Ibn Ata'llah said:

“People praise you for what they suppose is in you,
but you must blame your soul for what you know is in you.”


- Hikam number 142

Between God and His servant are just two veils;
all other veils become manifest from these two: health and wealth.
He who is healthy says, "Where is God? I don't know and I don't see."
As soon as he begins to suffer, he says, "Oh God! Oh God!", and he begins sharing his secrets with Him and talking to Him. So you see that health was his veil, and God was hidden under his pain. So long as man has riches, he gathers together all the means of achieving his desires.
Night and day he busies himself with them. But as soon as he loses his wealth, his ego weakens and he turns round about God.



- Discourses of Rumi (Fihi ma fihi) 233/240

.•°*”˜˜”*°•.****** رمضان مبارك ******.•°*”˜ ˜”*°•.

"My dear heart never think you are better than others.
Listen to their sorrows with compassion.
If you want peace, do not harbor bad thoughts do not gossip
& do not teach what you do not know."

- Rumi

A sign of compliance with passion (hawa’) is haste in supererogatory good deeds (nawafil) and sluggishness is fulfilling obligations (wajibat).

A sign of the heart’s death is the absence of sadness over acts of obedience that you have neglected and the abandonment of regret over mistakes that you have made.

Among the signs of success at the end is turning to God at the beginning.


- Sidi Ibn Ata’illah (ra)

"The friends of Allah do not die

They move from one place to another"

“The real existence on earth

is of the one who benefits humanity”

Qur'an 13:17

"Nay, but you love instant results"

(Quran 75:20)

"Let them chat and play

until they meet their Day which they are promised."

(Quran 70:42)

To find yourself

Think for yourself

~ Socrates ~

Who taught you to hate yourself?
Who taught you to hate the color of your skin?
Who taught you how to hate the texture of your hair?
Who taught you how to hate the shape of your nose?
Who taught you to hate yourself from the top of your head to the soles of your feet?
Who taught you to hate your own kind?
Who taught you to hate the race to which you belong ...?


- Malcom X

"With Him are the keys of the unseen,

the treasures that none knoweth but He"

Qur'an 6:59

Hafiz ...

“One regret dear world,

that I am determined not to have

when I am lying on my deathbed

is that I did not kiss you enough”

"This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time. "

-Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, Chapter 3

Tomorrow's battle is won during today's practice


- Samurai maxim

"The cowards never started.

And the weak died along the way."

A minute, from now,

two days from now,

it will still be now.

The future is still only now.

The least of things with a meaning

is worth more in life

than the greatest of things without it

- Carl Jung -

Qur'an 3:173 ...

" Hasbunallahu wa ni'mal Wakil ''

Allah (Alone) is Sufficient for us,

and He is the Best Disposer of affairs (for us)

And surely what comes after is better for you than that which has gone before.
And soon your Guardian-Lord will give you that so you will be well pleased.
- The Quran 93:4,5


And put your trust in the Ever-living One Who dies not, and celebrate His praise;
and Sufficient is He as the Knower of His servant's shortcomings.
- The Quran 25:58

The breath of dhikr inhales love and exhales kindness
The heartbeat keeps time to the rhythm of intention
Steady the breath with silence and good works
Listen to the heart beat La illa ha ill Allah!
O seeker, the traveller on this path takes no provisions but love ...

- Irving Karchmar

The Tasbih is a metaphor of existence. It is a beautiful tool that reminds our hearts that everything in the creation is created with the Haqq (truth). Each stone, bird, star and sound is a manifestation of the divine attributes, messenging us of His presence, in and with everything. Roll the beads through your fingers and see that all things are touched with His original intention to know, love and worship Him. Let each bead be a witness of what is already in the heart of every human being, the eternal light of the divine.

- Hajj Mustafa

May your heart communion (salaat) be such

that as if you are gazing upon your Lord,

for even if you do not see Him,

(behold well this consciousness that) He sees you.

~ Sacred tradition of Islam ~

"It is better to sit alone than in company with the bad;
and it is better still to sit with the good than alone.
It is better to speak to a seeker of knowledge than to remain silent;
but silence is better than idle words"

- Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him)

If your enemy is superior, evade him.
If angry, irritate him.
If equally matched, fight,
and if not split and reevaluate

-Sun Tzu

Forgive him who wrongs you;
join him who cuts you off;
do good to him who does evil to you;
and speak the truth even if it be against yourself.

