So much to write about, not enough time!
I went to Chicago this past weekend. It was basically a drive by. I got there at around 10 on Friday night and left Saturday afternoon at around 5. I had a lot of things to do including attending a wedding, visiting some family, and going to talk to Hazrat Maulana Abdullah Saleem db about my nikkah. Alhamdulillah I got it done.
Alhamdulillah, in the few hours I was there, I also got to meet a lot of my teachers. Two of them, Maulana Tahir Saab db and Maulana Saad db told me some very interesting things. A lot of it was personal advice, but the stuff that’s general and that can be applied to anyone, especially people that are involved in deeni work, has been written below.
Maulana Tahir
Metal melts, plastic melts, but have you ever seen a rock melt? Be like a rock. (Pathar bankey raho).
The right that every student has on their teacher is that the teacher cries at night and makes dua for them.
If you try to do anything good (deen ka kaam), you’ll have so much oppostion. Didn’t Allah’s Nabi (sa) have opposition? (Kya Allah ka Nabi (sa) ke dushman nahi thay?!?!)
If you what you want happens then good. And what if you don’t want happens then very good.
Maulana Saad
One sign that your studies have been accepted that you can see in the dunya, is that Allah Ta’ala keeps you in that line of work.
One personal advice that I would give to people that read this, especially students of knowledge is to keep a strong connection with your teachers. Unfortunately, a lot of students finish their studies and never go back to visit or even call their teachers. But whatever we accomplished is because of our parents’ and our teachers’ duas.
Most of the time that I call Maulana Saad db, he misses the call and calls back later. But he told me that even though it takes time to call back, every time I see that you called, right then and there, my heart starts to make dua for you. I become so happy that you remembered me and took out the time to call. (That’s blessing of Allah Ta’ala. I’m only mentioning this to emphasize why it’s so important to keep in touch, and how much it means to them. I’m not saying this to drink my own Kool Aid.)
Maulana Abdullah Saleem db said that even though he hasn’t seen some students in over 20 years, he still remembers them. He said that this teacher-student relationship is not insignificant. And he said that don’t think that we’ll forget about you on Yawmul Qiyama either; Inshallah we will try to help one another out in front of Allah Ta’ala as well.
The fact that he’s saying that we will help one another is just his humility. Our teachers will be the ones helping us. If we will have a ta’aluq and relationship on Yawmul Qiyama (Inshallah), shouldn’t we, as students, try to maintain that relationship in this life?
I’ll close with the example of Hazrat Thanvi rh. In his last year of studies, Hazrat Gangohi rh started to teach the hadith books in Gangoh. Many of Hazrat Thanvi’s classmates left Deoband and went to Gangoh to study. However, Hazrat Thanvi, who was the brightest student, said that although he considered Hazrat Gangohi to be superior in knowledge and roohaniyat than his (Hazrat Thanvi’s) teacher, Hazrat Maulana Yaqoob Nanotvi rh, the thought of leaving never crossed his mind. If you compare what all of the students that left to go to Gangoh accomplished with the work that Hazrat Thanvi accomplished, Hazrat Thanvi alone did more than all of the other students combined. Why? His teacher was so happy that he stayed, that he would make a lot of dua for him. The barkat of those duas allowed Hazrat Thanvi to accomplish so much that the whole world knows and benefits from his works.
May Allah Ta’ala enable us all to properly respect our teachers, and gain their duas, and allow us to be with them in Jannah. Ameen.
In high school, my two favorite subjects were history and lit. Most people dreaded reading Shakespeare, but I always thought it was interesting. I came across this interesting article the other day.
No high school English curriculum is complete without a mandatory dose of William Shakespeare, and no American teenager makes it to graduation without whining about how boring it is to learn about iambic pentameter. As contemporary speakers of the English language, however, they might be interested to learn how much the Bard of Avon had in common with the generations that popularized the acronyms LOL and OMG and reinvented the 1940s slang term “hipster.” Endlessly imaginative and not overly concerned with grammatical convention, Shakespeare’s scripts contain over 2200 never-before-seen words—a diverse collection of loan-words from foreign languages, compound words from existing English terms, nouns turned into verbs, and creatively applied prefixes—many of which have entered into everyday language. Here are 20 examples of words we can thank Shakespeare for.
