I am finding more and more difficult to understand how people get upset at other people. What I mean is like, how someone could think being transgender, or homosexual is confusing. I understand it fully, and don't think it's stupid at all. But not even those things, I mean just about anything that people find confusing, or that they can't grasp or won't accept. Well, for instance, we were discussing (off the record) in my psychology class about whether homosexuality is a choice or not, and some guy flat out said he thought it was a choice. Now, fore one, I have to say that I have no problem with people who think homosexuality is wrong, I just don't like them to hate the gays. For someone to just blatantly state that gays choose that life, obviously do not know any gay people personally at all. Most homosexuals I know hate being gay, and have gone for help and even hide their true feelings from everyone. I know not all of them are like this, obviously, but a great number are. Also, I don't think you can generalize something like that. I am sure it is a case by case deal, and sure, maybe SOME gays out there choose that life, but I don't honestly think so.
And not just sexual things either. What about the huge schism of understanding between religious groups. This sometimes leads to wars, and hate crimes, and it is absurd. No religion, and I repeat, NO religion preaches hate. Muslims do not hate Christians and Jews. Christians do not hate Atheists. Atheists do not hate people of faith, and Buddhist don't hate anybody. Yet so many hate crimes are committed in the names of these things, and it is mind boggling. I suppose there is really, no TRUE peace on earth.
Oct 12 (10:30am RSCC lobby)
Author: Shahid /
Monster
Author: Shahid /
I am the Monster under your bed,I am the tossing in your mind,
The light in the dark you cannot find.
I am the Monster under your stairs,
I am the one who quickens your prayers,
I am the breathing of a abandoned old house,
The sound you think is just a mouse.
I am the Monster up in the attic,
I am what made your childhood traumatic,
I am the creaking of your floorboard,
The whispering that you ignored.
I am the Monster in your closet,
I am the darkness that you fret,
I am the Monster in the tall grass,I am the Omega, I am the last,
I await your arrival with gritted teeth,
The growling sound from underneath.
I am the Monster under your sheet,
I am the smell, the warmth, the heat,
I am hungry, I've waited so long,
I hope your will to survive is strong.
I am the Monster inside of your head,I am the Monster under your bed,
I am the Monster plaguing your dreams,
I am the Monster, I am your screams.
No Monasticism in Islam
Author: Shahid /"No Monasticism in Islam.."
is a popular statement we quote to delineate that in Islam there is no withdrawal from the world. There is no unnaturalness and synthetic in Islam but only the organic and primordial. True, in the Christian and Buddhist expressions, indeed this may be so, but what this statement does mean is that contemplatives (dhakirun/dhakirat) must not withdraw from the world, but that the world must be withdrawn from them, the intrinsic idea of asceticism and meditative contemplation upon Allah is in no way affected.
Allah the Exalted says:
O my people, indeed this life, the lower world, is a temporary delight, the life to come; it is the abode of perpetual abiding.
Allah the exalted used in this verse a derivative of the verb mataa’ which has the lexical meaning of ‘to carry away, to take away’, while also having the meaning of ‘to make joyful, to give joy’. So there is the combined meaning implied in the usage of this word of a joy given temporarily, one that is to be withdrawn eventually.
The Messenger of Allah (alayhis salam) was asked how one could gain the love of Allah and simultaneously the love of people. He answered:
Be abstinent in the world, and Allah will love you. Abstain from what is in the people’s hands and they will love you. [Ibn Majah]
Allah the Exalted in speaking of the peoples of previous dispensations says:
You shall find the closest to you in love/kindness shown to the believers those who say we are Christians, for among them are priests and monastists, and they are not arrogant. [5:86]
As for the verses which dispraise monastists, scholars such as Suyuti say it is due to their celibacy primarily, not due to their being contemplative nor due to the service orientation their orders dedicate themselves.
If monasticism is defined as ‘withdrawal for God’, then indeed it exists in the Islamic tradition, yet in a form that may be described as ‘monasterial-society’. For the traditional monastic orders are based upon:
Firstly, contemplation of the Divine, for the monk aspires to preserve a solitude wherein the divine is not forgotten but constantly remembered. The Quran enjoins upon the believers constant reflection and contemplation of the Divine by His statement:
Those who remember Allah standing, sitting, and reclining upon their sides; and reflect upon the creation of the heavens and the earth (saying),’Our Lord, You have not created this in vain, exalted are You, guard us from the fire’! [3:191]
When the Messenger of Allah (alayhis salam) was asked about a deed one could do when it seemed that the demands of the Sacred Law were overwhelming, he said:
Let your tongue be constantly moistened by the remembrance of Allah. [Tirmadhi, Ibn Maja]
Secondly, most orders have an embodiment of an ideal by which they base their outward practices: their daily prayers, litanies, vigils, etc. For the believers it is the Messenger of Allah (alayhis salam) . There is no need to cite relevant Quranic verses which substantiate this. The Messenger of Allah (alayhis salam) said:
Allah is pure and only accepts that which is pure, indeed Allah the Exalted has commanded the believers that to which He has commanded the Messengers. [Muslim]
He said: The one who abandons my way, is not from me.
