salaams!

salaams all,

i think i may have missed my last update, but inshallah with this new reminder system i'll stay on track.  residency life has officially started with me now that intern year is over and i'm finally doing what it is i actually want to do.  and for all those brothers struggling through medical school, all i have to say is: its all worth it in the end.  now i know what everyone is thinking..."that's cuz derm is an easy residency."  while that is true from a work-hours standpoint, i will say that i worked far less during my intern year...actual work that is.  i had a pretty chill prelim year in a community hospital so i may have been in the hospital for long hours, but i wasn't really doing too much during that time other than sitting around in the lounge.  but despite the "chillness" of it, i didn't truly enjoy what i was doing, and i just did it to get through it.  but when you've really found something that you love, it doesn't matter if the hours are long or short, i can truly say that i enjoy what i do now and i don't regret any portion of the journey of getting here.  the learning curve is pretty steep so there is a TON of reading to do pretty much everyday...on par with medical school to be honest...but most of it relates to what i do on a daily basis, so its much more interesting to read.  and despite all that, not having to work weekends and taking call from home are pretty sweet alhamdulillah :).

a real quick hadith for everyone to think about...i'm sure you have all heard it many times:

The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: "By Allah! I ask for forgiveness from Allah and turn to Him in repentance more than seventy times a day."( Bukhari)

none of us even come close to the piety and perfection of the Prophet (SAW), but even he would make istaghfar 70 (and in some hadith, 100) times a day.  just think about all the small things we do each day that we could be asking forgiveness for and try to make istaghfar after every prayer.  it only takes a few minutes more and its quite possibly the simplest way of erasing smaller sins, so it seems ridiculous NOT to do it.

in other news, i'm really sorry to have missed out on the festivities at bilal's wedding, the pictures were awesome!  and a big congrats to imad for getting engaged!

--zain

Blog Automation Solution [Your Reply Requested]

Asalamu'alikum,

InshAllah, you and your families are in the best of health and Imaan. Alhumdulilah, Nazia, Abida and I are doing OK.

I have a solution to propose that can, inshAllah automate our JHUMA Brothers blog, although it doesn't meet Nabil's full automation suggested requirements, it is, inshAllah, a solution that will work better than our current.

The solution is:

1. I will schedule an automatic reminder email on the 1st day of every month for everyone to send to ME ONLY (usman.email@gmail.com), their own blog post for the month.

2. As we have 24 brothers in this group, we each will have until the 4th of the month to reply back, to ME ONLY (usman.email@gmail.com), with our individual post. If you miss the deadline, there is no guarantee that your post will show up, but i'll try to accommodate.

3. Please start your email with "This is my [YOUR NAME HERE]'s JHUMA Brothers post," to avoid confusion

4. I will copy and paste your post into the blogger system and schedule one post to be sent out per day of the month.

We all don't need to know the technicalities of how the delayed posting works, but it would be good if ONE or TWO of you could volunteer to be a back up, at which point I will show you how to schedule the posts through the blogger system that is already linked to this google group.

 NOTE: all of the emails would originate from my email address in this solution, so I will make the subject of your email posts your name.

Also Note: You will still be able to send additional emails to the group whenever you want, if you have an in-between update, etc.

 InshAllah, please reply back so I can know if we have a consensus to start this automation. If so, I will plan to kick this off on June 1st.

JazakAllah khier,
Usman

Gratitude take two

Asalaamu alaikum

I'm not sure where my text went and I'll never get it back so I'll try and duplicate the raw emotion and eloquence of my previous submission. Alhamdulilah things are going well with me and the family. I've been working with my father to get the Luqman center and the Allima institute going and things are going well. We've had salat al Jumaah for the last three weeks and things are starting to look up a bit. I definitely invite you all to join us for salat or and iftar if you are available.
Aside from that I have to thank you all for the generous gift. Alhamdulilah Zainab has been enjoying her brand new swing and I'm sure Amber will have her in tons of cute clothes. May Allah bless you for your generosity and your duas. I love you all for the sake of Allah and I have gained so much from our association.
I was inspired to remember Allah while I thought about the gift from my brothers and I also had to consider the concept of gratitude to Allah. I like to think of myself as a grateful servant of Allah but in reality when I consider more deeply the many blessings I have I realize that I have barely scratched to surface of thankfulness. We often do not appreciate the comforts and miracles of this life until we are without them. I often find that when I try to formalize my gratitude to Allah I realize what I was expressing thanks for is only a component of a greater set of fortunate consequences which in turn is a component to an even greater set.
I invite you all to take some time this month and really consider your gratitude to Allah. The fact that you are able to read this means you have eyesight(maybe glasses), electricity, a computer, language, intelligence, education, time and you are alive. By virtue of the fact that we realize what we have, and take for granted, is a gift we are able to enjoy a more meaningful existence.
I hope this reaches you all in a good state and insha Allah we will see one another soon.

