. This is just ridiculous.

Technology is slowly advancing to make us more and more dormant, its scary. Just when I thought nothing could top the 'convenient' quality of the iphone, I was proved wrong. I recently read about a new device posted on IslamOnline that is named 'the sixth sense' because it does exactly that. It is a system that works with the environment to project information about what surrounds you over objects' surfaces. It is a mini-projector coupled with a camera and a cellphone, which acts like a computer. You could be sitting on the bus and the passenger right next to you could potentially be researching your information and recieve it on the palm of their hands---INSANE.
Did you forget your cellphone and need to make a call? Simply extend your hand infront of the projector and numbers will appear for you to click--INSANE.
Forgot your watch as you were rushing out in the morning and need to know the time? Draw a circle on your wrist and a watch will appear--INSANE.
Anyways you get the point, I should have taken up marketing lol. Here's a link to the video.
Just as a heads-up, please expect more gadgets of this nature as more information emerges continually as a result of rapid research into the various subjects of science and technology...just what we need....DEEEE-LIGHT :)

The Power of Language

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Entering a foreign country, whose culture and language is completely different from our existing practices is an experience that is all too familiar to many of us, whether we left for travel or even worse, decided to settle in this new country. This can be a devastating experience as many of their beliefs and values not only differ but sometimes even contradict your very own. Adopting this new culture and ambitiously forcing yourself to learn the language in order to communicate and assimilate can be extremely time consuming and at times raise feelings of anxiety. Many times, you feel isolated and ignored simply because there is a barrier separating you from the inhabitants of this new land, and you almost always can't benefit from their social services because of this language constraint. In an attempt to survive and maintain your sanity, you vigilantly bring yourself to learn this new language. 

Years later, after many hardships of mistakenly grabbing the wrong items in grocery stores because you failed to read the label, and chuckles across the street as you nervously stumble upon words to ask for directions, you master this new language. Upon doing so, you feel a sense of liberty and are no longer confined and dependent on others for survival. You are an independent person and you happily pat yourself in the back for working hard at eradicating your own barriers and integrating yourself into the body of this new society. 

This is how I feel about not being able to understand the language of Islam. It is in a way a form of entrapment and I can only free myself by learning this beautiful language. Many questions are raised and I always feel dependent on people of the language to interpret the written texts for me and I am incapable of contributing my thoughts and ideas so they're tucked away and ignored. Although, I consider myself a person who is well aware of the religion (Alhamdulilah) I will not feel completely assimilated into Islam so long as I can't understand the language. I have made a decision to embark on a quest to find my voice in Islam and learn this language upon graduation inshaa Allah. Similar to the need in learning the language of an unfamiliar country for purposes of survival, I want to learn this language for survival of my beliefs, values and devotion in Islam bi ' ithnillah.