Time flys but thoughts don't change

So I came back to my blog after ages with the intention of deleting my blog. I figured there was no need to leave a trace of my personal thoughts for the world to see. Coming back made me read through my old posts and the awesome comments people had written. It was refreshing to see what I had written at the start. Some may seem cryptic to the reader( posts on compromise and career) but to me in reminded me of the conundrums I was dealing with at the time. Other posts like the one on marriage reminded what I have always thought but chosen to suppress more recently. It's interesting in how some ways I have hardly changed still struggling with the whole sharing lots with people. I should then go on to say but in others I have changed a lot, but from the bits of me I had posted about I don't think I have changed too much. The one I think hit me the most was my post on marriage , looks like I have met all the criteria younger me set about being financially and mature enough to deal with marriage, not sure my parents are quite ready though. I realised that I have for some reason put marriage off/lower on the agenda. The more I think about it the more that I want the couplyness which comes with marriage. I think this is something I have tried to suppress by throwing myself into work, and letting work and volunteering on the weekends take up all my time. Next steps ? I'm not quite sure but know that if want coupleyness of marriage I need to start making it happen, not waiting for it to happen to me, Still as random and confuse!!! Mushowish

A few photos from Dutchland

So thought would be a good idea to post some photos from my recent trip to Amsterdam. Break my rather crap track record on the the posting front. I could try and blame work for keeping me busy, but that would just be an excuse (not that work hasn't been keeping me crazily busy most of the time).

Had a nice long weekend in Amsterdam a few weekends back, which was pretty sweet. Really enjoyed how relaxed amsterdam was, so much more chillaxed then London. Worlds apart, and a chance for me to mess around with taking pics for the first time in a while.

It was so nice just wandering along the canals and going into cafes (not coffeeshops!!!).

I found this random bagel shop which had the most awesome bagels with flavoured creams cheese, which was just awesome. Never been much of a cream cheese fan before, but this stuff was just soooo good, puts philidelphia to shame!!!

Another little find i enjoyed was this kick ass choclate shop, they had cool flours like vanila poppyseed in white chocolate. The downside was the chocs cost about €2 each, but they were def worth it, and they were nice and big chocs. Would def recommend it, for anyone interested -

http://www.puccinibomboni.com

The other cool thing i did was go see a Jazz band play live, was in this kinda concert hally thing, but was really cool, so awesome to see them play live, was an interesting mixed band of an american, 2 canadians, a dutch dude and a pianist from england.

Visited Anne's franks house, which i guess is compulsury for most tourists. Was good to visit, for me the thing i took away was just how much we take freedom for granted. To imagine , barely being able to move or speak during the day for years on end for the fear of being discovered is pretty crazy. Shows how lucky we really are.

After visting anne's franks house going back to the theme of food. (me a lover of food and coffee never!) , went to this cool pancake house. Had a cool appley struddley pancake, with lots of cream and vanilla icecream, pretty much a meal in itself.

Hmm think it's time for me to plan another long weekend somewhere, where too next thats the question? any suggestions ?

Where in the world

Where in the world?

Thanks to liya for idea. See rules e.t.c.

Time for people to start guessing!!!

An Unclear Path

So I've previously posted rather vague career related posts. The first was regarding a possible experience abroad with a private equity firm, which i was unsettled on for moral reasons, and the second was saying how it never happened. Although i wonder how clear the posts were in hindsight? As I alluded to in the updated post, i did get a graduate job in something completely unrelated.

So firstly I need to thank Allah(swt) for giving me a job. Especially in these tough times. It would be to easy to not be thankful for his Mercy and blessings.

I must say for a graduate job I'm very lucky, have had a variety of tasks to do, some responsibility, and now my first trip abroad. I'm being worked hard, which doesn't bother me too much (all though i don't think i could keep it up for too long). But it's the thought that i could spend my life working hard and not being able to show any real achievement at the end of that which scares me. Money comes and goes, so to measure success of a career by that is a false economy. I would like to think that I would measure success my knowing i have made a difference, to someone, in some shape or form. Idealistic maybe? who knows?

I've always feared getting sucked into the corporate vacuum. I've stayed away from finance which i was morally uneasy about. My aim to myself has been to enter the corporate world to get the right training, develop myself professionally, before trying to apply it in another field. Be it via an NGO or a socially responsible business. But 4 months in, I'm less clear then ever about how i can or should achieve my eventual aim. This is one of the many reason's I'm confused.

As i said at the start, i am thankful for having a good job, and compared to many and been blessed with many things. I think i need to appreciate that more, but i do not want to forget my end goal either. Hopefully with time the path will become clearer.

