Wednesday 29 August 2007

JIMAS

Another JIMAS conference gone by and I'm left feeling tired and exhausted but not quite wanting to be back.

Some Benefits of attending the JIMAS Conference.

Sisterhood/brotherhood. Different ages, race, backgrounds, professions. Meeting brothers and sisters that you only see once a year at JIMAS!
A few sisters and I played 'guess what race percentages' (ourselves) and our children are- it was humorous to say the least, (other sisters looked on like we were a tad crazy.)

Fresh Green Air, close to nature, green trees and plenty of weeping willows (my favorite!)

Being among the people of knowledge who all differ in their beautiful, charismatic, dynamic and humorous personalities.

Knowledge - each teacher/scholar taught us in a variety of different ways you actually remember what you listened to and don't get bored of 3 days of lectures.

Keeping fit - walking to and from lectures, lunch, salah all day for 3 days - you certainly feel the effects on the body.

Family time. Back in your rooms there is no internet, cooking, laundry or distractions - just the family. You're 'forced' to spend quality time together :-)

Safety. You actually let your children run around here and there and know that they are safe with sisters looking out for each others children.

Alkauthar revision :-) The finance seminars for the first time didn't go over my head thanks to my teacher Sheikh Abu Yusuf and the Alkauthar Real Deal course. I found myself engrossed in what Tarek Al Diwany had to say about the monetary/banking systems, keen to hear more and captivated by the seminar on inheritance.
I cant wait till The Real Deal 201!

Ok here's the girly bit. I can't forget shopping can I? Being able to shop in a halal music free environment. A vast selection of fabrics, cuts, styles in Abaya's and Hijaab and the once a year opportunity to find the 'perfect' Niqaab for you that aren't always available locally.
Some sisters actually let their customers take items home without paying, promising that they will send a cheque when they get back home. Thats what I call real trust.

And Cons? - The Price? Yes its more expensive than previous years, but is without a doubt worth it. And today I recieved a cheque through the post from tax returns that I had forgotten about - when you spend in the way of Allah - Allah always gives back more. SubhanAllah.

Anyway Here's more on JIMAS....

Monday 20 August 2007

Don’t just blame the parents; blame us too

It was better when we all took it upon ourselves to discipline children
Carol Sarler

Blame the parents, by all means. Blame the social workers, while you’re at it. Both are rational responses to the revulsion evoked when a mother and her boyfriend are convicted of murdering her four-year-old child over a prolonged period of 100 blows; not again, we say, not again. And then, three days after sentence was passed on Sharon Wright and Peter McKenzie-Seaton in Bradford, a couple are arrested in London for the suspicious death of their toddler and we cry not again. Again.

By the same token, we blame the parents for feral gangs who roam the streets; for violence, for crime, for unprecedented numbers of fatal shootings by gunslingers still only children themselves. Whether it is damage to children or damage by children, sensibly alarmed politicians turn their sights towards families and those professionally charged with effecting cure upon dysfunctional ones. The message reads clearly: they are your children, therefore your job and your responsibility – and, of course, they are. The less clear question, however, might be: are they solely the responsibility of those who raise them? Or should the civilian rest of us also reasonably be expected to play a bigger part?

Current thinking says no. Inadequacies within the insularity of the family are addressed by, for instance, “parenting classes” or, at the posh end, “family therapy”, both designed to address the inadequacies while retaining the insular structure of the unit. In the light of the manifest failure of such an approach, is it time to wonder whether the root of the problems lies in the insularity itself?

The model of the nuclear family, apparently accepted without question by those who seek to nurture it, is not, I venture, entirely historically correct. Its emergence, according to conventional wisdom, is explained something like this: once upon a time, we all lived in enormous, sprawling multigenerational families, paying feudal dues and doffing caps to his liege as young and old scratched a happy living in bucolic pastures where we slept with our goats and breast-fed our chickens – until along came the Industrial Revolution and blew the whistle for time. The need for a mobile workforce became paramount, so the population helpfully parcelled itself into two-generation families, moved into two-up two-downs and slammed the front door behind them.
Police chief calls for alcohol ban in public

Cheshire Chief Constable stepped up his campaign on drink-related youth crime today with call for ban on street-drinking

* Police chief calls drinks industry to account for yob culture

* A daughter’s last letter to father killed tackling gang of vandals

* Father who confronted gang 'was best dad'

Which, I suppose, was pretty much the gist of it, save this: it does not tally with personal observation. Those front doors slammed not in the 19th century, but only in the past few years. In the street where my mother was raised (urban, poor) and, even more recently, in the street where I was raised (shires, middle) the doors of the family units were open – literally and otherwise.

Everybody involved themselves with the maintenance of other people’s children; should a child bunk off school for the day, every adult in the street would know and would think nothing of reprimanding him. We took it for granted that there were eyes everywhere: “Hey, young Sarler! Cut it out! Now!” And when two teenage girls were trusted alone in the house overnight and elected to – how shall I put this? – have a few friends around, our parents came home the next day to a disorderly queue of neighbours busting guts to tell them about it. BLEEP.

