"..he had tied two stones over his stomach"

From Adil Salahi's *awesome* series: The Prophet, sallallaahu alayhi wasallam As a Man

Aishah,may Allaah be pleased with her, reports: “God’s Messenger, sallallaahu alayhi wasallam, did not have his fill of bread made of barley on two consecutive days until his death.” (Related by Muslim, Ahmad, Al-Tirmidhi and Ibn Majah.) This Hadith describes a life of real poverty. Bread is the basic food in all communities, and it is cheap to provide. Eaten on its own, it is sufficient to quell the pangs of hunger. All languages speak of bread as the basic food whose absence signifies extreme poverty and starvation.
Bread is baked with different types of cereals in different communities, but one of the cheapest is barley bread. It is definitely cheaper than that made of wheat or even corn. Yet in this Hadith we are told that the Prophet did not have even barley bread available on any two consecutive days in his life. When we remember that he could have had endless riches, had he so wished, we realize that this was his choice so as to provide a practical example for his followers.

The Prophet’s preference for a life of poverty gives us the right perspective in looking at this world’s riches.
Moreover, the fact that the Prophet did not have his tummy’s fill of bread on any two consecutive days confirms the Hadith we related earlier on the authority of Abu Umamah who quotes the Prophet, sallallaahu alayhi wasallam as saying: “God has offered me to give me the wide plain of Makkah in gold, but I said: ‘No. I would rather have enough to eat one day and remain hungry one day. Thus, when I am hungry I would turn to You in earnest supplication and remember You; and when I have my fill, I praise You and give thanks.” (Related by Al-Bukhari and Ahmad.)

Indeed, we see that this Hadith was practically implemented, with the Prophet, sallallaahu alayhi wasallam, not having his fill on any two consecutive days.
But this was not deliberate in the sense that the food was available but not eaten. Had the food been there, the Prophet, sallallaahu alayhi wasallam, would not have chosen to go hungry. To do so is wrong. This is confirmed by this Hadith which quotes Al-Nu’man ibn Basheer, a companion of the Prophet,sallallaahu alayhi wasallam as he said to people: “Are you not having all that you wish of food and drink? I saw your Prophet sallallaahu alayhi wasallam when he could not find his stomach’s fill of even low quality dates.” (Related by Muslim, Ahmad and Al-Tirmidhi.)

This is, then, a clear explanation that the Prophet’s sallallaahu alayhi wasallam poverty was not self-imposed, even though he preferred not to be rich. His preference is clearly stated, with the purpose of appreciating God’s blessings as they should be appreciated. This means that those of us who are given plenty should use what they are given in ways that bring them closer to God. They should always be willing to help the poor and those who are in need. On the other hand, if one is poor, one should remember that the Prophet, sallallaahu alayhi wasallam lived a life of poverty.
We should always realize that whatever hardship we may have to endure could be made worse, and whatever comfort or pleasure may be available to us can easily disappear and our situation may change completely, from one extreme to another. Therefore, we should always praise God and thank Him for the good things He has given us, which are plentiful even when we go through very difficult periods.
The Prophet’s poverty is confirmed in many Hadiths reported by several of his companions. Ibn Abbas, the Prophet’s cousin, says: “God’s Messenger, sallallaahu alayhi wasallam, used to go through several nights without having any dinner, and members of his household may not find anything to eat for dinner. The bread they had most frequently was barley bread.” This is confirmed by a Hadith reported by Aishah, the Prophet’s wife, may Allaah be pleased with her, who says: “We might go through a whole month without a fire being lit for cooking. We subsisted on water and dates only. However, may God richly reward those women from the Ansar who might have sent us some milk as a gift.” (Related by Al-Bukhari, Ahmad, Al-Shafi’ie and Ibn Majah.)
It must be re-emphasized that had the Prophet, sallallaahu alayhi wasallam, been able to provide better for his family, he would not have denied them that. Islam does not look with contempt on wealth, comforts or worldly pleasures, provided that these conform to its principles of what is lawful and what is forbidden. To enjoy the best that one can have is perfectly legitimate. The Prophet simply was content to live a life of poverty so as to better appreciate the blessings God had given him.
The Prophet’s companions were aware of this situation. Most of them were poor and could hardly provide for their families. Abu Talhah reports: “We complained to God’s Messenger, sallallaahu alayhi wasallam of hunger, and we lifted out robes to show him that everyone of us was tying a stone over his belly. The Prophet lifted his robe and we saw that he had tied two stones over his belly.” (Related by Al-Tirmidhi and Ibn Hibban.) This report means that this took place in a particularly hard period when hunger was commonplace among the Prophet’s companions, may Allaah be pleased with them.
They resorted to this crude method of silencing their hunger, placing a stone over their stomachs and wrapping it. The Prophet, sallallaahu alayhi wasallam apparently was more hungry and could not find anything to eat. Wrapping one stone over his stomach was not sufficient, so he wrapped two.
The Prophet’s companions who witnessed this wanted later generations to appreciate what he and his community went through in those early days of Islam. Thus, we see Abu Hurayrah,may Allaah be pleased with him, passing by a group of people who gathered to eat. They had a roasted lamb placed before them. They invited him to share their dinner, but he declined. He said to them: “God’s Messenger, sallallaahu alayhi wasallam, spent his whole life and passed away without ever having his fill of barley bread.” Compared with what the Prophet used to have, having a whole lamb roasted and placed before the people to eat is certainly very luxurious. There is no harm in that, but the people who can afford such meals are usually well off, if not affluent. They must remember that they have to pay zakah and to look after their relatives and friends who are less fortunate.