Mushowish

A flleting encounter with Marrakesh

Inspired by the travel post's of 'liya and geekisiddiqui i decided to finally get round to doing a travelling post. 'liya's recent post was on Marrakesh, i thought i would share a few of my photo's and experiences from my trip there.

I was out in Marrakesh at the start of the year for a few short days. But it was lots and lots of fun, despite all the 'fun' we had with Ryanair (will gloss over that!). Marrakesh is a cool city to be in, albeit overly touristy. Despite this it was lots and lots of fun. Being the student I was at the time, I stayed with my friend at a hostel. Despite being a hostel it was pretty swanky, with a beautiful chill out area in the reception area (much bigger then the pic above shows), and cool rooftop terrace.

Which by night looked pretty sweet, and you could even see the minaret from Masjidul Khoutobia (ok not in this pic). I went and prayed in Masjid Khoutobia, and when i went to take wudu, there was this little old man who would give you hot water for a few dirham's in a little pot (hey i'm easily impressed).



The mosque was pretty cool, although you could see the effect of time was not on it's side, the carpets looked a bit worn close up. It was surprisingly empty inside the mosque (at zuhr time), while the other newer mosques, near the souks and such were much more packed during prayer times.

(KKK style moroccan hoody thing (i went for a red one)

The souks were kinda cool, bargaining with the stall holders was interesting to say the least, you could bargain them down to half the price they started at and still get ripped off. But then the bargaining can be fun (or annoying), depends on the type of person you are. I think if you take it in a light hearted manner, and are prepared to walk away it can be fun. I attempted to chuck in the odd arabic word ,not sure if it worked. My favourite was chucking in 'Ya Allah', if i thought the price was still too high, or Ya Akhi (My brother). But my arabic skills were exhausted pretty quickly, after how are you, i'm fine, i'm from England, and how much is this.


The souks were a crazy place, which i think the photo with the bike captures quite well. It was quite amusing how they would always say, ' come i can give you a good price', with various reasons, the most amusing being 'a good allied price', as there were brits and americans in our group. So some how, one of the dudes we met at the hostel, who had been in Marakesh for a while and became our impromtu tour guide, pretended to be a stall holder, pointing stick and all and offered us 'a good allied price', we were all in hysterics, and can't believe we didn't get chased away by the stall holder.



more random pics from around the souks

For me one of the coolest things about morocco was the food!!! We got shown this cool local place (by the same dude that pretended to be a stallholder), to have rabbit tagine, definately not filled with tourists



It was amazing how soft the meat was, so tender and juicy!!! Ok now it's making me hungry.

The main square in the old city(djemma el fnaa), really came alive at night, full of foodsellers. We ate out there a couple of times, on the recommendation of our impromtu tour guide.

I found it highly musing how the food sellers attempted to get peoples attention. They figured me and my friend was British and then started quoting shops (Marks & Spencers, Asda, Tesco), their taglines (“That’s Asda price”). And most amusing of all random lines from British comedies – “i’m the only gay in the village” (little britain), and ‘Am I bovvered?’ and ‘Does my face look bovvered?’ – including actions, from the catherine tate show. (Of course there was the usual are you Indian first).

Marrakesh is a cool city, and i'm glad i've done it, even though it was a fleeting visit. I think my next trip to morocco would be to some of the other cities and hopefully the atlas mountains.



These pics above show what a surreal view of them we had, palm trees and snow capped mountains. When i was in Granada it was another surreal moment with the snowcapped Sierra Nevada mountains behind the Al Hambra. My trip to Granada is a whole post in itself, which I hopefully will get round to writing sometime soon.

Tranquility

The Water stairway, Al-Hambra, Granada

A truly tranquil place, walking down the stairs in the shade of the trees, with the sound of water flowing down the handrails. Very surreal, but cool. Guess it would be rather romantic, if not for the number of tourists :)

Would definitely recommend visiting the Al Hambra. I def want to go back again!

Mushowish

New Office

A random little musing, nothing profound at all.

The new (ish) MS office is cool, great little inbuilt referencing manager and cool little feature like making table of contents automatically from Heading styles.

End of geekyness... and back to work :(

Trust

Still not really got hold of this bloggingness. What I mean by that is letting myself write uninhibited about the issues on my mind. Probably a trust issue me thinks. That even in an anonymous situation I'm fearful of letting people knowing what I'm really thinking. Which is odd, but probably sums me up fairly well. As much as I love to talk, and yes I can natter with people for hours and hours on end (my mum says I'm worse then a girl on the phone), I haven't ever let anyone get really really close, aka your typical best friend. Maybe that comes from a fear of becoming a bit too vulnerable to letting one person know everything about you. I know I have got a lot better over the last few years, but still know that I haven't let any one person know every side of me.

