A Message for Students

Today’s message is to the students, whether in school, college or university. You are in a tough situation, but thank Allah that you have parents who can buy you the things you need for school. Everything is given to you so you can learn and graduate and get a job and teach your children the way you were taught. Renew your intentions that you are studying for the sake of Allah. Allah says time and time again how important knowledge is in Islam. So concentrate seriously to succeed. Even when you come out of your house you should have the intention that you are going to gain knowledge. So that if you die before reaching school, you have died for the sake of Allah. There are hadiths that say when you go to school with the intention to learn for the sake of Allah, Allah will make the path easy for you and the angels will be with you.

Don’t listen to those who want you to fail. Look at them during the exams, they will either be cheating or staring at the page. Don’t be like those who go to school everyday but don’t learn anything. Even when cheating, a person is writing blindly without understanding anything. They haven’t gained a thing! The Prophet(peace and blessings be upon him) said, whoever has cheated is not from us. Imagine that! Work hard! Don’t just study for the sake of it; I want you to be from the top students!

Respect your teachers. It is seen as “cool” to be rude to your teachers. But the Prophet(peace and blessings be upon him) said those who disrespect those who teach us are not from us. We have to respect those who are passing knowledge onto us. They are giving you knowledge, so you have to respect them, not be rude to them , or make them go crazy. Imagine if you became a teacher after that? Would you like to someone to do that to you? Respect people so they can respect you.

You have to respect your school. Don’t vandalise it, why do you not keep the school in good condition for those who will come after you? Imagine if someone came to your house and started writing things on your table, would you like that? So don’t do the same at school. The Prophet(peace and blessings be upon him) said, don’t damage things or harm people.

Go to school early. If you are late as a student, when you get a job what will you do? You have to respect appointments. Prepare your things the night before. Be organised. Don’t throw everything on your mother. When you come home from school, put your bag in your study area. Be organised, so that you can find everything. When you take off your clothes, hang your clothes in the wardrobe. Don’t leave everything to your mother. Be organised so that you can be an organised person. Organisation means you won’t waste your time looking for things.

Don’t rely on your private tutor. Concentrate with your teacher at school. Don’t be quick to say to your father that you want a private tutor because you don’t concentrate at school. If you depended on yourself and concentrated at school, you won’t need to spend unnecessary money on a private tutor! Then you will get used to being lazy, because you need someone to teach you.

Try to be presentable. Brush your hair, brush your teeth, cut your nails. Keep your clothes neat and clean. The Prophet(peace and blessings be upon him) said, Allah loves beauty.

Make sure your speech is respectable. When you wake up, greet your mother nicely, kiss her hand. Then go to your father and greet him. You should have an Islamic personality. Help with the house chores, so you can be a positive person at home, even if you have a maid! So you can help your mother and be an active person at home.

Try to be an active student. Join groups at university or school. Join the Muslim association, poetry club or the sports club. Have interests and hobbies and develop them. Don’t be inactive, as this is not from Islam at all! Create awareness about current affairs in the school newspaper or magazine.

Choose your friends carefully. You will be going to their houses when you want to study together and they will be coming to your house. So if they have good manners, they will respect your house and the people in it, they will be decent because they have good manners, and so will you. So look at your friends and be careful that they are not of the wrong type. A good friend will want you to succeed and not do anything that will harm you. He won’t encourage you to smoke or drink or go out with girls. Give these guys advice to help them to do good and guide them to be better people. Allah will make you a person that will enlighten others if you have the right intention.

May Allah help our dear students and protect them from evil, ameen.

Wagdi Ghoneim
Courtesy: www.everymuslim.net

Nasihah on using Facebook

Assalamu alaikum:

You’re probably rolling your eyes already, figuring this is another rant from some “auntie” weighing in on how “bad” Facebook is. But before you click away from it, for the sake of your future, please continue reading. And no, this is not another dumb chain letter. Read on.

