I Have A Blog, How Odd.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007 @ 10:21 PM

i just found out that all my heroes are parasites

Dawn.

The call to prayer goes off as i lumber myself off to the bathroom like a rotting zombie. Usually i'd just stand real close to the bathroom door to terrify my dad of my horrible morning face. Its what gets me laughing, but today, i am just too tired.

Then comes wudhu along with its famous ice cold water, like just any other Yugoslavia morning. Frozen and chilled to the bone, a feeling of weariness takes over me as i laid out the prayer mat. Prayed as fast as I could.

The last chapter of this dawn begins: the dua. Unfortunately, as I was asking for Allah's mercy, I got some of my bad breath bouncing off my hand and going into my nostril instead. This struck me like a fist in the face, like an ice cube on fire, like a salt in the wound. Man, i hated that smell.

And so I thought to myself, if i wouldnt dare talking to people in public with the breath, how dare I talk to my Creator with this llama breath.

So i told myself to make it a point to start brushing my teeth before every prayer, not only just for Subuh prayer.

Abu Malik Ash’ari related that Rasulullah (saw) said: Cleanliness is half of the religion.

[Sahih Muslim]

‘Aishah related that Rasulullah (saw) said: The toothstick purifies the mouth, and pleases Allah.

[Sahih Bukhari]

Abu Hurairah related that Rasulullah (saw) said: If I did not find it difficult for my followers, I would have ordered them to clean their teeth with Miswak for every Salat.

[Sahih Bukhari & Muslim]

Indeed what the Prophet (saw) said was true, it is difficult. But, as the cliche Islamic statement goes, the greater the struggle, the greater reward one would get.

Look, i say whether you have miswak or not, i would still prefer and recommend you use toothbrushes and Colgate instead of the Miswak. Why? The Miswak, it was the best instrument to clean the mouth with at that time and age.

Right now, the best instrument is the toothbrush.

So brush your teeth before every solat! ( if i was a Muslim dentist i'd say that to my patients)

Friday, June 22, 2007 @ 10:38 PM

And so last night, with a click of the send button, i sent my reply to my cousin who is in a sticky situation...tongue in cheek of course.

Sawaaaadeeeekaappppp!!!

Dude, i like how you slipped the "by the way I watch it too" in there. Remind me not to shake your hand!!!!!!!!! I'm pretty sure that your friend knows its Haram but he just needs some extra guilt to slap him silly. Here's my suggestion:

You make your own porn movie. Only it's not really a porn movie because right when the actors are about to get their hanky panky on they say "Hey, you know what? This sucks. Let's become Muslim"

And so they embrace Islam and the porno duo spread dakwah throughout the entire "porn video" by going to porn addicts and telling them why its Haram. Porn addicts usually look up to porn actors so hopefully this celebrity endorsement works.

Finally, you end the video with a surprise twist ending by having a special interview with your friend's mom who says "My son, please stop watching porn. It's disgusting and i hate it" to which she ends the video with a thumbs down.

Save the movie as bestpornever.mpg and leave it on his desktop. If that doesn't stop his porno tendencies i don't know what will.

Peace out.

Oh well, i woke up the next morning only to find an sms from him which read...

You moron. I would love to kick your arse all the way to bangkok if i could. But then. you're still my cousin and i love you for that.

Seriously, he could really kick my arse if he wanted to...but then bangkok is way too far out...buangkok should be more convenient.

P.S. JENIFFER LOVE HEWITT IS SUCHA DOLL. *swoons*

I received a pretty disturbing e-mail from my cousin who's studying at NTU. I shudder at the very thought of me being in my cousin's shoes.

SALAAAAM!!!!!!!!!!

Bro, you have got to help me! I live in residence with this guy who happens to be muslim and sometimes at night, i see him watching porn on his lappie. He thinks i'm asleep but no!!! I'm awake!!!!! Its a small room too so its kinda nasty knowing how close he is to me. Its disgusting and he has gigs upon gigs of pornography!! And not just haram porn but like REALLY REALLY haram porn! And sometimes when he's gone i watch it too but astagfirullah i shouldnt!!! How do i tell him without offending him?

Najib

My first thoughts upon reading the e-mail was ''Holy crap!!! You have got to be f***ing kidding me!!!

I'm thinking up of a reply...but somehow, nothing is coming up.

PORN = NASTY

In all seriousness...i hereby declare that i am a 24 year old virgin.

Not only am i not ashamed of it but also i have confidence in knowing i've had as much control of my sexuality as a 24 year old can in this day and age.

I'm not afraid to talk about sex because i'm not afraid of it. I have confronted it, we had a nice chat and i told it to bugger off for now, it's not the right time for me.

Sex is natural, spiritual and we have guidelines to use it in a personally, morally and socially responsible way. It is a priviliage, not a right. A privilage to married couples in monogomous relationships...

So anyways... i was on the train to work and since i didn't have my iPod shuffle with me, i like to try and either clear my head of all thoughts or think up acceptence speeches or sometimes i think of academicish stuff...

Then...bang! Virginity popped in my head from nowhere.

Virginity... usually brings up thought of wifeliness... there is that common phrase 'virgin bride' and by all means i think it's a good thing. but when was the last time someone took the time to think about virgin grooms?

