Welcome to muslim tea room 2.

[defuse]

Peace to you all

Ok, well here it is again...we have moved to room 2 now

Discuss whatever aspect of islam you like my lovely sisters - this is a place for muslims and non-muslims too, to share experiences, raising kids or just having your say!

The kettle is on.... We have loads of herbal teas, coffee and guava juice .... I like guava juice so welcome!

Salam all.

Mrs Atticus, your moment seeing the the boy and old man is a big thing for me too. I was surrounded by a lot of Muslims and I saw some wonderful examples of respect, men sitting at their mothers feet, how the elderly are cared for, some very charitable and generous people etc, and people so knowledgeable who spoke of the religion with such love. I couldn't have asked for a better intro to Muslim culture Alhamdulilah. I know now that not all Muslims are like that and some seemingly pious people are not always so but such is life and it's the same within any group of people. I was recently wronged by an elder who's knowledge I had previously respected. I really wanted to confront him about it, but I have decided to let it go for the sake ofAllah SWT and I feel better for it alhamdulilah.
Im continuing with the pre Ramadan de cluttering, feels great to get rid of stuff. When I'm undecided about an item I remember reading a Hadith about spending or giving something to others that you want for yourself? (Does anyone know it?) and it makes it easier to part with. How's everyone else getting on? Unfortunately I have no room in my freezer to batch cook but using online deliveries make the groceries a bit easier, along with sticking to simple iftars.
Does anyone have ideas for Eid gifts? I'm boxing up little packages of dates and sweets to post to my non-Muslim family to try and include them at the beginning of Ramadan and I'll post them small gifts for eid. I'm also going to pass my neighbours some dates and sweets.

The gifts sound like a lovely idea, I was thinking of taking some dates in for dd1 to give to her teacher as she's Muslim and I thought it might be a nice gesture.

Crescent, I want to be the first to answer your question. Why have I stayed? Because I believe with every fibre of my being in Allah swt, not only have I leaned to love but the fear has also been instilled in equal measure. I love who I've become, I love what I stand for and I love that I represent white, english reverts around the world. I love that feeling when you salaam a stranger and they salaam you back. I love the feeling of unity among my fellow brothers and sisters. Every day is a school day in Islam, I feel like no matter how much I think I know, I'll never know it all.

orangeflower jazakallah khair for the link, salah at 10 and mini fasts gradually up until DC can manage full fasts one year inshallah.

betty i also love the idea of Ramadan gifts. I need to be more organised. Every ramadan i say to myself that i will send Eid cards, yet I just about manage to text back Eid Mubarak to everyone! This year INSHALLAH, i shall try again

To all you revert sisters, may Allah always keep your imaan strong. Ameen.
I do find revert sisters an inspiration mashallah. crescent What keeps me 'muslim' is my belief in Allah and His prophet Muhammed pbuh, what keeps me on the 'path' is the regret of too many past mistakes . Still make too many errors . Nafs is a terrible thing! But i do try harder to do the bare minimum

bettybutter your experiences sounds similar to mine, alhamdulillah we were very fortunate.

crescent what makes me stay is primarily belief, so even when I might be fed up of Muslims , I can sit down and reflect and know without a shadow of a doubt that Islam is the perfect truth. And I suppose what keeps me living an Islamic lifestyle is gratefulness to Allah for taking me away from the life I was living before, and fear of losing what he has given me. At the beginning of my time as a Muslim, these things were a conscious choice, now I suppose they have become more automatic, as I have a Muslim husband, Muslim children etc, so I don't really think of it as choice, but we are always choosing the right path on some level.

OMG! Have u seen this horrible thing? Look at the description and other pictures of the girl! Wrong wrong wrong!

www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002QIWRA0/?tag=ho01f-21

I feel like a proper MNer disgusted by a doll . But it really is a bit too much with the heart thing and breastfeeding mimicking. Yuck!

Salams all

Jumuah Mubarak

Wow the thread moves so quickly! Jazakhallah for the duas and well wishes. Im starting to feel more pregnant now as I am in second trimester. Im having to stop myself from rubbing my belly at work as the baby is starting to move around a lot more. Dont want to give the game away.

As for the Ramadan prep its coming along very slowly. I have deep cleaned my kitchen up but just cant seem to work up the energy to do the rest. It doesnt help that my ds hates tidy rooms and will just come in and start putting his stamp on the place. I swear yesterday I washed the kitchen floor 3 times because of him chucking food from his high chair on to the floor but if I try to feed him that also causes chaos. Im starting to really worry now about how I will cope with 2 under 3s. How did you all find it and do you have any tips?