Once upon a time, I was young like you. I wanted people to like me. I wanted people to think I was funny, smart but not nerdy, and of course, good looking. But I digress. The point is, these needs of the young for attention and affirmation from peers haven’t changed. However, with Facebook, they’ve gone in overdrive. And the repercussions can be dangerous for your future, even if today, it seems like it’s just “fun”.

Who doesn’t like to be complimented? Most of us get a non-drug-induced high if we’re told we look “hot” in a photo, that our status update is so witty, or that that comment we made about someone’s picture or wall post is just so funny. LOL.

Sometimes, we cross the line further in our attempts to please. We may say things which we’d never say in front of parents, aunties and uncles. We may put up pictures of ourselves arms around a coworker, friend or classmate of the opposite sex thinking, hey, it’s all in good fun. We’re not doing anything “bad”, really.

We may even remark about the physical characteristics of a certain woman in a crude manner. Or we may use words more fitting of a locker room athlete, not a dignified young Muslim.

First before Facebook, is Allah, the One Who knows your status whether you update it or not. The One who made you “hot”and “witty” in the first place. Remember that your parents may not catch you making that dumb comment or posting that picture. But of course, Allah is the All-Aware. And with Him, there’s no delete button to turn to when you’re caught.

But Allah is Forgiving. He is Merciful. He remembers and knows everything. But He knows we humans can do great things and cringeworthy things. He turns to us when we turn to Him in sincerity and forgiveness.

Human beings on the other hand, are not. They may not remember everything. But when it comes to recalling facts about the misdemeanors of others, many of us have a hard time overlooking, let alone forgiving or forgetting. Which brings me to the whole point of this letter: a mistake on Facebook can cost you big time.

Plenty has been written about bosses looking up potential employees on Facebook and the dangers this poses to employment. But for many others, long-term marriage prospects can and will be affected if you, young Muslim, forget that FB isn’t just about your real friends. It’s also about those others you casually add to your profile’s collection. It’s also about their friends.

Think about this in two situations.

Scenario 1: you post a questionable picture of yourself looking “hot”. It doesn’t have to be bikini material. You are probably already aware that there are plenty of ways to be seductive without dressing like a Baywatch Babe. A number of your friends on FB tell you how “hot” you look. But remember, whenever one of your friends comments on anything, ALL of their friends know (unless they choose to turn this option off). These other “friends” also have access not only to the picture commented on, but your ENTIRE album.

Scenario 2: you make a crude remark about a certain person’s attractiveness or lack of it on your wall or in a status update. I’ll give you an example I know of personally. A young guy, unmarried, put in his profile that he was surprised that one of his overweight female patients had a boyfriend (he’s a doctor in training). This guy has memorized the entire Quran. He teaches about Islam. He is not on my friends list. But I know about this comment through FB.

Now, a lot of guys could and do say cruel and inconsiderate stuff like that. But someone who’s memorized the Quran? Someone who teaches Islam? Someone who knows that God looks at our hearts not our appearances? I’m not saying he needs to go and marry someone overweight to atone for his comment. But it does say something about his character, doesn’t it?

Getting married nowadays has become a major struggle in the Muslim community for many reasons. There are plenty of explanations for it, which I’m not going to go into. But most relevant for the purpose of this letter is that Facebook can kill your prospects pretty quickly if you say or post something stupid. There are serious long-term consequences. If anything, FB offers people a look at your character. Stuff that you could easily hide in a meeting at a prospective spouse’s home for tea can easily be found on FB. Then, the flashy suit, six-figure salary, good looks and Ivy League education will quickly go out the window. Nobody wants to marry a jerk or a jerkette. And even if they decide to, these couples usually end up splitting up a couple of years down the road eventually. Few people today can stand day to day contact with a jerk or jerkette whether there are kids involved or not.

