The day I catched the bouquet.... and my cousin got married

so.. there's the bride... right before she throws it

I'm pretty excited as you can see...

I try to reach it...

and I got it!!!! oh my got I just chatched the bouquet!!!!!!!!

the lovely lady hugging me is my favourite cousin by the way ;)

and a little more hugging coz it was just so nice...

I couldn't believe it... never happened to me before!!! There were actually tears in my eyes!!!

so therefore... once again hugging my lovely cousin claudia


phufff.... so exciting!!! breath deeply and calm down...

thats the DJ asking who is going to be the lucky guy... hmmm I wished I knew that!!!!!

One more prom queen posing session... I love love love my brother for taking these pictures!!!!


To be honest I have to say that my cousin and I planned to make things happen like that.. just didn't knew that it really was going to happen!!!
She was madly in love with the bouquet and I was madly in love with the idea of getting married... so I catched it and gave it to her so that she could stare at the bouquet 24/7...
I guess the other ladies were pretty mad at us for not giving them the chance...
look at the woman with the blue top or the girl with the orangy dress (the brides sister by the way) for example...
But a girl has to do what a girl has to do right?!

Renato

Status: Friend
From: Brazil
Characteristics: very tall and curious

The tears of compassion

Once there was a very poor fisher who had a pious and religious friend. One day he came to that friend and told him that he did not know what to do since he was so poor and everyday when he went to the ocean there was never a fish and so he and his family had nothing to eat. The friend said he would go with him to fish together, as they arrived at the ocean the friend told the fisher to pray two Raka’a together and to make Du’a. After they did so the fisher caught a very big fish and was very very happy. He went to the city to sell the fish so that he then could buy food for his family. On his way back home with the money in his pocket he saw a woman with her children standing at the side of a street crying. He went over and asked why they were crying as the woman said that she was so poor and had nothing to feed her children with. The man thought to himself that this woman with her children was so much poorer than he and so he decided to give all his money to that woman.

As she had left he realised that now he had nothing to bring to his family and he felt so ashamed that he thought it would be better if he never returned to his home.

As he walked through the street without a place to go he suddenly found 3000 Rial on the street, he returned immediately to his family and started investing his money, he became a very rich man and since he never forgot ere he came from he donated every single day 1000 Rial.

One day, the fisher was an old man now, he had a dream.

It was judgement day and his situation seemed to be very bad and his balance that weighs the good and the bad deeds was showing that he had not done many good things in his live.

Allah asked him: aren’t there any good things you did in your life?

He answered: yes, I donated 1000 Rial every day

Allah said: yes, I see, but that is not enough to save you, let’s have a look in your book to see if we can find anything else.

The man was desperate and saw his self already going to hell while the angels searched in his book of live to find any good things he did.

Then Allah seemed to had found something and said: You don’t have to fear hell, your home will be paradise.

Do you want to know what saved him and what had more value than donating 1000 Rial every single day?

It was the tears the fisher had cried when he had seen the poor woman with her children.

These tears and the compassion he felt was what brought this man to paradise.

Friday evening

The beautiful behavior

Whose prayer won’t be heard from Allah?

The one who is not humble towards Allah

The one who feel superior toward others

The one who can’t admit if he was wrong

The one who is not merciful towards the poor

“Oh Muhammad, take donations from the believers to cleanse them and to teach them beautiful behavior” since giving donation teaches you to be merciful towards others.

“And the smile in your brother’s face is a donation.”

The aim of Islam is that the people have a beautiful live and have beautiful character treats.

Many Muslims think that it is sufficient to limit their religiosity on hijab or learning to recite the Qur’an.

How can we profit from knowledge if we don’t have appropriate character traits to apply that knowledge?

How do we benefit from a woman that seems to be practicing on the outside but talks badly about others?

Good behavior and beautiful character traits are just so essential in Islam!

Allah says: “And when I love him, ill be the eyes he sees with and the hands he deals with!”

Muhammad, peace be upon him: “who ever is on his way to prayer, he already is in his prayer.” So when you are on your way to the mosque, be aware that it is like you already are in the prayer.

Muhammad, peace be upon him: “Who are the people that are at the lowest level at judgement day? Those other people avoid because of their bad behaviour!”

Iman (faith) and good behaviour belong together.

Especially for Muslims in the western world, it is very important to behave in an exemplary manner since we represent our religion and whenever a non-believer sees us doing something he will think: “Ah, that this is Islam.”

How do we benefit from good behaviour?

At judgement day it will worth more and has more value than any other good deeds we did.

Who are the people Allah loves the most? The ones with the most beautiful character traits!

This does ofcourse not mean that as long as you behave good you can neglect religious commandments. It rather stands for itself that religious practice and beautiful behaviour belong together and if you if your Iman (faith) is strong you will automatically aspire after establishing beautiful character traits in order to please Allah and vice versa.

But how can we gain knowledge and improve our behaviour?

You can gain knowledge through learning and practicing and the same gilt for character traits. Your character is changeable and beautiful behaviour is learnable.

