Holes...
So I havent updated in forever and yall might think its because Im so super busy.
To the contrary I actually have had plenty of time to myself, but have just been spending it on the Playstation.
Holes? You may be asking yourself what im talkin about. Now I dont think depression is the word for it, but I have been feeling rather empty inside for the past month. I have been a part of a halaqa for the past 5 years walhumdulillah, and 2 of the bros in the halaqa got married this winter.
One had the nikaah done last summer and just had his waleema, while the other just out the blue had a small little nikaah. For those who have seen Gandaghee, the former is the lead singer of 'Witr Without You' while the latter is the 'Gulab Jamun' bro from Barbados. I have to mention the fact that the Waleema was off the hook. We did this skit that totally had everyone in the ballroom geeking and I actually recited at the wedding as well (surah Room duh). It was separated for the first half, and the partition was opened in the second half. I think I am gonna do it the same way myself.
Anyway, our halaqa is not just about gaining knowledge, but these guys are true brothers of mine. Anything I need whether it be help financially, a question about the deen, or just someone to hang out with, these guys are there. After these two got married, its just not the same. My place was the hang out spot every weekend, but not any more. Whats interesting is the fact that the loss of their companionship actually has weakened my iman. On top of that the halaqa just got split up as well, and im with a group of new bros.
I remember the ayaat in the Quran talking about how Musa PBUH's mother felt after she put him in the river. Allah says that she was 'faarighaa', empty. Musa not being their made her feel empty hence, holes.
This is what life is, isnt it? Hellos goodbye move on. Like Amir Sulayman said "This life is just a hotel room. Checkin in and checkin out."
So now my sis and I can hang out like we used to i guess. Ive been meaning to really go out with her somewhere other than the cheesesteak spot. Like, the movies or puttputt or somethin. I mentioned to her the most current order of my 'List' a bit ago and she responded by laughing at me for putting a certain sister on it. She said that shes like a princess and im...well...me and that she was 'too good' for me. Wow, now im not cocky since I dont have too much to be cocky about, but I got game. I told her that if I want to go after a certain sister I think I can win her, i aint scurred. If I get rejected I get rejected, isnt that what istikhara is for?
Ive said too much...
Transmission over
The Box...
Muhammed al Shareef once said that the iman is not a static thing, it is something which goes up and down constantly and the trick is to not allow the lowest valley, of your iman line graph if you will, to get lower than any other previous point your iman has been at. In other words your iman never gets as low as its previous lowest point, and therefore in the long run will ultimately always go up.
Anyone who knows me now knows that my opinion about the halal/haramness of music is rather nazi-like. Sometimes I may lighten up and not be as Hitler, but my opinion is pretty much written in stone.
I was not always this way, as those who have known me for a very long time know. I was a hiphop head beyond compare. Dont believe me? I once counted my cd collection to be upwards of 400 CDs (not burned CDs but purchased at an avg of $10 a pop, yeah...ouch) and on top of that I had stacks and stacks of hiphop magazines all over my room which when I threw away took a couple contractor bags and were too heavy to pick up.
Which takes me to The Box.
Most of the CDs I had I threw out, my bro gave away, or my mom gave away (yeah, my mom). Last week I noticed a box in my basement, it was full of cds. Not just cds, but some of my favorite cds the cds that were in constant rotation in my car.
Allah was testing me and Shaytaan was enticing me. I would look at a cd and I immediately would remember songs from the cd, the 'good' feeling I had when I was listening to em, when I first heard the cd, etc.
I was so enticed that I actually grabbed one cd that I loved oh so much and brought it with me as I went with some friends (who listen to music) and told them to pop it in for old times sake. After hearing a few tracks, I could not believe that I used to listen to this over and over again day after day. Forget the language or the music, these guys would rap about shirk. Who calls them self God? If you have no idea what i am talking about, alot of the New York rappers are 5%er 'muslims' who think that ALLAH is an acronym for Arm Leg Leg Arm Head RE themselves. So I am listening to this garbage and I am like, how corny are you to call your friend 'God'? How could you take a stinky number two on a toilet, require sleep and food to function, and be created from the despised fluid of another humans private parts, and you consider yourself a god?
Needless to say, the reminscing was short lived, and I had my sis throw those CDs in the trash and am in the process of tossing The Box out as well.
Make dua for me!!
