(Source: pussywagonharry)
“I am dying here every day, mentally and physically. This is happening to all of us. We have been ignored, locked up in the middle of the ocean for many years.”
(letter written in 2006 by Shaker Aamer, Internment Serial Number (ISN) 239 )
Today I went to Hull. I have always wanted to go for some odd reason and was so excited when some friends and I decided to make the trip. I had no expectations and was just happy to be going (I know sad).
Anyway, as soon as I got there I had the feeling I was going to be made to feel different and I was right. I got out of the car for a minute and I was getting back in a group of White men commented on me and and were giving me the “you don’t belong here” look. It was only at that point that I realised I was the one who stood out and for the first time in a long time I felt like I wanted to go home. One of my friends was wearing a dress, one a colourful jilbaab and the other was wearing a pair of jeans and a tshirt. I was wearing a black flowy big jilbaab. We all wore hijaabs but I just did’t look like I belonged.
I am so glad I live in Bradford.
What is a Muslim man?
He is a Father.
He is a Husband.
He is a Companion.
He is a Warrior.
He is a Scholar, a Student, or he loves them.
Each of these describe what every Muslim man should aspire to be, because this is what those great Imams of the Salaf, and the Prophet, himself, were.
He is a Father and Husband.
Meaning he is first to think of his family before himself. He spends time with his wife and spends on her before he spends on himself. He teachers her what she does not know and runs her home so that, in him, she finds safety. He goes out and works so that his family may live comfortably. He beautifies himself for his wife as she does for him. He is a father to his children. Teaching them what needs to be taught. Spending on them and saving them from all types of Haraam.
He is a Companion.
Meaning he is, with his brothers, kind, gentle, understanding, and reliable. He never speaks ill of them and gives them their rights. From that being advice, and always giving the Salaams. Contacting them when they are sick, and visiting them to extend good will and blessing. He loves them as he Loves himself as Anas bin Maalik narrated the saying of the Prophet “None of you will have faith til he loves for his brother what he loves for himself” related by Al Bukhari and Muslim.
He is a warrior.
Many of us have seen 300. That is how the Muslim men are supposed to be. That if the call for physcial Jihad comes against the enemies of Allah, then he is fit and prepared to do so, in the name of Allah. And we are not talking about the idiotic attacks done by the Khawaarij such as Osamah bin Laden, or the preachings of Anwar Awlaki. Rather, we are talking about legitimate Jihad. Under the banner of the Muslim ruler. He does not go out and kill innocents. Rather his fighting in legislated ways as its quoted from Ibn Al Qayyim that Jihad is by the sword, pen and tongue.
He fights the innovators by both pen and tongue, if he has the knowledge and forbids these things from his family.
He is a Scholar, a Student, or he loves them
As is narrated that Ibnu Mas’ud said, “Be a Scholar, and if you cannot, then be a Student, and if you cannot then love them”. And this is the affair of the Muslim man. He loves the Scholars, if he is not of them. He is a student, and if he is not of them then he loves them for Allah’s sake. He studies his deen and is diligent in applying what he learns.
He is the best of men for his faith. We should all seek to be such. He is well grounded mentally, physically, and spiritually.
The Hijab debate.
Pointless.
Stop making excuses. There are conditions and there are rules to everything in Islam. to deny them is a major sin and to declare you know better than the Prophet himself.
London baby!!!
Yeah I’ve booked my train tickets to London for my nephew and me. Now to think of what to do on our long weekend.
Any ideas as to where I can take a 16 year old in London? What’s fun at that age? He also likes architecture, what buildings would you recommend I take him to?
