yesterday i had an interesting conversation about science and religion.

that science is based on facts and that so far every thing that science claims it has proven, yet religion is based on belief with no substance, no proof to the belief, that the existence of god has yet to be 'proven'.

the conversation then went on to the topic of faith schools and how faith schools should not teach children that god exists as a fact as it is yet to be proven.

i asked whether this should be implemented within households i.e parents, to which the reply was 'yes' parents should not raise there children with the belief that god exists, if the child comes to that conclusion on there own then so be it but no parent should 'teach' there child this 'concept'.

how interesting....

i told the person that i went to an Islamic school for 5 years where i was taught all 3 science's and that religion and science came hand in hand, and as a Muslim i cant choose between the 2 as Islam has proven over and over again that it is scientific and that theories of science where confirmed via the quran, according to the person religion repels science, according to Islam, the existence of god can be proven through science.

i did in fact offend the person by calling science a 'religion' according to her definition of religion in that religion established a platform for racists, discriminative ideas, stigmatising people etc... and the faster that religion is made rid of the better, so i said those who believe religion has no place in society and who follow the 'religion' of science are in fact doing exactly what she claims 'religion' is doing to others!!!

i find it interesting how 'religious' people are always deemed to be extreme in there ideas and how they are dismissive of other theories and beliefs and people are quick to judge and point the finger at religion, yet those who carry an alternative ideology are seen to be 'rational' and have a basis in there attacks on others and no matter how extreme there ideas are its deemed 'fine' as it is backed by 'proof'.

a confused world we live in, one that is full of double standards..

i will most definitely raise my future children with the belief that Allah exists and not only that but i will tell them and show them proof of the existence of god :0).

its been a week since Ramadan began, subhannallah time flies.

it feels alot longer, probably because the day is jam packed with things to do so one day can sometimes feel like 2 days.

i prefer being busy though, keeps your mind of the food :)

radio Ramadan has been fun, the kids are great and so enthusiastic, mashallah im getting 7 and 8 year old calling me and telling me there fasting.

I'm asking alot of riddles on the show and in the beginning i used to say simple and easy ones but the kids are clever and would answer within a minute of me asking so I'm picking more difficult riddles and mashallah there still managing to answer them, i have layed down 2 rules, they cant ask an adult and they are not allowed to google the riddle to get the answer lol.

on Tuesday i had a kid call in, conversation went something along the line of :

me: ooooooh yipeee we have a caller, lets find out who it is, sallamu allykum caller your through to radio Ramadan Manchester

caller: sallam allykum

me: wallykum assalam, how are you

caller: fine

me: great stuff, whats your name and how old are you?

caller: I'm aisha (I've given her a fake name) and im 10 years old

me: mashallah and that's a beautiful name, so aisha you fasting today?

caller: yessssss and i have a headache

me: aaaaaw well your not the only one i get them as well, lets suffer together ok

caller: ok (laughs) i want to share a joke

me: brilliant, I've been waiting for some one to call and make me laugh

caller: ok, well i thought this joke was funny, but its a bit dodgy

me: ...... (aaaaaaaaaaaah please don't say any thing baaaaaaad) ok you sure its ok to say it aisha

caller: ha ha ha yeh yeh its good

me: ok i trust you in that case go ahead

caller: ok, why did the tissue roll down the hill?

me: (sounds ok, ya rab please keep it clean) no idea aisha, so why did the tissue roll down the hill?

caller: to get to the bottom, get it

me: looooooooooooooool

i swear i couldn't stop laughing, and i tried to control myself but it was useless i had to go to a break so as to get it out of my system.

i still laugh every time i say it.

ever been in a situation where your not actually aware of how fast the time is going past, and you know that your meant to call some one but you never end up doing it although you had the intentions to do so but each time you remember you find your self in the middle of something and not able to pick up the phone and make that call?

and just before you make the call the person who you want to call ends up calling you, how bad does that look? and 9 out of 10 times there not very happy which i don't blame them really but whatever happened to making excuses for your brother and sister? the whole 70 excuses!!!

i could have been drowning in milk or being stampeded upon by a thousand dates (sticking to the Ramadan theme).

yeh i tend to find myself in this situation but not often thank god, but its not on purpose and i find that when i tell them that its not on purpose it still doesn't go down very well, oh well...

i have to try to get back in a particular persons good books, other wise i will probably live to regret it, hmmmm i wonder if i should bombard the person with telephone calls day and night, every hour.

I'm really excited about Ramadan, i love it love it love it.

its the best month and its always so exciting to wait for the first day of Ramadan to arrive, each year i am always shocked at how fast Ramadan makes an appearance, its scary this time moving business.

every year i have some sort of plan of action that i always vow to stick to and complete, but planning and putting things into action are two entirely different things.

i always have a list in my mind and i find that by the last 10 days i still hadn't completed half of what was on the list :( inshallah my intentions are to better myself this Ramadan and to rejuvenate my soul.

