I haven't written for a good two weeks. Naughty me. However, this pause is justified - I've been super busy and working super hard. This hasn't been academic work but extracurricular work. Its taken up most my evenings - in fact may days I would return home just before midnight without having done a jot of medicine all day.

Anyway, all this work was in preparation for a big day. Weeks of blood, sweat and tears (Ed: definitely a lot of sweat - no not from gym either) all hinging upon a few hours. Sounds much like an exam - but it not. The rewards if your hard work pays off is the best feeling in the world; but if it doesn't work out - you can feel like a complete failure. Unfortunately this time, my hard work didnt pay off as well as I expected.

Afterwards, I felt frustrated, angry and disappointed. This might be understandable, but I think with reflection a bit of patience may have not gone amiss - a strong man is not he who can lift heavy objects but one who can control his anger. How can one feel frustrated, with the knowledge that Allah will give copious reward in return for efforts to please Him? I think is a indicator that I'm very much orientated towards worldly results and still view them instinctively as what matters - as opposed to the Hereafter as what matters. I pray that Allah will keep the knowledge of the Hereafter consistently in mind when carrying out all actions and that he blesses us with more and more patience.

Look back to navigate the future

Yesterday was bit of a reminder. First I went to a talk by Sheikh Muhummad al Yaqoubi organized by Imperial Isoc (Islamic society) – and although not as informative as I would have liked it was most certainly inspirational and an excellent reminder. Perhaps I knew much of the factual content of his talk already however he brought these things to the forefront of my mind – no less useful than learning something new.

Its almost part of human nature to forget and without regular reminders of what we already know, one can tend to drift. We have regular reminders throughout the day of our purpose to worship Allah (SWT) but I myself have a tendency to forget the deeper meaning behind all of these – e.g each time I make wudu I understand that I’m purifying myself for the sake of Allah but I don’t go much deeper. Failure to contemplate properly and think before, during and after our acts of worship can lead to a ritualistic approach– which does not glean the full of benefit of ‘ibadah and thus lead to spiritual unrest and perhaps weak iman.

However, reminding ourselves of Allah (SWT) just at prayer time isn’t sufficient – we need to continue to remind ourselves of Him throughout our day. Pondering isn’t even a thing that time needs to be set aside for as such, we can do it whilst we are ironing, washing up, before going to sleep etc. and if we clarify to ourselves the purpose of our actions and trying to relate them to serving our Lord we can thus increase our general day-to-day awareness of Allah(SWT). Insha’Allah by this we can try to improve our characters and strengthen our iman with it.

Busy, busy, busy

I've got quite a few things to balance between these next few weeks (Ed: Im a walking set of scales - talking of scales I've put on 2-3kg since I've been going gym - good stuff) .Since I've taken on some fairly heavy extracurricular work (Ed: fairly light compared to others, but pretty heavy for me), I've got to shift between normal work and this extra stuff. Up till now I haven't gotten properly stuck into other extra work since I thought I had enough on my plate already (Ed: Some how my plate always seems deceivingly full - time to push the boundaries, and try not to spill over), but I guess you don't really know how it's going to pan out until you get stuck in. Anyway, its been so long that I've been under any imminent pressure It'll be kind of interesting to see if I can deliver (Ed: Applying pressure to oneself may seem retarded when already fairly busy... but I guess I am retarded).

Despite the desire to get stuck in, I hope I don't have to cut short on any regular commitments as a result - but I guess its all about time management. I'll stop there. Less writing, more doing (Ed: Proceeds to sleep - today might not be salvaged but tomorrow is a new day).

Look in the mirror

I've recently been questioning a fellow student's actions, motives and character. My initial view of this person was one of respect and honour - someone who is firm to their principles and acts accordingly. However, having known this person for a bit longer it becomes clear to see that it is all not as it seems, I may be wrong and I honestly hope that is the case. In my opinion, what one does and what one says can be very different things. You may even fool yourself into believing that those principles that you stick to on the face are those that you stick by on the inside as well - but from a 3rd person perspective disparities between the two can be unveiled quite easily.

The 3rd person perspective is the image you convey of yourself to the rest of society - which for a Muslim is very important. Muslims should aspire to have the best manners and present as active contributors to the society in which they live. Actions speak louder than words, and places where the Muslim voice is muted somewhat our actions can do the talking instead.

