SMILE ...ITS SUNNAH

Why are you grilling me like that…?

I did not do anything bad to you. Smile, It’s a charity and it’s free! But make sure you use the Miswak or Brush your teeth 3x a day, ha.

Anyhow, alot of Muslims often look at you like you stole something, so here is a Hadith we should all reflect on.

The Prophet Muhammad (Sallal Laho alaihi wasallam) said: “Charity is prescribed for each descendant of Adam every day the sun rises.” He was then asked: “From what do we give charity every day?” The Prophet (SAWW) answered: “The doors of goodness are many…enjoining good, forbidding evil, removing harm from the road, listening to the deaf, leading the blind, guiding one to the object of his need, hurrying with the strength of one’s legs to one in sorrow who is asking for help, and supporting the feeble with the strength of one’s arms–all of these are charity prescribed for you.” He also said: “Your smile for your brother is charity.” – Fiqh-us-Sunnah, Volume 3, Number 98

There are also health benefits to smiling (courtesy of about.com)

1. Smiling Makes us Attractive:

We are drawn to people who smile. There is an attraction factor. We want to know a smiling person and figure out what is so good. Frowns, scowls and grimaces all push people away — but a smile draws them in.

2. Smiling Changes our Mood:

Next time you are feeling down, try putting on a smile. There’s a good chance you mood will change for the better. Smiling can trick the body into helping you change your mood.

3. Smiling is contagious:

When someone is smiling they lighten up the room, change the moods of others, and make things happier. A smiling person brings happiness with them. Smile lots and you will draw people to you.

4. Smiling Relieves Stress:

Stress can really show up in our faces. Smiling helps to prevent us from looking tired, worn down, and overwhelmed. When you are stressed, take time to put on a smile. The stress should be reduced and you’ll be better able to take action.

5. Smiling Boosts Your Immune System:

Smiling helps the immune system to work better. When you smile, immune function improves possibly because you are more relaxed. Prevent the flu and colds by smiling.

So next time you get the chance….
Not the shatan smile like this though. Astaghfirullah!

I end with one last hadith, our beloved Prophet Muhammad (Sallal Laho alaihi wasallam) said:

“Do not abuse anyone… Do not look down upon any good work, and when you speak to your brother, show him a cheerful face.” (Sunan of Abu-Dawood, Hadith 1889)

Amazing Facts About Tajmahal-History of Tajmahal

HistoryMumtaz and Shah Jehan were married in 1612 A.D  had 14 children together. The Empress Mumtaz used to accompany her husband in his military campaigns, and it was  in Burhanpur in 1630, that she gave birth to her last child, after which she died. So great was the Shah Jahan's love for his wife Mumtaz, that he ordered the building of the most beautiful mausoleum on Earth for her, The Taj Mahal.   

As soon as construction work began in early 1630, sculptors, masons, craftsmen, and calligraphers were called from Persia, Ottoman Empire and Europe to work on construction of the Taj.

The architectural complex of the Taj Mahal comprises of five main elements: the Darwaza or main gateway, the Bageecha or garden, the Masjid or mosque, the Naqqar Khana or rest house, and the Rauza or the Taj Mahal mausoleum. 
The actual Tomb of Mumtaz is situated inside the Taj. The unique moghal style architecture combines elements & styles of Persian, Central Asian, and Islamic architecture. Most striking are the black and white chessboard marble floor, the four tall minarets (40 m high) at the corners of the structure, and the majestic grand dome in the middle. 
 On closer inspection, the lettering of the Holy Quran verses around the archways appear to be uniform. The lettering spacing and density has been customized to give this impression to the viewer. The impressive pietra dura artwork includes geometric elements & style, plants & flowers, which are common in Islamic architecture. The level of sophistication in artwork includes a 3 cm decorative element containing more than 50 inlaid gemstones. INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT TAJMAHAL


1. Taj Mahal appears pink in the morning, white in the day and changes its color to golden in the moon light.

 

2. The pillars surrounding Taj Mahal are slightly tilted outwards so that in the event of an earthquake they will fall away from the tomb.

