Ramdaan Mubarak

Salaams,

Ramdaan Mubarak to all Muslims fasting. May you have a blessed month filled with peace, love, serenity and contentment. Remeber those who were before us, those who are with us and those still to come in your duas.

May you have a spiritually uplifting month!

Love,
S

My favorite pic

StreSssEd Out?

Quotes

Life...

Eylo there,

Its been a while and sooo many of you`s have asked me about my next posting. In all honesty i got bored of the virtual realm; and things have been busy. Anyways, i was thining about life in general, how things change, the uncertainty, the routine, the way some live and some merely exist and i thought that it would be interesting to ask two questions:

• What defines life? and
• If you were told that the battles of the end of this existance were here, what would be your reaction?

Personally, i think faith, family, friends, experiences (good and bad) attribute to defining life, but i just think we define life in terms of the people we learn we are. if that makes any sense :/

As for the final battles, well, perhaps it would be too late to ask for forgiveness from my Creator, but thats what i would do, and the rest, well theres naught else to do save embrace death...

Baby Yahyah

So this is a picture of my nephew Yahyah. It was taken on the 15th April... the day after he was born. Congrats to my sister...hope he`s naughty too...

:)

You Have Low Self Esteem 8% of the Time

Which can be translated to mean, you have high self-esteem and a healthy sense of self worth. You believe in yourself, and you know how to be the real you. You love yourself, imperfections and all.

How is Your Self Esteem?

Conversations I

And what is it to love they will ask
And I will respond saying it is to live,
To feel, to fly –
To truly be alive –
I will tell them that it is
The sun in the skies
The fruit in the trees
The diamonds in mines
The sand under my feet
The oceans kiss
The slight breeze in my hair
The butterflies flying
The smiles of children
The compassion of the aged
The energy of youth
The freedom of doves
The feeling of spinning uncontrollably
The release of all pain
The breaking of a shell
The joys of life…
I will say that this is what it is to love.

hearts and brains

I was thinking about this and had a conversation with a good friend about it yesterday, hearts and brains. Without a brain, you’re dead, and without a heart you’re dead.

But

Isn’t it funny how with emotions the heart ignores what the brain says?
(or sometimes…its the other way around)

Yet without either one of them, you cease to exist.

To the South Africans...

The history behind our national anthem is quite interesting, but in brief, during the years of apartheid, Nkosi sikelel' iAfrika was used as a prayer song in the meetings of the anti-apartheid groups, it is not a purely South African song and is known throughout various parts of Africa. I found the translation of the non-english lyrics which might interest some people. The Anthem is a hybrid of various different songs. I found a nice description of the Anthem on answers.com:

Nkosi Sekelel' iAfrika was composed in 1897 by Enoch Sontonga, a Methodist school teacher. It was originally sung as a church hymn but later became an act of political defiance against the apartheid Government. Die Stem van Suid-Afrika/The Call of South Africa was written by C.J. Langenhoven in 1918. "Die Stem" was the co-national anthem[citation needed] with God Save the King/Queen from 1936 to 1957, when it became the sole national anthem through 1995. The South African Government under Nelson Mandela adopted both songs as national anthems from 1995 until they were merged in 1997 to form the current anthem.


Nkosi sikelel' iAfrika
Maluphakanyisw' uphondo lwayo,
Yizwa imithandazo yethu,
Nkosi sikelela, thina lusapho lwayo.
God bless Africa
May her glory be lifted high
Hear our petitions
God bless us, Your children

Morena boloka setjhaba sa heso,
O fedise dintwa le matshwenyeho,
O se boloke, O se boloke setjhaba sa heso,
Setjhaba sa South Afrika - South Afrika.
God we ask You to protect our nation
Intervene and end all conflicts
Protect us, protect our nation
Protect South Africa, South Africa

Uit die blou van onse hemel,
Uit die diepte van ons see,
Oor ons ewige gebergtes,
Waar die kranse antwoord gee,
Ringing out from our blue heavens,
From our deep seas breaking round,
Over everlasting mountains,
Where the echoing crags resound,

Sounds the call to come together,
And united we shall stand,
Let us live and strive for freedom,
In South Africa our land.

