Aphorism of the day: See the good, focus on the good and articulate it” PS This is a good directive for people like myself who have a proclivity to see what is wrong- legitimately so- in situations and people This is not appropriate for the goody- goody types including Muslims who use Islamic teachings to deny reality. They inevitably come across as superficial and artificial which is not helpful to anyone -including themselves.
Category Archives: Modern Living
“Rule of Law”
Bureaucrats always act on principle which is regularly off-base in reality. But who cares(as Melania’s jacket said)?! They are following procedures. So when they say “a society built on the rule of law” you should be terrified rather than reassured. Anyone who has been through a serious legal process knows what I mean
Free Trade?!
NONE of the governments really want free trade.Only the people want that! They all want trade manipulated to Their advantage or the advantage of a select group of their supporters.So Trump points out that this manipulation has actually favoured countries like China AND Canada.He may be right,actually.The fact that America and Canada and Europe, for that matter, may actually be exploiting the cheap labour in Third World countries doesn’t seem to be part of that calculation.The governments of those Third World countries are more than happy to oblige in that exploitation as they are working as well for the privileged sectors,whether oligarchs or government party members and their friends,of their own society.What a mess! What injustice and inhumanity in all of this!There may,in fact, be only one viable solution.Roll back the Industrial Revolution and bring back local artisanal production,a much more satisfying process on all levels including the human one.( I love my shirwal/kameez suits made by a local Pakistani tailor and they are less expensive than those other ‘suits’ out there lol) But that shift is not likely to occur.So we wait patiently for the coming Apocalypse lol
Justice??
Interesting tid-bit about our legal system.Michael Cohen’s lawyers are costing $1000-$1500/hour .Fifteen of them are working adding up to $500,000 /week.And they have the chutzpah(gall) to talk about “Due Process of the Law”.Really?! Who can afford that kind of due process anyway?!These people and here I mean the most highly -placed politicians and jurists in the land are WAY bigger liars than Trump.And they have no awareness of it either.Disgusting and scary at the same time!
The Michael Cohen case should manifest to us all the folly of our so-called justice system which should be renamed our “injustice system”. The claims of the politicians and the lawyers is that the system is fair,objective and systematic.Due process of the law,no?Instead we see that it is arbitrary(Cohen has been doing these shady deals for decades and only when he gets hooked up with Trump are there indictments pending):manipulative(designed not to get justice about Michael Cohen but to push him to stool on his boss),vindictive(designed to get back at Trump although they will never admit it but I have heard about it it numerous times in courts where the judges are petty and biased)and perhaps worst of all outrightly cruel(completely unconcerned that on top of the serious consequences of the charges ,they often push the defendant who wants to get competent counsel into bankruptcy plus the long delays that are designed to give people nervous breakdowns).The politicians and lawyers should be seriously ashamed of what the courts have become but as they say”There are none so blind as those who will not see”!
PS Oops,I forgot to mention “greedy”.$1500/hour!
Exercise During Ramadan
People, like myself, who try to get to the gym on a regular basis find themselves in a quandary during Ramadan.When do we exercise?How do we get to the gym?And when? During the day is inappropriate as we are fasting.In the evening there is iftar and salat al Tarawih.After that we are usually too exhausted and most people don’t feel good exercising that late at night. In that light I remember meeting a couple of people in Tunisia who were training for the Olympics.They did their training during Ramadan at midnight! Makes sense, but most of us are not willing to make that kind of sacrifice,
So what do we do? First of all, before we go further,let me highlight the two major risks of exercising while fasting-dehydration and hypoglycemia.For the first,we don’t want to sweat too much.If we do we will be losing not only water but also electrolytes so that is a no-no.As to the second,we don’t want to be burning calories off too quickly,since we are not taking any in.Hypoglycemia can be a serious problem.
So the program has to be light to moderate in intensity ,no more. Here are the elements of the program I am using.