 3. An identical Taj Mahal was supposed to be built in black marble instead of white. The base of it can still be seen across the river.

 4. Over 1,000 elephant were used to transport building materials during the construction.

 5. In all, 28 types of precious and semi-precious stones were inlaid into the white marble.

 6. The Taj Mahal in India is perfectly symmetrical, except for one thing. The two tombs inside are not equal in size. This is because the male tomb has to be larger than the female tomb.

 7. The Taj Mahal costs in today’s money about US $100 million.

 8. It took 22 years and 22,000 people to complete the Taj Mahal.

 9. Twenty thousand workers were employed for the construction work of the Taj Mahal.

 10. Emperor ordered to chop off the hands of the workers who had constructed the Taj Mahal so no one could make anything like it.

WANT VS NEED

Series of clever illustrations by talented designer Erin Hanson reminds us about the important things in life.

Need- something you have to have
Want -something you would like to have

Most people “want” everything, but they only “need” enough to survive. But the difference between a need and a want is pretty simple — until you set yourself loose in a store. Double chocolate chip ice cream? It’s a food, so mark it as a need. That designer t-shirt that fits you perfectly? Well, you need more shirts, so why shouldn’t it count too?

via – Erin Hanson

Collected Quotes from Albert Einstein

• "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction."
• "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
• "Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love."
• "I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details."
• "The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax."
• "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."
• "The only real valuable thing is intuition."
• "A person starts to live when he can live outside himself."
• "I am convinced that He (God) does not play dice."
• "God is subtle but he is not malicious."
• "Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character."
• "I never think of the future. It comes soon enough."
• "The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility."
• "Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing."
• "Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."
• "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."
• "Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak minds."
• "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
• "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."
• "Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it."
• "The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
• "The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education."
• "God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically."
• "The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking."
• "Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal."
• "Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding."
• "The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible."
• "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
• "Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school."
• "The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing."
• "Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater."
• "Equations are more important to me, because politics is for the present, but an equation is something for eternity."
• "If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut."
• "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe."
• "As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."
• "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."
• "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
• "In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep."
• "The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead."
• "Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves."
• "Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!"
• "No, this trick won't work...How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?"
• "My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind."
• "Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our politics and our equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation stands forever."
• "The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking...the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker."
• "Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."
• "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."
• "A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeeded be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."
• "The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge."
• "Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."
• "You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat."
• "One had to cram all this stuff into one's mind for the examinations, whether one liked it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect on me that, after I had passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year."
• "...one of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one's own ever-shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought."
• "He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder."
• "A human being is a part of a whole, called by us _universe_, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."
• "Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts." (Sign hanging in Einstein's office at Princeton)

Copyright: Kevin Harris 1995 (may be freely distributed with this acknowledgement)

The 48 Laws of Power

The 48 Laws of Power is a 1998 book by Robert Greene. The book shares thematic elements with Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince and has been compared to Sun-Tzu's classic treatise The Art of War

