Syeikh Navaid Aziz on Welcoming You to His Paradise

Just a quick post of a hand held, dodgy looking video (excellent audio quality though) of a quite popular speaker from Canada. My friends and I saw him on a tour last month, after a split second decision to go to Sydney that night to catch this guy, Boona Mohamed (popular for spoken word) and Baba Ali (stand up comedian) all together in 'the Strangers Tour'.


During his talk he said that, maybe, many of us dont work so hard to attain paradise because we stopped contemplating about it. And so he said sometimes, when life gets too tough, he'd like to escape into his future paradise for respite and renewal of his energy. So have a listen, and let your imagination run wild...!

Owh I just realized that this video didnt go further into the gates of his paradise. Well from what i can remember, there was talks of chocolate rivers, chocolate boat, fish waiting to be caught and a mild sun that always shines to the best, moderate temperatures...literally soaking it in....Aaahhh.... But that is his paradise.

The question is: How's your paradise going to be like?

Best regards
Azfar

On Paying Fifty Cents for a Plot of Land, an Architect and a Lawyer

He asked "can we do some service for the local people? Like web classes or something?"... and I went " What??? Why the hhh….heavens would we have to do that for them? We don't owe them anything. We bought that piece of land, we are paying for the mosque ourselves. We don’t owe them anything for us to have to 'make up' for building a mosque there".

A man asked the question to the solicitor who stood in front of the prayer crowd tonight  and said, in his Australian accent, thick as hookah smoke, that he was happy with the way things are going with the plans for the new mosque in Elermore Vale, Newcastle.

An artist impression of the upcoming mosque in Elermore Vale..uuu..whose car is that?

As the people in Newcastle may have heard or got to know, the muslim community of Newcastle is raising funds to build a new mosque to accommodate the increasing number of muslims residing here. The new mosque was proposed to be built in a suburb called Elermore Vale. The plot of land was bought several months ago and now, the last steps before a new shiny mosque is getting approval from the city council, and getting enough funds to reach a total target of AUD1.4million.

Since 2 years ago, the mosque committee has tried every single day to raise funds for the mosque. The evidence is clear, every Friday, there will be a man standing in front of the doors of the Masonic Hall that has been rented for several years now for the Friday prayers asking for donations "Sedeqah for the masjid *ching ching ching (sound of coins rattling)*. Sedeqah for the masjid *ching ching ching*. The Prophet told us that whosoever builds a mosque, Allah will build a house for him in Jannah (Paradise)!!!".

That's what he did, that man, every Friday. And the sound of his donation box will always stick in my memory, the sound of a thin layer of coins rattling in a big, hopeful box.

I'm not writing this so people would feel guilty about not giving a lot for to the mosque even when we use the mosque every day, every Friday, every Iftar,  every  Community Iftar, or every Eid, for free since the last 10 years, or since only recently.

I'm writing to share a feeling that I noticed while I said those words up there to a friend sitting beside me in the prayer hall.

"WE bought that piece of land, WE are paying for the mosque OURSELVES. WE don’t owe them anything for US to have to 'make up' for building a mosque there".

I don’t claim to have given much for the new mosque, but I feel… very connected to it. I feel that my occasional 50cents or 5 dollars were used when the committee bought the piece of land, or paid the architect or the solicitor. I feel that I have contributed to this mosque and I feel that I have a right to call the mosque mine…or ours. And for that, I love the new mosque, even when there's no rock solid guarantee that its going to be built. I love it and I want it, because I paid for it. I deserve to have it. Nuff said...

For those reading this and know of the situation, I implore you to  feel the same as I am. You should feel that YOU ARE contributing to this mosque, you should feel that you have ownership over the mosque, you should feel that the mosque is yours, or ours. Because it is.

You have given what is needed for this new mosque. It may have been AUD5, or AUD10, or AUD100, or your effort to telling people about this cause. You are in this as much as I am, or that man who asked for donations every Friday, or the Imam of the mosque. This masjid is going to be yours! In 10 years time when you decide to come around to visit Newcastle and bring your kids for a drive around , you should feel proud showing them that mosque because you helped to build that mosque. The mosque is there, because you took part in funding it.

 And it will be a place where thousands of people do good deeds, everyday. It will be a place where people will find faith, or regain fading faith, or learn about the Quran and Islam, or meet each other and spread goodness and truth. And it will be possible because of you.

