interesting...

10 is the new 15 as kids grow up faster: MSNBC

I found this article really interesting (although it's written mainly from the point of view of a non-Muslim parent-child living in the West) because it talks about a trend: tweens turning into teens too soon. The parents in the article successfully pinpoint what's behind this trend:

Part of it, experts say, is marketing — and tweens are much-sought-after consumers.
Advertisers have found that, increasingly, children and teens are influencing the buying decisions in their households _ from cars to computers and family vacations. According to 360 Youth, an umbrella organization for various youth marketing groups, tweens represent $51 billion worth of annual spending power on their own from gifts and allowance, and also have a great deal of say about the additional $170 billion spent directly on them each year.

Toymakers also have picked up on tweens' interest in older themes and developed toy lines to meet the demand — from dolls known as Bratz to video games with more violence.
Diane Levin, a professor of human development and early childhood at Wheelock College in Boston, is among those who've taken aim at toys deemed too violent or sexual.
"We've crossed a line. We can no longer avoid it — it's just so in our face," says Levin, author of the upcoming book "So Sexy So Soon: The Sexualization of Childhood."

For some reason, the parents quoted in the article seem resigned to the fact that advertisers, peers and society will have a greater influence on their children than themselves...that's quite disturbing.

***

I also found this very interesting: How to Raise Children to be Rich

It's an interesting, somewhat old-fashioned take on teaching children the work ethic that leads them to be responsible and balanced in their attitude towards money later on in life...

the dh 399 question: to buy or not to buy

Disney launches kids' mobile phone
By Robert Ditcham, Staff Reporter Gulf News
Dubai: The consumer product branch of Disney is launching a children's mobile phone in the UAE today on the back of research revealing high mobile use among 8- to 13-year-olds.
Disney says the D100 mobile phone includes Disney ringtones, changeable handset covers, automatic vibration ring during school hours and various restrictions on handset use.
Developed for Disney by Dubai-based Broadlink Research, the D100 goes on sale today priced at Dh399.

--------

It's interesting that this 'phone has been launched after 'researching' the high incidence of mobile-phone use among children as young as 8...no mention is made of the other kind of research:

The Times: Mobile phones tumour risk to young children

By Sam Coates, Nigel Hawkes and Alexandra Blair
CHILDREN under the age of eight should not use mobile phones, parents were advised last night after an authoritative report linked heavy use to ear and brain tumours and concluded that the risks had been underestimated by most scientists.
Professor Sir William Stewart, chairman of the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB), said that evidence of potentially harmful effects had become more persuasive over the past five years. The news prompted calls for phones to carry health warnings and panic in parts of the industry. One British manufacturer immediately suspended a model aimed at four to eight-year-olds.

BBC:Parents should ensure their children use mobile phones only when absolutely necessary because of the potential health risks, an expert is warning. The latest study by Sir William Stewart says there is still no 'absolute' proof mobile phones are unsafe, but warns precautionary steps should be taken. Sir William said children under eight should not use mobile phones at all.

Q&A: Mobile phone safety
Stewart report findings
A family's mobile experience

Sir William, now of the National Radiological Protection Board, first warned five years ago that children should only use mobiles in emergencies. But he is now concerned that advice is being ignored.

One in four seven to 10-year-olds now own a mobile phone - double the levels in 2001, according to latest figures. Sir William's new report, published on Tuesday, warns that if mobile phones do damage health, then children will inevitably be at greatest risk.
It also calls for a review of the planning process for base stations.
Sir William said he did not favour mobile phone masts being situated near schools.
He told the BBC Radio Four Today programme: "If there are risks - and we think that maybe there are - then the people who are going to be most affected are children, and the younger the children, the greater the danger.
"Parents have a responsibility to their children not simply to throw a mobile phone to a young child, and say 'off you go'."

Professor Lawrie Challis, who was vice chairman of the Stewart Inquiry and is now chairman of the Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research programme, set up to investigate the health risks of mobile phones, told BBC News: "I would certainly not wish my own grandchildren to use mobile phones more than they had to."

