"MuslimSister" wrote:

whilst teenagers aged 14 and above consider actually ATTENDING class a huge favour to the teacher.

lol that is so true

I have a friend who is attempting to pull mosques together into a kind of network focusing on younger generations. I guess his attitude is if the old people get in the way just keep on working and eventually when they are left behind they will have to jump on board.

in my part of north-west london, the Hindu community is roughly similar in size to the Muslim community, maybe slightly smaller, but comparable nonetheless.

There is only one Temple in Brent, and all the Hindus go there and I'v never heard of any falling outs etc. needless to say there is no really link-up between the mosques

there are, however, dozens of mosques, mostly tiny and serving very small and rather racially-seperate and closed communities (and mainly older generation not speaking english etc).

as a white guy this leads me to only want to go to the big mosques in central london because they are more welcoming and have many young ppl, especially regents park, goodge street, whitechapel and parsons green.

i go to LSE uni for jumu'ah prayers instead of the mosque next to my work because they actually tackle issues that are relevant and engaging in the khutbah (and its in English too, which helps...)

however, I am aware that ecomomics students, although very knowledgable mashAllah, arent really a replacement for scholars, as far as i know, only the Goodge Street msq has a young Imam who grew up in Britain to give khutbahs and thats only once a month

i dont want to disrespect elders, i just wish there was more choice (and the Imams were fluent in English as well as Arabic.)

while i understand ur point and empathise with some of ur grievances, and agree that major reform of hierachies etc needs doing, i think that it is worth baring in mind that if u wanted to go to a mosque 40-50 years ago, it was pretty much a choice between Woking or in someone's garden shed. i can't imagine what it would be like to maintain someones religion and way of worship in a new environment. ppl came from societies in which Islam was confident and dominant and had to start afresh in a place where religion in general is seen as a wholly private, and rather subversive entity.

God-willing, our generation will have its time in charge, and it will be for us to learn lessons from our previous generations' successes and mistakes.

maybe now is a time for preperation and patience (sabr).

"Seraphim" wrote:

Ive learnt that when women get togeather they generally chat cr@p... lol biggest generalisation ive made ever. But its tru from where im sitting. I was stuck in a lift with three other paki women and OMG the cr@p they were talking about :shock: ... well lets just say it was shameful. And then in the library a group of women again... chatting cr@p.

Im dishearted at the state of women these days... theres no hope for them...

tell me about it its so true - i'm getting out of that game

"MuslimSister" wrote:

-I've learnt that Mosques are directly responsible for causing the Muslim Ummah to divide...and are the reason why youngsters are turning away from Islam.

-I've learnt that we live in a time where Muslims don't trust another fellow Muslim.

-I've also learnt that...its impossible to work with the older generation. They like to do things their own way and are not open to ANY help from others.

-I can somewhat relate with MPAC's anti Mosque stance.

thats so true, them mosque committee people are stubborn bricks of concrete and once you've opposed them they've got it in for you - their dictators with kangaroo kingdoms. they can spend whole months discussing toilets and still get no where - i could have been harsh about them but i chose to speak fairly

I got a taste of later parenthood and I'm in serious trouble.

My kid cousin lives with us on and off because of various issues with her parents. She's a good kid: cute, popular, sweet, Irish and a bit stubborn.

But

She's spoiled (and 13 so I'll cut her a break)... and since my uncle told me to keep her out of trouble I'm basically the new authority figure to rebel against. Well I got an interesting proposition about a week ago - apparently a senior wants to take her to the prom.

She's a freshman. 18 and 13. - Yea right.

I know exactly what this guy is up to - so I said hell no. She of course said she would go anyway so I caught on and told her I wanted to meet this guy first to talk to him. She agreed and so I met the kid and I took him for a little drive in my car, recklessly. I've never seen somebody break down quite like [i]that[/i] before it was kind of pathetic.

Anyway apparently she found out about my little stunt and refuses to leave her room - for anything. She won't talk to me, won't answer her cell phone, won't let the staff in et cetera. It's been 2 days, which is mighty impressive if you ask me, and with her own bathroom and snacks I'm pretty sure she can keep this up for another week. I'm impatient so I just cut the power and phones to her various rooms. That should fix things up pretty quick.

If this is how it is when girls get old enough to notice boys I'm screwed

lol

hhhmmm im sure there wud hav been a better way to deal with the situation but not nearly as entertaining as that!

Its hard to let go Dave... i can see you def being the over protective father. But i understand.

"Seraphim" wrote:

lol

hhhmmm im sure there wud hav been a better way to deal with the situation but not nearly as entertaining as that!

Well, High School wasn't so long ago and I definitely remember freshman girl hunting. I know exactly what this punk is up to, there's no way in hell I'm letter her get involved in any of that. I told her she is allowed a boyfriend providing her parents are okay with it and he is 1. a virgin, 2. a dork (I'll accept geeks) and 3. has her home by 9:00 whenever they go out.

Surprisingly she agreed to this... which concerns me... thus the reason I have hired a private detective and paid her best friends to report back to me everything that she is doing after school. High School girls are pretty stupid and impressively shallow, with my little bribe they are able to upgrade from Macy's to Saks so I've pretty well got them in my pocket.

It's not so much that I don't trust her. It's that I don't trust [i]them[/i], she's young, pretty and vulnerable. My cousin, her brother, died in Iraq since then she's been having issues at home. While all the people from her school that I have met are quite supportive, I could easily see some Senior using it as a way to pretend they are close.

