Letters…I prefer letters!

“Letters. I prefer letters.” was a perceived cry against the modern communication that got jammed in my mind in Alex’s last message couple of days ago.
It kept me thinking since, especially due to the fact that once upon a time I had realized that the chit-chat type of communication that the social networks and the seemingly demanding life imposes on us has contributed to impassive correspondence and thoughtless responses. At least this was true for me. As with everything that produces turbulent feelings, I had unconsciously stored that thought somewhere in the never to be touched department of my brain and gone on with the wave of modern communication. And unsurprisingly enough, the not-to-be-touched department wasn’t that untouchable. It needed a spark, one that came along unexpectedly. And here I am, drawn to write about it as if it is a person in itself pulling the strings of the puppet ME, trying to speak out against the tyranny that the modern world has done to the lovely, thoughtful, sincere way of communicating that prevailed until recently, letters.

I went back to Alex’s message and I couldn’t but not quote a passage that acts as an agent of my now-free thought.
“I think I prefer letters, long, detailed, thought-involving letters. Chats have increasingly grown disappointing and frustrating for me. I have discovered they offer a cheap and quick replacement for face-to-face communication, one I am not willing to take easily”, it said. It was all there, up to the last detail.
Chats although allegedly harmless, have challenged for good our way of exchanging thoughts and conversation. There are always same set of questions starting the conversation that have most of the time automated responses formed in our heads before the questions are even asked. The thinking part of the whole has long gone, for now we are used to type fast and answer promptly. The lols, rofls, omgs, and an never ending list of shortcuts have rendered our conversations to be filled with senseless and masked emotions since not much is left that belongs to the basket of the reality. The virtual world seems to have screwed us up well; that much that I believe there will be face screens in the future that will lol for us while we keep doing our job. And this is the part that has changed quite much in the era of chats, the time we invest solely to the person we chat with. It’s very in to be multitasking thus we tend to always do more than one thing at a time. The now old fashioned letters actually required us to devote some quality time to the person we would write to, think about the things we will write and the way to make it pleasant to read. Now we chat, listen to youtube, read an article, do our work, and not to forget, chat with other people at the same time. In turn it makes us forget the value that people have to us and downsized it to the need to respond but not delve into it.

I, like Alex, prefer letters, I always had. Notwithstanding the fact that I am a rebel in everything, I got myself loose and changed my preference, at least superficially. Lately I had noticed that I dislike chats but that never made me think how much I prefer letters. It’s the second thing I like most in communication after face-to-face interaction and socialization. Letters if nothing else show that I have valued you by taking the time and resources to get you a letter, write in it, and post it to you. Even if it is through email, it still proves how much I value you. You can call me a dreamer, a romantic, a lost soul, a traditionalist, a rebel, but I’m sure I’m not the only one. There are a lot of you that miss receiving a letter that is directed to you because someone cared about you; not like in chats where your either write to someone who might not be so happy about writing back or someone writes to you while you don’t really feel like talking to that person. Letters are ways to tell others that the time it was written belonged to you solely and you get to read it whenever you feel its most appropriate for you.

Next time I you write me on any of the chat services, be patient. I shall return your message, but not as an answer to your question or continuation of your conversation.
It will be in a form of a letter: a long, detailed, thought involving letter that will bring with itself an image of me, a reflection of my soul, and most importantly the needed value I should give you with each correspondence.

It will be in a form of a letter, because from now on, I only prefer letters!

The True Colors of Happiness

There is something called the happiness of a child. A happiness that involves doings things not always smart, right or fit to the society we live in, but yet pleasurable, fun and super enjoyable.

