Today news arrives that the 31 year old father of two Mr Mashudur Choudhry has been convicted of terrorism related offences for going to fight in Syria.

Syria is currently a mess and going to fight there may be a bad idea especially as allegiances of different groups are murky and chances are people you consider on your own side will be trying to kill you for fighting with another group. Or worse you will be forced to work with groups carrying out attrocities and other crime.

However I do not think that it should be a criminal offence for people to go to Syria, even if to fight and any anti terrorism laws that make this a criminal offence are wrong.

I have been reliably informed that it may get a little warm over the next few months, which means my humble abode will turn into an oven. I need to figure out a cooling solution pronto.

I threw out the old fan this winter, and the quesition is should it be replaced by another fan or by something fancier?

Anyone have any fancy cooling solutions that are cheap, cheerful and effective?

Geek factor is always a bonus.

There is an article in the Guardian today about Park View academy in Birmingham where there are allegations of a "Muslim plot" to take over schools.

To me this story seems to be just another in the line of trying to muddy the waters about Muslims and to tarnish out collective reputations.

The real story? Park View Academy has managed to turn itself from a failing school where single digit figures were passing their GCSE's into a school which has become a beacon of achievement, where others want to emulate this success.

People that visit this site regularly may have noticed that the fonts have recently been updated on here.

The main considerations for using fonts on this site are that they should:

Because, you know, the rest of the world didnt know abducting school girls was wrong.

For those not following along, in Nigeria, a group of morons called Boko Haram, who in the past have campaigned against things like teaching children about the water cycle, considering it shirk, have abducted a few hundred school girls who they are using as slaves and worse.

(their "justification"/excuse for their moronic acts? for the past two years the government has been arresting their wives and daughters for links to them and they have been publicly threatening this as retaliation since unless the government stops.)

May God (swt) bless Liliane and her parents in the afterlife. 
I read this earlier today and I found it incredible. 
I'm sure anyone reading it, will think so too. 

In 1944 the Nazis decided to exterminate the children of the orphanage La Maison d'Izieu. 44 little children were deported to Auschwitz and murdered immediately upon arrival.

Eleven-year-old Liliane Gerenstein was sent to her death a few days after she wrote this letter to God: 

"God? How good You are, how kind and if one had to count the number of goodnesses and kindnesses You have done, one would never finish.

God? It is You who command. It is You who are justice, it is You who reward the good and punish the evil.

Look at this beautiful but sad poem as narrated by Imām al-Asma‘ī:

On the authority of al-Asma‘ī, that he said, “I was once walking in the village when I came across a stone. Someone had written on it:

 

أيا معشر العشاق بالله خبروا **** إذا حل عشق بالفتى كيف يصنع

O lovers! By Allah, tell me!
If a young man is overcome by love, what should he do?

 

So I wrote underneath it:

 

يداوي هواه ثم يكتم سره **** ويخشع في كل الأمور ويخضع

Let him treat his desire, then conceal his secret
And humble himself in every matter and submit (before his Lord)

 

I returned the next day and I found written underneath it:

 

فكيف يداوي والهوى قاتل الفتى **** وفي كل يوم قلبه يتقطع

There was an article in the Guardian today where it was mentioned that the government is looking into ways of providing interest free student loans to those Muslim students who wish to untilise the service.

They wouldn't be any cheaper, but they would get past the issue of forcing people to choose between getting educated and paying interest.

The surprising bit to me was the Muslim students mentioned in there who did not want such an option to exist for others to use.

A few days ago a bug was found in some common infrastructure used throughout the internet which meant that more or less no site was secure to the bug. It is known as the Heartbleed bug. (further simplified details via BBC News)

An attacker aware of the bug could more or less hack anything on the net including government/tax portals and all banks to social networks to email providers to shopping sites. From the BBC News link:

Security expert Brue Schneier described it as "catastrophic". "On the scale of one to 10, this is an 11."

The purpose of this blog is to discuss job roles where selling alcohol is required. As we are living in a Western society, we may assume that we are earning halaal earnings. But little do we realise that our job roles are slipping us into sin.

In the name of Allah most merciful, most kind. I will highlight the problems we are facing in today’s society. Many of us are employed into big companies such as Banks, supermarkets etc. this increases our chance of job prospects and further opportunities at even bigger companies with higher roles. However as Customer Service Advisor our main role is to provide the best service to customers.