Rosie Winterton, the Public Health Minister, said government guidance stressed that mobile phones should not be over-used by young children. "Obviously there are parents who feel they want to children to have mobile phones for safety reasons, but we are quite clear that they ought to be very careful about over-use.

Childnet International: Children and mobiles: Risks and Challenges

creationist teaching materials "not appropriate" (!)

Dozens of schools are using creationist teaching materials condemned by the government as "not appropriate to support the science curriculum": The Guardian

The packs promote the creationist alternative to Darwinian evolution called intelligent design and the group behind them said 59 schools are using the information as "a useful classroom resource".

A teacher at one of the schools said it intended to use the DVDs to present intelligent design as an alternative to Darwinism. Nick Cowan, head of chemistry at Bluecoat school, in Liverpool, said: "Just because it takes a negative look at Darwinism doesn't mean it is not science. I think to critique Darwinism is quite appropriate."

But the government has made it clear that "neither intelligent design nor creationism are recognised scientific theories". The chairman of the parliamentary science and technology select committee, the Lib Dem MP Phil Willis, said he was horrified that the packs were being used in schools.
"I am flabbergasted that any head of science would give credence to this creationist theory and be prepared to put it alongside Darwinism," he said. "Treating it as an alternative centralist theory alongside Darwinism in science lessons is deeply worrying."

The teaching pack, which includes two DVDs and a manual, was sent to the head of science at all secondary schools in the country on September 18 by the group Truth in Science. The enclosed feedback postcard was returned by 89 schools. As well as 59 positive responses, 15 were negative or dismissive and 15 said the material was "not suitable".

"We are not attacking the teaching of Darwinian theory," said Richard Buggs, a member of Truth in Science. "We are just saying that criticisms of Darwin's theory should also be taught."
"Intelligent design looks at empirical evidence in the natural world and says, 'this is evidence for a designer'. If you go any further the argument does become religious and intelligent design does have religious implications," added Dr Buggs.

parenting paradox: how to perpetuate the circle of life?

I used to teach this little girl English.

Maa shaa Allaah, her parents are practising, pillar-of-the-community type Muslims. Once I mentioned to her mother that she was picking up the language really fast, and in shaa Allaah, if they encouraged her to continue learning she could grow up to be of great benefit to others.

Her mother demurred.

Finally, she said: It's very unacceptable in our community for girls to do anything outside the home...even going to college involves mixing with the opposite gender...and not many husbands want their wives to work outside the house because it impacts the family and compromises the girl's obligations towards the family...

This is something I hear a lot.

For example, a lot of practising, religiously inclined people aren't too keen on the idea of sending their daughters to college, for a course in medicine for example, since it involves a mixed environment and long years of study. Yet, when the women in their family need medical attention, they automatically expect a female doctor/dentist/gynecologist to show up.

How is the system supposed to work like this, how do we perpetuate the the circle of life without personally putting anything into the community kitty?

Alhamdulillaah, Muslims today have the resources to build the infrastructure that can ensure segregation at schools, colleges, hospitals and other workplaces. Why is so little being done to develop this?

It's a parenting paradox I experience myself.

Alhamdulillaah, like every other Mum in the world I believe my children are special -- their lives are brimming with potential and endless possibilities. But many times I find myself mentally clipping their wings even before they spread them out to soar. I mentally rule out career choices for my daughters that would involve working outside the house, that would involve interacting with strangers. I do this, even when I am completely aware that we desperately need more Muslim doctors and lawyers and journalists and psychotherapists and counsellors...

I would love for all my children to learn about Islaam at college -- yet, having seen for myself the bickering and name-calling, the sectarianism and bigotry, the puffed up egos and the public pandering to them, that goes on in 'students of knowledge' circles, I hesitate to commit my children's lives.

I ask myself the same question: How do we expect the next generation of Muslims to have people they can benefit from, if we shy away from letting our own children develop into a means of that benefit?