1. ADDICTION: OTHELLO, ACT II, SCENE II
“It is Othello’s pleasure, our noble and valiant general, that, upon certain tidings now arrived, importing the mere perdition of the Turkish fleet, every man put himself into triumph; some to dance, some to make bonfires, each man to what sport and revels his addiction leads him.” – Herald
If not for that noble and valiant general and his playwright, our celebrity news coverage might be sorely lacking.
2. ARCH-VILLAIN: TIMON OF ATHENS, ACT V, SCENE I
“You that way and you this, but two in company; each man apart, all single and alone, yet an arch-villain keeps him company.” – Timon
With the added prefix of arch-, meaning more extreme than others of the same type, Shakespeare was able to distinguish the baddest of the bad.
3. ASSASSINATION: MACBETH, ACT I, SCENE VII
“If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly: if the assassination could trammel up the consequence, and catch with his surcease success.” – Macbeth
Though the term “assassin” had been observed in use prior to the Scottish play, it seems apt that the work introduced yet another term for murder most foul.
4. BEDAZZLED: THE TAMING OF THE SHREW, ACT IV, SCENE V
“Pardon, old father, my mistaking eyes, that have been so bedazzled with the sun that everything I look on seemeth green.” – Katherina
A word first used to describe the particular gleam of sunlight is now used to sell rhinestone-embellished jeans. Maybe poetry really is dead.
5. BELONGINGS: MEASURE FOR MEASURE, ACT I, SCENE I
“Thyself and thy belongings are not thine own so proper as to waste thyself upon thy virtues, they on thee.” – Duke Vincentio
People prior to Shakespeare’s time did own things; they just referred to them by different words.
6. COLD-BLOODED: KING JOHN, ACT III, SCENE I
“Thou cold-blooded slave, hast thou not spoke like thunder on my side, been sworn my soldier, bidding me depend upon thy stars, thy fortune and thy strength, and dost thou now fall over to my fores?” – Constance
Beyond its literal meaning, the 17th-century play initiated a metaphorical use for the term that is now most often used to describe serial killers and vampires—two categories which, of course, need not be mutually exclusive.
7. DISHEARTEN: HENRY V, ACT IV, SCENE I
“Therefore when he sees reason of fears, as we do, his fears, out of doubt, be of the same relish as ours are: yet, in reason, no man should possess him with any appearance of fear, lest he, by showing it, should dishearten his army.” – King Henry V
The opposite of “hearten,” a word already extant at the time of Shakespeare’s writing, “dishearten” was most appropriately first utilized in print by King Henry V, who didn’t let insurmountable odds at the Battle of Agincourt get him down.
8. EVENTFUL: AS YOU LIKE IT, ACT II, SCENE VII
“Last scene of all, that ends this strange eventful history, is second childishness and mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.” – Jaques
If all the world’s a stage, it’s safe to assume that an event or two is taking place.
9. EYEBALL: THE TEMPEST, ACT I, SCENE II
“Go make thyself like a nymph o’ the sea: be subject to no sight but thine and mine, invisible to every eyeball else.” – Prospero
Shakespeare’s protagonist Prospero, though no medical doctor, can claim to be the first fictional character to name those round objects with which we see.
10. FASHIONABLE: TROILUS AND CRESSIDA, ACT III, SCENE III
“For time is like a fashionable host that slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand, and with his arms outstretch’d, as he would fly, grasps in the comer: welcome ever smiles, and farewell goes out sighing.” – Ulysses
And with just 11 letters, centuries of debate over what’s hot or not began.
