Foot in the Sink

First of all I want to say Ramadhan Mubarak to everyone.  I sincerely hope that God Almighty grants us a most beautiful and blessed Ramadhan and that our time is full of barakah, ameen.

Alhamdulillah, I’ve always loved reading ever since I was a little kid.  I’m very ashamed to say this but it was my laziness in HS that took me away from books.  Alhamdulillah I got back into reading in college when I was trying to get more into the deen.  In my first three years I read a lot, alhamdulillah including a book on Seerah and even a few book from the Ihya ‘ulum al Din of Imam Ghazali.  Then another period of laziness set in during my senior year which pretty much stayed in place until the beginning of this summer (with the one exception of the Kite Runner which I read a few months after graduation). 

The book that rekindled this interest was the autobiography of Malcolm X.  It was a book I’ve been meaning to pick up for a long time and one day when I was in the city I passed by this old hippie dude by NYU selling a bunch of books on the sidewalk and saw the autobiography amongst the books, the book was in pretty good condition and it was pretty cheap, so I decided to buy it.  This was around April I believe, since then I’ve done a lot of reading including:

1. Autobiography of Malcolm X - Excellent book, definite recommendation for those of you who have yet to read it.  I would read this book (and many of the others) on my commute into the city (either to work or when i went for leisure).  When I started reading this book, I was on a project in Westchester and I would take a Metro North train to get there.  The train’s first stop was 125th St – Harlem, and I’m really not sure if the lines have changed much since Malcolm’s day, but I think I was on the very line that he worked on.  That really did strike me.  Other than that there were just some very striking things about him and his life.  I finally came to understand a lot of what the Nation of Islam was all about.  Being a traditional, cultured, and orthodox Muslim all my life, and being quite ignorant of pretty much everything, I’ve always had my doubts and a negative opinion about the Nation of Islam and how they had used and distorted my religion, however in college I first started realizing that things are never black in white, *especially* when it comes to religion and people.  All of this was further explained to me in the next book I read…
2. Islam and the Blackamerican – This book was released a little over a year ago, and I think I was one of the first to get my hands on it.  I tried to read it once or twice and didn’t get very far.  However after attending one of the author’s lectures and after reading the Autobiography of Malcolm X, I decided I would pick up this book and that I wouldn’t put it down until I finished it.  Before I get into the book, I’d like to say a few things about the author: I firmly believe that God Almighty has blessed the Muslim community with a scholar the caliber of Dr Jackson.  To me he is probably one the best representations of an American Muslim.  He has gone overseas to study in the traditional fashion, he’s also pursued a “western” education at one of the country’s (and world’s) top institution (Univ. of Penn), and despite these two facts he’s still very much down to earth and able to connect with your regular Joe Muslim.  Now the book: this book is amazing.  Dr Jackson covered a plethora of issues in this book, I could hardly do any justice to it if I tried to list or expound on any single topic.  A friend of mine said that, just with many other books, its best to read this book once to get a general idea of what he’s talking about and to get a good feeling about the topics he brings up and stances he takes and to then let that sit in your head.  After that going at it a second time would be when you sit and think about specific topics/issues.
3. Samarkand
4. Hadji Murad
5. Life of Pi – I first came across this book when I noticed my colleague reading it but honestly I didn’t think much of it afterwards.  About two months a later a good friend of mine then recommended it (same one who recommended Hadji Murad), so I decided to pick it up.  The book is a a pretty good read, I did feel that it did kind of drag on a bit, though honestly thats probably because i’m the type of person who likes to complete books and sometimes just read pages or chapters just for the sake of being done with it and not really paying much attention to the plot.  Aside from that, I think the book is pretty good.  I’d give it 3.5/5 stars.  I wouldn’t outright recommend it to anyone in particular, but I wouldn’t speak ill of it if someone were to ask me about it. 
6. To Afghanistan and back
7. Animal Farm
8. The Bluest Eye
9. Taliban Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (60% done)

I wanted to put and end to my reading of these kinds of books in Ramadhan so that I could focus on Qur’an and more ‘deeny’ books, and so I did, though I’m very tempted to finish up the Taliban book.  Insha Allah this ramadhan I plan to read and finish the following books:

• al Qur’an kareem – alhamdulillah, i was able to complete the recitation of the entire Qur’an last Ramadhan and I pray that Allah, ‘azza wa jal, grants me the ability to do so this year
• ‘Ulum al Qur’an – recommended by a friend.  actually, highly recommended by him.  It seems to be a simple read and since it is the month of the Qur’an, why not?
• Etiquette with the Qur’an – recommended by the same friend.  This is actually written by Imam al-Nawawi, I’m quite surprised that I haven’t heard of it prior to my friend telling me about it.  I’m quite excited about this book.
• Muhammad: His life based on the earliest sources – this would be mey 5th time starting up this book (I’ve never finished it =/).  Most recently this book was part of a halaqa that I participated in this past summer and I felt we had some really good discussion and I also found so many insightful lessons from each section.  Insha Allah I plan on finishing it this Ramadhan, and insha Allah I hope to maybe write a few posts on it.

 Those are the books I definetely want to finish before Ramadhan does, insha Allah if I find I’m reading a good amount and that I may have time for another book, I would really love to finally start reading Purification of the Heart, insha Allah

I guess thats about it.  If you’re to take anything from this post I hope it’s some sort of (possibly renewed) encouragement for you to start reading.