الأشهر الحرم/The Sacred Months

"O people! You are about to witness these Sacred Months, so do not wrong yourselves during them. Be committed to the limits defined by Allaah, fulfil His obligations, shun His prohibitions and fulfil the rights of your Lord and of the people. Know that Satan has taken it upon himself to use all might and means in order to seduce all of Allaah’s servants, except those who are sincerely devout to Him.
Satan is keen to distract man from goodness, to divert his attention from Allaah’s religion and to entice him to commit evil. If Satan notices that man is inclined to do good, he will attempt to discourage and hinder him from doing it, exhausting all possible means. If he fails, he will quickly attempt another way, and so forth. Satan starts off by seducing man to commit the most destructive sins. If he fails, he will try with less dangerous sins. Once he succeeds in seducing man into sin, he will delude him into procrastinating in repentance and will lead him to think little of his sins, and that he will one day soon give them up, but in reality, such a day may not ever come. After underestimating one's sins, it becomes easy to be led to more grievous ones, until a person eventually leaves the fold of the religion.

The Prophet صلىالله عليه وسلم referred to this gradual degradation into sins when he said: “Beware of minor sins, whose example is like a (group of) people who go to the middle of a valley and gather sticks, each returning with a stick of wood (so that in total, they are enough) to cook their bread. When a person is given to committing sins which he belittles, they will (thus accumulate and) lead to his ruin.”

from: A khutbah by Sh. Muhammad Saalih al-'Uthaymeen

Have you talked to your grandparents lately?

final exam :)

Teenage girl to grandfather: "Why do you keep reading the Quran everyday?"

Grandad: "Well, it's a bit like cramming for your final exam..."

from: The Laughing Muslim

the golden mean, modern muslim role models (and the scarcity thereof)

I just watched 'Unveiling the Truth', journalist Rageh Omar's feature on the niqaab in Britain, shot among the Muslims of Dewsbury (a town that's come to be associated with the place of origin of one of the 7/7 uk bombers) on AlJazeera English.

It was such a refreshing take on the story that, as promised, "went beyond the soundbites and stereotypes."

The camera wandered through the town unobtrusively, through local markets where women in veils and without went about their business, drawing no stares or untoward attention. He spoke to a local (non-Muslim) woman, who said she was used to seeing Muslim women in traditional dress...what was the fuss about?

He ventured into the local pub to ask locals what they thought of the niqaab, talked to a young hijab-clad Muslimah reporter, and was asked to clear off from the masjid by a rough-talking young man who said Muslims had nothing to say to the media because eventually it would be distorted, until he was told ...it's AlJazeera...and he relented.

It was a segment that would make a good ad for the channel -- it spoke volumes about the credibility the channel enjoys as the alternative voice, the unheard perspective.

Another programme, everywoman, has (besides a section on the harmful effects of skin-bleaching products) an exclusive interview with Asma al-Hajj, the wife of Guantanamo detainee Sami al-Hajj and AlJazeera cameraman ...and another exclusive feature on him: Prisoner 345

I felt both exhilarated and extremely sad...exhilarated because it was exciting to watch a vibrant, professionally presented alternative news option in place of overtly biased coverage. Sad...because although there are a number of very visible Muslim names, there are no hijaabs or men with beards.

[Yes, I know AlJazeera English isn't slotted to be mainly a mouthpiece for Muslims, and no, I'm not the only one who noticed the lack of hijaabs ...a Guardian journalist who reviewed the channel mentioned it first]

It's almost as if there's a semi-permeable barrier that separates 'mover&shaker' Muslims who may not have outward manifestations of their faith (hijaab, beards), but are out there in the public sphere doing things that ultimately benefit the community; and 'the religious types' who sport all the right gear(beards, hijaab /niqaab) but are so frantically involved with their own souls/selves that they may end up not doing much for the community.

The Prophet صلىالله عليه وسلم and his Companions didn't face this dichotomy...they taught and studied, tended horses and carried water, cooked food and went on conquests, prayed through the night and ran prosperous businesses with equal ease...unlike many of us, they never faced the either/or life choice. Their Islaam created an all-encompassing harmony between the sacred and the mundane...it made their every deed an act of worship...why is this harmony missing today?

Vince McMahon lives in my mosque

By Javed Memon

Just a few weeks ago, I walked in to the Islamic Society of Central Jersey intending to pray. While I was making the motions, however, I was listening intently to the conversations of kids who arrived early to recite the Qur'an.