The corollary, however, was that if it was inconceivable that we could misbehave without being spotted, so it was inconceivable that anybody could misbehave towards us without equal scrutiny; paedophilia existed, but was scant terror given that pretty much everyone – especially the children – knew who, what and where lay the local kiddie-fiddlers. Strangers they were not.

As for parents of ineptitude or ill intent, they could not possibly have systematically beaten a child to a deathly pulp in one of our streets. It wasn’t just a matter of our being prepared to snitch to authorities, either; face-to-face confrontation was coded, but all understood what it meant. Mrs Jones would be asked, with an air of concern, if she was all right – looking a little tired, we thought; children getting you down? And Mr Jones was home so late last night . . . The Joneses, thus, would know that we knew.

This may well be too much of a Hovis commercial for your taste and naturally it is not a full social snapshot. Nevertheless, in many respects it was better than what followed when, as every sitcom cast a character to remind us, neighbour came to mean nosy and nosy to mean bad. We became fearful of the accusation of interfering in other people’s lives, let alone in other people’s children and – as that made us unknown to the children and they to us – we became fearful of the children themselves.

Last week, in the dappled sunshine of a London park, I did tick off a bunch of brats: surly, early teens who were being horrid to our dog, or I surely would neither have bothered nor, probably, dared. Certainly, there was anxiety; you hear such stories; don’t they all carry knives these days?

The thing is, though, they were local kids – had to be, to be there at all. And if I had engaged with them in the past when they were much smaller, I would have known their names and homes and schools and very likely wouldn’t have felt nervous at all. But I hadn’t, so I didn’t and next time, for all I know, the dog gets it.

Because of our mutual unfamiliarity I may be at risk – and so, in their homes, may they. Two sides of the same chasm. All in the interests of what? Privacy? Rights? Minding our own business?

Hillary Clinton, in 1996, contentiously borrowed from an old African saying and applied to America the idea that “it takes a village to raise a child”. She was roundly condemned, most notably by Robert Dole, who retorted briskly that, no, it doesn’t; it takes a family.

A decade later, with children dying and with children killing, we may ask why we should have to choose between the two positions. The probable truth is that it is now as it ever was: we still need both.

Friday 17 August 2007

Do all good things come to an end?

Only in this world.

When three friends so dear to you (including a teacher) leave the country within the space of a few weeks - whether its to the UAE or Europe, it really reminds you that everything in this world is temporary.

Yet another reason to strive to please Allah. So that InshaAllah we can be with those whom we love in Janaat.

Sunday 12 August 2007

Hands On Dawa!

Alhamdulillah we had a few new sisters at the Adab class this week. One of the new Muslim sisters, an English sister who reverted a few months ago, knew of a Pakistani family in her local community.

She went to visit them before the class and said to them, 'If I can go to the mosque then so can you!' And dragged them to the class with her!

Monday 6 August 2007

Abeer Hamza

Taken from muslimmatters.org
In memory of our sister, Abeer al-Janabi…

See also: Injustice, Injustice, Injustice
[graphic content, not suitable for children].

Sunday 5 August 2007

A Bleak Future?

After having dinner at my father in laws today we decided to pop by my sister in Laws house before heading home. We arrived to see the street filled with people and a fire engine parked on the street.

Some boys had set fire to her neighbors (whom we also know) back garden shed. Why? Well simply because the boys were hanging around doing no good around her back garden and she had politely asked them to leave.

Her shed had burned to complete ashes along with a plastic slide and her swimming pool that were inside (the fumes were probably almost as dangerous as the flames.)

The seriousness of the matter was evident on a tree in the next garden behind her shed - the leaves had blackened all the way to the top.

Here comes the Bleak bit... the boys were only 7 years old.

Later on emerged rumors of more shootings in the Moss side area (where she lives) of Manchester. She was used to it now she said, it wasn't unusual for her to arrive back home from somewhere only to find the neighborhood partitioned of and blockaded with police patrol vehicles unable to go to her house. (Related Article here.)

I found myself feeling slightly fearful as we left the neighborhood to come home.

Then It dawned on me that this is probably less than a percent of the fear that innocent Iraqi and Palestinian civilians have to live with every day of their lives.

And speaking of Fear I urge all of you to raise your hands and sincerely make dua for four brothers who are forcibly being repatriated from Guantánamo Bay to Algeria on Monday, August 6, 2007.

Amongst these prisoners is Ahmed Belbacha, a former British resident of Algerian origin, who was cleared for release by the U.S in February 2007 after having been deemed to ‘pose no threat’ to the USA.Urgent action is required for Ahmed Belbacha. Please visit Cageprisoners here for more information.

Thursday 2 August 2007

I thought I'd share this.


I love this recitation. Listen to it - it's not too long.
Surah Yaseen by Ibraheem Al-Jibreen

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