Marjana's blog

Everybody has heard a phrase American Idol. Yes, this no uncertain expression means celebrities. Let’s speak about all celebrities in general. These people often appear on TV, on advertisement panels, on magazines and newspapers covers. Internet is full with their photos. People admire them and go into rhapsodies over them; they make idols of them in the truest sense of the word.

Eastern Occult Practices Though the followers of heathen Eastern Practices claim that such occupations do not belong to any religion and there is nothing harmful for believers to follow their “wisdom science” there are plenty of questions appear regarding the connection of Eastern practices to open idolatry. Let’s go into the subject by the examples of Yoga and Feng Shui.

Because, with a small number of believers being the exception, Satan has brought the great majority of humanity completely under his control. Without even realizing it, they are leading just the sort of lives Satan wishes them to, thus following him to Hell. (Harun Yahya) We associable idolatry with remote ancestors’ paganism, when people used to create totems from stone, wood, or any other material and believed that these statues had direct influence on their life. They thought that idols could bring them luck, miseries, fortune, diseases, good or bad weather and so on. We used to think that idolaters in Islam are pre-Islamic Arab pagans of jahilia times. When we imagine paganism now we mean something ancient, wild, something what is far from monotheistic believes and antithetical to our age of progress and technologies. But is this really so?

This is one of the inspiring stories of the great efforts Muslim Scholars made in seeking knowledge. Baqyi ibn Makhlad was only twenty years old when he travelled from Andalusia to Baghdad in order to learn hadith from a famous scholar Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal. Traveling to the East was fraught with a lot of difficulties. But his anxiety for knowledge was so strong that nothing could stop a young man. When he came to Baghdad he found out that Ahmad ibn Hanbal was under house arrest and was not allowed to meet people. Nevertheless he managed to find a smart way of meeting the scholar and learning from him.

If we open Quran as many times as we open our social network pages during a day, each of us would have become hafiz already. Just think of this phrase!

Today it seems world faces a new kind of addiction. I would call it “Fast food addiction”. Traditional family dinners are falling off the edge of the earth. Homemade food becomes a history in many families and is replaced by fast food increasingly. It seems that the reason of such popularity of sandwiches and chips is that they are affordable and easily available. But is it really safe and healthy food? Is it really halal food?

One of the most common temptations leading to the biggest disaster is the temptation of the words: "Everyone does like this." This quote said by an outstanding Russian writer Lev Tolstoy is most relevant nowadays. People cannot even imagine the degree of danger of this phrase. It leads to corruption of personality, to distortion of comprehension of difference between appropriate and inappropriate things. “Everybody do like this – so will I; if everybody does like this then it is normal to do like this”, - we say to ourselves. And gradually more people get involved into a great self-deception and distortion of moral principles. Soon it is treated as a norm of life. I want to give one story as an example. It is not a story about Islamic morals but it is about common morals.

Recently we have found a good story “The Price of Imaan” in internet. It is not new one and you could read it before in other blogs or forums. Nevertheless, I like it much and I want to share it. This story is about a situation which each of us could face every day and I am sure that the rest of people faced it. It is addressed to all Muslims as it reveals how a Muslim should behave and protect his imaan (faith).

“Myriam, I want to show you something,” said Kitty. “My friend from Turkey has returned today and he was so kind to bring me a small present. He said to me it is an Islamic amulet and it would protect me from envy look. Kitty had a huge amulet in her hands. It was a round thing about ten centimeters in diameter reminding a huge blue eye. Myriam showed no emotions about Kitties present, she was a bit confused. She was sitting looking at Kitty silently.

“Are you mad? Do you want to be a slave?” – said to me my friend when I told her about my desire to wear a head scarf. “It is ugly, you are making a nun of yourself,” told my sister with an air of reproach when I came to her in hijab. “There are so many Muslims but they wear normal clothes,” told my mother, “I insist that you should not wear things like this. What will people say?”