When children, we tend to do everything that our little minds can think of never regretting of doing so. We build our own fortresses we want to live in, make up friends we want to spend our time with, play games that no one likes to play, eat foods that make us fat, indulge in chocolate pleasures, fight and bruise ourselves, speak to imaginary friends, fall in love, dress like fictional characters, play grownups at the same time we hate being ones, and all that creates our little perfect world. A world where nothing but happiness is the language that is capable of describing the music that makes that world revolve, the words written on the walls of such life, the drama of indescribable genre. In such a world, we wake up every morning caressed by the sunlight’s rays and the gentle hug of a mother, jumping on an imperfect bed down on stairways made of music notes of positive thoughts arriving on not so rich but nonetheless amazing breakfast table. The eye of the child is small and sees everything in giant proportions, being fed by the tenth of what the adult’s eye sees. A child’s ear hears the music of a laughter, children’s play in the streets, baby’s giggling, bicycle’s bells, and most importantly it hears the music of love to which without being asked goes on dancing. Little things are capable of making our sadness go away, making us easily adaptable to happiness. While growing up, slowly all these features fade away and instead we dress up in customs and norms set by anything but us, giving a definition to happiness that we become so comfortable with as to forget that once upon a time happiness had a whole another meaning.

As grownups we tend to do the right things, often forgetting that the right thing is not always the best thing. We define ourselves by others, let them direct our lives and consequently become puppets that know only how to go by the rules rarely courageous enough to challenge them. We set certain goals and by that we create our life plan. We plan even for the days that we might not be around here anymore, nonetheless wasting a whole bunch of energy just to make those plans come true. All that easily disappoints us, since achieving goals in life is the new meaning happiness gets. We consider ourselves as happy only when we have got the right education, wear the right clothes, settle in the right job, marrie the right person, have the right house and possess the right amount of wealth. And it is the chain of right’s that makes our lives so miserable that a kid would pity us deeply. There is a saying stating that ‘people learn from mistakes’.  If we are prone to doing the right things always, and not make mistakes that is like deciding from the start that we don’t want to learn. We don’t want to learn what being happy is about!

If we could think like a child, we would let ourselves be ourselves, for deep down we dream of the child we used to be. We would be able to paint our lives with the true colors of happiness, dance to the truthful tones of it, and the taste of its candy flavor. Maybe, just maybe, we could than choose to get the education that is not only informative but fun as well, dress according to the colors we paint our world with, find the job that doesn’t pay much but yet fulfills us and makes us forget that we are working. We could then marry not the right person but the best person: not fulfilling the right criteria yet be able to watch movies that kids watch, stay in bed and cuddle, drink hot chocolate and eat cupcakes and brownies, hug whenever feeling a bit down, laugh until our chest would hurt, stare at the sky, play hide and seek and chase in the park, not be obsessed with the formalities of life and the material gains, love each other for what our hearts see and not what those around see. We could also live in a house that is furnished with positiveness, warmness, friendliness, playfulness, love and harmony. And lastly, we would be able to live without caring how much will others inherit when we die!

We, for sure, would be truthful to happiness if we could remain children in our definition of it!

 

The Beauty Proficiency Level (BFL)

 

I see beauty as a language in itself. One either speaks it well, or in subsequent decreasing levels. In the case of beauty one gets to be privileged to be born with the level of it signed down in the genes themselves.  Different people speak different level of beauty, thus we come to the idea of Beauty Proficiency Level.

Some people do not speak beauty at all, and beauty turns out to be a foreign language to them. Different from language though, beauty is a language quite difficult to acquire. The mother tongue of some in most cases seems to be so different that they never get to enter the beauty scale.

On the other side, there are some for whom beauty is mother tongue and comes out quite naturally. They speak it so well, that everyone dreams to have such an original touch of speech. No matter the sound that it comes with, the beauty language is always pleasurable to be heard when spoken by a native speaker.

In-between these two categories, there is a rainbow of colors that beauty come in with. For them all,beauty is considered as a second language yet not totally unknown. The Beauty as a Second Language(BSL) is usually natural leveling process, and sometimes can be learned up or down for some levels.  Immediately under the native level comes the proficient user of beauty, the ones that speak it so well that sometimes is hard to recognize their beauty speech from the natives. The proficient level speakers of beauty can be only detected if caught unprepared and in a bad timing such as early mornings or late afternoons, when their language level has been decreased by the excessive use of their mother tongue.

