Eid Mubarak

At last we get to celebrate Eid here with Libya, I really thought it was going to be on Wednesday but it has been announced that Eid is tomorrow, Alhamdulellah.

May Allah accept all of your deeds and I wish everyone a happy, peaceful and healthy Eid inshaAllah.

Unfortunately it looks like a long tradition that I have known for almost as long as I have been here has come to an end! the Libyan community's Eid party which is usually held at the second day of Eid at London's Regent Park Mosque is apparently not happening this year, I hope inshaAllah that this is not the case, I will try to find out more about it.

Update:

There will inshaAllah be a Libyan Eid Party at the Central Mosque, Regent Park, frrom 6 - 9 pm on Wednesday 1st October, all Libyans are welcome.

Eid Mubarak everyone :o)

مجرودة لليبية - Traditional Libyan music by Ahmed Ben Ali

A Film, Iftar and a Birthday!

Ramadan in this country is different from Ramadan in a Muslim country, to us here life goes on, the only difference is that you fast, there are no markets open all night or cafes and places to enjoy after Taraweeh prayers plus the fact that if you are working, then its up early every morning as usual and there is no time for an afternoon nap, I feel so tired that I keep falling asleep for a split second on my desk.

I myself do not like Arabic TV at all, we do have Satellite TV with all the Arabic channels that you could think of but I never ever watch any of it, it is full of crap and never ending depressing soap operas, on the other hand I am not a great TV watcher anyway although I do like watching movies from time to time, horror films being my favourite even though you can hardly find a decent scary film these days, most of them are just gross and gory but not scary at all! 2 nights ago I watched this new scary film called The Strangers it was a bit slow at the beginning but then it really literally went off with a bang on the door, it was a good old fashion scary film full of things that go bump in the night, the way I like them.

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Tuesday night I took the kids to the Libyan community Iftar here in London which is held twice a week during Ramadan, the kids love going there because it gives them a chance to see all their Libyan friends that used to attend the same Muslim school they went to until 2 years ago, it was my first time this year that I went there too, usually I am more active with the Libyan community in Ramadan but this year I just kept away but for no reason.

It was great seeing many Libyan faces that I know and Iftar was really nice, it included the famous Libyan soup, Hassa with gedeed, galaya, Tabeekhet Fasoulia , Rice with massive pieces of lamb and saladas followed by green tea and sweets, lovely.

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Today is my daughter Aida's Birthday, she is 10 years old today, mashaAllah how time went so quick, I can still remember the Scottish doctor that told us we were going to have a "wee girl" :o)kids these days seem to grow quicker in line with technology, presents used to be sort of easy, any thing BRATZ will do but this is not the case anymore, now it is more like MP3 players, Mobile phones and Computers, toys are not satisfying any more! well they are our children and as long as they are well behaved then there is no reason why not spoiling them occasionally, may Allah bless all the children and a very happy birthday to sweet Aida, may she continue to be kind, considerate and a treasure to all that know her inshaAllah.

The Grief of a Community

Yet another horrific murder has been committed in Britain, this time the victims are 2 Algerian sisters, Yasmine Larbi-Cherif, 22, and younger sister Sabrina, 19, details of their awful murder are still emerging, today the police confirmed that they have charged a 28 year old man with their murder, his name is Mohamed Ali, most likely an Algerian too but this is still to be confirmed, how awful to loose 2 young lives this way, their parents who live in Wembley in London must be going through hell, I read about this murder in Alarabiya website and as usual you get many Arab idiots commenting about such awful crimes by actually blaming the victims, many have picked up on such points as, the girls lived an open life and so deserve what happened to them! many blamed what they called "the racist British society" even though it does not seem to be a racist murder,do these idiots know how devastating crimes like this are to the families and the whole community? don't these people read about the awful murders that are committed all the time in Arab countries and everywhere else? how ever people choose to live is their business, we can criticize what we do not like but to actually lay the blame on the victims is almost as bad as killing them, God only is the judge, we can not do anything but ask for his forgiveness to all victims of violent crimes.