A little bit of Ramadhaan ..

Every Thursday, we have a little bit of Ramadhaan in our lives, by Allaah's favour.
We wake up before fajr and eat a little, pray and then study for some time.
All day, we have enough time to do what we've been meaning to, all week.
After 'asr we cook some of the things we like best : pasta in bechamel sauce, finger chips, basbousah, cakes and cookies, pizza, corn nibblets, noodles...
After maghreb adhaan we sit together and break our fast.
It feels just like Ramadhaan!
*Rida*

PS:This isn't a look-at-us-we're-so-pi-*preens* post ..it's a this-is-a-blessed-sunnah-to-follow-so-try-it-inshaaAllaah(if you're not doing it already)-post :)))

What do you think?

Just read this at a website: A clean house is a sign of a wasted life.

what do you think?

post dishwashing input:
"In every job that needs to be done/ there is an element of fun
you find the fun/and *snap*...the job's a game
a lark... a spree / it's veryclear to see
that.....a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down
in a most delightful way."

Yes it's a waste, if it's a person's sole interest, occupation and ambition in life...the only means by which they feel good about themselves or one way to score points in the Hostess with the Mostest game (don't even get me started on that)

No: if a clean house is a base for other meaningful, getting-closer-to-Allaah activities, and if you feel that you should give your family the cleanest house in the world for the sake of ihsaan, as an expression of gratitude to Allaah that you have running hot and cold water, Pril, Clorox and rubber gloves.

Before the housekeeping Nazis start splattering rotten tomatoes on this page, let me quote Dibs, aka Carrigan Crittenden's 'close personal friend' (can you tell I've been ODing on kiddie movies ?):

"But there's so much you can do with it."

Precisely. (Of course Dibs was talking about condemned seafront property there, but it's equally true of life.)

Why would anyone devote their life to discussing kitchen cabinets instead of qawaa'id al lughah al arabiyya? Beats me.

the way we were

these days we all seem to be fascinated by Tariq bin Ziyaad (of Jabal-at-Tariq /Gibraltar fame)..we've been watching this animated movie on him nearly everyday on popular demand.. and we dug up BBC archives on the history of Spain and a photogallery of the breathtakingly beautiful palaces and gardens ...

what impressed us the most though, was the inscription:
wa laa ghaalib illaa Allaah
And there is no Victor, except Allaah
..it seems it's a recurrent motif on the palace walls, almost as if it's a reminder to the people who lived then, and for those to come, for all time.

When I grow up I want to be ...

19 December 2005
WHEN I GROW UP I WANT TO BE RICH
AND GOD IS 10TH BEST THING IN THE WORLD
By Victoria Ward

CHILDREN'S main aim in life is to get stinking rich, according to a survey of under-10s out today.
They believe money is the "best thing in the world" - better than football, their families, pop music and even God.