- Inscribed on the Prophet (SAW) sword

Innumerable changes of moods are yours,
and they are uncontrolled by you.
If you knew their origin,
you would be able to dominate them.
If you cannot localize your own changes,
how can you localize that which formed you?

- Rumi [ Fihi Ma Fihi ]

Wise is he who controls his desires and works towards that which is to occur after death; whilst an ignorant is he who follows that temptation of his desires and (regardless of that) keeps hope in (the mercy of) Allah.

One day the Prophet Abraham invited a person to dinner, but when he learned that he was an infidel he canceled the invitation and turned him out. Immediately the Divine Voice reprimanded him, saying, "You did not feed him food for a day even because he belonged to a different religion, yet for the last seventy years I am feeding him in spite of his heresy. Had you fed him for one night, you would not have become poor on that account."

- al Ghazzali

Iman is not something that I just “perform” in a place of worship.
Iman is life.
Iman is how I interact with Allah during all the breaths that I take.

- Shaykh Habib ‘Ali al Jifri

"He who truly remembers Allah is the one who obeys Him: whoever forgets is disobedient. Obedience is the mark of guidance, disobedience the sign of misguidance. The root of both states lies in remembrance (dhikr) and forgetfulness. Make your heart the focal point of your tongue, which should not move unless the heart indicates, the intellect agrees and your tongue accords with belief.Allah knows what you conceal and what you reveal"

- Imam Ali (ra)

Doubt is a precipice on the way to God. Blessed is he who is freed from its bonds. He who fares without any doubt, adhere to his footprints if you do not know the way. Cleave to the footprints of the deer and advance with care that you may reach the musk-gland. By means of such trekking, even if you walk on fire, you will reach the luminous peak.

- Jalaluddin Rumi

If we live good lives, the times are also good.
As we are, such are the times

- Saint Augustine

"When you reach the bottom of the well of your own nature,
then you will know that the wickedness is in you."

-Rumi

Goethe ...

"Treat people as if they were what they ought to be

and you will help them become

what they are capable of becoming."

R.I.P Michael Jackson ...

My childhood idol ...

The greatest performer ever ...

Thank you for being the music of my memory ...

Let sadness see what happy does...

Let happy be where sadness was...

Here's to you, both as a transformational genius of creativity and art that ever lived on earth and a tragedy of that of a humble helpless human soul. I am grateful to be a part of the generation who grew up with his inspiration ...

R.I.P Michael Jackson for your majestic contribution to art.

- Jafar Alam

Imam Al Ghazali ...

You should not neglect your time or use it haphazardly; on the contrary you should bring yourself to account, structures your litanies and other practices during each day and night, and assign to each period a fixed and specific function. This is how to bring out the spritual blessings (baraka) in each period. But if you leave yourself adrift, aimlessly wandering as cattle do, not knowing how to occupy yourself at every moment, your time will be lost. It is nothing other than your life, and your life is the capital that you make use of to reach perpetual felicity in the proximity of God the Exalted. Each of your breaths is a priceless jewel, since each of them is irreplaceable and, once gone, can never be retrieved. Do not be like the deceived fools who are joyous because each day their wealth increases while their life shortens. What good is an increase in wealth when life grows even shorter? Therefore be joyous only for an increase in knowledge or in good works, for they are your two companions who will accompany you in your grave when your family, wealth, children and friends stay behind.

The Prophet (pbuh) supplicated that God the Exalted show him things in their reality, distinguished and clear:

" Show me the truth as truth and give me the ability to follow it;
and show me falsehood and give me the ability to avoid it."

Ahmad al- Zarruq ( Moroccan scholar ) ...

"If you desire to live such that your religion is safe and your portion is full and your honor is sound, guard your tongue and never mention another's faults remembering that you yourself have faults and others have tongues."

Watch your eye. Should it ever reveal to you the faults of others, say to it, " O my eye, other people have eyes too ."

Live treating others well and avoid aggression, and should others aggress against you, leave them but in the best way.

The source of these words is in fact none other than the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) when he said,

" Be vigilant of God wherever your are, and follow a misdeed with a good deed and it will remove it; and treat others with the most excellent of character."

In another tradition the Prophet (pbuh) said, " Every child of Adam errs and the best of those who err are those who seek to redress them."

