Pre-Ramadhan Randomness

I have a lot to write these days, but have been under the weather for some time now. So for now, I will just link to the most recent edition of Muslim Link, which includes my first article there in over a year.

Muslim Link Ramadhan Issue
Original, unedited version

The front page article is mine, though unfortunately it went through a few edits that screwed up the grammar and wording. I'm tempted to volunteer regularly again as an editor because they certainly need the help, but have a few other requests that I need to respond to first. I need to learn to prioritize.

The following topics have been on my mind of late, and I'll probably write about at least one of these eventually, not sure which.

• Condescending uncles and their derision for "mullahs".
• Agreeing to disagree, in the light of the sunnah.
• My take on all the marriage discussion around the blogosphere these days.
• Jum'ah woes; responding to the recent imam controversies in Ottawa.
• Why I strongly dislike 99% of the wedding speeches I keep hearing.

In the meantime, I might as well share some pictures from my trip to Banff earlier this year. I meant to post these up five months ago, but it kept slipping my mind. Enjoy!

Ijtema.net: New, Shiny, and Exciting!

The long awaited ijtema.net revamp is complete! I'm a little late in announcing it, but better late than never. In addition, the winners of the photo contest have also been announced, so take a look at the many excellent submissions.

Other new features:

• Beautiful new layout courtesy of Shazia Mistry
  
• New Multimedia content - the best of Muslim art and video
  
• Podcast reviews
  
• ...and more to come!

As always, you can contribute to ijtema.net by directing us to the best articles, videos, and audio content you find through your Internet journeys.

Enjoy!

A study in contrasts

Three days ago. Miami Beach.


Today, my car.


It's good to be home. :)

Photos: That Time of Year

Not quite December yet, and we've already had our first ice storm. Those of my readers who remember January 1998 in Montreal will remember that in spite of the havoc wreaked upon the city by the vicious weather, there was such beauty in the destruction. Every branch and every leaf was encased in ice, crystallized, and the trees shined brilliantly underneath the moonlight. It is a shame that digital cameras weren't in common use back then.

Here are some random icicle photos from today's storm:



And there's my car in the background:


It took a few tries before I could get the timing right on this one:


And now, back to work for me.

Photos: Seattle A bunch of random stuff

The rhinoceros from the previous post was used to identify one section of the parking lot at Butchart Gardens. That visit was at the tail end of my final Pacific weekend, in which I tried completing the last of my personal West Coast goals. I wasn't able to cross every item off the list, but I did come close.

The first segment of my weekend journey was a road trip to Seattle. I've always had a slanted perception of Americans, thinking they were impolite and crass. My last couple of visits to Chicago only reaffirmed those perceptions. But Seattle was different; it reminded me that in spite of the ridiculous, imperialist policies of the nation to the south, the average American is not that different from us. The few people of Seattle that I interacted with had a very Canadian personality, and the city itself felt no different than Vancouver.


Of course, I didn't anticipate getting stuck in traffic for over two hours before the border, allowing me just shy of three hours to explore the city itself. Fortunately, the border itself was uneventful, with my interrogation limited to two simple questions about my Middle Eastern travels.

On reaching Seattle, I had only a few precious hours to explore the city. All alone and with only a few handwritten notes on driving directions, I found myself lost quite quickly. After driving around in circles for twenty minutes, I finally found myself approaching downtown.



I wouldn't recommend attempting photography while driving 120km/h, but it was the only opportunity I had. Nearly all of my Seattle pictures were taken from the car.



The sky took an almost alien hue on my return. Being stuck at the border another ninety minutes allowed me to watch the full sunset against the Pacific ocean, which was an absolutely incredible sight.


Though my American sojourn was extremely short, seeing this sign was comforting; there's no place like home.


More pictures here.

I'll try to get the Victoria pictures up for tomorrow, with my closing thoughts on Vancouver and the journey thus far. I don't expect to post anything through all of Ramadhan.

Update 2007.09.15: I'm not going to write anything about the rest of the weekend, I'll just post links to my public photo galleries.
Victoria

From 2007-09-02 Do...

Wax Museum - warning: some disturbing pictures here

From 2007-09-02 Wa...

Butchart Gardens - very nice pictures here!

From 2007-09-02 Bu...

Warning

Rhinoceros crossing. Please keep your speed to 10 km/h.

Photos: Serenity

I finally decided that it was time to buy myself a decent digital camera. My first attempt at camera ownership only lasted a few days; I bought an Olympus FE-115, went to Whistler and took about a hundred shots, then returned it a couple of days later. It was the cheapest one I could find, and understandably so. It was rather cumbersome to use, and took way too long between pictures.

