Glossary

Allah - God
Alhamdulillah - all praise is due to Allah
Assalamu alaikum - peace be upon you
Insha'allah - if Allah wills
Muhammad (saw) - Prophet that Muslims believe to be the final messenger of God
Sufism - Mystical portion of Islam which emphasises the need for spirituality in faith
Sufi - One who practices Sufism
Subhanallah - glory be to Allah
(saw) - abbr. of sallallahu alaihi wasallam - peace and blessings of God be upon him
Salam - peace
Qur'an - Muslim holy book

Sufis, Bengalis, Sufis

Salaam,

Just had my first set of classes (8am till 11am...) and Alh they went pretty well. Iv been put in level 2 for both Grammar and for reading/writing so im pretty happy with that.

Well since the last time i wrote something alhamdulilla the weather has got better ! Its still been pretty cold the last few days though but thankfully for me no rain. Anyway all iv been really doing is going round Amman and the local area and just getting a feel of things here.

All i have to compare Amman to is Cairo and Sylhet and at the moment Amman is coming on top (sorry egyptians and bengalis..). Its basically as close to any main city in the UK without being in the UK; the streets are pretty clean, their is some sense of order on the roads, all the shops are decent etc etc. Maybe im getting a biased view on things as im seeing mainly the rich areas but there just seems to be a sense of order in the air wherever you go in Amman. Also the fact theres only 1.5m people in Amman compared to the 30m in Cairo might be a factor...

Closer to home, the main "attraction"is Sheikh Nuh and his Zawiyyah. To be honest with you im not too familiar with the sheikh and only very briefly heard about him in the UK but i knew there was much talk about him and his ways...for those who know about him, basically to them he is a legend. He is a master in shafi fiqh but recently has become more well known for being a sheikh of the Shadili tariqa of Sufism. I know a lot of people who know about this sheikh would salivate over the prospect of praying everyday with him and living 50 metres away from him..(one of my room mates (more about them later) travelled 18 hours across the states to attend a serious of talks by him) but i wasnt all too fussed about it to be honest.

Sufism. Sufis. Arrrggggghhhhh....! I knew qasid wasn't officially affliated with Sheikh Nuh but pretty much all the students and teachers at Qasid have given Ba'yah (pledged allegance) to Sheikh Nuh and his Tariqa and so are Sufi's. Again, to be honest i dont know about Sufism in depth but i do know that with a lot of the tariqa's 90% of things they do might be with concensus of the majority of the scholars, but there Is some dodge stuff. I think the most contraversial thing they do is their "hadra" - basically every thursday and saturday after maghrib they do loud dhikr in a circle, whilst jumping up and down waving their hands about with the sheikh in middle shouting some stuff and th circle rotates round and round...or thats what iv been told happens. This in itself might be dodge but apparently (the people who haven't given him ba'yah) say that the things they say itself is dodge as the sources are questionable. So im feeling quite awkward surrounded by these guys But the knowledge of Sheikh Nuh is unquestionable so inshaAllah im going to start attending his talks he does on other topics 3 times a week.

Thats one neighbour dealt with. On the other side, literally next to our block of apartments lives Sheikh Faraz Rabbani of Sunnipath fame. So subhanallah, thats one set of neighbours ! So if there are any questions raised regarding fiqh, there's enough people to go and see...

Anyway regarding the other students here, the vast majority of them seem to be from the states and canada but theres quite a few from the UK too. In terms of new students who started with me, a very broad mix; from the brothers theres an Italian convert, an American convert, a malayisian born and bred in Perth, Australia, an Indian born and bred in Chicago, USA and an indian guy born and bred in South Africa. So just form here you can see the diversity of people around.

Regarding the people im living with again a good mix; The malaysian guy from above, an american convert, an american originally from India, a canadian originally from Pakistan. And Iqbal. Yes the boy wonder couldnt keep away so decided to move in so he can be with me. I dont blame him to be honest. But alhamdulillah i think its a good group of people; these guys are Hardcore. OK, everyone except me and Iqbal are sufis but lets just say congregational tahajjud is taking place every night.

Anyway i need to dash, but another quite big thing iv done is visit a castle where SalahUddin once lived in and visited the "shrines" of the sahabi Abu Ubaidah (one of the ten sahabi guranteed paradise whilst on earth) and the prophet Shuhaib (who was around at the time of the prophet Musa) , so inshaAllah info on that and pics will come on the next post.

