A Masjid

Silent serenity reigned.

I carefully took every step of the stairway,enjoying myself.
Slowly inhaled the sweet vanilla scent of bokhoor that saturated the air...slow short inspirations, bothering to show tribute to my asthma.

Hung on the walls along both sides of the staircase were some nice quotations,Hadiths,and reminders...I always enjoy reading them,every time I get in there.
I took my Converse off,held the red pair very eloquently in my left hand,and leaned against the door pushing the golden doorknob swiftly with my right hand.


The golden doorknob never failed to grab my attention...so neatly polished and intricately designed,it was seated there,sweetly inviting me to hold it,turn in down and walk in.

Once inside,you're met by this special aroma that inhabits Masjids.It's the sweet odor of carpets,neatly stacked books of Quran,and well,a house of God.

My fav red cushion sat very lonely at the far end of the Masjid,slowly i walked towards it,passing by the bamboo separators that neatly segregated the Masjid into two.One for males,and the other for us.


I sat down and sighed...
I talked to God bout life.How funny it seems at times.How frustrating at others.
I kinda whispered my thoughts to Him...My childish fears,and my grown-up dreams.
I told Him bout my good friends too.I marveled on how picky I've become,choosing people more closely for my company...I even told Him about my first ophthalmology patient...how bedraggled his clothes were...and how his eyes held alot of pain and misery...and how my inexperienced eyes glimpsed a glitter of hope unmoved by all that which he's been through.


I walked to the closest stack of Qurans and took one.I then retired to my cozy cushion.I like to randomly open the holy book,and then seek a serious advise from the first verse my eyes fall on.My Quran tutor taught me that back in Saudi.She would gather us around her,and randomly pick up verses for each of us.It made me feel special and somehow manage to relate to each and every little verse that 'spoke for me'.

The Azan was being recited.I leaned back and closed my eyes.Azan intrigues me a lot.A call for prayer by the All-Mighty.What's more honoring than that?
Better yet,what's more pressing in life than answering the call of your Creator?

After prayer I walked back home...with a little undefined thing residing in my wee heart.I felt serene.I felt connected.

At a l'heure bleue

Look at this!
Look at my life,look at yours.Yesterday was very beautiful,I'd build up anything I wanted.My dreams ran wild,my thoughts free,my imagination untamed,my soul could breathe.But today...why the hell is today so real?


Unleashed was my life.I would create a whole perfect life within my own.I'd paint it pink,furnish it with my aspiration,color it up with my enthusiasm,portrait it as a funland,a loveland...It was a pink world.It was my perfect little world.


Hatred never existed there.Neither did misery.If I let you in,you'd have to first strip off your insipid namby-pambiness at my doorstep.I used to play games too.The good type if you ask me.Swimming was my way to delve into just about anything I wanted.I would swim at day and night.Whenever the water is freezing,I would dive right in,swim away in freestyle.I hated backstroke.Why face the ceiling when there's so much to see in the crystal clear blue water? Butterfly would give me cramps.Freestyle was my thing.I loved it.I would keep constructing my perfect world while swimming.Make amendments to it,fill it up with twinkling beauty.I loved my world.

My real life was somehow lusterless.Studies.School.Family.Sports club.BOOKS! Whoever invented books is a beast.Throughout my life,I've read tens and tens of books,zillions of magazines,endless number of articles...BOOOKS!Hardcovers.Paperbacks.Novels. Psychology.Medicine.Sports.Statistics. Every single book embroidered a new page in my life.Some of these pages were long parchments.Others were dog-eared.Most of them,however,were singular pages.You wont see these pages anywhere.They're far too pretty to be peeked upon.I can show you into them,though...I need to like you first.Maybe I would someday.


My stepping into adulthood is magical.No.I've never left my scrapbook in my teens-backpack.I still carry it around.But I have responsibilities now.Grownups' stuff.Boring,but sophisticated.I enjoy them much.They build me up,They make me the person I wanna be.They make me the person this world is aching to have.I'll ease your pains one day,by God's will.I suffer at times so I would be capable of stopping your pain.To me failure is to stand in front of you, helpless.I need to learn things,pretty medical things.They might help you one day,they should.I'll ease your pains one day,by God's will.