Next in line come the advanced level speakers of beauty who differently from the proficient users are detected in their proficiency level but still are always praised for how good they speak beauty. The upper-intermediate beauty level is attributed to those who speak and understand it but have serious problems with its comprehension. If put together with a native speaker, their beauty level is well recognizable as not good enough. The intermediate level on the other hand is something not to brag around with but still not be much ashamed of. At least these speakers can say that beauty is not a language totally foreign to them and that when tried hard, they can speak and understand it on a fair level.

The next three levels differentiate the low-level users from the non-users of beauty. The elementary/basic level of beauty is little above the knowledge level.  It’s almost not spoken as a language, but there are some attributes that favor these users when compared to the non-speakers of beauty. The pre-intermediate level speakers are close to the intermediate proficiency level with the exception that their level of comprehension is little behind and their beauty is not much noticed.

Similar to language, beauty can be acquired, but just in some cases. While for men this possibility is quite limited, for women it is more readily accessible. Even if not a proficient user, sometimes some achieve to boost up their levels by using different idioms and synonyms (make-up) that would make their level sound higher. In some cases the transformation, that the usage of these fancy wordscauses, results in such a speech that leaves others around breathless. However the effects usually fade of and not much is done to bring a real result in the proficiency level of beauty as a second language.

Similar to language again, beauty level can be decreased, in some cases even drastically. For the foreign speakers of beauty, even those in proficient level, if not used for some time, the beauty is forgotten and takes some time to get refreshed and recuperated. Even the native speakers of beauty sometimes can ruin their standard language by using too much of slang (clothes and accessories that just make beauty decrease in proficiency, words such as overweight and anorexia) and archaisms (old age!).

It would be unfair to discuss beauty only through the superficial outside look and leave out the other side of beauty standing on the other side of the coin. Besides what I already discussed previously, there is an inner dimension of beauty and that is the soul beauty. Contrary to the outer beauty, the proficiency level of inner beauty is determined by both nature and nurture. Some are born with the tendency to be native speakers of inner beauty while others remain for lifetime on the list of those for whom inner beauty is a foreign language. Quite a large portion of this kind of beauty is attained through age and the older one gets the more proficient s/he tends to get in the language of inner beauty. The levels of proficiency of this type of beauty are same as with the outer beauty ranging from natives, proficient users, advanced users, upper-intermediate, intermediate, pre-intermediate and basic/elementary users.  It can be increased and decreased, through extensive usage/updating and forgetfulness respectively.

When compared to each other, the two are tested in different ways. The outer beauty is usually tested with a first look test and the results are quite fast, while the inner beauty needs a lot more testing and the results tend to come quite late. Proficiency in the outer beauty can get easily decreased in a test for those around if the inner beauty proficiency level is low. On the opposite side, the higher the inner beauty proficiency level the more it is reflected on the outer beauty proficiency thus boosting up the total.

And to conclude, it seems fair to ask people now “Do you Speak Beauty?” or update the language bar in the languages you speak question.

Who am I?

I am the aim I give myself to be.

The one defined by the actions I do, the words I say, the life I live. I am the one that gets the meaning through the perception I limit myself. As such, my definition varies, according to my thoughts and their materializations, according to my beliefs and their manifestations, according to my relations and their actualizations. I am the reflection of Thy names and the attributes of the one He eternally cursed. The composition of flesh, soul, ego, reason and lust. I am the fight between them all, but I am also the winner of it.

When the ego (nefs) wins, I am it. I become the material form I strive for, the ambitions I represent, the love towards this world. I am the animal, the satan and the selfish self. I am full of myself without space for others in it, full of ignorance convinced I am smarter, full of misery in the mask of happiness. I target my pray and I fight to get it, until I realize I was full of myself so much that there is no space for it in me. In my EGO self, I love none but me, being the only  one worth of loving. My heart knows to hate whatever is not me, for whatever is worse and better has no place in it. In my EGO self, I am the lover and the loved, the marriage of me and myself in a communion of stubbornness, arrogance, conceit, haughtiness, self-liking, narcisism. I become the spectre through which the cursed one shows the colors to the world, I become his best advocate. In such a value of self, I come from nothing to end as nothing. The in-between is just an interval that either made the nothing more visible or made it fade, yet to end up as nothing.

