Eid Mubarak

BEKTIC'S STORY

Bektic Fatima is from Joseva village in Bratunac, in Bosnia.
“I lost my husband in the war; he was killed by a bomb. His body was never found. I can’t even count the members of my family who have been killed in this war.
I am faced with a very difficult situation. I went to visit my son who lives in Ilijas, with his family. It was good to see them on this blessed day, but I couldn’t wait to come back home, as I saw how hard they are finding it to survive and how life is difficult for them also.
We got these wooden houses from a donor. He sometimes brings us some food. I cook, but I am not able to make anything special. I eat just to survive.
We live 40 kilometres from Bratunac. It is wilderness. We are surrounded by forest, so when the season of mushrooms or some forest herbs arrives, we collect it and sell it.
Unfortunately we do not have any kind of animals here. If we for example had chickens the foxes from the forest would come and eat them.
The crisis has been with us for 10 months, since we came back to our pre-war home. I have two sons living in Sarajevo, one of them is working as a manual labourer and he is struggling to provide his family with the basic needs. The other one is not working, he is an invalid. The children who live with me are faced with many difficulties, but I am not able to help them more. God is my witness that I am doing everything I can.
Our life was completely different before the war. We had everything. Many people were living here, but now it is just forest. But I had to come back here. This is my home.
This is the first time I have received Qurbani meat. I am very thankful for that. The children like the Qurbani meat with macaroni. Any assistance means a lot to me. With this meat we will have a good lunch for days. I am very grateful. Also, I am so happy that you have come to visit. Sometimes I look at the street, hoping I will see someone passing. There is no one here. Just forest. Thank you for your visit.
I live with my daughter and her son; he is in the fifth grade at elementary school. The main income we have is my pension, and that is 300 KM ( €150). This is not enough for us to have a normal life.
The main problem is life without electricity, water and heating. In the house we had before the war, we had everything. Electricity, water, even a washing machine. We had two cows, sheep and 15 bulls. We had everything.
Now I live in one room, 16 square metres. We don’t have a bathroom; we use plastic wash-basins to take a bath. It is very difficult to cope with this. I don’t have any plans or hopes for the future. I would like to have some animals, which would make me feel alive again. I have high blood pressure and diabetes. My health is not good, but I am surviving.
I would like to thank Islamic Relief for your help and assistance. I am happy that you have come to visit, to see in what kind of circumstances we live. I hope you will come again and you will remember us again

What is the Purpose of our Life?

The information which is to be shared, may seem to be bit extensive but when you consider the capacity of the human brain and the amount of information that it can store and that it can decipher, then a few pages of information tonight, I’m sure won’t overburden you.

All of you have an equal responsibility and that responsibility is to listen with an open heart and an open mind.
In a world full of prejudice and cultural conditioning, it is very hard to find people that are able to take a moment to think about life objectively. And try to arrive at the truth about this world and the real purpose of our life. Unfortunately, when you ask most people the question what is the purpose of our life, such a fundamental and important question, they will not tell you what they have concluded through observation or analytical reasoning. Rather, in most cases, they will simply tell you what someone else said. Or they will tell you what is commonly presumed by others; what my father says the purpose of life is, what the minister of my Church says the purpose of life is, what my teachers says, what my friends says etc. If I ask anyone about the purpose of eating, why do we eat? Everyone will say in one word or another, its for nutrition because it sustains life. If I ask anyone why they work, they will say because it’s a necessity in order to support themselves and to provide the needs of the family. If I ask anyone why they sleep, why they wash etc. They will answer this is a common necessity for all human beings. We can follow this line of questioning with 100 questions and get same or similar answer from anyone in any language in any place in the world. Simple!
Then I ask you the question, why is it, that when we ask the question, what is the goal and the purpose of life, that we get so many different answers? That’s because people are confused, they don’t really know. They are stumbling in the dark. And rather than to say I don’t know, they just fall for any answer that they have been programmed to answer. Well think about it tonight!

Is our purpose in this world simply to eat, sleep, dress, work, acquire some materials things and enjoy ourselves? Is this our purpose? Why are we born? What is the object of our existence? And what is the wisdom behind the creation of men and this tremendous universe? Think about that question. Some persons argue that there is no prove of any divine origin, there is no prove that there is a God, there is no proves that this universe has come about for any divine purpose; there are people who argue this way. And they say that perhaps this world came about by chance. A big bang and this whole great world, with all its orchestration just came together. And they argue that life does not have any definite purpose and that there is nothing that can be proven through by the logic or science that there is a God or purpose or any divine reason behind this world.

In the Qur’an it’s mentioned:
To Allah belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth and Allah has power over everything. Behold! In the creation of the heavens and the earth and the alternation of the night and the day, there are indeed signs for men of understanding, men who celebrates the praises of Allah standing, sitting and lying down on their side and they contemplate the wonders of the creation in the heavens and the earth with the thought, “Our Lord, not for any foolish purpose has thou created all of these. Glory be to thee, give us salvation from the penalty of the hellfire.

