Islam is NOT Maths

It makes me sad you know - how people talk about Islam like it is maths. Its not maths. Islam is not an equation that you need to balance. Its a way of being, that comes from an intention and a love for God.

People ask: what is the ruling on this? What is the ruling on that? Islam has become a matter of five pillars - its this plus this plus this equals heaven and this plus this plus this equals hell.

Sample equation: "I do not show love to my parents, I con people out of money, I overcharge them, I do nothing for free, I am trying to get my neighbours evicted because I dont like them, I ha vent spoken to my brother in a year now - but its OK. Once a year I go to Hadj and it clears me of my sins and I start again."

Whats the matter with you? Where did you go wrong?

Maybe you havent read in detail about the Prophet peace be upon him, about Aysha, Khadijah, Fatima, and Ali. Maybe you have not read the history and the people and got a clear grasp of their characters and who they were being.

These people did not follow a formula, they did not do this plus this plus that. They WERE Muslim. They could be no other way. Aysha could not hold on to any wealth without feeling guilty, Ali captured Aysha in battle and returned her without a a shred of damage to her, he forgave her. On his deathbed, he insisted that no war be started - that only the men responsible for the damage be taken to account for their actions.

Can't you see that these people did not follow formulas? Their faith was so powerful that their hearts and minds could not stand to do a bad deed - they did not have a bad thought. They were being a certain kind of person, they had a certain kind of thought process, a certain type of behaviour. They did not think "Oh, I will just live this corrupt life for a few years - once I get rich I will do Hadj and it will all be OK." No. They did not do that.

Who exactly are you trying to fool with your equations?

Islam is like a martial art, you train yourself and educate yourself until you ears, your eyes, your very limbs - your conscious and subsconsious mind responds to every stimulation with a good action and begins to steer away from bad actions and bad thoughts - you ARE MUSLIM, you embody a character that can create no badness, no injustice no inequality in this world - you cannot do it. You are a Muslim. A Submitter. A believer.

You follow the masters of the art that went before you. The Prophet (peace be upon him) and his greatest students. The ones he was most proud of, the ones that he was closest to. You look at their CHARACTERS, their motivations, their thoughts and feelings - you look at their attitudes. Not the sum total of their actions. Their actions were different: Ali and Uthmans actions were not the same, Fatima and Aysha's actions were not the same, Yusuf and Moses's actions were not the same. Look at how they were! Look at their hearts and minds - we, like them, we are all different. We share one belief, one faith, one heart one mind and that drives us - we cannot all be the same - we can be guided in the same direction with many different skill sets, many different life circumstances, many different situations - we are Muslims.

A Muslim is a way-of-being, an essence, a character - not a set of rules. Not a set of judgements and rulings and step by step instructions. When you heart is set, and I mean SET on God, when you are committed to living a life of good deeds and good actions, when you devote yourself to being the best daughter you can be, the best granddaughter you can be, the best friend, mother, neighbour, colleague, worker you can be: the best human being you can be - you should not need to ask - is this obligatory or is this makruh or is this fard. Your conscious should tell you automatically. The Quran will tell you what you need to know. The histories will tell you what you need to know.

And being the best human being you can be is not about how much money you make, its not about what you do in the confines of your home its not about how many times you say elhadulilah, or how many good thoughts you have when no one else can see you. It is in what you give to the world around you - a smile? a helping hand? forgiveness? understanding? a shoulder to cry on? a tip for a tired waitress? A hand to guide a car out of a parking spot? a call to your mother? a pat on the back for a hard worker? some change for the homeless? a signature on a petition? Good advice?

We serve everyone around us all of the time and this is the good life that we lead, because we trust in Allah, we trust that to pursue his reward is to pursue the greatest reward. We see ourselves as above or better than no one, our tongue does not permit us to say something we do not know to be true, our heart does not let us hold a grudge, we do not turn our backs on our friends, brothers and sisters no matter how big a shit they are. We give good and heartfelt advice without judging each other. We love God, we love the right path, and we are set upon that path and that path will not hurt us.

We ARE BY OUR ESSENCE a Muslim. That is our character.

Its HARD to be that good. Its a life's work - a passion, that you pursue with zest and heart and energy day in and day out - its a life's work to accomplish the kind of being that is so dedicated to God that they get to the stage where they actually cannot do a wrong.

And it's not achieved through maths.
The character of the Prophet and his students were not the result of a formulaic set of equations they systematically followed. No.
It was sincere, deep faith. Sincere, deep love. Sincere and deep good intention. It was their life's work - their life's work, their sole desire.

