A cursory look at Islamic scriptures would indicate that the souls of animals do not carry on into the afterlife. Islam however, has plenty to say on animals and our relationships with them.

Animals are viewed as creatures that are deemed to be in a state of constant worship. In terms of their place in the earthly hierarchy, they are mentioned with humans and jinn. (Jinn being creatures of energy, not genies, who live in lamps, are voiced by Robin Williams and frustratingly do not allow unlimited wishes as the first wish). The difference however is that whilst humans and jinn have free will, animals do not.

This has an impact on how creatures are to be judged. In Islamic teachings, on the day of reckoning, all creatures will rise up and have justice for any wrong that was done to them, including animals. However, only humans and jinn will be judged on their actions and go on to the afterlife.

This then brings on the question that every small child asks on the death of a pet. Mummy, will I see kitty in heaven? I remember asking this when our own family cat went missing and the reply was, “Allah is generous and infinite in his mercy, so if you want kitty in heaven, Allah will provide.”

But what about animals in this life? Muslims have a multi-faceted relationship with animals. We eat them, we sacrifice them, we are allowed to hunt them for dinner and some we keep as pets. Others are seen as ritually unclean while many are viewed as benign but not suitable for human consumption. There was a heated discussion in my family recently regarding pigs, which only came to an end after we were reminded that Allah does not make mistakes, and therefore our porcine friends have their purpose too.

In general, I tend to see the Muslim view of animals as a simple choice: curry or kebab? We like them; we know our relationship with them is temporary; we will enjoy them while we can. As to whether we will enjoy them in the afterlife, I was taught that in heaven if you want any animal as food, you just think of it and it will appear in your hand ready cooked. It was not clear whether this included, God forgive me, a bacon sandwich.

Much as Muslims love their meat, it is however unfair to reduce our view of animals to one of basic consumption and even for this, there are precise rules governing animal slaughter to ensure the animal is caused minimal distress. The broad principle is that we are instructed to be kind to animals. An illustration of this is the story of the Prophet Muhammad who loved his cat so much that when it fell asleep on the sleeve of his robe he cut off the sleeve rather than disturb the cat. In another narration we hear of how a man was granted paradise for giving water to a thirsty dog.

This level of compassion towards animals has admittedly yet to translate into a mass movement in animal welfare. As Nazry Bahrawi mentioned on these pages, human beings are considered vice-regents on earth, and are therefore accountable for how they behave towards the earth and its inhabitants. To my mind, all of this adds up to one thing; if you want kitty or kebabs in heaven, be kind to animals on earth.

See, when I was born, and they were deciding names, my dad asked a chap from the Tabligh what should I be called?

“Musab is a good name, after a companion of the Prophet”

Yes, agreed my Father, except the fathead at the agency where they registered my birth misspelled it.  Today, it has been rectified, and a nice lawyer has made me Musab, legal and official (in triplicate).

Of course, it means I am more likely to be stopped by and join the masses who feel the ‘Flying While Muslim‘ phenomenon.  But, its a small price to pay for having consistency.

Because this album contains the track 'You know my name (look up the number) which is actually quite inappropriate as I don't want you looking up my number. Seriously. Mail me.

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* Just for the record, I have no issues with the Tabligh Jamaat, as one of  the worlds largest Muslim groups, I would be silly to start a declaring any issues I had with the Tabligh Jamaat, they would not leave me alone.  I have done my time and that is all I will say on the matter**

** Oh bother, its 11.35 pm, and I can’t resist. Okay, here is my idea.  I want the Tabligh to introduce a seventh point:  FUN.  Oh bother, I have said too much.  And now you know my real name too.  This warrants a post or two in itself, I have baggage to unload.

My dad, fluent in Arabic, Swahili, English, Urdu, Punjabi and Gujarati(1), could usually manage to communicate with the ‘generic non-white ruffian’ bought before the police.    I think Bengali was the only major subcontinental language he didn’t have an ear for, but that was due to accident rather than design.  He was the imam of a Bengali mosque for a while on the Staniforth road.

Anyway, one day, he is in court, interpreting for someone, and the judge calls up the lawyers to the bench

“The dress of that man is inappropriate”.

My father, was in his usual elegant shalwar kameez and topi, with long beard.  No wishy-washy liberal suit for him, he was dignified and traditional.  My father informed the judge, quite steadily, that he did not wish to insult or disrespect anybody, but these were the clothes of his faith, long robes worn in the tradition of the Prophet.

The judge instructed a memo be sent round the inns of court of South Yorkshire, that Mr Bora would be allowed to dress as he pleased as long as he was working on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government.  I have never tried to verify this, but if my dad spoke to the judge with the same tone as he related the story to us, I could see why the judge would have sent that memo round.

Symbols and dress, whether cultural, religious or both,  are important.  They are often a mark of piety, not politics.

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(1) Oh, he also had a smattering of Marathi and Pathwari.

