After a five hour journey I was in a taxi, in my way to where I was supposed to give a talk. I was very tired and a bit low in motivation. The taxi driver out of no where started lecturing me, and it did not take me more than a couple of minutes to learn that I was in for a serious inspirational speech. He shared with me his own experience of finding God. Among many good things that he said were:
- Remain a servant of God and all your problems will perish
- I don't understand an atheist, I see God when I look around
- We need to aim high, we need to become as good as the Prophet

I asked him twice to come to the place with me and suggested seriously that he should give the talk instead of me. He very humbly said that his time had not yet arrived.

Well, my friend, your time might have not arrived yet but you managed to inspire and motivate me after a very tiring journey and a sleepless night. Consider this as a humble thank you note!

God bless you and take care.

I was invited to attend a meeting as an "Islamic scholar" (help me God!). At the end of the meeting they had invited a singer who played keyboard and sang very soft and soothing songs in praise of love. I could see that he was feeling uncomfortable and a bit shy to play and sing in front of me (not that I had a scary look!). 

When his singing ended and he was trying to collect his things quickly and escape, I approached him. I could see in his eyes that he was thinking "this man with long beard is now going to tell me about the forbiddance and evil of music and singing". I think he was quite surprised to hear what I said to him: "Brother, take pride in what you are doing, art is precious and those who see or hear it should feel privileged", and I meant every word of it. 

I wrote some where: "Expressing artistic works in my view is one of the most powerful and beautiful illustrations of the love of a servant for his Creator."

Art is a handicap version of creation. The biggest artist of all times is God. I find expressions like 
الَّذِى خَلَقَكَ فَسَوَّئكَ فَعَدَلَكَ 

فىِ أَىّ‏ِ صُورَةٍ مَّا شَاءَ رَكَّبَك‏
(82:7,8)
very artistic expressions.

Beside many other things, one of the differences between human being and animals is that human beings can be artists, and can appreciate art, animals can't!

When I see an artist or see a piece of art, I am reminded of the Hadith that says God made human being in His own image. Every piece of art and its beauty, accuracy, glory and harmony points towards the one who is the source of art.

Ability to relate to art (either creating it, or appreciating it or both), to me, is a signature of our Creator on our soul.

There is an old story known as the King and the Tailors.
Very briefly it goes like this:
There was a very arrogant but stupid king who loved to wear the most expensive dresses possible. Once a group of tailors visited the king and said that they wanted to make him a magical dress. The magic of the dress is that only innocent people will be able to see it and sinful people will not be able to see it.
The king obviously was very keen to wear such a dress and gave the tailors a room in the palace to make the dress for him. The king could hear the noise of the tailors apparently making the dress behind the closed door. He once visited them to see how they were doing. The tailors said that the dress was going to be ready in a week time and showed their work in progress to the king. Obviously the king could not see anything! Knowing that this could imply that he was a sinful person he pretended that he could see the dress that was being made and started making comments on it.
After ten days the tailors announced that the dress was ready. The king entered the room and wore what he thought was a dress. He then came out from the room and stood in front of his guards, servants and deputies and ask them what they thought. Obviously no one could see any dress on the king, what they could see was the king with his under wears! However, fearing that they may be accused of being sinful, they all praised the king and the dress. 
Being happy about all the praises, the king announced that he would go out in the public to show his new dress to his people. Two days later the king appeared in the high street of the capital of his country. When he came out of the curtains people first were shocked, however, being fearful from the king and also being told that only innocent people can see the dress, they immediately put themselves together and started cheering.
The king was walking in front of people and would stop every now and then to show off his 'dress'. Among all those people, there was a small boy who was trying to stand on his toes and see the king. As soon as he saw the king he couldn't stop laughing. He laughed and laughed and then shouted, 'look, the king is in his under wears!' 
At this point people could not resist and they started laughing as well. It was only then that the king realised how the tailors - who were now long gone - made fun of him.


Every one who narrates this story finds one of the characters of the story to be interesting. Some emphasize on the cleverness of the tailors, some on the stupidity and arrogance of the king and some point out to the submissive behaviour of the king's servants. 
To me, the most interesting characters are first the public, who by their initial silence and compliance contributed to the stupidity and the arrogance that was going on. The second interesting character to me is that kid, the one and the only one who said the truth without any hesitations and therefore made the public coming back to their senses.

Aikido is a very interesting martial art. The whole philosophy of it is based on the principle that you use your opponent's energy to control him and to keep him and yourself safe.

I often think that one of the effective ways of debating an issue with a person is to follow the above principle of Aikido. Instead of confronting the person directly, we can use his own assumptions and reasoning to show any inconsistencies and illogical results. This of course does not always work, but when it works, it works very nice, just like Aikido! Arigatou Gozaimasu Ueshiba Sensei!