Being a proudly South African person, i just thought it would be nice to share some of this information that i found interesting :)

S

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My Love, My Life

So this is a pic of Raeesa and Faeeza when they were babies, even my mom used to get confused so they decided to use different colour face cloths :)

Baby Sue...

I was told that i was a real handful when i was a kid. So this is my baby pic :)

Comedy

This is so cute! my sister sent it to me, though i`m sure you`s must have gotten it in the emails...couldn`t resist this though...

Her Name is Death

She silently walks in your shadows
Through the light and the darkness,
Draped in her darkened cloak,
She grips tightly on to your hand,
She is mesmerised, and promised.
Yet, she slips your mind
And only once you think about her
And what is to come with her
You begin to fear her,
For you have not lived rightly and
Your sentence thereof awaits you.
Her birth of you brings forth eternal life,
She travels with you
Draped in her darkened cloak
Through your sorrows and your joys,
Embedded in your heart lies a knowingness
Of her mere existence,
She is magnificence, she is, death.

From an Obscure View

The winds blow outside, almost calling out to the emptiness of the world. A longing to grasp the truth beneath the worlds, and then suddenly it all ceases and night befalls the world - An enveloped darkness in to which we must surrender. Surrender our lives, our souls, our being. The world lies at the brink of War, a war which would maim many a woman and child. It would scar the world with everlasting devastation and would denote the coming of the end.

Having conquered many precincts, I find myself in the midst of an emotional perplexity. My dreams seemingly distorted are now within my grasp. Soon I will complete my degree. That in itself would be a concluding chapter of life. No longer will I be trussed to the routine protected verve of knowingness. I will be impelled into a greater world, a world vast and full of uncertainty, a world of choice.

Many a person has stumbled and has fallen in this great course of life. The young are hopeless and ostensibly lost. People yearn to devour that which is forbidden. This road we travel on is long and hard. We strive to understand the meaning. We long for the truth. And yet, yet we fail to live. To live in the demeanour in which was prescribed for us by the Greater Being. We have fallen prey to this secular life. We fear subjugation and we long for wealth and pre-eminence. We are pride-filled and thus too proud.

The world as it seems is a product of a distorted nation. That in which man finds beauty, if looked at intently has ugliness, to some extent. That in which man finds pleasure in, is wronged. That in which sweetness is found is actually bitter. We gain pleasure from other people’s angst. We indulge in that which is forbidden and omit that which has been made compulsory on us.

We yearn to live a peaceful life, yet we tear down nations violently. We wrong ourselves. We live life criticising others, yet we are hypocrisy filled. We long for worldly wealth, yet deep beneath we know that worldly wealth will not direct our sails to the end. For wealth has no true happiness. The beauty of pure happiness cannot be obtained by synthetic elements of life. Happiness will be experienced only once Prayer and the Greater Being is a part of life. It is to him that we owe our love and trust to, for without him, we would not be. He is the epitome of all life.

Today I feel acerbic towards the world. I cannot comprehend the injustices of the world. I look around me and people are dying. Children younger than me suffer, either from hunger, abuse, disease, famine or HIV Aids. Or they fall victims to war. They are being deprived of life. I mourn the injustices of this place people like to consider a ‘heaven on earth’. Life is a cruel element. The ones we love are stolen from us, those that our futures depend on are being killed, those that we look up to age and those that we long for are but a forgotten memory.

With this passage of time, we have become products of our society. We live inconsiderably; we just move on and forget that which is significant. That which humanity has deemed necessary has become a burden on society. We yearn for interdependence, yet only for that part which will benefit our lives. We have become an uncaring nation. It is said ‘united we stand, divided we fall’ though we continue to neglect the fundamental aspects of life. We leave the hungry and homeless to fend for themselves. Those who are diseased are dying, while an entire nation of diseased people are being born. We shun these beings and deem them outcasts of not just society but life. They have become burdened upon us.

