Unsettling Dream

Asalamu Alaikum!

Okay so very unsettling dream last night .___.; I blame that Indian movie I watched before sleeping...


Apparently, me and my friend had entered this weird uhh meadow? With like a bunch of stairs. Then, I think, two Angels told us to go because it wasn't our time yet. But we walked around looking at the people and went on this staircase. It was a moving staircase and the people wearing these weird jerseys were on there. I was about to pick one up when I heard someone instructing those going to hell to wear those jerseys. So I dropped it and ran out of the staircase looking at the people going down and saw another friend! She looked so sad and I was wondering whether I'd go there or not. Then an angel approached my friend and told her she gained access into heaven and it was her time to go. I saw going to my right and I started crying. I kept making du'a while waiting for my 'verdict' but they never called it out. I saw an angel approach and kept making du'a but he just past me by. It still wasn't my time. Then I heard my alarm go off and it was time for fajr...

Very unsettling and it made me think about all the things I haven't done if I were to be taken away early in this dunya. And I was still late for Asar prayer! Astagfurillah :[
I wonder, even in the dream I asked why my other friend was going there. They, or my mind whichever, replied that she had gossiped and manipulated people. I was awestruck and frightened out of my mind.

I also blame Mumbai 2050 for that one line "Those who are taken before their time appear the same in the next life" yeah that was a reincarnation sentence but the first part was in my dream!

May Allah swt lead us all on the right path and let us treasure our time in this dunya to use it wisely for the akhira.

Amin

Note: Picture taken from Aalia's blog Chasing Jannah

Wa Salam
Modest Justice

Dawah at a buffet

Asalamu Alaikum!

Very strange indeed, today as my family and I went out to eat at a buffet, my mother started to have a discussion with the man sitting across from us. When I came back with my plate of spaghetti -yum-, I heard my mother saying that I wore the headscarf but my little sister did not. Seeing as how my mother wore it as a masar -tied in the back onto her bun- I decided to explain to him. I felt pretty proud of myself:
Guy: So why do you wear it?

Me: Because in my religion, Islam -okay so I assumed he knew it was Islam-, God tells us to be modest and to cover ourselves. I am not an object, and people should see me for my personality not my body. I chose to wear it. Anything else?

Guy: Thank you...You sound like a -insert city here- native?

Me: Why yes, I was born here...

Guy: What high school do you attend?

Me:... -insert High school-

Guy: Interesting, thank you very much, but why does your sister not wear it?

Me: Well some people choose to wear and some don't, and my sister is too young to wear it, when she's in her teens.... (fade into silence)

And so he said thanks, I 'your welcome'-ed and such and such... Kind of awkward with the whole High school thing -cough-
But either way I feel very proud of myself! I think I presented myself well >.>

Soooo, after that we went to see Yes Man. Besides the stupid kissing scenes, it was interesting. However, I wanted to see Bedtime Stories. At the moment, I shall be watching Tropic Thunder, hopefully it'll be slightly better.

Ma'Salama
-Modest Justice

-cough-my outfit ;D-cough-

Time flies by so fast

And soon I shall hear the eerie beeping of my alarm clock and know that it isn't just for fajr prayer. That I won't be able to go back to sleep again 5 minutes later.

Grr

Asalamu Alaikum,
A week has gone by and I've actually 'relaxed' the whole time. I think... But with only a week left until I head back to wonderful school! -not- I'm scrambling to do activities I've planned for all two weeks. Have I altered any of my clothing because I have a dream of being a great sewer, no. Have I ice-skated with the family yet? No. Have I gone to the masjid? Actually yes I have :D But with the clock ticking I find myself getting lazier and lazier. Summer break was nice, but I also do not want time to fly by just for another break. I want to enjoy my time spent in High School and Graduation looms in the nearby future. -Shiver- Not so near thankfully :]

Atleast I have a fully operational printer now, alhamduillah, so I can complete that darn Chemistry project sooner or later. Now I know we shouldn't procrastinate and it only leads to bad things, yes yes, I know, but one just gets into the habit >_>

Another thing I need to take care of is my dysfunctional inner clock. I sleep at 2, wake up for fajr at 6 (slept over my alarm clock twice!), go back to sleep and then wake up anywhere from 11 to 1... So tonight I plan on sleeping at midnight and after fajr I'm forcing myself to awaken at 9 ^_^ I think its a pretty spiffy plan, if I do say so myself.