Narrated Suhaib (ra): The Messenger of Allah (sa) said: “Wondrous is the affair of the believer for there is good in every matter of his and this is not the case with anyone except the believer; for if he is happy, he thanks Allah, thus there is good for him, and if he is harmed, he shows patience, thus there is good for him.” [Sahih Muslim, Book 042, Number 7138] عَنْ صُهَيْبٍ، قَالَ قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم ‏“‏ عَجَبًا لأَمْرِ الْمُؤْمِنِ إِنَّ أَمْرَهُ كُلَّهُ خَيْرٌ وَلَيْسَ ذَاكَ لأَحَدٍ إِلاَّ لِلْمُؤْمِنِ إِنْ أَصَابَتْهُ سَرَّاءُ شَكَرَ فَكَانَ خَيْرًا لَهُ وَإِنْ أَصَابَتْهُ ضَرَّاءُ صَبَرَ فَكَانَ خَيْرًا لَهُ ‏”‏

Gratitude

Asalaamu alaikum








Narrated Suhaib (ra): The Messenger of Allah (sa) said: “Wondrous is the affair of the believer for there is good in every matter of his and this is not the case with anyone except the believer; for if he is happy, he thanks Allah, thus there is good for him, and if he is harmed, he shows patience, thus there is good for him.”
[Sahih Muslim, Book 042, Number 7138]
عَنْ صُهَيْبٍ، قَالَ قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم ‏“‏ عَجَبًا لأَمْرِ الْمُؤْمِنِ إِنَّ أَمْرَهُ كُلَّهُ خَيْرٌ وَلَيْسَ ذَاكَ لأَحَدٍ إِلاَّ لِلْمُؤْمِنِ إِنْ أَصَابَتْهُ سَرَّاءُ شَكَرَ فَكَانَ خَيْرًا لَهُ وَإِنْ أَصَابَتْهُ ضَرَّاءُ صَبَرَ فَكَانَ خَيْرًا لَهُ ‏”‏

Ramadan Mubarak!

Salaams all,

Sorry I've been a little behind on my posting, but Alhamdulillah I held out until the first day of Ramadan!  I started doing my internship in internal medicine at a hospital outside of Baltimore, and I'm really enjoying being back in the world of clinical medicine.  Research was certainly a great experience last year and it will inshallah help me throughout my career, but it's nice to come back to why I decided to go to medical school to begin with.  Residency is busy, but enjoyable, and luckily there are a ton of muslims at my program (as well as muslim attendings) so we are able to get together for jummah prayers every week in the hospital.  It's also nice to have other muslims around you fasting during Ramadan so that you get the feeling of community even while at work.

We all know the basic tenets of fasting, and what Ramadan is all about, so I'm not going to go into that in any detail.  But one of the things I think is useful during this month is to increase your piety in some way in the hopes that you will continue to do this during the year.  From a practical standpoint, I like to set some form of a goal during the month.  And that goal might be different for each person depending on their level.  Whether it's praying all 5 prayers on time, or attending every taraweeh for all 20 rakahs, or memorizing a surah (or more than one), or reading a certain amount of quran each day, etc.  Or perhaps its not doing something you would normally do.  It's easier to form these sorts of habits during Ramadan because your hunger will give you a bodily reminder of why you are doing what you are doing.

And finally, here is a hadith which really brings home how special fasting is in Allah's eyes:

Abu Huraira related that the Prophet said: Allah the Majestic and Exalted said: "Every deed of man will receive ten to 700 times reward, except Siyam (fasting), for it is for Me and I shall reward it (as I like). There are two occasions of joy for one who fasts: one when he breaks the fast and the other when he will meet his Lord" (Muslim).

May Allah bless all our deeds during this holy month and accept our fasts.  Ramadan Mubarak!

--Zain

The power of the adhan

Asalaamu alaikum

I'm out of turn or extremely late depending on how you view things. At any rate I have spoken to some of you all recently and more of you I have not and since Nabil has shamed me into finally writing in my my traditional fashion... here goes.

