I gaze upon this unsurpassable beauty
And take picture upon picture.
Yet I know no camera can capture it.
Then I think of my eye-camera
And thank God for it’s continuous capture.
And yet all this beauty so beautifully captured by my eye
Is limited to seven spectra
How then all the beauty of vision unlimited
How then the beauty of The All-seeing!
Assalamu alaikum warahmatullah (peace be unto you and the mercy and cherishing protection of God)
All thanks and praise be to God for the beautiful spring days that have unfolded these past days and for the blessing of life in health and security through them. Praise and thanks to God for the knowledge gained and the gift of the Messengers, peace be upon them all. For the beauty in Creation and resonance in this soul of mine that can recognize beauty. Truly, there is profound depth in this integral Muslim belief; ‘God is beautiful and God loves beauty’. They say we find faces that are symetrical more beautiful, and symetry is a manifestation of equation, the balanced formula, a highlight of mathematics. Mathematics, that language of truth, able to explain what the mind cannot concieve…the vehicle to know God. Truly, God is beautiful and God loves beauty. I am therefore a grateful slave, a wellspring of joy welling up inside me, recognizing this timeless beauty in all that is around. The mathematics of form and shape and dimension that abounds in the flowering trees, the growing grass, the towering mountains, the flowing water, the bright moon and star light that just now journeyed to my eye..and it began it’s travel eons ago. Subhhana wa ta’ala (Glory be to God the most High!!)
But I began this post wanting to share a beautiful talk by Sheikh Abdul Hakim Murad, or as he is also known, Tim Winter. A great luminary among modern day scholars of Islam and a lecturer at Cambridge. You can listen to a BBC inteview with him here (it is part one of a two part series, the second part is here). He must have given this talk some time ago…however it is still very topical, dealing with the condition of Muslims today, it puts things in to perspective and helps alleviate the despair and sadness that many Muslims can easily feel overwhelmed by, contemplating the state of the Muslim ‘ummah’ (a word commonly used among Muslims, meaning ‘Nation’ as the Native Americans use the word ‘Nation’, rather than the more modern Western rendering of that beautiful term). So here is sharing it and I hope you benefit by it inshaAllah. I also wanted to share it with those not too familiar with the Muslim faith or nation, as embedded in the talk, are some very insightful aspects of the Muslim faith and worldview that I hope are educational.
God bless all who stumble across here or visit. Please keep me in your prayers and may Allah bless all our deeds with good and protect us from that which is harmful to us and that which we may cause others harm by.
Peace be upon you all!
MashaAllah I just joined and looking forward to my first class. Please do check them out,
http://seekers.nationbuilder.com/
Assalamu alaikum, peace be unto you,
I promised sometime ago to share some photos from Sydney, so I’ll attach them here. Since I went to Sydney mashaAllahu ta’la I’ve traveled through Colombo, Singapore, Tokyo and Minneapolis. Some of these places I only stayed in an airport and others I had time to visit a bit. But it is a great blessing to travel and see the differences in this massive earth. To be in airports and observe the great multitude of variation among peoples. To see the pious next to the ignorant next to the forgetful next to those obsessed with worry and care. It is a great blessing to stop in these places to pray and touch your forhead to the ground and hope that the earth will bear witness for you that you did so, on that day we must all face. It is a great blessing to know that it is Allah that is upholding this amazing world. To travel way above the earth, to be with the clouds, to race the rising sun as you traverse oceans and cross time-zones, to wonder at the might and completeness of Allah’s creation and plan. To recognize that I am just an insignificant jot, a mere instance in the passage of time. And yet, Allah loves me so much, He has given me intellect and sight and sound and travel and more than this, has given me my faith. That Allah has given me time and so much of reading and the wonder of knowing oneself and learnign of oneself. To think this is true for so many thousands of people, millions and billions of people, existing now and who have existed and who will exist inshaAllah. So Allah gives each of us a universer of care, and yet we are insignificant jots on this great plane of existence. Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds, the One, beyond time and place, beyond gender, beyond our human comprehension, the First and the Last and the Everlasting. Praise be to God, my Lord, and thanks and thanks and thanks be to God and God alone. God, please send your grace and salutation upon Muhammed, your beloved and my beloved, the last of the Messengers and a mercy to mankind.
Sunset from Mosque window in Colombo
Pelican in Colombo suburb, and the tower with satellites were not there a few years ago
Sunrise in Colombo
Sunrise in Colombo on a foggy morning...those brief few moments you can look at the sun!
