Come this October, Scotiabank will be hosting its fiftth annual art display entitled Nuit Blanche. The event is a series of hundreds of art displays and projects, public and private, arranged for viewing from dawn until dusk across the city of Toronto.

Amongst this ginormous showcase of talent is University of Toronto MSA's very own Students for World Justice Committee, spreading awareness via the lost art of storytelling.
 
Students for World Justice is working with Canadian Centre for International Justice to help them with their new project, which will be showcased at the Scotiabank Nuit Blanche event on October 2nd. The event will be called “Fragments for the City of Toronto’s Scotiabank Nuit Blanche“. 

As you may know, atrocities such as torture, rape, mutilation, and the murder or disappearance of family members have been experienced by 25-30% of refugees and immigrants in Canada. Some 600,000 foreign-born Toronto residents have been affected by atrocities. 

‘Fragments’ has the purpose of giving victim survivors of war crimes, torture and mass human rights abuses an opportunity to share their stories with other Torontonians through object artifacts (a piece of clothing, photographs, or written stories).  More than 500 object artifacts belonging to survivors including relevant articles of clothing, personal photographs, identity cards, prison or medical reports documenting violations, will be displayed at Lamport stadium on King Street in a rowed queue of podiums.

If you or someone you know has been effected by human rights abuses, past or present and would like to showcase something for this event lease contact Aisha Raja (swj@uoftmsa.com) or Zena Chaudhry (socialadvacement@uoftmsa.com) before September 27th. The event is anticipating more than a million visitors from Toronto, and this is our chance to say “NEVER AGAIN”. This is a good opportunity to let more than a million Torontonians and visitors know of the human rights abuses experienced by Muslim Canadians.

See also: http://www.scotiabanknuitblanche.ca/zone.shtml

The best part: it's completely free! Grab your friends and family and venture out on October 2nd (after praying Maghrib, of course). See you there!

 

Salah, like all our good deeds, should be perfected. Allah Subhanahu wa T’ala is beautiful and He loves beauty, so it follows that we should beautify ourselves when we present ourselves before  Him.  This can be done by following the sunnah of our Prophet Muhammad salAllahu alayhi wassalam, who was no doubt the best pray-er ever  :). Here’s a breakdown of the basics before you start:


Time is of the essence

It is forbidden to pray fard salah before stated times with the exception of combined prayers for the traveler. It is also forbidden to combine prayers unless one is considered a traveler.Also, one should not pray superogatory prayers after the fard Fajr or Asr salah.

As for when one should start praying, salah becomes obligatory on every sane Muslim at the age of puberty. Missed prayersmust be made up for.

Most crucially, pray as early as you can. Don’t delay your prayers because you’re “busy”. Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala doesn’t tell you to wait when you’re making du’a – He’s listening to you all the time. Surely, Our Lord - because of Whom we’re even able to be busy- is more important than anything else.

Intention

Intention does not need to be spoken aloud but it should contain some specific information. Firstly, be sure of what time it is and thereafter which prayer you will be praying. Next, know how many rakah you will be praying and if they are fard, sunnah, nafl or witr. Lastly and most importantly, remind yourself that you’re praying for Allah’s pleasure alone. If you’re not, it’s not hard to change that, so don’t be discouraged. Renew your intention and humble yourself by remembering that you’re standing before the All-Mighty Creator of All Things, Who sees inside your heart. All of this should be done before you begin praying but if you fall off-track during prayer, stop in whatever position you’re in, renew your intention and say “aoodhu billahee min ash-shaytaanir rajeem”, “I seek refuge in Allah from Shaytan , the rejected.”