I live in a beautiful country, South Africa, which has overcome many human injustices during the course of and especially during the last decade. In my lifetime, I have learnt to appreciate the situation of my birth land. I have matured in my manner of thinking towards my South Africa during this expedition of realisation. I have learnt that many South African people were oppressed and that they died with dignity as they died for their ideals and beliefs. I have learnt that Apartheid drove many potential South Africans away from our beautiful country. I have learnt that although South Africa currently experiences many problems such as crime, health and Aids, the newer generation have a great deal to appreciate as we are living in a democratic and free South Africa. I have learnt that although I live in a society where racial prejudice has not yet been totally eradicated I must still continue to believe and have faith and hope that someday, people will live together in serenity in this land of ours. I have learnt that South Africa boasts a liberal constitution which perfectly encapsulates everything required for a great nation such as South Africa. Moreover, finally I’ve come to the realisation that we live in a diverse society where opinions differ; we have got to learn to look beyond race and to live side by side in peace. I have learnt that ‘united we stand, divided we fall’.

I want to be a patriot, not to just my country or my religion; I want to be a patriot to life. I seek neither fame nor wealth. I seek peace and prosperity. I yearn to live in a nation where man, flora and fauna live alongside each other; where love conquers all and lives on for eternities. Where rights are respected and injustices cease to exist. I am not afraid of death; I’d choose to die changing the world than die a product of my society. People long for wealth and synthetic prestige and I, I yearn for a home for the homeless, food for the hungry, well-being for the ill and a long life to old and young alike. I yearn for God’s mercy. Beneath the bitterness of the world, dwells peace, love and radiant sun-shines and beautiful smiles to last lifetimes to come. If only we can change society in time, if only…

Telescope Eyes

Through telescope eyes we scan
The word, the people, this life
Too quickly judging we lose ourselves
In a nothingness believed to be normality
A normality which deems outcasts
If not fitting into its nothingness
If you have thought of your own
No, you belong to the congregation of outcasts.
What life we live if telescope eyes be our light?
Is it not then a sin to judge a creation of the Creator?
Our battle then defeats us…
How this world defies us!
What treachery!
What a loss.

In the Stillness of the Night

In the stillness of the night
Slowly life evaporates from my veins
As the heart bleeds
The tears warm streaming down
The sighs of despair to compliment
Memories like a damaged record play
Days gone by of past happiness
Days of laughter and sunshine
Of childhood joys and lessons taught
Lessons learnt, lessons of pain
Of bruised knees and stitches
Lessons of respect and compassion
Days of advice and wisdom
Oh! How I remember your voice
Our last conversation strikingly clear
Your picture on my mantle
Reminds me of our short years
In the silence of the night
My heart bleeds
Tears of warm rivers flow
I know it was your time to go,
But Daddy, I miss you so.

The Man

so i found something i wrote when i was 16ish…decided to post it…

There once lived a man who begot four sons and a daughter. He was a man of great strength and courage and in his land; he was honoured for his brevity. He soon became a leader and was respected by his people, as he was just and fair.

During the spring of his life, he was taught about the greatness of life and the All Mighty. He was exposed to the concepts of the world, he was taught right from wrong. He learnt to make decisions and thereafter live by them. He learnt of kindness, love and beauty. He learnt appreciation of the God given things. He grew to become intellectually puissant and thereby learning about worldly and godly matters. He learnt from his mistakes and carried with him, in his heart, the lessons. As the years progressed, he grew up to become a young man unlike any other. When the youth would engage in childish acts, he would read and learn. He possessed fervour for life, for learning about and understanding life. He blossomed from a young bud into a youthful man.

