A new cult in the UK....

First you have to watch this video showing the leader of a group called English Defence league arguing his case. Then read what I have to say about them. It is quite funny this video.....lol

He says we are not against Muslims but we are against Islam. Is this guy serious? He seems like an extremely ignorant person. There is a sikh person in this EDL (English Defence League) and they claim we are not against the Sikhs, Hindus or any other groups. Why? He says this is because crime is coming from Islamic community and our sisters are being raped by Islamic community. That is absolute rubbish as well, because white people commit many crimes. This group is just basically a bunch of football hooligans who are drunk on alcohol. Their lives are not very prosperous, but they just want to find somebody to blame. Who do they find? MUSLIMS. Just hate on the Muslims. He doesn't realise that if there is any Muslim criminal in the UK or any fraudster from Muslim community, they are acting against Islam. Islam preaches against all these things.

The EDL have planned a protest on Saturday in Luton. It will be quite interesting to see if many people turn up or not. But this group is just based on pure hate toward just Muslims. It is very easy to reject every single point the leader of EDL is saying. But I am sure they are not ready to listen because as usual arrogance gets people nowhere.

Watching the chaos in Egypt

I've been closely watching the news lately, especially since the uprising in Egypt. It was really amazing to watch so many people come to the streets and finally speak out against a dictator like Mubarak. He has been in power for 30 years and nobody has challenged him, even though he was basically taking the country down the gutter. I was listening to some analysis by Glenn Beck the guy who is famous for quite a lot of controversy. But he put it quite nicely, when he said that people hate America not because they have freedom and that they are non-Muslims. But they hate them because they are in bed with the dictators that run the Muslim countries. That is shows hypocrisy that on the one hand the west stands up for justice and human rights, then on the other they support cruel tyrants who torture and persecute their people. It doesn't make sense does it.

The people of Egypt seem like they have had enough and it is suprising that it has been peaceful protests and quite civilised. Before the pro-Mubarak protests started, everything was quite orderly and even they were showing ordinary civilians washing tahrir square and people cleaning up the place. It is quite a shame that everything was turned upside down since yesterday with the introduction of some thugs and mobs who have been hired by the government. They are desperate to see some kind of reversal in favour of Mubarak, but it seems quite unlikely. His days are numbered and tomorrow is the day, which will show which way this movement for democracy will go.

It just shows the power of the people, that they are the ones who can change their destiny. A quote from the Quran which we hear quite often is really strong that an Ummah will not change unless it's people change. What does that mean??? It means that if the people in a nation are not willing to want change, then their nation will not change. But if people are willing to sacrifice and to stand up against evil in their nation, then their nation will rise and become a nation of good. We see in every Muslim nation some kind of leadership problem. In some we see elections even being held, yet there is no change in sight. This is partly due to the ignorance of the people who think that change will be easy. Change just means a face change or shuffling of the decks. It requires a complete change of system, to root out corruption, to root out injustice and to put in place a true system which is in the interest of the people and nation. A system which is fair and doesn't allow some kind of dynasty. They shouldn't expect change to come from outside but from within. People of a nation are worth more than foreign aid or foreign support. Your people are the ones who hold the power and we can see that is the reason why no matter if you get a million man army to change a nation, it will fail if people are not siding with them. The same way a million man army in decades with trillion dollars cannot topple a regime or group, yet when the people rise they can topple the government within weeks with less expense and bloodshed.

I find it amazing that everybody can see how Ben Ali fled his country, how Shah of Iran fled his country and how Saddam met his fate.....yet Husni Mubarak and others still don't take any lesson from this. Don't they think one day they will be asked in their grave of how they used their rule and leadership? They remind me of the story of Pharoah, where arrogance stopped him from accepting the truth.

George Galloway puts everything in prospective...

Feeling sick again....

Recently during exam times I fell sick with the usual sore throat, muscle ache and fever. Once again I am going through the same thing in London. I gained quite a lot of weight during my preparations for exams and I started doing exercise straight away when I got home. I think maybe because I started all of a sudden with heavy exercise, so maybe that is the reason I have fallen sick again.

Anywayz so I decided while lying down in bed to make a short 2 minute video and it seems quite funny. I had videos of our old driver who was a pure comedian and one day he was being annoyed by the neighbours who are very naughty. If you watched my last video Peshawar news, its the same kids that were fighting eachother....Well they couldn't stop annoying this grown man and I made a video about it..

Check it out...

A taste of Peshawar...

was busy studying this time round and couldn't spend time taking pictures and doing the things I wanted to. But I made a video of a few things that happened and I will share a few pictures....