Not lazy maths.


Think about that.

Buddha the Psychologist

Seeing as I am in Buddhist country, I have been reading little tif-bids here and there about this man named Buddha, his life story and what he did and what he said. He said a lot of great things. I am not going to refuse knowledge. Just because someone is not a Muslim, it does not mean there is nothing to learn from them.

It is interesting to me, because the Thais really do have a wonderful way of being, they are sincerely kind, friendly and very respectful. They say things like "he who respects his teacher respects himself". Respect is a very big part of this culture - and it's genuine. Not like back home, UK, where we "should"respect and we sometimes show respect, but there is not much real and genuine respect for anyone. The dog-eat-dog and rat-race attitude has indeed reduced us to dogs and rats and to be respectful is nearly frowned upon.

Losing one's temper, changing colour, or shouting is seen as a "shame" in Thailand- by doing something like this: you debase yourself and make yourself look stupid. A calm demeanour is something to be aspired to, as is genuinely being calm and focused.

I like these things about this culture, and realised how much it has affected me when I watched someone lose their temper the other day and thought, instinctively: Öh dear, that is an ugly disgrace".

I can see now, why there are so many Muslim's here - because the combination of Islamic thought and Thai practice actually go hand in hand. We are told to "seek knowledge", ""be patient", "conceal your anger"and all of that.

I would say that reading what this man Buddha has to say about the mind. He is arguably the worlds greatest psychologist and student of the mind. Buddha's philosophy takes you forward through problems, unlike Freuian analysis which walks around the problems and examines it like a crime scene that needs to be solved by tracing backwards.

Not the soul though. I must make it very clear that he was not a student of the soul.

Its a fine line I know. But with a solid and focused head, you should easily be able to separate the two.

"Seek knowledge even if it be in China".
Do not fear that it will corrupt your faith. No.
When your faith is strong: it cannot be corrupted.
And knowledge should not scare you.

Single Dads Syndrome, Thailand

I am working in a nursery with really teeny tiny lil' kids.

Most of the kids live with Dad and a Nanny, because it is really common to see Thai-mum, Western-Dad combo. The females in these unions do not speak English, and the males in these unions don't mind that.

You see it a great deal, and Dad sends baby to Nursery to make sure that baby can speak English so as to communicate with Dad.

Often (says my manager), once baby gets to 1 or 1 and a half years old, Mum cleans out Dad's bank account, and disappears. Dad picks up the peices, hires a nanny and lives like that.

In London, we have single-mum issues, with fathers regularly abadoning families. Here, its the opposite.

And you know what I found out from seeing this? That men, men who work full time, and have a lot on their plate, but are solely responsible for their children?

They worry about their kids. They really really care for them, ask us teachers constantly if their child is OK? Are they happy? Are they missing out on something? THey collect their kid in the evening, and drop them off in the morning with concern and deep love in their face. They cuddle them, kiss them and the love and care and even gentleness is apparent in their every action and movement.

Its sad and sweet at the same time.

And beautiful you know? To know that men can do that.

Headless baby draws crowds

NAKHON SRI THAMMARAT: A family in Ron Phibun District have set up a shrine to house the body of a stillborn headless baby.

The baby was the second of a pair of twin girls born to 30-year-old Saijai Sriraksa on October 14.

After the first healthy twin was born, doctors noticed Mrs Saijai still had a lump in her abdomen. Doctors asked her to push again, and a stillborn baby was born.

The baby, which weighs 1.2kg, has no arms and no head. On each foot it has three toes.

Relatives took the body of the baby home and set it up in an old fishtank converted into a display case. They placed the baby in a sitting position and put a baby’s bottle and a nappy in the fishtank. They also lit incense and set up a donation box for visitors.

As the news spread, many villagers from Ron Phibun District came to worship the headless infant, asking it for good fortune.

The baby’s great aunt, Panya Sangsiri, 47, said Mrs Saijai had regular check ups throughout her pregnancy.

She had been scanned with ultrasound five times but the presence of the twin had never been detected, Mrs Panya said.

If the body of the baby did not go rotten, they would keep it in the fishtank permanently for people to come and worship, she said.

from Phuket Gazette

"Islam justifes Violence"

Yes, yes it does, so? Whats your point?
I justify it too. I'm sorry, but if someone breaks into my home and tries to kill my family, I'm going to kill them first.

Does that make me a bad person?

Are you seriously going to attempt to argue with me that "good people don't kill?"

That is the craziest assumption that I have ever heard in my life.