11. HALF-BLOODED/HOT-BLOODED: KING LEAR, ACT V, SCENE III/ ACT III, SCENE III
“Half-blooded fellow, yes.” – Albany
“Why, the hot-blooded France, that dowerless took our youngest born, I could as well be brought to knee his throne, and, squire-like; pension beg to keep base life afoot.” – Lear
As is the tradition in Shakespearean tragedy, nearly everyone in King Lear dies, so the linguistic fascination here with blood is unsurprising, to say the least.
12. INAUDIBLE: ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL, ACT V, SCENE III
“Let’s take the instant by the forward top; for we are old, and on our quick’st decrees the inaudible and noiseless foot of Time steals ere we can effect them.” – King of France
One of a number of words (invulnerable, indistinguishable, inauspicious, among others) which Shakespeare invented only in the sense of adding a negative in- prefix where it had never been before.
13. LADYBIRD: ROMEO AND JULIET, ACT I, SCENE III
“What, lamb! What, ladybird! God forbid! Where’s this girl? What, Juliet!” – Nurse
Although the Oxford English Dictionary notes that this particular term of endearment has fallen into disuse, maybe it’s about time for its comeback. Valentine’s Day is coming up, after all.
14. MANAGER: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, ACT V, SCENE I
“Where is our usual manager of mirth? What revels are in hand? Is there no play to ease the anguish of a torturing hour?” – King Theseus
If not for Shakespeare, workday complaining in the office break room just wouldn’t be the same.
15. MULTITUDINOUS: MACBETH, ACT II, SCENE II
“No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas in incarnadine, making the green one red.” – Macbeth
“Multitudinous” may not be the most appropriate synonym when the phrase “a lot” starts to crop up too often in your writing, but it’s certainly the one with the most letters.
16. NEW-FANGLED: LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST, ACT I, SCENE I
“At Christmas I no more desire a rose than wish a snow in May’s new-fangled mirth.” – Biron
Ironically, this word sounds old-fashioned if used today.
17. PAGEANTRY: PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE, ACT V, SCENE II
“This, my last boon, give me, for such kindness must relieve me, that you aptly will suppose what pageantry, what feats, what shows, what minstrelsy, and pretty din, the regent made in Mytilene to greet the king.” – Gower
Although modern scholars generally agree that Shakespeare only appears to have written the second half of the play, this newly invented term for an extravagant ceremonial display appears in the section definitively authored by the Bard.
18. SCUFFLE: ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA, ACT I, SCENE I
“His captain’s heart, which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst the buckles on his breast, reneges all temper, and is become the bellows and the fan to cool a gipsy’s lust.” – Philo
Another example of an existing verb that Shakespeare decided could stand up just as well as a noun.
19. SWAGGER: HENRY V, ACT II, SCENE IV/A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, ACT III, SCENE I
“An’t please your majesty, a rascal that swaggered with me last night.” – Williams
“What hempen home-spuns have we swaggering here, so near the cradle of the fairy queen?” – Puck
By transitive property, Shakespeare is responsible for Justin Bieber’s “swag.”
20. UNCOMFORTABLE: ROMEO AND JULIET, ACT IV, SCENE V
“Despised, distressed, hated, martyr’d, kill’d! Uncomfortable time, why camest thou now to murder, murder our solemnity?” – Capulet
Un- was another prefix Shakespeare appended to adjectives with a liberal hand. In the case of Romeo and Juliet, a tragedy in which a father mourns his daughter’s suicide, “uncomfortable” seems to have originated with a slightly more drastic sense than how we use it now.
Of course, just because the first written instances of these terms appeared in Shakespeare’s scripts doesn’t preclude the possibility that they existed in the oral tradition prior to his recording them, but as Shakespeare might have said, it was high time (The Comedy of Errors) for such household words (Henry V).