Herein he was speaking specifically of celibacy and extreme excessiveness in the practice of austerities. He described himself as:
What am I and what is the world, indeed the similitude of myself and that of the world is as a rider who takes rest in the shade of a tree then continues his journey leaving it behind. [Tirmadhi, Ahmad: Hasan Sahih]
Here clearly showing his reality of being dis-attached from the world that would imply any permanence in it. For he advised his companions, such as Salman al-Farsi and Abdullah ibn Umar when he said to them:
Be in the world as if you are a foreigner, or a sojourner.
Man was created alone and he dies alone; the Islamic aspiration is to preserve this solitude in its metaphysically irreplaceable aspects. It aims to restore to man his primordial solitude before God, or said differently, it wants to bring man back to his spiritual integrity and to his totality. Islam is in a sense an organized eremitism.
In the temporal dimension that stretches ahead of us there are only three certitudes: that of death, that of judgment, and that of everlasting life or death i.e., the life of the Garden or the ‘death’ that is the separation from the divine grace found in the Fire. We have no power over the past, except in seeking Allah’s forgiveness for errors committed and His divine acceptance of good attained, and we do not know the future. As far as the future is concerned we have but these three certitudes, yet, be we possess a fourth in this very moment, and that fourth is all: it is that of our actuality, of our present liberty to choose Allah and thus to choose our whole destiny. In this instant, this present, we hold our whole life, our whole existence. All is good if this instant is good if we know how to fix our life in this hallowed instant; for the secret of spiritual faithfulness lies in dwelling in this instant, in renewing it and perpetuating it by comprehensive dhikr, in holding on to it be means of spiritual rhythm, in enclosing wholly within it the time that floods over us and threatens to drag us far away from this “divine moment”. It is as the words of Hasan Basri:
O son of Adam, you are but a number of days and when a day is gone part of you is gone.
This condensation of the existential dimensions—insofar as they are indefinite and arbitrary—into a hallowed unity is at the same time the very thing that constitutes the essence of man; the rest is contingency and accident. This a truth that concerns every human being; the believer too is not a being apart, but simply a prototype or a model, or a spiritual specification, a landmark: every man, because he is a man, should realize in one way or another this victory over a world that disperses and over life that enslaves. Too many people think that they have not time to meditate on Allah, to worship Him sincerely, to draw near to Him, but this is an illusion due to indifference (ghafla) which is the worst sickness of the soul. The many moments we fill with our habitual dreams, including our all too often useless reflections, are moments we take away from Allah and ultimately from ourselves.
The great mission before us as believers is to show to the world that contentment does not lie somewhere far away in a treasure to be sought or in a world to be built, but here where we belong to Allah. The believer represents, in the face of a dehumanized world, what our true standards are; the believers mission is to remind men and women what it means to be human.
Together
Author: Shahid /"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
eland, and Islam, are both after Justice and Truth. It is impossible to say, as I have so often heard, that there is no such thing as an American Muslim. There are plenty of American Muslims out there that do great things for this wonderful nation, and some have even given their lives protecting it. Those who reject them are undeserving of the rights this nation bestows them for living here. They tell us to go to some other country, governed by Sharia? How about they go to a country where they are among friends inbigotry and hate.We Americans, whether Muslim or not, need to rise up and squelch injustice and wipe away intolerance and hate, only then can we grow more as the fantastic nation that we need to be.
Through the Muck
Author: Shahid /The job at FC is doing alright, not too hard, it's just the third shift that blows. The few guys that work with me are pretty cool too I suppose, but one of them is your typical guy, all about the girls, football, and cars, and I can barely stand those kinds of guys.
No word so far on anyone wanting to be part of the Interfaith Group I am starting, but perhaps I just need to give it some time.
School is rocky at best. I think I am doing alright in Algebra (though alright for me is passing), Psychology and Biology both look good, but Comp 1 I think I may have problems with. All the work seems to something you should just know you have to do it. The professor doesn't tell us anything, and I have an Explanation Paper due soon and I have idea what to do with it. I guess There is always next semester.
I was thinking of dropping all my classes and just wait until I can either go to Zaytuna (An Islamic Seminary), or overseas to study Islam, because that is what I really feel I should do, honestly. The problem is, I have no clue how I would make a living with that. I want to be able to support my family, make them happy, be able to be financially stable and have the ability to give my children anything they could want (although I will not spoil them). I suppose I should just ask anyone who has gone to a seminary to see what they do. Inshallah, I will know soon what to do.