I have been remiss in sharing with you all that my daughter (Zainab Aminah) was born on May 17th. She is very healthy and already has a strong personality at this early age and (alhamdulilah) her siblings are adjusting to her getting so much attention. Aside from that, things have been quite hectic but usually in a good way. Please indulge me in one anecdote:

Directly after Zainab was born she begins to scream and she is loud. I begin to say the adhan quietly to her and she immediately quiets herself and opens her eyes to look at me. This was one of the most humbling and exhilarating moments of my life and an illustration of the value of giving the adhan.

It is reported that Abu Rafi` (a Companion) said, "I saw the Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and his household and grant them peace) give adhan in the ear of al-Hasan, the son of `Ali, when Fatimah gave birth to him."

Standing out

Salaams all,

Thank you for the reminder...cough cough Bilal cough...at least it wasn't Nabil :P.  Anyways, I'm halfway done my research stint at Henry Ford, and it's been great so far.  It's nice focusing on a few disease conditions and actually expanding the knowledge base of that condition.  I was never really into bench research, so it's nice to do research that actually involves seeing patients.  I'm waiting on the match for residency, so please keep me in your duas.

I heard this hadith mentioned in a lecture a few months ago, so I thought I'd share it:

Abdullah b Mas'ud reported: The Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) addressed us and then supported his back (by reclining) against a leather tent and said: Behold, no one but a believing person would enter Paradise. O Allah, (see) have I conveyed (it not)? Allah, be witness (to it that I have conveyed it). (Then addressing the companions) he said: Don't you like that you should constitute one-fourth of the inhabitants of Paradise? We said: Yes, Messenger of Allah. He again said: Don't you like that you should constitute one-third of the inhabitants of Paradise? They said: Yes, Messenger of Allah. He said: I hope that you would constitute one- half of the inhabitants of Paradise and you would be among the peoples of the world, like a black hair on (the body of) a white ox or like a white hair on the body of a black ox.

There are a lot of lessons in this hadith, but the part I want to point out is the last statement, which mentions how we should be "among the peoples of the world".  The stark contrast that is mentioned between a black hair on a white ox (and vice versa) is how we should strive to stand out in this life.  It should be easy to tell who amongst the people is muslim based not only on appearance, but also on behavior.  Even though being pointed out as muslim these days usually means you get an extra pat-down at the airport...we should convince everyone that being muslim in reality means being best in morality, behavior and piety.

--Zain

Talk More About Islam

Asalamu'alaikum JHUMA brothers,

Hope all is well with each of you and your families. Alhumdulilah, I had a nice break last week and visited family in both northern and southern California...

Some of you may know about my new project: Muslimhood.net. Muslimhood.net is a networking site for Muslims to come together, talk about Islamic topics and focus on striving to do more good deeds. Alhumdulilah the site is less than a month old and there are over 130 members who have contributed valuable content and intiated good discussions.

You can say Muslimhood.net is a facebook for Muslims, but it doesn't have the distractions of facebook. I saw that on facebook, most of the things that Muslims shared and talked about were worldly and vain day to day matters. So, alhumdulilah, I created Muslimhood.net with many of the same netorking features as facebook and even some extra (blogs, walls, events, groups, etc.), but Muslimhood.net fully focused on Islamic topics.

The first step is to just bring more Muslims together at Muslimhood.net. We can all start by talking more about Islam as the first step. Once more people gather to talk about Islam together, then we can strive to colloborate on projects that meet the needs of the Muslim community. There are many distractions in our day to day lives, so my intention in creating Muslimhood.net is to give the Muslim community an easy way to gather on-line and remind each other to strive to do good.

Inshallah, I hope to interact with each of you more deeply on Muslimhood.net. Please also share this with your contacts, friends and family.

Membership is free so log on to http://www.Muslimhood.net

I am open to and would appreciate any feedback as well.

May Allah guide us all and keep us all on the straight path.

Your brother in Islam,
Usman

Muslimhood.net
Doing Good

I get to post about fasting

Asalamu alaikum

Sorry about the lateness of this post but alhamdulilah it's here. Musa is a year old know and he's running around and playing like he's a big kid. Everyone else is doing well, the school year is in effect and keeping us busy. I've been thinking about some of the mistakes I've made in the past and the ones I'm sure to make in the future. I reccomend that we all seek insurance against the unforseen to come. On that note, I humbly submit this haddith.

Abû Hafsah, may Allâh be pleased with him, reported that the Prophet, upon whom be peace, said: "Fasting on the day of 'Arafah absolves the sins for two years: the previous year and the coming year, and fasting on 'ashûra, (the tenth day of Muharram) atones for the sins of previous years."

Cover my mistakes....

Assalamu alaikum Brothers!

