The Night Of The Heavenly Ascension (Mi’raj) ...

Saddened by the despicable treatment he had received during the day ... 
Our Master prayed before lying down to sleep ... 

His blessed heart ached ...
And his eyes were moist with tears ... 

He had barely dropped off to sleep, when the Lord of Majesty said:

O Gabriel, do you know what night this is ??? 
Tonight, convey my command and good tidings to all My worlds !!! 
Tonight I shall take My beloved to My station ... 
My Heavens ... 
My Lotus Tree ... 
My Prosperous House ...
My Throne ... 
My Footstool ... 
And My Paradise will be adorned with the dust of My beloved’s feet ... 

Tell Israfeel to leave his trumpet tonight ... 
I have commanded him to wait at My beloved’s service ... 

Let Michael postpone the distribution of provisions ... 

Let Azra’eel leave the gathering of souls for tonight ... 

To them and to you I have granted the honor of serving My beloved ... 

For tonight, let Malik put out the fire of Hell ... 
Let the wardens of Hell not stir from their places ... 
Let My Paradise be decked out afresh ... 
Tell Ridwan that the houries, pages and attendants must make ready ... 
Let them wear new heavenly clothes and put on their finery ... 
They must get ready to receive My beloved ... 

Tonight I have invited My beloved Muhammad ... 

Let them clothe the sun in the empyrean ... 
Let the sky be more splendidly arrayed than on an ordinary night ... 
Let the stars shine brighter than usual ... 
Let the souls of the Prophets prepare to greet Muhammad !!! 

O Gabriel 
Go to Paradise and fetch for My beloved 
A splendid robe ... 
A crown ... 
A belt ... 
And the heavenly steed called Buraq ... 

Let him don the robe ... 
Set the crown upon his head and gird himself with the belt ... 
Let him mount Buraq ... 
Let him ride to see 
My Throne 
My Footstool 
And My Paradise ... 

Give My salutations to that Messenger !!! 

He is now lying in the home of Umm Hani’ ...
Sad and dismayed by the cruelty of those unbelievers ...

Let him come !!! 
Let him behold My Throne 
My Pedestal
And My Paradise ... 

Those unbelievers have been saying: 

You are poor ... While we are rich ... 
Might and power belongs to us ... 
You have no friends except beggars and slaves ...

O Gabriel 
Who is really poor ... Who is rich ... 
Who is mighty ... Who is humble ... 
Who is temporary ... Who is enduring ??? 

Tonight 
I shall bestow on him My grace 
And favor 
As I have not done 
And shall never do
For any other Messenger and Prophet ... 

I shall show him the favors I have prepared for his Community ... 

O Gabriel
He is very precious to Me ... 

He is a mercy to eighteen thousand 
To eighteen million worlds ... 

Had I not created him 
I would not have created this universe ... 

His eulogist am I ... 

For him I created My all ... 
For Myself I created him ... 
I am witness to his Prophethood ... 
He is Mine and I am his ... 

O Gabriel 
Treat him politely ...
Let your kindness tonight be greater than on any other night ... 
You spent twenty thousand years performing a prayer of two cycles for Me ... 
No servant of Mine ever did Me such worship ... 
As your reward for that worship 
I have granted you the favor of serving My beloved tonight ...

That venerable Gabriel went to Paradise ... 
Where he saw that the heavenly steeds were pasturing in herds ... 
They were all happy and content ... 
Except for one Buraq, which was pale and wane ... 
It stood weeping in a corner ... 
Its face streaked with tears and bearing the mark of love ...

The venerable Gabriel approached the poor beast 
Wondering at its condition ... 

What is the matter with you ??? 
Why don’t you eat or drink ??? 
Why so pale and wane ??? 
This is Paradise ... 
The abode of happiness ... 
There is no weeping ... 
No sadness here ...

