Observation #1: Moisturizing before making wudu' is an exercise in futility.

Observation #2: "Moisturizing" makes me sound like a girl.

I've been working out of the Gtown library lately.
A friend directed me to a nice place to pray at the bottom of a stairwell.

I always wonder about the people I hear going up and down the stairs behind me as I'm praying--I usually close my eyes when I pray in public to shut out distractions. Most of the time people just keep going and ignore me. Sometimes people quicken their step. Once in awhile someone goes, "Hey, are you ok?" mainly because the raka' position bears an unfortunate similarity to doubling over in pain. Usually they figure it out once I go into sujud and say "Allahu Akbar" louder just for them.

Every one in awhile though, and it happens more than you would think, I hear someone stop on the landing just above me and pause for a moment indecisively before they head back up one flight and take the elevator down to the basement floor instead.
Part of me thinks maybe I gave them a scare, and I feel bad for inconveniencing them, although anyone who prays in a stairwell isn't going to particularly be bothered by passers-by. But in another sense, I feel really grateful to receive a little bit of unnecessary and unasked for respect for my prayer. It's just a nice little thing to have in the back of your mind the rest of the day.

taqwa is so freaking hard and so important

but mainly so freaking hard.

I mean, I'm great at being extremely conscious of God in my life in short intense spurts

but it's hard to make one's self aware all the time

inshaAllah something very basic to improve upon.

Anyone who converts to any religion should prepare a personalized pamphlet to have at the ready when asked the following questions:

Why did you convert?

Why this religion specifically?


You could also prepared a short timeline of the events leading up to your conversion.



On the other hand, anyone who converts to Islam should probably also prepare a treatise about Islam, terrorism and America's war against it, women's rights, democracy, Israel/Palestine, and God knows what else...

A nice thing I didn't expect:

Just by the mere act of converting, I made the people who love me a little more likely to interrogate their own preconceptions of Islam, and a little more willing to speak out in defense of Islam.

My knees hurt.

prayer rugs should come with built in knee pads

I love my prayer rug, have I mentioned that before?

sometimes I lay down on it for power naps, but then the tile floor is so hard that I can't stay there very long.

still, love it.

When I mention the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) in conversation, sometimes instead of saying "Sala Allahu 'alaihi wa sallam", my hands, of their own volition, want to make the sign of the cross

now i KNOW that's probably fairly blasphemous, but it just takes so freaking long to SAY "Sal Allahu 'alaihi wa sallam", and if Muslims only had something like that which could be communicated in sign language, I wouldn't have to chop up my thoughts and sentences with long.... whatever-you-call-ems

what DO you call those?


Neways.... what if instead we just like... gave a thumbs up.

Like, the Prophet Muhammad (thumbs up, yeah!)


... ok, no that doesn't work at all. Even I think that that's wrong and sorta disrespectful.

But there's gotta be sooomething

You know you're officially Muslim when google ads starts targeting you with things like a link to a random website entitled "99 Names of Allah"

So the masjid I go to tends to be filled with older folk more so than younger types. Particularly on Sunday's for Duhr when I'm still around following a random class that the masjid offers.

Anyways, Duhr rolled around and the Imam wasn't there, so one of the older guys in my class made the call to prayer and then lead the twenty or so of us in prayer.

Poor guy probably had a bad back... or... he was just old... so whenever he prostrated himself he'd be like "Allaaa--argh--hu akbar".

Rarely have I smiled so much through four raka'ats of prayer.

Do Not break your fast with Mexican, Desi, or Fast Food---it only ends bad for you, your stomach, and the amount of nutrients you get to carry into the following day.


I went to a delicious mexican place with old friends from HS. They were hungry so they went to the restaurant early for some chips and appetizers and I found a park nearby to pray Asr, chill around, and then Maghrib after sunset.

First of all, my preferred sort of park to pray in are the seedy sort of sketchy ones with homeless people hanging out, because when you start whispering to yourself in a language no one understands, and then proceed to prostrate yourself on the grass repeatedly, people just assume you're another crazy in the park.