It was not long after his twenty third birthday, while drawing inspiration from the rising sun, that he was mesmerised by the sight of a woman walking barefoot along the shoreline, her hair loose and dancing with the breeze. Her movements were gentle and subtle and complimented the peacefulness of that perfect moment. Such natural beauty, had he never seen before. This, he knew, would be the greatest source of his inspiration. On that day, he moved with a new found grace, he had been enveloped by a deep content and a sense of reassurance. He had adopted a new vision of life, love and the world. He no longer treaded upon the earth; he now glided with passion, with belonging, with purpose.

After that first sighting of the woman, he had many a time imagined a conversation with her. His opportunity arose a few months after later. It was a late summer Sunday afternoon, when he had decided to paint the garden of little church that overlooked the point which married the ocean and the mountain. As he laid out his tools for painting, swinging on the wooden swing in the corner of the garden was the woman he longed to see again. He just sat there for a few minutes, just watching her. She wore a long white dress, a sun hat and draped along her shoulders was a pink shawl.

The lady sensing a presence, turned around to see the stranger watching her intently, she smiled. The stranger smiled back, and began to approach her. He greeted her and told her that he was Miguel, a painter from Spain. She told him that her name was Maria, the daughter of a well-known merchant named Paulo De Silva. They began talking about many different things. Miguel was intrigued by the intricate beauty of Maria. While she spoke, he realised that she was fair and had a dimple on either side of her cheek, her face was lightly sprinkled with freckles, and her hair was a sun-kissed brown.

The memory of their fist meeting will always remain precious, and even today, two and twenty years later, he is reminded of the morning of the sun rise. Miguel married Maria three months after their meeting. Although they did not possess much worldly wealth, they lived a wholesome life. During the course of time, they were blessed with four beautiful and healthy children. Today, Miguel felt a sense of sadness. His butterfly was about to take flight. Today, his daughter of nineteen years, Sarah, would get married. As he paces nervously in a small room of the church, he realises that life doesn’t get much sweeter than this. There are certain moments in life, which change us forever. This lesson of letting go Miguel and Maria must now learn. That afternoon after the wedding, Miguel and Maria decided to walk along the shoreline.

As the sun slowly fell across the horizon, Miguel held Maria close to him as they walked. He felt her sorrow, and shared in her pain, he understood her sweet-sadness and loved her soul.

I Am

Mother!
Bear the fruit of this land
Leader!
Lead us unto righteous paths
Fighter!
Fight for our equality
Teacher!
Nurture our souls so that we may prosper
Friend!
Entwine my hands in this circle of life
Lover!
Fuel the passions which within us rage
Light!
Guide is through the darkness
Protector!
Protect our bodies, minds – our souls
Companion!
Fill the voids which complete our lives
I am
Mother, Leader, Fighter, Teacher, Friend
Lover, Light, Protector, Companion!
I am Everything –
And I am nothing.

Rose

So simple yet so intricate,
So strong yet so delicate,
Her gentleness soft and tame
Her stemmed body paroxysmal with love
She held me at my birth,
Gave me tender touch,
Fed my soul with enthusiasm,
Bled her worry for my well being,
Caressed my face when I in my depression,
Expressed her delight in my achievement,
Shared with me in my excitement,
Enhanced my imagination and willed me
To dream, to achieve, to believe and to live,
A petal beauty advised and guided me
Through life, love, pain and sorrow
Her optimism gave hope for a better ’morrow
She will always be my source of life, my white Rose.

Advice

Love,
As much as the endless
Skies
As deep as the depths of a
Soul
As vast as the raging
Seas
As passionate as two
Dancers
As kind as an old
Man
As gentle as a
Lady
As sweet as the sound of
Chimes
As firm as the pillars of the
Temple
As simple as a fragrant
Rose
As true as the word of
God.