Buraq found the words to say: 

I am stricken with the pain of love ... 
My love is my constant companion ... 
I have not seen him, but I have heard his name ... 
That name is my remedy ... 
If I see his beauty, my face will brighten with joy ... 
I have been in this state for thousands of years ... 
I heard a voice crying: ‘O Muhammad’ ...
From that moment, I have been in love with the owner of that name ... 
You see me here in Paradise, the abode of happiness ... 
But this is only my outer form; in reality, I am in the fire of separation ... 
Love is my bounty, tears my joy ... 
These are the faithful witnesses to my love ... 
My paleness and wanness are my delight ... 
My streaming tears the token of my love ... 
Surely this pain of mine will lead me to its remedy ... 
One day it will unite me with my loved one ... 
My pain has become my remedy ...

Good news, O Buraq ... Cried Gabriel ...
Tonight I shall lead you to your beloved ... 
Your steadfast patience in love has brought you to the one you love ... 
That most holy being is not your beloved alone ... 
All creatures have been created for love of him ... 
The Lord of All Worlds is his lover also ... 
As are the Footstool ...
The Tablet ...
The Pen 
And Paradise ... 
His lovers are without number ... 
Just as your love for him has now brought you to him 
So will their love unite them with him one day ... 
This condition of yours is certain proof of this ...

They say the lover is with the loved one ... 
Come on, Buraq ...
Let’s be on our way to your beloved Muhammad ... 

In one moment of time, they had reached the city of Mecca 
And arrived at the Ka’ba ... 
All the other noble angels came too ... 
And Mecca, and the sky above it, were filled with the angel hosts ...

This was a most important night ... 
On this night
Allah would show His beloved wonders peculiar to His Essence of Divinity ... 

Admitting him to the mystery of the Two Bow-lengths 
A station inaccessible to any other creature ... 

The Chosen Messenger would be allowed to witness marvels 
Hidden from the sight of creatures and of angels ... 
Even those angels near the Throne ... 

On this night, he would be brought to the “Palace Beyond Space” ...

There, each pain would find a thousand kinds of remedy ... 
The sins of God’s servants would be forgiven, for love of His beloved ... 
And the entire Community of Muhammad would be delivered from the Fire ...
And granted Paradise ... 
The mystery of the Two Bow-lengths would be revealed ... 
And the Unity of the Divine Essence made known ...

From the manifestation of the Attributes 
The manifestations of the Essence would be revealed ... 

Lover and beloved would be united ... 
He would be shown the stations of all Messengers ... 
He would lead the souls of the Prophets in worship ...
He would pass beyond the Station of Gabriel ... 
All the sinners of the Community of Muhammad would be delivered from the Fire ...
And given to the Messenger ... 
He would learn the secret of “and your Lord will surely give to you” (93:5) T
he Almighty would address ninety thousand words to His beloved ... 
Mysteries would be revealed ...
Such as no tongue could tell ...
And no pen could write ... 

According to Ibn ‘Abbas our Master said: 

I had just worshipped and gone to bed ... 
Realizing that Gabriel had come, I sat up in my bed ... 

I saw Gabriel standing there saying: 

O Messenger of Allah, greetings to you from Allah’ He invites you tonight ... 
I have come to fetch you ... 
This night, the All-Glorious One will do you great honor 
No one before you ever attained such exalted grace and favor ... 
Not will such blessedness be conferred on anyone after you ... 
No one ever saw or heard of such grace and favor as will be yours tonight ... 
Let us go now, for your moment has arrived ... 
Tonight, you are the guest of the King ... 
No predecessor ever deserved such bounty ... 
Nor will any successor be able to achieve such exaltation ...

The venerable Moses conversed on Mount Sinai 
With the Lord whose Existence is Necessary ... 

My Lord, he begged ... 
Show me Your Beautiful Countenance ... 
Let me see ... 
Let me behold Your Beauty ... 

