accents

When I was a young-un living in Manchester, the Black Country accent used to be the object of great hilarity. Many of my friends - not to mention Younger Bro - would while away the hours amusing themselves trying to imitate this central-England dialect along with others, such as the Liverpudlian (scouser) and Scottish brogues. I was largely spared from this, given that (1) I was (and am) useless at impersonating accents and (2) coming originally from London I found it rather ironic that those with thick Mancunian accents were jesting about other people's idiosycnrasies in speech. Nevertheless, perhaps because of Holly the Computer (of early Red Dwarf fame), the Brummie accent was an object of especial derision.

Imagine my chagrin, then, when fifteen years later, my dear daughter Tahseen has a Brummie accent as broad as a barn door. "I loike you," she exclaims, along with gems such as, "leave the compewta an' cum wif moee," and best of all, "yew alroight, luv?" Younger Bro - now sporting a fashionable South African accent plus slang [eg: ekse I'm vaying pose, check you, lekker? - trans: I say, I'll be off home now, I will see you later, alright?] - is alternately highly amused and don't-know-where-to-put-my-face embarrassed.

There is a lesson in everything, I suppose. And yet, and yet, the lesson in this is particularly wonderful. Why has Tahseen developed a Brummie accent? Because she's around people from Birmingham, obviously. And therein lies the trick.

We accquire the characteristics of the ones' we accompany. We take on their fragrance and their hue, their characteristics and their qualities, as surely as a child develops an accent depending on the place she grows up. The soul is as malleable and impressionable as a young child - because that is its reality. We are children in our spirits, immature, still growing, still discovering the true nature of the world around us. We desire sweets and don't care who gives them to us. We detest work and love play. We are astounded by the illuions of a clown or a magician. We believe that fairy tales are true. We follow our desires with no thought to ultimate consequence. We are unable or unwilling to take the long view. We are easily moulded into shapes by those around us.

Whom do we choose to fashion the potter's clay of our unformed spirits? In whose hands do we leave ourselves? The master potters, who will create of us objects of beauty and value that are cherished forever? Or those who will render us ugly and misshapen, that in the end we might be thrown against a wall and smashed to pieces? Do we remain in the company of the blessed, or the company of the cursed? For we will take on their characteristics, for good or for ill.

Imam Hasan al-Basri, the master of the tabi`in according the people of Basra, said, 'if you seek to accquire gentleness, be with those who are gentle, for a man seldom accompanies a people but that he accquires their traits.' And this was but an exposition of the words of our blessed Prophet, the beloved of Allah, who said, 'you will be with those you love,' and 'whoever imitates a people [thinking that their way is best] will be counted among them.' And these blessed words were but a tafsir of Allah's uncreated speech: 'Oh ye who believe, be conscious of Allah, and stay with the people of Truth.'

There is nothing that the Sufis emphasize more than good character and purifcation of the interior, and they advise no means to accomplish this more than remaining in the company of the righteous. May Allah let us all acquire good accents, so that we perfume ourselves with the fragrance of those whom He loves and who love Him.

locked out

interesting day today.

Came home to find out that the door to our prayer room has stopped working. The... [don't even know what it's called] latching mechanism (?) no longer works, so when you turn the handle, it doesn't open the door. The upshot of this is that we are locked out of our prayer room. Talk about a sign - Mrs Habib with great hilarity wonders what we have done that Allah would do such a thing to us. To even greater (one-sided) hilarity she expects me (the man in the house) to 'kick the door down.' Hmm... I reply that this is contrary to my Jedi training.

All the musalla's, tasbih's, Qurans, and burqas are on the other side of the door. So we're reduced to reading salat on the carpet, counting on fingers, and so forth. A minor inconvenience, no doubt. But it leads to us wondering about other scenarios. What if the door had given up with one of the kids inside, and they had wanted to go to the toilet. An unpleasant thought. What if it had broken with Mrs Habib inside, me at work, and the kids at school. Trapped in a room, unable to open the door, with no mobile phone or way of contacting the outside world, and a four and six year old waiting outside school for a mum who is just not appearing. A chilling and dangerous thought. Instead of having a laugh about 'using the force,' we could have been in a very different position.

There are so many mercies that Allah bestows on us that we are totally unaware of. We may, if we are thankful and perceptive, be able to understand some of what might be called 'bounties of commission' - material or spiritual favours that Allah actually gives us. But what about the equally important bounty of the calamities that He averts from us? One of the verses from the Salat al-Badriyya reads:

And oh! what mercies we have accquired
How many misfortunes we're made to avoid
How great the blessings that have entered our lives
Through your love of the people of Badr, ya Allah.

That I did not have an accident coming home today, that my mum or dad did not have a heart attack, that my kids did not mess the carpet with paint, that my eyes blink and my kidneys function... the list of such 'bounties of omission' is endless. My shaykh once told us about a lady who asked him for a wazifa to help relieve the pain of a failing kidney. 'Do you think,' he asked us, 'if it had ever crossed that lady's mind to ask for a wazifa to thank Allah for her kidneys when they were healthy?'

Shaykh Muhammad al-Yaqubi mentioned that ibn Abbas (ra) said, 'whenever a calamity befalls me, I give thanks for three mercies:

1. That it was not a worse calamity
2. That it happened in this world and not the next
3. That it concerned by material welfare and not my spiritual.'

And Allah says, 'if you were to [try to] count the bounties of Allah, you would never be able to enumerate them.' Indeed, the mere fact of remembering one of Allah's bounties is a bounty in itself, for had Allah not inspired us with the taufiq to remember him and his blessings, we would have remained in a state of heedlessness. The mind boggles (as is its wont).

May Allah keep us in a state of thankfulness and reflection.

greetings of peace

In the Name of God, Limitlessly Compassionate, Endlessly Merciful...

Greetings of peace to the world and to emptiness.

I wonder whether anyone will end up reading this...

I suppose it is primarily a convenient place for me to scribble down whatever comes into my head. Sometimes thoughts cannot be known or understood until they are expressed, like the pieces of a jigsaw that must be taken out of the box and structured to reveal their reality.

The traditional format for this used to be a journal or diary, or so I gather from the long-bearded, toothless (and therefore wise?) ones. Yet am I like most Gen X-ers who tend to spend more time in front of the computer than with pen (that leaks) and paper (that gets lost)?

Anyway, I came across a some blogs (quite by accident - I am not particlularly internet savvy) and thought it seemed like a good idea at the time. So I may or may not update this blog, depending on whether I actually have any thoughts worth writing. Some may be fragments of remembered conversations, some echoes of memories or dreams. Others may be me trying to make sense of something in my mind - a task in which I may or may not be successful.

The Blessed Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings upon him) said, 'each of you is a mirror to his brother.' That is to say, one sees in others those aspects of the self that cannot be seen unless reflected. So my friends, unseen and unknown, yet mirrors of my soul: I thank you and ask that - like mirrors - you be patient with both my flaws and my vanities.

And peace and blessings upon the best of mankind, his family and companions, and all those who follow in their footsteps of guidance - and may we all be among them.

was salam, talib

PS: A word of warning: I guarantee neither sense nor coherence, much less truth and verity. I'm only human.