‘It’s not fair!’ you’re probably saying. You’re right. It isn’t always fair. An angry comment on your wall on a day you were ticked about something or a joke about a fat girl when you were in a jovial mood shouldn’t be the sole judge of your character. But those who aren’t your real life friends don’t really know that and are unlikely to care. Don’t judge a person by their Facebook profile is good advice, but few are there who will heed it.

So be careful. Converse with your friends, but be on guard. The potential for misunderstanding about who you really are is ripe on FB. And ultimately, remember that Allah is always watching, and we are all accountable for everything we say and do.

Sincerely,
Auntie Who Cares

P.S. If you’re a parent, aunt, uncle or older sibling of a young Muslim on FB, please share the main points of this letter with him or her.

source: Chicago Muslim Parent

Make use of your youth

If Allah gives us 60 years to live then it comes to around 22,000 days (60×365). All these days Allah gives us to prepare for one day of interview with Allah. That is on the Day of Judgement. On that day, Allah will ask us some questions and He wants some correct answers. Allah is so merciful that He already told us what the questions will be through Quran and Ahadith. His mercy is so great that He even told us the answers to these questions.

Now imagine, a student goes to write an exam. He opens his exam paper and finds the questions on one side. Then he finds that the answers to the questions are on the other side. Now after writting the exam, if this student still fails then what would we think of him? We would think that he is the dumbest person around. Well, tell you what, on the Day of Judgement, us people who knew the questions and answers will still fail! That is why, this is the time to wake up before we prove ourselves to be the dumbest of people.

Youth is the prime time of our lives. This is where people make important decisions like what to become in the future. Things you do in this time will most likely affect you throughout the rest of your life. That is why, it is important to bring Islam into your life during these days. Many people have the conception that when they get old then they will start practising Islam. Probably you and me also have this feeling. But look at it this way: If you want to become a famous hockey player then you would start playing right from the youth. As you grow up, you will become better and better. But if you think that you will start playing when you are an old man then the chances of becoming famous is virtually zero. That’s the reality. When we become old, we won’t have enough energy to even stand up and pray.

Because youth is the prime time of your life, that is why it is very precious to Allah. Allah has prepared a shade on the Day of Judgement for those people who used to worship Allah in their youth. On that Day, there will be no other shade except the shade from the throne of Allah. Imagine standing outside on a very hot day under the sun for hours after hours. You would definately want some shadow to rest under. But what about that Day when the sun will be much nearer to us and the heat will be much more extreme. Wouldn’t you want some shade on that day? Ofcourse you would!

You and I are all weak in terms of keeping our duties to Allah and Allah is aware of that. Allah wants that we keep trying to do our best. If a baby falls down while walking he tries to get up again and walk. He doesn’t keep sitting down. Then a day comes when he does start to walk. Similarly, we should keep trying our best and not give up. A day will come when, Inshallah, we will be strong enough to obey Allah in every situation. Let us make a small promise to Allah right now that we will start doing the things for which we were sent to this life. Otherwise, we will be like that dumb guy who will fail the test on the Day of Judgement.

May Allah make it easy for us. Ameen.
Source: Unknown

Muslim Uni Life?

Freedom. Young people live for the day when they can move out of the house and go to university and finally be free.

Freedom from their parents, from restrictions on their lifestyle, from everyone telling them what to do. This is why in university you find a whole generation that does what they want. Life’s short they say, let’s enjoy ourselves while we can.

So it goes for Muslims. In university you find the most amazing things, Muslims who don’t pray, Muslims who date. Why is this happening?

Religion becomes like a fairytale, when they got old enough, they knew better than to believe in it. Most have little knowledge about Islam and have maybe memorized the right rituals to get by. Why beleive something on faith, they ask. After all we cannot see heaven or hell. How do we know Islam is right anyway?

Islamic culture to them means marrying someone they never knew. It means arranged marriages and never hanging out or having fun. For girls Islamic culture has even less to offer. It would mean double standards or having to serve a husband the rest of her life.

