2008 October | Chill Yo Islam Yo

The truth about Haramoween, I mean Halloween.

30 Oct, 2008 10 Comments

Salam,

Calling all goons and goblins, Trick or treat? Smell my feet, Oh wait I don’t have wudu, ha ha. Oh and if your wondering about the picture, you will probably see alot of people dressed up as joker this year, maybe even Sarah Palin since she is losing the election and will have time to waste.

First of all I would like to say I love eating candy although I should chill out because diabetes runs in my family like cheetahs. I don’t want to be shooting up insulin anytime soon. Back in the days when I didn’t know anything about Halloween and I was keeping it hood, I used to be mad cheap and just throw mad powder on face, the bootleg Casper. It was economically efficient for the hood, sort of like cleaning your jewels with toothpaste, ha.

Anyhows I am not against giving kids candy when they come to my door, with the condition they don’t toss eggs. What does bother me is Muslims celebrating Halloween without knowing it’s history.

Now of course as a Muslim you live life according to certain principles. We all know that Islam merges with culture as long as it brings about religious values. Now Halloween as a holiday has an interesting history, I didn’t say religious holiday because Christians don’t identify it as a religious holiday. Though there is still some uncertainty on my end.

Nevertheless here are some quick facts about Halloween that I believe you should know before you break out the jack o lanterns and take some ghost tours.

Halloween has its origins in the ancient Celtic festival known as Samhain, the Traditionally, the festival pagans to take stock of supplies and slaughter livestock for winter stores.
was a time used by the ancient
The ancient Gaels believed that on October 31, now known as Halloween, the boundary between the alive and the deceased dissolved, and the dead become dangerous for the living by causing problems such as sickness or damaged crops.
The festivals would frequently involve bonfires, into which bones of slaughtered livestock were thrown. Costumes and masks were also worn at the festivals in an attempt to mimic the evil spirits or placate them

That’s some freaky stuff, oh yea and as far as jack o lanterns are concerned. This is a short history about how they came up with Halloween.(source:wikipedia)

Originating in Europe, these lanterns were first carved from a turnip or rutabaga. Believing that the head was the most powerful part of the body containing the spirit and the knowledge, the Celts used the “head” of the vegetable to frighten off any superstitions.

Now that’s how it all started, and yea you might say well now it’s completely different. It’s all about candy, wylin out, going to parties, watching eggs break. The bottomline is that it has an origin based on ideas and beliefs that contradict Islam, so as submitters to the will of the one true god (Allah swt) we fall back and celebrate when the time is right on the holidays given to us by God Almighty and celebrated by our beloved Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him).

Let’s keep it real, It’s all about consumerism. Everyone get’s hyped off some character they want to be, this year everyone is going to be sweating the joker costume and barrack Obama or John McCain. Oh yea one more quick point, this Halloween issue might not be that serious to most of you but it was relevant for the time so I put it up. So yea having your kids wear a devil mask and begging for candy will psychologically have an affect on them.

I conclude by saying that as Muslims we act upon intention and guidance. So it is what it is for the case of Halloween, don’t get it twisted. I end with this with a funny video, of one my friends a couple of years ago on the bus to the Icna convention asking one of our imams a question about Halloween. As you will see he gets the on the spot phatwa. (listen closely haha), so chill yo no hiding the face yo.

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How Visitors Arrived on Chill Yo Islam Yo.

22 Oct, 2008 7 Comments

Salam,

If you run a blog or a website, your most probably using some sort of analytical tool to see how your visitors are arriving.

Right now I’m using Google Analytics and Interestingly enough, I find the keywords or phrases visitors typed through search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Windows Live Search, etc to arrive on Chill Yo Islam Yo were at times quite unique, funny, and weird. I want to just list a couple of them in this post.

I’ll quickly show you what the visitor typed and how the Algorithm in the Search Engine showed relevance to an article that I wrote, which in return was displayed on the search page and the visitor clicked my article link.

Get It?

Alright peep it.

1) Visitor A typed in - Does smoking weed affect salat? And arrived on the article “ Yo Brother, That’s not a cigarette, that’s cigaweed”

2) Visitor B typed in - Can ties be worn to an Islamic Wedding? And Arrived on the Article ” You can wear a tie, It’s all good”

3) Visitor C typed in - Muslim youth pick up lines And arrived on the Article ” Islamic pick up lines, what the haram?