So till that day, some of my thoughts will continue to swirl around my head shared only with myself and occasionally my journal (only started that a few months back)

Hopefully that will change and I will make more leaps of trust. Only the future holds the answer to that one.

Updated update on compromise

UPDATED: Take 2 at writing this update post, with a bit more detail lol.

So the the earlier post on compromise was about my future and jobs. At that stage I possibly had the option of doing a job which I though would have allowed me to develop professionally, gain a good set of transferable skills and have an amazing experience for a year to work in a developing country helping businesses, so lots of first hand experience to aid me in my long run goal of working in development.

However the company and the particular job would be involved with interest bearing loans directly, something which i was uncomfortable about, hence was trying to figure out weather in this instance the long term end (skills acquisition and experience to work in development) outweighed the moral costs. It was never about the money, since I would have only been paid living costs, but it was about the experience for me.

I like to think fate has worked its way, so while that opportunity has gone, I do have a job for once I graduate, and still might go out there for the summer. But if I do it will be in a role I am much more comfortable about, kinda social audit function. So InshAllah thinks will continue to work out, and my original aims of an end can be fulfilled.

So hopefully this updated version makes a lot more sense then my rather more cryptic first attempt.

Mushowish

The crazy world of getting married, muslim style

So having re-read my post,i realised for the first time i have given a bit more of the thoughts in my head, being slightly less guarded then my normal self, and also that the post is rather long, so enjoy.

This is a post with more questions then answers. I'm just adding my own little musings and not adding anything new to the the this well discussed topic. The crazy world of getting married, Muslim (Asian??) style.

Not that I have started looking yet, but just thinking about it is confusing, but the future has a habit of being a confusing thing to look into. How do you know when to start looking? When is it too soon,and when is it too late? I think I will start with my hopeful view of what marriage will be, that I will find someone that I click with, someone that I enjoy spending time with and someone that I can discover the rest of my life with. I feel marriage should never be thought of as a burden, but should instead add another layer to my life, allowing me to develop and express myself in different way, and hopefully the same goes for my future wife.

Being at uni really doesn't help matters, seeing lots of couples, and what that extra element adds to people's life (not referring to the physical sides of relationships). Mix that with the standard muslim expectation of can't get married till able to financially support yourself e.t.c and really does make you wonder. If i wasn't a muslim i'm pretty sure i would have done the whole dating thing by now. But that desire to be with someone,is very natural, part of being human and something I feel already, it makes me wonder how people can wait until they are in their 30's before getting married. Seems like you are putting yourself through unnecessary hurt/tests by waiting that long. But i guess that contrasts against finding the right person to spend the rest of your life with. I guess people can argue about careers, and doing stuff first, but I just think with the right person it can be done as a couple (is that me still being idealistic)

So now to give the thought process some structure

1) When do you start looking
2) How do you look
3) How do you know the person is right?

When do you start looking?

Few factors spring to mind with marriage, and looking for marriage.

• Are you in a place in life where you feel that you are mature enough to be getting married (me mature lol, although just thinking of my few blog posts, they have all so far been rather serious). I think that's a hard thing to call, as most of the time it's about rising to the situation, and only then can you truly display the qualities needed. But i guess it comes down to being open minded and not thinking marriage will be a walk in the park, thinking that marriage will just be the honeymoonesque fun times. I guess its being able to compromise (key word with marriage i guess) and working with someone. But that's all words, and i think its how you react instinctively to the trials of marriage which will define weather you are mature enough i guess.

• Are you financially stable enough to support someone else (obviously a guy thing), comes down to what you define as suffcient to support someone else. Personally i would go for being able to rent somewhere to live alone, and beyond that i don't think livng costs are that great. Instead the big barrier is the cost of the wedding itself (which will prob address in another post). I personally feel this can be a sumbling block to people getting married, especially the cost of weddings, meaning guys don't start looking till they feel finacially secure, often in late 20's. Hopefully that won't be me.
  

• Parents
  - for guys, do they think you are ready / other side of the spectrum thing you should get a move on and get married before you are grey and old.
  
  - for girls much more it seems just get married sooner rather then later (before they gather dust on the shelves (disclaimer not my actual opinion)
  

Personally i'm actually in favour of younger marriages (24-26 for guys, and early 20's for girls), providing both parties are mature enough, and of course the right match for each other. I prob think 25-26 is realistic for moi, but I guess only Allah really knows.

My views on how to find someone and if the person is right in the next post or 2 (thought the post is getting a bit long, and will be interesting to see what other's think).

