a story from the second khutbah

today is friday…  and in just 2 hours, i’ll be attending my 5th khubah here in alexandria insha’Allah.  unfortunately, i only mentioned 2 of the prior khutbahs in a previous blog post, and still haven’t talked about the other two yet.

so the 2nd khutbah i attended in alexandria was also at masjid al hedaya.  the sheikh was visiting the masjid and gave a good khutbah about the tafseer of surat al 7ujurat.

as is the seeming norm for masjid al hedaya, the sheikh gave an additional (optional) talk after the khutbah.  during this, he mentioned a story that i’d like to share.

there was once a sheikh who was invited somewhere - so he went, sat down, had a good time, good chat, etc.  when all was done, the sheikh needed a way to get home (he didn’t have a car, etc).  he was too shy to ask any of the people with him to drop him (especially since those people had their family with them, etc) so he went down to the street and tried to decide how to get home.

he thought, “i could take a taxi, but i don’t have any money…” - not knowing what to do, he raised his hands to Allah and asked, “oh Allah, give me x money” - afterwards, he found some money that he had missed in his pocket or bag.  he said, “great, i can go home now!” - but there was one problem - no one would stop for him (no taxi would stop to drop him home).

he then realized his mistake - so he raised his hands again and said, “oh Allah, i want to go home!” - a short while later, a brother was driving and recognized him - he said, “oh, you’re sheikh so and so!  come let me drop you!” - and he dropped him off, refusing to take any money from him.

moral of the story - instead of just asking Allah for the means, ask Allah for the end that you want to reach!

اللغة العربية في عصرنا الحديث

over a year ago, my ex-roommate and i published a link, entitled “Lughat ul Arabiyya fi asrina” - today, over a year later, i am happy to announce a new set of words and phrases to add to the given list.  most of these, mind you, have come up in the past 5 weeks in which i’ve been in egypt (i don’t take all the credit - this list was devised by my friends and i).  so without further adieu, here is the list:

• khashabat ul ba2 - خشبة ال-ب

• 7ashara - حشرة

• shafra ta7t al nashra - شفرة تحت النشرة

• ye-akkel wara - يؤكل وراء

• 7awd fawq yawmi - حوض فوق يومي

• zawed 3amood fel tarabayza fe qa3edat al ma3loomat - زود عمود فالتربيزة في قاعدة المعلومات

• shabakat al fool - شبكات الفول

• khusoof - خسوف

• nenafa2laha - ننفألهة

• lam7a mofeeda (sample usage: sebna lel garsone lam7a mofeeda) - or 7arf (sebna lel garsone 7arf) - لمحة مفيدة

• thalj ishta (or, if you’re s3eedi, 3yoon ishta) - ثلج إشطة

• anhu raml (extra credit, anhu raml ghabi - requires a l2 parser) - أنه رمل

• nas al qahwa (sample usage: a7yanan, astakhdem 7asharat al nar fee tha3lab al nar le ajid al 7asharat fe nas al qahwa) - نص القهوة

• fawq al 7ijr - فوق الحجر

• fo2 al tareekh - فوق التاريخ

• ana a7shu (or ana kashkool) - أنا أحشو

• hadhib al khayt (sample usage: matensash te samkar el khayt 3ashan lama teegi tehadhib al khayt fel khayt, maye7salsh mashakel lel khayt) - هذب الخيط

• 3aqeedat ul 7ashasheen - عقيدة الحشاشين

• 7alet al hawa (or shart al hawa) - حالة الهواء

• ijtima3 wenta wa2if fo2 - إجتماع و إنت وإف فوق

• mujamma3 al ma2kolat (or muqri2 al ma2kolat) - مجمع المأكولات

• baskaweet - baskaweet

• toot al aswad - توت الأسود

• sena zar2a - سنة زرقة

• yasooq al barq - يسوق البرق

• 3adee al mina - عادي المينة

stay tuned for part 2!

الشيخ الدكتور شهاب الدين محمد أبو زهو

when i came to alexandria, one of my newly made friends suggested that i come with him for jum3ah rather than go to the masjid near my home, and offered to pick me up - may Allah reward him!

my friend picked me up, and together we went to masjid al hedaya, located close to the hedaya medical facility on the path of the tram.  the masjid had two people outside sitting with a huge box of clear plastic bags for people to put their shoes in.  after the prayer, people would return those bags to the people outside for use the following week.  the masjid is a nice masjid with no cell phone reception - apparently because they installed a reception-blocking device in there.

needless to say, the khutbah by Dr. Shehab was a breath of fresh air given the previous khutbah i had attended in cairo.  in the first khutbah i attended for Dr. Shehab, he talked about “علو الهمة” (which i can’t think of a good translation for) - it was masha’Allah a really awesome khutbah.

two weeks later, Dr. Shehab gave a very moving khutbah in which he spoke about our role and duty towards the people of Palestine, especially given the then-recent flotilla incident.

during the khutbah, Dr. Shehab was talking about justice and how we have to help those who are being transgressed against and such.  immediately after the salah, a man stood up and said out loud, “Sheikh, you talked about justice, help me get my right from this man - he  stole my life’s earnings during the many years i was away in Suez…”  an argument erupted, and the sheikh took them both to his office to resolve it, thereby skipping his normal post-khutbah talk.  sub7anAllah.

sadly, Dr. Shehab apologized from his lectures, classes (he teaches in Tanta, in a university that is part of al-Azhar), and khutbas until the beginning of july for medical reasons.  may Allah give him shifa'!

for more info on Dr. Shehab, see his website or facebook page.

names in alexandria are… eccentric.

place names in alexandria are eccentric to say the least.  many places here have names that are not arabic in any way possible.  here are some examples:

• abou quer - you can see this famous and large road on the map in the previous post.  because egyptian slang has the qaf switched with a hamza, it ends up being pronounced as “abou ear” - the only arabic part about that is the “abou” (father of).

