“Its a soup that can stare back at you”, thats my answer.

Tengkleng - In The Beginning

Did you see that? Staring back at you?

Its a dish of lamb head. We just got a whole lamb from our butcher, and the head is an extra delicacy. I was debating on what should I make with that head.

In the end I settle with the Tengkleng recipe I found on the net. Tengkleng is a traditional dish from the central part of Java.

Its my big lunch that made me skip dinner, with a bit of left over for breakfast.

Tengkleng - The Last Frontier

Again, I am not joking with the title. There is such a thing as a Muslim urinal. I knew it many years ago when I work with the interior designers at Matahari Dept. Stores on toilet stuff, and they said we usually choose Muslim urinals for our stores.

Say what? Up till that time I have not heard such a term. Of course I have seen such urinals, but I have no idea that they were actually called a muslim urinal.

If you have not seen one, here is one example (a product of TOTO, located in one of the toilets at Batam Airport).

See that little hook-like metal sticking out under the flush pipe? Supposedly, that is what makes this urinal “muslim”. As discussed in the previous article, water is very important element of a muslim toilet.

The reason that I did not realize that this is a muslim urinal is because I do not use the water coming out of that hook to clean myself after urinating, EVER. Not before I know that it is a muslim urinal, not even after I know what it is.

The main reason is that the hook is usually installed as the picture above. It can be rotated, but most of the times, it is exactly like that. Which means that the water coming out of that hook will flow away from anybody using that urinal.

With water flowing away from you, trying to wash your genital with the water involves a lot of circus of trying to peek where the water actually is, and at the same time trying to reach further away (deeper) into the urinal. Which of course will make you look weird if there is somebody else in the toilet.

Well, the the hook can be rotated of course. If you rotate it 90 degrees, then the same problem happens, only that you either have to move to the left or to the right end of the urinal to be able to catch the water from the hook.

All this circus, of course, assume that you are in the right height. If you are higher or shorter than the assumption of whoever designed the toilet, then the circus will involve some body movement to make yourself shorter or higher. And you will certainly look pathetic.

My solution is simply to forget about the hook. This is of course too bad. Somebody has tried to accommodate the need of muslim consumers. And this somebody is not just anybody, but a leading manufacturer like TOTO.

But then, nobody has ever understand how to use the hook in muslim urinals. Is it supposed to be a hands-free sprayer to the genitals? Or is it just providing additional water “on site” for whatever the user will use it for? [NOTE: that this is certainly my own ignorance. If you know how to use it, please use the comments to enlighten myself and other readers].

For further information, check the product description from TOTO Indonesia. Note that there may be other products from other brands, please let me know in the comment section below.

***

Other than the above, is there any other solution?

Yes, of course. Here is one example from a mosque in Singapore.

This is a typical urinal with automatic flush. The difference is the hand-sprayer on the side. I have to warn you though, that the water pressure varies depending on the building. To avoid any surprise, try to spray some water away from you, just to test the water pressure and spraying pattern. I found one case that the pressure is so high that I cannot use it without getting myself wet.

Another, much simpler solution is from a mosque in Pasar Baru, Bandung, Indonesia.

[note: I have to find the picture]

Just a long gutter/drain with one water tap each, with a knee-high barrier as a splash protection. If you need to clean up or to flush, just open the tap.

Of course, there are many other solutions, and I will add along the way. If you happen to know other solutions, please send the link in the comment section.

This is going to be a long article (in fact its so long that I need to break it up into two postings – at least). I will start with the why: why bother writing this article. And then I will provide some basic information on what muslims need in a toilet, and I will try to formulate the idea of islamic toilet.

In the next post, I will cover the design parts. This should be fun for architects and interior designers. I am also going to identify some common problems found around the world. Hopefully, in the end we can see some solutions coming out.

0. Why do we need this posting?

For muslims:

1. While Islamic creed teaches cleanliness as part of the faith, toilets in muslim facilities are notoriously dirty. No I am not talking about the big shining mosques in the capital cities, but the small neighborhood mosques in the heartland muslim communities. You just do not want to even glimpse at them, because then you can smell the nerve-cracking odor.
2. Cross-cultural  interactions have alienated muslims in terms of toilet. When muslims move (to study, or to work, or even to migrate) to a western country, they found toilets are less accommodating to their needs (more on these needs below). On the other hand, new buildings even in muslim countries are built with toilets that are, again, less accommodating to the muslim needs.  The western-style of toilet designing is rampant. My interaction with architects taught me that this is in fact the only style of toilet designing, because there is no such a thing as muslim-style toilet designing, at least that is taught in mainstream architecture schools. Any previous attempts to put some muslim values into the design style only provide cultural shocks (as will be shown later, probably in the second post).