And I think I'm becoming attached to my blog ._. Whenever I'm away from my blog I think of appropriate topics to digress within the blogosphere... freaky.

Ah well, I'll stop my large tangent and find something to eat, I'm pretty hungry.

-Modest Justice

Do you think it was justified?

"My son is gone, my son is gone," wailed Said Masri, a 57-year-old shopkeeper, as he sat in the middle of a Gaza City street, slapping his face and covering his head with dust from a bombed-out security compound nearby.

Informed by my fellow sister's blogs, what I feared most has happened.
Only yesterday on Yahoo Canada was Olmert warning "Hamas" or else they'd take dire action. But what do they plan on achieving? Hamas may have been formed over the crappy conditions they are faced with now, but bombing people on both sides IS NOT going to help any situation. Looking at the 'situation' in Israel and why the UN has not done anything in the past, besides promising to form a country for Palestine (I don't hear the bells of Independence yet)in 1947. "Following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the 1949 Armistice Agreements between Israel and neighboring Arab states eliminated Palestine as a distinct territory. With the establishment of Israel, the remaining lands were divided amongst Egypt, Syria and Jordan. The Arab governments at this point refused to set up a State of Palestine." Taken from Palestine on Wikipedia (not the most reliable source but it has it's pros)One can only make du'a for those suffering in Palestine and around the world as we see our Ummah torn apart.
But what can we do? As we sit down to another meal with the rest of our family, Insha'allah, knowing that we're safe, we must think that those in Palestine are looking through the rubble for the remains of their children. Or mourning the lose of a family member. One can never be sure when our time will come, but I think is it justified? No, but even as I write this I seem oblivious to what we should all really be making du'a about.

Free the Ummah is what we should be shouting in the streets and chanting about. The Ummah which is being stifled and oppressed in all nations even those which are "Muslim". Nationalism should never be greater than the perfected religion, Allah swt has given us.
Allah, The Most Exalted, says in His Holy book: O you who believe! be careful of (your duty to) Allah with the care which is due to Him, and do not die unless you are Muslims.

And hold fast, all together, by the rope which Allah (stretches out for you), and be not divided among yourselves; and remember with gratitude Allah's favour on you; for ye were enemies and He joined your hearts in love, so that by His Grace, ye became brethren; and ye were on the brink of the pit of Fire, and He saved you from it. Thus doth Allah make His Signs clear to you: That ye may be guided. Let there arise out of you a band of people inviting to all that is good, enjoining what is right, and forbidding what is wrong: They are the ones to attain felicity.

Be not like those who are divided amongst themselves and fall into disputations after receiving Clear Signs: For them is a dreadful penalty(3: 103-105)

Something to think about, although I'm aware I rambled for this entire post >.>;
I had to say what I felt.

UPDATE: More terror, more bloodshed
GAZA CITY — Ali Abu-Fatahi will never forget the terrifying sound of a missile fired by an Israeli warplane as it zoomed in on his house.
"All my family members were hit."

And yet it continues, sisters. I can't help but feel sorrow that it continues and everyone calls it "self-defense" on Israels part but it is a travesty that the new reports mourn the one Israeli life lost (Although it is still a life subhan'allah)yet fail to wrap their minds around the 300 and growing death toll on the Gaza strip. And my local news station actually has the Gaza as the "News of the Night", one small victory I guess [/sarcasm]

On Tuesday at San Francisco, there's going to be a protest and how did I find out? By text how ironic for a teenager, but anyway, I doubt my parental unit, who fears that someone might attack us, is going to allow me to attend although I really want to go. How else can I do my little part when the only other option is whining here on my blog v_v
Insha'allah I may be able to attend


May Allah swt give strength to those oppressed and give a voice to those who are mute in their struggle.
Amin

-Modest Justice

Jumaa Prayer

Yes, yes I am aware it is 12:23 AM and I should be sleeping so I can wake up for Fajr!
But that's what alarm clocks are for :D
Today I went to my local masjid (MCA all the way!)with my mother and younger sister to pray Zuhr. It was great! :D I've been wanting to go to the masjid for the past couple of weeks now and finally my mother agreed to take me and my little sis.
She looked like a nun (I used the malay hijab style it looked nice :D) while I wore a long red tunic.
The Khutbah was how to explain to your children that Jesus (as) was one of the Greatest Prophets and how to deal with the Christmas season around us. -heh heh-


by ModestJustice

Naturally the "coat" was a longer tunic, the pants were wide-legged and I liked the flexibility. I should get more of those...
Now I wore flats but I could easily turn it into something a peer of mine would wear.
Time to head to bed -yawn-
Salam!