The Laws

1. Never outshine the master.
2. Never put too much trust in friends; learn how to use enemies.
3. Conceal your intentions.
4. Always say less than necessary.
5. So much depends on reputation. Guard it with your life.
6. Court attention at all costs.
7. Get others to do the work for you, but always take the credit.
8. Make other people come to you; use bait if necessary.
9. Win through your actions, never through argument.
10. Infection: avoid the unhappy and unlucky.
11. Learn to keep people dependent on you.
12. Use selective honesty and generosity to disarm your victim.
13. When asking for help, appeal to people's self-interests, never to their mercy or gratitude.
14. Pose as a friend, work as a spy.
15. Crush your enemy totally.
16. Use absence to increase respect and honor.
17. Keep others in suspended terror: cultivate an air of unpredictability.
18. Do not build fortresses to protect yourself. Isolation is dangerous.
19. Know who you're dealing with; do not offend the wrong person.
20. Do not commit to anyone.
21. Play a sucker to catch a sucker: play dumber than your mark.
22. Use the surrender tactic: transform weakness into power.
23. Concentrate your forces.
24. Play the perfect courtier.
25. Re-create yourself.
26. Keep your hands clean.
27. Play on people's need to believe to create a cultlike following.
28. Enter action with boldness.
29. Plan all the way to the end.
30. Make your accomplishments seem effortless.
31. Control the options: get others to play with the cards you deal.
32. Play to people's fantasies.
33. Discover each man's thumbscrew.
34. Be royal in your fashion: act like a king to be treated like one.
35. Master the art of timing.
36. Disdain things you cannot have: Ignoring them is the best revenge.
37. Create compelling spectacles
38. Think as you like but behave like others.
39. Stir up waters to catch fish.
40. Despise the free lunch.
41. Avoid stepping into a great man's shoes.
42. Strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter.
43. Work on the hearts and minds of others.
44. Disarm and infuriate with the mirror effect.
45. Preach the need for change, but never reform too much at once.
46. Never appear perfect.
47. Do not go past the mark you aimed for; in victory, learn when to stop.
48. Assume formlessness.

SCIENTIFIC BENIFITS OF HIJAAB (VEIL)

The moral duty of wearing Hijab in Islam is an often discussed topic among Muslim women. However, little has been written about scientific reasons that Hijab is beneficial for society. There are, in fact, a number of health benefits that wearing Hijab provides, as well as many behavioral science studies that suggest that Hijab is the best clothes for women. 
Protecting the head is very important from a health perspective. Results Of medical tests show that 40-60% of body heat is lost through the head, so persons wearing head coverings during cold months are protected about fifty-percent more than those who do not. In the traditional Islamic medical texts of Al-Jawziyya, we can find numerous references to the "four elements" of fire, water, air and earth and how these affect the body in adverse ways. In particular, we are advised to stay away from drafts and protect our heads in wind, breezes, drafts and cold weather. 

Hygienic Purposes:
All public should wear Hijab or head-covering workers serving society to ensure cleanliness and purity. Workers in a number of professions wear "veils" - nurses, fast food workers, and deli Counter workers, restaurant workers and servers, doctors, health care providers and many more. 
Female Psychological Balance: 
Covering the hair can also have a beneficial effect on the female psyche as well. Studies of women being interviewed for jobs show that there is a high correlation between what they wear and their perceptions of how successful they will be in their interviews. There are many more examples of how what we wear can influence how we act. 

Wearing a veil (Hijab, Hijab) can serve to remind women of their religious duties and behavioral expectations. It can also serve as a reminder to women that we are not only individuals, but also representatives and diplomats of our "Ummah." 

WHEN I WAS NEAR TO ALLAH ? جب میں خدا کے قریب ہوا؟

ARE YOU STILL COMPLAINING???????

R u still complainting??????

FASCINATING FACTS ABOUT SMILES

fascinating facts about smiling

1. Forcing yourself to smile can boost your mood: Psychologists have found that even if you're in bad mood, you can instantly lift your spirits by forcing yourself to smile.
2. It boosts your immune system: Smiling really can improve your physical health, too. Your body is more relaxed when you smile, which contributes to good health and a stronger immune system.
3. Smiles are contagious: It's not just a saying: smiling really is contagious, scientists say. In a study conducted in Sweden, people had difficulty frowning when they looked at other subjects who were smiling, and their muscles twitched into smiles all on their own.
4. Smiles Relieve Stress: Your body immediately releases endorphins when you smile, even when you force it. This sudden change in mood will help you feel better and release stress.
5. It's easier to smile than to frown: Scientists have discovered that your body has to work harder and use more muscles to frown than it does to smile.
6. It's a universal sign of happiness: While hand shakes, hugs, and bows all have varying meanings across cultures, smiling is known around the world and in all cultures as a sign of happiness and acceptance.
7. We still smile at work: While we smile less at work than we do at home, 30% of subjects in a research study smiled five to 20 times a day, and 28% smiled over 20 times per day at the office.
8. Smiles use from 5 to 53 facial muscles: Just smiling can require your body to use up to 53 muscles, but some smiles only use 5 muscle movements.
9. Babies are born with the ability to smile: Babies learn a lot of behaviors and sounds from watching the people around them, but scientists believe that all babies are born with the ability, since even blind babies smile.
10. Smiling helps you get promoted: Smiles make a person seem more attractive, sociable and confident, and people who smile more are more likely to get a promotion.
11. Smiles are the most easily recognizable facial expression: People can recognize smiles from up to 300 feet away, making it the most easily recognizable facial expression.
12. Women smile more than men: Generally, women smile more than men, but when they participate in similar work or social roles, they smile the same amount. This finding leads scientists to believe that gender roles are quite flexible. Boy babies, though, do smile less than girl babies, who also make more eye contact.
13. Smiles are more attractive than makeup: A research study conducted by Orbit Complete discovered that 69% of people find women more attractive when they smile than when they are wearing makeup.
14. Babies start smiling as newborns: Most doctors believe that real smiles occur when babies are awake at the age of four-to-six weeks, but babies start smiling in their sleep as soon as they're born.