I am also the soul that knows none of what the ego strives for. Through it, I become a subduer, submitter. I become the voice of my inception, the answer Kaluu Belaa (Yes, indeed). I become the moon reflecting the rays of light from sun, showing to the world the attributes of my Lord. I am the mercy, the forgiver, the source of peace, the pure one, the generous. I look towards the sky and get fed by what came  down from it as a revelation and guidance. The soul that I am had a beginning but has no end. It is eternal, manifesting itself through the limits and boundaries of the body. Within the nothing, it is everything. It is the meaning that makes nothing valuable, for it gives it a purpose worth being born and dying. The soul that I am knows how to convert the ending world into eternal result. Limited within the body, it is also limited within this material world. It has to fight with whatever comes into its path towards reaching the aim of testifying the Kaluu Belaa, and uses the limits for its expression. The world becomes a stage where the soul acts, where it shows its worth. It loves and awaits no love in return; is benefitial and gives thanks to its Creator for not being harmful; finds peace in what it shares and gives and not what it get; it’s a hands that gives not a hand that asks. It is a myriad of goodness for it wills to stand by its vow.

Yet, who am I? I am what I aim to make of myself. I am the abd (slave), selfless and filled with others. I am the fight between the reflections of His names that the soul tries to represent and the characteristics of satan that the ego abundantly accepts. I am both, and none. Because I am a human, that has been called upon with a purpose. To be a representer of Him on earth. I am the abd that denies to be satan, and who proves God’s words “I know what you know not” testifying to the angels that I am a creation that submits to Him who created him, bows down and prostrates to show his modesty and weakness in front of The Most High, The Almighty. I am the abd that knows how evil he can get, thus has something in his hands which resembles none of what he reflects. I am the abd that knows how to ask for forgivness and with it I resemble myself, for God needs no such thing and satan was to proud to have it. I am the abd that once mistaking, knows how to show his repentance and where to ask for it.

I am what I aim to be, and my aim is not to be nothing. For nothing is too useless to strive for, too empty to cherish and too unimportant as to fight for. I am not everything, for I wasn’t created to be so, but I am what I aim to be and that is an abd in the whole sense of the word.

Loving for the sake of God

After reading for several times the excerpts from Ghazali’s On the Duties of Brotherhood, and Habib’s great article on it, I couldn’t but share my reflections from the two.

While there are many important aspects that underlie the love for the sake of God, which in this particular case is funneled into the brotherly love for His sake, the following is my own perception of it as of always and also affected now by the works mentioned above, and by the vllaicim/friends that gave it a practical meaning.

To start with, I want to highlight the importance of ever wanting to have such kind of brotherhood. There are two dimensions that I understand this value:

• The Prophet of Allah, salAllahu te’ala aleyhi we sel-lem, in a hadith has said

There are seven people whom Allah will draw under His own shadow on the day when there will be no other shadow: a just ruler; a youth who was brought up fearing Allah; a man who likes to say his prayers in mosques regularly; a man who remembered Allah so his eyes are over filled with tears , two persons who meet and disperse with sincerity to Allah’s teachings; a man who refuses to be seduced by a pretty and influential woman fearing Allah; a man who has given alms and concealed it so that his left hand knew not what his right hand did.

Being listed within the seven is enough to consider brotherhood for the sake of Allah as a calling in life, as something one should not pass to the other word without having. However, compared to other reasons that make one be shadowed in the shadow of Allah, one can see that in a modern world one is quite neglectful or unable to strive for all the rest. Apparently not every one of us gets the chance to be a ruler, so that he could try to rule justly. With the hectic time we have, one is unable to pray his prayers in the mosque regularly, and not all of us get to be seduced by women so that one can refuse to commit adultery fearing Allah thus becoming a Yusuf of modern time. Most of us might have passed their youth already not on the level needed to be shadowed by Allah.