Purity

Good intention helps us attain purity of the heart and mind, insha’Allah. Of equal importance is physical purity. So make sure you…

1)      Make wudu properly

Wudu is ritual ablution. One should make the intention of wudu and say “bismillah” “in the name of Allah” and then proceed. The fard (obligatory) parts of wudu are stated in The Holy Qur’an (5:6) “O you who believe! When you rise up for prayer, wash your faces and your hands up to the elbows and lightly rub your heads (with wet hands) and (wash) your feet up to the ankles.” Hence washing these body parts once is the minimum for a valid wudu. However, it is common practice and highly recommended to do full wudu as the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wassalam did:

In this order,

-Wash your hands up to the wrists (3X).
- Rinse your mouth (3X). It’s also recommended to clean your teeth with a siwak, though a toothbrush can work, too.
-Sniff water in your nostrils and blow it out (3X).

-Wash your face from your hairline to the bottom of your chin, from ear to ear (3X).

-Wash the right arm up to the elbow (3X), repeat with the left.

-Pass wet hands over your head and rub inside and outside of ears with fingers (1X).

-Wash feet up to the ankles using your left hand, starting with the right foot (3X). Make sure you get your heels and between your toes. If wearing water-proof socks, you don’t need to take them off so long as you made wudu before you put them on. This condition holds for 24 hours for a person at home and 3 days and 3 nights forthe traveler.

Again, washing each part once or twice is okay as well, but three is best.  Do not exceed three times as this is considered wasteful, even if you’re not sure you did it right.

  If water is unavailable, one can perform dry ablution.

  After completion, recite: “ash-hadu allaa illaaha illal-laahu wahdahoo laa shareeka lah, wa ash-hadu anna Muhammadan abduhu wa rasuluh”  “I bear witness that there is no God but Allah Who is One and has no partners and I bear witness that Muhammad is His Servant and Messenger”

with  the option of adding “Allahummaj-‘alnee minat-tawwaabeena waj’alnee minal mutattahhireen.” “O Allah, make me among those who turn to You in repentance and make me of those  who strive to be pure”

  Wudu is invalidated and must be redone:

  If one has passed gas, excrement or urinated.

If one has fallen into a deep sleep.

If one loses their senses in any way (madness, fainting, use of drugs, etc).

If one has touched sexual organs intentionally with naked hands or emits sexual fluid.

If one vomits.

If one has touched  a person of the opposite sex who is not a mahram. (Shafi’i)

If one bleeds  to the point that it runs or spits saliva consisting mostly of blood.  (Hanafi)

If one comes in contact with a dog or other unclean animal. (Hanbali)

 
If one is already praying and suspects he has passed gas, he should not stop praying.
Narrated 'Abbas bin Tamim:
My uncle said: The Prophet said, "One should not leave his prayer unless he hears sound or smells something." (Bukhari).

2)      Pray in an appropriate place

Make sure the place is clean.  Also, make sure there are no photos, statues or the like around, especially not in front of you or within your view while praying. Lastly, the place should be free of chatter or excessive background noise (music, television, phone ringers, etc).

3)Wear appropriate clothing

Immodest clothing is undesirable in Islam anyway but be extra cautious of this during salah. For men, this means being covered from the naval to the knee. Also, one’s shoulders should be covered as was said by the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wassalam: “None of you should observe prayer in a single garment which does not cover his shoulders” (Bukhari& Muslim). For women, it is required that one cover everything except the hands and face, and on some authorities, the feet. Note also that one should be decent and not wear tight jeans/clothes or clothes that rise up when one bends over - this goes for men, too.

Allah Most High is the Most Merciful, the Oft-Forgiving. This does not mean that we should slack off in how we worship Him with the hopes that He will just forgive our faults. Indeed, a person who follows all of the recommended and obligatory actions to the best of his ability is still prone to error. We should be grateful that we have such perfect guidelines on how to pray transmitted by our Beloved Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam and do our part by following them.

WAllahu ‘alim, wa billahi tawfiq.

Part 1: Why pray?