Driving is cool.Its my vent at times.Boring monotonous acts,with the littlest bit of mischief, can become exhilarating.Everyday as I drive these long hours,I can see  myself along this splendid timeline.Milestones are scattered here and there.Sorry,they're PUT there on purpose.They're cheerful and so tempting.They are my little pearls.I tend to pass by them in a jiffy,every now and then.I smile as I go past them.I just wanna see them there,seek their sheen,and suck in some perseverance.They make my life purposeful.You need to have milestones,they're nice things to have.


So its only been a week into my third round, Ophthalmology,and I've already diagnosed half of my family members with whopping eye problems.Arcus senilis and a tiny crescent of pannus in my dad's eye.T3 in my mum's.A tiny pretty pinguecula in my older sister's.And keratoconus somewhere else.My upbeat mood has showed off on them all.They were all chatting away happily,as they marveled on the little "beauties" (as I put it to them) their eyes revealed.They've lived for so long with cool stuff that albeit being inside their eyes,they couldn't see them.I told them that was another asset.Seeing any of these is somehow deemed a corneal opacity,which by the way is NOT cool.

My perfect lil life has receded a bit.Overwhelmed by the reality of everyday's life,my cheerful portrait couldn't fully stand its grounds.That's fine.As long as it's lingering somewhere in the vicinity,perfectly set up for my desperate runaways.I thank God for giving me this little bit of treasure.It renders me crazy at times.reckless at others.but at everyday's l'heure bleue,I stand grateful...

Alhmduel Allah.

Endowment.

Perched at the window,she looked out.Silence.Melancholy rocked her weak body.She shivered.Her futile attempts at fighting back loomed past her eyes.They watered.Zoombies of good memories plagued her conscience.She smiled...


Out through the window she looked. Sillhoutes of a couple making out at roadside disgusted her.She turned to look at the opposite side of the street.A kid was tottering behind his parents.His coggling amused her...a wave of jubliance showered her weak body...she felt youthful.


Her past years were typically montonous.Memories of her future years seemed so solid...so real,she almost believed that future has already mingled with her past,leaving behind corollaries of moments passed unlived, jokes dead before being said,and feelings slaughtered before being felt...she sighed.


Loneliness taught her to listen and reflect.To ponder over what's being heard and to ignore the clatter of everyday's life.She felt her presence nullified by an overhwhelming power to just sit back and reflect.Humility has ousted her pride.She felt vulnerable,yet overridden by a desire to shut up her demanding innerself and to prick her ears to the sound of those around,suffering...

This world puzzled her a big deal.It awed her how mothers can give so much and get nothing in return.It appalled her how people would strive to gain power,bear with ever so much bureaucracy and then forget all about their humble roots.It saddened her how passion can rip hearts apart and how misery has easily become the daily theme.It shocked her how forgetful people were,remembering God ONLY at moments of need and weakness.It was then that she turned up to look at the sky..

An equally lonely moon met her gaze.It was perfectly spherical with its outlines radiating a beautifully lineated rim of light.The moonlit street seemed to liven up at last.Bits of light shimmering outta that lunar disc,albeit being so little, illuminated just about everything underneath it.The welted leaves strewn across the parking lot somehow managed to look green and youthful.The sleeping beggar huddled at the dumpster shifted in his sleep,devouring the little bit of warmth the moon endowed him with.A travelling tribe spotted the moon,adjusted their route and chanted avidly with their voices infiltrating the thick curtains of darkness around them.Sensing the wave of swift change that has vibrated through the world,the moon purposefully looked forward to tomorrow, where it would sneak back to its hiding on the other side of the world,saving up a bit of the sun's energy,only to come back next night and wipe off some grief from the world.

She left her spot by the window and set off for the door,turned down the doorknob and stepped outside.It was daytime already.She was confident.She headed off to where she should have gone a long while ago...she felt relieved.