So there are three things left to achieve such a degree. While of the three the most important one is to remember Allah and in doing so his eyes to be shed with tears, still its personal and doesn’t affect others. Giving alms in such a hidden way is sometimes halted by the fact of having something to give as alms. The one left, which is altruistic and selfless, which doesn’t necessarily require material wealth, is loving your brother for the sake of Allah, be it while together or when apart.

• Yet there is another dimension which makes this love so unique and special. Committing yourself in a bond of brotherhood, you accomplish the meaning of a Muslim, who loves not due to kinship but for the sake of belonging to the same faith and for the sake of Him who has enlightened them with that faith. On this regard, Al Hasan says: “Our brothers are dearer to us than our families and our children, because our families remind us of this world while our brothers remind us of the Heareafter.” Our families have been given to us as an obligation, as a tie that we are not supposed to break, as people that we have to love and be there for them. A brother in deen is different because you choose to have him, naked from all the material gains and ties and dressed with the robe of Afterlife where the two would together enjoy the fruits of such a noble love. Furthermore al Hasan says, “If a man stand by his brother to the end then on the Day of Ressurection God will send angels from beneath His Throne to escort him to the Garden of Paradise.” May we all live to witness that. Amin.

Now, returning to Ghazali’s concepts of brotherhood and the obligations that follow it, there are few points I want to highlight and reflect upon.

His definition of the concept of brotherhood still leaves me amazed,

The contract of brotherhood confers upon your brother a certain right touching your property, your person, your tongue and your heart – by way of forgiveness, prayer, sincerity, loyalty, relief, and considerateness.

In a way he says it all: a brother in faith is a contract which one willingly enters into for the sake of God and with the intention of walking together a journey that will result in a reward. All one has, becomes shared for as the Prophet, salAllahu te’ala aleyhi we sel-lem, says, “Two brothers are likened to a pair of hands, one of which washes the other.”The brother gives all he has to the brother, the material wealth, the spiritual guidance and the knowledge he posses and his tongue, to articulate the praises towards his brother and correct him on things that do him no well in this and the next world.

The right the brother has over your heart is to have him there always until it stops beating. The heart should love endlessly and with no reserves, no expectations. Such heart is grateful to God for allowing it to be beneficial and not harmful to the creation. It is aware that the hand that gives is always better than the one that takes, thus expects nothing in return from his brother so as to be better in his deen. The heart that belongs to the brother finds joy in giving love, knowledge and his time and not in getting the same back. This lesson was taught to me by a very valuable friend that provided my heart with the cure it needed.

In addition, this love is accompanied by emotions and actions that are way too positive and not often used by people. A person in himself is a combination of the reflections of the names of God and attributes of the Satan. Forgiveness is the one thing that makes human special, especially the possibility not only to forgive but also to ask for forgiveness.

For one who has tasted the sweetness of brotherhood, the prayer is means to attach the love towards his brother with God. The prayer is communication with God about what he wants for his brother forgetting on the way himself. The prayer proves that at the best level of brotherhood the siddiq one (sincere), one becomes selfless filing the vacuum of the self with the love towards his brother.

Loyalty as a concept applied to brotherhood, means to be consistent in your love towards him, and continuous. The love that does not continue until the brother dies, was not love for Allah’s sake to begin with. The length of such love is endless because of the cause of it: Allah. He is eternal, so is the love in the brotherhood for His sake.

May we all come to experience such a profound love, which might become the cause to achieve the other aspects that shadow one in Allah’s shadow on the day when there will be no other. One becomes more aware of Allah through loving for His sake, and through being beneficial to His creations. Once we achieve it, may we not allow it to end and pray for it to be one of our arguments on the Day of Judgment.

Life Stories

It’s astonishing how different yet similar people’s stories are. Well, it’s even more astonishing how important they become for you once you listen to them. You find yourself partly or in a great extent as belonging to it. Your sole departs from the limits of your body and travels through time and space, merging together with the sole that conveys the story it has lived.