Read the full text here: http://mentalfloss.com/article/48657/20-words-we-owe-william-shakespeare#ixzz2RR53nJ6V
A few years ago, I used to work somewhere part time. We used to get paid every Tuesday. I would usually be off on Tuesday, but I would go there on the way home from school to pick up my check. I would go in the back, get the check from the manager, open it up, and even though it was never much, I would always come back smiling. (I remember in 2008, gas went up all of the sudden to over $4 and my whole check would go to gas). There was this Romanian lady named Andrea that used to work there, and every time I would come out with the check, she would say in a Romanian accent, “You’re rich and famous again!” I would say, “Yeah, but only on Tuesdays.” I left that job a while ago, but every payday, I always think of “you’re rich and famous again.”
In the job I am working at right now, we only get paid once a month, and it’s a direct deposit. The other day I got a call at around 7 am from Imam Saab. He was like I know you’re happy today. I was like why? Just then, while we were still on the line, I got a text from Chase saying you’ve been deposited x amount. I was like you talking about the Chase text? He was like no, Chase calls me and I already got it! The call woke me up this morning!
Rich and famous again… But only on the 1st.
Quote of the Day: “When you’re depressed, all it takes is one good conversation to make you feel like singing. It being payday helps too.”
Bonus Quote: “Payday is only the illusion of having money for a couple of hours. Then it’s payday for everyone I owe money to.”
Finally going back home after seven months!!! It’s been way too long…
On Saturday I got a call from the Canadians saying that they were arriving on Monday at 11 am, and needed a ride. They wanted to get their car, which was parked at my place. Long story short, at 11 at night I had to drag a friend along, drive to the airport, drop their car in a parking garage, and then get a ride back with my friend….
My future in-laws are going to come over tomorrow, so I went to my friend’s house to borrow a big rice cooker and a mixing bowl. I had only planned on going for a few minutes, and while I waiting in the other room, his four year old daughter came in. Mashallah she is so cute. She knows English pretty well, but she’s still learning.
She asked me why I didn’t take my jacket off. I told her I was cold, but she said that it wasn’t. So I told her that it’s my style. She was like, “Well, my dad don’t have style.” I asked her if she had style. She was like, “Yeahhh… I have two styles. A brown style and a black style.” LOL!!!
Quote of the Day: “True friends are like diamonds – bright, beautiful, valuable, and always in style.” – Nicole Richie…. Don’t judge me! I just googled quotes about style and I liked this one.
Bonus Quote of the Day: “Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn” ― Orson Welles
I don’t know why, but Canadians have always been funny to me. Their accent, their love for ice hockey, their insistence that they are their own country–all of it is amusing.
Disclaimer: Before we get into this, I want to make it clear these guys are my boys. We’ve been through a lot of crazy things together, so if you all are reading this, it’s all good, we’re still cool. But all of the events that are being mentioned are true, so they have to be mentioned….
When I first moved to Detroit, I drove downtown and to my surprise there was Canada! Apparently, all that’s between Detroit and Canada is a small river. The fact that Detroit borders the 51st state wasn’t really a life altering revelation to me so I went about my day as usual, but it was pretty important to someone else.
A few years ago, two of my friends from Atlanta went to Canada to study in a city called Chatham. It is about an hour and a half away from Detroit. They are brothers. For the remainder of this post, they will be referred to as the Canadians. They are also Memon (Pakistani Gujjus). The second point might not seem important, but when it comes to these guys, it does. They really re-affirm the stereotype that Memons are greedy frugal and good businessmen. Whenever the Canadians want to visit home, they fly out from Detroit so they can save a hundred bucks and not have to pay the international flight fees that they would have been charged if they flew from Canada. About a week after I arrived, they called me and said that they needed to be picked up from the airport, and that their friends from Canada would come the next day to pick them up. No big deal. But that was just the start. Because domestic mail is cheaper than international mail, my apartment basically became their PO Box. Random things started showing up at my house with their name on it. An iron. Books. Cell phone. Car appliances. When I asked them what was going on, they said, it will cost $20 to ship it to Canada. We’ll come and pick it up in a few weeks. Let’s see if I got that straight. You will make a three hour round trip and burn about $40 worth of gas to save twenty bucks. They used the excuse, “We want to visit you!”, but a few weeks later I got a call saying “Meet me at so and so restaurant and bring the packages.” When I got there, they were like, we’re in a rush, we bought you a sandwich, bye!
