Never Satisfied with what you have? Think deeply...

I was on my way to a business meeting; during which a view quote my eye. I usually look around me when I am driving, and YES, I DO HOLD MY CAMERA ALWAYS in my bag :) for getting a shot that cannot be traded...

So, while I was parking the car, a view quote my eye which is as the picture shows above...

Such a view made me wonder and think... while we are sitting on our desk at work, working on our laptop, having our daily hot morning coffee/tea, checking our outlook early morning once we arrive to work, then check our to do list of the day; "soooo, what have I got for the day?", then crushing in the day and starting your work, calling up people on your mobile phone or actually your solo desk phone to set up meetings, which are actuallyheld in an air conditioned meeting room equiped with a video conferencing facility... Then once we finish our meeting, we return back to our comfy orange seat, we get back to business, continue working while we are not actually feeling the heat and humidity of the weather outside, BECAUSE the office is air conditioned; however, then we go on complaining.. "Maaan, it is very cold, and it is hitting on my back, for god's sake, can you just increase the temperature a bit".. then your colleague goes on raising up the temp until it is satisfactory to all...

THEN, comes the nicest piece of all.. how spoiled are our staff...

Hey, there is no sugar today? Hey, there is no cafe mate! Hey, there is no Nescafe today...!! So what!!! Cant you have a cup of camomile today instead of coffee? cant you have a cup of tea today instead of Nescafe? CANT YOU HAVE A BLACK COFFEE WITHOUT CAFE MATE FOR THE DAY??...

We are such a spoiled nation...

Then, I drift away thinking of that man situated on the crane, fixing the phone or electricity lines... FOR US to have our laptops, conditions and lights on while we are working, FOR US, to have a cold and hot water cooler to DRINK from, FOR US, to speak over the phone...

I am aware that each and every person build his own future and contributes to his own career development through his hardwork, passion towards work, planning ahead, being a bit of risk taker as well, crossing the lines and getting out of your comfort zone; HOWEVER, being humble and thinking of other people while you are working gives you a GREAT FREAKIN' REMINDER of thanking GOD where you are now and THAT there are people who are with worse job than yours...

It is by human nature that a "man; i.e. human" is greedy.. and always looking forward for more and more and more... never gets enough... however, there are those people who are really considerate of others, humble and down to earth, thinks of others while they are still focused on them selves and goals... and THOSE EXACTLY who sustain and do not fall off their seats as they rise... since their feet are firmly on the ground... to be better communicated, REALISTIC...

So, are you thanking God for such a blessing you are in?

Everytime you feel frustrated, out of your mind, bored and feel like killing your colleague next door because you are no longer standing your job... THINK AGAIN.. AND REMEMBER THE PICTURE ABOVE...

No one made it up the ladder and reached the summit without hard work and starting from scratch...

Peace out....

Roland Garros - The French Open!!

So, who will win this French Open?

Is it Nadal the smart young player; who won it for 4 consecutive times;

OR

Is it Roger Federer; before he retires from Tennis Playing?