Picture the scene, it is in the mid-eighties, in Leicester.  My father, who is usually in Sheffield, fulfiilling his duties as an Imam, takes me to his friends house.  “But why?” I ask.  “It is important”,

As we enter the friends house, we notice the big windows and curtains drawn.  It  seems to be a shop that has been turned back into residential house.  A large television sits on the floor, in the middle of one wall, and sofas arranged all around.  An even larger man is sitting on one of the sofas, remote control in hand.  The remote control is covered in plastic, but this is normal, I am merely mentioning it to give flavour to the scene.  My father instructs me to sit beside him, and we start to watch cricket.

Now it must be noted here that I was never seriously encouraged to get into team sports, and I was always more interested in reading – a rucksack of library books was adequate workout.  In addition, due to various reasons we had no television at home.  Thus, this was the  first time I had seen a cricket match on television. England were playing, and it was apparently quite an exciting match.

My father is enjoying the match, I am trying to work out what is happening, and Uncle Television (I can’t remember his name, so Uncle Television is as good as any) is talking to the television screen.  Not commenting, but seriously talking to the players and the umpire and the commentators, as if he is in the same room as them.  Anyway, suddenly, England win.  Uncle Television leaps up.

Now, this is  no ordinary feat, he is rather large, and parts of him are swaying alarmingly as he jumps up and down.  Actually, when I say jump i mean he sort of attempts to jump but his feet staying on the ground, but other parts of himdo actually go up and down.

My father and I are rather taken aback, but there is more to come.  Uncle drops to his knees in front of the TV and bellows at the TV screen.

“Botham, Gatting, Gatting Botham”

My father looks at me, I look at him.  Uncle is in some other place.

“Botham! Gatting! Gatting! Botham!  I LOVE YOU.  I LOVE YOU.  I LAAAAAAVE YOU!”

Uncle is now hugging and kissing the television screen, having quite dramatically passed the cricket test.

My father, in his dignified manner, stands up, takes my hand and makes his excuses.  On our short walk home he is quiet, then shakes his head, and looks at me.

“Botham, Gatting, Gatting, Botham”, I say, and we laugh.  Cricket has never been the same for me since.

Today in the UK it is Mother’s Day,others around the world celebrate it on different days (see wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mothers_day)

I saw on a forum someone asking what the Islamic ruling was on Mother’s Day. Now, not being a scholar, I don’t want to comment on the fiqh (despite the title of post, that was just to lure you in). Instead, the following train of thought occurred.

Scenario 1: You celebrate Mother’s Day, are happy to, and thus your Mother is happy.

Scenario 2: You celebrate Mother’s Day in a clandestine fashion, and the air of guilt tempers any pleasure gained from honouring your Mother (heaven lies under her feet….)

Scenario 3: Mother’s Day is an innovation, and you have no need as every day is Mother’s Day.

I occurred to me the least satisfactory of these positions is Scenario 2. If I wanted to celebrate Mother’s Day, I would do it properly, with happiness and joy (hopefully).

If you follow Scenario 3, well, have a good day being generically good (without any change for today) to your Mother. I suspect you are not known for your jolly temperament, but that is just speculation on my part.

On a final note, will the grammer police (sic) please observe I have tried my best with the apostrophe thing in this post, and to take this into consideration when reporting future and past transgressions.

Check out the winners here. I am especially pleased Tariq Nelson won the best blog, he is a most splendid blogger and I urge you to read his blog regularly.   I am also please Muslimah Media Watch got an honourable mention – they are a most splendid blog and the world should know this.

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* I have used British spellings because I am hard-wired to do so.  I urge the rest of the Anglosphere to follow likewise.

Let us go back to the mid eighties, to Manchester, where my cousins are living in the Old Trafford area. As young boys, they fight, they play, they tease their wee ickle baby sisters, and they are good Gujarati Muslims in that the boys are all memorising the Qur’an at their fathers’ mosque.

So, we go to visit our cousins in Manchester, and oh how fun they are. We eat very spicy food, and we eat very sugary desserts and we laugh at their very funny jokes.

One day, we challenge Faisal, who is in his early teens, and his brother, a couple of years older, to an eating competition. What is the biggest mouthful of food you can eat?

Imran starts, he is elder after all. He puts in a quarter of a chapatti, doused in curry, and chews, swallows, result! Faisal, takes a third of a chapatti, rolls it up, dips it in the sauce, puts in his mouth, chews, and swallows. Hurrah!
Imran takes half a roti. We cannot believe it. Half a roti. These are Aunty Hajrah rotis, proper thick and full of ghee, not for shirkers. Imran manages it. How is Faisal going to beat this?

Faisal takes an entire roti and stuffs it in his mouth, without method. His cheeks puff out, he can’t even close his mouth and we have the unenviable sight of roti, hanging out. He can’t chew he cant swallow, his entire jaw is in fact wedged open with roti.