The Almighty did, however, come in No1 when the youngsters were asked to name the most famous person.
God took top spot ahead of Wayne Rooney, Jesus and David Beckham.
The Queen, Harry Potter and even Simon Cowell made the top ten.
The survey to mark today's National Kids' Day highlighted the changing priorities of young children.

Last year, money and getting rich didn't even make their top ten - and being famous was rated the "best thing".
That dropped to second this year as kids decided they would swap fame for cash.
How much money they would need to be classed as rich ranged from just £460 to £200million.

Luton First, the organisers of Kids' Day, surveyed 2,500 youngsters through schools and an online questionnaire.
Spokesman Tony Edwards said it was not surprising that being wealthy had rocketed up the priority list.
He said: "Children are confronted with people getting rich and it appears to be easy for them.
"There's the National Lottery, where millions are made frequently, and people win tremendous amounts of money on quiz shows and on the radio.
"Not only is getting rich desirable but it also appears readily available, not necessarily that difficult to get."
Children's biggest dislike was "drunk people", with smoking second, followed by litter, graffiti and war.
Bullies, last year's top hate, came sixth, followed by illness, shopping, boredom and nightmares.
And the first thing children would ban if they became rulers of the world was "telling lies".
Drunken behaviour, fighting or killing, drugs, knives and guns would also be stopped if they had their way.
Perhaps not surprisingly, they would grant more school holidays if they had the power. Pets that never died would also be a favourite with the children.
The survey revealed that 72 per cent of the youngsters thought they would marry when they were adults, and 81 per cent expected to have children.

Children in the Qur'aan: 1

ولاتقتلوآأ ولا دكم خشية عملاق

نحن نرزقكم و إياهم

إن قتلهم كان خطئاً كبيراًً

And kill not your children for fear of want (poverty)

We provide sustenance for them as well as for you

Surely, the killing of them is a great sin.

17:31

The tafseer for this ayah says that Allaah is more compassionate towards his creation than their parents ..subhaanallaah how true..how many parents consciously take the decision to terminate the life of their children

He forbids killing the children, just as He enjoins people to take care of their children in matters of inheritance. The people of jaahilliyah (the pre-Islaamic Era of Ignorance) would not allow their daughters to inherit from them and some would even kill their daughters lest they make them poor.

In the Two Saheehs it is recorded that Abdullaah ibn Mas'ood, may Allaah be pleased with him, said: "I said, O Messenger of Allaah, which sin is the worst?' He said, "To appoint rivals of Allaah when He has created you." I asked, "Then what?" Hesaid: "To kill your child lest he should eat with you." I asked, "Then what?" He said," To commit adultery with your neighbour's wife."

Subhaanallaah, this hadeeth hit me with the force of a revelation, because usually voluntary abortion is considered no more than slightly pedestrian sin .. wa iyaathu billaah.

Click here to listen to a 6 and a half week old foetus' heartbeat..something that negates the foetuses-are-not-living-things argument better than a million counter-arguments.

different strokes for different folks

In the beginning there was Rasha, bonny and beautiful ( maa shaa Allaah); sole proprietess of grandparental, parental and avuncular affection, mistress of all she surveyed.

Next came Rida, plump and placid, the quietest child I'd ever seen.

For a while that seemed to be all, and I seriously thought that we'd be one of those cool, calm and collected families where guests dropping in unexpectedly marvel at how spic n span everything is..

Then, came R. and everyone congratulated us for "completing the family."

With the birth of R Number 4 though, everyone seemed to leave their edition of 'Modern Manners' at home when they came to visit us.

And it's gotten worse with each subsequent R.

The reason why the story in the previous post warmed my heart was a single word: "support". The couple were in a "missionary church" being congratulated by members of their community in an expression of support.

Subhaanallaah..that's something that's seriously lacking in our communities..and I don't mean financially, alhamdulillaah (even though poor people with large families are from the fiqhi point of view under the category of miskeen and deserve financial help and support)

I got snide remarks, stupid jokes, hurtful comments when my family grew (wa lillaahil hamd), and were it not for a couple of totally awesome sisters who pampered me like there was no tomorrow(complete with home-cooked special meals and endless duaas); I'd have completely lost faith in the milkofhumankindness, saltoftheearth variety of friends..

