YouTube!

I uploaded my first vid to YouTube today =)
I only just remembered you could do that totally irrelevant, but these are the cows we found on our practice Duke of Ed expedition!

Belles of the prom ball, aged 7

Stretch limos, tuxes, ballgowns… it’s prom season!
Only this time it’s for year 2s.

“People probably think its harmless fun, but its giving them a very strong message that the only fun they can have is by being an adult.

“It seems an extra pressure for children, and extra pressure for the parents as well.”

Link from BBC News

Let kids enjoy themselves as children… why the sudden rush to introduce them to image consciousness and materialism?

Flash Floods

Salams all

I’ve really not been taking the UK flooding thing seriously :S today was madness… The whole of Berkshire including my school/ friends are ehm saturated… and the rain spread to Ealing and Harrow too so I’m pretty much surronded by floodwater but alhamdulillah somehow not in it apparantly theres too much greenery and fields in my area and that’s all helped to absorb the water =) Dad says there’s a stream flowing under our house too that’s helping with drainage but I’m not so sure that I’ll take him up on that.

Anyhoo quick message- remember that no matter how much planning you do, a flood could come and wash it away. I’ve always been one to state the obvious- but still use it as a lesson of sorts

And also be careful- wear your seatbelt!!!! For those who have never traveled with me, you don’t know how hellbent I am on wearing seatbelts. When your driving in a car you’ve got inertia no matter whether it’s the law where you are to wear a seatbelt or not… when the car stops, you won’t and hitting glass/metal/gravel at 50mph won’t be pleasant, so please please do it because I saw one sorta accident on the way to the mosque *which btw we couldn’t reach because of water!!* and my sources tell me there’s been a fatal accident in Windsor already… take extra care and you’ll be safe inshaAllah =)

Why Islam

Octo-monster

Originally uploaded by Bilal Sahib

Salams/hey

Just to let you know that my blu tac friend here on the right is the reason I’ve been away from the worldwide web. They really are fun to make- fascinating, I know.

Anyhoo I think this is Ali’s best video yet… please take the time to watch it and consider it. It really hits you hard, and serves as a great iman boost . MashaAllah the bro’s got a knack of hitting the nail right on the head!

Ideas?

Salams

I’ve got a bit of free time over the next few weeks and I want to try writing an article of sorts
Any ideas for a topic?

The Hijab of Dena

Salams!

I’m back from exams/ chronic laziness and I found a really amazing video submitted to ManiacMuslim

I hope to be posting again shortly now that I’m on my summer hols =)

The Haram Police

Just a quick post- latest installment from UmmahFilms

Funding UK Imams

There’s been quite a bit on the news about the state funding the training of Imams from the UK to understand/accept/propagate British values in khutbas and such.

The general consensus on the BBC News Have Your Say is that they should definitely not be funded. It’s as if Mr Blair’s suggestion was in fact proposed by the Muslim community and again that we are to blame because we’re not “integrated” and expect everyone to bend over backwards.
*sigh*

Really. No. Serious under-representation going on here. This really wasn’t something we decided to do. The whole situation of muslims lying in the background whilst everyone else decides stuff for us depressing to ironic at times, especially when our opinions are fabricated by those around us leaving us as the target for criticism. Just look at the HYS forum

I remember how we got a substantial amount of turd for our local council taking out Piglets (think Winnie the Pooh)/Christmas from the town hall because they were scared of offending us when they hadn’t had a single complaint or any distressed muslims! I own an Oink! *See below*
-Update- OK I deleted Oink from my Flickr by accident ¬_¬

Anyhoo this post really wouldn’t have been so negative if I hadn’t used 4squared as 4 in my maths exam. This is all because of my maths exam.

In other news a new London 2012 logo has been made!
The nice logo *below*

that was on public transport and the original Olympics publications has been revamped!!

With this.

Some say it looks like a logo designed for young people by old people who don’t understand young people. Others say they’ve vomited better logos.

But it’s *obviously* a cleverly arranged 2-0-1-2! Other *obvious* interpretations are:

* Lisa Simpson
* a broken swastika
* car parks surrounding a small stadium in the middle
* Vicky Pollard in a pink tracksuit getting down with the Elephant Man in a pink tracksuit
* A window I recently kicked a ball through
* A pink Larry Grayson doing the “I’m a little tea pot” dance.

This is my personal fave though

And I’m sure it cost a lot less than the £400,000 for the original.

On Swiss Minarets and Aggressive Islam

I found something really quite sad on my daily trawl of BBC news this morning… Switzerland is now scared of the country’s two minarets, despite it’s capital’s largest mosque being an underground carpark. There isn’t even an adhan coming from these minarets because of a “written undertaking” that shows the mosques’ agreement to never make a call to prayer.

MP Oskar Freysinger says “We don’t want minarets. The minaret is a symbol of a political and aggressive Islam, it’s a symbol of Islamic law. The minute you have minarets in Europe it means Islam will have taken over.”

Talk about over-analysing. Minarets are really just traditional constructions. They’ve been built in Switzerland because they look pretty- a 5 metre tall extrusion will hardly suffice to rally a group of threatening political activists.

Mr F. also says that “if you want to live here, you must accept [our laws]. If you don’t, then go back.“ This is funny because most Swiss muslims were born in Switzerland. I have two cousins who were born there, and I’ve got a friend whose mum is a Swiss revert! Even the BBC agree with me here.

What’s even ‘funnier’ is how the professor of Islamic Studies is backing up the Muslims! But because he thinks “that anger and bitterness among a community can lead to radicalisation, even to militancy.” Some of the MPs in the Swiss govt. are thinking along the same lines, and have spoken out against the campaign to ban minarets because of a fear of extremism.

I’ve stayed in Geneva twice. And not once have I ever ever ever seen a mosque, let alone minarets. Apparantly most Muslims pray in disused warehouses and closed down factories. I really find this whole story sad- the Swiss are very nice people. I’ve never had any problems there, and neither has my uncle who’s lived there for 30+ years. Its kinda sickening to think that the Swiss can think so badly of us, clearly from outside influence. A local Muslim said “We just wanted to do our mosque up a bit, with this small minaret and a tea room. We actually thought it might promote dialogue.” No terrorists like tea rooms and dialogue.

The end of the article really got me thinking

So for now, Switzerland’s Muslims will continue to pray in abandoned buildings, many with the growing feeling that they are tolerated only as long as they remain invisible.

One of my friends once said that all the hate and fear associated with us right now is partly our own fault. By nooo way am I taking responsibility for the atrocities against New York and London, but rather it’s our own fault that for a lot of people 9/11 was their first impression of Islam.

So if Swiss Muslims continue to “remain invisible”, their situation is only going to get worse. The rest of the Swiss people are going to get the totally wrong impression- it’s already happened now because they think that banning 2 minarets = militia. Militia from someone who’s a bit miffed because he can’t have tea and scones in his mosque’s extension any more. They think that something as trivial as minarets means that they’re going to be taken over.

Being in hiding is really not the answer. Swiss Muslims have to come out and show their country who they really are before it’s too late. So … power to the Swiss Muslims!!

Ahem.

7th Fastest Growing Blog!

Salams

I got a massive number of hits today from stumbleupon at first, then a load of random blogs’ admin pages …

So I looked into it and discovered that WordPress has done the following:

SubhanAllah!!