Well I cant believe that its been nearly 2 years since my last post and I should really update the description to this blog as so many things have changed since then. I am not a medical student anymore and I no longer live in Pakistan. So how can I sum up the two years since I last wrote here. Well the summary of it all is that I am now a Doctor and I cleared my exams, which I had to take to work in the UK. Got married to a Doctor in Pakistan and now I am working in Northern Ireland. Yes out of all places I am working there and so far so good. Unfortunately due to the stupid visa rules I am away from my wife. What right does a government have to stop your wife from staying with you? It is against any common sense that if I am a British Citizen, the person I marry shouldn’t matter. But the British Government penalise you for marrying a non-EU spouse. To make things worse, being British is a disadvantage in England. If I were any other EU citizen there would be no obstacle in bringing my non-EU wife to England. Ridiculous to say the least and we just have to live in the world where you get to find all kinds of unusual and silly people/rules. If the problem is illegal immigration, well deal with that. Why should genuine people have to suffer? Unfortunately I can’t change the rules but instead I have to live with it.
Even though it has been difficult times I can say Alhamdulilah for everything that Allah has blessed me with. Without my faith I would have lost my mind and given up. As they say there is light at the end of the tunnel. My wife was at light and the tunnel was me being in Pakistan away from home and trying to settle in a place which was strange for me. Allah had planned for me to meet my wife at the end of my journey in Pakistan. So looking back it was all worth it. I left Pakistan with more than I had before it. So I cant complain. Hardships and obstacles do not end in life. You are just meant to cope with it better as you go through the years. Someone was telling me the other day that if you spend time with the worst of people, you then understand what goodness is. Allah has always provided opposites for us in this world so we may be aware of the extremes. We can then be grateful for all the good we see after we have seen the bad things in life.
Whenever you feel down about what you don’t have remember what you do have. Many might wish to be in your situation. So being grateful makes life easier and not expecting too much from people will also make you much more happier, just as long as you don’t harm anyone or do bad. Other than that if people are weird or talk nonsense or waste their life on gossip/backbiting it shouldn’t worry you as they are just causing harm to themselves.
I have been watching how everybody is celebrating Independence Day in Pakistan, so I just want to say something about this. This is my opinion based on certain facts and I am not imposing my opinions on anyone. People are free to do whatever they like, if they want to celebrate this and that day, good luck to them. But me personally I have principles and I cannot celebrate something that I feel is not worth celebrating.
You know how we hear some relative or family member dies and then for a month or so people don’t get married or have walimas in respect for that loved one who passed away. That is the culture back home isn’t it? Although Islam says we mourn for 3 days, but yea if someone was to do their walima straight after somebody died, then people will be saying this person doesn’t care that their brother/sister/mother/grandad or whoever died and that they are quite shameful. In such an instance people talk about culture and tradition and I bet you such people who would do such a thing will be labelled as beghairat. On such a small level people are ready to look down upon someone for celebrating something straight after a calamity.
So where am I going with this? Well, in Pakistan tell me how many people die every day? Tell me what good news comes from it? Tell me what disaster doesn’t hit Pakistan? Like a day doesn’t go by where there isn’t a calamity in Pakistan. Then how is it possible you can celebrate after such disasters?? You are at the lowest you can ever be, instead of fearing for the worst you celebrate? People might say be optimistic and so on. True, even if your loved one dies you cannot mourn everyday. But when you tell someone to get on with their life do you tell them to celebrate??? You tell them get closer to Allah and do good. So if Pakistanis want to get on with life even after such disasters that happen everyday, it is definitely not by celebrating independence day. Wow, you waved a flag. You put a flag on your house, what do you want a medal??? You shouted Pakistan Zindabad, now Pakistan is going to unite and become better. Instead I tell those people that if you really in love with your nation, follow Allah truly and then blessings will come to that Land no matter what it is called, whether it is called Pakistan, whether it is called India, whether its called cuckoo land. If the people living there are God-Fearing and follow what Allah told them to, then that place will be blessed!!! A land is not blessed because it has so-called muslims living there and where everyone is enjoining bad and forbidding the evil. Such a land will get the curse of Allah instead. A land where everything opposite of Islam happens and people are still proud of it? Which hadith and ayat did it tell you to be like this? Tell me and I will accept I am wrong.
