A Tribute to Islamic Art

The other day I watched a documentary on Channel 4 called "Paradise Found" where the presenter set "out on an epic journey of discovery across the Muslim world from Central Asia, to the heart of the Middle East and beyond to reveal a world of awe-inspiring architecture, spectacular Islamic treasures and a host of artists and craftsmen – to bring the largely unknown and fascinating story of Islamic art and architecture to the attention of the British public."

The presenter of the show, Waldemar Januszczak did such an amazing job, that I felt it an obligation to paste below his closing words. Enjoy!

"You must have noticed that you never see ugliness in Islamic art or neurosis or personal problems or any of that dark stuff that so obsesses western artists. Islamic art always, ALWAYS tries to look as beautiful as it can. Why? Because it recognises that the problems of the artists are just storms in a teacup utterly irrelevant in the wider scheme of things. In the end all that matters is the beauty of God and the artist's task is always to reflect that beauty. To do otherwise, to fret about yourself, to go all dark and miserable in your art is to waste your artistic time."

Now I'm off to do some painting of my own...

Ten Weaknesses of the Heart

Source: http://www.jamiat.org.za/isinfo/ten_weakness_of_the_heart.htm

Ten Weaknesses of the Heart

1. You believe in the existence of Allah Ta`ala but you do not fulfil His commands.

2. You say you love the Prophet Muhammad (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) but you do not follow his Sunnats.

3. You read the Holy Quran but you do not put it in to practice.

4. You enjoy all benefits from Allah but you are not grateful to Him.

5. You acknowledge Shaitan (Devil) as your enemy, but you do not go against him.

6. You want to enter Paradise, but you do not work for it.

7. You do not want to be thrown in the Hell-Fire, but you do not try to run away from it.

8. You believe that everything will face death, but you do not prepare for it.

9. You gossip and find faults in others, but you forget your own faults and bad habits.

10. You bury the dead, but you do not take lesson from it.

Women aren't a mystery

I propose that women are no longer a mystery to men, and the time has now come whereby it's women who don't understand men (ooooh, I can almost feel every woman turn around and give me an evil.)

Of course I haven't come to this conclusion without much deliberation in the field. Here are a few scenarios I've come up with:

1. He doesn't argue back: How many of you ladies out there have been in a situation where you're arguing with a man and face nothing but a stony silence in return? It's almost as if they know that if they don't argue back then eventually you'll run out of things to say and feel guilty.

2. He says sorry first: OK, so after that one-sided argument, the man comes up with an apology. Of course he hadn't said anything to aggravate the situation further anyway, so an apology is totally acceptable and he knows it.

3. His head drops and he faces the floor, not daring to look you in the eye, whilst nodding and agreeing to do whatever you say: I don't want to explain this one too far. But Faaiza knows what I mean

4. The bad news followed straight away by a flowery gift: Most women out there are a sucker for flowers. No matter how much we try to deny it, flowers are indeed the key to a girl's heart (well, to get through one door anyway): after all, it's the thought that counts. Of course, no one knows this better than my brother. After presenting my mum with news that he'd splashed out to buy a games console, he presented her with a bunch of flowers. To my shock horror, the initial anger that I had seen build up in my mum when she'd heard about the games console immediately subsided...

It doesn't matter whether it's your boyfriend, brother, father, uncle or whatever, let's face facts: men have generally learnt how to handle women, and they're doing a good job of it.

But why is it that women are led to believe that they are a mystery unto all men? The media. Of course, as per usual the media has contributed to yet another one of society's flaws. Women have been conditioned to believe that men don't really understand them. However I have seen an increasing number of cases nowadays whereby the situation is the other way around. It is in fact the women, in my opinion, who don't understand men.

For example let's take a scenario we're all familiar with. A man comes home after a hard days work and all he wants is to relax. What does a woman do? Immediately start complaining about her day, and further complaining that he won't tell her about his... just leave him alone!

OK, so despite going to a girls' school for seven years I can honestly say that I'm not an expert on women, and definitely not on men. However from all the many, many conversations I've had with women about men I've come to one simple, straight forward answer: Maybe next time when you women out there start investing all that time and energy into psychoanalysing the male species in order to understand the "true" meaning behind their words and actions, you should just step back and take what he's said or done at face value.

I know it's a shocker of a theory, but just try it out and let me know how it goes.

What Batman Taught me....

WARNING: For those of you who were unlucky enough not to have watched the movie, I seriously recommend you don't read this blog any further, and just watch it as soon as it's out on DVD.

Batman Begins is an excellent movie.

Like The Godfather, Othello and Star Wars (amongst many) it shows the epic battle between good and evil. However, the writers went one step further and were courageous enough to ask for a definition of good and evil by introducing the character of Ra's Al Ghul. This man and the League of Shadows had decided that as Gotham City was no longer living up to THEIR expectations that it had to be destroyed. But that meant that the League of Shadows had an established definition of good and evil, which conflicted with Batman’s definition. They claimed that there was a line that Gotham had crossed and was too evil to come back from and should therefore have been destroyed, without mercy.

So, how does a civilisation know when they've crossed a line from good to evil? Or more importantly, how does an INDIVIDUAL know when they've crossed that line? What is good and what is evil, and who decides it?

In The Godfather the line was made very distinct for the viewers as Michael actively decided to adopt his father’s role, and kill to save the family’s honour. Similarly in Star Wars the audience is made to believe that Anakin has turned evil when he starts to take on the teachings of his "Master." However, on both occasions without realising it the audience is manipulated into believing what Michael and Anakin are doing is wrong. But how can we be so sure?

Our conscience: An innate sense of right and wrong. But who programs the conscience? Is it our environment or is it a power beyond humanity?

In Batman it was the League of Shadows, or the environment which moulded the peoples' conscience through a legal system. It was man who decided what was right and wrong. However, this concept is severely flawed in that each individual has a slightly different idea of what is right and wrong, which Batman also demonstrates. While Ra’s Al-Ghul thought it was just to execute a criminal without a trial, Batman believed that everyone is firstly entitled to a fair trial.

The movie illustrated to me, whether it meant to or not, that man-made legal rulings aren't good enough. Instead, man requires a universal law, and an ultimate judge or provider of justice.

Yesterday my friend and I were recruiting people for our University's ISOC. Each member who joined had their own ideas of how the society should be run, each believing that they were right. Perhaps no one realised, but I was in awe of how each individual and their concept of right and wrong was unique. Masha'Allah (praise be to Allah,) what diversity! At the same time I also started to feel very sorry for those in charge, whose job it is to cater for each individual... being a leader isn't easy. But with an established, universal sense of right and wrong, which everyone must agree on, the job is made easier in my opinion.

Finally for me maybe one of the best traits of the movie was also the fact that Batman refused to give up no matter how bad Gotham had become. He would fight for justice regardless of the number of people he would have to contend with. Such a movie promotes a positive attitude on life, which we are in dire need of in today’s world.