Friday afternoon

Last week we learned that it was a parent’s most important responsibility to educate the children and in order to do so we looked at the importance of choosing the right partner.

This week it is about the question how we can give our children their right of education.

It is a child’s most fundamental right to get education and love and the best and maybe only way to give our child this right is to follow the wonderful behaviour of our Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.

Children need unconditional and never ending love in order to grow, love that is not restricted, limited or connected to certain behaviour or performance.

One of the Prophet’s companions, peace be upon him, saw how he was playing with the children. The companion said to Muhammad, peace be upon him: “I see how you play with the children and how you kiss and love them. I have 10 children and by Allah, I have never kissed them!” The answer of the Prophet, peace be upon him was: “Those who don’t give mercy will never get mercy!”, meaning that if the father is not merciful towards his own children, Allah won’t be merciful with him either. Muhammad, peace be upon him didn’t asked if the father treated his children bad or anything, just the fact that he never kissed his children was enough for him to give such a harsh and strong answer.

Muhammad, peace be upon him had to deal with so many and serious problems of the whole Ummah (community) but he never forget the love towards children and even while he was praying he let his nephews Hassan and Houssein play with him and jump on his back.

Once the Prophet, peace be upon him was praying when he heard that his niece Zainab, who was a baby at that time, was crying. He stopped his prayer to put her on his arms and comfort her until she stopped crying and then continued his prayer!

Muhammad, peace be upon him walked long distances just to see his son Ibrahim and to be able to hold him and kiss him!

These examples should show us that love is the key to good education and that this love should never be conditional. Our children are a gift from Allah and that is exactly how we should treat them!

If we give love we will get it back a hundred times! When Fatima, the daughter of our Prophet, peace be upon him was small, Muhammad, peace be upon him used to go to her when she entered the room and to kiss and hug her and to lead her to her place. When Fatima was grown up and the Prophet, peace be upon him was a old man, she came to him as soon as he entered the room and kissed and hugged him and lead him to his place.

We wonder why our children don’t want to be close to us, why they do bad things and why they don’t treat us the way they should. It is not the society or the children themselves to blame, no, we are the ones to blame! Simply because of the love we did not gave them when we were supposed to and it is their most fundamental right we failed to give them!

Our Prophet, peace be upon him said: “the best women are the women of the Quraish (an Arab tribe) because they love their children the most and treat their husbands the best!”

Friday afternoon

Since i've already started the Friday evening series I'll add a Friday afternoon series.
When I am having a perfect friday I'll go first to Juma'ah prayer in one mosque and then in the evening to a lecture in a other mosque.. so thats actually why it makes sense to post two Friday things.
So this friday afternoon the speech was about the following:

How can we manage our task in this life? And maybe more important, what is this task?
Well, our task is it to create, educate and guide the following generation, our children.
We have to lead and to guide them the right way in order to create a righteous and believing Ummah (community) in the future.
The first and most important thing on the way to sucessfully deal with that challenge is to choose the right life partner and therefor the right family and environment in which our children will grow up.
This step is often neglected in todays islamic society since many people think that they just have to get married in order to stay away from the harmful and that anyways they will get to know their partner during the years of marriage so they dont see the importance of getting to know the future husband/wife thoroughly enough.
Many people think that when they marry they fullfill half of their faith so the importance is on getting married, but that is not the solution!
I know many people that marry very quickly in order to dont be tempted to commit any sins but forget that the choice they make is a choice for life. And it is not just a choice for our life, it is also a choice for the lives of our children!
By choosing our partner we choose the nest in which we will embed our children, the environment in which they will grow up and the ideals and values which they will learn and later apply to their lives and pass on to their children, our grandchildren!
Our children are the carrier of Allahs holy message and we are the ones who will have to teach them about it and whoes responsibility it is to make sure that they will carry and pass it on.
It is our responsibility in life, our challenge to bring up believing and righteous children and by chosing our partner we will choose the man/woman who will help us with that, who will share our responsibility. And so we really have to make sure that this partner is as aware of his task as we are because otherwise we manot be able to fulfill our task sufficiently simply because our partner doesn't support us the way he should!

So choosing the right partner, a partner who is religious, rightous and who understand his responsibility and challenge in this world is essential.
And we also have to be aware aand never forget that when we choose a partner, we will also choose his whole family as a background for our children!!!
And the children have to be nourished with Halal (lawful), because no good can come from bad.
Once the Prophet Mohammad, peace be upon Him, told the story of "a man who was on a very long journey, his hair was messed up and he was covered in dust and sand. He raised his hands and called "Oh Lord! Oh Lord!" while his food was haram, what he drank was haram, is clothes were haram and he was nourished with haram. So how could his prayer be answered then?" (Tafsir Al-Qur'an Al-Karim, Islamische Biblipthek, page 110)

Every single child has the right to proper attention and education and it is the parents responsibility to give the child these rights. So if a women gives birth every year, how can she than fulfill her task of giving individual attention and education?
Therefor Islam advises parents to waite till the breast-feeding phase of two years is over after trying to have another child to make sure that every single child gets his right and also to enable the parents to fulfill their task to Allahs pleasure.