Pumping up and letting go of knowledge

My frustration with Social movement theory is starting to get under my skin, especially the theory of framing processes, it deals with meanings and narratives and how they formed and all the variables they affect and all the variables it affects! I know way too more than what I wrote I stumbled on more factors very worthy of mentioning but more complex but am running out of time, I might just give it another 2 hours not more!

I just happen to know more, I think I am obsessed with getting everything in my theory chapter, but sorry my dear framing theory you just have to suck it up as much as I do.

on the other hand apart from writing and reading till after fajr and am on the verge of hallucination (maybe not but you get it) I have been doing great in the gym for a change, am getting bigger so it seems, not really but if i keep it up I will, I lifted insane weights with a friend, whose actually my youngest bro's friend from highschool! mashaAllah a beast! and a recent to practicing Islam( just from the previous ramadan), mashaAllah he got so religious, I never could have imagined it, my bro tells me he "changed 180 degrees"

we did some barbell rows @ 210 pounds 8 reps and 110 pounds dumbbell rows, , and other stuff by the time we got to dead lifts we were dizzy. on another note and another day I did 255 pounds bench press 8 reps and 232 10s, I m glad I go to the gym, else i loose my sanity, but I must admit am not that all into it as I use to be, maybe that will change soon inshaAllah.

yup, now I shall try to live with the fact that I may not include all what I know in the theory chapter, am fighting it for now, I won’t however pretend that I never stumbled upon it well maybe just for that chapter, but I will keep all what I know in mind and use them for the applications.

it sucks to know, and then not to be able to do for whatever reason. This is merely a chapter. I can only imagine of those who know the truth, know of Allah, of the day of judgment of Muhammad peace and blessings be upon him, and yet pretend and act as if they know nothing, what kind of self torture is that?

" Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened " Winston Churchill.

maybe for some they can’t keep pretending for long and thus you see sudden changes in their lifestyles. Indeed who those purify themselves for the sake of Allah have attained salvation.

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Thenceforth were your hearts hardened: They became like a rock and even worse in hardness. For among rocks there are some from which rivers gush forth; others there are which when split asunder send forth water; and others which sink for fear of Allah. And Allah is not unmindful of what ye do

Has not the Time arrived for the Believers that their hearts in all humility should engage in the remembrance of Allah and of the Truth which has been revealed ?

O my Servants who have transgressed against their souls! Despair not of the Mercy of Allah: for Allah forgives all sins: for He is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.
And return to your Lord time after time and submit to Him before therecomes to you the punishment, then you shall not be helped.
And follow the best of (the courses) revealed to you from your Lord, before the Penalty comes on you - of a sudden while ye perceive not!-
Or (lest) it should say: 'If only Allah had guided me, I should certainly have been among the righteous!'-
Or (lest) it should say when it (actually) sees the penalty: 'If only I had another chance, I should certainly be among those who do good!'
(The reply will be:) 'Nay, but there came to thee my Signs, and thou didst reject them: thou wast Haughty, and became one of those who reject faith!

قل الله ثم ذرهم في خوضهم يلعبون

A wise man was asked: What do you think is stupid of human beings? The wise man replied: That they ignore their health to make money then use their money to restore their health. They waste the present worrying about the future and spend the future missing their past. They live as if they will never die and they die as if they have never lived.

Social Movement Theory and Marriage

Yup I am writing my thesis and now I am indulging in intricate details of social movement theory, attempting to analyze how social movement organizations and social movements operate. There are so many conflicting opinions and categorizations in this field and it draws on from so many disciplines of social science. I am almost done with this chapter, which is a major one in my thesis, so that should be good and the rest will be fitting the info I have collected from interviews and secondary sources into the variables examined and vola; you got a brand new thesis.

It seems the quality of my thesis will have to suffer to meet the deadline, but I wont publish the one I am going to present the committee, I will give it a few more weeks and add some things which will require extra research and going back to more theory.

Other than that inshaAllah I will write a book in Arabic touching on the matter and other issues touching on Islam and politics.

Marriage!
An extremely enriching experience subhan Allah. The amount of effort one has to put in it for it to work smoothly is a lot yet in the end its rewarding alhamdullelah. There is no doubt it makes you mature early if you get married early, and if you have kids then I can only imagine more. Women get moody and jealous and what not, and you have to cater to their attention, and you are gonna make mistakes too so you have to apologize as much as you expect your spouse to do so. Marriage gives you a whole new perspective on life and social relations.

Yet some people make it seem as if they are on an ever ending voyage to find their long lost love or their soul mate and what not, it becomes an end in itself. There is no doubt that marriage is a blessing and your blessings are from Allah, so whoever you marry is indeed your rizq. It doesn’t end with marriage, marriage indeed is half your deen in the hadeeth, and subhan Allah it is!!!!! it doesn’t mean you don’t have to keep your deen in check, you still have another whole half to work on. Its something necessary to hold hands with someone worthy to pass this world into the one after. It is no wonder that many get divorced so early, they think that they will find happiness in it when happiness is indeed in a good marriage but it is ultimately in following Allah’s way in everything including marriage.

I was once with a bunch of bros whom all congratulated me on marriage and one was like the first 2 years are tough and full of arguments, (another American desi bro on my day of marriage whom I knew since 2003 whom I was blessed to attend and called me kid back then haha was like just remember Osman said patience, patience, patience) after 2 years its all good, his wife told my wife in the gathering (segregated) that’s its 6 months LOL!!!! I guess the bro was patient for a year and a half more!!!! Than she was.