So thank you all Novocastrians, for your being here will leave a mark of peace, good and faith for a very, very long time to come.

Yay we're getting a new mosque!

Azfar    

"Whosoever shares in building a masjid for Allah, even if it is as small as a bird’s nest, Allah (S.W.T.) will build for him a house in Paradise."  (Prophet Muhammad pbuh)

On "dear blade of Gryffindor...can you just magically appear in front of Harry?"

"And We strengthened their hearts with patience, when they stood up and said: Our Lord is the Lord of the heavens and the earth; we will by no means call upon any god besides Him, for then indeed we should have said and extravagant thing" (Al Kahf, 14)

I was talking about this in a discussion lately with some of my friends. Something I got from an article in SuhaibWebb. The article was mainly about Ramadhan, and slipped somewhere in the middle of the article, full of wisdom and faith is a verse from the Quran (the one in yellow up there). The verses prior to this one and the ones to come tell the story of a group of young men who had to run from their community and go into hiding in a cave in order to protect their lives. Why they had to run away you ask? It was because they carried with them a message of faith, which contradicted the belief system of the community and the governing entity. So confronting was their message, that they had to flee from their own people. Can you imagine how big that is?

Well what I'm interested in writing about today isn't really about the message they were bringing. Though I must admit that trying to elaborate on that message would be quite an effort and the little knowledge that I have would definitely do it injustice, and thus I won't be too brave to attempt that now.

I'd rather talk about that verse, which is interesting in itself. If we look closely into the words, we will find that Allah mentioned that He strengthened their hearts when they stood up and said... . WHEN they stood up. God sent them help, in the form of strengthening their hearts with patience when they have taken the initial step towards their goal. However hard to achieve and far away their goal was. There is a lesson to be learnt from this, a lesson that we can all practice in life.

Too many a time that I prayed and I prayed to God to make things easier for me, to show me the right way, to guide me to the right path in life, to make medicine easier to study, to make someone easier to approach, to make words flow easier from my lips. And as many of a time did I forget to or simply just didn't take any actions towards what I asked God for. And thinking about the soul of this verse, we should realize that God's help isn't far away from us, but in order to attain His help, we need to prove our commitment towards what we want. We need to take action and prove that we really want that something, and when we have taken the steps, InsyaAllah, God Willing, help will come. Like a patronum that showed Harry where the blade was, help will come.

It may be in the form of making our hearts believe even more, or some physical entity from anywhere at all, or a call from someone special. Or it may even be stumbling upon an article that'll help you believe in the path you have taken. Whatever form that it takes, it'll come when you have taken the effort, to carve what you want onto stone. Because if you write it in sand, making just some small strokes with your fingers, even the smallest breeze of an autumn day can ruin it.

So whatever it is that you want, remember to take steps towards it. Because life isn't that easy to have everything fall into place just because we want it to.

Trying to practice what I preach
Azfar

On how tall, built, macho and handsome I am

I get angry at people who make fun of others excessively. Partly because I've been laughingstock....or to put it in a lighter way,a joke by many, all my life. And partly because I've seen what making fun of others can do to a person.
Spare the constant self embarrassing stunts  I usually get myself in, I've always been made fun of by people. Mostly its because of my physical attributes. I'm short, small, dark, hairy, big nosed...you name it.
When I was a child I got very disturbed by all these remarks people make, sometimes not even meaning to offend, sometimes just a statement of the truth, of what appears to them in physicality. So disturbed was I that I sometimes get to a stage of not really liking myself, and blaming someone for what I was.
But not too far into teenage-hood that I finally stopped being disturbed by comments people make, because I started to accept what was given to my by God. It doesn't mean that I stopped wishing that I was a wee bit taller or that I was a bit bigger (there's the gym for that anyways) but I started to accept things that I was born with. Namely the phenotypes of my genes, things I've had no choice in. And since I started to accept what I was, responding to comments got a bit harder. I just don't know how to respond, for I see no problems with people making those jokes about me.

So yeah, the whole text up there was just to say, hey guys! I don't really mind whatever you guys say about me. I'm fine with it.  In saying that though, I for one do not condone making fun of other people's physical attributes.

For making fun of others doesn't necessarily reflect them, rather it reflects us.

Make me laugh
Azfar

p.s.: excuse the rant, I have no idea what to put in the blog so there goes. And yes, the picture up there is how I look like in actual reality =P.