The western alternative to this looks a lot more attractive. In western culture “love and romance” are supposedly everywhere. Everyone is out looking for love freely. Meeting someone, going out, seeking pleasure sounds alot better. But what about the downside? For love at first sight, you need to have the right image, the right hair, the right clothes. Girls have to aspire to be like the latest supermodels, they have to hold back age. Who’s going out with who, what are my friends thinking, what will happen if I don’t get the right girl or guy, what is my girlfriend or boyfriend thinking, all become important. Frustration, desperation, and unhappiness become the norm.

Imagine all the heartache youth would save if they followed the Islamic alternative. In true Islam, unlike culture, there is no gameplaying. If two people wish to be involved they are both straight with one another. Unlike what goes on today amongst some Muslims, they both meet each other and make a contract to marry. Women are treated with respect, there is no sexual bombardment like there is in western society. Sex in western culture is also often seen as a vice or a sin of the flesh. But even in religious Islam, sex is seen as natural. As long as it is in the right circumstances, when the two are committed to one another in marriage.

Drinking in college is also the norm unfortunately. If you don’t drink or party you’re seen as weird. Drinking is cool and a way for people to socialize, meet and have fun. The one who doesn’t is less of a person and ‘misses out’. Drinking and all the harms that come with it is cut off at the root in Islam. So many problems are avoided, accidents, pregnancy, violence and even rape for example.

In university and in the world, success in life is not seen in terms of religion. It is seen as what other people think, one’s careers, how much money they make. If you are religious you must have failed at life. But why do we have this seperation? and this blindness in religion?

The Quran tells us again and again not to have blind faith, not to folllow the religion of our forefathers.

Yet, we as Muslims have stopped thinking. We may think about what our friends or other people will say, but we avoid thinking about the real issues. We spend so much time on the opposite sex, thinking about careers, money etc, but we forget to think about death and how much of this we will really be able to take with us?

“Every soul shall have a taste of death and only on the Day of Judgement shall you be paid your full recompense…for the life of this world is but goods and chattels of deception” (Quran 3:185)

Shouldn’t we take the time to comtemplate what will happen to us after we hit the grave? After all, what is the point of life if we are not accountable for our actions? If there is no creator, what is the point of being honest or good.

If we really look at our life we see that everything is indefinate, getting a job, even living until tomorrow. In fact we could die anytime, this is a definate, the only dead certain thing in our life. Most of us believe we can make up for our actions later or we can be religious later. We are gambling. The chances of our dying today are little, but the stakes are high. Allah reminds us of the importance of this,

“O you who beleive, obey Allah as he should be obeyed, and die not except in a state of Islam” (Quran3:102)

Each of us needs to decide. Is Islam right or not? Why don’t we take the time, just once, once in our lives to find out if Islam is right. Is the Quran from God or not? We can’t see God, but is there a maker to all this? We need to study nature, and the world. We only live once. We shouldn’t go to a club thinking we are only going to ‘hang out and are not doing anything wrong’ then feel guilty about it later. We shouldn’t go on a date or drink, then feel guilty about it, worrying about hellfire.

On the Day of Judgement it will be us alone who will be asked about our actions. If we are not following this deen completely, we are injuring our own soul, both in this life and the next.

“Verily We have revealed the Book to thee in truth, for (instructing) mankind. He, then that receives guidance beinfits his own soul: but he that strays injures his own soul…” (Quran 39:41)

This is the true definition of freedom. To learn about Islam and the world openly. To contemplate about life and death. And after learning the truth, obeying the word of God.

“Those on whom knowledge has been bestowed may learn that the (Quran) is the truth from your Lord, and that they believe therein, and their hearts may be made humbly (open)to it…” (Quran 22:54)

Once students have this rock-solid intellectual beleif in Islam, the corruptness and falseness of the people around them is clear. The beauty and wisdom of the islamic way, the best alternative is clear. What other’s do is of less importance. If others think they were weird to pray or weird to be honest, they would still pray and still be honest because they know their deen.