Free Writing Experiment (Sept 30- Oct 3)
Author: Shahid /The following is a free writing assignment that took place between September 30th and October 3rd. I wrote without regard to what I was writing, grammer, or sentence structure. This is what I wrote:
When I tend to rethink my life in light of all I have done, I somewhat realize the meaning behind how someone like Stalin or Hitler could think they could change the world into their twisted utopia's that the world denied with a fiery passion. When I ponder life's majesty, and how the darkness in my soul sometimes is like a sheet, or as the night, where the sun and stars are nothing but rips and tears, pinpricks in the great scheme of things, revealing a glimpse of what some primitive man in some far off land million of years ago, thought was a all powerful God, I sigh with relief; I'm not the only one.
I love life, I really do, sometimes I fear I love it too much. If you really love something, you must set it free, isn't that what they always tell us? Death seems to be such a taboo, or “Dark” thing to think about, but why? If one is religious, isn't this in extension a good thing? Why do people who dwell on dying mentally ill or insane? I suppose I love death to some extent also, just as a beautiful inevitability. Love is sort of like Death, in a way. I really don't know what I mean by that. Perhaps nothing I say means anything.
I sometimes think that life would be much easier and fulfilling in a monastic way of life that having to deal with the world and it's decadence. Perhaps that is just the easy way out, I certainly think so sometimes. And perhaps if I was some sort of monk, I would begin to hate all the little things that I so love in everyday life. The look of a particular garment on me, or the taste of a scrumptious, yet chemically unsound, candy that I would have to refrain from eating. Do I even have a Will Power? Or am I just scared?
Am I sociopathic? Is it so strange to dream of killing and being killed, or huge orchestral apocalypses? Then why is it some people fear me, or love me but from afar? Why is it I have this strange vortex in my very soul, my mind, my body that tends to resurface from time to time, delving me into deep dark corners of the abysmal sea that is Chaos? I pray and feel God around me, everywhere, like the world is a sheet and I can feel the warmth of the sun bathe me as if I had never seen a Summer day. Quickly though am I wrought into Winter and cold again, never knowing if I truly knew that Summer day or not. I tell others, as if I am the man in the allegory of the cave. No one knows for certain.
Do I lie because I don't want the truth to be known? Do I even know any truth? What is truth? Would I know truth if I found it? I often lie about frivolous things, and most definitely things that really shouldn't need a lie to be told. Do I do it knowingly, or with any conscience? Am I an awful person because of these lies? I'm not hurting anyone, at least, I don't think so. I read once that every sin is theft, and lying is the theft to the right of the truth. Maybe we are all just as guilty.
I've began to want to overhaul everything that I have made for myself, and I really don't quite know what that means. I wish I could say it would be a good thing to do, but I really don't know where it will lead, or what I may do because of this overhaul. I wish to stop cursing, to call people by sir or ma'am, and even to the extent of doing anything I can to help the needy. Now obviously these things are good, and in good taste, but what of a monastic living, especially with me being a Muslim, where monasticism is looked upon as rejecting God's gifts rather than true devotion. I wish I could be a saint. Shahid, the Martyr.
I want to love, to be sincere, so much that sometimes It drives me to rage, and even tears. I want so much to care about the starving children, to want to help the homeless, and to sincerely care that there is suffering in the world. But I don't. I never have, and sometimes I wonder if I ever will. Am I so terrible? Am I so inhuman that these things don't bother me? I wish someone, somewhere could somehow make me love, make me care, make me want for others. I don't even want for myself anymore, I don't want for anything, for anyone. Do I care about anything? I think I do, but then again, all I truly know is what I truly think, and that doesn't really add up to much. I think I know I love Emily. I think I know God. I think I know that if I dropped a ball, it would fall. I think, therefore I am nothing.
I want people to love me, but do they have the same problem that I do? Do they lack the sincerity or the sheer compassion to care about me? Do they want to really try, like me, or could they care less? I want happiness, but at the same time, I don't think anyone deserves happiness. We are scum, we human beings. What have we done to deserve anything from God, from each other, from ourselves? I hate humans, and myself.
How can it be that I hate myself, when I have so much love for others? How can I have so many conflicting thoughts and ideals and beliefs about life and love? How can I be sure about anything when nothing stays the same, and everything is changing constantly? How I envy the simple minded and the ignorant. How I envy those with less wisdom and intelligence to ponder these maddening things and go through life so easy. I love them so much.
I want to be normal sometimes, whatever that means. I feel so inhuman, so unable to relate to people, that I can barely stand living in a world, alone. I feel like no one gets me at all sometimes, or that they understand me, I guess the same way we understand the mind of a savant. I just want to belong, I just want to be part of something that others are part of, Something good, something helpful. I just need an outlet, a meaning, a purpose, but I don't even know where to start with a purpose. Do I spread Islam to everyone I meet? Do I feed the hungry, and heal the sick? Could I possibly lead others into a community service, or even start an organization? Where do I begin? Obviously I should start with myself, but where within myself do I start? I suppose I should try and being sincere... full circle.