The moment people open their mouth, their story starts writing itself with the pen of memories, emotions and facial expressions. Words suddenly turn into pictures, put together in such a unique way that makes each storyteller a world on its own. So much emotions flow within you that you forget who you are and become the story you hear. You breathe in the memories and suck up all the emotions the storytellers portray. The trembling of their voice arrives in you through the vibes of feelings it is produced by, their tears become the seas through which you sail within their souls, and their laughs and smiles enlighten the dark tunnel which seems to have no end. In all this complexity of feelings, each one finds his/her own way of defining themselves, be that through their own or someone else’s story.

In the process of sharing life stories, there is an urge in you that makes you tell the story that best defines you or that you have thought the most about. When your tongue becomes the ambassador of your life, it gets a tremendous power over your choice of what to say. Suddenly you find yourself not only telling others something you didn’t plan to talk about, but telling the story to yourself as well. You tell and at the same time listen to your own story, so instead of a monologue there is actually a dialogue going on as you speak. In the struggle between what your tongue narrates and what your mind dictates, your story not only gets told but analyzed as well. You try to explain in the process the meanings of events, people, dates and what else not, not as much for others as for your own self. Once your story is told, you start feeling weird especially due to the atmosphere it has produced. The glimpses you get from your listeners seem to be full of compassion, understanding and empathy. It is as if in one moment the perception of you in the eyes of others has changed and you now get a totally different definition from them. Your story becomes a definition of you, a channel through which people have penetrated in your life, navigated through the most important parts of it and got acquainted with you on a deeper level. With it [the story] you have opened the gate to your soul and invited them in. Your life becomes a museum and your story guides the people through it.

Apparently, telling your own story is a quite important step towards listening to and sympathizing with other stories. By understanding the complexity of emotions flowing in you while you tell your story, wearing someone else’s shoes becomes a piece of cake, since all of them seem to fit you now. You hear other stories through the prism of your own, and get involved in it using the elements of your story. In that room of storytellers, you are undressed of the socially imposed and any other differences. You are genderless, statuteless and don’t belong to a particular place. You travel from Bosnia to Croatia, Macedonia, Slovenia, Italy, Montenegro, Germany, Greece, and all over the globe, as a man and woman, a kid and adult, with family and friends. Your soul multiplies as many times as the number of stories told while you still hold the flag of uniqueness due to your particular perception and angle. The room you are in transforms into a time machine, sending you at exact times and dates of importance for the people who share their own story with you. Your eyes are windows through which sceneries are viewed, wells of tears through which sadness is expressed, and mirrors which reflect the soul(s) in you and around you. In a room of physically many, all it remains is a spiritually one.

At a certain point within all this process you realize that the treasure you have always searched for is in the diversity of the stories you hear. Your story now becomes part of this beautiful mosaic of life, without being any better or worse than any other. The feeling you have when you first share your story, namely as someone who is special in one weird way at the time the story gets out of the walls of yourself into the heads of others who listen, diminishes once you learn how stories overlap and how fulfilling it gets the more you listen. The uniqueness you once had becomes a pattern in the architecture called life, as each of your stories constitutes a building within the larger neighborhood. Finally your weirdness becomes an important part of the whole and you finally realize how beautiful life is, regardless of the sadness or happiness it contains in each story it is composed of.

You are a diamond…

You my friend are a diamond.

A beautiful, marvelous, awe-producing diamond. One of the rare ones that my humble eyes have had the chance to see.

You are not any diamond.…you are THE Diamond.

You shouldn’t feel privileged for it, cuz it is not your choice to be it, you are just born as such. It was an amanah that He gave to you to shape and make it priceless. It is an obligation and responsibility, not a privilege. You, same as the diamond we materialistically know of, are valuable only if carved and cut in the finest way with a high level of precision. It is up to you where to carve it, on the hands of whom do you bequeath it. The price it will get will depend on the way it is cut, and that responsibility falls solely on your hands.

You are a diamond.

And I love you for it. I love the beauty you reflect, the awe you expose, the shape you are getting. You are the prism through which I understand your Creator. A window through which I see His master plan. A mirror which reflects all His beautiful names. You are a diamond that makes me feel as one too. Or at least be happy that a diamond like you exists.