But he was told: 

Moses, you cannot see Me ...
You are incapable of seeing Me ...
But look at the mountain ...
I shall manifest to it ... 
If the mountain can bear My manifestation, you will be able to do so too ... 
But the mountain could not bear My manifestation and it dissolved into pieces ... 
The venerable Moses fell in a faint ... 
When he had recovered consciousness, he said: 

My Lord, I declare You exempt from all attributes of deficiency ... 
I qualify You with the attributes of perfection ... 
To You I repent ... 
Without seeing You, I am one of the first to have faith in You ... 

Moses, the Converser, wished to see ... 
But he had been unable to see ... 
Now, God Almighty desired to show Himself to His beloved ...

How this might be, we cannot know ... 
The manner of it is known only to Allah ... 
The six directions do not apply to Him ... 
He is unquantifiable and His modality is unknown to us ... 
Existing beyond direction, location and time ... 
He would show Himself to His beloved ... 
Yet this He would promise not to His beloved alone 
But also to us sinners ... 
The members of his community ... 

Some highly honored faces will behold the Beauty and Perfection of the Lord at the Resurrection ... 
We shall be granted this favor ... 
To see Him, however, the eye must be prepared ... 
As for those who do not see truth and reality in the world below ... 
The Qur’an tells us that they will not see the Lord of the Worlds ... 
Those who turn their backs on the Qur’an and on His beloved will be resurrected blind ... That sight belongs to the eye that weeps for God’s sake ... 
To those who observe reality and truth ...

The Messenger gave his Companions the good tidings: 

You will see your Lord from the Garden of Paradise ... 
Just as you behold the full moon on the fifteenth of the month ... 

In other words ... 
The divine manifestation will be apparent to each believer according to his capacity ...

As we have said already ... 
The manner of this is beyond our knowledge ... 
It is known only to Allah ... 
God is exempt from spatial location ... 
He will show Himself to the believers ...
And the believers will see Him ... 
As Allah wills … 

May Allah bestow His grace upon us all ... 
Ameen ... 
For the sake of the Chief of the Messengers ...

-Sheikh Muzaffer Ozak al-Jerrahi, Irshad (Wisdom of a Sufi Master)

Jalal ad-din Rumi ...

I want your sun to reach my raindrops ...

So your heat can raise my soul upward like a cloud ...

Rumi ...

There is a Water that flows down from Heaven
To cleanse the world of sin by grace Divine

At last
Its whole stock spent 
Its virtue gone

Dark with pollution 
Not its own 

It speeds back to the Fountain of all purities

Whence 
Freshly bathed 
Earthward it sweeps again
Trailing a robe of glory bright and pure

This Water is the Spirit of the Saints
Which ever sheds 
Until itself is beggared

God's balm on the sick soul 
And then returns
To Him Who made the purest light of Heaven

Don't need boxes wrapped in strings

or desire love or empty things...

just a chance that we'll find better days.

Don't cry Falasteen,

you will see better days ...

R.I.P Adrian Inglis Bannerman ...

It pains me a great deal to write this ... 

As I found out lastnight that one of my childhood friends was brutally murdered this past Sunday (July 20th) ... 

Adrian Bannerman, along with two other men, were shot multiple times at around 3am Sunday morning ... Police believe that the incident was a gang related act ...

I have so many memories of Adrian ... I remember always being quiet and shy around him on the basketball courts ... Not scared, but always thinking I was gonna say something dumb or look foolish on the court ... I never really talked to him much, but he always walked up to the courts with his infamous swagger, and would nod his head up at me and then hold both hands out in front of him, signalling me to pass him the ball ... He'd take a shot, and then walk over to the corner of the court and sit there for a bit before he emptied his pockets out and start playing ... 

I remember him with his BMX and sometimes Bobcat bike, poppin' wheelies and riding over to the tuck shop downstairs at Capri ... He was very soft spoken and protective ... We never worried about anything on those courts when Adrian and the boys were there, they were always like the older brothers watchin out for us ... 

I remember him having braids one day, and a half braid half puffed out fro the next ... Always had one pant leg hiked up (sometimes both if it was too hot or if he was riding his bike) ... And was a showman on the courts (especially when all the girls would come sit on the side of the courts to watch him and his brother play) ...