Sometimes I wonder why do "modern" Muslims feel that more Muslim kids equate a time bomb ticking in their house...reminds me of the macabre spammer who recently wrote to us and wished us the modern version of "as-saam alaykum" ..
...he told us that all Muslim kids grow up to be suicide bombers (how astute!!) and the only way to deal with the menace is to finish 'em all off.

Subhaanallaah, 'they' realise that Muslim kids are the Ummah's future, but 'we' don't.

America's largest family made my (yester)day!

Ukrainian couple has 17th child, lays claim to largest US family
16/12/2005
AFP- Monica Davey

SACRAMENTO, United States (AFP) - Complete with proud smiles and self-conscious glances, Vladimir and Zynaida Chernenko's seventeen children were introduced to the world.
Cradled delicately in Vladimir Chernenko's thick arms was his baby, David, whose birth on December 7 gave the Ukrainian-American family the largest brood in the United States, according to the Russian language newspaper The Speaker.

"When we got married back in the Ukraine, for six month we had no children and thought we wouldn't have any kids at all," Vladimir told reporters at a celebration in Bethany Slavic Missionary Church in Sacramento."I never thought I would have such a family."
Vladimir said he was serving in the Ukrainian army when his wife wrote in a letter that she was pregnant.
"I said how could this happen, me in the army and she is at home pregnant?" he recalled with a laugh. "I was young then and didn't take into account we had lived together a while."
The family emigrated and settled in California seven years ago, the couple said. Vladimir is a security and maintenance worker for a charter school and the family lives in a seven-room house in Sacramento.

"It's a lot of work, and we all get tired, and it's difficult from financial point of view," Zynaida Chernenko conceded when asked if having such a large family was difficult."But, we overcome the fear by looking forward to our children with love."
The children, the eldest of which is 22, share duties and responsibilities, with the older ones filling in for their parents at times, the mother said.

"It takes a great deal of work to raise all of the children, on each level," Vladimir said. "Education and upbringing plays a large role, but the most important thing is love and a big heart."
It also helps to have a 15-seat mini-van and a huge dinner table, the family confided.
"I talk to my friends, and they are worried their family has only one child or two," said 18-year-old Dimitry Chernenko. "They go home to nothing. I come home from school and I'm never bored. You always have something to do."

Part of that is by parental design, the mother explained, because she and her husband make certain the children keep busy with school, chores or other tasks.

"Our goal is to raise the children so when they grow up they will not be afraid of anything in life," Zynaida said. "I think if every family approaches it that way, we will have a very healthy society."
The siblings do not squabble about portion sizes, television channels or other matters because their dad has driven home the importance of putting aside selfishness in order to survive as a family, 17-year-old Anatoliy said.

"We sit all together, put out the food and eat like a regular family," said 16-year-old Lyudmila "Sometimes we wait for each other to finish, and then feed the little kids."
The father and mother said it was difficult to estimate how much they spend weekly on food, because the money goes out as quickly as it comes in.
"It's impossible to say how many diapers we've changed, because back in the Ukraine we didn't have those things," Vladimir said. "We used other means."

The huge family group appeared to be thrilled by the presence of reporters and the notion of being on the television news.
Two-year-old Timofey, however, napped in a sister's lap as the family fielded questions and posed for pictures.
"It's cool to be called the biggest family in America."
The couple expressed thanks for the support they have received from Russian and American business people, along with their church.
When asked whether David would be her last baby, Zynaida replied: "I can't say."
"I am grateful for all my children, my wonderful husband, my friends. And, I'd like to thank my doctor."

Must-Read

The latest posts on Laila El Haddad's blog ...hair-raising, firsthand account of the situation in Gaza.

Amir Butler on what's going on in Cronulla...an insightful, ringside view of the riots.

May Allaah ease the affairs of all the suffering Muslims. Aameen.
May Allaah grant strength and patience in these difficult times, Aameen.