I'm sat here typing away a few minutes before maghreb is due to come in with it the start of Ramadan, tarawih starts tonight and the feeling is simply exciting.

every thing changes, the atmosphere, our relationship with others, our outlook on life, and inshallah our relationship with Allah is tightened and made stronger.

even the kitchen feels different, it has a Ramadan feel about it, its as though the utensils are crying out to be used so as to share in the blessings of Ramadan.

i ask Allah swt to bless you all in this month, that you get the most from this blessed month and that our time is not wasted and instead used to its ultimate benefit.

may you all have a wonderful Ramadan full of all that Ramadan has to offer.

don't over stuff yourself, oh yes don't go food shopping when your fasting, you will end up buying things you don't necessarily need :)

Saturday was spent climbing mount snowdon in wales, wooohoooo. i was really looking forward to it, for me it was a last minute thing, my friend had asked me to sponsor her as she was climbing mount snowdon to raise money for Africa via Islamic relief a charity company.

a group of girls where getting together to do this walk, and i showed an interest thinking that it was probably to late to join, so i was pleasantly surprised when she said that i could, i grabbed the chance, registered and began a 2 week collection of sponsors.

even the nhs patients at the surgery sponsored me aaaaw bless, elderly people pledging money, so nice of them walahi. we where the last group from Manchester around 24 of us, Bradford, Birmingham and London had already done it and already over 30,000 pounds was raised mashallah.

we had to be at the meeting point at the uni mosque at 4am, i had slept after midnight so i was lacking in sleep but i was full of energy because of all the excitement, dressed up in hiking boots, waterproof trousers, jumpers, jackets, rucksack the whole shebang.

we left just after fajer and arrived on time, 2 1/2 hours away, got of the coach and found a pretty lake, wales is simply beautiful subhannalah.

some of the girls had brought walking sticks with them that actually came in handy, i preferred jamming them into people, more fun :)
even the houses are so pretty
we where split into 2 groups and each group took a different path that eventually leads to the summit, there where natural steps leading up the mountain, but some of those steps where soooo high, you could feel the muscles at the back of the leg stretching, I'm sure at one point i heard mine scream.
it was really foggy, at points you couldn't see anything ahead or below, then it would clear up for a while, the higher up we went the more cloudy it got
the views where fantastic, and every so often you could hear a 'subhanallah' coming from different people, you cant help but wonder about the magnificence of nature, of what Allah has gifted us, and its times like these that i feel extreme gratitude for my eye sight as to witness such wonderful examples of creation is truly a gift in itself
the girls where doing so well, every so often we would stop to catch our breath, all the time complaining of how un-fit we where, some of us where good in that we trained before starting the climb, i on the other hand didn't train all that much but what did help me was the fact that i walk every where and that came in handy.
we came across a running stream
and after checking it out with our guide (who was fantastic) i jumped in and drank fresh spring water mmmm delicious
after the girls made sur the water was fine through me testing it and not dieing, every one had a drink, and we made wudu so as to pray duhir later, pretty cool.

we continued our walk, every so often taking snaps of beautiful scenery

we eventually stopped for lunch, we didn't realise how hungry we where until we took the food out to eat, after a brief rest we continued the rest of the climb, the last 10 minutes of the climb was a real test, it was a case of convincing your mind that you weren't tired and that your muscles are absolutely in tip top shape, when in fact all you want to do is lie down and catch your breath, but the human is an amazing creation, once we stick our mind to something then no matter what we can do it, and energy you though you never had somehow makes an appearance and drives you to move on, and the faith that you carry provided enough drive to take you where you want.

besides all that i couldn't face the fact that 70 year olds where walking past me looking like where going for a stroll :0)

we eventually got to the top, the summit and it felt great and was well worth the walk

it was time to go down, a different route to the one we came up, but it was sooo foggy, you could hardly see what was in front of you
and whilst we where walking, we heard a scream and then some of the girls shouting, when we got closer we saw one of the sisters had fallen quite badly and banged her head, and there seemed to be blood all over her, we where all shocked and completely in fear of what the outcome would be, the guides came running with the first aid kit, and it was a case of checking to see if she was aware of her surroundings, of who she was etc.. alhamdullilah she seemed to be aware but was in extreme pain and couldn't really move, eventually she had to go down by train, and we continued our journey down by foot. later we where told she was taken to the local hospital where they cleaned her wounds, and she had stitches, but alhamdullilah it was not anything more serious.

the guides told us that many people die from climbing this mountain, through falling, tripping etc.. so the sister was extremely lucky and fortunate, may Allah reward her for her wonderful efforts inshallah.

when we got half way down the mountain there was a service stop of some sort, toilets and a cafe, there was the most friendliest sheep i had ever seen this sheep seemed to love human contact, most sheep run away if you come a mile near them never mind an inch, this particular sheep was extremely fond of chocolate, no lie!! we fed him a whole mars bar

but for some reason it wasn't interested in me, i was convinced that it was a donkey dressed up as a sheep.

i spotted a lovely tree which reminded me of the bonsai trees

we eventually got to the bottom, by then i was so grateful to be on flat land, and it felt so cool to look up to the mountain and know that we had climbed it.