Did you ever open the Quran and see what Allah says about people who leave his path? Forget what I say and forget what your parents/leader say, just look at what Allah tells us in the Quran. He destroyed NATIONS!!! Allah has told us of the stories of NATIONS that have been destroyed. Is Pakistan some special country that Allah cannot do the same to??? Is Pakistan following Islam? Are its people follow the ways of the righteous? What I am saying applies to any country in the world, do you really think Allah told us such things so we can turn it into bed time stories? NO, there is a warning for us, that Allah is saying that look what happened to nations before you who left the right path and if you follow the same way then you will end up in the same position.
Nobody is jealous of anything. Get this out of your mind, that people are jealous or me and everything bad happening is because of India and this and that agent. Whatever bad is happening is from your own deeds! No human is perfect, I am far from perfect. Nobody is saying if you make mistakes in life, you are doomed. Allah says I forgive, so ask for forgiveness! But the path towards forgiveness is you first accept you have done wrong, then second you repent to Allah and then you regret it, saying you will never do it again. I rarely see anyone in Pakistan saying they are wrong, either they will blame the leader, either they will blame India or ISI or Mossad or America. Nobody ever says wait a minute the other day I sold some fake stuff to a person, that is evil. They wouldn’t say oh the other day I made a promise to someone and I didn’t fulfill it, that was so bad of me. The other day I stole land of someone, that wasn’t good or today I treated somebody in a bad way, I harmed an animal, I oppressed someone, I killed someone, I lied to someone, I sold some food item which was full of poison and so on. So whatever problem people are in, they have someone else to blame for it.
So Pakistan Independence Day what does it mean? Independence from British?? But what is the difference between a British ruler who doesn’t give you justice and a brown ruler from your own country who doesn’t give you justice? One is white and one is brown. One is non-muslim and the other is so-called muslim. So apart from that what has changed? British time there were wars and killing, today there is the same. In British time people were allowed to pray in mosques and today they are allowed. In British time people were jailed for silly reasons and it is worse now. So I don’t get this concept of Independence? Are you telling me my great grandfather was not independent? Today you are more independent than he was? I am sure he was living a more chilled out life than people in Pakistan today. What did he not have, that (now his area is called) Pakistan has? He had freedom to pray, to fast, to live and to speak his language and to follow his religion. He wasn’t a slave! If he was a slave of British or whoever then, then Pakistan is a slave now.
One last point I want to make is that I do not care what country people come from and I can do good to people without feeling love for their nation or any attachment to that nation. That is the essence of Islam, that no matter where you are in the world you do good. I do not have to wave flags of a nation, in order for me to be a good citizen. I do not have to wave a flag of Islam on the Prophet (Saw) birthday in order to prove how good of a Muslim I am. Whatever good you do should be for the sake of Allah and not for lines drawn on ALLAHs land, which is temporary.
What is tribalism and is it a bad thing? Well I can only answer this by giving the example of my tribe, which is Pashtun. This tribe exists in Afghanistan and current day Pakistan (especially north west part). They speak Pashto and they are divided into sub-tribes from which they are easily identified. They are split by a border called the Durrand line. It is quite a controversial border because many feel that it has caused separation of the Pashtun tribe and some are not in favour of this line, whereas some are. There are sub-tribes that live on both sides of the border and people travel across this border without seeing it as one. The history of Pashtuns is always linked with Afghanistan because that is the origin of all Pashtuns. Afghanistan was much bigger in the past but past is different from the present, for example the Islamic history at one stage was so amazing, but today we are just a joke. It is not enough to just tell people oh WE were amazing people 1000 years ago. They will say well when we look at your people now. So maybe certain nations had a bad past but currently are leading the world, whereas we will always be talking about ‘history’.