It is an attribute of humankind that when given options we choose whatever we believe is best for our own selves. For a Muslim, this means that put in any given situation, we try to do what we believe will be most pleasing to Allah Ta'ala, thereby earning His Pleasure and being rewarded for our deeds in the afterlife. “Whoever works righteousness does so for his own good, and whoever works evil does so to his own detriment. Your Lord is never unjust towards the people." (The Holy Qur’an, 41:46). This ayah makes it clear that all of our sacrifices and good works that benefit others in this dunya are actually favours we do unto ourselves for the akhirah.  In this way, doing any good deed means having mercy on oneself. Given this premise, we should then think of what is the best of these good deeds. We already know we’re trying to please Allah  Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, now how do we maximize His Pleasure?

Hadrat Abdullah Ibn Masud (may Allah be pleased with him) said that he enquired of the Prophet (may Allah's blessings and peace be upon him) what was the best deed in the sight of Allah. The Prophet (may Allah's blessings and peace be upon him) replied, "To say prescribed prayers at stated hours." I asked what the next best was. He said, "To be good to parents." I again asked what deed ranked next. He said, "To do Jihad in the way of Allah." Ibn Masud (may Allah be pleased with him) said that if he had gone on asking, the Prophet (may Allah's blessings and peace be upon him) would have told him more (Bukhari, Muslim). One can only imagine how weighty an act of worship salah truly is if Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has placed its importance above being kind to one’s parents and jihad. That the Prophet (may Allah's blessings and peace be upon him) would have continued if prompted makes a strong statement that salah is the most important deed to be upheld irrespective of what other good deeds one does. There is no substitute for prayer.


Now, it may be that despite this evidence that makes explicit how important prayer is, we still need some further proof that it’s really good for us. While the benefits of salah are truly limitless, here are a few I find helpful to keep in mind:

Modesty

The Prophet Muhammad (may Allah's blessings and peace be upon him) said, "Every faith has an innate character. The character of Islam is modesty"(Al-Muwatta). It should follow in suit, then, that the nature of the most important act of worship in Islam is such that it makes one modest. This is true of salah. When we pray, our entire body, mind and soul are submitting to the greatness of Our Creator. We begin every rakah by saying Alhamdulilahi Rabbil alamin “All praise is due to Allah, Lord of all the Worlds”, leaving no room for even an ounce of pride. We bend and we prostrate before Him, lowering ourselves into remembering our place as humble servants of Allah Ta'ala. Indeed, salah gives being “down to earth” a whole new meaning.

Punctuality/discipline

As Muslims, honesty is something we need to cherish and preserve. This includes keeping our word to the best of our ability. So if we’ve said we’ll do something or be somewhere at a particular time, we should follow through. Salah builds this consciousness of time within us. The above quoted hadith regards saying “prescribed prayers at stated hours" as most pleasing to Allah  Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, not just prayers overall.  If we guard our prayers, making our schedules around salah timings and not the other way around, we begin to value being punctual and disciplined in everything, inshAllah.

Cleanser

Salah is also a cleanser for one’s body and soul; the body by way of wudu, the soul by way of our submission to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Hadrat Abu Huraira (may Allah be pleased with him) said: The Prophet (may Allah's blessings and peace be upon him) said, "Let anyone tell me; if a stream flows by the house of any person and he bathes in it five times a day, whether any dirt will remain on his body." The companions replied that no dirt would remain in such a case. He said, "So is the case with prescribed prayers. Allah forgives men's (minor) sins on their account." (Bukhari, Muslim)

Helps memorization

Repetition is the most effective way to memorize anything. So when we want to learn even an ayah, we need to read it repeatedly. Salah makes doing this incredibly easy as we have to recite some amount of The Holy Qur’an after Al-Fatihah in each rakah. So if we choose to say the same ayah or surah once in each prayer of the day, we’ll have recited it at least 5 times before the day ends! A related experience is when a person prays regularly, he’ll probably want to be able to recite more and more of The Holy Qur’an during salah. So salah serves as both an aid and a motivation to memorize The Holy Qur’an.

