The Real Medical Sufe!

I'm so excited, alhamdulillah. The real medical (more surgical) sufi has been found.

I was sat in an orthopaedic (bone stuff) clinic at the children's hospital yesterday, with far too many surgeons grilling me with mean anatomy questions that I had no clue about. Thankfully a nice one took pity on me, and saved me many a time. (I genuinely have forgotten basic Year 1 stuff, it seems!)

Anyway, putting aside the thrills of scary clinics, the nice surgeon told me something amazing!

There's a condition/injury in paediatric orthopaedics known as: the SUFE! (pronounced sufi!). As soon as he said: "and this is what we call a sufi" I was captivated! It stands for 'slipped upper femoral epiphysis'. 

It basically happens in the hip joint of kids. Their bones are obviously still growing, and particularly weak at the ends. It is when the top part of the 'ball' (called the epiphysis: where bones grow) slips off from the rest of the ball, in a backward and downward direction, and causes a lot pain. If undetected, and untreated, it will lead to a lot of bad stuff like abnormal growth.

However, hopefully the scary-but-full-of-excellent-banter surgeons will fix it with some screws and make everything okay, by the permission of Allah!

Matthews & Syriac

The sixth Beatitude (Matthew 5:8), in the Syriac language.

 

Ṭûḇayhôn l'aylên daḏkên b-lebbhôn: d-hennôn neḥzôn l'allāhâ.
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Sayyedi shaykh I (Allah preserve him) frequently mentions Syriac to us; as the language of the angels, as the language of revealed scriptures of ancient times, as a relative of the Aramaic and Arabic languages, etc. So finally curiosity won, and I did some googling, and it seems beautiful ma sha Allah. I have always liked the Sermon on the Mount (which Shaykh H recommended to us, indirectly!), so I especially like the above (Matthew 5:8).

If you go onto the wikipedia page here (indeed!), you can actually listen to the Lord's Prayer in Syriac; it's brilliant. Language - it's an amazing thing, subhan Allah. It contains and conveys so much, but it really is just a means. If in itself it is so beautiful, what must be the end!

Wa min Allahi tawfiq.

& success is from Allah alone.

1433 هـ

A year of good decisions, in sha Allah.

ASWJ

Sayyedina Imam Abu Hanifa (Allah have mercy upon him, his teachers, and his students) said:

"Sunna and Jama`a are defined by giving preference to the two shaykhs [Abu Bakr and `Umar], love of the two sons-in-law [`Uthman and `Ali] and [the permissibility of] wiping over leather socks [in ablution]."

(Narrated by Ibn Abd al-Barr in al-Intiqa` through several chains; by Sh GFH in his Sunna Notes.)

I love that. It's so beautiful! - and I think it is so expressive of Imam Abu Hanifa's personality and concerns, ma sha Allah. May Allah allow us to benefit from him, and make us of those who honour his blessed school.

hitting the floor, with love.

According to the Hanafi school, the 14 verses of prostration in the Qur'an, all have three common themes. The necessity to prostrate is only when the verses mention: 

1.      the fact that believers are those who prostrate
         (so we prostrate because we want to be of them) or
2.      the fact that unbelievers refuse to prostrate
         (so we prostrate because we do not want to be of them) or 
 3.     the fact that the prophets were of those who prostrated
         (and so we prostrate because we want to follow them).

A cool story Shaykh H told us: 

worshippers in al-Aqsa.

Imam Malik walks into his masjid, between the time of Asr (late-afternoon prayer) and Maghrib (sunset prayer). Due to the makruh time (disliked time to pray additional units, according to some) he does not read the two extra units of 'greeting the masjid', and instead sits down. A man besides him, who does not recognise the Imam, and does not know this is Imam Malik's masjid (!) says to him "get up and pray!" [i.e. the two extra units] - and so, Imam Malik stands up and reads the two units. Later, someone who had been watching him, asks the imam why he had done that (despite the disliked time). He replies:
"so I would not be of those who refused to prostrate."  

Subhan Allah. 

Shaykh H mentioned that most of us (i.e. me!) would most probably have gone into a long debate about why we shouldn't pray in that time, the fiqh rules, etc etc. But not Imam Malik - he hit the floor, with love.

relative fact 1.

90% of contact with others: you feed their egos, or they feed yours.

Sufi MS Word

Microsoft Word is behaving quite sufi-ly today, ma sha Allah.

I typed in: "...the Messenger of Allah, endless peace and blessings be upon him", and it wanted to correct the "be" to "are" - i.e. endless peace and blessings are upon him! - no doubt, ma sha Allah!

Clever, no?

untitled

I have no power save to knock at Thy door

And if I be turned away, at what door shall I knock?

In full abandon I put my trust in Thee,

Stretching out my hand to Thee, a pleading beggar.

Imam ash-Shafi`i.