Africa may this small contribution make some difference

i got a call last night asking me to volunteer my services to Radio Ramadan in Manchester, this will be my 3rd year of Radio Ramadan and i absolutely love it because of the atmosphere.

this year its going to be slightly different, instead of the usual debate show i have been given the kids hour!!! 3-5 pm weekdays, interesting.

i will be responsible for a kids show, i find that extremely funny, i think i may have more fun than the kids :0)

its going to be an experience that's for sure, I'm actually looking forward to it, i hope i don't fall into the trap of speaking in that annoying voice that adults generally speak when talking to children, you know the one, the high pitched, nasal voice, and then adding cooing noises. i remember as a child that used to really get on my nerves when adults did that to me, and i had big fat cheeks so my cheeks used to always get squeezed and pinched by adults, saying things like 'your soooooo cute' 'look at those cheeks' and if they where Libyan then the word 'nageeeeeeeeeeeha' would always be mentioned, aaaaaaaaaaaah.

so yep i hope i don't sound patronising.

well this weekend i spent it on the outskirts of London in a lovely scouts base, the aim of the camp was to revive us for the coming scouts year, we've had a break from scouts due to the summer holidays so a person can get lazy starting up again so this camp was meant to boost our energy levels and enthusiasm to start scouting again with the kids yipeeeeeeeee.

we left just after 10pm on Friday, late i know but by the time every one was free, packed and ready to go it was 10, to be honest i was expecting us to get lost about a thousand times and what not, but surprisingly enough we didn't, ever the idealist your a great driver and md your a great navigator so i big you up :)

we stopped at a service station for 45 minutes and then when we reached the m1 there was traffic, the opposite lane was on stand still, seriously people where walking up and down the motor way, stretching there legs and having chit chats with other drivers, a couple of lorries had swerved across the road and caused chaos, i have a bone to pick with lorry drivers, dudes your supposed to drive on the left lane, what in the world are you doing on the middle and right lane, at one point there was 3 lorries on each lane driving next to one another!! no wonder they crashed and caused a stand still that probably took hours to clear, thank Allah we where only stuck for a maximum of half an hour, and our traffic jam was more to do with road works.

any way by the time we got to the camp base it was just after 2am, and the dude in charge of the camp was waiting for us aaaaw bless, i literally got into my pj's, opened my sleeping bag, and slept and woke up the next morning to the sound of people making morning noises, banging doors, shouting 'breakfast is ready', running up the corridors.

after breakfast it was the first seminar about time management, sooooo what we Muslims need, surprisingly enough we started on time :)
but it was a cool seminar and the guy doing it was handing out chocolate to people who where participating, clever dude.

during the break we ventured out and i found a cool tree tent, i soooo want one of these:

then came prayer time, praying outside in the open is soooo wonderful, totally different atmosphere, and can i just point out that you londeners are experiencing better weather than us manchester lot.
aaaaaaw look at how colourful they are, whoever said Muslims are dull should check out some of the dress sense of the sisters, diverse and colourful :0)

after a couple more lectures it was time for an activity, shooting yipeeee, this was our instructor, cool dude:

can i just point out that it was not bullets but pellets, and no scouts or pigeons where harmed in the making of this blog entry.

i had a go myself:
and i would like to announce to the world that i got a bulls eye, bulls eye, bulls eye, check it out: we got the Chance to try out the cross bow, but others decided to do a charlies angel hijabi style:
i got caught cheating, well stupid arrows for the cross bow where those plastic stuff that you have to put the end in water so as to stick on the target, i tried like a thousand times and the damn thing wouldn't stick but just bounce of, so went a few inches away from it aimed and amazingly it stuck, but some one caught me on my own camera, hmmmmm i say payback is in order:
we found such a cool climbing tree, walahi it was so easy to climb and was big enough to fit a few of us:
i would like to congratulate judy for managing to climb to the top of the tree:
i of course couldn't resist taking pictures of trees:
later that evening me and my roomie relaxed by literally putting our feet up, can you guess who had the stripy socks?