Focus

In a culture where multi-tasking is seen as a skill and every device and invention has to serve more than one purpose before its deemed useful, it’s not surprising that we have trouble focusing. Salah is one act of worship that calls for absolute, undivided attention. Every action and word has been so perfectly designed that if we’re praying properly, we couldn’t possibly be doing anything else. Our challenge is to focus our minds on Allah Ta'ala; if we can do this in salah, it becomes easier in everything we do, inshAllah. Remember, while doing multiple things at once is efficient and sometimes necessary, it is only through focus that perfection can be attained.

Reminder

Most importantly, salah is a reminder of our purpose on Earth. Even if you’re not able to strive in the way of Allah  Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala in any other way for whatever reason, salah brings you to Him five times a day – sufficient to keep you from going astray, inshAllah.

The Holy Qur’an reads, “… O my Servants who have transgressed against their souls! Despair not of the Mercy of Allah for Allah forgives all sins, for He is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.” (39:53) Allah is the Most Merciful, and it is important to never underestimate Our Most Glorious Creator. Never does he turn away from those who turn to Him. So if you have transgressed against your own soul, if you haven’t had mercy on yourself, know that Allah  Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala wants to have mercy on you - all you have to do is ask.

WAllahu Alim, wa billahi tawfiq.


If anyone has things that help them be/stay motivated to get up and pray, please comment below!

I was once doing cash at work when a young boy approached me and asked for a drink. When I met his gaze, I found that he had a really unique scar above his brow. Now, anyone that knows me knows I have a strange fascination with scars because, like missing teeth, moles and other things that most people would label as defects, scars are distinctive.  I foolishly told the boy his scar was “cool” and asked how he had gotten it. “In a car accident,” he replied.

Quickly, I realized what a thoughtless thing that was to ask and while the boy smiled and there was no real visible damage done, I regret saying that to this day.

This incident is an example of how easily we lose sight of the realities of life.  We’re so caught up in our own way of living that we forget that people can and do live differently.  Having seen a little boy, I somehow assumed that he was under the protection of a parent, probably somewhere close-by. The scar was probably from learning how to ride his first bike or falling out of a tree house. But what gave me this idea? He could very well have been completely alone. He could very well have gotten that scar in a traumatic car accident where he lost his parents.

Judging by his reaction, this wasn’t the case. But I want you to do an internal brainstorm and tell me what comes to mind when you think of the words “baby” or “child”. Cribs, diapers, little feet, photo albums, toys and bottles are all I seem to think of right away. The abject and the deprived don’t seem to invade my thoughts; the orphans and the needy can’t even afford a place in my brainstorm. How meek are our efforts to help each other? How strange is our approach to caring for the less fortunate? We give a dollar or two here or there and we think we’ve done more than is asked of us. How many of us could imagine being on the other side of that interaction, day after day after day?  

This is truly a reflection on the greatness of our Creator, Who is the Only One capable of remembering everyone, even when everyone forgets each other, even when everyone forgets Him. Let us all strive to bear in remembrance the afflictions of those around us so that even if we can’t directly help them, we can at least feel for them.

When you’re about to begin to do something that you’ll be doing regularly, for a long period of time (possibly the rest of your life) it usually follows that you’ll need some lessons on how to do it. Take driving for example. No one would ever get behind a wheel and just go- no matter how many people they’ve seen drive. There are rules to be followed, and while much of your learning will happen on the road, you have to start off with a basic understanding of these rules first. Many people will also take driving classes.  

Similarly, when you get married, you intend to be married for the rest of your life, inshAllah. It’s not something you just do once and then live in bliss. Being married is a constant effort which, like driving, requires one to know the rules of the road and to obey those rules to the best of their ability. No one should jump into marriage thinking that having seen others who are married and how they live is sufficient.

Sunnipath.com, a website dedicated to making Islamic knowledge more widely available, offers a two-part course called The Successful Islamic Marriage. The first part of the course carries you through the most pressing concerns around marriage in the west today. Firstly, who should you marry and why? As the course progresses, students are taught their own rights in marriage(as the husband/wife), the rights of their spouses and how to deal with problems that commonly face married couples. The course teaches the fiqh of marriage in Islam, including important issues like separation and divorce.