1) A moderately brisk walk 15-20 minutes.Can be done anywhere,preferably not in extreme cold or directly under the sun
2) Chiqong.I use the program developed by Roger Jahnke of Nine Phases. 15 mins. approx although it can be stretched out by increasing the number of repetitions.Remember to always keep them an odd number..Usually does not cause a sweat but rather brings in energy-“chi” they call it.So, perfectly suited to Ramadan
3) sit-ups -two sets of 10-15: 5 mins. and
4) Exercising of arms,chest and shoulders with resistance bands which can be purchased in any sporting goods store and are eminently portable
So there you have it-modest,cheap and doable.Should keep you in shape until your next visit to the gym in shawwal.And you can use it whenever you travel,anywhere.Tell me how it works for you.Salaams,Ibrahim
The Phenomenology of Ramadan
“Phenomenology” is a relatively new area of inquiry- often associated with such personalities as the German philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) and Martin Heidegger(1889-1976).We will not even attempt to go into the the intricacies of their philosophical systems as this would fly in the face of my most profound conviction about the need for simplicity. I would prefer to sort out a chaotic garage or warehouse space(obviously of my own making lol) than to even attempt such an endeavour.
Nevertheless,I think these schools of thought do represent an important development in our own way of conceiving the world and more specifically the need for us to observe and reflect on our inner experience.This need does not seem to be very present in traditional cultures including Islam where correct behaviour and correct beliefs seemed to suffice.So for most Muslims ,the fact that Allah ordained fasting in the Quran(2:183) and the Prophet saws told us of its benefits and the scholars have determined that the first ten days are for “Rahmat”(mercy) and the second ten are about” forgiveness from God” and the last ten give “freedom from the hellfires” is sufficient.
Being in the modern world, however, some of us, at least, feel the need to go deeper-into the inner experience and this is where phenomenology comes in.We need to look at the inner,experiential reality .
As I reflected on this( it may well have been an inspiration) I realized that an interesting parallel to Ramadan is the experience of pregnancy.The trigger for this thinking may well have been a difficult beginning to this year’s Ramadan and my recollections of the accounts of Kate Middleton, the duchess of Cambridge, and her difficult pregnancies being bed-ridden for months at the beginning of each of her pregnancies with overwhelming nausea.The details of her experience are not what is important here however,no more than the details of the philosophical systems of Husserl and Heidegger.What is interesting is that the three trimesters of pregnancy provide an interesting parallel to the three ten-day sections of Ramadan and I believe this can be helpful to us in understanding the process.
So, in Ramadan,the first ten days especially the early ones can be difficult for people.Just as women often experience nausea(morning-sickness) during the first trimester fasters will have a variety of symptoms as they take on the fast-headaches,dizziness,weakness,lack of concentration ,etc. Depending on the state of health of the practitioner this may last only a day or two or may continue for a longer period of time,for some intermittently throughout the month.
The second trimester of pregnancy usually is characterized by a subsidence of the ‘crisis mode’ ,less symptoms,a calmness and a waiting.I would call this phase”paddling” and “incubation”. The baby is slowing growing and developing.The same is true in Ramadan.The worst is over.Now is the time of persistence and patience.
We all know where the third trimester of pregnancy leads! If we have had any contact with a woman going through it,we know they are literally “carrying a heavy load” ,exhausted,breathless at night and anticipating and fretting about the”apocalypse ‘to come.And then it is over.At this point the model breaks down somewhat as Ramadan is not as clearly defines in its finality.So for the last ten days to be more accurate I would add in the model of the Shakespearian play which builds up to its climax(Lailat al Qadr) and its dénouement(the few days left after Lailat al Qadr. And the the Eid celebrations-in both cases.However for the woman, as opposed to the faster,the work has just begun!That is why Allah and his Prophet insist so strongly on the rights of the Mother!
I hope that helps you understand better the inner process of the month of fasting and makes it a more fulfilling and satisfying experience.I feel like it is helping me to think of it this way.And I can’t wait to see the baby at the end! Salaams,ibrahim
Edumucation
Texas school shooting. I’m going to have to start a column entitled “ things you’ll never hear from journalists” lol This is one of them! Maybe the real problem is “schools” The entire world including the place I am now visiting, Trinidad, is obsessed with formal, institutionalize schooling. But is this really such a good thing?! For one thing, many students don’t fit in. Either they don’t have the academic learning style required or they don’t have the social skills. So then they are humiliated, defeated and alienated. I suspect that many of young, mass killers fit into one of those categories .