The stories of people's experiences becoming practicing are lovely mashallah. I grew up in a religious family but I kind of rebelled against that in my early teens and it was only as I was leaving school going on to college that I started becoming more practicing. That was around the time of Sept 11th and the Iraq war and because I looked visibly muslim (wore hijab) I found people would be slightly aggressive or confrontational with me. I remember walking home past a group of teenage boys when I was 15 and as I walked past they started throwing stones at my legs, getting called 'Afghan' (though Im not from Afghanistan), Taliban and Iraqi (again not from Iraq) The thing that really got to me though was when people would make statements about Islam that were not true. I had lets say a very basic elementary level knowledge of Islam and I even I knew the things that were being said in the media and that were repeated by some of my peers was completely untrue. I became curious as to why they had to do that. I mean if Islam was so bad why did they have to make up blatant lies and misrepresentations. This made me start finding out more about my religion and at the beginning I have to admit I researched things to refute those people who attacked Islam (i.e. reading about women's rights, the Quran's attitude to minorities and self-defence) but that more I read the more I became amazed and grew in faith. I found there was so much compatibility between Islamic values and the ones that I had grown up with living in the Uk and being educated here. Thats why some of the fuss in the media and by politicians about British values being in contrast to Islamic values really surprises me as for me what made me become more religious was seeing actually how well they fitted together. Ideas such as rule of law, democracy, equality for women, tolerance, respect for human rights, environmentalism, taking care of the weak and disadvantaged in society are all values that I would describe as essentially Islamic values. The more I studied the more I saw there was no contradiction.

Listening to Islamic teachers/speakers born in the West also helped to strengthen my faith in particular listening to reverts such as Hamza Yusuf, Suhaib Webb, Abdullah Hakim Quick and many others. Though I dont listen to them as much anymore as I did when I first became practicing I remember the feeling of hearing something for the first time when I used to listen to their talks and I think it was because of emphasis. Speakers born in other parts of the world tend to emphasise the aspects of Islam which they consider important but those who are born here tend to speak the language that we speak and to draw out the lessons from the deen that resonate with what we experience or the values that we have developed having been brought up here. We are reading the same book and studying the same religion but the difference is in interpretation due to where we are from. Tariq Ramadan once described this in an interesting way saying the problem was the reader not the text. They impose on the text the interpretation they want to see or hear. However when you study the interpretation of classical scholars they are sometimes more progressive then the opinions held by some traditional muslim scholars we see today. I remember being shocked by those opinions Elusive posted about custody rights in terms of how progressive they were for the time they were written in.

Anyway I have rambled quite a bit.

Woh, that doll is freaky , i'd laugh if they had pics of a boy using it!

Salams ladies. Peace I don't have any hard experience of fasting ramadan with tiny kids but I am with you this year as I will be fasting and looking after my 2 and 3.6 year olds. I think my plan is to aim for as much sleep as possible in the morning (easier said than done I know!) and I might child-proof a room and set up a mattress with some internet/DVDs for me and a lot of toys for them to make it as comfy as possible for when I have less energy to charge about with them. As for staying up for the iftar it will feel quite late I think for littleies to stay up for so I'll probably aim to get them fed and in bed before we break the fast later.

You make some good points about the interpretation of Islam and it is definitely an issue I can relate to as a western revert I had (and still do to some extent) many questions which my husband, born and brought up muslim from another part of the world, really struggled to answer. Absolutely life experience and the culture we're brought up in influences our interests in Islam but the important thing to remember is that Islam is a religion for all peoples and all times. There are scholars with a western understanding able to speak about issues which affect westerners and western reverts but there is still a long way to go for true accessibility for all. Just the other day I was speaking to a Romanian girl in London who had taken an interest in Islam and wanted to find a Quran translated into her home language, sadly after much searching she had no success. She also has lots of questions which require fairly in depth answers that need to be answered in her own language as well rather than English so she can get true clarification.

Salaam all. orange i have found a few links to romanian translations if those are any good? Or did the girl need a book rather than online? You are right about there being a pressing need for more knowledgeable people for the diverse population of muslims.

I for one would love to know a female scholar - there are sometimes questions i have which i would like a female scholar perspective on, but sadly i have not come across any. There were some fascinating posts on this thread about how many female scholars there used to be but sadly there dont seem to be many nowadays. I suppose the onus is on us to educate and encourage our daughters to go that way.

