American Muslima Writer -Daring to Work Towards Jannah

Our souls deep within strive and struggle everyday to search for a way to find that deep inner peace, that oneness with the universe and the Creator of All. Realizing your place in the finite yet absolutely enormous reaches of space. Feeling in your heart and mind the answer to lifelong questions that beseech humanity.


Why are we here? What is our purpose in this life? What happens after we die? How can we achieve inner peace and contentment no matter our lot in life?

Many of us in this world and especially those of us in the blogosphere have searched long and hard for these answers. Yet I feel most of us have forgotten this long struggle for our souls. Upon discovering the beauty and perfection in Islam we immediately adapted our lives to follow the ways of our Blessed Prophet Muhammad Sallahu Alayhi wa Salim. We struggled day and night everyday of our lives to learn the words of the prayers and to push our bodies to accept the fasting we willed upon it for the sake of our Lord. Even in poverty we spent from our means to help others and at times we felt it. That peace. That deep inner peace. We feel Allah, our One, Beloved God, and the feeling brings us that peace until tears flow down our faces in gratitude.

Then the troubles and trials of the world interfere and slowly slowly ever so slowly we start forgetting. Easing farther and farther away from that peace. Frustration, sadness, depression, pain, anger, laziness, and exhaustion overwhelm our minds and hearts and we bob out our prayers more like robots than Muslims. We fast trying to sleep as much possible to make only a few hours of pain until we can stuff our faces with the feasts we prepared. Then comes the night, the Night of Power. Therein we strive to make up that lost ground and return to the fold of peace that enveloped our souls at the beginning of our journey in Islam. Some of us succeed and other spend the night in laughing, gossip, and chatter, or worse.

I KNOW that we are faced with ups and down in our Imans. I do know and accept this, BUT....

Just this week I realized I said Shahada August 5, 2001. It has been almost a decade since I said Shahada. A DECADE!


I find it absolutely unacceptable and pathetic that I am not more proficient in Islam. It is unacceptable and pathetic to me that I have not achieved a constant, or EVEN weekly, inner peace.


My soul craves that peace like no other thing right now.


Had I gone to University to become a Doctor I'd have managed to become a Neurological Surgeon by now. How is it then that I have not managed to learn to read Arabic better or speak it more fluently or memorized more Qur'an? How is it I still Struggle to remember to pray my 5 prayers on time without missing one. How is it I used to manage Sunnah Prayers yet now I don't have time? How is it possible that I am not better in Islam.

Islam is Submission to Peace. By following it (Islam) you find that Inner Peace. So by conclusion I can only surmise I am not following it enough. I am missing out on something essential that is not letting me attain this peace within. Am I doing sins? Probably as we all sin. But am I seeking forgiveness and repentance from these sins? Am I beseeching Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala for his forgiveness and to bring myself closer to Him. Am I dedicating my life to His service and way provided by the teachings of the Peaceful Muhammad Sallalahu Alayhi wa Salim? Am I immersing myself too much in worldly life and not enough in spiritual life? Am I forgetting how short this life is and how soon I will be in my grave wishing I had spent my youth and time in Prayer? I must search more to continue the struggle towards Allah.

This past weekend I actaully spent the whole day feeling like I was being partially brainwashed except I liked it.

So here I am sitting here in the almost Fajr time and all of a sudden I hear a horrid screech and BAM BAM CRUNCH POP BAM BAM SQUEEEEELLL!!!!!
I live next to a roundabout that in the middle of the night is used in a race rally... finally someone got hit badly!
 I donned hijab and ran out only to find two men looking relaxed calling police and I asked if anyone is hurt and they look at me like I'm stupid.  I was the only female out there at 4am checking out the crash scene.... screw them then I went inside.... too darn cold out there anyways!