My new camera is a Canon PowerShot SD1000, which I am absolutely loving so far. At first, I thought most of the features were somewhat useless; I never thought I'd need an "Aquarium" mode, for example. But lo and behold, only three days after the purchase, I found myself in an aquarium, face to face with some pretty amazing looking animals.



The jellyfish were quite a sight to behold. The near translucence of their structure was something I had never quite seen before in a living organism. Truly amazing, subhanAllah.



The sea otters were napping at the time, but they looked pretty darn cute and comfortable doing so.



It never ceases to amaze me how much beauty there is even in the smallest creatures in nature, subhanAllah.



The camera purchase was also partially one of my first steps in my farewell to the West Coast. It has been an amazing experience, and I thought it necessary to capture as much of it as possible before I leave for good. There are a few sights I will miss in particular.



This was a new one for me, though I had passed this way so many times. I am not entirely sure what the intent of this monument is; does anyone have any ideas?



My weekend ended at the Pacific Coast, just a few kilometres north of the American border.



This is a fairly cliché shot, but I assure you that the lens flare effect is not photoshopped in.



A man can get a lot of thinking done in a place like this. Of course, I've done more than enough thinking. It's time to take some action.

Photos: Easter Weekend

In the absence of relevant content, here are some photos from this past weekend. I think I tried to go for some artistic effects that I've seen done really well on Flickr, but in the absence of a tripod, and working with Shan's digital camera that ran out of batteries every ten minutes, the results aren't great.

Here are a few of them, anyway.

Surreal

Clearly, my Ramadhan break took a little longer than expected. It was a good one, though I spent nearly the entire month alone. Normally, I would break my fasts with my Jewish colleague, who skipped lunch for nearly the entire month out of "solidarity"; quite a departure from all the years of breaking fast with family, or the six years of Ramadhan at the University of Ottawa with 200 friends every evening. All that being said, Ramadhan did afford me a unique chance to be part of the community, and I quickly found my place at the nearest mosque. That particular community was a very different demographic than what I am accustomed to, but I somehow fit right in as the token young single guy.

I was a little surprised upon seeing the imam for Tarawih on the first day. He did not at all match the image of most huffaz and imams I grew up with. Rather, he seemed like the most typical Pakistani uncle you can think of, and I was somewhat disappointed. He recited fairly well, however, and made very few mistakes. Still, I was not entirely comfortable at the beginning.

A friend used to drive me home nearly every day after tarawih. One day, he commented, "the blind hafiz is amazing, isn't he?" The blind hafiz? I didn't know who he was talking about. But lo and behold, it turns out the imam I was reading behind was completely blind, even though he made no visible indications of being so. Instantly, I developed a great deal of respect for that imam, and any superficial thoughts I had of him as a typical Pakistani uncle quickly disappeared. That revelation also reminded me about the beauty of the Quran, and the miracle of hifz. It's an amazing thing, that adults, young children and even the blind equally have access to memorizing the most beautiful text in any language. It's something that appears to be quite common, but we must never lose our sense of awe at the magnificence of it all.

A person doesn't need to look far to see the signs of Allah. Whether it be witnessing the miracle of Quran memorization, or seeing the beauty of nature, the signs are all around us. As I once said in a speech I delivered a few months ago, we don't need to wait for the moon to split; there's enough evidence in our day-to-day life.

It seems fitting to include pictures from my trip to Whistler yesterday. My cousin made the trip down from Petawawa, and we had an awesome weekend traipsing the snowy mountains and navigating dangerous cliffside highways in a fun little Yaris. There's one more activity that I'm dying to try, so I just need to convince someone else to take a weekend trip to Vancouver and accompany me on another crazy adventure.


Lions Gate Bridge, on a typically wet, dark, and rainy morning in Vancouver.


In the valley between Whistler Mountain and Blackcomb Mountain.


A suspension bridge through the valley.


Snow sitting atop the needles of a Western Hemlock, with Usnea lichen hanging down, as gentle snowflakes fall in the background. This picture makes a great desktop wallpaper.

More pictures here: Flickr

Whistler while you work

I was thinking of writing about the train bombings last week, or the Lebanon war, but things are just getting way too depressing. I'm getting frustrated just thinking about all this, so I'll leave all that aside.

I spent the day in Whistler, British Columbia: future site of many events of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, and one of North America's most popular ski destinations. I always expected that the natural beauty of Canada would likely exceed anything else I had seen during my world travels, and here's the confirmation:







I just bought this digital camera a few days ago; I'm not too happy with it, unfortunately. More photos here.

Update 7.20.2006: I was able to return the camera, even after taking over a hundred pictures and exhausting the included batteries. Yay for free rentals!