By: Amber Ghaffar

In April 2007 my one of the biggest dream came true and Allah selected me for Umrah. After seeing Kaaba my next aim was like all other Muslims, to kiss the holy stone Hajr-e-Aswad, it was not the easy task at all. When I reached first time near to it, I realized that all is not well. Being the Muslim the giant embarrassment I felt was seeing the behavior of my Muslim fellows for reaching near to Hajr-e-Aswad and kissing it.

I tried again and again and failed. And the reason was the pain I was giving to my fellow Muslims and the pain I was getting out of this all. My elder brother and his wife and all others kissed the holy stone but I never reached to have this prestige. Finally one day after the Fajr prayer I succeeded in getting place, I was very near to Hajr-e-Aswad and almost next in so called queue. About to kiss but a woman who put her head inside and didn’t brought out it back, prevented me. She perhaps forgot that other Muslims fellows are waiting. I was getting pushes and all that. Suddenly I heard a voice asking for help and I in a reflex (a millisecond decision) chased it and saw a little woman almost pressed in between Muslim giants…

And again in millisecond I left my place and _and grasped her hand and started struggling to let her out of this crowd and I succeeded she was crying out and she embraced me and kept crying I could not forget the moment when I by the help of my Allah let her out of that crowd (i.e. near to Zam Zam coolers) and she instantly embraced me firmly and kept crying and crying like insane… perhaps its the most precious moment of my this little journey of my little life… Though I m a medical student but up till now I never got a chance to save human… I was speechless rather mesmerized by the selection of my Allah, who selected mine sort of person to save a human s life .

She told me that she was about to be completely choked and she prayed to Allah to send some one to get her out of this, she kept crying and I gave her Zam Zam, she was perhaps Indonesian or Malaysian a pure house wife, who doesn’t have an email account. I wanted to keep her in my sight so that I never forget my larger aim of presence on earth. But she didn’t have email address so I lost her but in my corner of precious memories, she would remain there till my death… Around 6 days before I was down cause of exams I was having, I was not performing well and… Finally I decided to stick to my larger aim of life… I started running my memories of Harm Shareef… I tuned an Arabic channel and prayed to Allah silently, please let me see my Harm Shareef… And suddenly Azan break came… and i was seeing Harm Shareef again… my emotions were on peak… Just after prayers ended i saw a scene…

A guy just after prayer ran fast towards Hajr-e-Aswad… I saw it on TV… and my mind and heart moved back to those scenes of pushes, and selfishness I had seen at Hajr-e-Aswad… I recounted the moments, my eyes saw that woman face… and I recalled the way our so called Muslim brothers and sisters… pushing badly each other and hurting each other to get chance to kiss the stone of paradise… lets have a look on Ahadees and a knowledgeable person’s comment “Hajr-e-Aswad Allah Ka Dahina Hath he” (the black stone is Allah’s right hand) – Muslim barawaait Abdullah bin Omar. “I heard the messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) say: Touching them both [the black stone and al-Rukn al-Yamani] is expiation for sins.” [(Hasan) by at-Tirmidhee, no: 959 and (Saheeh) by al-Haakim, vol: 1, no: 664]

“The black stone descended from paradise whiter than milk, but the sins of the descendants of Adam made it black.” (Musnad Ahmad and at-Tirmidhee no: 2577

( I saw these 2 aHadees in a Blog at this link http://suhaa.myminaret.com/2007/12/05/must-read-for-pilgrims-in-makkah-madinah-on-proper-conduct/)

“Kissing the Hajr-e-Aswad is a very desirable and honorable action. However, pushing, bullying, fighting and quarreling with people in order to jump the line represent the worst actions a pilgrim can do in the Masjid al Haram. Sometimes people in ihram fight with other pilgrims, which destroys the spirit of their Umrah or Hajj. In the state of ihram, fighting, quarreling, pushing, bullying, hurting people, yelling and screaming is Haraam (forbidden). How do people figure that their Umrah or Hajj will provide them with any benefit when they fight and use vulgar language while in the state of ihram? In fact, this person is simply increases his stock of sins by fighting and yelling in the state of ihram.

It is important to remember that Islam is about the essence of the act, not simply the act alone. One does not have to physically touch the stone in order to gain its benefits. Therefore, if a person is unable to reach the Hajr-e-Aswad due to the large crowds, then this person can symbolically kiss the Hajr-e-Aswad from a distance and his kiss will still be as good as someone really kisses the Haj-e-Aswad. Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) himself did this symbolic kiss many times. He wanted other people to get the chance.

