SaqibSaab

Bringing In Ramadan With a Chocolate Cake

I read a tweet from Wisam Sharieff the other day on how he tried to spread awareness of Ramadan to non-Muslims by way of handing out treats.

This inspired me to do something like this on my own, so I consulted my wife.

“I want to take something to work tomorrow. Do you think I should make brownies?” I asked her before leaving to tarāwīḥ night prayers on the first night of Ramadan.

“We could. But how about a cake?”

After a little thought and realizing she probably knows better than me, I approved it and the plan was a go.

The next morning, I went to work and my wife baked and decorated the cake. I picked up the cake on my usual trip home for lunch, brought it in and sent out the following Email. Read more »

My First Trip To New York – Pt. 2 of 5 – Diversion to New Jersey

Arrival, First NY Experience

After landing, I got picked up by Abdullah Ahmed, great guy who I met at ISNA, and Maulana AbdulNasir himself. Abdullah’s ride was a Toyota Prius that carried Yasir Qadhi’s Light of Guidance and empty sprinkler system boxes. Sounds exotic, but really it was pretty standard stuff.

This thing can do wheelies.

Immediately upon pickup they took me right into the heart of a New York experience. The areas surrounding the city were like a scene out of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles the movie.

Super old buildings, packed houses with lawns smaller than a lawn mower, ads painting on the sides of apartment complexes. People from all sorts of backgrounds. White people were hard to find.

And Muslims. Man. They were everywhere.

Bearded men in kurtas, cabbies (of course), aunties wearing shalwar kameez, girls in hijab. It was like Devon Street on north side of Chicago or Surrey Drive in Glen Ellyn, IL, only on a much larger scale. Because in Chicago, you stick out walking around looking Muslim in most areas. But in many areas around New York, you’re a commoner. All I could think about was how 9/11 must have been in the city with so many Muslims around.

After making us listen some peculiar Yasir Qadhi sessions he recorded on his iPhone at ISNA, Abdullah was craving Chinese so we hit up Fatima’s Halal Kitchen in Astoria, NY.

When letters in the awning and neon sign are dim, you know it’s good food.

I know what you’re thinking, Halal Chinese is usually Desi operated and doesn’t cut it. But this was owned by Chinese Muslims. So it was game over, especially with the General Tso’s chicken ordered extra sweet, extra crispy.

Diversion to New Jersey

Once lunch finished, we had to bounce to what many people claim is the worst place in the universe: New Jersey. Read more »

My First Trip To New York – Pt. 1 of 5

Premise of Trip

This past ISNA, a mentor and dear friend, AbdulNasir Jangda (pronounced ‘Abdun-Nāṣir Jang-ra), proposed a video project to me after filming a lecture of his at the convention.

Recording ANJ at ISNA 2010.

To promote the 3-day Meaningful Prayer seminar he teaches for Bayyinah Institute, he asked that I fly out to New York for the weekend.

He would be teaching 10-day Bayyinah Summer courses at a masjid there, and he had an idea of giving a bonus lecture at the masjid there that I would record and post online to promote his class.

On the one end, it was a great opportunity for Wasat Studios to get a solid project going.

On the other, it was a free trip to New York, a city I’ve never been but always wanted to go to. So I looked into the offer and tried to see if I could go.

Excitement

Besides going out and doing what I enjoy, filming Islamic media, I was very excited to hit up NYC, namely for the food. I’d heard so much about the famous 53rd and 6th Halal cart and in addition to Times Square really wanted to check it out.

On top of that, the city is full of culture all over, American, Hollywood, international, and even Islam in America. It all seemed very exciting.

Challenges Worked Themselves Out

There were a few things I couldn’t figure out going into the trip that may have hindered my going, but alhamdulillah they all fixed themselves before the trip. Read more »

Recounting Hajj pt. 2 – What Makes Hajj So Unique?

When people you know come back from Hajj, you notice them talking about how much they “miss” Hajj and how they can’t wait to go back. There are many possibilities for what exactly each person misses from their journey, but what’s common between them is the reason why they would say that and feel that way.

At Hajj, you go through certain experiences that you cannot and will not find anywhere else. It’s simple the nature of Hajj. It has experiences that are unique to it, and those experiences make Hajj itself a unique wonder. That’s why you hear people saying, “I miss Hajj.” It’s like they’re going through withdrawal, knowing that they won’t get what they felt except for at that same place and time.

Here are three things that are exclusively unique to Hajj, and perhaps another piece of the puzzle for those who’ve never gone for Hajj in understanding why it is the journey of a lifetime.

1. Fulfillment of an ancient Prophetic legacy

The rites of Hajj are more than just completing the fifth pillar of Islam. It’s about fulfilling an entire ancient legacy of worshiping Allah (SWT). From the earliest generation of mankind, we know that the Ka‘bah existed as the first house built for the worship of Allah. So the land has been sacred since the beginning of humankind during the time of Adam, peace be upon him.

But all of this was intensified during the time of Prophet Ibrahim, peace be upon him. Allah told him to raise the foundations and rebuild what was once already a sacred and holy site, and then urged him to call the people to Hajj. While Ibrahim was worried that no one would come to such a place in the middle of the desert, Allah told him to do his part and leave the rest up to His Lord.

Since then, hundreds of generations have passed with people answering the call, from the followers of Ibrahim, to the pure worshipers living amongst the polytheists of Quraysh, until the time of the Prophet, peace be upon him, performing Hajj near the end of his life. 1400 some years later, we have 3 to 4 million people going for Hajj and answering Ibrahim’s once desolate call, each and every year.

The Ka‘bah in 1880

A 1953 Photo

The Ka‘bah, November 2009

At Hajj, you get to be one of the people that answer the call of Ibrahim. And when you get there, Read more »

Recounting Hajj pt. 1 – Explaining The Unexplainable

Whenever someone go through a major life changing experience, people tend to ask common follow up questions. If someone gets married, they’re always asked, “How’s married life?” It’s the standard things to ask someone, almost like some sort of customary greeting. The person responds that things are going well, the honeymoon details are such, and life is good.

When you come back from hajj, the same thing happens. Everyone asks, “How was it?” Only, you can’t really answer the question.

The hajj journey is really the strangest thing in the world. It’s an intensely exhausting and difficult journey that you want to go back and perform over and over again. It’s a test that pushes you past your physical, mental, and spiritual capacities yet you leave devastated you have to go home. It’s something that has no parallel in anyone else’s life.

So what are you possibly going to answer the question with? It was amazing? It was a life changing experience? It was the best thing that ever happened to me in my life? You can say a lot, but it’ll never really hit home. That’s hajj, an unexplainable wonder, and everyone reading this that has gone will definitely agree.

Yet, here I am trying to recap hajj in blog post form. Why am I going to even try?

Read more »