• san stefano - an area with one of the largest malls in Alexandria.

• kirosez mall - pronounced kiro-sees.

• assid - pronounced as “acid.”

speaking of abou quer, it was named after a good guy, abou quer, who had an evil brother, abou seer.  abou seer killed abou quer and dragged him from one side of alexandria to the next, and hence they named the road abou quer.  go figure.

i guess i can’t really complain, as egypt as a whole (outside of cairo and alexandria) has even more eccentric names (come on, seriously, who on earth names an egyptian city “zefta,” especially given its connotation in slang egyptian!?)

alexandria

on may 17th, 2010, i left for alexandria.  comparing it to cairo, girls seem to be slightly more conservative (in terms of the way they dress), people seem more religious (at least in terms of “outwards” religiosity - there are more bearded men to be seen on the streets), the weather is much nicer, and it’s a lot less crowded.  after nearly a month of being in alexandria, i definitely can say that i like it better than cairo!

first khutbah this trip: cairo

the first khutbah i attended in egypt this trip was in cairo a few days after i arrived.  i decided not to go to the “zawya” (literally means “angle,” refers to a small masjid underneath an apartment buildings) near where i was staying and instead decided to go to the bigger masjid (near a really big church in the area).

i don’t remember what the khutbah was about - but what i do remember is being surprised at the usage of words like “neela” and “balawi” during the khutbah…

thoughts on cairo

i’ve been in egypt for a little over a month now.  i spent the first week of my time in cairo.  the following are a list of things i noticed during that first week (which should not have been surprising to me, having been to cairo many times in the past, but i guess i forgot).

• in cairo, many times, i would say salam to people and would get no reply.  maybe this was because the area i was in had many christians and staunch christians tend to not like to answer the salam greeting because some of them consider it a religious greeting.

• the attendance of the masjid near where i was staying didn’t have a large attendance for the various prayers.  my friend later suggested that this maybe because there are so many small masajid in the area and everyone goes to the masjid closest to them (and thus you don’t see too many people in the small masajid).

• maybe this is also a result of the area i was in having many christians - but anyway, i walked into the pharmacy to get some medicine for my sister after prayer (and was wearing a thobe).  the lady didn’t answer salam (ok, understandable) and was very arrogant in her treatment.  my sister didn’t like the medicine i got her so she wanted to go change it.  i warned her about the lady being arrogant.  my sister went and in the middle of the discussion with the woman, mentioned to her that “i live in america, and there, doctors don’t recommend antibiotics unless necessary” - my sister mentions that afterwards, the lady’s treatment completely changed towards her, she was very friendly, and even offered her a discount.

• the type of clothes worn by girls in cairo is only slightly less bad than that worn by girls in the us.  the weird thing is that this is against the culture even, not just religion - eastern cultures tend to be more conservative, and as thus, it’s really surprising to see that the western style of dress has become commonplace in major cities in egypt.

i’ll write my thoughts on alexandria in a later post insha’Allah.

عسل وطحينة

i wanted to write about my experiences in egypt, and so i started a new blog (i decided not to write those posts here because they’re not highly technical or programming related (or geeky)). you can find it at masr.whatstheplot.com.

before i left california...

“you never know how much stuff you have until you have to move” - this is a common saying that you’ll hear people say when they are about to move from one place to another and see the hassle of transporting all this stuff.

for me, since i didn’t know how long i would end up staying in egypt, “moving to egypt” meant that i had to virtually empty my apartment in california.  of course at this point i had three options - 1.  take everything with me - being an international flight, a limit of two bags, etc, this was impractical.  2.  put stuff in storage - possible, but do i really need this stuff, and is there anything worth putting in storage?  or 3.  take what you need up to the limit and get rid of the rest.

i decided to go with 3.  and so i went from a huge amount of stuff that would fit into a small uhaul truck down to two checked in bags, a carry on bag, and a laptop bag.  this meant parting with things i loved (video games, consoles, books, car, etc) and taking only the most important things.

this whole concept was a good reminder to me that no matter how much you accumulate, when you die, you take nothing with you except your deeds.

the aftermath of the accident

during the accident mentioned in the previous post, the laptop was in the trunk on the far left side (the place that took the impact from the truck hitting it).  when i returned home, i found that my macbook had become officially paralized (the screen was cracked, so light would come out from the screen, but you couldn’t see anything.  also, the laptop can no longer sit properly and the casing was deformed).  miraculously, al7amdulillah, it did not die.  it still had full cognitive abilities (with much trouble, i was able to finally get ssh and vnc access to the machine to get my data off of it).