Happy Bday,Wegdan

“At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.” — Albert Schweitzer”

To you, my friend, my words speak out.




Down through the days, and across the lonely nights
You were my voice, my rejuvenating light
My didactic soul, which would set things just right
A generous wallet when money gets tight.

The ominous years, oh they seemed so endless
Strolling down the campus, SO very crimeless
Taking up a habit, with much deftness
Laughing our heads off, free and guiltless.

On the top of the train,we jumped, jubilantly
“I wanna drive this train!” you shouted, choicely
Alas my friend, our train has taken off, brusquely
You’re leading it, and I’m following, breathlessly.

My buddy, our lives have been tangled up,
With time trashing us into the zone of grownup
With ever so little buildup, few muckup and lots of crackup
Let’s just ace the times, with sincere faiths that we holdup.

Let's enlighten souls, let them shimmer with light
Let's break more rules, and maybe repent at night
Let's let the Ummah rule,oh let’s spread the insight
For ,my friend its all worthy, at the end of the flight
We’ll look back, proud of our foresight
We’ll nod in contentment at all the fights
We’ll meet our Lord, in an outfit of a bummed-out knight
Prostrate to him, whispering in delight:
“Oh thank you Allah,for guiding us through such a world, so finite.”

Have a very blessed Bday,Byear,and Blife.
We get to live it just once,let's just BLUNDER bigtime,make up,and eventually live it right.

Be Grateful.

Assalamualikm Wa Rahmato Allah Wa Barakatoh =D






My dear tagged/untagged/stalking/fady-awi-gedan reader,May Allah's blessings be upon you all..Happy Eid and here I'm back again to Facebook after a heartbreaking leave (was having twitter-addiction troubles, and eventually gat branded as a first class internet addict).






The reason I'm writing this,3ala balata, is to pass on this teeny weeny advice to all my lovelies on Facebook. Now since life isn't that sweet and cheerful, people don't do what they do outta mere good will. They do it for a good objective reason. My reason for writing this is :to gain good deeds off your nuchae (for those of you who suck at anatomy,nuchae is non but your 'afaa'=the back of your neck. In other highly scientific words, "A5od hasanat 3la afaqom" just like what @Heba Sabry, my good ole friend would blurt out frankly.)






Be Grateful.


A seemingly highly-interesting eye-catching topic that you have most probably stumbled upon no less than seventeen hundred times in the past memorable years of your life.


I'm not here to preach or to ask you to count your blessings. I’m here to remind myself and you too of what we, as highly involved and life-engrossed medical and non-medical students have long been oblivious to.










#1 Ever woke up one sunny day and took a look at the mirror to admire your beautiful face, only to shockingly realize that you have grown a cheerful rosy pimple overnight? Yeah I can see you grimacing at the screen. It has happened to all of us yo! You’d dress up and go to college, avoiding every other creature as if you’ve caught a cootie “an overnight-grown new nose”


Well you’d better hit Dept#8 at our cozy Kasr Al Aini hospital. It’s the Burns dept, and well people there have developed burns averaging from second to sixth degree burns, those luckiest develop BOILS all over the body…they have no mirrors in that dept by the way..It’s enough with the physical pain, they needn’t a reminder of how ugly they’ve turned. Most of those patients were saved outta burning buildings..most of them actually are CHILDREN! Yeah..they’d live the rest of their lives bearing gruesome scars, most prolly being hated by their own family, and repelled by their peers. So while your pink zit takes the time to fade away, you’d better take longer to thank Allah for saving you the pain, the disfigurement and the repelling attitude.










#2 Ever came across Fb,and realized in despair that you can’t find Alaa Hijazi? Well,you’d better be grateful now that I’m here AND addressing you kman,a5er 7alawa ya3ni!










