Almost everyday i search through my memories of school/6th form (or college if you prefer) and i wish that i was back there! It's kind of annoying actually not being able to live in the present and instead living in the past. Sometimes i find myself trying to relive those times through my younger cousins - seriously! Gosh i must be so annoying to them, i never stop telling them that school is the best time of a persons life and how they should make the most of it and be who they want to be and just really live it (obviously ignoring the fact - or fatal flaw? that i've just started my twenties and don't really have much 'experience' of life!)

I was reading today that ""The Coordination Committee of Major Mosques and Islamic Centres" have announced..." and having never heard of this huge organisation before, I decided to google it and it linked me to East London Mosque.

Now that suddenly seems to be less spectacular. (if I am wrong and this is actually a big organsition or something, please correct me.)

I wonder if this is in the long tradition of spectacularly exaggerated names that many people use?

There is the "European Islamic Centre" that UKIM are opening in Oldham, and many asian business can't help but adding worldwide, continental or international to their names.

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the better the worse the pure the tainted,
the birth the death the torture it came with,
Inferior superior the thoughts of a racist,
Is it civilised in the city where you walk on the pavement,
Lost a couple fam & they couldn't control me,
Picked up my pen my own thoughts consoled me,
Written on the pages in the ink is my life,
I don't do this for fun it's time we realised,
A voice, a sound, a beat dya hear it?
A truth, A reality, is that what were fearing?
Open your eyes, & your mind it is time,
If we wasn't blinded would we'see the sign.
Look at humanity, do we see reality?
why does it all come back to the fear of calamity,
Look up, look out, see the clouds in the sky,
Concrete cage is my home, wheres the peace in my mind,

Me, i'm here, and i'm now and im writing,

Issue 16 will be out soon inshallah.

This issue will feature:

• Editorial: Muslims Have Got Talent!
• Q&A on Fasting in Ramadan
• Gaza – The Unfinished Story
• The Arrivals – (The sooner they depart the better)
• Defending The Deen
• Back To Basics: Salah
• Exclusive Interview with Shaykh Ibrahim Ossi-Effa
• Walking in Muslim Shoes For a Day
• Revival Feast
• Guardian Angel: Chapter 4
• Celebrating Eid... The Halal Way

To order a copy or to distribute the magazine, please contact The Revival.

Recently I have been taking an interest in the country that is Turkey. It is quite a fascinating place for a number of reasons, not least because less than a century ago, it was the leader of the Muslim world in the form of the Ottoman empire.

I have many unanswered questions on it - some that I can put into words, such as "why did the Arabs rebel and join the British against" but there are many many more that are less easy to ask (let alone answer). Just a warning - the rest of this blog post is a "brainfart" of ideas and thoughts hopefully structured in a semi-cogent manner, however it may not make any sense at all or may be entirely wrong. Feel free to correct me.

Six truths of life:

1. You cannot touch all your top teeth with your tongue.

2. All idiots. after reading the first truth, will try it.

3.and discover the first truth is a lie and feel superior because they can do it.

4. you're smiling now because you're an idiot.

5. you soon will forward this to another idiot

6. there's still a stupid smile on your face.

Today, Thurday 5th August 2010, i went to a cupping course.

There are two ways people can fall short when it comes to remedies.
1) they put their trust in Allah alone and do not try any remedies.
2)they put thier trust in the remedy alone. (this can lead to Shirk)

i've learnt a lot on this course. and i have still a lot to learn.

there are three type of cupping: Dry cupping, Massage cupping and wet cupping.

dry and massage cupping are not from the sunnah, but fall under the hide category of "for every disease there is a remedy"

fire cupping is not used anymore as it is too hazardous and also it is harder to control the tension. therefore we nowadays used the pumps.

The front cover for Time Magazine for Volums 176 No 6 to be launched on 9 August 2010

It is a portrait of Aisha, a shy 18-year-old Afghan woman who was sentenced by a Taliban commander to have her nose and ears cut off for fleeing her abusive in-laws. Aisha posed for the picture and says she wants the world to see the effect a Taliban resurgence would have on the women of Afghanistan.

(See managing editor Richard Stengel's message to readers about the cover.)

One day, there was a blind man sitting on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet and a sign that read:

"I am blind, please help".

A creative publicist was walking by him and stopped to observe. He saw that the blind man had only a few coins in his hat. He dropped in a few more coins and, without asking for permission, took the sign, turned it around and wrote another announcement. He placed the sign by the blind man's feet and left.

That afternoon the creative publicist returned to where the blind man sat and noticed that his hat was full of bills and coins. The blind man recognized his footsteps and asked if it was he who had re-written his sign and he wanted to know what he had written on it.