If you go to some Pashtun village you will see that they are very simple people and they take Islam very seriously. It is true some mix culture with Islam, because not everything in our culture is Islamic. But it is a myth to assume every Pashtun family is conservative or Islamic. You will come across many families who are quite secular and even some who are athiests. That might not be many but don’t be shocked if you do come across those types.
Nowadays things have changed with technology, movement of Pashtuns to foreign lands and mixing with other cultures. This can be taken as a good thing and a bad thing.
Why a good thing? Because when people see the outside world and how other nations/people are so far ahead when it comes to development and education, then it makes their mind open a bit. Back in the village a person who owns a lot of land will think he is the King (Khan) but when he leaves his village he realises how little he is in comparison with others. In developed countries people are more creative and open-minded, they don’t focus on other people as much as people back home. I’ve noticed that our people waste all their energy on others and they don’t think about themselves. They never point the finger at themselves and are quite stubborn. They love blaming others for anything that might happen. They are very proud people and in villages this then is seen in the form of Dushmani where you have enmity with a whole family based on something just one person did wrong. If they killed your family member then that Dushmani becomes a battle with that family and entire generations are wiped out. Only the wise family will seek to bring and end to that vicious cycle by doing something called Sulh/Sulha (peace treaty). They never think that if their father for example killed some person for no reason, that he is in the wrong! So why should a son continue his evil? If his father was killed as a result of revenge, his son should accept that as an end to the problem, but they continue that same evilness. So this aspect of tribalism is really bad and keeps people away from progress, bringing them closer to destruction.
There is a custom of giving a person shelter even if he has run away from his area due to a crime. Tribal areas (FATA) is a well-known place where criminals escaping the law would seek shelter. The Pashtun say according to their culture they cannot deny that to a person and will protect that person no matter what. But they forget that in Islam you cannot do that for a criminal. They need to be punished and not able to escape justice!
So these bad aspect of tribalism should make the educated/wise Pashtuns realise that the way forward is not to be proud and arrogant. Just because a person might acknowledge these bad things in their culture it doesn’t mean they are totally disassociating from their culture. Islam is not against tribes:
O mankind! Lo! We have created you from a single (pair) of male and female, and have made you nations and tribes that ye may know one another. Lo! the noblest of you, in the sight of Allah, is the best in conduct. Lo! Allah is Knower, Aware. Surah al-Hujurat (49:13)
So the last part of this verse is quite important. If a person is not good in conduct it doesn’t matter where he is from or what family he is from or who he descended from! Abu Lahab was from the same tribe as Prophet Muhammad (saw) yet he is cursed by Allah. Many Prophets had children or wives who were condemned by Allah. So this concept that your family tree means you are superior is nonsense. The last sermon of Muhammad (saw) touched upon this because he must have known that people will fight over these things when he will leave the Earth. He said an Arab is not superior to a non-Arab (vice-versa). When a person dies he will be judged by his actions and not where he came from. You do not choose which tribe you come from, you are just born into it. You can’t change your tribe after you are born so you are basically stuck with it! Isn’t it then silly to then fight over something you never chose to be and can never change that?? Religion yes we are born into it, but you can change it and you see born Muslims not following Islam and Christians converting to Islam. So race is something different.