Needless to say, they weren't reciting the Qur'an, they were discussing Vince McMahon and the latest story lines of the WWE. I hear those discussions in mosques all the time.

Again, you may try to brush this aside with statements like these shows don't affect my kids, these shows are just for fun.But if advertising wasn't effective, these corporations and media conglomerates wouldn't be spending billions of dollars on marketing. And our kids wouldn't be discussing Vince McMahon and his latest conquests right before Friday prayer.

Every week, 4.5 million teens watch WWE, and that was back in 2002. Four years later, I'm sure that number has gone way up.Before you start thinking that I'm nuts, let me qualify this post by stating that I am not arguing a simple, cause-and-effect type relationship between our kids' behavior and something they watch. However, to quote Jackson Katz, (See the Media Education Foundation's Documentary, Wrestling with Manhood): "Beyond simplistic notions of cause-and-effect, we need to examine how something watched so frequently by so many boys and young men might cultivate, legitimate and glamorize certain ideas about what it means to be a man, and therefore certain behaviors that conform to these ideas."

...Besides all of that, what does this all mean to me and other people of my generation? Well, from the perspective of a young man who hopes to be married and possibly raise a family someday, the whole question of media education for our children plagues me.

I wonder, am I really capable of helping my children understand these wild messages that they will be receiving? How can I protect my kid from thinking that because they are a little bit insecure they need some sort of anti-anxiety medication? Or having my sons treat and think of women as the sexual, superficial objects they appear to be in television wrestling? Or my daughters having serious complexes, striving hard to reach a standard of beauty that is nothing less than disgusting. Will my boy(s) make good men despite all of this? Will my girl(s) make good women who are able to filter out the crap?

Admittedly, I am asking myself the wrong questions. I cannot possibly protect them. What I can do is speak with them, engage them in conversation, and help them understand this false reality that we are all presented with. Finally, I can ask the only One who can protect them, God, to do just that...

have computer games gone too far?

Torturing this child is a game too far, says appalled EU boss

By David Charter

Have computer games gone too far? Vote here

COMPUTER games depicting brutal and sadistic behaviour, and the ease with which children can obtain them, are to be the subject of a crackdown by the European Union.
A new Sony PlayStation game, which shows a young girl being kidnapped and tortured, led to Franco Frattini, the Justice Commissioner, calling yesterday for urgent action to limit the availability of “obscene” material to young people. He has summoned a meeting of EU Home Affairs ministers next month because of his revulsion after watching Rule of Rose.

The game is to be released in Britain on November 24, but is available to order on the internet. It has already sparked an outcry on the Continent: the Mayor of Rome has called for it to be banned.
The game puts the player in the shoes of a teenage girl who is repeatedly beaten and humiliated as she tries to break out of an orphanage. She is bound, gagged, doused with liquids, buried alive and thrown into the “Filth Room”.
It was given a 16-plus rating by the independent Pan European Game Information body (PEGI), but Mr Frattini suggested that voluntary ratings were no longer enough to stop obscene games falling into younger hands.

“An increasing number of such games display and even glorify violence, sometimes extreme violence,” he said. He singled out Rule of Rose about “a young girl who is submitted to psychological and physical violence. This has shocked me profoundly for its obscene cruelty and brutality.”
Mr Frattini hopes that industry representatives will come forward with their own proposals to clean up games aimed at children and find a better way to restrict their distribution to older teenagers.
He added: “It is first and foremost the responsibility of the parents to protect children from such games, but I nevertheless think that we at member state and European level also have to take responsibility to protect children’s rights.These types of games are dreadful examples for our children.”
------------

Just a word on PlayStation: alhamdulillaah, we never bought it.

But this time when they were in the UAE, R-R were gifted one b/z they seemed so enamoured by it (forbidden fruit and all that).

I was appalled at how mind-numbingly boring and repetitive the games are -- I mean what's the hype about?

Needless to say, it's gathering dust in a drawer.