Elusive have you heard of Hedaya Hertford? She is a female scholar based in Jordan but teaches in English. Not sure what kind questions you have but she specializes in marriage and womens issues e.g. the rulings on menstruation. She teaches online courses here:
qibla.com/

Jazakallah khair for that mrsatticus i havent heard of her before. I shall check out the link inshallah.

I was thinking today that ramadan is nearing and over the last decade at least there has been so much turmoil in the muslim world. This year's new crisis will be Isis. Syria atrocities continue and many many many more under reported calamities and oppression is happening everywhere.

We like to think that it is the shaytaan that makes us do a lot of bad, but come ramadan, what is our excuse then? It is nafs isnt it.

Salaam all,

Was going to go into a major rant about the state of the world and all the oppression inflicted on muslims but also there is a lot of oppression inflicted by muslims. But then i read some quranic verses and some hadiths which very clearly explain how islam views oppression.

Taken from islaam.net

Allah's Messenger (SAW) said that Allah the Exalted and Glorious said:
"O My servants, I have taken it upon Myself to wrong no one; and have made oppression forbidden for you, so do not oppress one another."(Muslim).

I was absolutely blown away by this beautiful hadith above. How true it is that Allah shows so much mercy to mankind yet we sometimes forget that we are only here for an appointed time. Then this hadith made me shudder:

Prophet Muhammad saw said "Beware of the supplication of the oppressed, for there is no barrier between it and Allah."

Then this:
"A believer continues to preserve his religion as long as he does not unjustly shed blood." (Al-Bukhari)

Yet, look at the unrest in places like Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Afghanistan. It is so horrendous.

 "All of the Muslim is sacred to the Muslim, his blood, his honor and his wealth." (Muslim)

Then i read this:
One commits an injustice against himself. This occurs by committing many wrongs against himself, various vices and crimes, as well as numerous sinful practices and acts of disobedience to Allah and His Messenger (SAW). Allah the Almighty says:
"And they did not harm Us but they wronged their souls.” (2:57)
He who commits a major sin and immoral acts is wronging himself. Such behavior will result in being cursed by Allah and removed from His Mercy.

This excerpt talks of major sins but didnt our prophet Muhammad (saw) warn us against committing loads of minor sins too. Sometimes i feel that my actions are full of flaws (even with the best of intentions) and I am unbelievably lucky to have the mercy of Allah still over me. I truly dont deserve it, but I hope it is a sign that Allah is still giving me chance after chance to be a better person. Inshallah.

Assalamualaikum,

Ages ago I was talking about how I deal with life and (I think I posted on the other thread about the lead up to how I finally got sole residency of my children).

A friend said to me that the outcome of a thing is assured, it is because Allah loves us that he then gives us some time to attain the goal in a manner of our choice. Sometimes that means we throw ourselves on His mercy and strive by degrees to get closer to Allah thro prayer and dua and istighfar and that then benefits us.

I've never stopped praying or asking for forgiveness because of my own assessment of myself, I rather ask for forgiveness from Allah and rely on His mercy, there is nothing between me and my creator there is no shame to approach him with uplifted hands and a sorrowful heart, I won't let my vanity keep me away from him, he knows me better than I know myself who else would I beseech or confide in?

There's a lecture by Nouman Ali Khan, where he speaks of Allah's mercy, he says Allah is ar-Rahman his rahm is not mercy as we describe it, ie mercy shown to a wrongdoer by being lenient in punishment, but rather as the mercy a mother has on her foetus when she is pregnant, how she first goes to protect her unborn child when her stomach might be knocked or her baby hurt or if she is being hurt her instinct is to protect her unborn baby first, that mercy is not thro knowing whom she protects but it's a spontaneous act of love for the unknown child she is nurturing and expects nothing in return.

I can't explain it that well, but it was a light bulb moment when I heard that lecture. That of course I've always known this of Allah, that's why I've never been ashamed or embarrassed to turn to Him as I know I won't be turned away, he is waiting for me (with no benefit or disadvantage to Him) to ask of Him.

I love the lecture (I forget by whom), where the speaker said Allah stretches out his hand and says ask me for forgiveness I will forgive you, and especially for the night prayer, where Allah descends to the lowest heavens and asks is there anyone who asks for my forgiveness that I may forgive, is there anyone who asks for wealth ask me so that I may increase their wealth... etc, it's this that wakes me from even the deepest of sleep, the fact that Allah is asking us Himself, no other king would ask their subject, so how can we not ask?