Now I will mention what is the bad thing of losing your culture. You walk around in London and see Pashtuns who speak their language even though they are living in the west. They would show that they are proud Pashtuns. But then they will do so many things against the culture. The guys would go clubbing, they would drink alcohol and they will have all kinds of girlfriends. Then when it is time for them to get married they will get some woman from back home who can cook and clean for them. When you chat to them they will be the first to fight with people over Pashto and tell many British born Pashtuns oh you don’t speak your language properly, you are a shame and shouldn’t call yourself Pashtun. Mate you shouldn’t call yourself Pashtun for being such a Luchak (pervert). If you speak Pashto but act like some beghairat who has no respect for women or walks around drunk all the time, well I don’t care if you have a PhD in Pashto, you are a shame! Then there are Pashtun girls who lose their culture and would walk around wearing very indecent clothes and say they are open minded. Like what is so open minded about dressing like a slut? Im not saying many do dress like that but quite a few do dress very badly when it comes to comparing what their culture/religion sees as normal. Some might tell me that it is freedom and it is none of your concern how people dress. I agree but I am trying to explain in my opinion what is the bad parts of culture and what are the good parts. With Pashtun culture the good parts are everything that links with Islam. Like hospitality, bravery, conservatism and so on. But nowadays you do not see much of these qualities. Even back home neighbours do not even know each other and people have become quite selfish. If somebody has a fight on the street 100’s will come to watch and pass comments/opinions. But when you ask them to help or do something productive they all run away. Materialism has taken over their minds.
So people should be balanced and not go to extremes when it comes to talking about their tribe. If we attack other people for being so messed up, we should look at our own people because we have plenty of messed up people. Don’t blame others for your situation. If I bump into a few messed up Pashtuns in my whole life, then I will agree that others will be to blame then for our problems. But when I keep on bumping into messed up Pashtuns then something should click in my head that their situation isn’t improving for a reason! An Ummah does not change unless its people do not change.
I end this by saying that I do not agree with Muslims who claim that tribes and culture is totally un-islamic. Islam made the tribal Quraish into much better people but it didn’t totally abolish tribes but rather it kept them. Islam UNITED tribes rather than eradicate tribes. Islam started from the Quraish tribes and spread to the world. Just talking about an Ummah out of thin air doesn’t do anything. If my own house in not in order, what hope do I have in helping someone else??
For those who are not familiar with the word preps (word used a lot in our uni back in Peshawar), basically it just means time given off so students can prepare for their exam. This is going to be my final university exam Inshallah and this time I will be spending a long 4 months in my own home (in London). Usually we get 40 days to prepare for an exam but because this is the final year exam, there are many subjects to cover. But I still think 4 months is really long. Like if students study everyday in that time without any other activities I am sure there will be a point where they will lose their senses.
My routine is to wake up early, have breakfast and go to the library. Nowadays all I see in the library is A-level students. I guess they are preparing for some exams in January, but they sure are a nuisance. Like whichever table I sit on in the library, you have some teenagers talking so loudly and disturbing people. If their choice of conversation was interesting maybe it wouldn’t be so annoying. The other day there were some guys just talking non-stop about girls and about failing. I am thinking like why are you coming to the library for? Couldn’t you just hang out on the streets and carry on the same conversation. But it looks like the library is a warm place to hang out. They did like 5 minutes of study and like hours chatting. I decided to put headphones on and listen to some song, that was better than listening to them. I have been away from England for quite some time so I haven’t been seeing what the youth are like now. But in the library I just saw how much the English language has deteriorated. Like hearing all kinds of weird slang words. When we were in school and college we also used slang words, but not as much as the teenagers I am seeing nowadays. Even I heard that in GCSE many students write essays the same way they write text messages. Like that is funny…lol
I do hope that the A-level exams are over soon so I can get some peace and quiet. My house is quiet but I have many distractions so that is why I prefer going library because you are forced to just study. Let’s see how this long preps gets along..
Whenever I would go out to the market, there would always be these 3 kids. There was one little boy who must have been 5 or 6 years old with his sister who was maybe 8 and another girl who was also around 8. They were really cute and everytime I would go to the market they would say to me ‘Mama Ghubare akhle?’ This means uncle do you want to buy some balloons. But I would never buy the balloons but instead I would just give them a little money. In the hot weather I would sometimes tell them do you feel like ice-cream. They would say yes, so I bought them ice-cream. So always I would chat to them when going to the market and I always realised even when I give them a little bit of money that will not change their lives and there are many more kids like that on the street. These kids were from Afghanistan but still they would be laughing and in the cold weather hanging around the market with their old jackets. I made a video about some other kids who collect kabar (junk) and here it is…
When I laugh, they say: ‘Aren’t you embarrassed’?