Now here in these verses, Allah has mentioned very clearly to us by first drawing our attention to the creation of ourselves, the different postures of the human body, the different attitude of the human psychology. He draws our attention to the heaven, the alternation of the night and the day, the firmament, the stars, the constellation and then He says to us, “He has not created all of these for any foolish purpose”. Because when you see the design of it, you know it that the design of it is very powerful and very precise. And something very powerful and very precise that is beyond your own calculation and imagination, it cannot foolish. It cannot be just thrown together.

If you took 10 marbles and number them 1 to 10 and all of them with different colours and you put them inside of a bag and shook the bag and then closing your eyes reached inside that bag, and I told you, pull out marble number 1 and then marble number 2 and then pull out marble number 3 in order. What’s the chance of your pulling out of these 10 marbles in order? Do you know the chances are? Its 26 millions to 1. So what’s the chance of the heavens and the earth being thrown in a big bang and orchestrated like they are. What’s the chance of that?

My dear respected fellow humans we have to ask ourselves a further question. When you see a bridge, a building or an automobile, you automatically consider the person or the company that constructed it. When you see a plane or a rocket, a satellite or a large ship, you also think about how incredible of a vehicle that it is. When you see a nuclear plant in orbiting space stations or a super international airport, you have to thoroughly impressed with the engineering dynamics that are involved.
Yet, these are just things that are manufactured by human beings. Then what about the human body; with its massive and intricate control system? Think about it.

Think about the brains; how it thinks, how it functions, how it analysis, sort information, retrieves information, distinguishes and categorizes information in a millionth of a second! And does it constantly. Think about the brain for a moment. This is the brain that made the automobile, the rocket. Think about the brain and who made that. Think about the heart how it pumps continuously for 60 or 70 years, in taking and discharging blood throughout the body and maintaining that steady precision throughout the life of that person. Think about it.

Think about the kidney and what kind of functions that they carry – the purifying instrument of the body, which performs hundreds of chemicals analysis simultaneously and also controls the levels of toxicity in the content of the body. And it does this automatically.
Think about your eye – The human camera that adjust, focus, interpret, evaluate, and applies colour automatically; the natural inspective and adjustment to light and distance. All automatic, think about it!
Who created that? Who has mastered that? Who plans that? And who regulates that? Human beings themselves? No of course not.

What about this universe? Think about this. This earth is ONE planet in our solar system. And our solar system is one of the systems in the Milky Way. And the Milky Way is one of the constellations in this galaxy. And there are millions of galaxies like the Milky Way. Think about that and they are all in order. They are all precise. They are not colliding with each other. They are not conflicting with each other and they are swimming along in an orbit that has been SET for them. Have human beings set that into motions? And are those human beings maintaining that precision? No of course NOT! Think about the ocean, the fish, the insects, the birds, the plants, bacteria, and the chemical elements that have not been discovered and cannot be defected even with the most sophisticated instruments. Yet each one of them has a law that they follow.

Did all of these sequence, balance, harmony, variation, design, maintenance, operation and infinite numeration, did this happen by chance? And also do these things functions perpetually and perfectly by chance? And do they reproducing themselves and maintaining themselves also by chance? No of course not.
That would be totally illogical and foolish to think and in the least, it will indicate that however it came to be, it is totally outside of the realm of human capability. We will all agree to that.
The being, the all mighty power, God, the creator who has the knowledge to design, to proportion, who has created all of these and is responsible for maintaining all of these, is the only one that is deserving our praise and gratitude.
If gave each one of you a $100 for no reasons, you would at least say thank you. What about your eyes, your kidney, your brain, your life, your birth, your children – what about that? Who gave you that? Is He not worthy of praise and thanks? Is He not worthy of your worship and recognition?
That in a nutshell is the purpose and the goal of this life.

Allah the all mighty said to us in the Qur’an: “I have not created the Jinn (the spirit) nor the human beings for any other purpose except to worship me". This what the almighty says. So our purpose of this life is to recognize the creator, to be grateful to the creator, to worship the creator, to surrender ourselves to the creator and to obey the laws that He decided for us.

In a nutshell it means worship. This is our purpose on this life. And whatever we do in the course of that worship, that system, the eating, the drinking, the dressing, the working; all of these are just consequential but we have been created to worship.

That’s the purpose of our life. Don’t think that anyone who is scientific or analytical, they won’t have much argument with that purpose. They may have some other purpose within themselves. But that’s something they have to deal with between themselves and all mighty God.

Agree / Disagree ???

