How to be a good husband or wife? RANT..

I’ve been noticing people spending a lot of time on Internet discussing tips and techniques on how to be a good husband/wife as per Islamic teaching. When I read them, I sense that these tips are very formulaic, simplistic and also of a questionable value.

How did the Muslims arrive at the formula for being good spouses?

Most probably someone heard from someone who heard from someone who also heard from someone who heard from another.

I’ve always felt that you are either a good person or you are not. If you are a good human being then you can most certainly become a good husband/wife regardless of your faith. But what if you are not?

Since you are who you are; I’m not entirely sure you can change your personality that easily.

Most of the items in the checklist can be arbitrary and of a questionable value. Here’s an example

Muslim Checklist for Good husband and wife
Item 1: Good Islamic husband will buy his wife an apple a day.
Item 2: Good and obedient Islamic wife will only eat chocolates on Friday.

The real challenge is to figure out why these items made the list.

The second challenge would be to see if these items are effective in your life. If you think these tips are effective, then how have you been measuring them? If not, then why not?

Not getting post out on time

I've been writing a blog entry for 7 days now (since the new year day), not a lengthy piece..maybe 1.5page, and it still isn't getting done. I know what you are thinking!

Sadly, yes. I sometimes spend more time than necessary or needed especially when I'm stuck on something. I don't like getting stuck or have nothing to show for.

Anyway, end of rant. I'll probably put the article aside and work on something else for a while until I'm inspired...

Overpriced Books (Rant)

I am in the rant mode now.

A few weeks ago I was complaining about cheap Islamic books flooding the market. The day before yesterday, I was thinking to buy a few books about Ismailis and Fatimid but the prices of these books are discouraging. I am not going to pay $70 and over hundred dollars for a book. I don't care if these books are hardcovers printed on cotton-bonded paper with sharp and glossy covers. Who pays that kind of money nowadays?

It cost soo much money to get access to academic materials (conference and journal papers). The academic books and textbooks are also way overpriced. I am not happy with all these barriers put in place to discourage people who are studying and those who wish to pursuit independent research without being affiliated with universities and research institute. Authors don't make that much money out of their books. If you can get paperbacks for less than ten dollars and hardback for less than $25 from supermarkets then there is something wrong with the printing of academic books.

Thank god I can go to the university and get what I want for free.

I am really getting interested in the ebooks revolution. Hopefully, the books could be sold cheaper because there is no cost associated with printing, distribution and stocking.

So, are the publishing companies happy that they can sell books cheaply without all the additional costs involved in the printing and distribution of the books? Nope. As of now, they are trying to figure out new ways to scam their consumers.

Random House will continue to offer its e-books to libraries but as of March 1 has raised many e-books’ wholesale prices significantly—in some cases by as much as 300 percent.

Several librarians told The Digital Shift that the prices they’re seeing tripled. “A book that a week ago we purchased for $28.00 now costs $84.00,” said one.

Correcting grammatical mistakes is boring

and time consuming. It takes a second or a third reading before you see them.

You could probably write faster too if you don’t have to deal with all the grammatical errors and typos.

Cheap Islamic books

I am getting sick and tired of cheap Islamic books being published weekly if not daily. These books are flooding the market. Usually, you can find them just about everywhere; whenever you visit Muslim bookstores, stalls at community events..and nowadays online :(

If you have been reading these books, you'll noticed that some of the most common themes are as follow

• Islamic Miracles stories
• Promotions of Sufi lifestyles
• Unreasonable fear of west/westerners
• Manuals to make Muslim women even more submissive
• Extensive studies on Jinn and spirit world
• Let's implement Sharia and all the problems in the world would disappear
• Devil deceptions....confession of spies....conspiracy theories
• ..and so on...

Many of these books contain plagiarised content and are of very low quality (written in an essay format without any references, footnotes or bibliographies). Sunnis are mostly responsible for flooding the market with these cheap books….because they are the majority..... Yeah take that!

I wouldn't say Shias are not following in their footsteps..


Anyway, since Muslims who read such books have the tendency to believe that these books are completely authentic, I wonder if these books do more harm than good?

Youtube is looking ugly today

I am not going to complain about the color and the font because those are very subjective. But I don't think anyone can miss that huge over-sized banner. It looks very unprofessional. Google please shrink the banner to half of its size.

I have stopped following the news

I don’t really know what is going on in the world. I have stopped following the …news. Even forced the husband *Not* to talk politics at home. Ignorance is really blissful! You guys should try it sometimes.

At the moment I am trying to figure out what I missed when I was on "news break"

Where is the Libyan dictator? I typed "where is ghadafi" on the google search. One of the results is clearly optimistic

Best guess for Muammar Gaddafi Location is Libya

On the Libyan front, they found some racy pictures of Aline Skaff (wife of Hanibal Ghadafi). They (the couple) seem to be enjoying a wealthy lifestyle (rich food, wines, luxury resorts, yachts). If you remember, this sadistic couple got into trouble in Europe for abusing their maids a while back.

In Egypt, things are still messy. The people might have gotten rid of the dictator but the situation has not really improved much. Mubarak’s cronies are still running the show.

Self-imposed Asceticism

I finally realized what I don’t like about self-imposed asceticism (meaning: describes a lifestyle characterized by abstinence from various sorts of worldly pleasures often with the aim of pursuing religious and spiritual goals.)

It seems too artificial. I don’t think asceticism is a state of mind. You are either born dirt poor or you are not.

Rant about the middle east

I am asked about my recent post on Saudi Women Voting

Bhooka wants to know

How did voting in a national election turn into an islamic or non islamic issue, and so how is it related to women's "Islamic rights"?

He is right in a way. The political system in Saudi Arabia is a Monarchy (a form of tribal dictatorship) where the Saud royal family manages and runs the political, social, cultural and religious framework in the country.

At the local level people may have some control; vote and elect their representatives, but these votes don’t really mean that there is a working political system over there. People don’t really have the freedom to voice or govern or decide the future of the country.

So, if the royal family decided to send the military to the neighboring Bahrain to squash the majority of the Shia villagers, they can do that easily without consulting anyone in the Kingdom.

The other attractive feature of Arab Middle East is how much hate there is over there
- The Arabs vs. non Arabs
- The Sunni vs. Shias
- The conservative vs liberals
- The white skin vs the not so white skin
And the worse is of course the discrimination of the female gender.

Finally!

Goggle fixed the blogger. It was broken for a few days. Some even suggested moving to wordpress ...

I don't have experience with WordPress but their templates look really good. Blogger templates are very limited. My major complaint about blogger is that their html editor is quite annoying. In Addition, what you see is not what you get.

Get a life!

Yay! We had our first hater. He left a note yesterday.

He sounds like a wahhabi

• Rafidi
• Muta
• Taqiyya
• Different Quran
• Kufar and Shirk

I think it’s safe to assume that he has left the pure teaching of ahlul bayt and went to the other side. I am creating a new category "Rant". Also filling this as nonsense.

Hey Crispin, do you mind telling me which cult you are into nowadays?