When I cry, they say: ‘Why can’t you smile’?
When I smile, they say ‘He’s showing off’!
When I frown, they say: ‘His real personality has become apparent’!
When I’m quiet, they say ‘He can’t talk’. When I speak, they say ‘He talks too much’.
I was tolerant so they said ‘He is a coward, if he was able to take revenge he would he would have taken it’.
When I pulled up some courage, they said ‘He is ill-mannered, he wouldn’t be bold if he ruled’.
If I say no, they say ‘He is strange’.
When I approve, they say ‘he is foolish’.
I came across this poem and it is really self explanatory. It just shows that people will complain no matter what you do. So if you are always going to be bothered what people will say, then you will never get to do what you want even if you are right in doing so! It is like walking down a road to reach the end of it, on the way you bump across different people and each one is telling you how to reach the end of the road. Although it is just a straight road and quite simple to just reach the end of the road, each person tells you a different thing and makes it more complicated. So if you keep trying to please people and follow what they say, you will never reach the end of the road!!
In life how many times have we tried to change ourselves according to the wishes of other people? What I have found is that it never leads to people being satisfied from you. Like you try to be really relaxed with people and then they have issues with that. So then you try to be a bit more serious and then people complain about that. It just leaves you wondering what to do. The ideal solution to this is to just forget what people say or think. If you are clear in your mind that you are on the right track, then it doesn’t matter what people say or do, because you just aim to be a good person in this life and to please Allah! No doubt you should take into mind what people say when they are giving you good advice and not just complaining. If I see my friend who is going down the wrong route I should not just watch him, but I should tell him look if you continue down this path it will not be fruitful. Then the rest is up to him whether he wants to change or not. But if my friend is not causing harm to himself or anybody else, why should I pick out irrelevant things in him?
Be yourself, but don’t be reckless. Don’t care about what people say, but be caring towards people. Give positive advice to people, but don’t complain. There is always limits to everything we do in life, we should stay within the boundaries. If we are told to not get angry in a hadith, that does not mean we become passive. Like Islam is the middle path, not to the extremes. For example there is one extreme of being a miser and another extreme of being extravagant. Neither is good and Islam says in between both extremes is the best!
Once again we have this blessed month in order to get back on the right path and sort ourselves out spiritually. It is a shame that we are left wondering when does Ramadan start and there is confusion even still. Like even in today’s time nobody can figure out when Ramadan start even in one city like London. Some people are fasting today on Friday and some will fast on Saturday. How bad does that make Muslims look? What can we do, but just pray that we get some unity.
Anywayz I hope we all use this month in order to seek forgiveness from Allah for the things we have done in the past and make a new start. There is so much to gain from this month and we shouldn’t take it as a burden but rather as a blessing. It will be tough no doubt, but there is much to gain. May Allah make this a productive Ramadan inshallah!
Well I haven’t written any post for ages and today I feel it’s the day to write something. Whenever I tried to write something, I would always delete it in the end because I didn’t think it was good enough. Usually that happens to me whenever I am not in the right mood to write stuff. I have to be in a certain frame of mind to just write whatever comes to my head and make the reader understand all the things that have been written. So enough of explaining things and now I present to you my latest thoughts about the topic…
We all know that humans are not perfect and far from it. Yet in our daily life we always seem to think they are. Funny thing is that we always would judge everything and never look inside to ourselves. These are all basic lessons we are told time and time again. But does anyone practice upon it? We rarely act upon things which might seem to be hard and change is never welcomed especially when you have to sacrifice a lot for it. Yes people sacrifice their time spent with family over their job. That is a hard choice but many do carry out this sacrifice because they see that earning money is more important and in the end will benefit their family. But when we are asked to change ourselves from within and change your thought of mind completely, that seems much harder. Why is that? It is because when you are trained to think in a certain way since a young age, it becomes engrained into your soul. It is something which defines you as a person and to then remove it would make you feel at loss. Now what am I trying to get across by saying all of this? I am trying to explain that if a human being cannot change themselves within, then why can’t they understand that it will be a really difficult task to change others!