It is taught online through a series of recorded lessons and live sessions for discussion purposes. The Ustadha, Hedaya Hartford, is also the author of books Initiating and Upholding an Islamic Marriage and Your Islamic Marriage Contract, which are included in the required readings for the class.

I highly recommend taking this course. Whether you’re already married, looking to get married or just interested in learning what an Islamic marriage should be made of, this course is a fun, interactive and easy way to start. May Allah SWT give you the tawfiq, ameen.

Society in general has a tendency to kick people when they’re down. Throughout history, the weak and defenseless have been targets for abuse. This continues on today.  The young, the old, the poor, the orphans, those with little education and those with disabilities all qualify as victims of this abuse,  so that the very people who have nothing to lose become the people who also have nothing to gain.

Widows are one group of such people. In developing nations – particularly in South Asia and Africa- when a woman loses her husband, she herself pretty well dies, too. This “social death” involves verbal, emotional and physical abuse from the community as a whole as well as from her husband’s family. She can be subject to accusations that she killed her husband. She can be thrown into the street with no one to protect her. She can have her children stolen from her. She can even be set on fire. In some African cultures, a deceased spouse doesn’t end a marriage and a widow can be forced to marry her brother in-law or other male relative to carry on the relationship. This is called a "levirate” arrangement, whereby the children conceived are considered the children of the widow’s original husband. Actually, if the new “husband” doesn’t want kids, he can choose to throw his dead brother’s wife, now impregnated by him, out of the house. All of these horrendous acts of hate are either permissible by law or so culturally normal that the laws against them aren't upheld.

Setting aside the psychological damage this would have on a person; these women have literally nothing left once their partner dies. It's illegal for their husbands to leave them wealth or land. Even if they do get to keep their children, they often have to pull them out of school or have them work due to exceptional circumstances. One can imagine what kind of a mess this gets kids into. Child slavery and prostitution are often the result of a widowed mother.

The most tragic part about this whole ordeal is the heedlessness regarding the issue. There are no laws being enforced to protect a widow’s rights. In India, where in 1856 the law preventing widows from remarrying were abolished nationally, it was still left up to the various religious authorities in different parts of the country to decide what to do with these women. While efforts are being made by a few global organizations such as Empowering Widows in Development (EWD), it is said that no change can occur until these women bind together and call for change themselves. May Allah SWT give them the tawfiq, ameen.

It’s shameful to think that entire communities witness this treachery and yet there is still so little reported on it. Indeed, widows take up large proportions of the population of any country that is at war due to casualties, and there are plenty of those.  Yet there is seldom any statistical evidence to prove the extremeness of this point. One of the few times it has been reported is during Rwanda’s genocide (1994), where over 70% of adult women were widowed. How is this so easily overlooked in other nations?

I’d like to end by asking you to join me in making du’a for our fellow mothers, daughters and sisters. May Allah, Ar-Rahman, Ar-Raheem, soon relieve them of their distress; may He guide them and keep them firm in their iman; may Allah protect them from the evils of this life and the next; and may He ease them in their accountability on the Day of Judgment for the troubles they’ve seen in this dunya, ameen. O Allah send blessings upon our beloved Prophet SAW, who was a mercy to mankind and an example to be followed when dealing with the destitute.

 

  “There’s one in every family. Two in mine, actually. And they always manage to ruin special occasions.”
 –Zazu, The Lion King

Ah, Zazu.  In all your wisdomocity, one would think you wouldn’t say something quite so vain and awful. But who could blame you? Scar really was a horrible uncle and brother. He was selfish, rude, unjust – all the qualities of a bad, bad kitty. This is all not to mention the negative influence he had on those around him; everyone from the hyenas to innocent little Simba himself. Surely this means you have a right to complain, right?