So be concious of God and make your request with dignity. In summation, repentance, awareness of God, and uprightness are the foundations of all that is beneficial. The truth is clear and its details are weighty and significant. The affair belongs only to God. Success is in His Hands.

Looking For God Everywhere ... By Jafar Alam ...

An African mothers breasts were cut off
So that her new born baby could not have her milk
She is looking for God
Everywhere

A young Haitian boy
Is eating mud pies on the street
He is looking for God
Everywhere

The alcoholic laying on the street corner
Looks inside his empty bottle
He is looking for God
Everywhere

The young Pakistani girl who was gang raped
Because of false accusations made about her brother
Was looking for God
Everywhere

Amongst the chaos in the world
The gluttons are not satisfied
They are looking for more gods
Everywhere

Two siblings sit in their room
Their hearts beating
Their parents fighting
They are looking for God
Everywhere

An adult male is discriminated against
Because he is a child of divorce
He is looking for God
Everywhere

A young kid is haunted by demons
From his past
He is looking for God
Everywhere

A 25 year old girl is searching for happiness
Without a father figure
She is looking for God
Everywhere

We were all born to die
In between the two
We are looking for God
Everywhere

There were many I would die for
The love was not returned

Betrayed

My heart died a hundred deaths

My worry
Is the pleasure
Of the Most High

A beautiful pattern
Of conduct
I am not

But I see God
Everywhere (c)

I stand here and watch the people of this world:
all against one and one against all,
angry, arguing, plotting and scheming.

Then one day, suddenly, they die.

And each gets one plot of ground:

four feet wide, six feet long.
If you can scheme your way out of that plot,
I'll set the stone that immortalizes your name.

- Zen Poetry of Han Shan (8th century)

Death is a tax the soul has to pay
for having had a name and a form

- Inayat Khan

Patience is bitter if you focus on yourself

Patience is sweet if you focus on Allah

Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are. Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

"The Excited States of America" ...

“And we must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent or omniscient—that we are only 6 percent of the world’s population—that we cannot impose our will upon the other 94 percent of mankind—that we cannot right every wrong or reverse every adversity—and that therefore there cannot be an American solution to every world problem."

- John F. Kennedy, U.S. President

Bahlul, the wise fool, happened to meet the caliph Harun al-Rashid.

'Where are you coming from like this ya Bahlul?' the ruler asked him.

'From Hell' was the prompt reply.

'What were you doing there?'

Bahlul explained, 'Fire was needed, Sire, so I thought of going to Hell to ask if they could spare a little. But the fellow in charge there said 'We have no fire here.' Of course I asked him, 'How Come? Isn't Hell the place of fire?

He answered 'I tell you, there really is no fire down here. Everybody brings his own fire with him when he comes'

Sunnah of the Beloved ...By Dr. Khaled Abou El Fadl ...

If envy is a sin, then I am the incurable sinner, for I envy every eye that ever caught a glimpse of you. I envy the waves that carried your voice and the air that touched your cheeks. I envy even the ground that once served you, and I confess to you that despite my indulgent sins, my shameful whimsies, and my ugly flimsies I confess to you, "I love you."

My confessions are as silly as my muted words. You have been loved by so many more substantial than I, and what good does my silence or confession possibly do?

So many moments have I sat sheltered by the night in the midst of these books, my mind fulfilled but my heart calling for you. Only my shame restrains my words from filling pages of books and from whimpering into the night, "I long for you."

This Conference of the Books, in countless days and nights, ignited by your memory, calls upon the world to ponder your legacy. Despite the citations, the arguments, and refutations, nothing equals a blissful moment spent engulfed in your adoration. For all the enlightenment of books, the brilliance of beauty, and the purification of light coalesced in the moments of time that hosted your life - Muhammad, Ahmad, Abu al-Qasim, al-Nabi al-Amin, the Messenger of God.

Permit me, my Prophet, my own beloved Prophet, to tell you that I do not know you from the majestic debates of this Conference. I do not know you from the lectures of learned teachers, nor from some infatuated delusional dream. No, I do not know you from the books full of sayings you reportedly said, and I even do not know you from all the reports about your life and about your likes and dislikes. I know you from a moment in time in which I fell in love with you.

In the outside world,

wind sets the trees in motion.

On the inside,

remembrance rustles the leaves of the heart.