Arguments are inevitable especially at first when you have not lived together and don’t know day to day details of how about to go on with life. The man has to be really more patient, and prophet Muhammad saws was indeed patient with ALL of his wives! Aisha may Allah be pleased with her smashed a tray with food prepared by another wife (I forget which) and he saws laughed it off, 2 of his wives gave him something similar to honey but makes your mouth smell bad out of jealousy from other wives. And yet he saws never raised a hand against any of his wives. Let my wife smash anything, I ll just get up and whack her, no am kidding.

Oh yeah polygamy, now imagine all the issues of one marriage when you have 2 or more wives (every man’s dream) its awesome and all if you can ( sisters hate the subject), many would say that you have to be just and fair between them, but its really much more than that, it gets way more complicated, and the best example is our prophet saws.

prophet Muhammad sallah Alahu 3alayhi wa sallam had to deal with such issues and he was the leader of the Ummah, and running its affairs, so its not an excuse at all to be busy and neglect your household/s which I would like to remind myself with most of all.

now I will do plenty of squats since I couldnt go to the gym to do legs! then perhaps get back to my social freakin movement theory.

سبحانك اللهم و بحمدك أشهد أن لا إله إلا أنت أستغفرك و أتوب إليك

Boring as Hell.

Cairo is lame, thats all I can say its nice for a while but not for long term basis.

and am Dieting and seems working well so far inshaAllah I keep it up.
I got in a car accident maybe I mentioned it before, but no car is so lame its in the freakin garage still when it was suppose to be done a few days ago.

writing the thesis, inshAAllah should be done on time, even though am going slow.
being a student and a husband (major responsibility!) and living close by to your mom is one hell of a tough thing, everyone wants a peice of you and with everything going on its just lame, I need a break and I think am becoming a hermit freak already with hardly any time to socialize.

oh yeah did I mention, I quit the job and got severance pay, I dont have to work isnt that awsome!? and I get to supposedly focus on my thesis, which isnt really happening at the desired degree of focusing, at least no more depressing daily news reports first thing in the morning on coverage areas where someone always has to croak.

alhamdullelah.

I need to Rant more though. blah,
did I mention am a pro in Arabic now? I should excercise my skills sometime on this blog

am crazy I know, thats how exactly i feel now. and am being immature about it.

My Frequent visitor ?

Who is the person in/from Kuwait showing up every few hours ? reveal yourself.

Ramadan Note

Alhamdullelah had an awsome research trip, the people I encountered and new knowledge I gained is pricless. am a totally New Mass, I have developed new ideas,

I have come accross a person og high intellectual caliber, the best read since Edward Said's Orientalism, I was totally mind blown by this man's discourse, he is a Bedoin and an Islamist, he wrote a huge book (over 700 pages) with several chapters of research noting the changes in the Islamic political discourse regarding al-Hukm-Rule/ Governance. where he contextulizes the discourse used by various Islamic scholars within the political, social and economic context of the time.

noting them as

1- the original rightly guided discourse of the khulafah

2-the interpreted (slightly changed) discourse that came after

3- the innovated/changed/mu7araf discourse that we live in today.

The discourse of this man is so intense I was so mind blown, I have been so when I first came across edward said, and I used his discourse a lot in debates, I think this man will be my new guide for a long time in Islamic politics, I met him twice! and we fell in love pretty much, he was only going to give me 2o minutes after calling him, but after he met me and I talked to him about myself, he insisted that he gave me several extended meetings I was suppose to meet him in his house, but i was soo busy with other meetings/interviews, yet my interest with this shaikh/social scientist went beyond the research I was doing, and I know this sheikh will be one of those who revive Islam, and in decades and hundreds of years he will be remembered as a great scholar inshaAllah.

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Today I saw something great, I saw a man pray but he was challanged and had difficulties with his legs, he walked with two crotches all the time, yet during prayer he would use one to stand and to bow and finally to make sujood, subhan Allah, it seemed he exrted a lot of effort to do so, I wondered to myself, how much would this man pay to get healthy normal legs? what would he do to get them? would he pray all the sunnah after salat in congregation ? subhan Allah, I think anyone would strive towards Allah if such was to be given, yet how many of us are healthy ? and disobey Allah.

on another note, I have been typing in Arabic for so long and the only one I talk to in english is my wife, I feel my english linguistic skills are somewhat rusty and am sure there are plenty of typos.

Finally Ramadan Mubarak, and may Allah make us of those whom make use of it.

Chilling with the Badu

So...
I was invited for dinner, then to meet one of the important folks that will help me with my research and ask him questions etc, Out in the dessert in a modernfied majlis/diwaniya, those who hosted the majlis were one of the most generous and noble, kind and warm people i ever came across.

all wore shmakh not ghetra, and at least some facial hair, some had long hair, they all stood up in the majlis when someone comes in and you have to shake hands with everyone, you shout out MASAAAAKUM ALLAH BELKHAIR every once in a while for the first few minutes. and you say shlonkum shakhbarkum etc... eople talk about random stuff, mostly politics, and a dude comes around with Arabic coffee, and dates

dinner of course, no spoon, just your right hand, in a common big plate, with an animal on a pile of rica haha.

anyways, so am going to go back to my town in souther egypt inshaAllah and visit our tribes peole there, 3uwaydah from banu 7azim from the mighty banu 7arb.

of course its not as it used to be decades ago, perhaps I will set an "NGO" with another distant cousin of mine who is also Poli Sci and went to the same university I did. Perhaps we can revive our tribal heritage thats already there, but just make it more of a big deal, and of course make it more Islamic, aint messin around.

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Other than that I have gained fat like an idiot, I really need to diet again, but my weight lifts have gone up on a few lifts without planning or really trying which is good. I miss my treadmill, I miss driving, and for somereason I miss Cairo, naaa not much, Cairo gets too much after a while.