We’re constantly faced by challenges in life, there’s no denying that. Though people may offer you explanations as to why these things happen, this is often just a comfort mechanism used to justify things in or against your favour. The fact of the matter is that everything- good, bad and otherwise- is from Allah SWT. So it is silly, and I daresay it is dangerous, to attribute happenings to anything but Allah SWT. I say this not because events don’t have immediate rational reasons behind them, but because in the grand scheme of things, they mean much more than we’ll ever know or understand. You failing your courses at university is because you didn’t work hard enough, but in the long run, it might turn out that you were destined to become an all-star cricket player. Tawhid is the very ground that Islam is built upon and the principles underlying this are firstly the belief that there is no god but Allah SWT and secondly, the belief in predestination. This means that as Muslims, we cannot afford to ask “why me”, particularly not about things completely out of our control. Allah SWT wanted it to happen, so it did. This doesn’t mean we can stop working hard because things will take care of themselves, but it does mean that if misfortune befalls us, by our own doing or otherwise, it’s only by Allah’s Will.

It’s so easy to say and so hard to practice – this I know. Especially when the things that make us ask “whyyy, oh why, oh why” are people; human beings we have to deal with for whatever reason that make even simple interactions absolutely dreadful. I think the worst of this is when the people are your family. I mean we all have ups and downs with our relatives but some of us have cousins who never call, uncles who refuse to bathe and grandmothers who have been trying to marry us off since we were 10. It’s trying. But as with everything else in life, it is in the remembrance of Allah SWT that our hearts can find rest.  Now one might ask how remembering Allah SWT will make their uncle shower, but that’s not the point. If we choose to see a lot of negative aspects in people and become frustrated with them, we overlook all the hidden mercies that bearing them tolerantly brings. It’s like Buckley’s cough syrup; it tastes awful, but it works. In a similar vein, your grandmother constantly bringing you photos of new suitors when you’re not ready for marriage is extremely distasteful. But imagine how quickly you’ll develop patience and respect for elders! Something as simple as saying bismillah before you talk to her will make your whole engagement with her beneficial in this life and the next, inshAllah.

Our families were bound to us; we did not choose them. Heck, we didn’t even ask for them. However, loving them for the sake of Allah SWT is our responsibility. They have rights over us as Muslims and more rights over us by blood. It’s helpful, then, to fulfill our duties by trying to see all our kin as a part of our immutable fate. We couldn’t have had anything else because this is what Allah SWT wanted for us. If we truly believe in the Mercy and Wisdom of Allah SWT, it quickly becomes irrelevant if our personalities clash with those around us. He has put them before us out of His Infinite Mercy and all we have to see is how. How could this really be a blessing in disguise? Then, if we were to become attuned to the idea that whatever will be, will be…Well wouldn’t that make things a lot easier? Love it or hate it; it’s yours. Mmmm, might as well love it.

So when Scar says “Life’s not fair, is it? You see I, well I, shall never be king…” I say woe unto you, Scar! Life is as fair as we make it. If we learn to love our fate by virtue of loving Allah SWT, then unfairness is our own misconstrued reading of life because everything is from Him and He is the Fairest of Judges.

WAllahu Alim.

Scene 1:  You’re walking down the street, trying to keep track of how many subhanAllahs you’ve said since you left Sid Smith when sub-han-ALLAH, is that Maryam standing on the street corner talking to that foreign brother who just joined the MSA? What is agwan…  You were going to say salaam, but maybe you should just keep walking.

Scene 2: You’ve just entered Bahen and you head to the bathroom to make wudu. As you walk out, you see Aisha standing by the doors next to the prayer space, clearly done praying, and now just chatting up the whole jamaat. You tut, tut and head in to make your nawafil before this young lady engages you in conversation.

Scene 3: You’re scanning the premises to see if you can find a brother around to go grab a bite with when suddenly- Hey! Anas! And who? Halima? What the ham! Maybe you should eat alone today.

Scene 4: You walk in late to class – as per usual. You look for your best bro, Musa, and discover he’s settled for a seat next to Amina – as per usual. Man, it’s time to find some new friends.