4) Visitor D typed in - Nigger Names and arrived on the Article ” Nas names new album nigger, why?”

5) Visitor E typed in - how to treat your wife in Islam and arrived on the article “ Beating your wife is prohibited in Islam, get it straight”

and the last one

6) Visitor F typed in - Do girls smoke hookah? And arrived on the article “Smoking cigarettes and hookah, is it the same?

Alright yo Inshallah I’ll post more later this week Inshallah, thought maybe you would find this interesting.

Pass the halal fried chicken. Wasalaam.

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Squash the Beef Please

16 Oct, 2008 9 Comments

”None of you will have faith till he wishes for his brother what he likes for himself.”

- Our Beloved Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him)

Don’t go into your freezer and pull out some halal beef and start stomping on it.

The title refers to beef as in ” conflict” between two party’s.

Who have disagreements and cannot be around each other. This obviously results from grudges, jealousy and some hater elements (peep this article I wrote). Your familiar with the term “beef” in the context I’m using it if you live in the hood or your exposed to the streets. When we say “squash the beef” we mean dead it or it’s over.

The other day I had to be the peacemaker between two halal vendors outside of my college. One owned by a 45 year Arab Muslim man, and the other by a friend of mine, who was an Afghani Muslim. My friend is about 20 years old, trying to get his halal hustle on. He actually has trouble paying bills and figured the gyros and chicken and rice plates can help him get by. He also drives taxi.

So I come out and I see this big sign ” Halal Gyros” and I ran, I hadn’t ate gyros in a while because of Ramadan and what not, so my nufsi nufsi kicked in. So as I approach the vendor, I see my friend cooking up some magic. l immediately gave my Salams and motivated him that Inshallah Allah swt gives his business much blessings and he is able to capitalize and strategize and monopolize. No chill, no monopolizing in Islam. If you know what I mean.

So we continue our conversation and he starts telling me about this vendor next to him owned by the 45 year old Arab man. Here is where the beef starts between them. They are two halal vendors on the same block literally right next to each other. Quick joke, I told my friend ” no haram beef between you guys”, you both sell halal. So my friend starts laughing but he says the arab guy told him he can’t be here and that only one is allowed outside the school.

Why can’t both be there? Your product sell’s for itself. Everyone has the freedom to sell quality product or offer quality services. So My friend get’s heated and doesn’t want to go buck wild so he see’s the cops snooping around and so he calls them over. The cops come, he pulls out his vendor paper permit and he Tell’s the cops to tell the Arab dude to stop telling me to get out of here otherwise it’s going to be a problem.

Now most Afghanis I know don’t play, so I try to calm him down and keep him in check. The cop’s didn’t ask him for donuts, they told him to be professional and just go about your business. He responds by saying ” certainly, but he dosen’t want the Arab Muslim Vendor telling him he can’t be here”. Now I’m thinking in my head, money is the “root of all evil”.

So anyhow time passes and conflict escalates even more but eventually the cops tell both my friend and the other vendor to chill out and both just stay in their respected areas. Me being the monkey in the middle I try to tell both of them that it’s not worth getting all crazy. Again some dirty language get’s exchanged and I am highly disappointing by our own Muslim Brothers fighting over something like this. I was even more annoyed by the fact that the older uncle was purposely coming over to my friend’s vendor and just standing there, adding more fuel to the fire.

What I conclude from all this is we need to be just, honest, fair, and respectful of others. Business means competition and that requires behavioral etiquette. Most of all I refer again back to the Hadith by our beloved Prophet in which he said

“None of you will have faith till he wishes for his brother what he likes for himself” and the beautiful verse in the Holy Quran where Allah swt say’s

“The Believers, men and women, are protectors one of another: they enjoin the ma`roof (all of Islam), and forbid the munkar (all that is evil; kufr): they observe regular prayers, pay Zakat, and obey Allah and His Messenger. On them will Allah pour His mercy: for Allah is Exalted in power, Wise.” (The Holy Qur’an, 9:71)

So don’t let money, jealousy, shatan or materialism destroy relationships. What brings us togetheir is far more than what brings us apart. We need understand that you get what you put in. Tie your camel and inshallah Allah swt will do the rest. Whether it’s selling halal gyro’s or selling a car. The strong survive and like Mufti Abdul Rehman Ibn Yusuf says” Do your best and Allah swt will do the rest. Aight? I’m out, Inshallah post again soon.

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