The Prophet(SAW)’s famous hadith to ‘seeking knowledge is an obligation upon every Muslim’ (Ibn Majah) or to ‘Allah makes the way to Jannah easy for him who treads th path in search of knowledge’ (Muslim) is too often forgotten by students. Our Quran’s are left on the top shelves, gathering dust. Sometimes the most it is read is when someone dies. How is this to help, when the guidance comes too late. The Quran is for the living. The path to understanding and following Islam comes from learning first.

How many of us are Muslim, yet have never read the Quran in our native language?

How many of us are Muslim, yet have yet to open a book on hadith or sunnah?

How many of us defend Islam to non-Muslims, but do not follow it ourselves?

May Allah forgive and lead us and all those lost to the straight path, inshaAllah.

Ameen.

by Huma Ahmad
www.islambradford.com

Double Life of Muslim Students

By Claire Coleman

For the past four years, 24-year-old engineering student Sofia Ahmed has been leading a double life. During a typical week, she will study in her university library by day, then head to any one of Liverpool’s many student bars at night.

There, she will party until the early hours: drinking, smoking and experimenting with the hedonistic lifestyle of a typical British undergraduate.

But at the weekend, Sofia plays the role of a completely different person; a dutiful daughter of a well-to-do, traditional Muslim family who have raised their daughter to shun such Western temptations.

“Every Friday I get on a train home to Manchester to stay with my family,” she says. “It isn’t up for discussion; it is just expected. Before I leave, I tidy myself up, make sure I don’t smell of drink or cigarettes, and head home to play the dutiful daughter, helping my mother in the kitchen, attending mosque and sitting with my parents’ guests.”

On Sunday night, Sofia returns to Liverpool and the cycle begins again.

“Within half an hour, I will be slipping into a sexy dress and be on my way to a bar to meet friends.”

For most teenagers, university life brings the first experience of freedom from parental control. It is a taste of a life to come.

But for many female Muslims like Sofia, this taste is bittersweet. When she graduates this year, she will return to her parents’ home, where she’ll revert back to the life of a “good girl”, cocooned in a close-knit community where drinking, smoking and having boyfriends is considered sinful.

“In my time at university I have done everything that is forbidden by my religion. I didn’t set out to rebel, nor did I feel peer pressure to do what I’ve been doing,” she says.

“I was just genuinely curious about what all my friends were getting up to. You can’t grow up in this country and ignore the culture around you.”

And as more Muslim women than ever go into higher education, this double life is becoming something of a hidden social phenomenon.

Psychologist Irma Hussain has counselled many Muslim women who have experienced this culture clash.

“Muslim women have faced these conflicts for more than 20 years, but nowadays more women who come from very traditional families are going into higher education, which they never would have been allowed to before.”

“It is a great temptation to break from tradition when they are away from their family and everyone around them is having a good time, but it is not without consequences.”

“Some may look back and think it was fun, but others struggle with the double life and can never be happy leading such a conflicting existence.”

But those thoughts are far from their minds when they set out.

“My first night at university was amazing,” recalls Sofia. “I’d never really gone out before, so I had no clothes to wear. That afternoon, I went out and bought a sparkly red top with a scoop neck and a cut-away back. I wore it that night with black trousers and heels so high they made my feet hurt. I was really excited.”

“In the student bar, there was a promotion on alcopops. Never having drunk before, I was knocking them back. I hadn’t gone out with the intention of getting drunk or of kissing a man, but I did both. That pretty much set the tone for the next four years.”

Luckily for Sofia, her university years quenched her thirst for freedom, and she is now happy that those days are coming to an end.

“After four years of living it up, I feel as if I’ve got it out of my system. I’ve always known that my years at university would be a fixed time in which I would be able to live my life the way I wanted to, but after doing what I thought I wanted, I realise that what my parents have planned for my future is not so bad.”

Unfortunately, not all young Muslims find it so easy to forgo their new life.