..He continued with his da'wah

Assalaamu'alaykum
I'm Rida.
We have a lesson :أنواع الاذى الذي تعرض له النبي صلى الله عليه و سلم وأصحابه

It describes the troubles that the Messenger of Allaah, sall Allaahu alayhi wasallam and his Companions radi'Allaahu 'anhum ajmaeen went through for the sake of Islaam

It says:

كان النبي صلى الله عليه و سلم أشد من تعرض للأذى من المشركين ومن أنواع الأذى التي تعرض له النبي أنهم وصفوه بالجنون والكذب وأخذوا يرمونه بالحجارة, ويضعون في طريقه
الأشواك , والنبي رغم كل ذلك مستمر في دعوته , مصممٌ على نشره

Which means: Allaah's Messenger sall Allaahu 'alayhi wasallam was the one who was put to harm the *most* by the disbelivers..they called him, sall Allaahu 'alayhi wasallam, "majnoon" and "kaadhib" and they threw stones at him and put thorns in his path; but in spite of this he, sall Allaahu 'alayhi wasallam, continued in his da'wah

اللهم صلي علىنبينا و قدوتنا محمد صلى الله عليه و سلم

actually, make that 20

Did you know who was Abu Tammam?
[Ed: I confess I didn't, until Rasha told me this morning]
Abu Tammam was a great Arabian poet. His full name was: Abu Tammam Habib bin Aus. He was a poet and collector of Arabic poems. Here's one of them.



إذا جاريت في خلق دنيئا -- فانت و من تجاريه سوا
لقد جرّ بت هذا الدهر حتى-- افادتني التجارب والعناء.
وما من شدّة إلا سياتي -- لها من بعد شدّ تها رخاء.
يعيش المرء ما الستحيا بخير-- ويبقى العود ما بقي اللحاء
فلا والله ما في العيش خير-- ولا الدنيا إذا ذهب الحياء
إذا لم تخش عاقبة الليالي-- ولم تستحي فاصنع ما تشاء


Ithaa jaarayta fee khuluqin daneey'an/Fa anta wa man tujaareehee sawaa'u
If you keep step with someone with base charachter/then know that the one you see and you are the same

Laqad jarrabtu haadha ad dahr hatta/ afaadatny at tajrubu wa alanau
I have experienced this myself/until I benefited from this

Wa maa min shidda ila saya'ty/ lahaa min baad shiddatihha rakha'u
And there is no hardship/except that there comes ease after it

~Rasha~

19 Things

19 Things R-R are teaching me

(why 19?..because that's the sum of their ages..see, it makes sense if you look at it like that)
Beyond the mushiness of loving, sharing, caring and making it second nature to put another person's needs before one's own, r-R are teaching me some hands-on lessons in life that I'd have never learnt without them..

How to read the Qur'aan with right tajweed

How to understand/pronounce particularly dicey Arabic turns of phrase

How to tie laces on shoes

How to blow balloons and tie them without string

How to make the 'running stitch'

How to fix index cards just so

How to tuck the bedsheet in without a single wrinkle

How to clean a horribly littered room in 5 minutes flat

How to make friends with strangers even if you don't speak their language

How to draw using the computer paint box (it's not as easy as it looks!)

How to wear an abaya ra'see

How to make hot cocoa without floating lumps

How to eat eggs for breakfast, lunch and dinner

How to wake up, pray and get dressed for school and out of the house in 10 minutes

How to cope, how to make-do, how to do without

How to enjoy picnics by the sea

How to implement what you've learnt, right now

How to save random change from around the house in a spare wallet

How to operate the 4 remotes in tandem

Allaah y'salimik yaa Rasha wa Rida..may the learning never end!

subhaanallaah!

Woman Exhibits Gift for Memorization, Then Dies
Arab News

KHULAIS, 12 December 2005 — A seventy-year-old woman died after she received an award for memorizing ten chapters from the Holy Qur’an, Al-Madinah reported.
The old woman had visited all of her children on the day she died and paid all her debts before entering the competition. She came in first place in the competition. After receiving the award she died that night from an undisclosed cause.

remembrance of things past

There was a sudden hush as he took his place at thedesk on the dais, the tall clock behind him ticking and the smell of ink and varnish. Someone dropped a desk lid -- he decided to show that he would not permit any nonsense.
"You there in the fifth row, you with the red hair. What's your name?" he said.

"Colley, sir."

"Very well, Colley. You have a hundred lines."
No trouble at all after that.