10 most barbarous torture methods ever known!

The Rat:

A cheap and effective way to torture someone was with the use of rats. There were many variants, but the most common was to force a rat through a victim’s body (usually the intestines) as a way to escape.
This was done as follows:
The victim was completely restrained and tied to the ground or any horizontal surface. A rat was then placed on his stomach covered by a metallic container. As the container was gradually heated, the rat began to look for a way out - through the victim’s body.
Digging a hole usually took a few hours of agonizing pain for the victim. This almost invariantly resulted in death.
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The Pillory:

The pillory was used to publicly humiliate a victim. Even though it was meant as a mild form of punishment, the crowd sometimes made it lethal.
The pillory often served as a post for Flagellation. When the victim was restrained with the device, he was completely defenseless and subject to the crowd.
In many cases the crowd threw harmless objects such as vegetables, but when the victim committed a serious offense they threw stones or other heavy objects. The crowd often humiliated the victim by cutting his hair, putting marks on his body and even mutilating some of his body parts.
The pillory didn’t last more than a few hours, but it was sometimes carried on for days. The device was situated in either the marketplace or the plaza - where most villagers could see the victim’s suffering. The army was also well-known for using the pillory as a means of punishment.
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The Chair of Torture :

Also known as the Judas Chair, the Chair of Torture was a terrible device of the Middle Ages. It was used until the late 1800’s in Europe.
There are many variants of the chair. They all have one thing in common: spikes cover the back, arm-rests, seat, leg-rests and foot-rests. The number of spikes in one of these chairs ranges from 500 to 1,500.
To avoid movement, the victim’s wrists were tied to the chair or, in one version, two bars pushed the arms against arm-rests for the spikes to penetrate the flesh even further. In some versions, there were holes under the chair’s bottom where the torturer placed coal to cause severe burns while the victim still remained conscious.
This instrument’s strength lies primarily in the psychological fear caused on the victims. It was a common practice to extract a confession by forcing the victim to watch someone else be tortured with this instrument.
The time of death greatly varied ranging from a few hours to a day or more. No spike penetrated any vital organ and the wound was closed by the spike itself which delayed blood loss greatly.
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The Knee Splitter:

The knee splitter, a terrible torture, was mostly used during the Inquisition. What this instrument accomplished was to permanently render the knees useless.
Even though the name implies that this instrument was only used for “splitting” knees, it was also used in other body parts including: the elbows, arms and even the lower legs.
As the torturer turned the handle, the claws slowly slammed against each other mutilating any skin in between. The number of spikes the knee splitter contained varied from three to more than twenty.
There were many variants to this instrument. Some claws were heated beforehand to maximize pain - others had dozens of small claws that penetrated the flesh slowly and painfully.
Even though this method very seldom provoked direct death, it was often followed by other more painful methods if the victim refused to cooperate.
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The Wheel:

This device was used as a capital punishment during the Middle Ages. Reserved for hated criminals, The Wheel always killed its victim, but did so very slowly.
The Wheel originated in Greece and quickly spread to Germany, France, Russia, England and Sweden. The device consists of a large wooden wheel with many spokes. The victim’s limbs were tied to the spokes and the wheel itself was slowly revolved. Through the openings between the spokes, the torturer usually hit the victim with an iron hammer that could easily break the victim’s bones. Once his bones were broken, he was left on the wheel to die, sometimes placed on a tall pole so the birds could feed from the still-living human.
In France, many executioners used the coups de grâce, which caused lethal injuries, to make the victim’s death faster. When extreme pain was desired, the victim just had his bones broken and left there to die. It could take up to two or three days for him to die of dehydration.
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The Thumbscrew:

The victim’s fingers were placed inside the instrument and slowly crushed as the torturer turned the handle on top. This method was primarily used to extract confessions as it was both painful and very lasting.
If the victim refused to speak, the torturer could choose from many other torture methods.
The same instrument was also used to crush victim’s toes.
A bigger variant of the instrument that followed the same principle was used to crush victim’s feet, knees and elbows. The Head Crusher was used for crushing the head.
A similar device was used for medical purposes in order to straighten the fingers of warriors who had been injured. The effectiveness of such instrument is debated.
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The Heretics Fork:

The heretics fork was used in the Middles Ages mainly during the Spanish Inquisition.
The instrument consists of two forks set against each other that penetrated the flesh under the chin in one end and the upper chest in the other. As usual, this instrument didn’t harm any vital points; thus avoiding death and prolonging pain.
The victim’s hands were tied behind his back to prevent any chance of escape. The Heretics Fork made speech and neck movement almost impossible and was used after a confession to avoid hearing the victim any further. As can be seen in the picture, a small collar supported the fork forcing the victim to hold his head erect.
Sometimes the victim was incarcerated and subject to this instrument as well. This instrument often harmed the neck of the victim, as well as potentially spreading an infection or disease.
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The Coffin (The Gibbet)

The Coffin Torture was feared throughout the Middle Ages. It is enough for one to look at the picture to the left to realize the reason.
The victim was placed inside the “coffin”. Torturers were well-known for forcing overweight victims into the device, or even making the “coffin” slightly larger than normal to make the victims more uncomfortable.
The period of time a victim was to be kept inside the coffin was determined by his or her crime. Very serious crimes, such as blasphemy, were punished by death inside the coffin where the victim was to be kept inside under the sun with animals eating his or her flesh.
The coffin was sometimes placed in a public plaza so the local population would congregate around it and mock the unlucky victim. Sometimes death occurred because of the hatred towards the person as others often threw rocks and other objects to further increase the pain.
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The Head crusher

The head crusher was widely used during most of the Middle Ages, especially the Inquisition. With the chin placed over the bottom bar and the head under the upper cap, the torturer slowly turned the screw pressing the bar against the cap.
This resulted in the head being slowly compressed. First the teeth are shattered into the jaw; then the victim slowly died with agonizing pain, but not before his eyes were squeezed from his sockets.
This instrument was a formidable way to extract confessions from victims as the period of pain could be prolonged for many hours if the torturer chose to. This could be done by repeatedly turning the screw both ways.
If the torture was stopped midway, the victim often had irreparable damage done to the brain, jaw or eyes.
Many variants of this instrument existed, some that had small containers in front of the eyes to receive them as they fell out of their sockets.

Crocodile Tube:

The crocodile tube wasn’t common, but it was used to kill many infidels and thieves.
The victim was fixed inside a tube just big enough for the victim’s entrance. The tube, having crocodile teeth-like spikes, was slowly compressed leaving the victim totally immobilized. The torturer could only see his face and feet.
With the help of carbon and fire underneath the tube, the torturer gradually heated the tube until he extracted a confession or killed the victim. The former was most common, as this is one of the cruelest and most painful tortures ever used on human beings.
With the face and feet exposed, the torturer was able to inflict painful wounds on the victim. Facial mutilation and toe ripping were preferred choices