Everyone gets happy and gets sad, but you should turn your happiness into shukr (gratitude to Allah) and your sadness into sabr (patience).
Ikrimah (ra)
Completed Umrah this Ramadan Alhamdulillah. Truly and honour and a blessing.
We used to narrate: Whoever faults his brother for a sin he has repented to Allah from, Allah will try him with that very sin.
Hasan al-Basri (rahimahullah)
Page recommendations
Haven’t been on in a while - looking for some blogs to follow, could anyone recommend their favourite blogs?
Thanks,
H.I
Spam messages
I mean totally get that I’ve been off tumblr for a while but why am I being spammed with adverts for Ray Ban glasses lol
O people of the Qur’an, your nights have become long for your recitation so recite in them and your days have shortened for your fasts so fast in them. Night prayer in the winter equals fasting during the day in the summer
Ubayd ibn Umayr (r.a.) on the advent of winter.
The best time for a believer is winter. The nights are long to pray in and the days are short to fast in.
Hasan al Basri (ra)
We’re nearing the end of the Islamic lunar month of Safar, the second in the calendar. Ramadan is the ninth month, which means we have a little over six months until we greet it again with the Permission of Allah swt. Winter is coming up in the Northern Hemisphere and with it comes ease; shorter days are great for making up fasts and offering voluntary ones. They also are great for sleeping earlier than our norm and waking up for tahajjud prayer in the last third of the night, even if it’s just fifteen or twenty minutes before fajr prayer. Also, let’s aim to read the Qur’an at least once in its entirety between Ramadans. The mushaf is slightly over 600 pages and if we were to read it over the period of 11 months, we’d cover about 55 pages per month, or 2 each day. May Allah swt facilitate for us making up our debts, understanding the Qur’an, and gaining proximity to the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth.
اَللّهُمَّ بَلِّغْنَا رَمَضَان - Allahumma balighna Ramadan - Allah, let us reach Ramadan.
Correction people!
Turns out Nike are producing now by using forced labour in Uyghur Camps!
The sad reality of Muslim fashion today
One thing that makes me so uncomfortable about buying clothing or other items is thinking about whether the clothing is ethical or not. By now, it’s a well known fact that common brands that we all love - including Muslims - like Zara, H&M, Primark are grossly unethical. The brands aren’t transparent about where they source their garments from and take no responsibility for tragedies that occur due to health and safety hazards to say the least. But unfortunately - It’s worrying to see that Muslim brands are following suit.
Remember the Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh - 1,100 workers, our fellow Muslim brothers and sisters lost their lives. Brands that claimed to be sustainable and ethical were finally outed - the proof is in the pudding, Primark has paid out money for some of the victims.
But still - 6 years on and brands are still not transparent! No matter how fashion and garments make us feel, we need to remember that at the end of the day for the people in the business, it’s all about money.
As Muslims, I feel we should be at the forefront of ethical consumerism and fashion - but sadly as our fashion industry begins to boom, we may be years behind. Non-Muslim consumers still haven’t caught on to the unethical nature of it all en masse. May Allah help us before another tragedy like Rana Plaza occurs.
The reality is, when you go and buy a hijab, an abaya, dresses, or even from well known brands, that buying is having a secondary effect on the worker who made the garment. That worker is probably not even getting a minimum wage, and sometimes they have no wage at all. That worker is supporting a family and can't feed them - so whilst your paying the brand a lot of money for one item, the brand is too greedy to give the person who actually made the item in the first place what they are owed. Even worse, that worker often turns out to be a child who doesn’t deserve the life he/she has. Famously Nike has even caught using children as workers for their trainers and footballs in the 90s, I've heard that since then because they lost so much reputation they reviewed their policies and have stopped the practice. Now however, there are reports that they are using forced labour in Uyghur Camps. Ultimately, the more we consume, the more demand there is and the more money there is to be made for large retailers and business men and women.
As consumers, we should push our brands to be totally transparent. The reality is, tonnes of people are building modest brands by simply going to AliBaba (a site where you can buy items from Chinese factories in bulk), buying a tonne of hijabs and items, and then branding it to look chic and amazing to sell at sometimes triple the price. Think about it - I bet you could choose three hijab brands at random, and if you look closely you would see that they stock the exact same hijabs. The only difference is the names given to the hijabs (the amount of times I’ve seen a hijab called mocha or caramel lol).
Let’s be more conscious consumers, and even though it may be uncomfortable and difficult (it really is!), I’d rather refrain from buying garments that I feel I need if it means that a poor worker won’t hold me to account on the Day of Judgement. And don’t even get me started on make-up! Sigh.
If you want somewhere to start on the topic of Fast Fashion and its devastating effects watch this documentary:
The True Cost: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6mpxng
“Hold yourself to account before you are held to account.”
- Umar Ibn al Khattab (radiyallahu ‘anh)
Myself
How can I be there for you when I’m not here for myself?
I let myself be when I know I need to tell
Myself
How can I light your candle when my own is running out?
I feel myself burning yet I don’t even help
Myself.
I can try my best for you and meet your expectations
But it’s important to understand that
We all have limitations.
Phantom of Youth
O youth where have you gone
In poems and songs
And movies and books
The idea of you keeps me
In despair
A long lost idea of you
Of what could have been
Of all that I was
And all that I should have been
O youth
Why us regret so much deeper
When life has passed
When time has shown you
Your potential
O youth
Why does everyone try to reduce you to
Nothing more than
Inexperience
Naivety and
Silly
When all you want is to be
O youth
How much of you is the idea of you
And how much of you is true
How many days were wasted
Pretending
Rasulallah (Pbuh) said: “On the day of Jummah, the angels stand at the entrance of that Masjid in which Jummah salaat is to be offered. They write down the name of the person who enters the Masjid first, and thereafter the name of the person who follows, and they continue doing this. The person who entered first will receive the reward of sacrificing a camel in the path of Allah; the one who followed him will get the reward of sacrificing a cow, thereafter a chicken, thereafter the reward of giving an egg as charity in the path of Allah. Once the khutbah commences, the angels close the register and begin listening to the khutbah. “ (Bukhari and Muslim)
Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can’t, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.
Robert Frost
"The day I met Islam, I found a power within myself that no man could destroy or take away. When I first walked into the mosque, I didn’t find Islam…it found me."
- Muhammad Ali (may Allah have mercy on him)
First Halaqa for sisters starting in an hour! If anyone would like to join please message :)