Now you might laugh at my way of handling the situation but she just yelled at me yesterday that older boys wont even talk to her at school because they are all afraid of her crazy cousin - think about it. Back in High School there were practically bulletins floating around the locker room of who the psycho parents/siblings were and which girls to stay away from on account of it.

lol obviously this kid didn't know I've been racing for years - all he knew is that I casually mentioned I've totalled a couple cars, and our speedometer was creeping past 125. A few turns later and he not only gave up the idea of my consent but also found Jesus, funny how religious people can get when they are afraid.

I did the Lord's work.

Praise Jesus.

Quote:

Its hard to let go Dave... i can see you def being the over protective father. But i understand.

lol I consider the over protective father figure a model to be improved upon. They are good girls though, I can already tell. I'm not going to have any problems. Ashley is a great kid but she's just dealing with a lot of stuff kids her age shouldn't have to deal with. I'm helping her out through this because that's what big cousins are for, but my help does not mean you get to hang out here and live without rules.

"MuslimSister" wrote:

When Allah (swt) ordered the children of Israel to sacrifice a cow, they procrastinated by asking pointless questions…such as ‘what colour should it be’ and ‘how old should it be’ etc etc

I've learnt that like the children of Israel...we too have a terrible tendency to get bogged down with petty, irrelevent matters and thats why the state of the Muslim ummah is in the condition that its in.

And thats why serious issues such as Muslim oppression, honour killings, forced marraiges, teenage pregnancies, domestic violence etc etc...are ignored - cos we're too busy arguing over the permissibility of leather socks.

It is said "whoever occupies himself with insignificant matters, important things will bypass him".

Like much of Bakara that story isn't in the [url=http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers%2019:1-19:10;&versio..., ftr.

"MuslimSister" wrote:

Even though this goes totally against my character...I really rate that.

Young naive girls and overly confident - teenage boys are a terrible combination.

Even though I havent got it in me to rough people up like that...I can def see myself taking such extreme measure for my younger sisters/cousins etc

Thanks!

See that's the thing... you're intelligent, you would probably be able to reason with your cousins or something like that, and I'm sure they would listen to you because you are smart. Thus extreme measures are not necessary.

Frankly - I'm not that smart.

This kid did everything I would have done, he looked real serious, dressed up - shook my hand and called me "Mr Hamilton" (now remember I'm 23 - a whole four years older). I couldn't think of any polite ways to send him packing that would convince him to leave her alone, I absolutely knew there was no way I could get her to stay away from him.

So I had to work with what I've got... a completely reckless nature and somewhat oversize frame. Thus he gets to listen to song number 2 while we do our best imitation of Formula 1. He's terrified and out of the picture - so are all of his friends and she couldn't pay anyone to take her to the date rape event of the year.

"Mr Honey's Day Out" wrote:

Like much of Bakara that story isn't in the [url=http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers%2019:1-19:10;&versio..., ftr.

And by Bible you mean Tanakh.

Correct, but I don't think it's in the NT either. I followed up the source given in Yusuf Ali's translation of the Qu'ran, which is Bamidbar ("In the wilderness" - Numbers).

"Mr Honey's Day Out" wrote:

"In the wilderness" - Numbers

I did not know that...

Today I learned that the Book of Numbers covers the majority of the chosen peoples' time in the wilderness

MuslimSister,

I say that with no intention of undermining your point btw, after all you are citing the Qur'an, but since I hadn't heard that reference I was moved to check the source.

"Mr Honey's Day Out" wrote:

MuslimSister,

I say that with no intention of undermining your point btw, after all you are citing the Qur'an, but since I hadn't heard that reference I was moved to check the source.

That was the point I was making with the Bible Tanakh thing.

I learnt a wonderful hadith today in the khutbah, that shows how we can't run from death know matter where we go or what we do. Here it is (in my own words, I'm afraid I don't have the reference):

Quote:

The Angel of Death (in human form) approached Prophet Sulaymon (as) who was standing with another man. The Angel was looking at the man very strangely, and so the man asked Sulaymon (as) who this was. "He is the Angel of Death" was the reply. The man was terrified by the way he was being looked at, and so he asked the Prophet (as) to transport him far away, to the other side of the world. Because Sulaymon had control over the jinns and the wind etc. he could of course transport him, and so the man was taken away. The Prophet (as) then addressed the Angel of Death, asking "Why were you looking at that man so strangely?". The Angel relpied: "I was looking at him strangely because I was puzzled. I knew the time to take his soul had come, but the place at which it was written that he would die was very far from here."

i learn't after seeing pakistan for the very first time just how lucky i am to live in such a country as ours. And how ungrateful am to Allah swt in wanting more and more and not realising just how much Allah swt has already given me .

Ive learnt that i have a tendancy to over-analyse a situation. Im not completely happy unless ive looked at it from all possible angles... no matter how remote.

Probably because it then makes it easier to predict people and im not caught off guard... and this is a comfortable position to take. But it also tends to mean im not completely focused on one thing at a time

ive learnt that women who sit at home 24/7 and only have family as their main contact and dont work/study and meet oher people

end up being bitter, depressed, backwards and cultural :roll:

I've learnt that, according to Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, PACHYCEPHALOSAURUS is a commonly used word.

Well of course. It is a common exclamation upon the fleeting realisation of having only just put something somewhere stupid but not being sure what.