TBC

Tragedy of the Muslim mind

By Dr Muzaffar Iqbal

The public space in the Muslim world is dominated by those who have received education of a kind that has no rooting in the intellectual tradition of Islam. This is true, by and large, of the entire traditional lands of Islam. As a result of this education, most Muslims are uprooted from that enchanting intellectual realm which once used to produced men and women of the highest calibre. These giants of yesteryears are now foreign names to their modern-day heirs; no one knows what they wrote, how they integrated their faith with everything they did, and how they perceived the world from the prism of Divinely revealed religion which guided all aspects of their being.This severance is most visible in lands where the impact of colonisation has been the strongest: Pakistan, Egypt, the Central Asian republics, the Muslim lands of the Far East. But even in the relatively insulated exceptions (Iran and Turkey being the most obvious examples), modern education has done exactly what it is meant to do: create a bifurcation of the mind. Thus, this world and the next world become two separate entities in the Muslim mind. This division of the mind, which is, in fact, merely a consequence and not the cause, manifests itself at various levels of existence--from daily interactions with other human beings to financial transactions, and from beliefs and ideas to attitudes and outward appearances.This division has produced strange phenomena: apparently pious, observant believers are known to indulge in all kinds of fraudulent activities; even the religious leadership, whether political or social or both, is often corrupt to the core when it comes to matters which are deemed to be of this world. Thus divided against itself, the Muslim mind is now a living tragedy. A very large majority of educated Muslims live in an intellectual wasteland of confusion and anarchy. There is hardly any internal clarity on most basic aspects of life.The most fundamental cause of this tragedy is the alienation of the mental world from the Islamic tradition at various levels: from spiritual to intellectual, and from emotional to experiential. Even those who have some facility with the two primary sources of Islam--the Qur'an and the Sunnah--are not exempted from this internal division, although there are exceptions in this regard. This alienation, and the consequent internal split, has come into existence through a historical process that pushed into the background a living tradition of production and dissemination of knowledge. This tradition started to falter sometime in the sixteen century and by the time of European Scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, there were obvious signs of its disappearance. But this is in retrospect. A sort of false pride and arrogance continued to dominate the Muslim intellectual landscape well into the late eighteenth century when it finally woke up with the rude clamping of European military might at its door steps. The rest, as they say, is history.The tragedy that unfolded in the Muslim world during its colonization has no precedent in their history. The entire system of life and living, a centuries-old methodological way of existence, was wiped out by the colonizers. Institutions and rituals, rites of passage and cultural and social norms were destroyed; even the integral link with the language of the Qur'an was severed. As a result of a systematic and well-executed social engineering, the entire Muslim world was reduced to a level of subsistence dominated by a deep-seated inferiority complex.As a result, the educated classes now grow up with a living tragedy: these men and women know and firmly believe that Islam is the true religion, based on the two veritable sources, which remain uncorrupted, but their personal choice of being a Muslim remain tragically thinly grounded in any intellectual realm. What they know in the deepest recesses of their being, and what they believe from the core of their hearts, has no counterpart in the intellectual realm. Thus, their ideas and ideals, their thoughts and actions, their emotional attachments and their behaviour often remain firmly entrenched in the secular contemporary modernity, which is a complete anti-thesis of what Islam is all about.This tragedy is being lived everyday by millions of Muslims all over the world. It has created a hunger for Islam's intellectual tradition, which is based on the two primary sources. But most educated Muslim are not able to drink from this fountain because they simply do not know how to read Ibn Kathir or Hamid al-Ghazali, or Ibn Qayyam al-Jawzi, even if they have a translated text in their hands. The training they receive at educational institutions does not equip them with intellectual tools to read these texts and benefit from insights of these keen minds.What they have, as a result, is a mental confusion of the highest order. The remedy to this tragic state of existence is, of course, a thorough grounding in Islam's formidable intellectual tradition, but this cannot happen until and unless one unlearns what one has learned through one's education and experience, and this requires a courage very few find in themselves. Thus the tragedy continues to unfold in so many realms of the personal and collective lives of Muslims on a daily basis, all over the world.

A Hike at Wadi Al Himara

Soooooo.. Friday was a long enjoyable hike at Al Himara Valley; situated at the north-east coast of Dead Sea (Jordan).

Al Himara Valley is well know to have the longest waterfall in Jordan which is 120 meter long. Please find a picture of the waterfall view from the top.

To speak out a bit about my reflections of the valley; i loved the fact that I am away on the wilderness.. feeling the water falling on my back while sitting under the waterfall, climbing up the mountain... getting dirty while crossing your way through the stream while you can see baby frogs, frogs and crabs around you in the water.. feeling FREEEEEDOOOOOOOOOM while you are standing under the heavy waterfall; AHHHHHH!!.. I just loveee nature, i love the beach, I love extreme sports, feeling the adrenalin rush through my veins and body! UH!!!

I will leave you with a brief about it:

"Two spectacular cascades, each of over 80 meters high constitute the outstanding features of Wadi Himara. Remember that 80 meters is about the height of a 25 storey building! The new road from Hammamet Ma'in to the Dead Sea crosses this Wadi fairly high up and now provides good access while omitting the rather dull beginning. The wadi is some 5kms long and will need about 6 hours. It can be walked without the abseiling, but you lose the most exciting part!Wadi Himara is a wonderful canyon for people who enjoy abseiling and exciting water canyons. You begin with two small waterfalls (each about 15 meters) and after the first big waterfall (about 80 meters), you have a narrow canyon which needs about 30 minutes.

Two more "small" abseils and an enjoyable water slide bring you to the "big one".

This second huge waterfall has a wonderful approach between two tall reddish sandstone pillars, each 50 meters high.

A most spectacular gateway to the highest waterfall in Jordan!"

A snapshot of one of "On Identity" Book pages...

"My Identity is what prevents me from being identical to anybody else."

"Defined this way the word identity reflects a fairly precise idea - one which in theory should not give rise to confusion. Do we really need lengthy arguments to prove that there are not and cannot be two identical individuals? Even if in the near future someone manages, as we fear they may, to "clone" human beings, the clones would at best be identical only at the time of their "birth"; as soon as they started to live they would start being different."

"Each individual's identity is made up of a number of elements, and these are clearly not restricted to the particulars set down in official records. Of Course, for the great majority these factors include allegiance to a religious tradition; to a nationality - sometimes two; to a profession, an institution, or a particular social milieu. But the list is much longer than that; it is virtually unlimited. A person may feel a more or less strong attachement to a province, a village, a neighbourhood, a clan, a professional team or connected with sport, a group of friends, a union, a company, a parish, a community of people with the same passions, the same sexual preferences, the same physical handicaps, or who have to deal with the same kind of pollution or other nuisance."

"It can happen that some incident, a fortunate or unfortunate accident, even a chance encounter, influences our sense of identity more strongly than any ancient affiliation."

These grabbed my attention as they spoke out my mind... It makes sense!!!

"On Identity" Book.

By: Amin Maalouf

A Job: is just another form of marriage...!

TBC

Marriage: Another form of partnership

TBC