And years later, when Colley was a government official in London he sent his son (also red-haired) to Brookfield, and Chips would say:'Colley, your father was the first boy I ever punished when I came here twenty five years ago. He deserved it then, and you deserve it now.'
How they all laughed; and how the father laughed when his son wrote home the story in next Sunday's letter!

And again, years after that, many years after that, there was an even better joke. For another Colley had just arrived -- son of the Colley, who was a son of the first Colley. AndChips would say, punctuating his remarks with that little 'umph-um' that had by then become a habit with him: 'Colley, you are --umph-- a splendid example of --umph-- inherited traditions. I remember your grandfather -- umph-- he could never grasp the Ablative Absolute in Latin. A stupid fellow, your grandfather. And your father too, umph -- I remember him -- he used to sit at that far desk by the wall -- he wasn't much better, either. But I do believe -- my dear Colley -- that you are -- umph -- the biggest fool of the lot!"
Roars of laughter.

A great joke, this growing old -- but a sad joke, too, in a way.
As Chips sat by his fire with winter rattling the windows, the waves of humour and sadness swept over him very often until tears fell, so that when Mrs. Wickett came in with his cup of tea she did not know whether he had been laughing or crying. And neither did Chips himself.

--Goodbye Mr. Chips, James Hilton.

Wisdom of the World's Oldest People

"Oh, honey, I could tell you so many things, oh I could tell you lotsa things, but I forget 'em. I forget 'em," she said.
--Wisdom of the World's Oldest People

This book is compiled by Jerry Friedman, photographer, author and founder of Earth's Elders Foundation, who has spent the past four years on a landmark project to introduce the world to the sixty oldest people on earth.

Using his lens to capture a community that has never before been documented, the award-winning photographer has shed new light on the "invisible" world of people 110 years and older, known by researchers as "supercentenarians." His work provides an unprecedented look at the hearts, minds and spirits of these "extreme elderly," and in the process, uncovers remarkable insights into health and the aging process.

With each visit on his globe-trotting journey to capture the lives of these "supercentenarians," Friedman gained a deeper understanding of what the elderly in every culture have to offer. Inspired by the opportunity to improve the quality of life of the elderly, to teach children to recognize the wisdom and value of the elderly as positive and essential parts of our families and our society, and to improve the health of our communities through intergenerational tolerance and communication, Friedman has created an educational non-profit organization, The Earth's Elders Foundation.

Birds & Bees 101

You've just found out your son or daughter is getting sex education at public school and you want to give them the Islamic perspective on it.Or your kids have started asking the “where do babies come from” question.But you just can't get over your tongue-tying embarrassment. Imagine! If your father or mother, back in Cairo or Karachi, heard of this they'd be stunned and question your parenting skills!

Here are some tips that can help you talk to your kids...

and here, here, here, here, here and here

State says:If you can't be good, be careful!

5 December 2005
COMPULSORY SEX LESSONS AT AGE 5
Kids are 'growing up confused'
By Rosa Prince, Political Correspondent, And Emily Nash
CHILDREN as young as five should have compulsory sex education at school, say Government advisers. Lessons would go far further than teaching the basics, with in-depth discussions for older children on sexually transmitted diseases, contraception and peer pressure to have sex.
Primary school children aged five to 11 would be encouraged to discuss their feelings and emotions about sex.
The Independent Advisory Groups on Sexual Health and Teenage Pregnancy blame the current system, where schools decide whether to teach sex education to under-11s, for muddled knowledge among most primary pupils.
More open, informative and detailed lessons would help tackle high rates of teenage pregnancy, they say. They want legislation to make Personal, Social and Health Education compulsory. It would include sex and relationships, with discussion on topics such as dealing with peer pressure, where to get condoms and how infections such as chlamydia and genital warts are passed on.

Younger pupils would focus on the emotional issues associated with relationships, with only secondary pupils getting more detailed information on sexual activity and its consequences. The report, sent to ministers at the Departments of Health and Education, shows teenage pregnancy in Liverpool, Bradford and Hackney, East London, fell after schools there introduced sex education classes. Labour peer Joyce Gould, who chaired the group, said the proposals would not lead to more promiscuity.