Christmas: Tis the Season to go broke

Asalamu Alaikum Sisters!

As we all know, Christmas isn't something to celebrate in Islam. And as I noted in my Thanksgiving post, Christmas is another capitalistic scheme put up by corporations and has its roots in pagan traditions. I shun this and any other holiday that uses consumers (Valentines Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas of course) in their plot to gain more money. But I cannot deny the spiritual aspects of Christmas, the message of family, love and worship are ones that I can identify with since Jesus (alayhi salam) was one of the greatest prophets of Islam. But how can we lie to our children on several aspects of the holiday? My parents told me Santa was real and we set out sandwiches and milk one year -we didn't buy cookies that time- and now that I look back on it (wasn't long ago) I actually wanted my parents to tell me it wasn't part of Islam and that we should be satisfied with our two Eids. But whatever one's personal experience with Christmas as child be, we all know now that Santa wasn't part of the Bible and Christmas wasn't either. No one really knows when Jesus (as) was born and this practice of Christmas wasn't adopted by the Catholic Church until the year 530 C.E., that a monk, Dionysus Exigus, fixed the date of the birth of Jesus on Dec. 25th. "He wrongly dated the birth of Christ according to the Roman system (i.e., 754 years after the founding of Rome) as Dec. 25, 753". (Encyclopedia Britannica, 1998 ed.) This date was chosen perhaps in keeping with the holidays already indoctrinated into pagans. And this Santa Claus character? There's a whole article on that, but to keep it simple, Santa Claus was actually Saint Nicholas who lived in southern Turkey, then Asia Minor, during the first half of the fourth century, but nothing was recorded about his life until more than two hundred and fifty years after his death. Less than a hundred years after his death, he was worshiped as a saint for his legendary deeds, such as :

* A neighbor lost all his money becoming destitute with his three daughters and, to prevent them having to earn their living by prostitution, he threw them three bags of gold through the window.
* Nicholas became a model of, generosity and protection to the oppressed People, children without any money, he was Particularly good at looking after children. St. Nicholas, legend has it, resurrected three boys cut up by an innkeeper and pickled in brine, to be sold off to unsuspecting customers.

A church in Bari,Italy then claimed to have his bones. So the Catholic Church, after hearing of this, conspired to steal the bones to make the city a magnet for pilgrims. Ever since, the Catholic Church has helped to promote an annual festival to celebrate this profitable act of piracy. Add in hundreds of years different stories across Europe, it came to America in 1809 when an amusing but inaccurate history of Dutch traditions was written. Washington Irving, influenced by north European Christmas customs, pictured St. Nicholas riding in a wagon merrily over rooftops, dropping presents down chimneys, the first time this had been sighted.

In 1821, Clement Moore, a theology professor and an expert in European folklore, developed this character in a poem he wrote for his children, "Twas the night before Christmas" ring a bell? Charles Dickens then further popularizes Christmas with his novel A Christmas Carol. It made Christmas personal and for the middle class. Fast forward this craze where more people were trying to make the Skinny Elf called Santa into a jolly tub o' money-making lard, they finally agreed on Thomas Nast and his dramatic change from the gnome-like figure that other artists had used before into a self-portrait of himself. He always portrayed himself as fat and jolly and this was his own self-portrait. Now who would globalize this American version of Saint Nick? Coca-Cola! They were a soft drink company struggling to sell cold-drinks during the cold times so the company wanted to figure out a way to associate the product with the holiday season. In the end, they turned to an illustrator named Haddon Sunblum. Sunblum concluded the spirit of the holiday was really Santa Claus, and Santa Claus had this enormous task facing him every Christmas Eve and that was to go around the world, in an evening, distributing, toys to children everywhere and obviously he would get tired and would eventually become thirsty and need a refreshment, so what better idea than to have Santa pausing in his rounds in various scenes enjoying a Coca Cola? To make a long story short, Christmas wasn't far from commercialization and in this big world of money, the back story had to be equally shady. Have a nice break from school and work fellow sisters!
I know I will B)