On the occasions where I have prayed at well-to-do family oriented parks, I worry that I'm making parents fear for their children's safety. Or at the least, I feel judged rather than accepted as yet another public park weirdo.

Most of this is in my mind though.

Neways, I picked up some saltines and water to break my fast on my way to rendezvous with my friends at the mexican restaurant.

Upon my arrival, my friend Lucy cheerfully noted that given my recent disinclination to eating for most of the day, my increasingly slight figure, and, when I do eat, my apparent predisposition for saltine crackers and water, my conversion to Islam during Ramadan means that I have somehow also inadvertently adopted the dietary habits of a fashion model.

The mexican food was delicious, and I am to this very hour (only one and a half hours till fajr) paying the price for my decision to eat there.

Ramadan

regret is the half piece of toast leftover because you started your suhur meal too close to fajr time.

Good Muslim #1: "It's amazing man. Even though I sleep and eat less during Ramadan, I find I just have so much energy during the day."

Good Muslim #2: "A lot of people don't realize how spiritual self-deprivation can be."

Brian: "Orrr... you could eat all night and wake up every day at 1pm!!"
Faisal: (high fives Brian)

now that I've taken my shahada, I finally had the courage to ask a question about Islam that's been plaguing me for almost a year.

So, in the privacy of his car, I ask my good friend Faisal: "So, I've always wondered... Muslims are... supposed to use water in the bathroom after... afterwards... so... what do you do when there's no... bidet."

Faisal says to me, "Well...... first of all, I'm glad you feel comfortable asking me about things like this... Ok, did you see that watering can beside the toilet? Yeah, that's not just for watering flowers, it's also for watering your butt."

And I go "uh... huuh......"

And Faisal says, "yeah... it's frequently led to odd looks and awkward conversations. Mainly in the dorms."

(at which point I imagined all of Faisal's perplexed floormates staring after him as he carries his watering can with him to the bathroom on a daily basis)


Neways, I've figured out I'm going to have to find a teacher, like an Imam to learn 'ibaadat the right way, like what sort of rules apply to keep prayer valid, and all those other nuts and bolts sorta aspects to Islam.

I tried using Faisal's watering can this morning for the first time. It was extremely awkward trying to maneuver a watering can between myself and the back of the toilet. And I thought: I wonder if the Imam will be able to teach me how to do this, or if I'm on my own for this one.

I took my shahada today. I actually flew all the way back to the bay area to do it with two of my closest muslim friends, and an old professor friend who was the khateeb at UC Berkeley's Jumaa gathering today. I also wanted to be in the community where I first got to know Islam and Muslims as a living religion with real life practitioners (as opposed to a thing of history books). To my surprise, even after all these years away from berkeley (and really I was not closely tied to MSA circles at all my last few years in college) there were a number of people whom I knew from the good old days, and just having them in the audience made it... mean so much more.

Neways, some notes: it was interesting to have so private an experience be so openly public---committing to God and Islam as a formality is of course a reflection of a deeper resolution said in the deepest recesses of one's heart and soul, but doing so only has social meaning in a public space, and I think that's probably very necessary for most people, myself included, because no matter how private faith is, there is inevitably if not necessarily a public and social dimension to it, and why shouldn't there be when so many of the things laid out by Islam are social/public AND, more importantly in my mind, when dedicating our public and social selves publicly and openly is just another way or another dimension in which to strengthen the commitments we swear into inviolable sacredness. In this sense I feel like... maybe this is what marriage vows are like, and I conceptualize of their social and public significance very similarly.

On a funny note, so, my two Muslim friends were with me the whole day, but we broke fast with a bunch of my other friends, mostly non-muslim, and just chilled out into the evening. first just random goofing around, talking, etc. Eventually the non-muslim ppl are sorta like "well, this is nice but we're ready to go.... unless people want to go have a beer first and then go". So I'm like, yeah sure, I could use dinner #2.