She said: "Some people will say that if you don't tell them about it, they won't do it. But real life shows that's not the case. More and more people are having sex at a younger age." Gill Frances, chair of the teenage pregnancy section, said: "Young people are growing up in an increasingly sexualised society where there are mixed messages about sex. The result is they end up confused."
The Department for Education said: "There are no plans to change the current policy."

SHOULD CHILDREN THIS YOUNG GET SEX EDUCATION?
Yea or nay..read on..

generosity that lasts generations

The rub'aat (inn) where we often stay in Makkah is a two-minute walk to the Haram, it was built by a Begum of Bhopal to help people on Hajj/Umrah visits

subhaanallaah..how many people who are granted wealth use it like that?
Copyright©Christopher Buyers, May 2001 - September 2005

btw

this is what the lake looked like back then, when..

and now..

On this day..

Bhopal, Dec 3, 1984


7.30 am
Dressed in my school uniform (green pinafore, yellow blouse) I'm waiting for the school bus. The 'bus stand' is a ramshackle shed overlooking the Big Lake, migratory black Mongolian ducks dot the deep blue water and the winter wind takes a nibble-sized nip from our red noses and cheeks.

We walk along the promenade, talking of this teacher and that, keeping an eye out for the bus as it comes hurtling down the slope.

7:48 am
No bus yet. Maybe the driver's had a flat. All this walking has made us hungry: should we take our tiffins out and have a second breakfast? Yeas all around..we feast on pickles and puri, paper-thin dosa and coconut chutney, plastic smelling jam sandwiches.

8: 10 am
No bus.
Should we go home and ask someone to drop us off to school? No one fancies 10 laps around the enormous schoolyard in the biting wind, Sr. Lorraine's favourite punishment for latecomers.

8. 20 am
On the road again, the place seems strangely empty. The daily mess of office-goers, schoolkids riding tongas or pillion behind their papas, the sweepers on the streets..nobody's around. Perhaps it's a government holiday that we didn't know about we think, until we see the bodies..white sheets upon white sheets line the road leading upto Hamidia Hospital. We can see a crowd in the distance..chaos..

"What happened? Has there been an accident?" my father asks someone.
"Yes, there's been a gas leak in the Union Carbide factory.."
"But that's so far..in another part of the city, what's the commotion here for?"
"It's just people coming to the hospital..thousands of them..it seems thousands have died..."

The first time I heard of it, people described the gas as "red chillies being burnt in the air"..ironically, a superstitious ritual to ward off disaster.

It was only years later, as a medical student in Hamidia Hospital that I saw what that night meant.. old ladies, their heads covered with wrinkled green dupattas opened their kurtas to show us the "peau-d'orange" effect of carcinoma, their faces reflecting the confusion on ours; old men waited patiently behind partitions to show a group of would-be doctors what prostate cancer looked like; in the children's ward there were 'cases' that couldn't be classified as kids..bulging heads, cleft palates and holes in hearts, dumped in the hospital by parents who cared..(the others were simply killed).
In the TB hospital (located conveniently en route to the crematorium) housewives hacked up blood and wasted away, wondering when they'd be allowed to go home…
At family gatherings, people blamed the 'gas' for everything..from seasonal aches and pains to the rising cost of groceries..who knows, perhaps they were right?

As I write this today, I realise..it's true, we live the horror of the past only in retrospect.

M&M and Dubya :0

Assalamu'alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh,

I'm writing after a long time,because I was BUSY...
Because we've just shifted to a new arabic school.It's a very exciting school ,and we have a lot of fun there. . . but it's very strict too,(sigh) . My class is fantastic! The girls are interesting and so are the teachers.

My class has 4 non natives besides me... one of them is a girl called M. who has the same surname as me!!!.. and there's another M in another grade who's an American..she speaks Arabic with an American accent!!!...and there's a girl in our class who looks exactly like...GWB!!! (but she's very nice and even welcomed me to the class!!)

I'll try and write more regularly in shaa Allaah..

Rasha

Smile!

تبسمك في وجه أخيك لك صدقة

The Messenger ofAllaah, sall Allaahu 'alayhi wa sallam said:

Your smiling in the face of your brother is sadaqa (charity)

Rida :)