Salaam Warahmutallah

Farouk

PS, there are Soooo many bengalis here...!

Amman...?

Salaam,

Alhamdulillah im now in Amman. Or i think so...

Alhamdulillah the flight and everything went ahead fine. The first little incident was at Manchester airport where , because i was a bit late, i saw no one at the check in counter and went straight there and got my boarding passes. After breathing a sigh of relief that i had got there in time, my sr then pointed out what had happened; basically there was a good 200 people queuing for my flight, but i had gone past all of them and went to the area reserved for business class and "priority" passengers and so had my luggage checked in before all of them...so through a mistake of my own (it Was a mistake) i saved a good half hour of waiting around.

Despite the 8 hours wait in Frankfurt where i was excrucitaingly bored, i arrived in Amman at 2am. Or was it...?? As i looked through the window of the plane what did i see...? puddles of water on the tarmack with raindrops falling. RAIN. It was raining!!! not even raining but a proper downpour, Burnley "it rains 24/7" style...i'd been warned that it can get pretty cold in the mid east in the winter but this was one thing i was Not expecting. I Hate reality TV programmes but iv been watching Space Cadets on C4 (where they took a bunch of ppl and told them they were going to Russia to train to go to the moon but actually flew the plane round in circles, went to Ipswich and then a flight simulator). So i was like, did i really get on a plane to Amman? am i still in Burnley..? Whats going on?

So this is the first big thing i noticed. And it continued throughout the night, including thunder and lightening, and all today. But there is something to be gained from this. Iv learnt today that apparently Jordan is one of the driest countries in the world where water is always rationed due to its scarcity and for the last few months it hasn't rained at all, so there was a big crisis as to what was going to happen. Due to this all the imams of the mosques were requested to read salaat-ul-isthisqa (the prayer for wanting rain) every Friday in the main mosques-and hey presto! So even though im dissapointed that i wont be getting a tan in Jordan, i think pretty much the rest of the country is rejoicing at the rain. So subhanAllah it shows that even though something might not be to you liking, there might be a lot of others benefitting from a certain event or literally, that theres a silver lining in every cloud...(sorry, poor, i know...)

Anyway, Alhamdulillah, im very impressed with the Qasid set up so far. Iv been very lucky as the place where im living in is brand new - a four floor floor block of apartments where im sharing one of the apartments with 3 others. The flat is Really really nice as well.. Maybe im just comparing it to with what i expected Jordan to be like, but its well furnished (everything is brand new with half of the furniture still in its original wrapping), a washing machine!, and my room itself is really nice and spacious too. And a lift in the building too..! (sorry if it seems like im getting excited over menial things, but my initial couple of weeks in Cairo was pretty tough ). Although part of me wanted to rough it out Tabligh style where you eat basic food, sleep on the floor etc, i think im quite happy at the set up as i can now concentrate solely on my studies.

The area of Amman im staying is one of the wealthiest parts too i think (im sure i saw a ferrari parked outside one of the block of apartments..). Again i was a bit unsure as to whether this was a good thing or bad thing cos one of my aims of this trip was to see how "real" muslims and "real" arabs live and i dont think i'll be seeing much of that round here. But as above living in this area does make my life easier wrt shopping, transport etc leaving more time to get on with my arabic.

Anyway thats enough for now. My official orientation begins on Tuesday (with an entrance exam...!) and classes start next Saturday so till the next time...

Salaam

2nd Leg

Salaam,

Well everything is Finally in place for the second leg of my gap year plans - and its been a hell of a week getting everything in place !

Basically 7 days ago i had no airline ticket, did not have a confirmed place at Qasid, had no visa and..basically nothing was in place, but Alh in the last few days things have come together and inshaAllah i'ill fly off tomorrow morning, and via an 8hr stoppage at Frankfurt, get to Amman. But because its been all soo rushed im still a bit all over the place so i think will only realise everythings happened when i find myself in Amman. All this Has been pretty stressful though but inshaAllah once in Amman i can crack on with the Arabic and whatever else is thrown my way.

Apart from runnning around trying to sort out the above, i've not done much else apart from catch up with friends and Burnley life in general which has been quite good. Went to London for my visa on Thurs and met some bros there and on the way back stopped off at Cambridge to see some there too which was quite nice. Also ended up meeting one of my old school teachers in town today which was quite surreal, and even more so when he invited me and some other friends who were with me for dinner some time..but should be good as he's a very safe guy.