I watch way too much television. I eat too much food. I waste too much food. I lie too much. I just want change, I want difference, I want to want to change these things. I want to know how. I feel there is some sort of key to my happiness. Thats what I suppose it all comes down to. I want to be happy.
How do I become happy? Does Emily not make me happy? I think she does, but could I be wrong? Do I even know what happiness is? Doesn't Allah and Islam make me happy? What about Mom and my family, and friends? I guess I really don't know, and a lot of the time I wonder if I should be happy. It isn't like I have done anything to not deserve it. I don't go out and do drugs, or drink myself into comas, or have sex with strangers.
I want Emily to know that I love her, and she makes me happy, and I want to always be by her side, but when I say things like “I'm not happy” or “I feel inhuman”, I feel like she thinks its her fault, or that she can fix it, or should fix it. She can't fix it. I want her to be happy, I want to be what makes her happy, but how do I do that when I can not make myself happy. I must start with myself, and perhaps I will be like a sponge, sucking the sickness and unhappiness from others.
I feel like Max, needing to go to where the wild things are, and somehow learn a lesson. I feel like I need to leave this place, if only for a little while, to understand what I need to do. I pig can never be clean in always left in filth.
I often feel much better after talking to Emily for a time. She helps me forget a lot of things that bother me, but I know I probably say things that bother her. She worries so much, no one should contemplate worriedly like that for so long. I love Emily, I want to hopefully marry her one day and start a home, but how can I quench her worry, or my indifference?
There is a difference between peace and happiness. True, they sort of go hand in hand, but one can have one or the other. I believe I had, at one time, Peace, but I am not so sure about me ever having the sort of happiness I seek. I just want... to be content, nothing special, no ideals of true happiness, or a peace like nirvana, just... happy and peaceful. Too much?
I need to be doing something, something I need to do. And I don't mean “need” to do, like, I need to pass college algebra to get an associates degree. I mean a need like, there is a raging battle coming this way, and I need to know how to fight to survive it. That sort of need. But the battle continues to get closer, and yet, I still have no clue how to wield a sword.
I often wonder If I am a hypochondriac, or that I make my problems worse through “Self Fulfilling Prophecy”. I wonder if I'm sad because I am spoiled, or that I have had things too easy. I don't think I have. I think I have just as many troubles and bad situations and habits as anyone else, some worse, some better. I wish I had a story to tell. Or at the lease, be something people can learn from. Perhaps I just haven't lived long enough.
My Ventures
Author: Shahid /Ive been pretty active lately, in doing things. I just got hired at Food City, working third shift stock, and my first night was last night. It wasn't that bad at all, but then again, It was an easy night from what I was told. I am also trying to get together an "Interfaith Discussion and Community Service Group" together in Crossville, but I haven't gotten any replies. I am also seeking.. Counseling.. and that is all I am going to get into with that.
Also, I have been trying (but not very well) to become a better, more pious Muslim, but I have quite a ways to go, and it seems I have a worse will power than I bill myself for.
I am getting really excited about the "Where The Wild Things Are" film coming up soon, and the companion renvisioning novel "The Wild Things" by Dave Eggers.
Me and Shimmer are doing very fine. It has been about a year and a month since we got back together, and though we have had a few bumps (and some cliff dives), we are very happy and have many happy plans for the future.
I know no one reads this, and even if someone does, it's because I told them to read it. Othewise, this would be an unknown little corner of the web that no one would care about. And I love that.
Shahid
Author: Shahid /My name is Shahid, and I am the author of The Book of Drippy. This blog is nothing more than spontaneous, gapped and frequently unkempt rantings of a soul, just floating along in life, looking for meaning.
The reason I stated the above is because, though this is still The Book of Drippy, I am no longer who I was when I began it, though it shall continue under the same name.
To keep you up to date (whoever you may be), I am currently going to Roane State Community College in Tennessee. I am a proud, believing and practicing Muslim. I think this is sufficient knowledge for now.
The Birth of Seth til Now.
Author: Shahid /I have not written many things in quite a long time, and what I have written is either poems, which are on my myspace, or journal entries, which I have been hand writing.
My handwritten journal, I have handmade from poster board, paint, nails, hemp, and beads. I have dubbed it Seth, and I associate it as somewhat of a entrance into my soul, and what spews onto the pages are things going and coming from my soul.
I will try and write things in both Seth, and The Book of Drippy, from now on. The difference being, The Book of Drippy containing things I don't mind being published, but Seth contains deeply personal things.