Gandaghee II update
Im sure people are wondering whats up with Gandaghee II Return of the Lota. Well, let me just say that I have been pretty depressed this entire semester because my right hand man Aatif was taking a semester at McGill University in Canada so I wasnt able to collaborate with him on anything, but i kept comming up with ideas and putting them down on paper even though I was beginning to be a bit skeptical about GII ever getting started.
Well as soon as Aatif got back in town, he got to work and alhumdulillah I have some greeeeaaat news.
Aatif and our production guy Yasser have secured a phaaaaaat camera which will allow us to insha Allah record Gandaghee II in Widescreen format. We can actually record in high definition if we want to but we are not 100% sure if we are going to do that yet.
Some people know already, but just to let everyone know: Yasser had all of the equipment we used for the last movie and his studio fell victim to a fire last summer which destroyed everything that he had. This set us back pretty far, but alhumdulillah he has the aforementioned camera now, he actually upgraded his computer system and we now have an even more powerful editing tool walhumdulillah, and I was hanging out with Naem Muhammed from Native Deen the other day and he told us we can use his studio if we want to so that gives us a place to record the songs for Halal Mixtape Vol 2.
I have some sick sick stuff written for GII and I am sure you guys are going to laugh more than part one insha ALlah. Unfortunately I can not share anything with you, but as soon as we start recording some stuff I am going to link it to my blog so you guys can get the first sneak peak at our wierdo minds at work.
Make dua for us that Allah purify our intentions, make easy for us our task, and that our movie be filled with good and that all bad be far far away from it. Ameen.
M.I.A.
sooooooo I was in Houston for the last 2 weeks at my cuzzins wedding. I just want to say that I am extremely grateful to my parents for moving to Maryland and not anywhere else. Its as if the more Muslims there are the less organized they are, and Houston is the best example of that.
Everywhere you turn you see someone brown, yet you have to go searching for people practicing the deen on the level they are on the east coast. On top of that, the ones that are practicing the deen are referred to as Wahhabi by those not practicing.
I'm like, wahhabi? That kneegrow is a hard core hanafi and your calling him Wahhabi because he has established the Islam as his deen? Do you even know what you mean when you say Wahhabi or are you spewing jargon out of your mouth that has been fed to you by the media?
Enough venting about Houston, let me vent about the wedding.
Ok, now this was my first cuzzins wedding, the oldest of all the second generation after my sis my bro and I. Not to give too many details as to commit gheeba, but apparently the guy's fam faked hardcore about themselves putting on a front to my khala like they were a good family, and then as the wedding got close their true colors came out.
I am not one to think I am better than anybody or that my family is better than anybody, but these people were not the type of people I would even want to consider an acquaintance let alone give my daughter to. The groom's family was extremely homo, fake, and two faced. His friends were drunkards and stripclub going hindus and sikhs who I was this close to getting in a fight with during the reception.
Even though she is just my cuzzin and not my daughter, I felt as though I just married off my sister to a family of people itching to go to hell. I could not believe that my aunt gave away her oldest daughter to a family like that and I told her after the wedding, when she was crying about what she had done, that she need not spend too much time crying about what has happened and that she needs to focus on the 2 daughters she has left making sure that she doesn't make the same mistake again.
I have never been a part of a wedding that I did not want to be at or that I thought was a bad wedding, and I must admit that it was not a pleasant feeling. I gained a lot more love for Allah swt because I realized that the only way you will have any kind of success and happiness in the life is if Allah swt wills it.
Istikhara is the replacement we were given for drawing straws. Can you imagine the tawakkul you would need to have to draw straws? Yunus PBUH drew straws 3 times in a row and all three times it came on him to jump over the ship. That is tawakkul. Allah swt gave us something so much better, we pray that Allah gives us the best and brings it near us, and keeps the worst far away from us. How perfect a dua is that?
Marriage is the biggest test of tawakkul a person will get in their life. You can meet a rishta and they can seem absolutely perfect, but you have no idea what skeletons they have in their closet. You only trust that Allah swt will give you the best, and if you have skeletons in your closet you have little leverage in tawakkul because you yourself have not fulfilled your commitments to Allah swt. How can you expect to deserve a good person if you yourself don't strive to be a better person?
May Allah swt grant my cousin and her husband success in the marriage, and develop their union upon trust, love and commitment...ameen