On Death

It’s a topic we don’t really give much thought to until something happens to someone we know. I used to think about what it would be like to lose a person I loved, and when it happened, nothing could have prepared me for the shock. When we read or watch the news, we hear of people in wars being killed, at first the outcry is resounding but with the progression of time we become impervious towards the bloodshed that comes with war, we forget the innocent children, the women, the aged, the disabled, and we forget the loss of lives. We’re hardly touched by death unless it happens to someone we know.

In the holy Quraan, Allah warns us about death times over. He says: “the death from which you flee will surely meet you, then you will be sent back to (Allah) the All-Knower of the unseen and the seen, and he will tell you the things that you did” (Surah al-Jumua, 62:8). Surely we’re meant to heed these warnings and adapt our characters. Being brought up a Muslim, we were always taught that an intelligent person is one to keeps death a constant in his thoughts. We all know that we will die, but we cannot predict when. We may live to see 80, or we may be gone in the next moment, such is the inconsistency of life. Another verse from the Holy Quraan expresses the importance of keeping death in mind, Allah says: “We have granted not any human being Immortality before you, then if you die would they live forever? Every soul shall have a taste of death: and We test you by evil and by good by way of trial. To Us you will be returned” (Suratal-Anbiya, 21: 34-35).

The purpose of this entry was not to lecture anyone about death, death is inevitable, and we all know that. Sooner or later we will die. It’s a reality we must learn to embrace. Life is merely the dash which exists between our date of birth and the day we die. Our death has been predestined from the moment we’re born.

Coping with the death of a loved one is never easy, and sometimes accepting is easier for some than for others. My dad was murdered in a robbery in our shop, although the details are not important many people ask about them, so I’ll share a few of the details. On September 9th 2006, my mom was being help up in our electrical shop, the robbers had taken the money, my dad who was at home (our home is on the property behind our shop) was called by the shop staff as the robbers had guns to my mom, as my dad entered the shop he was shot four times and passed away almost immediately. Allah All mighty knows best.

But as I said, the details to a person’s death are never important, once we realize that death is predestined and that to our Creator is our return, acceptance becomes much easier. When we learn to place our faith and trust in the Hands of our Creator, much solace is found. These are merely our trials of patience, and Allah has warned us about the trials of life in the verses of the Holy Quraan which say: “Be sure we shall test you with fear and hunger, some loss in goods or lives or the fruits (of your toil), but give glad tidings to those who patiently persevere, who say, when afflicted with calamity: ‘To Allah We belong, to Him is our return” (Surah Al-Baqara, 2:155 – 156).

The best possible way to find solace is to be in constant prayer, as it is in difficult times that we are drawn closer to our Creator. Often a Muslim brother or sister will tell a grieving person to “Make Sabr” (have patience), but after a while one gets tired of hearing this, as it offers little comfort, but had the people who said it explained the significance, the grieving person would surely be comforted. It’s ok not to be strong, after all, you’ve lost a part of you; and cry, cry a lot, cry as much as you want to as often as you need to, crying relieves the pain, it’s the souls way of expressing it’s grief, remember there would be no flowers unless there was some rain. Death after all isn’t something that should be feared, it’s something that should be embraced.

spotlessmind-tainted - Debunking this title

I’ve always wondered if its possible to have a spotless mind, or to know what it would feel like to simply, just not think. It’s strangely odd how in a moment things change, sometimes forever.

So i thought I’d start off with a little introduction about me, I’m the middle of five (Yes FIVE!!!) sisters. I have two elder and younger twin siblings, each of whom are unique in their own way. My second sister is married…and is due to give birth sometime in April. My mom should really be praised for all the effort she makes for us. My dad was murdered last year, actually, on Spetember 9th 2006, to be precise. These are the people who are most important to me, my beloved family. I am who I am because of the people whom i truly love, respect and hold in high esteem.

I’m from a small village in the heart of the drakensberg mountains of Kwa-Zulu Natal South Africa, called bervgille. I’m currently a student, but we’re probably all students, students of life, of lessons.

So here’s to my thoughts…