Quote of my day

"Whoever’s sin was because of [carnal] desires, hope

for him (as he may repent and be forgiven),

but whoever’s sin was out of pride, fear for him.

For indeed, Adam sinned out of simple desire, and was

forgiven; Whereas Iblis sinned out of pride, and was

cursed. " - Sufyaan bin Uyainah

[not a hadith]

I don't often post religious epithets or hadeeth that much anymore but some of which I hear I am compelled to share.

NIQABITCH

Once you get over your shock, and you open your mind and drop your own prejudices, I hope that you find this protest to be what it is, a freedom of speech.

These ladies retaliated to the ban on niqab and hijab in France by producing this protest of their own. You may not like it but they certainly have a point.

By mixing the sacred with the profane they illustrate the ridicule we bring ourselves by placing such importance on fabric. Yes! I wear the hijab! but I wear it for my own reasons that are largely assosciated with religious ones but that is neither here nor there. One of the reasons I wear it and keep it is because I feel that I should be free to wear what I want in as much of an abundance as I like or as little for that matter.

Maybe it is the boom of the fashion industry that have ours and other western societies so obsessed with outward appearence, I don't know.

Some people hate these woman for what they did, and I'm sure the majority of which were muslim! can you believe it!!!!!! muslims! like me, asking for the right and freedom to wear what pleases them and yet tearing these women down for exorcising the same right- ok sure they were doing it purely for provocation - but as long as we want freedom of speach then we will have to listen to a whole lot of things that we don't necesarily like or want to hear and we shouldn't complain whilst doing so either.

The message is clear! freedom for all and hipocracy for none, its just a shame that they had to walk in the shoes of those they are trying to reach out to... NO I don't mean muslims, I mean hypocrites.

Think what you will, I commend them and I'm proud to do so

consciousness

Watch your thoughts, they become your words.

Watch your words,they become your actions.

Watch your actions,they become your habits.

Watch your habits,they become your character.

Watch your character because it WILL become your destiny.

Came across this in a forward but found it to be quite apt!

What I'm reading... incase anyone cares?

So everyone reads the metro right? That newspaper thats stained in coffee marks re-printed with the sole of a size 9 shoe and almost always harbors an unsavory foreign object between a few of the pages...

...Anyway, I don't, not really, and not for any of the rather valid reasons listed above. I don't read the news because the news depresses me. Sure call me immature, unrealistic or whatever you want but I think I have the right to chose, if I can, to stay away from that which may lull me into the insecure pessimist that runs the rat race of the Western world...... where was I going with this?...

Ahh yeh, So! there is this one section in the Metro that I sometimes bravely flip through to. The section that has the list of most played music from some 'b listers' ipod which I thought would be better if it was of their books then I wouldn't have to frantically flip through that dangerous collection of depressive stories. So incase there's anyone out there who like me doesn't want to subject themselves to light torture or be sucked in by the humm-drum of the news in every start of their day then here is my list of what I'm reading. O.K! I'm not Richard or Judy or a 'B, C, D or even D list celebrity' but I'm hard to please in terms of reading.

So here they are, in no particular order:

1. 'To Kill a Mockingbird', Harper Lee.
2. 'The Zahir', Paulo Coelho.
3. 'The Glorious Qur'an', Tajweed.
4. 'The Cairo Trilogy', Naguib Mahfouz.
5. 'Christian Theology', Alistair McGath.
6. 'Judaism', Nicholas DeLange.

Windows

Looks through the memories of others through cracked grainy windows without frames,
saddened by the love and good times you once shared with people with no names,

Unaware of my sacrificial sadness you live your lives apart.



Mirror image reflected through the smiles of strangers I will never meet,
to dance to the drum of your collective beat,

Ressonating through windows without frames.




JW

smile
out of all the people i've known
there are some people
for whom i hold alot of meaning
not becuse they know me
or care about me
my privacy or my ideas
but just because i fit some hole in their lives
then there are others
like you
and a select other
who are always part of me
i could be on mars
and you'd still be jessi
dont confuse people who know you,
with people who care about u
she doesnt care about you
you just fit some hole in her life
once you see that, you wont even be angry with her
love you loads walkerster



'If I debate with 70 schollors I'll beat them hands down, but if I debate with a fool, I'll loose' Sayedna Ayesha RAA

One of my own, upon inspiration and situation.

Every day is a story,
it just depends on how you tell it.

Dedicated to you the new in my life

There's this thing that comes with being a muslim that I used to love, The Umma (community) and how idealy they stick together and try to help each other out, but theres a stigma that comes with that side of things that I have only seen since I've been in Egypt.

Obligation;

Its how one is obligated by their religious duty or their feelings towards their religion to be attached to you or to owe you something. I'm sick of people liking me because I am a muslim, because I have knowledge, or because of the transition that was converting. What about the rest of me what about the me that I lived with for 20 years before I made the change. Not all of it neede dto be substituted by a better attitude, I had/have traits of my personality that still are as were before. However no one ever see's them no matter how much I portray them because they are over shadowed by the knowledge that I am a muslim.

Maybe it is my own fault, the visual aspect of my hijab and my white face and European features, the fact that most opening conversations I have with people are revoked due to this appearance. The concept of the Niqab, to conceal ones humility and keep ones honor is something that is abrogated of the contrast it gives in a western society. People look at you more, question you more, fear you and therefore are attracted to you more. Well I feel like not wearing a hijab would be my altimate Niqab. The same way that you should love someone for who they are and not the way that they look (physical beauty) which the concept of the Niqab offers is something I now long for.

To not be judged as a muslim, a convert, but to be judged, loved or hated because I am Jessi who is a muslim not the muslim who happens to be Jessi.

Don't tell me that you don't want to mess things up for me and that I might deviate from my path because of you.

I am Jessi!!!!! and always will be.

what to do

I want to start writing poetry again, but first i want to learn how to make it.
I have learned to forgive myself, because, I realy need to forgive you.
I'm ready to have a baby but I'm not ready for marriage.
Oh the trials and tribulations

Jihad

So I was pondering over the pilgrimage Hajj.....
...and thought about it's costly price of about 2ooo pounds! yep! thats right 2000 or at least no less than a thousand.

Imagine all the muslims that long to go on Hajj but may never be able to afford it, and then I think about me...., I had the money, and therefore had the ability to go to Hajj and yet I didn't I came to Egypt.
I wondered if I was going to be punnished for this action, because I thought that I had really made a grave mistake. How can I look such an opertunity in the eye and let it go, I don't know if I will ever have the money as a disposable income again and ever since my first thought on this subject during the past Ramadhan I have been worried about it.

This weekend al hamdulilah I found my saving grace in a friend and her amazing family. I sat with her parents talking about Islam and the deen untill 2.30 in the morning, it wasn't planned or intentional, it wasn't a dawa session or an Islamic lesson it was just one of those beautiful things. I don't remember the relevance of my question to conversation at the time but I asked what they think about my thoughts on my trip to Egypt and wether they too felt as I did about my decission on comming here and not going to Hajj.

They replied with something that forced me to fight tears....

It was there 16 year old son that said it first and they carried on to say that what I had done was in itself Jihad I made the decission to come to Egypt to better myself within my religion and should never feel regret toward, they explained that if you have the money but need education, or have an elderly relative, or children to look after it is obligatory for you to do those first, and that I had taken the decision to educate myself for the sake of Allah.

To think of myself as someone that has taken Jihad reminds me of my importance of this trip. and just this morning I read in the Quran;

'...And whoever emigrates for the cause of Allah will find on the earth many [alternative] locations and abundance. And whoever leaves his home as an emigrant to Allah and his messenger and then death overtakes him-his reward has already become incumbant upon Allah. And Allah is ever Forgiving and Merciful...'

Surah 4, Ayat 100.

and so today I am ready to die, should it be written for me.

That moment!

Do you live your life worrying about every little thing that may occur in the future, the wrong that you have done in the past, the ever growing list of things to do or the fact that its 2am and you have to wake up at 7am for a long day's work in the morning?


I don't! I put them all in this little place where I forget them but its all still there and sometimes spills out on to my consciousness from time to time.

For instance, lets start with the worrying about the future thing..... I always make it a motto of mine not to directly think about the future, I'm not saying that it's a good motto but perhaps a lazy one for getting through life with a little less responsibility on my shoulders, but I have realised maybe what I have always known deep down is that it does worry me I just seem to have chosen not to think about it and now I'm stuck on that very thin line of being a child and an adult..... hanging on by a thread shall we say.

I have developed this massive fear of getting married (settling down) ever!!, I guess I just never understood how a woman as strong, intelligent, wise and true as my mum could make a mistake 2ce in that department in her life. And if she can do it then I feel bound to do it. I'm terrified of letting my (possible future) children go through any of what me and my brother experienced down to a tiny mistake that probably just started with a glance across a crowded bar. And when I was too caught up with crossing that line into adulthood to see the possible dangers in front of me I was reminded of exactly how true my foreseen prophesy was. I fell in love, we grew together and I found true trust for the first time in my life, I felt secure, stable and happy despite my adolescent behavior at times and it seems that I can only really see that now. But it happened, the thing that I had started to forget was possible, he let me down.......he shook our foundations until I had no where left to stand and everything I was so sure of was compromised. So I did what any other coward would do and ran for the hills.

And now I worry about the future and the past, I regret my actions but have to live with them, secretly (also) living in hope that I'm forgiven and that the impossible could happen and I could turn back time. but that doesn't change the fact that I let my guard down enough to get violently hurt. I fell in love with him because he was everything that the other wasn't. Kind, generous, honest, Innocent, loving, emotionally strong, a Muslim. And since that I have this fear that I squeeze way back into my tiny mind, but am influenced by it still!! no mater how hard I try to loose it, it always comes back.

For that very early morning on the beach in Sahel I found the eternal happiness of a spotless mind. I forgot about everything, really forgot everything just disappeared and it was all about the sky the sea and Allah's mercy on me for that moment. I laughed so hard that I cried and didn't really know what I was laughing at.

Ode to that moment in my life. May I never forget it, may there be many more of them, and may I always be greatful for them...

...Ameen

Flying without wings!

So, I have started horse riding as a serious sport now.

Not just now and then.

I even have a friend who hooked me up with a trainer that teaches me to race with skill, and last Friday they up-graded my horse with confidence that I knew a bit more about control.

I loved my horse, you tap it a little and it revs its engines, just a slight click from the corner of your mouth with a double tap with your heel and off it go's!!!!

Sub7anallah the speed of acceleration is something else!! I don't know how fast I was going at my peek but I over took the trainer and as he yelled at me to pull back I turned my head and screamed "LEI!!!!" which in Egyptian means why. By this time I was going too fast to turn back fully to see him but I could here him laugh at me as he shouted "inti magnouna wa horsan bardo!", in other words (namely English) " you are crazy and your horse also!!!" so I pulled back bit by bit slowing down until he caught up with me and he taught me how to keep my horse close to his as we rode off together, with him teaching me to control the speed in order to be side by side.

I totally know now why they call it Horse Power, Sub7anallah! I was going so fast at one point that my bum wasn't touching the saddle!!!!!!

Even if I wake up the next day with a back as bent as an Egyptian police man, and my hands all covered in blisters from having to pull the rains soo tight its still my favourite thing to do in Cairo!

Beautiful- If you want to experience flying but are scared of heights, ride a horse!!!

WANT

So I never understood why people are scared to want things in life, or, when people want too much that they are never satisfied.

What I really don't like is when people want something sit and moan about it without doing something about i. So I have always been someone to try and get what she wants with honesty and without delay.
Except when I realise that what I want isn't good for me, because then I have issues. I get so stuck into the 'getting what I want' rhythm that I find it hard to use sense, and step back from things. Because often when you can stop, you don't want to, but when you want to you can't.

Recently, I had to stop myself from wanting something because often if wanting something involves a second or third party they kind of have to be on the same page, now that's something hard to gage. They may be in the same book but not on the same page, and they might not even decide to finish the chapter. So I decided to put the book mark in and put the book on the shelf for a while.
That way even though I may not want to I am still able to stop.
And I don't compromise with other things that I have worked to go and get, which it very nearly did but luckily the small 'insignificant' things can become BIG signs at understanding If your even in the same book.

(Oh'..) Lord of the Flies

He must have been on a stake out for the past few days, observing it's enemy (namely me) and the habits with which to use upon my destruction.

I could ignore him for the sake of an un-interrupted episode of 'desperate housewives' which only led to irritate him even more so.

teasing me he would linger around my head, screaming in my ear.

ENOUGH was ENOUGH!

I flicked the switch to stun the sod HA HA

it faked an injury only to screw with my mind when it flipped out and starting darting around the room

I grabbed the deodorant and fired it in short blasts......

no joy!
I just couldn't get it within my line of fire.

twisting and turning around the room i emptied my ammo on everything but the blasted FLY!!

until i collapsed back on to my bed defeated.......

choking.....

itching.....

gassed.....

and off it flew nonchalantly out the door!

12/10/02

In the silence of my every breath her name is whispered and within the shadows of my footsteps she shall walk free

Testing Testing 123...........456...7...8.......9......ah come on!