In prayer it is better to have a heart without words
than words without a heart.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Being Human Rules ...

10 Rules for Being Human
by Cherie Carter-Scott


1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it’s yours to keep for the entire period.

2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called, “life.”

3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial, error, and experimentation. The “failed” experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately “work.”

4. Lessons are repeated until they are learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.

5. Learning lessons does not end. There’s no part of life that doesn’t contain its lessons. If you’re alive, that means there are still lessons to be learned.

6. “There” is no better a place than “here.” When your “there” has become a “here”, you will simply obtain another “there” that will again look better than “here.”

7. Other people are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.

8. What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.

9. Your answers lie within you. The answers to life’s questions lie within you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.

10. You will forget all this.

Lap Of The Morning ... By Jafar Alam

Lying in the lap of the morning

The dawn has just arrived.

She tries to find

The heart of her dream

She touches, squeezing,

Only the surface of hope

She takes a long deep breath

Along the brink of the valley

Of passion

That has blown away with the wind.

Amongst the leaves that become

As gray as dust

The mist of an old, lost love

Is felt shivering for a moment.

She stands on the green grass.

A breeze rises up

She turns away. (c)

Nabila ... By Jafar Alam ...

A poem for my aunt.

I write,because the page is empty.

She is greater than these words .

Her eyes

misty and wet,

Tell a story ...

She tells me the words in her heart.

Dark clouds follow her.

Her life is a gloom.

She refuses to let go of the wheel.

In living

there is hope.

Within this woman

lives a child

that calls me on days

where we talk for hours

about nothing.

We eat waffles

and tease each other.

In those moments,

we forget the world.

Only to come back to a reality

too hard to swallow at times.

She is a believer.

We have a bond

that is inexplainable.

Her face is luminous

giving light to darkness.

She gives colour to a world full of black and white.

A face,

salted by the sea of tears

shed,

everytime she saw the nature of the world.

Her eyes are like

violet stones.

She has four lives

she won't desert a single one.

A deserter will always be deserted.

Fear is taught.

Love is natural.

I asked her:

"What do you want your four lives to be?"

She said:"I want them to be alive"

O my heart,

in this darkness we are a prayer

that when she reads what this hand writes,

writes out of love for her.

She is strength.

She is patience.

She is love.

She is a mother.

She is not alone.

She ...

is reserved for Heaven. (c)

The Sweet Release of Death ... By Jafar Alam ...

Almond eyed girl is singing
A sad song in a far away place.
A boy is lonely on the harbour, because
Of those who forgot to be happy.

Her voice going higher and higher
We who listen, watch the dim moonlight
Kiss and caress her cheek
And her peach dress, like something in a dream.
Listen to the padding of her feet on the floor.
She is beauty in motion.

We're sure happiness will come.
Praying for the sweet release of death. (c)

Ahmed ... By Jafar Alam ...

I had a friend
who died.
He reminded me of God.
I met him once in a dream.
He hurt me, then hugged me.
He still reminds me of God.
He died with a broken heart.
The world was designed to break your heart.
And I feel hollow inside.
Friends have become acquaintances,
Reflection my companion.
I want to start over again with my mother.
I know love now.
Now I want love to know me. (c)

( Dedicated to my late friend Ahmed Hussain )

No more ... By Jafar Alam ...

He was a victim of her insanity.
He told her to take her pretty smile out of his way,
and let him go by with his pain.
It could be, that he was a thorn to her.
Thorns can't hurt flowers.
Maybe he made a mistake,
wedding his soul to hers.
Even the sun cannot live
alongside the moon.
She came knocking on his door.
He said " whatta you want?"
She said "Love"
He said " Love don't live here no more". (c)

Impossible isn't a fact ... it's an opinion ...

"Art asks questions, Faith supplies answers: it is important for Faith to allow the Heart a space where it can express with Freedom & Dignity its Simple, Human, Painful questions, which may not always be Beautiful but are never absolutely Ugly."

- Tariq Ramadan

The first word any man writes when he has found himself, his own rhythm, which is the life rhythm is Yes! Everything he writes thereafter is Yes, Yes, Yes - Yes in a thousand million ways. No dynamo, no matter how huge - not even a dynamo of a hundred million dead souls - can combat one man saying Yes!

"Please God, make my words today sweet and tender,

for tomorrow i may have to eat them."