From Australian National Museum, look at the diversity of skeletons
Skeletons of Marsupials, again from Australian National Museum
Frangipani! what a beautiful name for such a beautiful flower...Thanks to God!
Lotus flower 
Praise to God
Ibis roosting on tree tops, Chinese garden in Sydney
The moon gate from the Chinese garden in Sydney...highlighting water and trees, praise be to God who created our appreciation for beauty and art in architecture
Look at this beautiful old man, walking slowly at the back of a procession marching for International Women's Day in downtown Sydney, asking for equal rights for women. A noble sight indeed and one I found deeply humbling
A young student in an old building, reading on the stairs of 'the strand' ( I think) which was a Victorian era construction, built to honor Queen Victoria. How then Allah knew the day the building went up, that this student would be sitting there a century or more later, reading, and I would be passing by, traveling all the way from Canada, to take this picture, later to post it up on the www, and you my dear reader viewing it now. Subhahanallah! Glory be to God!
When leaving Vancouver...a place I spent many years of my life below me. How the view changes when we are far above, so I glorify my Lord, who is the subtle and near ('Latif', an attribute of Allah in the Muslim theology) and the Great and Overarching, Manifest ('Zahir' another attribute of God in the Muslim theology)
Subhahanallah for travel and the wonder of time. That we can cross entire oceans in a few days and the body can adjust to these immense changes of circadian rhythm with a few hours of sleep. I am in Sydney, Australia for a conference mashaAllah and then on my way back hope to stop at my island home and see my beloved grandmother. I know it is a very long shot, but if any of you my beloved friends on wordpress are here, I’d love to see you!
I am here on work and there is much to do. But to remind myself of the why and wherefore that really matters, here is a poem from Rumi that I wanted to copy out. It is ‘A real gem‘ from the Mathnawi
Until the gem surrendered itself,
when did it ever become a jewel set into a ring?
To keep being stony,
and to say “I” is crazy-
it’s time for you to die to self; let go.
Pride always grasps after power and riches
because the bath furnace burns perfectly with dung.
These two nurses just plump up the skin-
they stuff it with fat and flesh and arrogance and pride.
They focus on the shell, thinking it’s the kernel;
and they don’t raise their eyes to the kernel of the kernel.
May Allah always be with us and guide us and help us to keep our focus on ‘the kernel of the kernel’. It is good to start this way, with an urgent reminder. A four day conference of scientists can be a pretty ego-full event! 
. But it is why we do the work that counts. As the prophet (peace and blessings of God be upon him) said in a sound hadith, and it is the this hadith that Imam Bukhari, Imam Muslim and Imam Nawawi (raheemahullah alai) chose to open their great collections of ahadith with… ‘Innamal amali- bi-niyaath’, ‘actions are but by intentions’. This hadith is considered half of the religion, or a third of it, by our scholars, testifying to it’s immense importance. So may God make my intention to be here and how I deport myself here pure and pleasing to him. And may He make my travel enlightening and rewarding. This prayer I make for myself and you all. May we all be here (this world) with purpose and a great peace!
InshaAllah I’ll post some pictures later on. That’s it for now from this mesmerized wanderer, the slave of the one God and your beloved sister.
Peace be with you all, Assalamu alaikum warahmatullah
This is a beautiful song, it melted my heart and made me remember what foolish things I worry about. It is the more impactful for it features the World Food Program, an organization I used to work for and video footage from Sri Lanka. The days I worked in the UN, with the poor of my country are brought back. Those days, I knew myself better. I was closer to my soul. So I make this prayer and may my Lord grant it, and forgive my sins, ‘O Lord, don’t let me forget the poor. This rich western life has made me forget what it feels like to be hungry. Has made me forget humility. O Lord, protect me from too much wealth’
Please do listen, share and buy this track. As usual Sami Yusuf, Allah bless and fill with light his beautiful soul, has done this for charity. What a inspiration to live liek that. Using your God given talent, to serve God.
Assalamu alaikum, peace to all!
The Quran is a phenomenal book. It has about 50 titles, most of which I don’t know. One, the better known is ‘Furqan’, meaning roughly, ‘criterion’, i.e., a way to distinguish between right and wrong. The most commonly used word, ‘Quran’ comes from the root word ‘qara’a’. The arabic root word system is amazing. Root words are usually derived of three letters (in arabic there are no vowels and consonants, it is a phonetic language with diacritical marks denoting vowel sounds), in this case; q-r-a’, which can then be formed in many versions to mean many things that are derived from that root word. ‘qara’a’ means to read a written thing, recite with or without a script, proclaim, convey, call, rehearse, transmit, deliver. In fact the first revealed word, which is found in the Quran as the first verse of chapter (or sura) 96, is ‘iqra’. It was the first revealed word to Muhammed, the final messenger, upon whom God shower peace and blessing, and indeed a fitting opening for what was to follow and the mission he recieved with that word.