Scene 5: You had a really late night and while waking up for Fajr is second nature to you, staying up is not your forte. So you collapse into a deep rest and mama, feeling sorry for your long day yesterday, decides to let you sleep in a bit. At 11:32 your cat begins to caress your face with his 4 inch nails and you jerk out of bed realizing you’ve got class at 12. Of course the TTC fails you, and now you’ve missed another lecture. But lucky you! That girl Maryam, who has Stats with you, is approaching. She’s more than happy to stop and let you know that the prof said your assignment deadline has been extended until next week. Thank goodness you saw her!

Now it’s Dhuhr time so you go to Bahen to pray and alhamdulilah, you find all your buddies ready to do the same. After prayer, you guys are heading out when a younger sister, Aisha, calls out to your group. As you all turn obediently, you learn that your friend Zain – her older brother- forgot his dinner at home that morning. He’s fasting, so she asks if one of you has class with him that night and if you could please pass on this container of palow, jazakAllah.

Smelling that rice makes you super hungry but your friends all depart because they have a soccer game to play – soccer’s not your thing. You walk into Robarts’ food court and spot Halima, who is a family friend and whose father you heard recently passed away. You head over to give your condolences and see how the family’s doing before grabbing food.

Wanting to seize the first opportunity for change, you decide to get to your next class early. Apparently everyone else has done the same, too, and there are only two seats left. Seeing that one of these seats is next to sister Amina you decide to sit over there because you realize that your friend Salman hasn’t arrived yet and since he’s allergic to curry powder and Amina always smells like curry powder, you decide to take one for the team and let him have the other seat. Okay, okay this one was for comic relief – forgive me.

Inter-gender relations – the topic of this article- have been the topic of my life for the past year or so. Islamic rules on the matter are very plain and indisputable, but I often find myself in a mess of hypocrisy because while I really don’t believe that boys and girls can ever be friends, I’m time and again in a position where we’ll behave as such. This is frustrating enough for the sole reason that it’s not what Allah SWT has ordained for us and His pleasure is what we aim for in everything we do. To add to it, it is uber awkward. And why shouldn’t it be; we’re supposed to be able to feel shame and remorse innately. So it comes as no great surprise, then, that being in a ‘hanging out with my friend’-type atmosphere with a member of the opposite sex might lead to thinking “what the heck am I doing here…”

But I’m not one to see negativity as an impediment to growth; I’d much rather utilize it as fertilizer. As the old saying goes, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

So here’s my solution, and it may seem outlandish but I think it’ll work. First and most crucially, I make du’a that Allah SWT give me and all of us the tawfiq to be ever-conscious of our conversations and our selves, ameen. If we, as brothers and sisters, don’t absolutely need to talk to each other, let’s not. Vain speech is undesirable no matter who you’re talking to, anyway, so this should be good practice.

Next, I will try to remember that while Allah SWT is watching us all the time and although His opinion of us is most important, He has the ability to judge our intentions – others don’t. So I intend to bear in mind as much as possible how unnatural and out of place it really looks to the outside eye when I’m, oh, I don’t know,  standing on a street corner laughing with a group of brothers. Not because I have a fear of my reputation catching up with me but because the mu’min is a mirror for another mu’min. We must do good to encourage others to do good. Upholding a noble character outwardly is as important as doing so inwardly.  In doing this, inshAllah, my feelings of being absurdly misplaced when spending unnecessary time in the company of brothers will become a productive motivation to just, stop.

As an aside note, I also refuse to judge anyone, brothers and sisters alike, for their apparent engagement in this fitnah. Reason being that today it’s Maryam and tomorrow it may be me. As the various scenarios show, we shouldn’t play judge and assume the worst of our people. If you can have a valid explanation, why can’t he? Seriously, wouldn’t it blow to have people think all the awful things that you think about them, about you? Think about it. Or actually- don’t.

WAllahu Alim.
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