21 Replies

…so there was an escape!!! …from the inner prison of this grander prison we all are in…ShukriLlah for the hazy respite into the desert…and to Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi for the timely nudge…which was taken literally…even though the metaphorical option is always there…wonder why we do not see…nay…do not BELIEVE  the door is always wide open?

…the intention was to ramble on about the timelessness of the desert…even though this particular place is rapidly transforming into a chaotic tent city…shanty places side by side occupying what was a few years ago vast open space…

…the intention was to ramble on about the wondrous camel…and to explain how Saudi nationals acquisition land…to chat about the majestic mountains…but while diving into Rumi gems all intentions seemed hollow…

Be empty of worrying.

Think of who created thought!

Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.

The wound is the place where the Light enters you.

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

Only from the heart can you touch the sky

Set your life on fire. Seek those who fan your flames.

If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?

Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.

Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.

When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.

You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?

Suffering is a gift. In it is hidden mercy.

You wander from room to room

Hunting for the diamond necklace

That is already around your neck!

Knock, And He’ll open the door

Vanish, And He’ll make you shine like the sun

Fall, And He’ll raise you to the heavens

Become nothing, And He’ll turn you into everything.

Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.

Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure.

And you?

When will you begin that long journey into yourself?

Why do you stay in prison

When the door is so wide open?

JUMA’AH MUBARAK!

…a previous visit to this area…

All good is from Allah Ta’ala whereas mistakes are from this humble speck. May Allah Ta’ala Bless all readers, bringing you all closer to Him and His Rasul SallAllahu alaihi wasallam.  May He accept our humble efforts and grant us the capacity to be good and do good. Ameen.

5 Replies

…excerpts from a most brilliant article by Imam Afroz Ali, via Seekers Guidance, where he elucidates and educates about the relationship between the exquisite camel, the exquisite Arabic language and the exquisite state of gratitude…

Well-documented properties of camel’s milk include:

Ten times more iron than cow’s milk
Three to five times more vitamin C than cow’s milk
Rich in B vitamins
High in imuno-globins (note- not goblins)
Very high in protein
Minerals
Low in fat – 1.8-2% fat compared to 3.5-4% in cow’s milk
Much lower in cholesterol
Anti-bacterial properties
Anti-inflammatory properties

That is pretty good for a desert roamer.

And do not worry; I have not side tracked into animal husbandry. All of this information is very important… crucial in fact, in order to understand shukr, or gratitude.

When the she-camel’s udder is full with milk, it is said to be shakar. The operative word is “full”, or “in abundance”, and which we will return to later. The camel with such full and wholesome udder is called shakira, despite the fact is it had only a small share of herbage and pasture to forage on and feed itself with.

The meaning of shukr lies in the entire process of the camel finally giving milk. The camel takes from the praiseworthy bounty of herbage, seeming to the eye scarce and insufficient, takes from it what it needs to sustain itself, but yields a significantly more praiseworthy gift called milk, that benefits everything else- its young as well as human beings. Its sincerity only sees abundance in what others see scarcity; its selflessness sees benefit from it for others in what others see profit for themselves. As a shakira, the camel manifests altruistic benefit. Its gratefulness for existence is seen and experienced in it using the bounties to produce beneficial result over and beyond its self.

Shukr is more than being thankful or grateful; in fact that would be seen as self-indulging and greed. Shukr is only gratefulness if from what one receives out of the beneficence of another, that the recipient utilise it only in ways that is pleasing to the benefactor, primarily that the recipient would utilise such a favour in a beneficial and good manner over and beyond himself. As such, gratefulness carries the condition of unconditional charity from what one receives, after thanking the benefactor. Thus, Shukr has an inward and outward reality; the outward being using the tongue to thank and using the limbs to effect unconditional and beneficial altruism.

The inward reality is a lot more complex. But before that, the use of the tongue to thank the benefactor is also an important element of shukr (unfortunately it is frequently the only aspect of it that is acted upon or known to most). There are three essential forms of the outward reality of shukr.

One must verbalise one’s gratefulness; to say thank you, truthfully.
One must acknowledge the beneficence of the benefactor by utilising the gifts appropriately.
One must commend and praise the benefactor for their beneficence they so generously gave, and to do so frequently.

Shukr therefore rests on five foundations.

Humility in the recipient towards the benefactor, rather than have a selfish expectation.
The recipient to have sincere love for the benefactor shown in limbic action, rather than intent of exploitation.
The benefit in the gift to be acknowledged by the recipient, rather than unchecked abuse.
The recipient to praise the beneficence of the benefactor, rather than heedlessness.
The recipient to verbalise thankfulness and praise, rather than silence and concealing it.