We are laughing so hard tears are falling, and Faisal starts to laugh to, except he can’t because he is full of roti. We just hear a ‘huurgh huurgh’ which makes us laugh even harder.

Ten minutes later, somehow, he has managed to swallow a bit of the roti, and he can now close his mouth, he slowly starts chewing. This has ceased to be a brotherly competition and is now about basic survival – if Faisal was to choke, he would be an ex-Faisal. We are laughing, and pointing and screaming and laughing at his bulging cheeks. Soon, he is eroding this poor roti, and after a good few minutes, he has swallowed more of it. His chewing gets exponentially faster and we get more excited, he could actually do it.

Finally, his frenzied chewing demolishes the chapatti, and he swallows the last bite! We cheer! Mashallah! Faisal has eaten the roti! Faisal has eaten the roti!

Of course, every so often I put half a roti in my mouth and get strange looks from my fellow diners, but they don’t know why. Some things need regular rituals to pay homage to their greatness.

I was thinking about what to write for blog action day, but the truth is I wouldn’t know where to start

Would I start with this week – where in my work for an ngo I was on flight to Glasgow for a meeting with the ultimate aim that we could continue to secure funding, so in three years time money could still go overseas…

Or last month, when someone asked about orphan sponsorship and I was having a flashback to when my own father died, age 28, and how difficult it was then, and how horrific it must be if the same thing happens when you are eight…

Or last year, when I spent three hours re-reading a tragic story about blood feuds in Albania, where two small boys were expected, when they were older, to avenge their fathers deaths – each killed by the family of the other.

Or was it two years ago when I had a robust discussion with a colleague about international standards on showing extreme imagery from disasters, when we were comparing the relative shock value of different photos: trying to sanitize death.

Or maybe three years ago, when editing case study after case study on the sad stories of children abroad, I burnt out, and became cynical about most things, the last straw being a story about an AIDS orpan in Soweto who could not survive to her teens without drugs.  I don’t know if she is alive today or not.

Or would it be four years ago, when on a visit to Afghanistan, we heard the story of a boy in an orphanage, yearning for a simple future, with scant chance of achieving it.

Or possibly  five years ago, when my first week in my new job was over, I realised what a privilege it would be working where I was, something I feel to this day.

Or was it seven years ago, when I left the opportunity to work in international finance, leaving a decent manager nonplussed as to why a young man would walk away from a chance for big money others would kill for.

Or maybe it was twenty four years ago, when seeing Michael Buerk reporting on the Ethiopia famine, I apparently burst into tears and started sobbing…

Writing about poverty would be too personal for me, and I wouldn’t know where to start.

There needs to be a word for the slight feeling of dread, and then subsequent guilt that accompanies the realisation that, for the next decade or so, the fasts will be getting longer.  At least now we start off with the longer days and each fasting day is a few minutes shorter – soon that will no longer be the case.

There needs to be a word that captures the happy staminah/energy that drives children to wake up at 3am, eat food, have a nap, go to the mosque at 6.30am, come home at 8am, go to school at 8.40am, have an active day including running around, leave school at 3.30pm, go to the mosque for 5pm till 7.30pm and then after mosque play in the park till half an hour before iftar when the neighbourhood foodplate exchange starts.  (We did that as we were kids, growing up in Leicester, and I can’t imagine us having that energy now.)

There needs to be a word that captures the combination of guilt and embarrassment and greed realising that although your mum and sisters have spent hours slaving, it is the kebabs from next door that you really want a piece of, but as a teenager and only one of seven participants in the meal, the odds are stacked against you getting a decent chunk of shredded, spiced, coagulated fried halalimal.

There needs to a be a word that perfectly describes the amalgam of greed, triumph, sweat and  indigestion that accompanies the gluttony of eating Eid biryani, knowing all along that there is nothing on the planet like eating Eid biryani as a child cooked by the hands of one’s Mum.

Sometimes there are not enough words.

Marry not a writer, an excreter of wit
For those charms that attract you are from an addict
Their habits are rubbish for a partner in life
Writers are strange folk (whether as husband or wife)

It will take a while for your concern to arouse
During the wedding they’ll be rewriting the vows
When settling into your new marital love- home
Distracted, their heads will be sunk deep in a tome

The housework neglected in favour of typing
Your marital bliss will descend into sniping
The food will be left cold, when it should be piping
Your tears of regret, that’s what you will be wiping

When the spousal vacancy opens, arises,
Please heed to the hints this poor dervish advises
Mention not your love of epics and metaphor
Just smile and nod calmly so they will think you’re demure

I should know from experience, dear friend of mine
And learnt the hard way to accept and toe the line
I write secretly now, in the dark of the night
hunched over my laptop, flickering in low light

My dear wife and I , we have reached a compromise
An arrangement we have that is really quite wise
I keep out of sight the mouse, the keyboard and pen
She‘s promised not to stab me or hit me again

Mr Moo 17th September 2008