Anyway i'll keep it brief and leave it at that as i need to start packing...but the next post should be from Amman, inshaAllah!

Salaam.

Pictures

Salaam,

Finally I’m going to try and put up some pics which i took whilst out in Bangladesh. Unfortunately i've realised most of them are of relatives etc - i.e. stuff which none of you will be interested in...nevertheless there's still a few which would be of general interest and will be going up.

In terms of preparation for Jordan i have finally got confirmation that i have got a place at Qasid and so can now book my airline ticket. I had emailed them before i went to Bd but got no reply back, but since iv been in the UK things have got moving and i got my confirmation email today. Their application process was pretty formal though - for Qortoba (the place i went to in Cairo two summers ago) it was simply a case of if you've got the money, you've got the place. Here i had to fill out an application form, send my CV and was asked to submit a 1500 essay that i'd done...! To be honest i think this is all for show and so they can look professional and i think the money thing still holds true for them too.

Anyway pictures:

The waterfall i was on about...sorry but your gonna have to tilt your heads as i dont know how to rotate the pics on this website...!

Some arty pics (or what i claim to be arty..) that i took: My favourate is the one full of kids around the Shah Jalal mosque who completely surrounded me asking for money. The look on the little girls face says it all...

Fish. Yes thats what Bengalis are famous for and so some pics of them below. Its quite bizarre cos all the pics below are from the Shah Jalal compound - basically theirs some mythical story which somehow connects fish to some incident in the life of Shah Jalal, and so there's these purpose built ponds in the compund with lots of fish. I am not kidding. The picture below shows lots of people eagerlly looking at the fish. A couple of years ago apparently some people released some poison into the ponds and all the fish died as they thought this fish thing was bid'ah (Oh really...?). There's also this special pond with these Golden fish...My God...

The above three are pictures of the Shah Jalal main mosque, Shah Jalal being the main person who brought Islam to Bangladesh. The two pics below are self explanatory i think...

The above two are pictures of the madrasah that my uncle is trying to set up. The pics below are of the brick field i was on about (i wasnt kidding..!)

Beautiful Burnley

Salaam,

Hope everyone is well inshaAllah,

Well, i arrived back in Burnley on Thursday at around noon after a monster 27 hour journey which Alh, went without any problems. The biggest drag though was the 7 hr wait at Dhaka and then the 7hr wait in Dubai, which by the way has got to be the most exaggerated shopping experience ever - there's not that many shops there and the prices are pretty much the same as in the UK. The only problems i incurred were having to show around 5 guys who were coming to the UK for the first time, explaining to the airport guy why i had a pumpkin in my luggage (Bengalis will understand this) and having my hand luggage searched at every given opportunity as i had a beard, looked like an arab/bengali/pak (none of which helped) and had five guys with me who looked lost. I also realised, again, at how small the world is - on this one journey i met 3 people i knew - (For those who know/care; Amirs' dad who was going to Bd, Abdul Maliks dad who was on the same flight as me coming back to the Uk from Bd and Jay Dhodia in Dubai who was going home to Kenya..). I also met another guy from Rochdale who knew a lot of people from my area in Burnley. Bizzarre.

It was quite weird coming back though as a lot of things looked different fo some reason; on the journey from the airport back to our house i kept asking stuff like "Has that hill always been there?" and "wasn't that shop on the other side of the road?" but Alh, its good to be back...for a few days.

In the last few days in Bd, i went back to some relatives to say goodbye and spent a day with an uncle of mine who's a hafiz and has opened up a new madrasah near where he lives which i got to see. He also took me to some of the the main madrasahs in Sylhet and took me shopping in the Islamic area of the main bazaar in Sylhet centre. On this last note i was gonna say something about the religious situation in Bd, but never got the chance/had the time but which i think is quite interesting.

Unfortunately i didn't think the situation was too positive, but i think maybe i got a biased view on things. Although nationally only 10% of people in Bd are hindus, in the area i lived in, it was more like 30%, with a few shias's thrown in too...(i was quite shocked at this). And generally there didn't seem to be much enthusiasm for Islam and not much going on in terms of activities...apart that is from our Tableeghi brothers, who, as ever, were working away tirelessly in the path of Allah (seriously). Aprt from these guys, the scene seemed pretty quiet. The only other Islamic country I've been in is Egypt and there the thirst for Islam seemed much stronger. Just going off Salaat attendances, my local mosque was the main mosque in our area but at Dhur you only got around 40/50 people, with, as it seems is the case everywhere, 90% of the worshippers over 60yrs of age which doesn't leave much hope for the future.