If that wasn’t enough, they would also order some packages that required signatures, which is a problem because nobody is at home in the middle of the day! Then they get mad when the package gets sent back. But all of this is a precursor to what happened a few weeks ago (the date is a little fuzzy. I started to type this out that day but I ended up getting busy. It was the day we had the last big snowfall that we had this winter).
That day I was at work, and I got a call at around noon. It was the Canadians. They told me that they were crossing the border and that they had a flight at 5 to Atlanta. They were in their car, but they wanted to leave it at my place (free parking!) and have me give them a ride to the airport. I told them that I couldn’t do it because I had work until 6. They protested and said that we have 5 guys with us. Ok… Why don’t you guys just split whatever it costs to park the car at the airport? I can’t. It’s gonna end up being like 150 bucks! That’s like 25 bones a person… Anyways I’m like sorry I can’t just leave work like that. It’s a really hectic day. They get kind of pissed and say we’ll figure it out.
A few hours later I get a call from a random number. Who else? The Canadians. You may be wondering why they are calling from a random number. The reason is, they didn’t want to pay the ten dollars to buy prepaid SIM so they could make calls within the US. Instead, they drive from public place to public place looking for WiFi so that they can make a free call through and App that they have that gives them a temporary number. He again asks that I pick them up, and again I say that I wish I could, but I can’t.
Around 3 o clock, I had a meeting in Detroit, but when I showed up, the person wasn’t there. I began to drive back while passing through Bengali Town, and I saw a Honda Pilot with a Georgia license plate outside of a restaurant. I pulled over, went inside, and there were the Canadians, sitting at a table with a few other Canadians. Since my afternoon meeting didn’t materialize, I thought that I could give them a ride and help them out.
We decided that we would drive to my place, drop my car off and then take their car to the airport because I couldn’t fit everyone in my car. Time was very short, and in order to drop my car off, we had to go away from the airport. (The airport is south west of Detroit, and I am Northwest). On the way back, they stopped for gas- or so I thought. We get to my place, leave my car, and immediately head out for the airport.
Being with them for the last few hours had begun to rub off on me. As we’re driving to the airport, I thought to myself that although it had been a crazy day, at least I get to drive around another car for a week and I have a full tank of gas that I didn’t have to pay for. Still daydreaming, I looked over at the gas gauge, and to my shock the gas light was on!!!
Me: “I thought you filled up gas….”
His friend from the back: “He told me to put in $10. I put in $10.31 and he started to yell at me.”
The Canadian: “Don’t worry. We have enough to get to the airport.”
Me: “What about on the way back?”
The Canadians: [Dead Silence]
Anyways, we got to the airport and I dropped them off and headed back home. At least I could drive a nice car-or so I thought (this is becoming a theme). This car did not have brakes! It was metal to metal. You have to slam the brakes like 500 feet early. It felt like driving Fred Flintstones car. By this point, the snow had begun to come down pretty hard. The car is on empty. I am driving along and I haven’t seen a gas station for miles. Imagine this, only in heavy snow. I need some new friends….
Quote of the Day: “Canada is not the party. Its the apartment above the party.” – Craig Ferguson
I hate cold weather and said so many times that I would never live in a cold weather place. So much for that. It was a long, long winter, but on Saturday it was 60 degrees. I thought that winter was finally over, but this morning, it was snowing. Here we go again….
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Posted: March 13, 2013 in Uncategorized
Nabi sa said that you should give gifts to one another because it increases love for one another. There’s so much wisdom in that statement.
The other day I made a comment in passing to one of my students that I liked his outfit. He told me that his uncle is a tailor in Pakistan, and that was that. Mashallah this kid’s grandmother came to America last weekend and apparently he called his uncle because he gave me three outfits today. It might sound dumb, but I’ve been happy the whole day lol!
Not a Recent Grad Anymore 