You are a diamond.

A diamond that thus far, for as much as I was allowed to see, has had such a great shape and price beyond the numbers I can think of. In the quest of shaping your diamond, you have started in a really good path…yet, the work on it is not over. The better it is carved, the more priceless it becomes. This world provides so many ways for you to be properly or improperly shaped. Make sure you get the best path, for you are of such a value, that you yourself are not aware of. The amanah that you represent is more valuable than all that is on earth, all its beauties and riches.

You are a diamond.

And it is not only the shaping that is your responsibility. For you will be judged on its shape and its use as well. The beauty of the diamond gets even more visible in the hand that holds it. The value of it in the way it is used. Never ever allow for that diamond to be in the hands of those that don’t deserve to hold it. Never ever allow for that diamond to be used in the places it cannot fully function, for the purposes it was not made and carved for. It is up to you to give it a good use, once you have shaped it well.

You are indeed a diamond.…yet, not everything around you is of your material.

When your diamond was born, it was thrown among the mud of the immoral society. You were thrown in such a society that knows not of the true beauty of a diamond like you, because it is mud that they have been used to see and learned to cherish and value. And unfortunately, once thrown in it, you are covered with the same mud that the others around you are covered with as well. To be clean in terms of the filthy society is to be filthy in your own nature i.e. to be mud as all others regardless of the diamond you hide within. It is up to you to be considered filthy in the filthy society, which will ultimately make you clean in your own essence. You never know how many diamonds are hidden in the mud around you, but none has the courage to clean itself of it and shine. You should be the first of those diamonds. The first that will not care if you are not considered moral by the immoral society, because that’s the only way for you to be truly moral. You should be the diamond that will be an example for all other diamonds present in the mud of this filthy society, one that will absorb the rays of the light of truth and reflect them through the clear-cut shape you have, with the wide spectrum of your colors. It is up to you to make those colors work for all and to reach as many things possible.

You are a diamond.

A diamond that once served its function, will be judged for it. Don’t avoid this world you were thrown into, because it is only here that your diamond can be shaped. It is only here that your diamond can serve a cause. It is only here that you can get prepared to return your diamond to its rightful Owner, to the One that created it in the beginning. Use the world to make yourself proud in front of the Beholder of the beauty of your diamond. The better it is carved, the more pleased will his Creator be. The joy of seeing Him pleased is beyond any bounties that His Jannah (Heaven) can afford. Cuz that joy makes even the fire of Jahanam (Hell) be a gentle breeze, a flower garden of Ibraheem alayhisselam.

You are a diamond.

A diamond that shall never seize to be so. One that will stand proud in front of other diamonds because you my friend are not just a diamond, you are a role model diamond, a priceless and quite cherished one. You are my DIAMOND!

From a Diamond *Admirer*

The Painted Mosque in Tetovo…a place for which my soul longs!!!

There is always something with which one identifies or to which attaches oneself. There is always something that one misses so much and longs for when leaving the birth place, and that exact something helps one not forget who s/he is and what does s/he aim for in life. At least that is how I can explain my tie with my birth place. The painted; coloured; multi-coloured; aladza or the pasha mosque or whatever else it is called, is that something that defines me, fills me with pride and makes me feel eternal and infinite as the mosque itself has been through years.
First built in late 15th century, circa 1495, the painted mosque in its baroque style stands proudly in the center of the city showing its antiqueness as well as the architectural perfectness and the artistic uniqeness. According to some sources the mosque was built in 1459, making it the very first ottoman mosque built in Macedonia, though other sources say that it was built in the mid-17th century. However, the reason that makes me believe that the original building date is exactly late 15th century, circa 1495, is the death date, 1534 in front of the eight-sided turbe (tomb) in the yard of the mosque, of Hurshide and Mensure, the two sisters who sponsored the building of the mosque in its initial form and for whom is believed that have contributed to the painting process of the mosque. In 1833 the mosque has been rebuilt and enlarged by Abdurrahman Pasha, the so called Guardian of Tetovo, and in 1991 the Islamic Community of Macedonia built the yard wall in the neo-classical ottoman style using old stones of 19th century period. In sum, the today’s painted mosque is a synthesis of three different periods: the minaret being the only remaining part of the 15th century mosque; then the entire mosque of early 19th century and lastly the late 20th century yard wall and its surrounding.