From my experience, the best toys are those that last the longest, don't break easily, don't need chargers and batteries, don't involve long hours of sitting and staring at a screen, actually stimulate the mind and retain the child's attention the longest: balls, books and colours.

return of the fountain pen

By Alexandra L Smith @ mortarboard

Leaky nibs, stained uniforms and classroom weapons. Just when you thought emails and text messages had taken all the romance out of writing, the fountain pen is back.
Forget computers or Blackberrys. In a last-ditch attempt to save the nation's handwriting, an independent school has ordered pupils over nine to only write with fountain pens.

Bryan Lewis, the headteacher of the Mary Erskine and Stewart's Melville junior school in Edinburgh, is convinced that his pupils' education and confidence will benefit from producing more elegant handwriting.
Apparently, pupils who use fountain pens in exams usually perform better because the pens require more concentration, forcing youngsters to think about their spelling and grammar.

If it is good enough for the prime minister, it is good enough for Mr Lewis's pupils. Tony Blair, who was educated in the Scottish private school system, writes all his speeches in longhand with a fountain pen before passing them to his secretaries to be typed.
And it seems, Mr Lewis and Mr Blair are not the only ones lamenting the lost art of fountain pens.

Bloggers are defensive when it comes to the fountain v ballpoint argument while others are sure their education would have suffered if it had not been for fountain pens. There are even fountain pen fan sites for those who couldn't be without an ink-stained top pocket.
The return of pen and ink may well bring with it a revival of the dying art of handwriting, but teachers beware. The pens were the catalyst for many a classroom squabble and while times and technology may change, youngsters don't. It won't be long before they will discover the joys of the ink pellet - every teacher's worst nightmare.

-------------

Nostalgia is...a silver and gold sheaffer's pen (my first) which had this incredible ability to drink ink directly from the bottle, unlike the maroon parker with a silver cap, that had to be lovingly fed with a plastic dropper.

I loved fountain pens...loved the smell of fresh ink drying on new notepaper, loved pens with thick nibs, loved forming words slowly, deliberately; loved long spellings because there was more to write (if that makes me sound dated/dolt-ish...too bad).

Then suddenly writing choices were narrowed to .5 mm tips and coolness quotients in school began to be determined by the variety and number of Pilot pens per pencil box...much to the despair of our teachers who insisted on all classwork being completed with fountain pens.

I miss fountain pens -- being allowed to use them, as opposed to plebeian pencils, was a major rite of passage, and it is thanks to them that my handwriting doesn't resemble the trademark scrawl inspite of med school.

Rasha-Rida, on the other hand, have never used fountain pens and (they'll kill me for saying this) *sometimes when they're in a rush* their handwriting reflects this.

The Ways of our Fathers

By Yahiya Emerick

When the Umayyad Governor of Egypt, ‘Abdul-Aziz ibn Marwan, was near death, he said to his assistants, “Bring the burial shroud that I will be covered in to me so I can inspect it.”

When it was brought before him, he looked at it and said, “Is this all that I’m going to have from this life?” He then turned his back and cried while saying, “Damn you, life! Your abundance is meager, your meagerness is short lived, and you tricked us.”

As I passed by a graveyard the other day, I found myself looking at the headstones as I whizzed by at sixty miles an hour. Ironic, really. But I’ve been doing a lot of thinking on the irony of the world and how so few people ever ‘get it’. I’ve taught in Muslim schools nearly fifteen years and I see the parents. They’re just like any non-Muslim parents. Some think ahead and in broad terms for their children’s futures, while others are like a bunch of bumblers who can barely conceive of the notion of packing their kid a decent lunch. Most are somewhere in between. I’m probably right in the middle, myself.

What are you supposed to teach your children? What will live on after you when nothing you build or acquire will remain? We already read frequently in the Qur’an that only taqwa and morally upright deeds live on to our credit in the Afterlife, and we’ve heard from the Prophet that three things can continue in the world after our deaths (useful knowledge we uncovered, a charity that keeps on giving, and the prayers of a righteous child,) but how do we conduct ourselves, knowing these things? How are most of us structuring our lives, given that nothing we establish will outlast us or preserve us? You know the answer. Just look at your own life. Until you can accuse yourself honestly, and find yourself guilty, you’ll never make any progress.