So we observe that there are three parts of shukr: the two outward that we have already discussed in length- the manifestation in the limbs (beneficial altruism) and the tongue (thankfulness). The third, the inward, is the manifestation in the heart, this being the pillar of the entirety of shukr. Without its manifestation in the heart in a specific way, the outward manifestations are futile and even hypocritical.
ALTITUDE OF GRATITUDE

The depths and heights of shukr is beholding a profound state of awe-inspiring consciousness of the benefactor. Its reality is not in the beneficence at all, but in the benefactor. Heedlessness of the benefactor is ungratefulness, regardless of how well what was granted to the recipient was used.

We need to return to the camel!

Continue reading from this brilliant analogy here…

…these magnificent creatures seen on while zooming along the Hijrah Highway…

…and learn of the amazing qualities of camel’s milk through this video series…

Do you not see that to Allah prostrates whatever is in the heavens and on the earth- the sun, the moon, the stars, the mountains, the trees, the moving creatures and many from among the humans? (22:18)

…and while you are looking at the Seekers Guidance site check the inspiring list of online courses being offered in a few weeks…no excuse for not seeking knowledge with their Knowledge without Barriers…

All good is from Allah Ta’ala whereas mistakes are from this humble speck. May Allah Ta’ala Bless all readers, bringing you all closer to Him and His Rasul SallAllahu alaihi wasallam.  May He accept our humble efforts and grant us the capacity to be good and do good. Ameen.

4 Replies

…random, rambling thoughts…vaguely stitched together by the sight, smell and sound of these camels…such is the workings of grey matter when its machinations are given permission to wander…dream…remember…

…to recall times long gone…and places so far away…loving the rhythmic cycle of milking goats…the intimacy of living with farm animals that provided natural goodness…commodities to barter for cow’s milk cream in order to churn butter…shearing fleece from docile sheep, spinning and dying with bush flora…honey from hives…seasonal veggies…free range eggs…all this flooded the inner screen on this nostalgic visit…

…as I stood in the crisp dawn desert air…moments from where Qaswa, following Divine Command, knelt at Hudaybiyyah…feasting on the tales of solitude and the simplicity of oneness with nature…whispered by the wind that was playfully billowing niqab and abaya…a yearning was stirred…a yearning that usually lives in some deep recess…rarely allowed expression…a yearning to spend time on the land…specifically with a camel…or some…

…what seems like centuries and yet seconds ago…I taught an extremely talented student art…she gave me a magnificent ink drawing of the detail of a camels face……I can still clearly see that drawing…but not her…she died as a young lady while searching for meaning in India…

…an affinity for animals seems an obvious disposition given I was raised on a farm…with ancestors and relations living ‘off the land’…love for camels began a little later as a young inquisitive child…intrigued by the exotic tales of turbaned Afghan cameleers arriving in the wide, and wild expanses of the vast Australian interior from mysterious places only known as coloured smudges in a faded atlas…decades later, they have multiplied to be a feral scourge…the Saudis trying to fathom out how to save them from culling and ship them back to their original habitats…

…fascinating that Allah Ta’ala asks:

Don’t they see the camels, how they are made? (88:17)

…not a kangaroo, giraffe, rhino or wombat…how noble to be singled out by Allah Ta’ala…certainly a verse that attracts refection and invites one to study the characteristics of the camel…how honoured was it to be the favoured means of transport by our Blessed Prophet SallAllahu alaihi wasallam…if these creatures stir passions now, imagine the joy and elation of seeing Rasulullah SallAllahu alaihi wasallam astride Qaswa…swoon…

…imagine when the Hajj season saw multitudes of them ambling around the sacred precincts…or the image of thousands engaged in trade…war…raids…or merely munching on bitter scrubby thorn bushes…their weird padded feet anchoring the ‘ship of the desert’…the double row of eye lashes…the extra membrane that they can pull over their eye to keep sand out…nostrils they can shut to keep the sand out…oval shaped red blood cells so even if they are dehydrated their blood keeps flowing…

…and their nutritious milk…why we should drink it…and according to Hadith, the curative effects of their urine…camel milk soap…

…their beauty…their racing abilities….camel milk chocolate fashioned in their shape…and more and more…

and more facts here...

…camel Kabsa, a traditional Saudi feast…feast your eyes here…but not here if you are squirmish…

…as faithful friends…as a pet (clip with music)…

…as a means of livelihood for many expats…mainly Sudanese, as they can happily contend with the harsh and lonely existence…

…the following photos were recently taken in the desert near Madinah Al-Munawwarah…

…with more from the camel archives…

Don’t they see the camels, how they are made?

SUBHANALLAH!

All good is from Allah Ta’ala whereas mistakes are from this humble speck. May Allah Ta’ala Bless all readers, bringing you all closer to Him and His Rasul SallAllahu alaihi wasallam.  May He accept our humble efforts and grant us the capacity to be good and do good. Ameen.