The 6th Night

Wow and then again Wow. The night sky is just awesome since that special crescent moon was seen in the western sky. And what an unbelievable beauty it was. Since that night to this the skies are so clear and the moon looks so, let's just use "sweet." Cause words are just so hard to come by to describe such sweetness. And to know, as I ride from the mosque with Za, and both of us enjoying the beauty, that there's something deeper, much sweeter, streaming down from the heavens. The Mercy of God. Lord, how blessed one feels to be under God's heavenly canopy and His Mercy (extra-special in these Ramadan nights) is falling on us like sweet, delicious rain. Thank You Lord....my gratitude knows no bounds. Thank You.

The Quran: Say words that are the BEST

My dear son...this is for you (as this whole blog is dedicated to you so that you can "know" your dad is some small way). This piece is about receiving an email from a client...appreciating the way I conduct business. And this I must say: stay true to those words from God: "Say words that are the BEST." (17:53) Do not be arrogant or irrational and never let your words sound hollow. Be true to your heart ALWAYS. Even when you're insulted...the Prophets were and their dependence on God saw them through. And it was tough for them as it is for us. So here's that email:
Hello Shamal,
Greetings and thank you for your quick response.
It was sure great meeting you and your brother.
The 14 August,09 has been etched into my memory.
You are a gentleman and a very objective character. Do pass on those values to your kids. You should try teaching ...you'll do well. I knew your Dad ...truly he was a wonderful man. A darling to talk with.
He was the first to display fabrics for sale based on their color, textures and design in Guyana. You can never guess what goes with what when you turn up at his stand. He made me laugh a lot...a big smile and heart.
You are from good stock...guess I am not the first to say this to you.
I like you a lot and felt comfortable talking with you and your brother.
Well....you sure impressed me... Will I do business with you Yes ! Yes !! Yes !!!
Do let me know if the new stock is in.
I am mostly available on week ends.
Stay good,
Ms. Lee

My dear son, these comments can be repeated thousands of times...just this week the Russian diplomats were so impressed by my dealings (business ease) that they said on leaving Guyana they will let the new diplomats do business with us.

Now this is being put here not as a boast...just for letting you know (all children would love to see a diary from their parents). Just think about how those sweet words about your grandfather made me feel. Read over and over again, my son, the words of Prophet Yaqub to his sons. Strive for the BEST in everything...especially your words.

Three "Christians"

Sitting taking in the sunset and just enjoying the tranquility of the evening and in my out-of-body experience contemplating God's magnificence everywhere. Snapped out of my reverie by a pamphlet waving Christian...so took it and very quietly asked him if he believed in God. Oh, of course he said. Haha I love the way this question always elicit this "positive" spiritual outburst. And as I "denied" God he, I guess, wanted to show me the light. So our light religious tit-for tat led to me inviting him into the office and showing him my literature. He accepted some of them, as I then switched gears and spoke about God. He even wanted some of my unfinished brochures. No, I said. Let me finish them. The seed does not spring up in a moment into the towering tree; and neither does religion, which compared to a seed, produce at once its richest fruits. We shook hands and parted with smiles.
A lady Jehovah Witness. They are so similar...in their smiling "harshness." I accepted from their outstretched hands their magazines. But always with the same robotic sameness they refuse to accept anything back. I asked her seeing that she represented Jesus, if he was standing where she was, would he refuse arrogantly my offering. She said I have truth and nothing else matters. I told her that her "Certainty" of truth is the reason for all the religious wars that has left the heavens tear-stained.
And finally within 24 hours another "Christian." He came for the Quran. Said he believed in God but not in the dogmas of the Church. Said he was reading about the struggle between God and Satan in the Quran at a friend's house (the friend is Christian) and they sent him to me to get his own copy. Obviously we shared ideas and this was the most stimulating of the three. And yep he took the brochures that I picked for him. All 3 conversations had value but this one was more shall we say "conversational." The other two was like a spiritual tennis match with ideas being paddled back and forth.
And not so long ago I entertained 3 pastors at different times in the office. The conversations were bubbling with hope.
Then they detect my crisis of faith and wonder why...the truth is "believers" and their insults have left me drained and if I were not impressed by the Quranic language of the boldest metaphors that I have encountered I would have left the "faith of the insulters." So my crisis of faith is due to volcanic minds/tongues heaping derogatory terms upon me and not due to the ideology of the faith, its Book, its Author and its Messenger.
May they be accepted into God's favour; and me well His judgment of what I have done will be the fairest of all. To that I submit.

That Feeling!!!

We all get excited over something…a dinner with someone special, vacation, the opening of school (hahaha some of us do), and the list is endless. Then we go to the mosque and we hear that oft-repeated phrase that the Prophet (p) says that a glorious month is about to descend…and you look around at the audience and you don’t detect that “excitement.” Anyway who am I to judge their expressions…but yeah its like 8 days to go and I have got that “feeling”…nothing else has matched it for years…since I was young…it’s Ramadan and the Fasting just brings with it so much INTENSITY…like in really STRIVING for something meaningful…the rest of the months (no matter what we engage in) just can’t seem to match. So gain as much as you can in this month so that it REFLECTS in the other eleven. Like in being nice to people (most important of whom are your parents).

So checkout these brochures The Heartbeat & Ramadan: Golden Hours on the Wings of an Angel at www.zamals.com (click on brochures). Please print and distribute.

Her Glow!!!