Why do pilgrims not look to the holy prophet’s (peace be upon him) example? Remember, in Islam the reward of all actions is based upon the intention, not on the actual action. But when you know that you may cause unintentional harm to someone then stay away from that action. Allah will reward you, Insha-Allah, for being careful and being considerate of others. A person who causes harm to himself or other pilgrims while trying to kiss Hajr-e-Aswad will gain no benefits from his/her kiss. Instead, the person will be committing a sin in Masjid-al-Haram – the worst thing a pilgrim could do.

(This passage is part of an article written by Syed b. Soharwardy who is founder and president of Muslims against terrorism (m-a-t) and Islamic supreme council of Canada (ISCC). He contributed this article to media monitors network (MMN) from Alberta, Canada. Complete article could also be found at http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/24506 )…

…Don’t know whether these dots or full stops could truly portray my feelings on this issue… How embarrassed I felt, when I was also giving pushes to my Muslims sisters to reach there to get holy kiss to that stone… was thinking just one point… how would be Satan feeling he would definitely very glad… He wants us to hurt each other… and keep away from Allah’s path… and keep thinking that we are on true path… I wanted to contact some Saudi officials… and when I came back I reentered in my world… back to studies and forget all that… My dream world unlimited fantasies made me insensible enough to forget the thing… but I feel sometimes… Is this way acceptable enough for Allah…? Getting ticket of Jannah (paradise) at the expense of hurting fellow brothers and sisters is this morally correct…? Are not we belong to nations who made killers of innocent individuals hero…? (al-Qaeda and all so called Muslim jihadis associations) Is this Islam…? Is this the same Islam about which we keep talking of in our speeches of comparisons of religions…? Where our Islam gone, when it comes to practice…? I again ask… Is this way of getting ticket of Jannah at the expense of hurting humanity Halal? …And if not… where our owners of religion sleeping…? (Our Aalims, Moulvis and muftis) What would a Jew think after seeing such things…? He would be laughing out loud… and would say, no need of bombarding them… place some holy thing among them they would kill them selves to reach near to. It might be an emotional jumbled full of errors Blog but this is what I feel and wish all my Muslims brothers and sisters to feel this way… Hope my words could give a low intensity rector scale jolt to your minds…!!!

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By: Amber Ghaffar

Just a while before I was watching fondly an interview of Famous event manager Zareen Khalid (famous for her shadi and mehndi managements), almost speechless I was imagining how much extra money these UPPER CLASSIAs have for their TASTE and standard maintenance; at the same time glimpse of those news headings of suicides due to economic pressure were running in my frontal cortex.

I was just thinking again and again could I ever get a chance to see these UPPER CLASSIAS faces, how they react after reading the news of suicides due to poverty. Do they really read those newspapers who publish such terrible and shameful news? The 3 main reasons for attempted and completed suicides in 2005 were:

1) Domestic Problems
2) Admonishment
3) Unemployment.

In 2006, however, Unemployment became the second most common reason and Admonishment the third (an extract from Report by Aleyha Ahmed, HRCP Intern 2007 “Trend Analysis of Human Rights Violations- 2005 & 2006? http://www.hrcp-web.org/hrcpDetail_2.cfm?catId=166&catName=Reports)

It was so emotionally painful to listen all this and at the same time thinking about the people who are dying and killing not only their own self but also their loved ones just because they don’t have a less than 1 percent cost of these SO CALLED EVENTS in their pockets .

Think about it 5 or 6 lac event management… What would be its 1 percent I am not good at mathematics but I do know that a human (I still consider these poor creatures human) living in some lower class area of Karachi, Lahore , Pindi , Gujranwala etc don’t even earn this 1 percent. Do they ever feel embarrassment for a single moment for such taste which is in fact test for the lower class s courage and patience that how long they could resist this embarrassment of not affording AATA or books or new shoes to their poor kids and when they move to STORES TO BUY rapid and less painful poison.

Respectful Zareen Khalid (Amina Haq is her niece) and her lot belongs to upper classias. Her minimum charges are perhaps in THOUSANDS … (3 lac, compare Jugan kazim mentioned imagine 70 thousand as her minimum)

Does this article of mine , jumbled emotional tone of mine, could have enough strength and stimuli to change their tastes which cost millions .(I belong to middle class family and recently we renovated our kitchen that took more than 50 thousand ) around 5 days before I saw a masterpiece of ASHFAQ AHMED “Fahmida ki kahani”…

I pray to ALLAH don’t send any Fahmida near to these tasteful events some one inside me says hey amber don’t worry security guards are quite active inshAllah there would be no FAHMIDA around… Ha Fahmida could see it on TV read about it in newspapers and think about dying of embarrassment or becoming like them thru any means… Latter option is more common and acceptable in our society of morals…

*The Author is a Medical student of final year.

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