When we look at our children, how are we preparing them for the future? Shouldn’t we first recognize that they have no future – at least in this life? Shouldn’t we realize that they, too, will be in our predicament? They’re only alive for a while, just as we, and then they’ll have to confront the reality. No one ever, ever, ever wants to contemplate losing a child. Some people do lose their children and they are filled with sorrow. Could you imagine your child ever passing away. The thought horrifies you, repels you, and you don’t even want to think about it. But your child will die, just most likely after you have. Have you wept over the death of your child, who will die one day? Is the fact that you won’t be around to see it somehow making it less painful for you to think about. The truly loving parent weeps for their child’s death whether they die before or after them.

After you’ve learned to weep over what could be and what will be, so then what are you left with? What are you doing with your life? Are you trying real hard to make sure your child will get rich when they’re an adult? Is this dominating your every thought? Have you taught your five year old to say, “ophthalmologist” or “Surgeon”? Do you set the example of how to live by buying not just a good car, but the “best” car? Do you do what the “successful” people do, so you can pat yourselves on the back and say, “I’ve made it”? Have you really made it? Has your success been assured? Are you now in a secure place, from which you will never come down, or be kicked out?

the girl who can't smile

pic: Haaretz

By Gideon Levy, Haaretz

Little Meisa walks around barefoot among the ruins of her home, stepping on a carpet of glass splinters. In silence she walks among the ruins, here and there, not knowing what to do with herself. Her gray face expresses shock. Meisa does not say a word, it is impossible to get even a trace of a smile from her. This child is now a victim of shock.

Five years old, on Shabbat afternoon, when the shell shook the walls of her house, hit the roof and destroyed it, Meisa was on the top floor of the family's impoverished home. Now she is walking around the house restlessly, hugging to herself a bundle of rags that were her clothes. Meisa does not leave the rags, holds them tightly, so they won't get lost.

Abed, her cousin, was on the roof and was wounded. This house is home to 35 people, almost all of whom were at home when the shell landed on the roof. Most of them are small children.

-------------

So vicious, this cycle

Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff on the Beit Hanoun massacre in Haaretz

Raad al-Atamna, lived with his wife and children in the home of his extended family in the Hamad neighborhood, which is on the western edge of Beit Hanun. Early on Wednesday morning he set out for work. A few minutes later, when he was at the entrance to Gaza, his mobile phone rang. His brother Wael informed him that the family home had been bombarded and there were many people injured there; he asked him to call for first aid.

Raad drove back to the house in a frenzy. "You don't understand. It's impossible to forget this sight," he says. "Children without hands, without feet, flung in every corner, tremendous destruction. Our whole family lives there. The stairwell was completely destroyed and in every corner there was someone who was wounded or killed. Blood was everywhere and amputated limbs. Even our neighbors, who came to help, were wounded by the last shells." According to him, the house was hit by at least seven shells. "I don't know what to tell you. We have five children in the family who are seriously wounded and it is not clear to me whether they will survive the night. My children, praise God, are alive. But I have sent them to friends, because we don't have anywhere to sleep. In the meantime I'll sleep at the neighbors' house."

Raad, who works regularly with Israeli journalists, finds it hard to understand the bombardment. "There wasn't any problem with Israel in our family. Ever. But even if there had been anything like that, how is a 4-year-old little boy or little girl to blame; how is a 7-year-old girl whose foot was amputated to blame?"

boys to men

21 skills I'm hoping my sons acquire before they're 21 (in shaa Allaah, pls pray for us!!)