I last saw Adrian less than a year ago at the Eaton Centre ... That was the first time in over 15 years that I had seen him ... Sadly, it would also be the last ... Even that day, I got nervous and didn't know what to say to him ... I didn't think he would remember me ... And so I walked pass him remembering how much I wanted to be like him when I was younger ... How much I tried to imitate his ball game ... 

I will always live with that regret of not having said anything to him that last time ... 

I pray that this new journey that he's embarked on, is one of ease and comfort ... 

And that his family gets some sort of comfort and closure from this whole incident by finding those that were involved ... 

And I pray that his 2 year old son Zack, is well taken care of, and never has to deal with the fate his father dealt with ...

Adrian Inglis Bannerman, I will always have fond memories of you my brother ... 

And I will always remember you in my prayers ... 

May God have mercy on your soul and fill your grave with light ...

There are no guarantee's in life ... 

I pray that myslef and everyone, can walk a righteous path ... 

And be beautiful ambassadors of God's creation ... 

For all those whom I've ever hurt in any way shape or form 

And for those in whose eyes I've changed for the worst 

I sincerely appologize to you all ... 

I pray that you all will forgive me and remember me in your prayers ... 

I truly feel blessed when I remember every single person that I've had the good fortune of meeting ... 

Be they good experiences or not ... 

It was all for a purpose ... 

Maybe that purpose isn't completley apparent to me right now ...

But I know it was all good ... 

All perfect ... 

God only want's good for us ... 

God does nothing less than perfect ... 

Peace and blessings ...

Asalaam alaikum,

Jafar Alam

People come into our lives and walk with us a mile ...

And then because of circumstance they only stay a while ...

They serve a need, within the days that move so quickly by ...

And then are gone beyond our reach, we often wonder why ...

God only knows the reason that we meet and share a smile ...

Why people come into our lives and walk with us a mile ...

Shaykh Muhammad Nazim Adil al-Haqqani ...

Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) imparted this good advice to mankind:

If you awaken in the morning ... 
And find that you are lacking nothing in the way of material sustenance ... 
And that you and your family are in good health ... 
Then don't burden yourself with worry ...

We are shouldering weekly, monthly and yearly burdens each day ... 
Why carry such baggage when you may walk unburdened and find all that you need awaiting your arrival at each station of your journey ??? 

You only exist here and now ... 

Tomorrow's "YOU" is only a fantasy ... 
As you can't even know if you'll live that long ... 

By inventing so many problems for yourself you are only making yourself ill ... 
Is this advice of the Prophet not enough evidence of his adherence to a way that leads man to felicity ???

Allah doesn't want His servants to suffer needless self-inflicted misery ... 
And He says:

Oh My servants, don't load heavy burdens on yourselves by worrying about the future ... 
Just bring yourselves in line with My will ... 
Accord with my purposes this moment ...
And then rest assured that I will help you keep your future moments similarly aligned with My will ...

When I am here in western countries 
I daily encounter people carrying the weight of anticipated problems ... 
It is so difficult in the modern world to escape from having this perspective 
And to concentrate on the moment in order to put it right ... 

With tens of thousands of problems in front of you all at once how should a solution seem possible ???

I often see people running into the masjid,  saying the obligatory prayers quickly and running out ... 

Sometimes I ask them: 

What's the rush ??? 

Then they nervously look at their watches and say: 

We have tarried in the masjid too long already ... 
We have so many things to do today ... 

I reply: 

It is laudable to be industrious and to look after your affairs well ... 
But who would look after your affairs were you to drop dead here and now ???

I am not encouraging people to spend their whole days in the masjid ... 
But only trying to remind people who are not only running after their sustenance
But leaping head over heels after ambitious all-encompassing undertakings 
That it is impossible to "master the world" 
And destructive to devote so much energy to their attempt 
And with so much abandon ... 