I was drawn to her. What beauty! Her face like a full moon. My God!!! Oh...it was the full moon. The sky tonight was clear, one such that you are magnetically pulled into its velvety darkness. I stopped with Za to let him see the moonbeams reflecting in the canal. He smiled...and I did too...for two reasons. I was enjoying the splendour and I was introducing Za to the magic of nature. He will, as God wills, see many more of these and he must learn to appreciate its beauty. To know what it does to the soul as the eyes, which are the gateway to the inner world, gazes upon the outer world bathed in such celestial glory. I dropped him home whispering over and over again how beautiful the golden orb was. And as I rode eastwards my eyes were trapped...amazing I kept muttering...how stunningly amazing. Why were all the people I passed engrossed in their crude lives faces creased with worry staring earthwards when the heavens beckoned with pure joy. Why were the people engaged in cursing, drinking, grotesque laughter...when the silent skies were putting on a show unmatched in any theater. Oh I have my worries too...hanging like a heavy chain around my neck...pulling my head earthwards...but I broke free tonight dazzled by God's spectacle. As I turned into the quiet streets of Queenstown and the moon seemed to dance thru the trees I could only moan and groan with pleasure at such a sight. And then eastwards again into her golden charms...I stopped at the head of Vlissengen road to drink in her splendour...where my eyes ranged freely through the still, pure air and fondly traced out the restful contours of the moon apparently built for eternity...and all around me people sped on in their cars, buses, jeeps oblivious to the magic of tonight. I fell in love...again...for even though I have seen her unveiled like this hundreds of times I have never tire of gazing unabashedly at her naked beauty. Arriving home I stepped into the artificial lights and it seemed as if I moved from a lighted night sky decorated with a golden moon and studded with twinkling stars... and stepped into darkness.

One Call

After Thursday's night Islamic Documentaries (Hijab: An Act of Faith) the phone rang. The caller wanted to know how often this program is shown and when. So I told her we're into the 4th year and it's on every Thursday from 7-8 p.m. Asked her what caused her to call and she said the guy (Baba Ali) with his marriage advice. Yeah he's seriously "funny." Anyhow I asked her of what religious persuasion was she and it was Hinduism. And your age? 19. And extremely well spoken too. She said "Hey, I will watch next week...and will get my mom to sit with me too." haha. So we chatted a while about the history of the program and its effect on persons of all faiths. Yep. All faiths have shown their appreciation...just think about it...an Islamic program that manages to open friendly dialogue with persons of other religions. These out-of-the-blues calls (hundreds over the years) have been the stimulant that keeps this program going. Hey thanks a lot to this caller and the hundreds over the time-span of ID. May God bless you all...and can I add "me" in there too!!! hahaha

Memory of a Birth

by Ian McDonald Modern man has miraculous powers. He flies to the moon and soars beyond the sun. He creates wonder after wonder. His inventive capacity seems limitless. Yet if tomorrow any man designed and built a computer infinitely more powerful and complex than any that now exists he would instantly be awarded a Nobel Prize for Science.
Or if any man constructed a pump that could run without stopping, beating 80 times a minute, without a hitch, for 80 years and more he would be honoured as the greatest engineer, the greatest inventor, the world has seen.

Yet any time a child is born – in shining home or meanest slum – just such marvels are created. Indeed, infinitely more than that. For it is not only the brain and heart of a new-born child that are miraculous and well beyond the wit of man’s invention. Every intricate part that makes up the child is incomparably beautiful, crafted to a stunning perfection. And beyond the miracle of the parts is the much greater miracle of the whole that is greater than the parts – what some call mind and others personality and others soul or spirit.

To be involved with a birth is to be involved with a thousand miracles. Whatever one achieves in life pales into insignificance beside the creation of a child. Mothers know this best, it is their unshakable secret. But a man can feel it too when a child of his is born and suddenly, for a blinding moment, he claims an insight into one of the very few achievements that really matter in life.
He is also bound to feel a small but triumphant satisfaction that here is proof that he has found a way to outlive his own mortality. Thomas Hardy put it exactly in his poem ‘Heredity’:

I am the family face;
Flesh perishes, I live on,
Projecting trait and trace,
Through time to time anon,
And leaping from place to place
Over oblivion.
The years – heired feature that can
In curve and voice and eye
Despise the human span
Of durance – that is I;
The eternal thing in man
That heeds no call to die.

The other day I was looking through old diaries and came across an account of the birth of my youngest son, now 20, and it brought back such vivid memories. Near Christmas he was born in the midst of blackouts, floods, shortages, and a steadily increasing breakdown in public services throughout the country. Yet he was fortunate. The care he and his mother received at the Mercy Hospital, ancient then and broken down but a home of compassion and standards, more than compensated for the floodwater and the darkened windows and the city brought almost to a standstill. The nurses there had diplomas not only in nursing care but in the vital arts of understanding pain and anxiety. The warm concern and careful professionalism cultivated throughout that institution could give lessons in what hospital care is truly all about to more than one gleaming palace of the latest medical equipment that I have had the misfortune to know in rich countries.

When children are born, parents harbour great ambitions, we hope they will achieve success and happiness. But there is more than that we should desire.

Much that I wanted to say to him, as I looked at him in wonder in the first few weeks of life, was contained in a poem which the great cellist Pablo Casals jotted down long ago for the children he loved beyond even his great art:

When will we teach our children what they are?
One should say to each of them:
Do you know what you are? You are a marvel!
You are unique! In all the world there is no
other child exactly like you! In the millions
of years that have passed, there has never been
another child like you!

And look at your body, what a wonder it is!
Your legs, your arms, your curving fingers, the
way you move! You may become a Shakespeare, a
Michelangelo, a Beethoven, You have the capacity
for anything.

Yes, you are a marvel, and when you grow up,
can you harm another who is, like you, a marvel?
No, hurt no one, bring only the joy you can!

“No, hurt no one, bring only the joy you can!” I wrote that in my diary for him, still the best refrain I know.