#3 Been told off by your parents? I mean ever been actually thanked by them? :D yeah it happens like once every millennium that parents remember how blessed they are to have such a smart beautiful social friendly helpful dexterous kind smart (did I just mention that before?) kid like myself. But I mean really ever been told off BADLY by one of your parents? Or yet better ,both of them? Yeah that’s one hell of a blessing in disguise! To actually have someone who cares enough to burn up their stores of glycogen, get their neurons firing like mad, and address your majesty for your wrongdoing is a real blessing. After the fuming–up phase you’ll realize that was it not for these peeps, you’d have prolly strayed faaaar away from where you’re right now, gat yourself mixed up with some shits, and ended up locked up somewhere.










#4 Stumbled upon yourself at exam time? Well,no need to comprehend further. Guess you can leap back in memory to the most astounding third year microbiology exam, and get your hands aching in praying these times won’t have to pass again (for a while),simply cause you’re done with third year and most importantly cause your finals are still some peachy eight or ten months ahead. that’s a a very good blessing by the way.










#5 Ever been mislead into an act,and then got slammed back to reality RIGHT before screwing up big time? Like for instance, you make friends with this girl(m3aya :D),and right before she convinces you of stealing off our parents, you realize you’re way off the right track, and quit doing the act right away? Well you’d better be grateful! Millions of teenagers all around the world get driven by peer-pressure into smoking crack and having illegal sex. They end up as dead/addicts/murderers/medstudents. So everytime you remember that you’ve been snatched right at the zero hour…prostrate in gratitude.










#6 Done/Still doing a wrong act? Something that you know is haram or that won’t summon Allah’s pleasure..yet you still keep doing it over and over again? Heba Sabry would say “Afaya werem mel shetan”,note that every nuchae-related and relatable quote springs from Sabry. And yes Heba I hear you on this! Personally I have been into innumberable pits,in and out ,in and out..I’ve actually started to give up on me…why push so hard against temptations? Why not get deluded into the sweet-talking of Satan? Why stay up praying qiyyyam/Do some house chores/Help out your dad/Do the laundry/Go food-shopping? Why not go all easy and ‘maleable’ with the Y-chromosome bearers/otherwise commonly known as males? Why put up boundaries and not pass redlines. WHY get tamed by righteousness? Well the answer my friend is NOT blowing in the wind…It’s been here all the time, stark and clear..Yet our wrongheadedness and shortsightedness have very smartly blocked us off the apparent reason. You see my friend, We’re a bunch of humans who were destined to co-exist together on a small galaxy. Was it not for rules and regulations that tame us down, we’d have run wild..People raping your sisters, stealing your stuff and doing god-knows-what else. Maybe that’s a bit too malicious. I mean my not putting up with dad’s demeanor while ordering me to do something won’t obviously hurt no one. Well believe it or not it DOES hurt someone ,maybe your dad a little but it mainly affects YOU the most. Call it karma,call it jaza2 or whatever.But we, as adults are accountable for every bit of act we do. It all pays back in the end. Allah is NEVER forgetful. And He’s all rewarding..Don’t ever dare to forget that. We need God-forbidden things in life. They make us better...they make us humane.










#7 Got your younger sister ‘borrowing’ your most admirable pair of lime green sneakers, and ‘accidently’ greasing them while bicycling? The grease is all there shiny black and sticking its slime tongue at you in euphoria, and even if you rip your Converse apart, it will persist indefinitely…well you’d better be thankful you actually happen to have a SIBLING! A pain in the ass they stand, true..But still you’d better be thankful for their existence. These people are actually capable of loving you, caring for you and most importantly ‘lending’ you their most valuable things. Now whether this lending process happens in their presence or absence it doesn’t really matter…it’s just the fact that siblings, along with sibling-possessions co-exist peacefully in the room next to you. Its a such a zesty relief.










#8 Ever been so amazingly lucky to be actually SANE and ABLE to read these few lines of mine? Many out there have the bad luck of retinal detachment, or corneal ulcers, or yet worse, not having me on their friends list. Now you’d better be thankful that I give a care, and that I share what affects my life most, so you’d learn off my bruised, contused, lacerated nuchae. :D










The list is infinite. You add in whatever is counted as a blessing in your life. Write it down. Read it in the morning .And at night remember to stay up a lil longer, reflecting over these bounties and thanking Him.