Mushowish

P.S The date on the post is when I started writing this lol, so taken me a week to actually finish it, I need to be more focused damn it.

Compromise

Do the ends justify the means? For once i'm not talking about terrorism (or torture). We do it everyday, we make compromises, sometimes with people, and sometimes with situations. Some we do after much thought, others subconsciously with seemingly no thought given to it. But I do wander at what point do we cross that imaginary threshold that we vowed never to cross, how close to the edge before it becomes inevitable?

If the world was only purely black and white, every decision would be simple. But instead we live in a world which encompasses many shades. I guess this is part of me trying to figure out can you ever justify doing something you disagree with for the right reasons. At what stage does the benefits outweigh departing from your moral compass?

I think it just goes back to everything is destined, and we must have faith in Allah (swt)!

A return from the abyss

So if there is anyone out there reading my blog, I'm back. Let's hope a tad more consistent then before :)

No real excuses for not blogging, just couldn't think of a clear topic to blog about, nor got the confidence to blog about anything too personal, so instead i just lurked in the background reading other peoples blogs.

I will eventually come back to my intention to blog about Islamic Microfinance, but want to do a bit more research on it first. So don't think will be blogging on it too soon. Not quite sure what my next post will be on, but Inshallah it will be soon.

Mushowish

Islamic Finance: Part 1

What is Islamic Finance? Or more so what should Islamic finance be? At the moment I think I am ever so slightly disillusioned with the little I know of Islamic Finance. I see it today in its current form as a mere equivalent to mainstream finance. That instead of having the Islamic goals and values, the industry is going down the path of market capitalisation. Creating equivalents of western banking products.

Now I do see the argument for this, that the industry must start somewhere, and establish it's self. Once it is fully established it can create more Islamically sound products, but then the industry isn't as new as people think it is. Its been around in some shape or form for the last 2-3 decades, but only in the west for the last 5-10 years in a growing fashion.

I think most (if not all) of the products are pretty much Halal if done with the right intention, in the way the contracts are structured. however I don't believe that the Islamic spirit is there at all. Instead we now have lots and lots of equivalent products, equivalents to loans, bonds (sukuks), and even appearing in a few places credit cards (that one shocked me).

Allahamdullilah no one has managed to create an equivalent to Derivatives yet, if they did I would be surprised as I see it as glorified gambling, albeit generally very educated gambling, but none the less still gambling.

Its interesting when i think of muslims perceptions esp in the west (time for huge generalisations here), have the perception that Gambling, Alcohol, pre-marital sex are big big no's. Interest does not have that same stigma,I wonder why?

Allah(SWT) has clearly forbidden riba. As shown by the following verses(I never realised how explicitly it was forbidden till recently):


“Those who devour riba will not stand except as he stands who has been driven to
madness by the touch of Satan … Allah has permitted trade and forbidden riba … Allah
will deprive riba of all blessing” (2:275-6)

“O ye who believe! Fear Allah, and give up what remains of your demand for riba, if
you are indeed believers. If you do not, take notice of war from Allah” (2: 278-90)

But yet many muslims see it as a lesser evil. Maybe it's because the loans are used to help further business's or careers, and unfortunatley we(me included) are far too attached to this dunya and thus are willing to sacrifice are scrupels when we shouldn't.

I know if when I actually could afford to get a house (far in the future at this rate, i'm still a student), I would probably get an Islamic Mortgage, as while I don't think it's perfect, I do think it's better then a conventional loan. I dislike how the rent part of most Islamic mortgages are conviently linked to the LIBOR (inter bank interest rate).

Islamicially from my understanding(and I know I am speaking from a postion of little knowledge), money cannot be made from money, but instead value must be added through a service or product.

So I wonder did my random ramblings make any sense? I know I don't even attempt to give a solution nor do I fully get to the bottom of the problem. Further work for another post me thinks.

When I next get around to posting I will continue my musings on Islamic Finance :

Part 2: Islamic Microfinance: reclaiming the islamic spirit?

Ma' Salaama

Mushowish

the beginning.

Everything starts somewhere, and my blog begins here (stating the obvious aren't I, i overdo the whole sarcasm thing, maybe I will eventually learn). So who am I? Well I'm a 20 something muslim university student (well for another year at any rate). Im born and bred in the UK and like most people my age I think, I am confused. Hence my attmept at an arabic blog name (which knowing me i have got both the arabic and the tranliteration wrong). Ana Mushowish should mean - 'I am confused', so please correct me if i'm wrong.

Whats the point of this blog?

I'm not 100% sure, i think it a way of trying to get some honest feedback on my opinions, while also through the process of jotting down my thoughts seeking clarification for myself.