“I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple,
pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion,
and it is The Spirit.”

- Khalil Gibran

"The person who can bring the spirit of laughter
into a room is indeed blessed."

- Bennett Alfred Cerf (1898-1971)

"What the caterpillar calls the end of the world,
the master calls a butterfly"

- Richard David Bach

"If you want to see how ugly the world is,
place something beautiful in it."

-Abiodun Oyewole of the last poets

Do not satisfy the demands of the physical self,

for the more you satisfy it,

the more it demands.

- Fareed Ganj Shakar -

It is none other than He who progresses or journeys as you. There is nothing to be known but He; and since He is Being itself, He is therefore also the journeyer. There is no knower but He; so who are you? Know your true Reality. He is the essential self of all. But He conceals it by ( the appearance of ) otherness, which is "you."

If you hold to multiplicity, you are with the world; and if you hold to the Unity, you are with the Truth .... Our names are but names for God; at the same time our individual selves are His shadow. He is at once our identity and not our identity ... Consider ...


~Ibn 'Arabi

"Don't be afraid that your life will end,

be afraid that it will never begin"

"YOU ARE IN THE CENTRE OF THE LOTUS FLOWER
IN MY HEART WHICH IS IN FULL BLOOM."

-Muhammad Raheem Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (ra)

Jaded Dreams and Empty Promises ...

This is a poem, by a good friend of mine .

A phenominal poet, Faraz 'Veto' Khan

Jaded dreams and empty promises
Have left you so bitter.
Jaded dreams and empty promises
Is all you have to show.
Besides the scars that lie someplace
In your psyche that we call heart
They stole it then ransomed it.
You bought it back of course
But they sold it in pieces
Extorting every valve, vein, ventricle
For all that they could get.
Sold the rest in markets
Where pretty girls with auburn curls
Sell their bodies for acceptance.
Their souls for teenage love.
You are worth more than this.
You are worth more than a kiss
From the green eyed heartthrob’s lips.
His fists cloak his palms
That are like deserts
Engulfed in rivers of destiny
But only your tears run through them.
These same tears give me life
I kiss each one off your face
So I can taste your sorrow
And it tastes like an ocean.
Like the dead sea of phantom lovers
Who offered you the world
That was too heavy for their shoulders.
So you settled for love.
But love proved to be a heavier load
Than the world combined with the skies above.
So you lost hope.
My dear this is different.
Do not let your past be so vindictive
Burn it along with it’s Caspers
Cremate it and impregnate the wind with its ashes
Let the world be your ashtray
A cleansing fire to purify your present
So you can free yourself and fall in love again.
And we will walk with our fingers meshed
Through a Universe filled with possibilities
Our backs basking in the heat
From the bonfire left behind.
Your rose petals whisper in my ear
Your fears of future years to come.
If only you could read my soul
If only you could bite my wrists
And taste what flows in my veins
The residue left on your lips
Would scream your name. (c)

Here's a link to the youtube video of my performance at CBC on March 20

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNAsJwWEXeo

RUMI ...

- I cannot sleep in your prescence.
In your absence, tears prevent me.
You watch me My Beloved
On each sleepless night and
Only You see the difference


- Love is our Mother and
The way of our Prophet.
Yet it is in our nature
To fight with Love.
We can’t see you, mother,
Hidden behind dark veils
Woven by ourselves.

- Do you want to enter paradise?
To walk the path of Truth
You need the grace of God.
We all face death in the end.
But on the way, be careful
Never to hurt a human heart!

- You know what love is?
It is all kindness, generosity.
Disharmony prevails when
You confuse lust with love, while
The distance between the two
Is endless.

- This Love is a King
But his banner is hidden.
The Koran speaks the Truth
But its miracle is concealed.
Love has pierced with its arrow
The heart of every lover.
Blood flows but the wound is invisible.

- Small heroes master their enemies,
big heroes master themselves.

"The thing I hate about advertising is that it attracts all the bright, creative and ambitious young people, leaving us mainly with the slow and self obsessed to become our artists. Modern art is a disaster area. Never in the field of human history has so much been used by so many to say so little"

- Banksy

"Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves."

- Gabriel Garcia Marquez from Love in the Time of Cholera

The realization of 'La ilaha illa Allah' is one of the states of the heart that can be neither expressed by the tongue nor thought out by the mind.

- Ibn Ata'ala