"Always tell someone how you feel about them; you will feel much better when they know."
Agree / Disagree

"when women marry for security ... they marry for wrong reasons."
Agree / Disagree

"Being away from someone can make your love stronger."
Agree / Disagree

"We tend to judge people by their nationalities"
Agree / Disagree

"You need fairy tales to get you through the real gray world."
Agree / Disagree

"Anything challenging is positive."
Agree / Disagree

"The way you dress is an extention of your personality."
Agree / Disagree

http://www.islamic-relief.com/

Amina’s Story
“I live with my husband. We are old people and so don’t need much to eat. Usually I make rice and porridge. We don’t keep a vegetable garden as my poor husband is too weak.
We are alone in this world and have no children to help us. We went without food for several months during the war. There was nobody who could help us. Our only child was killed in front of our eyes. For a time we lived in tents and old carriages. Gradually we began to receive humanitarian aid and we got ourselves straight. But living in Chechnya we still have problems with food and shelter. We have to economize.
We were living in a tent when I saw Islamic Relief staff for the first time. I was added to the list of beneficiaries and started to receive food parcels with meat during Ramadhan and Qurbani. This was a great support for old people like us. The parcels lasted several months.
Our basic income consists only of our tiny pensions. We try to economize and prolong it but it is not enough even for us and we are too old to work.
We now live in a half-ruined house of two rooms. Our own house was completely destroyed several years ago. The kitchen is shared between several families. We don’t have access to running water or central heating. Once a week I have to bring water from outside though it is not easy at my age.
I pray to Allah to give me strength and health so that I can take care of my husband. He needs my support and care as there is nobody in the whole world we can rely on.
I would like to thank all the people in Islamic Relief who assist people like me. I will always pray for you. May Allah bless you.”

Loving hand..

The Essence Of A New Day

Today... This is the begining of a New Day. I ve this day to use as I will. I can waste it or grown in its light and be of service to others. But what I do with this day is important because I ve exchange a day of my life for it. When tomorrow comes, today will be gone forever. I hope I will not regret the price I paid for it.

My Creed

I shall pass through this world but once, Any good things that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any human being.. Let me do it now and not defer it for, I wil not pass this way again.

I BECOME WHAT I THINK ABOUT (ABC)

Hard time or easy time... good time or bad time..it is up to me.

If I want to be free, it's got to be me.

When I am unable to find tranquillity within myself, it is useless to seek it elsewhere.

Where there is love, nothing is too much trouble, and there is always time.

----------------------------------------<-------------------------------@

The vision that I glorify in my mind, The Ideal that I enthrone by my life, and this I will become (James Allen)

@--------------------------------------->-----------------------------------

I must ve the vision to see my potential, and faith to believe what I see, the courage to act with conviction, to become what God meant me to be.

As I advance confidently in the direction of my dreams and endeavour to live the life I ve imagined, Success will come to me unexpectedly in common hours.

---------------------------------------Self Affirmation------------------------------------------

Tested on new camera (canon EOS 400)

See the result taken by my brother on 23 august 2008... worth it but need to learn more on the technic॥ so far so good।

Another Day..........

Another day.

another nail in the box.

nothing but doom and gloom.

get me off this planet.

teach me how to love.

We hurt each other.

pain, suffering.

what is the point?

why can’t we all just be happy?

why doesn’t life work like that?

why are there so many rhetorical questions?

loneliness is painful.

sharp searing pain tears through our insides.

we are all made of particles.

particles that fuse togetherto create creatures,

monsters that disturb each others souls.

let it rest.i’m sick of crying myself to sleep.

helplessness is overwhelming.it’s unstoppable.

clichés that haunt humanity.

bleeding heart.

it bleeds.

It bleeds like nothingcan stop it.

Tidal waves devour everyone.

blood is clear. Tears are red.

life is exhausting.

no strength to move on.

I am drowning myself.

Be Like One

- Jauh berjalan selalunya menambah pengalaman, tapi ada juga orang yang jauh berjalan hanya menempah kesesatan.

- Berlumbalah dalam hidup sebab mereka yang tidak mahu berlumba tidak akan sampai kemana-mana.

- Orang biasa hanya buat satu kerja, orang luar biasa tak berkira soal kerja.

- Keagungan tidak lahir semula jadi tapi usaha yang di pertaruhkan.

- Kata orang duit itu taklah penting sangat yang penting bahagia, tapi susah juga nak bahagia kalau duit tak ada.

- Niat akan memberi kesungguhan, kesungguhan akan membawa keberhasilan. Keberhasilan akan membawa keuntungan. Keuntungan akan membawa penghormatan, penghormatan akan membawa bahagia.

(Kalau Ya Katakan Ya! - Dr.Hm Tuah)

Hati Adalah Segalanya

Rasulullah s.a.w bersabda yang bermaksud:

"Yang dinamakan kekayaan itu bukanlah banyaknya harta benda tetapi kekayaan yang sebenarnya ialah hati (jiwa)".

(Riwayat Abu Ya'la)