When the server comes to take our order, she asks if we're all of age, and someone is like "yeah! Actually we're here to celebrate our friend's 21st birthday" (and he points at me). Which already I'm like, man, I know it doesn't matter but I always feel bad for being implicated in lying to the poor servers at times like this, but then she goes "oh really! Well, can I get a beer for you?" with a big "it's on the house" sort of friendly smile. And so for WHATEVER reason, I'm like, "uhhhh, actually... I just converted to Islam, and that's what we're all here to celebrate... so... I can't really have a beer... you see...." and then she sorta has a glazed look in her eyes like she just hears "blah blah blah, no thanks".

ppl definitely laughed at me. my two muslim friends were like "haaaaa!!! you sounded hellla lame man"


And as the penultimate modern parallel to the shahada, I simultaneously took the momentous step of changing the status of my religious views from blank to "muslim" on facebook.

lactose intolerance combined with a love of yogurt = breaks your wudu'




sorry, was that tmi?


or maybe not clear enough


I either have to rush to my prayer mat as soon as I make wudu' or just avoid praying for that hour while i digest.

Addendum to previous post:

Relief from temptation is realizing that the rice krispie treat has gelatin in it and is thus haraam to eat anyways.

Ramadan


Temptation is the little rice krispies treat you carry with you in your pocket all day because you had to make change for the bus at some corner market.

I have become addicted to dates for ifTar.

dates are sunnah

addiction is not sunnah.

Ramadan Mubarak!

day 1 of fasting: food will never have tasted so good as it will after this sunset.


from last Jumaa's khutba at the local masjid, talking about the difference between following the spirit of Ramadan as opposed to just meeting the required obligations of Ramadan:

"Like, folks, if you break your fast with McDonalds, like you have a happy meal for ifTar... that's not really the Sunnah of our Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)"

plus that's just gross: I wait all day for one meal and it ends up being mcdonalds. ick.

So I guess this post requires a brief note about where I am spiritually right now.

I started praying five times a day about three months ago; I sorta learned how to do it online (thanks islamicity.com!) but really only got it right after having a friend teach me.

From the very beginning... I felt deep down in my heart and soul that this was right, but my mind quite reasonably held me back through a combination of skepticism and unwillingness to accept that such a dramatic change could happen so suddenly and without any real warning. I think it was right to wait and give my mind time to catch up. Two years ago, when I first arrived in Palestine for half a year of volunteer work, I visited Jerusalem, and in that city sacred to the three monotheistic religions, I concluded this about faith:

"The intellect demands exactitude through questioning, but can never achieve certitude. The heart leaps to certitude but cannot provide precision or explanation. Somewhere in between, I think, is the human soul where faith of all kinds resides, be it religious or secular, neither or both."

And now, suddenly, I realize I'm ready, because while my understanding of Islam and my personal relationship with the Islamic tradition, its texts, and practice still require work, they will always require work, and there's no turning away from the Path laid before me now, save by hypocrisy or willful disbelief.

So, I'm going to pray istikhaara and ask God if I am right to feel that... it's time this week to go back home and say the shahaada with my closest muslim friends.


So, there's the part I find funny: someone making istikhaara to ask God if he should convert or not.

prayer; prayer is so nice, it helps me with everything

and in the part of me that catalogues and analyzes experience, I know that it's because prayer gives me time and ritual to contemplate God and his works in creation, and to be grateful for miracles big and small, of the sort that happen daily and the sort that happen once in a lifetime.

but in the quieter part of me, the part that's learning to just be and to accept, I do not like to think so much about the deeper mechanics of prayer--instead, let's just say in simpler, larger truths: prayer is nice, so nice, it helps me with everything

not funny, actually not really a post, i just wanted to jot down two ayahs i like particularly for future record keeping

وما من دابة في الأرض ولا طائر يطير بجناحيه إلا أمم أمثالكم ما فرّطنا في الكتاب من شيء ثم إلى ربهم يحشرون
[6:38]
[6

فلما تسول ما ذكروا به فتحنا عليهم أبواب كل شيء حتى إذا فرحوا بما أُوتوا أخذهم بغتة فإذا هم مبلسون
[6:44]
ج

When I first go to masjid

everyone will think I'm a spy.

heck, I would too.