For Faribah Khan (23), a graduate of Bath University, her education, and all that has come with it, has been a major source of tension with her parents.

“The only reason my parents allowed me to go to university was because they hadn’t found a suitable man for me, and an education was a respectable second best to marriage,” she says.

“I was excited about university and getting away from home. It was my chance to escape.”

Although her family moved from Iran to the UK when she was three, Faribah’s parents have made sure she would never forget her roots.

“We speak Farsi and Iranian food is always on the table. Going home is like travelling from the UK to the Middle East.”

“The religion goes hand in hand with the culture. I was brought up to fast during Ramadan, celebrate festivals and have an innate belief in the principles of Islam.”

In a bid to break free, Faribah applied to universities such as Birmingham and Leeds, where she believed she would be able to live independently from her parents.

“But they refused to let me live away from home and insisted I should go to the local university in Bath.”

“I resented that – just as I resented the fact that I had no choice in what I studied. It had to be science as it was ‘respectable’.”

Despite having to live in the family home, Faribah still managed to enjoy some of the student life on offer. And her parents’ worst nightmare came true when she fell in love with a British boy.

“Robert and I dated for the whole time I was studying, but I knew there was no real future to our relationship. He wasn’t a Muslim so my parents would never have accepted him.”

“I kept him a secret. I would lie and say I was staying at a friend’s house so I could spend the night with him in his student digs.”

“He hated the lying and the fact he could never meet my family. It made our relationship seem wrong, bad, dirty even.”

For devout Muslims, this really is the crux of the matter. How can a woman call herself a Muslim and behave in a way that contravenes the laws laid down by Islam?

But having been brought up in Britain, most of these girls find no contradiction in taking a couple of years off from tradition to enjoy what all their friends are doing.

And ironically, these women are only experiencing what their brothers have been doing for years.

“It’s almost an accepted rite of passage that men go to university and live it up before returning home to settle down with a good Muslim girl,” says Amina (30) from London.

“One guy I know has had a succession of girlfriends throughout his time at university. He’s living with one of them now but admits he’d never marry any of them.”

Faribah also knew her freedom and relationship had a shelf life. “I cried for a month when my university course ended,” she confesses. “I was convinced I’d be married off within a year to a suitable Iranian man.”

That day still hasn’t arrived. Now, nearly three years after leaving university, she is still living with her parents, but is also working in public relations.

‘They think I’m still a virgin but if they ever knew, they would either ostracise me or marry me off to the first potential suitor, like they did with my sister, Leila.”

“She married young. She knows about my life and has the same wishes as me. But she has to keep her views hidden from her husband. She’s content because he is a good man. But I don’t want to be content; I want to be happy.”

Not surprisingly, many Muslim women students find it incredibly hard to lead this double life. In the case of Malaysian- born Faria (21), a student at Sheffield University, her freedom came with overwhelming guilt.

“In my country, unmarried men and women are not allowed to be alone together. If caught, you can be jailed or fined,” she says.

“But because I was on my own, I felt I could enjoy a Western life. I dated and eventually slept with a boy I met here.”

For a while, she enjoyed her new-found openness. But soon, she was overcome by feelings of guilt and paranoia.

“I felt anxious throughout our relationship and had to lie to my parents and tell them I spent all my time studying.”

“Then finally, last year, I had a nervous breakdown. I couldn’t cope with my double life any more. I regret having a sexual relationship. I can’t wait to finish my studies and go back to my country to make a fresh start.”

“If anyone in Malaysia discovered the truth, my life wouldn’t be worth living.”

But though they have had very differing experiences there is one thing Sofia, Faribah and Faria agree on: they all expect to have an arranged marriage and are insistent they will keep their wild-child days secret from their husbands.

As Faribah says: “I know people will find it hard to understand that after living a free life I am willing to accept an arranged marriage, but ultimately, my family is all I have.”

Daily Mail.

**All names have been changed.

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