Though the history of the mosque is astonishing in itself, what actually makes me identify with this exact architectural piece is the uniqueness in its beauty and the emotions that overflow my body once I enter its yard. It is interesting that the emotions keep repeating as if each time I enter is my first time. With the first step inside the yard I somehow enter in another world, quite different from the visual one. Each of the three different yard entrance doors give me different impression and a unique view of the mosque. Through its side doors, the many colors in the exterior of the mosque and the perfect combination of geometrical figures and floral elements portray in front of me the paradise I always long for. On the other hand, through the front door the natural floral elements in the yard that in a way block the view of the mosque, showing just half of it and the minaret, fill me with the peace one always needs. Other elements that one could notice is the fountain, situated on the right side, which is now used for absolution or wudû’, though in the past had been used as water resource by the population living near it. Another element is the turbe where the two sisters and Abdurrahman Pasha have been buried, situated in the left side of the yard. Going through the natural tunnel formed by the trees planted inside the yard, one reaches the entrance of the mosque. There is a typical element as an addition attached to the mosque and that is the trem (tr. sofallar) in the entrance side, 5m in width and open on three sides. But the real artistic perfection is the interior of the mosque whose entire surface is painted. The decorative art used in the painting all over the interior surface shows different time periods that had influenced the mosque itself. First built in early ottoman style with ottoman baroque and some neo-classical elements, the mosque includes a rich variety of ornamental designs and very distinctive features of Islamic art such as arabesques, garden flowers, floral fantasies, with quite few calligraphic symbols, the last one being an element of the late ottoman style. The right side wall is identical with the left side in artistic sense. The combination of both artistic styles: garden flowers and floral fantasies interlope in such a perfect way that make me feel as if I am in a real garden. Tulips, roses, carnations and some other kind of flowers in the few vases as elements of garden flowers make the mosque even more distinctive in its appearance and the massive combined flowers, smaller rosettes and long, jagged ‘saz’ leaves, unclearly connected with reality, are other elements that decorate the walls of the mosque. The few calligraphic symbols that can be noticed on the walls are either some verses of the Holy Qur’an or the names of the prophets. On the front side, however, except for the same decorative elements and calligraphic symbols, there are the minbar and mihrab made of shiny marble. On the top of the minbar is engraved the name of Allah and few centimeters below in a line are engraved the calligraphic symbols of the name of Mohammad (pbuh) and his companions: Abu Bekir, Umer, Uthman and Ali. These calligraphic symbols are typical of the late ottoman period.
What impresses me the most is the painting that is between the side walls and the ceiling continuing in a dome. There we see the city of Venetia, with astonishing buildings of the early baroque period. I sometimes even get lost in the beauties that are found on those paintings and I feel as if a light breeze flows my body. Looking upwards we reach the ceiling where the dome is situated. It is interesting that the roof doesn’t have the form of the dome but instead looks like an ordinary house roof. But in the interior its splendid paintings make it one of the most beautiful domes and if not the only one in the world, it is definitely the only one in Balkans of that kind. Except for the floral fantasy elements in it, there are twelve circles with saz leaves around them and in the inside there are six circles with vases full of tulips, roses and carnations, and in the other six there are mosques that in a way show the majesty of the ottoman architecture.

Worshiping Allah in the painted mosque has made me feel a different dimension of the prayer. When one enters the mosque, the brilliance of the paintings shows the power of God vested in the hands of people. There is always a new story that I find myself in when I am inside the mosque. And in every story I build my personality, thus becoming a new person each time I get outside of it. The painted mosque is a part of me and I feel as being a part of it. It will surely remain the center of people’s lives, because within the decorations all over it are written the memories and lives of many people and certainly mine is one of them.