Have you seen the film Gladiator with Russell Crowe? Yeah? Good. Ok, you know the bit of the film where he kills the evil King and restores the country back to the people? Yeah? You know the bit I am talking about right? Well, when that happened, did you conclude that his character was a bad one? That he was not a good guy?

No. Probably you didnt. Because of the context.

Or what about in Lord of the Rings when the "good guys" who are protecting Frodo and his little pal cutting off people's heads, like...all-through-the-whole-entire-film - are they bad people because they killed? What's that you say? No??

No of course not - because of the context.

Or perhaps you've seen Die Hard, you know the one: John McLane, he's got a really bad headache and he's popping bullets left right and centre to kill the bad guys who have a big master plan to do something really bad. Did you sit back in your chair, and think "Hmm, this John McLane, he's a really bad guy?" or did you recognise him as the hero?

Hmm. Interesting isn't it.

So when you are speaking about Prophets, and you're speaking about so-called killings, and bandying around irresponsible words like "murderer" and "killer" and "warmonger" just stop yourself for one freakin second yeah, and think about it.

Our Prophets did not kill for fun OK. They did not war FOR FUN. The established a MORAL ORDER, a MORAL CODE.

So if you think Gladiator WHO KILLED A KING is a good guy, and you think the Knights of the Round Table WHO KILLED are good people, and that Robin Hood was good for STEALING from the rich to give to the poor - shut your mouth.

Our Prophets did a thousand times more than that for their morals. May God bless them and grant them peace.

Hero's kill people sometimes.

Nuff said.

Islam - For MEN

Yes, Islam is and should be for men. And before everyone starts getting all uptight and reactive let me tell you why it is so important for the MEN to hold fast onto the Quran, to attend mosque regularly and keep up with their prayers.

Are you ready?

Because it is men who fuel the evil sex trade.
It is men who fuel the evil drugs trade.
Is is men who rape.
Men who batter wives, children and sisters.
It's men who make mafia cartels, gamble and set up casios and build weapons.
Its men trade tobacco, slaves and child prostitutes and who embezzle goods, and all of the other evils in the world.

Its men that do these things and feed these things and hold the keys to these things. Men who started these things, who consume these things and continue to grow these things.

Women, as far as I can tell - do not become Mafia bosses, do not run casinos, do not kidnap children and force them to be prostitutes, do not visit prostitutes or use them, do not consume porn, do not rape or any of those other things that batter the world, make it a sh*t place to be, make it an unsafe place to be and ruin it for everyone.

So when God said: "Men are the protectors and maintainers of women" - he changes man from "he who destroys woman" into "he who protects woman" and if every man in the world genuinely took that on board...? Wow right? Wow.


Protect: means the one who prevents any harm from touching her.
Maintainer: Means the one who cares for, feeds, and cultivates: one who fixes any damage, the one that wipes away tears, and kisses the hurting part of you when you fall over.

So bring out the men. And let them read. And state proudly that Islam is "a religion for men" and do not fear the accusation.

Any intelligent human should see that they are the ones that need speaking to.
They are the ones that need speaking to.

But - can they actually hear you lord? Can they hear you?

How Many Men Really Give a Damn?

How many men really give a damn about the treatment of women in this world?

I know one man. I call him grandad - and in all my life, I have known him to be a dedicated supporter of my freedoms, rights - especially the right to be treated with love and respect. Especially the right to not be hit, and to be spoken to like an adult. My grandad even actively discourages any attempt by anyone to lay down laws on what I wear (such as brothers, cousins, stepfathers etc)

Everything my grandfather has ever learned is from the flowers in his garden. You have to "let the flower be sometimes" he says, "or you will not know if it is growing right or wrong". He applies this rule to me, and to all children, and to all women under his care.

It is no surprise that he is incredibly loved in the community for being "a man who does not have one corrupt or bad bone in his body".

As I grow older and more experienced in life, I am starting to come to that very scary conclusion that my grandfather is one of the only male female-rights-fighters I have met.

That yes, even devote male students of religion tend to skip the parts where females are discussed. And the parts that show what females have gone through. Men don't want to fight that fight - probably in the same way that white slave owners didn't want to find out that their black slaves were actually humans and not horses.

How many men, actually see a prostitute and lament at the horrific circumstances that brought her that - and the slavery that she is in?

How many men read of a young girls forced marriage and feel their heart break?

How many men see tears in their wife's eyes and feel concern and care rather than anger?

I have a long list of things that break my heart about the clear and brutal treatment of women the world over.

But we cant fight this fight all on our own.

And what is heartbreaking about this is: how many men really give a damn?