Firstly I apologize Azim for jumping ahead of you in line.. :)

Recently I was reminded of a Hadith that I learned a while ago

 [لا يستر عبدٌ عبدًا في الدنيا إلا ستره الله يوم القيامة) [مسلم)

The prophet (SAS) is narrated to have said:

A slave (of Allah) does not cover (for) another slave (of Allah) except that Allah covers him on the day of Qiyaamah/Intense standing/reckoning. [ Sahih Muslim ]

If we take a look at ourselves we realize that we have innumerable number of faults/deficiencies/and defects (me especially). If we spend our lives looking at others, we come to realize the faults of others. And sometimes, when we get to know someone real well, some of their deep secrets become exposed to us.

The prophet (SAS) teaches us that we should make an effort to cover the faults & defects of other slaves of Allah.  [ No doubt there are exceptions to this, but this is the general rule, and Allah knows best. ]  And if we cover the faults of others, the reward is that Allah will cover our own faults on the Day of Judgement, so that insha Allah when we stand to be judged, we will remember the sins and faults we did in this life, but Allah will not expose them out of his mercy as we did not allow the faults of our brother/sister to be exposed either!

And my further thoughts/explanation of this: 

It is interesting to note that the prophet (SAS) used the word (   ستر  ) (sitr/cover)

which is the same term used in the phrase (    ستر العورة        ) (cover the private parts -- e.g. as a prerequisite to prayer)

So it is almost as if we are given the visualization that we are encourage to cover the deep hidden private mistakes/sins of others  as we make sure our own private parts are not exposed, in the hopes that Allah will not expose our deepest privates sins on the Day of Judgement.

May Allah grant us the ability to follow the advice of the Prophet , peace and blessings be upon him!

Salam,

-Safi

Dealing with trials

Salaams bros,

My turn on the blog again, and luckily Nabil hasn't tracked me down in Detroit to remind me (yet).  Haha, I kid I kid...in all honesty I'm so glad I do get reminded, it's a nice break from work to write these posts.  So I've been out here for a few months now, even though it feels like just yesterday when I left the east coast.  I'm pretty busy with research; they have me working on multiple projects at the same time but alhamdulillah I'm learning a lot.  It also feels nice that I'm actually contributing to knowledge instead of just taking from it.  I am applying to residency as well, so please keep me in your duas.

I'm sure most of you have heard the following hadith before:

Narrated 'Aisha: (the wife of the Prophet) Allah's Apostle said, "No calamity befalls a Muslim but that Allah expiates some of his sins because of it, even though it were the prick he receives from a thorn."

This hadith (in my opinion), is soooo important to the mental well-being of Muslims.  We are constantly challenged and tested in life with various tribulations: academically, financially, emotionally, etc.  Every one of us can think of a time when something "bad" happened to us.  What we need to realize is that ALL that happens in this world, good and "bad", is as a result of Allah's will.  One common question I have heard in relation to this is if we are going through a calamity, how are we supposed to know if it is a test or if we are being punished?  From my viewpoint, it doesn't really matter, because the response should be the same: we need to realize this is Allah's will and pray that he helps us through it.  Each test we are put through is an opportunity to better ourselves and remove sins from our record.  So the next time any of us is in a tough situation, no matter how small, inshallah let's try to think of this hadith and feel comforted that Allah is rewarding us in ways we can't recognize.

--Zain

Difficulty

Asalaamu Alaikum

Sorry for the lateness of this post. I'm happy to be able to write to you all and very excited about getting to see Nabil et. al. at the end of the month. We have all been out of touch for too long. Anyways, Things are going well for me I don't have a lot to report just enjoying my family and trying to be a better me. I'm sure we have all heard "after difficulty comes ease" I've had the opportunity to really reflect upon that recently. In my experience, a setback or "personal tragedy" doesn't become truly painful until we begin to feel sorry for ourselves. When we process an even or chain of events or we endure them until they are irrelevant our logical mind demonstrates that we were placing ing undue burdon upon ourselves and we imagine that power has been transfered from the true source of power (Allah swt) to the event or outcome that did not go in our favor. I emplore you all keep remembrerance of Allah in the times of difficulty and in times of ease. Also remember that power will always be in the hands of Allah and that power cannot be resisted. I love you brothers for the sake of Allah

Narrated Ibn Abbas
Allah's Apostle used to say at the time of difficulty, "None has the right to be worshipped but Allah, the Majestic, the Most Forbearing. None has the right to be worshipped but Allah, the Lord of the Tremendous Throne. None has the right to be worshipped but Allah, the Lord of the Heavens and the Lord of the Honourable Throne.