I can feel the pain and sorrow of the Algerian community here in the UK. The Libyan community went through a violent murder some years ago but with different circumstances, it devastated us, it was the darkest period the Libyans in the UK went through, we lost one of the most respectable most loved daughter to all of us to a violent crime, it was so horrific that Libyans in their hundreds travelled from all over the UK, hundreds of miles just to pay their respects to the victim's family, many didn't even know the family but still they came, I myself was asked by many people when I was standing outside the place where the 3aza (paying of respect) took place, by many people of many different nationalities where they can go and meet the family, many told me they do not know the family but they were so shocked and horrified they just had to come. It was the only time that I more or less so most of the Libyan men here in tears and I do hope inshaAllah that it was the last time, one English police woman who was sent to comfort the family told me that she really didn't want to come because she thought Muslims do not care about the dead, she told me she was shocked to see how devastated everyone was, so much so that she herself was in tears.

The day of the funeral was a day we will never forget, hundreds of people turned up, the police sent a policeman and the same policewoman to represent them at the funeral, they both stood dignified near the door of the mosque during the prayers, at the burial they stood at the back until the victim was buried, they then put a beautiful bouquet of flowers on the grave, that day the Libyan people here gained the respect of the British police because they saw how we all stood together united in grief.

There are many idiots in this world, many of them leave hurtful comments without realising the pain and sorrow that devastated communities go through.

May Allah forgive all the dead and may Allah punish all those responsible for these horrific crimes.

انا لله وانا إليه راجعون

Hook the Tunisian

2 weeks ago I noticed that one of my Tunisian tortoises wasn't looking its best, Hook was the only tortoise I have with a name and that is because he had a weird mouth that looked like a hook, he was a small male Tunisian tortoise (Furculachelys nabeulensis) with a big character, we used to call him homing tortoise because when ever he was out of the enclosure he would follow any one walking near him and would try to bite their feet, he remained small while the others grew much bigger but that is normal with males, I became concerned because he was not following and trying to bite my hands when I put food in the enclosure, when I picked him up I noticed he was very dehydrated so I soaked him in water then I took him to the vet who could not do much but give him anti-biotics! Hook was not eating at all so I decided to feed him with a syringe (took advise) I bought baby food and would give him few feeds a day, he responded well but then I had to go away for a while (more about that later) and left him with a friend, I feared the worst as feeding him was not easy but there was nothing I could do, when I came back 2 days ago, I was told that Hook passed away last Friday, my friend buried him in his garden and put a little stick to mark the grave with a moon crescent on it to represent Hook's Tunisian origin (how nice is that??).

Hook at the front, 2 Tunisian and 2 Libyan tortoises at the back

Hook's last picture, his legs were so weak he could not lift himself up
Goodbye Hook

With Deepest Sympathy

I would like on behalf of the Libyan bloggers to give our deepest condolences to Ibeebarbie, Amira and their family for the loss of Ibeebarbie's Dear mother.

May God give the family patience at these difficult times

Amir Ben Laden!!

Amir my 7 year old son had his first ever racist abuse the other day, Amir came home and asked me what "Ben Laden" meant? I told him it was just a name and asked him why he was asking! he was in the local park playing with his cousins when he had an encounter with a 5 year old white girl, he told me that the little girl came over to him and called him "Ben Laden" he did not understand what she meant but knew she was being nasty so he told her to go away.
After hearing that, I agreed with him that she was being nasty and that he was allowed to defend himself if anyone called him Ben Laden. of course the problem is not with the little girl, what would she know about Ben Laden, all she knew it was a nasty name to be directed at lets just say, people darker than herself and who should we thank for this racist education? well her sub trash parents of course, who if they had any manners or decency they would not teach their little children to behave like this.

In almost 29 years of living in the UK, I have never really suffered any racist abuse, of course racism is alive and well here, just like any other country but the majority of racist people here tend to keep it to themselves and use it behind your back while they smile in your face, in recent years this has been changing and more and more racists are becoming more vocal and abusive especially towards Muslims, in a TV program about Muslims that I watched recently, some British people were asked to read cards that contained abusive remarks about Jews and then were asked what they thought of what they read? all of them said rightly that this was not acceptable, the same cards were then shown to the same people but the word Jew was changed to Muslim and asked what they thought about the cards now, all the people now said it was different, they actually find the remarks acceptable! even though they shouldn't! (it shouldn't happen to a Muslim - Channel 4).

Of course as usual we have the trashy media in this country fuelling people's ideas about Muslims and not forgetting the so called Muslims that have caused more damage to Islam than anyone else. Allah help us all.

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Today Google released their new Web Browser called Google Chrome, you can download it from the main Google page, I am still looking at it, not sure just yet as I do always prefer Internet Explorer to any other browser.

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One more thing, as I was browsing the Internet I came across the following picture which is making me really suffer, so I thought you should look at it and suffer too.....

Turkish Coffee......mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm