Concerning Carols

I love carols - so in the spirit of Eid, and Christmas - MJ presents to you

The Night Before Eid

(adapted from Clement Clarke Moore's A night before Christmas)

'Twas the night before Eid, when all through the house

Only Daadima was scuttling around in her yellowed beige blouse;

The musallahs were kept neatly next to the front door,

Lord knows those mats they put out down don’t protect you from the hard eid gah floor;

The girls were all tucked in, with mendhi on their palm,

the little boys were dreaming of killing sheep at the farm;

The burfee was ready, and so was the soap,
to get rid of that sheep smell in a day… or so we hope

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,

a jamaat from ladysmith were making our imaan their matter.

Away to the door I ran with my might,

To shut it quickly and switch off the light.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard from the top

a scuttle, a scurry and then a big drop .

As I reached for my gun, and was turning around,

Down the chimney Abdul Malik came with a bound.

He was dressed all in white, with a big bushy beard,

And his clothes were all messed with curry stains that smeared;

A large miswaak in his mouth, frayed and wet,

so that he looked like a Viking smoking a wooden cigarette.

And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;

No sign of a moustache – there was nothing to grow

He was chubby and plump, a portly sized dude,

And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of my mood;

He pulled out a book, perhaps a classic by Dahl?

Who was I kidding, we all knew it was the Fazaail Amaal

I appreciated what they were doing but now was not the time
So I hastily turned them out, without a good reason or rhyme

But I heard him exclaim, resentfully as he left

May Allah give you hidayat, because verily you are bereft

MJ

Concerning Nur

Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth,

The parable of His Light is as if there were a niche,

And within it a Lamp: The Lamp enclosed in Glass; The glass

as it were a brilliant star;

Lit from a blessed Tree, An Olive, neither of the East nor of the West,

Whose oil is well-nigh luminous, though fire scarce touched it;

Light upon Light!Allah doth set forth parables for men: and Allah doth

know all things.

24:35 Al Nur (The Light) Yusuf Ali's translation

I love this particular Ayat of the quran, and I know that many of the bloggers love it as well ( Zesty and Noor come to mind) and while Ibn Kathirs tafseer is quite good ( I believe he captures it better than Makki). Maududis interpretation was also quite good, but I still believe that the best explanation was given by Sheikh Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani in his book Secret of secrets.

The Sheikh says " The meaning of the niche is the faithful heart of the believer. The lamp enlightening the niche of the heart is the essence of the heart, while the light that it sheds is the divine secret, the sultan-soul. The glass is transparent and does not keep the light within, but protects it and allows it to spread, which is why it is likened to a star. The source of the light is a divine tree. that tree is the state of unity reaching out with its branches and its roots, inculcating the principles of faith, communicating without any intermediary in the language of purity.

There is much more written about this ayat, and I particularly enjoy Moulana Fazl ur Rahman Ansaris allegory of it, but perhaps we can get into that another time because its is 4 a.m and I am teaching at 9, so best i log off and sleep.

MJ

Concerning Buffdays*

Long Hair - check

Goofy smile - check

Building Sandcastles - check

It's comforting that some things never change :)

MJ

Thanks to everyone for the e-mails, sms's, grafitti, wall posts, offline messages, phonecalls and other forms of communication - MJ adores you all

(i'm the one in the middle - the other two were just actors who were paid to absorb the excess toddler awesomeness that i had)

* Yes - i ripped that straight from the vocab of Zesty - perhaps my dumbest title yet :P

Concerning Labour

No No, this isn’t another MJ alimony post – luckily those have been scarce as of late (cross fingers) but rather about how the migrant workers in the gulf region are being screwed over. The Gulf region,or as I prefer to call it – the ‘Yaa Ayoohal Arab region’ (woe to the Arab region) is currently seeing an exponential growth in investment. Because of the oil, there is tons of money being pumped in, so now we have ski resorts in Dubai, Waterworlds in Sharjah, brothels in Syria (a guy can dream cant he) I’ve got no problem with the stupid Arabs building all this shit – I mean, its their land and money after all (Ive got a problem with the development in the hijaaz though, but that’s a post on its own – would the prophet (pbuh) stay at Zam Zam Towers?)

Marx spoke at length about the extraction of labour in modern society, and while he was sloshed most of the time, he still remains a really influential chap (Gandhi done right). What he meant by ‘extraction of labour’ was that when you buy a commodity like a jersey or a vibrator or whatever, we admire the product but fail to see the work that’s been put into it. Now imagine all that work … times a thousand! Over ten million Asian (read Indians) migrants are in the gulf region right now, working in the most squalid conditions, and all for what? Five U.S Dollars a day. As I said before, build your skyscrapers in the desert and all that, ship a bunch of coolies in to build them for you if you like, but give them a decent wage at least. Many of the workers aren't even paid for months on end, and there's nothing they can do as their passports are taken from them, and they have no money to return home. We're supposed to be the best example for mankind - someone give me something to be optimistic about.

Pay the worker his wage before his sweat dries - Narrated in Ibn Majah, #2443

MJ

Concerning Suits 2

You can't help buying the album, for the song. Only to realise that your expectations have been crushed as you attempt to salvage something that you'd only put on your mp3 player if its a bloody 80 gig ipod and you ran out of things to fill it with. It happened to me this weekend, when MJ purchased a 'Best of The Proclaimers' CD. I love 'I'm gonna be (500 miles) and I expected the rest of their stuff to sound remotely familiar, I mean - the evanescence and Zain Bhikha stuff i bought all sound the same.

MJ bought a suit last week, Ive always wanted one, and i figured sooner or later I'd need it, as i venture into some corporate whorehouse, or i actually attend a wedding where i'm the best man (missed two of those so far). Ended up mixing and matching from a bunch of shops. This shit is expensive as hell - i suppose its like the difference between a watch and a time-piece - serves the same function, but one costs a lot more.

Suits are rather impractical though - There are hardly any benefits for them, you cant play soccer while wearing them, forget about wearing a suit to a braai - all they are really good for is to make you feel more suave and upper class than you really are.