One of the Quran’s titles is shifa, meaning a ‘healing’. The recitation of the Quran carries immense healing and calming. Which is why often Muslims, even those who don’t understand arabic (the majority) will know how to recite the Quran. And this recitation has certain rules and methods. The best reciters or ‘qaari’s’ (you can see how the root word system is working!) often lead the prayers in Mosques, as during the prayer, verses of the Quran are recited. These recitations are beautiful and many around the world listen to recordings of them. And such is the healing power of the Quran, that the recording of it’s recitation is often used (i.e., by playing it over radio, internet, tapes etc) to cure people or comfort those who are dying. For myself, the Quran healed a broken heart and also soothed a mind when it was wandering ( I carry schizophrenia susceptibility genes and for a time was almost delusional due to some bad life incidents). Mashaallah (=by God’s grace), the Quran healed me. The words of my Lord are a soothing balm and comforter.
That was a long prelude! But it was organic so I hope you will indulge me and I wanted to explain the context of what reciting means to a Muslim. This is a poem written a few days ago ater a peaceful pre-dawn time of reciting, sitting on a prayer mat that was made of my grandmother’s soft old white sari, folded many times and wearing the white prayer dress of embroidered (white on white) skirt and loose head covering. I hope you will like it and I wish for you many such moments of utter peace and comfort, of such closeness with the divine. Praise and Glory be to Him. To end I want to say, ss Muslims believe, any good in me is from God and God alone.
Recitation
Teaching, guiding, soothing
Each morning before the sun rises
with the birds who wake before dawn
learning their song. I recite
the revealed words of the Creator
As the earth stirs to life
So does my heart.
As the cool gentle breeze of truth
hums within my heartstrings
As the perspicious light of guidance
dissipates the doubt in my brain
As the wise and the true
embellishes itself in my heart
I am but a grateful slave
of the One. One beyond time and place
One closer to me than my conscience
One knowning me better than I do myself
So then peace. In the safest hands
I am gently lead. To a better way to live.Each morning as I recite
The words of my Lord. The birds sing
And soon it will be dawn.
***
Copyright Joymanifest Blog (C) 2012.
There is a beautiful moon outside and the night is clear and still. These nights of the full moon of rabiul awwal…the time of the birth of the beloved, the final messenger Muhammed, upon whom be peace and salutations, what beautiful nights they are.
Looking at the moon my heart realizes the prayer Muhammed himself would make on beholding the moon. And so my lips say it too- “O Moon, as thou dost worship my Lord, so do I!”
But tonight I gaze on the moon and add to it this yearning ( and these words are my own) – ‘O Moon, you are the same moon who looked upon the prophet making that prayer. O Moon how blessed you are! I am gazing on you that has seen my beloved and time stands still. How blessed my eyes to behold you! O Moon, as you do worship Allah so do I’
So saying my beloved’s words my heart fills with the light of the answering moon
Thanks and Glory be to God.
And peace to you all.
Peace be with you all,
I came across this beautiful short talk by Habib Al-Jifri, a great scholar and one of very noble birth, both his parents are descendents of Ali (Allah be pleased with him), the prophet’s couzin. You can read more of his bio here and I have copy-pasted an excerpt from that site below. This talk and the manner in which it is delivered is a beautiful light and a reminder of what a mercy to mankind we were given in our beloved prophet Muhammed. May you benefit from it as I did and may we all come to know more about and love this great man, this light to the worlds.
Bio excerpt of Habib Ali Al-Jifri- ‘He began taking knowledge from his early childhood from his first teacher, his mother’s great-aunt the scholar and knower of God Safiah daughter of Alawi son of Hassan al-Jifri, she had an immense influence on him and the direction he took in the pursuit of knowledge and spirituality.
As a continuation of the authentic methodology of receiving Sacred Knowledge, and wayfaring on the spiritual path, through an unbroken chain of masters, all the way back to the Messenger of God may God Bless him & his family and give them peace, a methodology the preservation and maintenance of which, the valley of Hadramaut and the city of Tarim are renowned, this work was continued in the intellectual Milieu of the Hejaz which became a meeting point for the Scholars of the School of Hadramaut when they were exiled from the South of Yemen during Communist Rule; he received his education in the Sacred Sciences and the Science of Spiritual Wayfaring at the hands of Scholars and Spiritual Educators’
