Reflections of a traveller

Life sometimes gets quite hard. We cannot really afford to have a life with no worries. Recently my mum-in-law got diagnosed with cancer. Inna lillahe wa inna ilaiher rajeuun. It made me feel very sad and worried for her. For the first time, I feared loosing her Subhanallah. I met her for the first time in February of 2006 when she came to our place to meet us. I never thought I would feel so emotional for my mum-in-law. I guess life is full of surprises. I grew up in a culture where in-laws are always the ‘outsiders’ and hardly seen as well-wishers, unfortunately. It’s not just the society and people around us but also the media and popular culture who reinforces this sort of negative attitude towards in-laws. Life can get quite bitter if you are always paranoid and sceptical about how others behave with you. If you get a bit of negative attitude towards you, you end up blaming them for ‘judging’ you and not regarding you as their own. I have learnt from my experience that I need to t...

Subhanallah so many Muslims (?) are now celebrating the Valentine's Day. Seeing friends on FB sharing their ‘Valentine’ wishes makes me quite confused. What’s going on? Are we really allowed to celebrate this day? Why do we need this one day to show our love and affection to our loved one? Our beloved Messenger Muhammad (SAW) showed love and affection to his wives every single day of his life through his beautiful action. He (SAW) never treated them with harshness and always been very kind and gentle to the mothers of believers. Even the companions (RAW) were so good to their wives mashallah. Our faith teaches us to love and show respect to people who are very close to us every single day of our life, not just this one day! Life is just a moment for us so we are told to make it a moment of loving Allah swt and His beautiful creation insha-Allah. If we know the origin of Valentine day, I don’t think as Muslims we would like to celebrate this day anymore. It’s du...

Alhamdulillah not that many days left now. Had my Glucose Tolerance Test (GTT) and once again the result was positive. Alhamdulillah in every situation insha-Allah. I did try to eat more fruits and vegetables and fish during this pregnancy but I guess it’s in my gene so couldn’t really avoid gestational diabetes. So got it for the third time now and the part I hate most is how now I’m no longer a low risk pregnant woman anymore for the health professionals! I have been summoned to go to see my special Diabetes Midwife as soon as possible and also from now on I have to have a regular appointment with the consultant. I am also expected to give birth at a special hospital where they apparently are more able to deal with high risk woman like moi! You get bombarded with all the stuff which ' can go wrong' from now on given you got GD such as the baby can be quite big so you may not be able to have a normal vaginal birth, baby may also develop diabetes, I may have diabetes too withi...

Alhamdulillah after more than two weeks of continuous protest the Egyptian people have managed to force Mubarak to leave. Subhanallah this is what people can achieve if they get united. This is the same country where centuries ago, the people of Moses (AS) with Allah SWT’s help stood up against the dictatorship of Pharaoh. I am so glad to witness this great historic event during my lifetime alhamdulillah as these sorts of events are very rare. The year I was born was also a very significant year as it was 1979 when the Iranian revolution took place. That was a huge blow to the Western powers especially America and some EU countries as they never thought general public will be able to topple the Shah who was strongly supported by the West and its allies. But Iran being a predominantly Shia country, the revolution didn’t really influence the Sunni world. Unfortunately Sunni world didn’t really get that much motivation to revolt against their dictators who are also heavily supported by th...

Alhamdulillah I am so glad to let you know that the latest edition of Mum and Muslim magazine is now out. As always we have received some great articles alhamdulillah thanks to our wonderful sisters and brothers . The latest bi-monthly edition of Mum and Muslim magazine features a variety of articles from absent fathers to dealing with infertility , and birth story  to doulas . We also have an article from our youngest writer at the age of 12 . As our feature was youth and issues related to them we have received some good articles from our lovely sisters from Baligh project. Do have a look at their articles on friendship and our next generation . We also did an article on current hijab trends at our features section . Alhamdulillah as usual our column section got some very good and practical ideas and tips from our working mum Umm Salihah  on how to cope with threat of redundancy, stay at home mum Aisha'tu Mohammad.  on salah and practice. Our Muslimah Di...