“Be thankful, for whatever you grump about there’s someone out there, somewhere, dreaming of living a split of a second of your life.”


~Alaa Hijazi





"God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today. Have you used one to say "thank you?"


~William A. Ward"

Pivot Point

Riveted as anyone can get to the absurdities of life, I lived through a couple of months in extreme selfishness and uncaring. Uncaring was the daily theme. Life is a bitch,and then you die full stop.Turned out that I was wrong.

Major turning points line up and make our life plotline.Syllables of emotions,incidents,failures,and successes dash down the story of our life. Funny how we stand useless watching these flickers of insanity mess around with our existence.Sad how we rarely endeavor to do anything about it.

I fell into a considerable some of pits throughout my life. Some of which were so ominous that I later felt incredulous as to how oblivious I was,stepping right into them without a pinch of mentality.Some,on the other hand were so finely polished that it felt as if you're heading down an alleyway in the seventh heaven.These were the most deceiving of all...pits which felt so right to fall into,so cozy to sleep within,and so dangerous to get out of. So far I have fallen into just one,and was it not for Allah's mercy,the fall woulda been a lethal one.

This was the pit of thinking that life has given up on me already.That no matter how hard I tried,I'll still trip over tons of bumps in life that my body shall be too severed to carry on.So why not save up the pain and effort and QUIT already?Why head down unknown aisles?Why live up a dream and burn the candle at both ends to see it step into reality?Why not lay back and shake it off and laugh it up?The answer,simple as it was,was not something I thought had existed..up until the pivot point of my life.

Today was more of a day that you'd expect to have come outta the 'lived happily ever after' chapter of Cinderella.Happiness was the dominating theme.Pride mingled with euphoria tranquilly flooded my soul as I received this Certificate of Honor for Academic Excellence.It was more of a nice stroke,from Allah, to lead me back to righteousness.I felt that all of a sudden I'm being snatched from a a freefall,and taken into a safe haven...into a cave so intricately embroidered with passionate emotions,and so nicely blessed with serene quranic verses..

This is a reminder for myself,and for anyone reading my humble words: no matter how far we stray ,Allah always finds the way to bring us back..we should opt for listening more closely to that sound of our hearts,and glimpsing more clearly that light of His path.

"Allah wants to make clear to you [the lawful from the unlawful] and guide you to the [good] practices of those before you and to accept your repentance. And Allah is Knowing and Wise.

Allah wants to accept your repentance, but those who follow [their] passions want you to digress [into] a great deviation.

And Allah wants to lighten for you [your difficulties]; and mankind was created weak."

An-Nisa

Fuel Pointer

Ever been on a trip with a strictly limited supply of fuel? Your eyes keep casting worried looks on the fuel-tank pointer , and you turn your gaze hurriedly on both street sides once you pass by any settlement looking to grasp the non-existing opportunity of refueling your car.

It struck me, just now while I'm stuck in this petty situation that , outta all the things that we should be taking seriously,our concern for refueling our soul-tanks is the littlest . We tread our road of life , running very low on tranquility-fuel and hardly possessing any reserve of good deeds that will carry us on till the end. We tumble, trip ,get up, and continue through with a severed body.

Sad how we rarely pause and reflect on the somehow obvious cause of our exhaustion! Your car will keep jolting forwards and then dies once it's fuel-supply is zero.

Your weeping next to it won't make the engine roar back into life, your desperation and misery won't contribute any better to the crappiness of your predisposition. Realizing you're in some deep shit might be the trigger for you to search around for any fuel source/lift , once u find either you sigh in relief and get on with your trip.

Surely enough, the same applies for our life roads. Whenever we see that alarming lamp of fuel lightening up, we must RUSH to a fuel source (prayers), change the tires (get rid of those bad deeds and add on some good ones) and get a snack (body fuel) then get on with living a finite life.