What is more possible is something which is in your hands. When I am studying medicine, I cannot change the examiner, I cannot change the way the questions are given to me, but what I can change is the way I study and instead of complaining about the system, which I am not able to change, I should change myself in order to move forward in an unfair system! That is basically what life is. Isn’t life full of unfair circumstances? Isn’t it full of injustices and evil people? But can we change the system or the people? On an individual basis we are helpless when it comes to that. But can we change ourselves and the way we live in that system? Yes of course we can.
How many times have we made mistakes and always wished that people understand it was just a mistake? Yes if you continue making the same mistakes, then after time it is no more a mistake. But when we expect others to understand we are weak sometimes so pardon our mistake, then why can’t we do the same when somebody does something wrong to you and then asks for forgiveness? If a person even hurts you really bad, but has the decency to regret his mistakes and move forward to forget the past, then isn’t he just showing the basic quality every human has? That humans are not perfect, but that they learn from their mistakes. Life is just always about moving forward and not living in the past. Again I come to an example linked to studies, because I can relate to it. In class before the annual exams, we will have tests to know what our level is and then the teacher will guide us accordingly. If you do really badly in the tests, the teacher can figure out your weaknesses and motivate the student to improve in a certain section or study more. During the year the student slowly learns more and more, till he is able to pass his annual exam. Nobody would expect a student at the beginning on the year to know everything and not make mistakes. It is even better to give wrong answers rather than stay quiet (haven’t we heard this always from teachers)…
So everything in life is based on this principle. Even in Islam we are told that Allah has made the human beings imperfect, but he wants them to seek forgiveness whenever they make mistakes. Even if an action was carried out with pure evil intentions, still there is a path towards repentance, that is how beautiful the religion is and Allah understands the weaknesses of his creation. So if that evil person realised that his actions were totally wrong, why should we deny him from getting on the path towards recovery and goodness? Why should we condemn somebody for life when they do something evil? Allah doesn’t, so who are we to…We should encourage such people who come out from the darkness and into the light, rather than shun them. We will only realise the beauty of this kind of repentance and forgiveness once we do something wrong ourselves and everybody around you is condemning you, even when your heart is inclined towards good and even when you are full of regret! So let us not be those who have no mercy and be those who help people to change themselves. We can only facilitate this change and not impose it. Because a person who believes something from the heart has more weight and purpose compared to somebody who just does something for others in order to be accepted!
It is easy at times of distress and hurt to not forgive someone. But it is when you forgive someone, that your distress will fade away. This is one of the best examples of changing yourself, from being angry and thinking to avenge what has happened, into someone who is patient and forgiving. What does this new attitude do for a person, one might ask. Like somebody has done bad to you and you forgive them. To many (including myself) it seems a bit unfair that you are doing good to somebody who is doing bad to you. But that is what is real good. It is easy to do good with someone who does good with you. But it is hard to do good to somebody who did bad to you, isn’t it? So doing good for the sake of Allah has more reward and more meaning, because it shows you are the better person. It will help solve many problems that would have existed if you continued a path towards avenging what has happened. Forgiveness ends the problem, might change that person and stops the past from coming back to haunt you. It a way of moving forwards!
Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself. [Rumi]
This was such a dangerous bridge to cross and it took forever to cross. It was a terrifying experience
Just some clips showing parts of Lakki Marwat and in the end some kids enjoying some app on the phone, ‘the talking parrot’
HK Productions 