1. Complete their tahfeeth and get an 'ijaazah to teach the Qur'aan (a kind of permission/license to teach others, granted by a scholar to someone who has learnt under him)
2. Develop a sense of ghayrah for sisters -- not just the ones at home, but *every* Muslim/non-Muslim female they encounter in their lives...to be protective of them, if necessary even from the desires of their own selves.
3. Learn to lower their gaze -- in spite of all the talk, I still believe that this isn't emphasised enough and there's evidence all around. I believe that the one person who can really drill this in is the mother -- halaqahs or lectures or what have you can only do so much..
4. Learn to be righteous, not self-righteous. Take the deen way more seriously than they take themselves.
5. Revive the Sunnah -- most importantly, the Sunnah of being *kind* to all the creatures of Allaah -- Muslims, non-Muslims, animals, trees..
6. Be responsible, pick up after themselves
7. Navigate their way around the kitchen reasonably well...be confident enough to cook a meal or two on their own and make drinkable tea/coffee if there's company
8. Change their socks everyday and *tie* them together instead of scattering them around the house; put dirty clothes in the laundry basket
9. Save a slot for reading everyday -- not just the 'papers
10. Give an inspiring khutbah or speak publicly in a manner that can soften hearts, not score points
11. Be soft in speech -- the Qur'aan likens a raised voice to the sound of donkeys and calls it the "ankaral aswaat" -- the most repulsive of sounds.
12. Take care of their bodies and health -- choose the right food to eat and exercise -- everyday -- no matter how much the world rests heavy on their shoulders
13. Make community service a life choice, not just a weekend indulgence
14. Drive safely -- put the seatbelt on as a reflex, never jump lights and *never* give in to the urge to go dune/speed-breaker bashing
15. Play fair -- always.
16. Be money savvy -- know what to buy and where to buy it; what to spend and how much to save.
17. Have patience and make it second nature to give everyone their rights -- Allaah, His Messenger, other Muslims, parents, spouses, their own selves
18. Act in consultation with others
19. Be discerning and choose well -- be it clothes or the company they choose to keep; a car or a career or the other half of their deen. Never be fooled twice.
20. Allow themselves to cry: out of fear/remembrance of Allaah, out of wonder at his creation, out of compassion
21. Be real rijaal -- not in the macho-cultural sense, but in the model of the best men who lived on earth -- the Prophet,صلىالله عليه وسلم , and his Companions.

must-see: madeenah tour

I just downloaded this:
1. Download Google Earth
2. Download the Cyber-Sirah virtual tour file here
3. Press play

It's an aerial view of Madeenah ...and various places of historical interest in and around it.

Brilliant, maa shaa Allaah.

1 a.m at the Haram

pic: The Guardian

(continued) By Rasha, Rida

Finally, Abba dropped us off at the gate outside the Haram by cab at around 1 am...it was as bright as day and there must have been millions of people all around. As we walked to the Haram, we heard the mua'ththin calling for the Qiyaam (the extra night prayer)...

The Haram was packed with people, it seemed like there was one person per square inch of space...there was barely space to walk, except in a thin path that led to the people doing tawaaf around the Ka'aba..

For some reason it reminded us of the circulatory system...it was like the vein carries the impure blood to the centre, the heart, and then the blood is purified and returned to the body by an artery...just like that we go to the Ka'bah, the Qiblah with our sins and imperfections and lapses, and return clean (in shaa Allaah).

Just as we took off our shoes and started walking in, the Imaam started the recitation for the prayer...it was such a blessed moment, alhamdulillaah. The lights shining everywhere, so many people, and the beautiful recitation ...it was all a little overwhelming and we were a little dazed...we prayed to Allaah to forgive us our sins, the open and the hidden, the ones committed in the past and the ones we might commit in future ...and to grant us good in this world and the next. (Please say AAAAAAmeeeeeeeeeeeeen with us!!)

After the tawaaf we were looking for a place to pray 2 rakahs , but it was so crowded that there was just no space...anyway we found a little space in a women's suff and prayed and began the sai'ee (going between Safa and Marwah) . Even here, the place was full of people and the water coolers had been removed (to avoid people slipping on water). We were really thirsty and tired b/z we had been fasting and travelling all day, but there was nothing to be done since the places where zam-zam was available in taps were very crowded..so we kept walking and remembering Haajar, Umm Ismaa'eel, who had walked between these 2 hills, and she was much more thirsty and tired...

On our third/fourth lap, we saw a lady (she was from Turkey) who had filled 2-3 jugs full of zamzam and was offering it to people who were doing sai'ee...we stopped and took 2 cups from her, and thanked her and blessed her in our hearts..It was such a thoughtful, kind thing to do, in shaa Allaah, she will have a big reward for her small deed of kindness.

As we were completing the last round of the sa'iee the Imaan started reciting the duaa...we said Aaameen, Aaameen with the rest of the people, may Allaah accept the duaas of all the Muslims!