So the other night on Jan 1st we were coming out of the Bawadi Mall in southern AL-Ain and I'm walking happily holding my daughter's hand as we wander our way to the back parking lot. My husband is holding our son and walking ahead of us a little bit. It's about Midnight and  my daughter suddenly looks up at the sky and says "Why is the moon moving?" I opened my mouth to launch into a scientific explination of how it's not the moon moving, it's the clouds in front of it; when I too glanced up.  Before my very eyes the full moon appeared to literally be running through the sky.  Startled, I sttod still in shock and stared at it as if it would suddenly come to a halt but it didn't. It continued racing across the sky and for a panicked moment I seriously though the World is ENDING!
"Honey look at the moon!!" I cried with fear in my voice.
He glanced up and scoffed, "It's just the clouds moving!"
Perplexed and still quite frightened that the world might indeed be ending and I had prayers to make up I looked at the sky more closely. I stared hard at the clouds instead of the moon and indeed the moon stayed still finally and the clouds instead went racing across the dark sky.  Breathing easier yet still shaken we continued to the car.
After getting inside and settling in Hubby admitted for half a split second he too thought the moon was moving and to cover his fear he had to scoff to relieve not only himself but my fears as well.  Naturally he was right lol.
But imagine if the WORLD WAAAS ENDING!?!?!?!  We would have TOTALLY been unprepared!!!  This is why everyone must always remember that death can come at any moment ans we should be prepared because once death comes to us that IS the end of our viewing this world.  SubhanAllah.

"Muahahahaha!" She thunders waving her cat'o'nine tails high and raking them down the hapless victim's back in glee and furious might.

I whipped NaNoWriMo good!
I managed the incredible feat of beating out 50,000 words of literary pearls from the clutches of my mind in less than a month.


Hmm now for taking this pile of words and arranging them in PLEASANT to READ literary pearls...

that be 'nother task for 'nother month's undertakin'.....

It's a big Holiday time with E'id, Thanksgiving, Blessed Jummah, Hajj, Fasting of A'rafat, soon to be worldwide Chistmas and Hannakah season,
What is the best gift to get someone you love?
A gift that doesn't break with usage and time.
A gift with no batteries required.
A gift that will teach them something about life.
A gift that will open their eyes to the world around them...

J. Samia Mair has written about this wonderful gift in her Blog Article for the Baltimore Muslim Examiner

Holiday gift ideas and not just for Muslims! - The 'Many Voices' of Muslim authors

 Check out her other cool and insightful articles! Masha'Allah.

Well what have I been doing?

Avoiding too much sugar...yes. But sooo much more!
My friend I told y'all about is Homeschooling her 7 kids. And we decided to combine our Homeschooles.  SO now we have anywhere between 6-9 kids in the house at any one time.  I'm teaching the 5 younger ones (including my 2), while she teaches the older ones.  Alhamdulillah this month so far has been full of fun challenges!  First of all getting my kids up "early" and to her house by 9am. Wow can't beelive the wonders it has done for my scheduling! They wake up early and nap at 2pm when school stops and then stay awake til 8pm and then you guess it GO TO BED EARLY! YAY!! The sight of my children sleeping from 8pm til the morning nearly moved me to tears! It made me downright poetic! I've been trying for months to get them up early and sleeping early and IT NEVER WORKS!!!!!  I 've KNOWN they've always needed somehting to encourage them to face the day, something to look forward to.  Leaving the house and getting to play with their friends and did I mention leaving the house? has done the trick.  They get so exhausted by 2 they crash and quite frankly as son as I get home so do I.  I take a nap for a half hour to an hour and it's nice though.  I really am enjoying it so much.  It's amazing being able to work intimatly with the younger 5 in their various school levels.  There certainly is soemthing to be said for small class sizes!  They are even learning each others work.  The eldest girl of my group was learning number placing (Hundres, thousands, millions, billions, trillions etc...) and her younger sister joined in the lesson.  We went from number placing subject to the origions of words (like Latin) and the meaning of Million, Billion, Trillion and their root words Mi, Bi, Tri... etc... It was just fabulous fun.

What else am I doing?  Well brace yourselves~!

Writing a Novel

YUP! A whole Novel... in one month!!! National Novel Writing Month NaNoWriMo is the challenge to write a 50,000 word novel by Nov. 30.  So Despite my busyness in Hmeschooling and incorporating my new Home Cleaning Schedule and maintainging my Home Mangement Notebook, I've taken on a new book.
I've had the idea of a while now but never really fleshed it out! The title is " Forgotten "
It's going ok, I've gotten about 2,000 words so far which isn't too much liek my other friends have already 7,000 or so... I'm behind bu I'm happy at least I'm trying.  At the end of the month I'll have more words than if I hadn't tried at all, know what I mean.....

So wish me well and make du'a I can do it all.