Another thing which was quite disturbing was the amount of superstition and basically cultural/hindu beliefs which had been thrown in and made out to be from Islamic roots e some people when they give you salaam, they come and touch your feet...and a Lot of grave worshipping and "peers" (OMG..). But apart from all that the religious situation is pretty good...but seriously there is some hope as there is a growing body of scholars speaking out against these things and with an Islamic party in the coalition government there should be positive changes made from the top to encourage education about Islam. And as ever, the slaves in His path, our Tableeghi brethren, are working away.

One other thing is the increase in "militant" Islam in Bd. In the one month i was there was about 5 bombings, including the countries first suicide bombing, with about 40 people in total dead. And 6 months ago there was 360 small bombs let off simultaneously throughout the country more as a warning than anything else. The group taking responsibility is "Jihad ul Muslimeen" (or something like that). These bombings in themselves are obviously very worrying, but even more serious seems to be the rate at which they are happening. To be honest no one in Bd is really sure what these guys want, but one thing that was clear was that the vast majority of bengali's were completely against them and were in support of the govt who has employed very heavy handed techniques to try and stop these bombings. My local imam was saying that before whenever he wanted a taxi he would have taxi's coming to him offering him a ride, now even if he tries to stop one, as soon as the driver sees the beard, he drives off. Can't win anywhere now it seems.

The plan now is to take some time out in Burnley for around 2 weeks and then fly out to Jordan around xmas time to start classes on the 31st of Dec inshaAllah. Yes they've had bombings there too...

In the mean time i will inshaAllah (finally) put up some photos that i took whilst out there.

Salaam Wr Wb

Not Again...

Salaam,

Hope everyone is well inshaAllah,

I think its something with me and riots...i think its been a week or so since i last wrote something and quite a lot has happened since then; a big fight, a political rally, another fight, and a wedding.

Re the Big fight, basically...it reminded me of the burnley riots..It was after zuhr four/five days ago that i was sitting in a relatives shop in the bazaar when some kid comes running towards us saying theres a fight going on on the main road. So as you do, me and my relative went to see what was going on. When we got there there was around 50 people surrounding a car, a guy bleeding from his head, and another guy with blood on his face.

We got as close as you could to the group and tried to find out what was going on, but no one seemed to really know. In the car was two guys at the front, looking very distressed,with a woman and two small girls in the back. Then as we got closer to the car some guy came from behind us wielding a machete and started attacking the car, and was followed by three other guys who started kicking and punching the car and the windows. At this, even though the whole street was now full of people and the car was completely surrounded, the driver who had kept the car running, started moving his car and forcily sped off. The guys who were attacking the car and now another 15/20 people started chasing after it throwing stones and bricks at the back of the car...the car sped off and turned right onto a bridge at which it knocked over a rickshaw and then proceeded to run over two sheep..and then went off into the distance...

In the aftermath i found out that the car had knocked over a motorcycle about two minutes before the fight happened. The owner of the cycle then chased the car and made it stop, conveniantly outside his shop (the motor cycle owners). Here there was a confrontation between the driver of the car and the motorcycle owner where the car driver got hit. Seeing this the male passenger of the car also came out and there was another fight. BUT since it was the motorcycle owners home turf, and his three brothers happened to be in their shop they all came out (these were the guys with the machete and who started attacking the car). And seeing this, all the locals also surrounded the car.

There' s more. Three hours later the police turned up (classic bollywood style). Here we find out that the passengers in the car had just arrived from the UK and were on their way home from the airport and that the male passengers grandad was a local "chairman" (equivalent of mayor i think) where this position holds a lot of power, so now the whole thing is gonna get dragged out and may end up going to the court and involve a lot of money for all involved. (i hope everyone followed my awful story telling...)

The other things...my local MP came and decided to hold a political rally in a community centre outside our house which was interesting to witness (Bd is a fiercly political country), the other fight was at a cricket match i went to watch where the local side lost a cup game by one run and claimed that they should have got a 6 but instead got a 4 leading to a fight and a relative of mine got married so i got to see a proper bengali wedding.


Anyway my Bangladesh trip comes to an end this Wed when i will be flying back to the Uk, so inshaAllah i will see some of you soon,

Wassallam.