I mean considering the accessibility to sex for young males here in SG and that more and more are doing it , I start to wonder... how many just won't admit they have had sex?

How important is it to the female that the guy be a virgin?

I mean it's not like you can prove or disprove a guy is a virgin... there is a greater and greater assumption that guys should have sex... and it does bug me from time to time.

Sex isn't important enough to be respected, but it's important enough to be had and in massive quantities... kinda like the ladies it's had with...

Hmm... do the ladies even appreciate that we go out of our way (which we actually have to sometimes ) to avoid sex, sexiness and sexificationocity?

It's so abundant these days that i'm suprised i don't fall into a pile of naked people when i'm surfing the internet avoiding all the porno ads... i mean really it's friggin everywhere and it's actually getting annoying... i mean heck!

I was even hit on by a gay guy once at Somerset ... i don't swing that way, but i'm sure i'm not the only guy to have that happen.

How important is a virgin groom? What's the value on my virginity? Do we realize how much we avoid sex to stay virgins?

I'm sure the better muslims out there don't think about sex enough to see it that way, to them it's just part of being good... for others who aren't on the straightest and narrowest paths, it's like being on the phone with a telemarketer...

I'll leave it here for now as my thoughts were never really fully formed.

P.S. No, i really don't know how that telemarketer analogy fits...

How often do you hear yourself say, “i’m depressed”, “i feel down” or even “i am one depressed dude” (which may be followed by some serious head-banging). I’m going to generalise and say, we all do it quite often. I mean, i hear it ALL the time! From friends, family, colleagues, my brain, random people on the street….everywhere really. This could be a result of one of two things. Either the entire human race is suffering from depression, or in fact we tend to be overdramatic and misuse the word.

*flips open a dictionary*

According to a random dictionary, depression is ….sadness, gloom, emotional dejection, despair, pessimism… so is someone really going to argue that we ALL suffer from depression like ALL the time? Nah...i don’t think so. Let us ponder for a moment as to why we think we may be depressed…hmm ok i’m done pondering, I’ll tell you why. This may shock/offend you…but it’s a fact. We are ungrateful. Yup, that’s it. A universal truth of mankind and it is the main contributory factor to our so-called “depression”.

We get dragged into this warped version of reality, in which material things take over our lives. Instead of “Subhanallah, Insya Allah, Masya Allah”, it’s the slightly selfish “Me, Me, Me”. We are forgetful creatures, us humans. Not the dope i can’t believe i forgot your anniversary thingy kind, but more like i’ve just managed to get out of this life threatening situation, so lets jump into a pool of flesh eating piranhas.

It takes less than a moment for us to forget what we have, and think about what we don’t have. Perhaps its society that has made us this way, but that doesn’t make it more acceptable. There are so many things that trigger our “depression”…like not achieving the grades we want, arguments with people, not being able to afford things we want, not being happy with the way we look, feeling life is unfair…if I tried to list everything i’d be sitting here for the next 50 posts i reckon. The pattern you may or may not have noticed by now is that our depression tends to be a result of general discontentment. It’s sad to think about.

The only way we can get out of this trap is by changing our attitude. This may not necessarily mean changing the glasses or contacts you wear, but more of your perception of the world. For example, if you get results for an exam and it turns out that you do worse than you hoped…the usual way to react would be to;

a) cry
b) get angry and curse yourself/examiner or
c) cry and then get angry and curse yourself/examiner.

But, instead of thinking…My life is over! My parents are going to kill me, or if they don’t i’ll do it myself! Being a Muslim means we need to handle the situation in a different way. Even with patience and tolerance perhaps. It’s not an ‘I get what I want or it’s the end of the world’ situation…but more of ‘I shall take this as an experience, lesson from God, a test if you may’. It’s not about the situations we get into, but more of how we deal with it.

It doesn’t even have to be a situation; in fact it could just be that you are unhappy about your nose or something. We do get depressed about things like that too and this issue is one we’ve all either had or have seen others have. I know it’s easier said…but when you look in the mirror and think ‘Woah dude! Like has that thing expanded!’ think again, as i’m sure it hasn’t.

We have to teach ourselves to say that wonderful word that we often forget… ‘Alhamdulillah’ Before thinking, before complaining, before we open our mouths to voice our depressions about our noses’…let us say ‘Alhamdulillah’. Is it not better to have a nose, and be able to smell the wonders of the aromas that come from the kitchen when your mum is cooking…or the scent of familiar things? So you have a big nose? You’ll get over it. It’s not something to get depressed about. If you want to see real depression i reckon you should go switch on a news channel…Paris Hilton getting jailed is depressing.

Just kidding.

Having my aunt's little kiddo at home last night was a blast. She's like my personal trained pet monkey. Went about teaching her the following skills:

1) Impersonate Cookie Monster.

2) Call everyone "Daddy" including her mom.

3) Spin around in a circle then be dizzy after.

4) How to poke people.

5) How to respond to EVERYTHING with an "insya Allah"

Man, the amount of useless crap i can teach her doubled when she learned how to walk. That said i'm pretty much in a bind.

The only thing that's stopping me from going is that i've got Hadith class on that very same night. Decisions, decisions, decisions...on whether to fill my friday night with a night of enjoyment or a night of blessed knowledge.

*tears hair out*