This was the poor cow which was gonna be slaughtered in Eid ul Adha (qurbani)..

A good way to cook karahi and tikka in the  outdoors

This is Qabeli Palaw in Board bazaar in Peshawar

A video showing three things that happened while I was in Peshawar

I am back in London

After nearly 4 months I am back in London. My time in Peshawar was really tough as I was preparing for my 3rd year MBBS exam. As soon as I got there, I had no time to waste. I had like tests in the first few months (you could say mock exams) and in one week I had to prepare for a Pharmacology test, then in the next 2 weeks for a pathology test and the next 2 weeks for a forensic test. After that it we had 40 days to prepare for the annual exam which was starting on the 28th of December and then it ended on the 11th of January.

It included a 3 hour paper on different days, in each of the main subjects (Pathology, Pharmacology and Forensic Medicine). After that we had a separate viva and practical for each subject also. So when the exams finished it was a huge relief because it was non-stop studying and without any break in sight. If I had not come back to London and stayed there I would have been in a bad situation. In Peshawar there isn't much to do when it comes to relaxation, maybe you can say Islamabad is a nice place to recharge your batteries but because I have nobody living there its really difficult to stay there by yourself. So there is nothing better then coming back home to your family and just relaxing, without touching any medical books for a few weeks.

Our 4th year classes will be starting in a few weeks and maybe by that time our results will be out. I will be dreading that day because if you haven't passed in a subject you will have 40 days after results day to prepare for it again. So you will be going through the same process again, which is agonising.

A bit about my journey from Peshawar.....I came in Qatar airways, which was a flight at 4:30am in the morning so I didn't sleep at all at that point. In front of me were two children who cried non-stop all the way to Doha, I was going crazy from the lack of sleep and from the uncontrollable children. As we landed in Doha I had a 5 hours stay, which was sooo boring. Luckily they had free wi-fi and I charged my laptop, played some games and was just surfing. We got on the plane and the pilot made an announcement that due to technical problems we will have to wait for 20 minutes. That 20 minutes then became an hour and I knew the problem couldn't be fixed....that became true when the pilot said basically get off the plane. We had to get back into a bus and go through security check again. We had to wait another 5 hours and the only thing they could offer was free lunch, which included a few spoons of rice and mutton korma with pepsi.

During the flight back to Heathrow there was severe turbulence over Hungary. The plane felt like you were on a roller coaster ride and some woman was getting scared and kind of shouting a bit loudly. She was saying what is happening, I knew turbulence is not a dangerous thing but the woman started to scare me a bit and I thought maybe something wrong is going on. But luckily after 5-10 minutes things settled down.

I was so relieved to have reached home safely.....

Packing my bags...

Inshallah Eid is round the corner, well just one day away. Today will be the last fast on this Ramadan. Who knows if we will be alive for the next Ramadan to enjoy this blessed month. This is my first Eid ul Fitr in London after a long time, maybe 3 years or more. So it is a great feeling to be celebrating with my family in the comfort of my own home. I missed such an atmosphere and now I can enjoy it.

Soon I will be leaving London in a few day to go back to Peshawar and start my classes once again. The routine of staying up until 3am will be over and I will miss that as I have become used to it. Soon I will be sleeping 10-11pm and getting up 7am. So no more 12 hour sleeping for me, which is a shame. But at the same time it is gonna be more fun to be busy again and having some challenges, which I didn't have during the holidays. Rather it was just me being lazy and doing nothing productive. So that will be a good change for me. I have been packing my bags with the help of my mum obviously, with most of the stuff in my suitcase being snacks and food items. It might seem strange but the stuff I have packed looks like I am going to be opening a shop in Peshawar, it will be funny to imagine what the people would think when they open it up to check it or see it through the x-ray machines. Its full of cornflakes, crisps, mocha, sweets, jam, cheese, chocolates and some clothes.



It is always a struggle to get my suitcase to be within the allowed limits of 30kg. Before in the past most of the my luggage consisted of stuff for my relatives and things I was requested by relatives to bring for them. So I would always be in a state of worry to get stuff I wanted in my bag and yet trying to not upset relatives by taking their stuff as well. Thankfully this time I haven't been needed to take much things, so most of the things are mine. But still with 30kg allowed there is always many things I have to decide to leave behind and not take.

Thankfully this time Peshawar airport is open and last time I remember this was another burden on me when I found out Peshawar airport was closed and planes would be diverted to Islamabad. Islamabad is a 2-3 hours drive from Peshawar and asking somebody to pick you up from there is a hassle for them. Also it is a hassle for me as when you get off the plane you wish to just get off the plane and into a house where you can just relax.

