Beautiful mashallah

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Our Prophet Muhammad said:

When one of you becomes angry while standing, he should sit down. If the anger leaves him, well and good; otherwise he should lie down. [Abu Daud; Book 41, No. 4764]

Not that we need any more evidence after our beloved Prophet Muhammad has spoken on a subject to believe something to be true,  however it is always nice to see that 1400 years after his words were spoken western science is catching up.

Researchers in at the Texas A & M University discovered that if you are angry then the best thing to do is to lie down.

Taken from The Telegraph

…the students chosen for the study heard a voice recording of someone disparaging the intelligence, likeability and logical skills of the essays.

Volunteers who heard these insults while on their backs felt as angry as volunteers who were upright. However, measurements showed that in upright volunteers, a reaction in the brain that has been linked to anger and the likelihood of retaliating.

Those who received their insults while lying down, however, did not experience the same angry brain reaction.

The scientists now think that lying down could affect how the brain handles other emotions, such as desire and happiness.

Peter Bandettini, a brain imager at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland, said: “It never occurred to me that body position might influence behavioural or neuronal activity in the context of aggression – but it makes sense.

“I do think that this is somewhat specialised to things like aggression or anger.”

The Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad is human perfection!

May Allah confer blessings upon Muhammad and upon the family of Muhammad and bless and bestow peace upon Muhammad and upon the family of Muhammad. And shower Your mercy upon Muhammad and the family of Muhammad in the manner You conferred blessings, blessed and showered mercy upon Ibrahim and upon the family of Ibrahim in all the worlds. Verily, You are the Praiseworthy, the Majestic.

The fast of the 15th Sha’ban, on the day immediately following the Night of Bara’ah, the 15th of Sha’ban, (tonight) it is mustahabb (advisable) to keep fast.

Tonight is a big night too inshallah, Abu Huraira (ra) reported the Prophet Muhammad as saying: Gabriel (as) came to me on the night of mid-Sha’ban and said to me: “O Muhammad, raise your head heavenwards!” I asked him: “What night is this?” and he replied: ” This is the night when Allah opens three hundred of the gates of mercy, forgiving all who do not make anything His partner . The only exceptions are those who practice sorcery or divination, are addicted to wine, or persist in usury and illicit sex; these He does not forgive until they repent.”

At a quarter of the night, Gabriel (as) came down and said: “0 Muhammad, raise your head!” So I looked up, to behold the gates of Paradise wide open. At the first gate an angel was calling: “Good news for those who bow in worship this night!” At the second gate an angel was calling: “Good news for those who prostrate themselves in worship this night!” At the third gate an angel was calling: “Good news for those who offer supplication this night!” At the fourth gate an angel was calling: “Good news for those who make remembrance this night!” At the fifth gate an angel was calling: “Good news for those who weep this night from fear of Allah !” At the sixth gate an angel was calling: “Good news for those who submit this night!” At the seventh gate an angel was calling: “Will anyone ask, that his request may be granted?” At the eighth gate an angel was calling: “Will anyone seek forgiveness, that he may be forgiven?”

I said: ” O Gabriel, how long will these gates remain open?” He replied: “From the beginning of the night until the break of dawn.” Then he said: “0 Muhammad, tonight Allah has as many slaves emancipated from the Fire as the number of woolly hairs on the flocks and herds of Kalb.”

May Allah allow us to gain the full reward for the night and day of the 15th Shabaan, amin

I have just recalled an interesting experience from my Umrah trip that has to do with perceptions.  Among the many things I took with me, I packed my immam/turban (how do you spell that?) I have many imamas, white ones, black ones, even a green one and emamas of different styles and I found that wearing them brought about different reactions from the Muslims.

This is picture of me in Madina in 2007 and I am sporting a white imama.  This type of imama is my favourite type and I wear it most of the time when I am out and about.

When I wore this in Mecca and Madina I had many people approach me.  This is something I am used to; a white English bloke wearing jubba and imama is quite interesting to some people,  but this time they were not asking me for my conversion story.

More than one person would look at me and say “Tablighi?” I struggled to reply to that more often than not.  I would occasionally say no, but yes…then qualify that with, lots of hand signals and for the ones who spoke English I would say; “well, I have been in Jammat (a few years ago) but don’t now really, although I totally respect and love what the brothers do.  So, no I’m not really a Tablighi but yes, I do look like them don’t I ?”

I have never liked being labelled as this or that, but people love to, it is human nature after all.  But what I have found whilst travelling the Muslim world is that whatever you wear means something.  I have worn the same white imama in Egypt and had people thinking I was a scholar, lol.

I remember Shaykh Muhammad al Yaqoubi saying something similar in a dars in Birmingham a couple of years ago.  He said that an Imama in Syria means scholarship, one type means Mufti another type means Tasawwuf.

I wore the Malaysian style imama on two occasions in Mecca and I had one brother warning me about and staying away from bidah whilst looking at my imama.  He persisted for 20 mins after Fajr…!

Wearing the same Imama I had an aunti from Turkey asking me if I knew Shaykh Nazim and requesting that I pass on her salams to him.  No longer than one hour later I had three Turkish brothers speaking to me about this sufi shaykh from Turkey and giving me the thumbs up.  To this day I am not sure if they thought that i was him or if they thought I was part of his tariqa.

I wore the black Imama on another occasion and walked passed this Afghani brother who was seated, he looked up at me with a very strange expression, he stood up and grabbed my hand and started shaking it.

All of these incidents were quite strange.  I wear the imama to follow the sunnah and not to be identified with any particular group but I have come to learn that by doing so, people will assume all kinds of things about me.