Anyway, last night as I pondered over this person, my judgment of them, my altered perception of them and whether I should tell this person what I felt was going wrong in my eyes; I realized I had made a mistake. I looked at this person again and felt I was almost looking in the mirror. I should try and fix my own hair before I criticize others. May Allah(SWT) forgive me for my moments of weakness and replace my weaknesses with strengths, and be able to help others with their weaknesses and help them to overcome them to become strengths. Ameen.

Fad or Commitment

Now and again I have these phases where I become interested in an activity or hobby for a week or a two to such an extent that I become totally engrossed in it. For example, reading novels, studying a certain topic in medicine (Ed: Very sad indeed, but it happens), building models, photography...the list goes on. I confess, that this fluctuating interest extends to many things including matters of faith, I've had phases where every night I have prayed Tahajjud, consistently read the same suras on the bus to campus and prayed every salat in the mosque. I don't mean to big myself up(Ed: No really, I mean it), on the contrary I believe that, even in the case of intrinsically good acts, if actions are performed inconsistently then they do not add to your character in any lasting way and may even be of detriment to yourself if unsustained.

My latest 'fad' is gym. I regularly hit the gym every other day at least - if not every day(Ed: No, I don't have OCD). I alternate between muscle sets so Monday arms and chest, Wednesday back and shoulders, Friday legs. I know 'January gym hitters' are the subject of much ridicule- but I'm hoping not to fall into that category (Ed: I'm determined for this to not be a fad - going to the gym makes me feel really good) . Without hope that this commitment will stay a commitment and not become just another phase - this aim cannot be realised. I pray that Allah (SWT) turns all my bad habits into good habits and that I stay steadfast on the straight path.

Belated update

I know I haven’t written here for ages (Ed: not an exaggeration) and its almost like I’ve completely forgotten about this blog but in fact its been niggling me for ages (Ed: probably an exaggeration). I just haven’t gotten round to writing here. There have been quite a few developments since I last wrote – I’ll go into detail about them in later posts – but for now I’ll just give you a quick bullet point summary about what has happened since then.

I passed my first year of medical school – nothing short of a miracle. For one of the exams I went in doing nothing but 4-5 hours of revision that morning (Ed: an almost had a stroke waking up and thinking I was late for the exam – but in fact the exam was an hour later than previously thought) but, praise be to Allah (SWT), I managed a decent pass.

I toured Pakistan, India and Dubai for 6 weeks during the summer holiday with my father (Ed: 6 weeks +me+father+alone=reduced life expectancy). This was probably the one of the best experiences of my humble and so far, short life. I saw almost everything from tropical storms and sweltering deserts to political crises and the simplicity of life in an Indian village(Ed: sometimes simple is beautiful, but a lot of the time is just downright filthy).

I started the second year of medical school in October – now living with two other muslim medics in a fairly swish area of London for not such a bad price (Ed: Yet there still seems to be that hole in my wallet I haven’t fixed yet). I think I can count myself blessed to live in such surroundings, again praise be to Allah (SWT).

That sums of most of the important events in the last few months – there are more but I might detail them in a later post. For now got to get back to work…again.

Exam time!

Its almost upon me. The dreaded exams. Yet I'm surprisingly relaxed, for apparently no good reason since I've only studied properly 3 of 20 modules. The stupid perfectionist and procrastinator inside me decided I would make a shorter version of a popular anatomy book amongst medical students whilst studying anatomy. Although I do love anatomy, I'm now going to phail because I've ignored all the other subjects.

I want to be stressed and be 'hitting the books' but my mind seems to be ignorant of the impending doom I am about to face on Friday. This is even more strange considering I was incredibly worried and stressed during 4 weeks of Easter holiday, each day of which I worked fairly hard but after running most of the marathon I seem to be limping towards the finish line. In fact, I would extend the analogy to having broken a leg and now crawling towards the finishing line leaving a trail of blood in my wake.

I can only seek solace in the fact that despite how matter hard I try (or lack thereof) Allah's (SWT) command will prevail. I think as I limp, I should be hitting the prayer mat more than the books. But then again Allah (SWT) always helps those who help themselves. As with most things in life, its a balance between the two.