One thing I have started to dislike about travel, is the jet-lag. I have been travelling many times during my 4 years of being in Peshawar studying medicine. People would think I would have become used to travelling, but it is really different when you travel by yourself. I remember as a kid travelling with parents, I had no worries whatsoever and would just look forward to the plane taking off and landing. The whole experience I found exciting, but when you travel by yourself you have to look after every single thing and have many things to think about. Unlike before where my parents would take care of everything. The jet-lag is really bad going from London to Peshawar as you lose one day of sleep. It is not so bad the other way round because you are going back in time rather forward into time (I am talking about the time zone, as Pakistan is 4 hours ahead of London).

As soon as I reach Peshawar Inshallah, that is the day when our uni will be open. There is a lot of renovation going on as the lecture halls and many buildings were really ancient. It looked like we were still in the 50's, so its great news that they have finally thought about renovating the place.

One more thing I wanna mention is the things that I will miss. I will definately miss my family as they are a great support for you. They make life easier for you and if you feel down they can be the ones to bring you up and help you get out of many troubles. So leaving them behind will be a big loss. But somehow you learn to cope without them even though you still would be better off if they were around. I would definately miss the luxury of our own home, my own bedroom and my own privacy. I would miss the culture of London where everybody keeps to themselves and do not bother people much. Where life is not so chaotic even though it is busy. Where there is order and no worries about bomb blasts or security issues. Where you feel secure in your home and no problem of the electricity going out (loadshedding). So many things to miss and Peshawar will be a place of chaos as soon as you land and sensing some kind of trouble in the air. You know you definately have landed in Peshawar....

Rituals vs Worship

Only a few days left till Ramadan will be over. We prayed, we fasted, we read Quran and performed optional prayers and gave charity. Mashallah! But then what?? I've heard a term before being used by some people, they call it 'RAMADAN MUSLIMS'. We are muslims in one month out of 12. But then we go downhill in the rest of the months. We are not ready to challenge the shaytan and continue to uphold the good stuff we achieved in Ramadan. Do we really want to be of those who are just Ramadan muslims??

Now this brings me onto a point which is kinda related to this. It is the aspect of rituals.
Rituals are defined as a customary practice or actions performed for their symbolic value. You can see fasting as such a thing. We perform this act of fasting in Ramadan. But do you not think we should be fasting not as a ritual but as an act of worship. Do you understand the difference between the two?? Ritual is something customary whereas worship is an act of devotion towards a God or anything else. In Islam worship is act of devotion for the sake of Allah (the creator).

Do you realise the difference between the two now? Isn't devotion something more deeper than a customary act. An act which is just repeated for the sake of it. Just like maybe it becomes a habit to brush your teeth everyday or to put your watch on your left hand. It is an act that you just do without much devotion. It just becomes a habit, automatically you just do it. It doesn't involve much feelings or passion.

But worship is far more greater than rituals. If you do an act of worship it involves feelings, devotion, passion and many more things. It comes from the heart and it changes your life. But I see people fasting just for the sake of it. I see people praying just for the sake of it. It has become a ritual with many people. They have removed the devotion aspect from their acts and that is the core reason why we would see mosques full but we see no feeling of goodness from our muslim community. We see no return? Why??? Because prayer is meant to be worship rather than ritual. Because Fasting is meant to be worship rather than ritual. Not only that but we have so many things apart from fasting and prayer that are considered acts of worship. Even smiling or removing harm from the way of a person can be considered worship. It is a really deep act full of emotions, done for the sake of Allah to improve your character and dealings with humans, animals and the earth around us. But unfortunately we have forgotten this and we do acts of worship without devotion, which turn it into a ritual. This is why such rituals never change the heart of our people, it wont turn them into citizens who will be of service to their community and it definately doesn't help them to stop doing acts which are disgraceful or bad to the community.

If we all were to do our acts of worship with full devotion, real meaning and purpose. It would mean that we will definately find it harder to do wrong acts and find it more easier to do good acts. I hear this question many times, people say our mosques are full. Isn't that a good indication of how good the people are?? But then you see that at the same time that community has so many ills while they mosques are full. That would mean praying doesn't change people and rather it makes them do wrong acts. But no this is because of the individual who is praying, is it from the heart? Is it with a purpose or is it just a ritual he has to do? To just get it out of the way?? I think it is the latter most definately. Let us think deeply about the actions which we do and do we do it truly for the sake of Allah or do we just do it because we feel it is a burden and we have to do it??