In the last two weeks in particular I feel like I am being tested on alot of things!!!!
Some seem quite apparent at the start, others become understood when I fail and realise that there was a better way of acting, thinking, or speaking and some are just so obvious that I laugh at my own struggle.
So with this in mind I wonder why now?, is it because I am in the line up of some kind of reward in this life but I have to earn it first? or is it because I have been dragging my feet behind me so he's stepping up the game!. Maybe I just need a little slap in the face to know what should be important to me, to realise what IS important to me, and to remember that I don't have much to fight for.
I said to a friend before this all started happening that I wish I had the feeling of when I first took my steps towards him, not that I don't love him because I do but I just lack conscious gratitude of what he gives me, what he gives us, like before, where I would look at the muggy brown leaves on a grey day and feel amazed and humbled by there secret beauty that I now had the opportunity to see.
So maybe this is a more Divine lesson of the age old one that my dad used to give me;
"I'll give you something to cry about" he would say, and he did! although it's execution lacked example but I can see it clearly now in the work of the one I love.

Robbing the Robber!

So, 2 in the morning, Bayswater, it's not as if shady characters are few and far between and there he was in the darkness huddled into a corner. I walk, I laugh, I'm hungry and the hullabaloo begins. I turn around and there I see the figure running franticly towards us.

Stop He's got my phone

arms spread I stand in his way awaiting his embrace. It did nothing to deter the tyrant and my grip loosened on his faux leather Jacket as he grappled away from me....

Stop him Stop him!

Bang! toe connects with B*l*s, the look of confusion didn't soften the blow.

within arms reach now I loose my enthusiasm as he zips away and leave it to the male ego to finish my efforts.

I have the phone

My inner-magpie spotted it!
alas, it's not the sort after prize, it is the robbers!

I feel his finger tips strumming the darker side of my guitar,
the concrete jungle drowning me in my sin,
the scream that it makes, makes my head spin,
then he said.....
'La illaha Il'Allah'

When I was young

"Today class, I want you all to think about what you want to be when you're older!"
"I want to be a princess!"
"I want to be a fireman"
"Leon, what do you want to be when you're older?"
"I want to be a bus driver, and I have already memorised the route for the 22 and the 295!"
"And what about you Jessi what would you like to be when you're older?"
"ermmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..." palm's sweating, all eyes on me, I take in a deep breath hold it....hold it...and with a long sigh out...
..."I don't know?"

I never did not at 6 years old and not at 20 and I still don't now.
I always admired the kids in my class like Leon Smith, granted, a bus driver isn't an ambition by today's standards, but jobs like that were the makers of the real hero's of 'yester-year'. When things as little as driving a bus seamed full of wonder, instead of the realisations of today such as sweaty armpits, and multiple failing traffic lights. Maybe it was the idea of travel that led us to believe of it being an exciting job because you only usually went as far as your mum would take you which was either a trip to Sainsburys or the school run.
And yet today, not even flying a jumbo jet would lead me to thinking of a career.

"you have always lacked direction" my mum would say, maybe this is true the only time in my life I have felt sure of anything was when I discovered Islam (Al'hamdulilah) and even that took some personal battles to overcome.
So, here I am approaching 23 the age that I used to think I would be driving hover cars or we would discover Aliens and all I've discovered is global warming, war and famine.
Well, there is always Egypt now but that has only been a goal of mine for the last 6 months and I never believe something until the money has paid for it (ode to the consumer in me). I'm scared, scared of never having a clue, scared of never doing anything about my whimsical ideas such as 'Charity event organising' or 'Foreign news corresponding'. What after Egypt I have no idea! I guess I'm just waiting for some kind of added spiritual enlightenment or some sort of self-realisation miracle.
I am not big headed I have just always felt like I was destined for something great. Mohammed (saaws) was 63 when he received his prophecy but I'm not waiting to save the world just to save myself.

Loves young dream!

What is it with idiots in Y?

You get those couples who are so wrong for each other, that even they know it, you know it and everybody that knows them knows it.

Then, 1 day they announce that they're getting marrieds This puzzles you, although you are not surprised, because for the past 2,3,4 (or however many years) you've O nothing but incessant moaning, complaining and whining (as justified as it might be) about thier partner. You may have been out somewhere with them and felt the pang of embarrassment as they quibble over anything and everything and your probably the person who's the most stressed in this tri-lationship because you are the only one who can't do a thing about it.

And while they're engaged nothing changes and so you present them with the question.

"But I don't understand! why marry thems"

..and they say;

"Because.........I Y them"

Bang! like humpty dumpty your respect for them comes tumbling down!

Don't these people know that love boils down to nothing in marriage so that all your left with are two people that hate each other and constantly reminisce on the 'what could have beens' of the past.

WHAT A WASTE!