Girls day out

Sometimes a little distraction is good.

It's crazy how I have been living in Perth since 2008, but I have only been to Perth city a couple of times. Last Friday we went to Perth city. Just us, the girls.

I almost forget how fun going out with girlfriends is. 

In the picture above I was with Suhaili near Trinity court. We were about to enter Dome for a cuppa.

We just like the scenery. Soon after, sheeda's husband picked us up. We spent 2.5 hours for the girls only lunch. It's been years since I last eat Japanese food and thankfully we found Shimizu, an ICWA certified halaal restaurant in the city. We had a great time. I am really looking forward to doing this again in the future, InsyaAllah.

Love, Ana.

Making a u turn

Last Sunday there was an Islamic course on Imam Bukhari and Imam Muslim. It was held in Curtin University by hikmahway.com. I have to admit that all these continuous lab work and lack of sleep are wearing me down physically and spiritually. A refresher on anything Islamic is usually an instant pick me up for me. So I paid the 20 dollars fee and enrolled in the course. I brought along 2 PhD support group sisters with me, and our husbands. 

We sat at the middle of the medium sized auditorium, only to realized that when the auditorium is half full, we ended up to be at the back of the class. A very unlikely seating position for me. History told me that if I ever attended anything, I was usually at the front of the class. Could it be because it is an Islamic thing that subconciously made me want to seat at the back of the class? Granted, there are a lot of boys seating at the front.  An not possibly seat close to ajnabi boys so I guess my choice of seat was allright. The three of us sat together...rasheeda, suhaili and me.

Sheikh Aslam Abuismaeel was inspiring when he told the life stories of Imam Bukhari and Muslim. It moved me when the reminded us that whenever we tried to reach for Allah by crawling, Allah will be racing towards us in return. But if we forsake Allah for most of the time, would we not expect that Allah would do the same to us in return? I wouldn't want to be forsaken by anyone, especially not by the creator of this universe.

That reminded me of how much I have been occupying myself with too much study lately that I personally think that both the frequency and quality of my ibadah had been slowly but surely scaling down the chart. I used to spend the entire time between subuh and duha with either Quran reciting or studying the tafseer or the hadith. Then I would go about my daily life as a student before devoting the entire time between Maghrib and Isyak for more or less the same thing. I used to think that no matter what life may take me, I will first and foremost honor my identity as a Muslim. Not only by wearing the hijab, not only by doing the basic praying 5 times a day and fasting for a month during Ramadhan.... But also to consiously allocate certain amount of my times for the study of Islam. You know, like psychologist seeing fellow psychologist once a month as a maintenance theraphy.. Reading the Quran twice daily or studying the hadith once a day is like that for me. 

I used to be much calmer then. There were little if any distractions. It was so much easier to focus to my other non-islamic reading. Despite many difficult circumstances I faced as a student ( now they all seem petty little problems to me) I was happy and contented. I want to experience that feeling again..and I know now why I had been missing it lately..(well for the last few year in fact)...despite the hecticness of a graduate student's life, my life had been empty because instead of crawling towards Allah. I was actually running the other way around. Nauzubillah.

I want to make a u-turn towards Allah. We all know that ultimately that's the safest most surest direction to salvation, to contentment and to eternal happiness. 

Love, 

Ana