First of all 
The world already has a Master ... 
And addressing Him humbly 
And with presence of mind (not hurriedly) 
In your prayers is even more instrumental in attaining your sustenance 
Than rushing through the city ... 

Secondly
Far from attending to your affairs more efficiently by running
You are only likely to have a heart attack and die young ...

Don't live in a world of great big-time schemes ... 
For such schemes will not save you from trouble ... 
But entangle you in it even further ... 

Simplify your problems 
So that the solutions may be simple ... 

Also 
Don't regard your problems with a magnifying glass ... 
So that they are out of perspective ... 

That habit will destroy you physically and spiritually ...

We declare our right on this Earth to be a human being ...
To be respected as a human being ... 
To be given the rights of a human being in this society ...
On this earth ...
In this day ...
Which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary ...

Contemplate the creation ...
And it’s perfection ...

Boycott Major Supporters Of Zionism ...

There is something you can do to show solidarity with the Muslim Ummah ...

Zionism = Racism

McDonalds

McDonalds' CEO is an honorary director of the American-Israel Chamber of Commerce and Industry ... 

He is a major corporate partner of the Jewish United Fund and the Jewish Federation ... The Jewish United Fund works to maintain American military, economic and diplomatic support for Israel; monitors and responds to media coverage of Israel ...

Disneyland

Millennium Exhibition at Epcot Center in Florida depicted Jerusalem as the capital of Israel ... 

Of the 8 million dollars used to set up the exhibit, Israel contributed 1.8 million ... 
And worked with Disney to develop its content ...

Zionism = Apartheid

Starbucks

Chairman, Howard Shultz, is a major supporter of Israel ... 

He has been honored for services to the zionist state ... 

In 1998 he was honored with the "Israel 50th Anniversary Tribute Award" for his services 

Coca Cola

Staunch supporter of Israel since 1966 ... 

Hosted the American-Israel Chamber of Commerce Eagle Star Awards Gala ... 

It's scheduled to build a plant on stolen Palestinian land ...

Zionism = Oppression

Home Depot

Founder and Co-Chairman of the Board, is on the board of EMET 
(The pro Israel media "war room" whose function is to ensure all media in the US stays biased toward Israel)

Estee LauderChairman, Ron Lauder is the president of the Jewish National Fund whose main purpose is to legitimize the occupation of Palestine ...

Zionism = Systematic Genocide

Sara Lee

Sara Lee has a 30% share in Delta Galil
(An Israeli textile company that has been cited by Sweatshop Watch for grossly violating Palestinian human rights)

Timberland

Timberland CEO, Jeffrey Swartz suggested sending 100 IDF thugs to the US for a week as ambassadors for Israel ... 

He felt Israel's message was not reaching the US public ...

Zionism is the root cause of the continuous state of war 
And unrest in the Middle East ...

Denzel Washington ...

I try to teach my children there are going to be obstacles ... 

Someone may not like you just because they don't like themselves ...

But don't you get bogged down ... And don't be a hater ...

Don't let hatred destroy you, you know ???

Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) ...

Strive for Paradise ...

A small nook within its bliss ...

Is better than the whole world ...

Some Dr. Suess For Ya ...

Congratulations !!! 

Today is your day
You're off to Great Places
You're off and away

You have brains in your head
You have feet in your shoes
You can steer yourself any direction you choose

You're on your own
And you know what you know
And you are the guy (or girl) who'll decide where to go

You'll get mixed up, of course
As you already know
You'll get mixed up with many strange birds as you go

So be sure when you step
Step with care and great tact
And remember that Life's A Great Balancing Act

Just never forget to be dexterous and deft
And never mix up your right foot with your left

And will you succeed ???
Yes !!! You will, indeed !!!
(98% 3/4 percent guranteed)

KID ... YOU'LL MOVE MOUNTAINS !!!

In peace the sons bury their fathers ...

But in war the fathers bury their sons ...

THE BEST RESPONSE TO A FOOL ...

IS SILENCE ...