Fig & Olive

There’s so much to learn, always. Arabic grammar is… complex but I’m glad to have a go at it. I can almost say I’ve been studying Arabic for 10 or 12 years if I count all my failed attempts but the past year has been my best attempt and this year will be better, in […]

A crash would be perfect Head to head And it all ends It all stops Black out begins And never ends I’m not afraid of death I’m more afraid to live I’m most afraid to see him Because I haven’t loved enough Haven’t done enough Didn’t live in fear Didn’t really care Consumed By everything […]

They say that time Is slightly different for me and you That it speed up the higher up you are And slows down the farther down you get But I forget And just let It all slip away Who am I to be such a time waster? Wasting it on a laugh or two Forgetting […]

He said to us our issue is in accepting our flaws. At some point we begin to say “Well that’s just how I am”. We turn our flaws in to parts of us and lead ourselves to believe that we are what we do, both good and bad. But this is not only untrue but […]

“By the fig and the olive. And [by] Mount Sinai. And [by] this secure city [Makkah], We have certainly created man in the best of stature; Then We return him to the lowest of the low, Except for those who believe and do righteous deeds, for they will have a reward uninterrupted. So what yet […]

Imam Yahya Davis transformed himself into a homeless person and went to the 10,000 member mosque that he was to be introduced as the head Imam at that morning. He walked around his soon to be mosque for 30 minutes while it was filling with people for jummah….only 3 people out of the 7-10,000 people said […]

One of the things that drew me to Sufism was the notion that “the only one we take personally is God”. I began to realize the truth of this statement when studying Aqidah (Islamic belief system) but Sufism put it in to both words and practice. I think many of us are looking for a […]

Well, some people do care, some people don’t. One of the most disappointing things you’ll realize when you become a student of knowledge and have grasped enough knowledge to start passing on to others, many see your knowledge as just another opinion in a myriad of opinions and just as valuable as their own. Though you’ve […]

When I read about sufism, before taking the tariq, I imagined it as a very loner’s journey. There are certainly stories that tell that tale. I will never forget the extreme stories like the sufi who refused marriage because of their love for God or the one who was enraged when people even spoke their name. There’s […]

“There has been nothing greater in my life after the shahada than following the tariq” -Sheikh Nuh There are real sheikhs out there who abuse their students. I think most of the abuse is spiritual and sometimes marital –if a student becomes a wife, and despite some reactionaries, I think it is rarely sexual. A […]