"Istikhara" means to seek goodness from Allah (Exalted is He), meaning when one intends to do an important task they do istikhara before the task. The one who does the istikhara is as if they request Allah Almighty that, O the Knower of Unseen (Exalted is He) guide me if this task is better for me or not?

According to Bukhari, Volume 2, Book 21, Number 263:Narrated Jabir bin 'Abdullah :The Prophet (Sallal Laho Alaihi Wasallam) used to teach us the way of doing Istikhara, in all matters as he taught us the Suras of the Quran. He said, "If anyone of you thinks of doing any job he should offer a two Rakat prayer other than the compulsory ones and say (after the prayer):

WAY TO PERFORM ISTIKHARA

• First pray Two Cycles (raka') of ritual Prayer (nafil) such that in the first raka' after Surah Fatiha (Allhamd…) recite Surah al-Kafirun (Chapter 109) and in the second raka' after Fatiha (Allhamd…) recite Surah al-Ikhlas (Chapter 112).
• After finishing prayer recite this (supplication/dua'):
  

"O Allah! I seek goodness from Your Knowledge and with Your Power (and Might) I seek strength, and I ask from You Your Great Blessings, because You have the Power and I do not have the power. You Know everything and I do not know, and You have knowledge of the unseen. Oh Allah! If in Your Knowledge this action ------------------------------------------------ (which I intend to do) is better for my religion and faith, for my life and end [death], for here [in this world] and the hereafter then make it destined for me and make it easy for me and then add blessings [baraka'] in it, for me. O Allah! In Your Knowledge if this action is bad for me, bad for my religion and faith, for my life and end [death], for here [in this world] and the hereafter then turn it away from me and turn me away from it and whatever is better for me, ordain [destine] that for me and then make me satisfied with it."

How many times?

It depends. Sometimes it takes only once to get the answer and sometimes it takes longer. It is better to do istakhara seven (7) times. If you have received an answer as explained in the section below, stop doing istikhara. You do not have to continue to do isitkhara for 7 days. It is better that right after reciting the supplication, given above, sleep with ablution (people who cannot keep the ablution for longer times due to health problems do not have to worry about ablution before falling asleep) facing the direction of the Qibla (facing the Qibla is not required but it is a Sunnat of our beloved Prophet Peace Be Upon Him). It is better to recite salutations (durood/ salawat) on the Prophet Allah's Grace and Peace be upon him before and after the above Dua (supplication).

Answer:

If in the dream one sees whiteness (means any thing white in color, for example: milk, white paper, white sky, white clothes, white light etc.) or greenness (means any thing green in color, for example: grass, plants, trees, green clothes, green light etc.) then understand that this task is better and if one sees redness (means any thing red in color, for example: blood, red clothing, red fruit, red light etc.) or blackness (means any thing black in color, for example: black water, black light, black clothings, black sky, black wall etc. ) then understand it is bad and avoid it.

If you do not remember any dream or do not see any colors then follow your heart. Whatever intention grows stronger in your heart regarding your targated work follow it after seven days of Istakhara.

Sweet bitterness

I was told to pay my cleaner 50 geneer which would be a hefty price for top to toe of my whole apartment.

The samsar (estate agent type guy) introduced her and let us arrange a day and time amongst ourselves for the job.

I sat there on the bed in the dreary box of an apartment trying not to let my skin touch the dirty mattress as beat down all the walls with a dirty pillow cover removing the cobwebs and insects after which she threw water all over the floor.

This lasted allot longer than she should have as she spent most of her time babbling on the phone, she finally dragged alll the dirty watter through to the bathroom drain. It turns out I needed a Sebek (plumber), that was the word she kep repeating over and over again as she shoved her chubby arm down the hole in the floor to drag up what ever could be stuck down there.

She then started to put on her Abaya (long over dress) as I stared at the dirt incrusted door frame and window and the dingy stained kitchen. "I have work, call me after you get a Sebek!"

So I looked in my purse for a part of the money but for some reason gave her 40LE and told her she would get the rest when she returned, despite the all the advice of not letting her place a foot out the door untill she had finnished!

After a week the Sebek came and went and again we arranged a convenient time for her to show.

So I waited at the flat untill i recieved a phonecall that she would come if I paid for her taxi!, I should have seen the rest from there.

She arrived finally had paid for the 4LE taxi herself and climbed the stairs to the top floor of mz apartment, onlz she wasnt alone there was another exasperated boisterous Egyptian with her with a plump round kind face.

Again me and a freind's little sister (age 14, Egyptian) sat there and watched them talk on the fone and do a little cleaning inbetween each call.

There was no water... I don't have a motor so I only recieve water in the night and at noon, it was now the afternoon.

Lucky for me my next door neighbour does so I would disapeer every now and then to re-fill the bucket.

They kept trying to get dressed despite not having cleaned anything from what I could see and making exuses like Im too short and all the rest of it.

So after having to keep re-telling them to clean behind the pipes in the bathroom and the door frames and everything else they finally said they were finnished and made long winded exuses to everything else.

So I handed my cleaner 20LE, baring in mind that her fee had now gone up to 60LE.

Her face was priceless I explained everything to her but she just kept demanding money telling me that I should pay her 50LE for her last visit and 50LE for this visit. This was never going to happen! let alone the fact that I couldn't afford it. Then she orderd that I must pay her friend, to which I reminded her that I called her not her friend and that she works for me but her friend is working for her. She refused to move and sat herself on my bed with a face like a smacked monkey's butt (as my mum would say). So I continued to spray the cockroach and ant killer into every nook and cranny and stood by the very small open window as Hamsa (my friends little sister) stood at the door ( I later found out that this was because the cleaner had tried to close it and she suspected the worst from this action) as she choked and spluttered from the toxic fumes I had unleashed into my room of an apartment she reluctantly in the end left.

I sat reflecting over every detail of the tiring day and congratulated myself on keeping my cool through it all and keeping a low tone in her vulgar screams and shouts, and never once insulted her cheek.

Then I realisesd that the age old saying of 'God works in mysterious ways' may have been perfectly demonstrated in the days events. You see, I remembered feeling bad as they choked and spluttered as there lungs struggled to grasp enough air to shout insults at me as I was fumigating the place but I what I didn't realise was how me and Hamsa were fine. It turns out that the only two air ventelation points were being consumed by us both.

It may be wrong for me to feel satisfaction about this oint but It's more to do with the fact that I struggled to keep the right behaviour of a muslim and yet had I let myself go that was the kind of punishment I would have hoped for!

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.

My days in Faisal

And the nubian wedding with no food!!! lol

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

DumiaT

I travelled to a place called DumiaT last week for 4 days as the grandfather of the family that I am staying with passed away (Allah ya rahmou).

I couldn't believe that there is an actual civilised suburb exising in Egypt!!!

It's right up in the north and contains the end of the Nile where it meets the sea. It's very clean by Egyptian standards and not crowded at all! all though there's absolutely nothing to do there but I can see it being a nice place to go back to once your children are all grown up, although it holds those annoying intracacies that every small town is familiar with, everyone knowing your daughters friends brothers son's business and the wonder of how such a shop that sells 1 thing every week manages o stay open. Although, everyone there are much fitter, because there are less cars and better weather (with it being so close to the sea). Loads of people ride bikes and the town is small enough and pretty enough for you to want to walk to get from place to place, where as you need money to move in Cairo.

So I went and saw Ras Al Bar (the place where the Nile meets the Sea). It's strange to think that a river so grand that stretches so far ends at that small point. To know that the water your looking at has travelled al the way from Rawanda, and that the prophet Moses sailed down the same river in his tiny basket many years ago is something else!! something you can only apreciate in such a quiet place.

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!!!