A few years ago, I started to feel the same way [restricted], where it got to the point where I went to the person I used to talk to for advice and asked "Is it Halaal for me to be happy?"

He didn't give me a straight answer (idiot :P) but he should have emphaticaly answered "yes!"

You see the reason that folk like us have this problem is that the texts (Qur'an and Ahadith collections) talk about progress. How to be better people and more sincere worshipers. What they don't explicitly discuss is, being happy and having fun. They discuss this, but not explicitly.

Salaam

I'm in uni today deleting old files and backing up what's important and I've come across something I wrote a couple of months back.

Remember that story about a rich sheikh torturing some dude who crossed him in business? When I read about it I felt sick and so that day I started to write a story...it was an interesting story and one that didn't get finished. But the prose was smooth and for that reason I didn't want to delete it. So here it is, me getting annoyed with injustice and subsequently getting creative:

Allah Subnaahahu wa ta'alaa tells us in the Holy Qur'an that he did not create mankind or the jinn except that they worship Him.

I guess this is what we've been created for, to worship God. When I first heard this, I was like "Hang about, our existence is only to worship God? That's it, no time off?" I had in my head the picture of being stuck on the prayer mat...indefinitely, and it was not a happy picture.

It was quite daunting actually, that the demand of the creator was that we should have no life and just be permanently in prostration upon the prayer mat. It seemed to me to be quite cruel.

Salaam

This is from a dream I had this morning. It was all grand and adventurous, so I thought it merited being written up into a short story. Dreams can be a bit weird here and there and not connect in places, so I'm using artistic license to help the flow. For those who don't know, a tasbeeh or subha is a rosary/'necklace of beads' used for dhikr.

[quote]
It was night in the market place but traders still crowded around the stalls. In the shallow light of flaming torches, men in turbans and coloured robes traded goods and information.

Salaam

As part of a project I'm working on I decided to write some short pieces. Snapshots of life that are useful to see. I call them, 'lifebites'.

This is #1. I wrote it after thinking that the...

...difference between a painting and a photograph is that they both capture something beautiful, But a photo locks it away forever like a bird in a cage or a butterfly under glass. Whereas a painting captures but also sets free like a beautiful lifechanging moment that whilst intense is fresh every time its experienced.

Hope its useful. Enjoy.