But even in terms of education, these institutes are lacking. Most people tell me that they have to learn their jobs anyway when they get out of school. So is there any point? If you argue that schools produce open- minded, flexible intellects , I don’t see it, myself. They are in fact propaganda machines. I think we need to go back to the age-old master-apprentice formula if we want real education. But perhaps, that’s not what the powers find really wan! They want cogs in the machine. If that is it, they are succeeding well!
Conscious Choice
As I travel around the world, and I have done a significant amount of that in my lifetime,I realize that no matter where I am there is one constant. People, in general, do not make conscious choices in their lives. They are rather buffeted around by the surrounding social consensus, by financial needs and intercurring problems of whatever sort. In the Yogic schema we can say they are living in the first two chakras: chakra one of ‘survival’and chakra two of ‘pleasure’. Rarely do they ascend higher unless external forces propel them otherwise. This is very frustrating for people like myself who need others to make precisely those choices in order to make our interactions fruitful. Since I am not a Prophet and have no obvious miracles to shock people out of their complacency, my patience gets constantly tested. 🙁I guess that is my destiny lol
The Marriage Contract
As I reflect on this question, I realize that I was raised on the Hollywood version of marriage. “ Love and Marriage , go together like a horse and carriage” isn’t that the way the song goes?But what if the hitch between the horse and carriage is broken or the horse is ailing or the carriage was made with inferior steel from China lol? The bond might easily break.
The second pillar of my view of marriage was the humanism I learnt while studying psychology. So from there one adds in ‘tolerance of differences’ and ‘communication’. Now the package is complete . That was the paradigm I was working with.
Now, after three unsuccessful marriages including a recent debacle and one mostly successful one that lasted 24 years, I have to seriously question whether my model is adequate. Not too many schools would accept a 25% success rate, n’est-ce pas!?
When I first came into Islam, I was introduced to another model of marriage. Instead of a romantic arrangement , it was defined as a contractual one. And over time I have come to see the wisdom of this approach. I understand ,as well, the pitfalls of this approach especially in modern times where families may ask for two many conditions especially monetary ones which become burdensome and unrealistic. For example, in Jordan where I did s sabbatical year, the fathers were often requiring $25, 000 US as dowry plus an owned appartment and a good job. Most young Jordanian men did not have such resources so many young women remained unmarried!
These excesses aside, the idea of setting out the terms of a marital arrangement before it is officialized appears to me to make more and more sense. Obviously one cannot foresee all the possible developments long-term in a marriage but some issues are foreseeable right from the onset. A few examples: If the man is Muslim and the wife is Christian, how are the children to be educated? Does the wife agree that all meat that enters the house will be halal?If the wife comes from a wealthy family and the husband has a simple middle-class job, she needs to agree from the outset that she will not have the same life-style that she had previously. If the wife is a Sufi practitioner and the husband is more of a standard Sunni or much worse a Wahhabi( in that case I wouldn’t recommend marriage at all lol) then he has to agree to accept her practice and not harass her about her beliefs or practices. Another issue that will frequently come up is the care of children. If the wife is insistent on continuing her career as soon as possible and the husband feels strongly that the mother should stay home for the first years of a child’s life, this should be dealt with quickly as the possibility of future conflict on this very issue remains and can lead to serious conflict and disruption in the family
As you can see the possibilities for such conflicts is very specific to each couple. I am sure that the reader can think of many other possibilities. Whatever is foreseeable should be addressed and included in the written contract whenever possible.
Now, does this solve all potential difficulties? By no means. However, it appears to me , at least, that this gives the players involved the best chance of success. I sincerely wish I would have understood this earlier!
Education!
All over the world , including here in Trinidad,I witness this tremendous investment and belief in “education”. Universities, private schools, standard testing etc., etc.But this is investment in cerebral development mostly. I can’t help wondering whether a similar investment in education of the heart and soul( emotional and spiritual education )could not make a greater impact. After all ,this emphasis on cerebral development is not working. If you don’t believe me, look around and check out the news lol!