My friend Lala almost taught me to pray like a girl.

I'd been looking for someone I felt comfortable with to teach me to pray so I could be sure I was doing it right, and the nearest such ppl were a 45 minute drive away. So I visited old friends: a family whose oldest son and daughter I've been friends with for what seems like forever. Lala's older brother was out of town and not going to be around until after I left, and I figured, well, I guess Lala can just teach me.

Luckily she had to take a phone call from a mutual friend beforehand, and he told her "you know... guys and girls pray a little differently."

We had no idea. I still dunno what the difference is. We just got Lala's little brother, whom I've known for like... 8 years... to teach me.

alhamdulillah

cause like, otherwise I might have prayed like a girl for weeks--whatever that means. I'm sure God doesn't care, but even in the privacy of one's personal relationship with God...., how embarrassing would that be?

now when I make fun of Christians I feel sorta bad, like I'm not in the club, not even a member in poor-standing anymore, so I've lost my right to make fun of the club.

On the plus side, I can make fun of Muslims forever.

first attempt at a Muslim joke:
"You know how normal people check themselves out when they see themselves in a mirror? Well Ahmed's so religious that when he sees himself in a mirror he lowers his gaze."


(well, it's gonna take some practice)

when transitioning from agnosticism to any religion, fundamental changes in worldview oblige one to make parallel reassessments of lexicon and speech.

Like, now if I say to someone "I hate you, go to hell", I'll stop and think and then say "Oh, wait, but not literally, no, I wouldn't wish that on anyone"

geez.

yeah, I'm moving to D.C. soon and may be living with people I don't know.

I've always known that... it could be difficult being Muslim in America particularly in the current climate, and I mean, I'm not saying that in my two months of moving towards conversion I've experienced any of that yet, but...

Suddenly I think... would I have to tell the people I'd be living with before I move in? It'd feel almost like an apology: "Hey, I'm muslim, sorry, do you hate me now?"


well..... maybe I need a new title for this blog---that's not a funny entry at all.

twice now I have been up so late that I just pray Fajr before going to sleep.

you remember when you pulled your first all nighter and it felt so unnatural you thought maybe the Universe in its order and logic might not permit you to start a fresh day without having slept first?

Yeah, it felt unnatural sort of in that way. Like "well... it is sort of like I've prayed six required prayers today..." which somehow just feels wrong.

but on the other hand, I've concluded that there's nothing "natural" about getting up to pray at 6am to pray neways, and while I do love seeing sunrise after prayer... (ahem) on the few occasions that i have managed to get up for fajr (oh please, like you do it every day)... generally at that hour i prefer closed eyelids and a sleeping brain. Still it is a nice thing to do.

I'm not sure how people go from the Sajda position to the Qiyam position without falling over. Every time I do it I feel like I'm gonna fall backwards.

This may have something to do with the fact that most of the time I pray with my eyes closed..... it helps me concentrate.

well, except for during said transition from Sajda to Qiyam
then it doesn't really help with anything except maybe falling over backwards

I prayed Asr in the same park another day. A nice grassy area off to the side beneath a tree.

There were a buncha ants in the grass, but I didn't mind, and after praying I was just sort of chilling on the grass and was like "the ants are my friends" so I let them crawl all over me.

This goes back to the 8th grade when my friend Morgan Cisaer had a surgery, and while bedridden for over a week during his recovery, his room was invaded by ants. When i went to visit Morgan, he just lay there in his ant infested bed and said that they were his friends---I was very impressed.

Neways, the ants were cool until they got into my underwear.

I guess this has less to do with Islam and more just to do with me and ants

Walking around with grass and dirt on my forehead for like fifteen minutes after praying Zuhr outdoors.

The only reason I noticed was because I'm allergic to grass and I had to itch my forehead.