For non-muslims:

1. Just FYI
2. To develop cross-cultural awareness and understanding, so that at least you would understand if muslims acts abnormally (by western standard) in toilets. If you happen to be an architect, this information would enable you to design better toilets for muslims.

So here we go.

1. What muslims need in a toilet?

Before we come to that question, there are two relevant concepts that need to be understood. The first one is the concept of aurat, and the second one is the concept of najis.

Aurat is part of the body that should not be revealed to other people. There are different opinions on the details, but the general consensus is as follows. For male the aurat is between the belly-button and the knees. For female is the whole body except the face and the hands.

With this concept, the concept of privacy for muslim has a different angle compared to the general “acceptable” privacy policy for toilet. Urinals must have partition so that the neighbor cannot accidentally see other people’s private parts. Shower must always have enclosed partitions.

Najis are the things that are religiously dirty. Out of many dirty things, there are a number of these things that fall into the category of najis. Rotten food, for example, is dirty but is not najis. The most relevant najis for toilet are urine and feces. The most important part of this concept is that muslims may not pray if there is najis on their body, their clothes, or in the place where they pray. And, as you know, muslims pray, not once but five times a day. For convinience, muslims keep themselves away from najis, because if you have najis you have to clean it up before you can pray.

That is why one of the first lessons in Islam (if we look at the classical text of islamic teachings) is about how we clean najis if we have it in our body, or our clothes, or the place where we pray. Toilet training, basically, but more extensive.

So back to the question: what muslims need in a toilet? The answer is quite simple, there are three basic requirements: (1) privacy, (2) ability to clean up from (our own) najis, (3) assurance that we will not be exposed to stray najis.

2. How do muslims clean the najis?

I am not going to bore you with the gory details of everything about cleaning najis. The basic requirements are simple: you have to get rid of the najis so that you cannot see it, you cannot smell it, and you cannot taste it.

The last one needs further explaination. It certainly does not mean that you have to taste whatever you have clean. Its just a hypothetical requirement: if you have a najis on the floor, and then you have cleaned it, the floor is considered clean when you can ensure yourself that if you were to taste the floor you will not taste the najis but floor. Of course this is only hypothetical, because even without the najis on it, you are not suppose to taste the floor. I believe that the early scholars put this requirement as additional step so that muslims has additional awareness about the najis.

On top of that basic requirements, there are many technicalities that are so diverse that I will skip it here. There are a lot of opinions about the technicalities so I will present some general consensus.

Consensus number one, it involves water. So here is the first culture shock between east and west: people from muslim countries cannot associate between toilet and tissue paper. If they find tissue paper in the toilet, they do not know what to do with it. They need water.

And this is not only for the big thing but also for the small thing. When muslims defecate or urinate, they have to clean the private parts with water. By default is a must, but there are exceptions in various situations where water is can be replaced with something else.

Consensus number two it should involve enough amount of water. Many of the original text says that the najis has to be wash “seven times”. Some muslims take this literally and they actually count the number of wash. In the old days, this probably make sense because people has water in a big tank and they take the water with a small container so that they can literally count how many times they pour the water over. But the era of water tap, counting does not really make sense. So people interpret “seven times” as “repeated times just enough” to clean the najis. It should be noted that over-consumption of water (and in fact, of everything else) is prohibited in Islam.

Consensus number three: there are exceptions to the water rules. However, while there is consensus that there are exceptions, the extent of the exception depends on the interpretation. Some like it hard, and use a very strict interpretation of the exception, some like it soft and use a very lenient interpretation to define the exception.

Again, without going into the details, below are some of the topics in the exceptions, just to give you a perspective on the diversity of the opinion.

Exception on the situation: what situation constitute the “emergency” where medium other than water can be used to clean up the najis. The religious texts says “when you cannot find water”, so some says that that is the exception: when you literally cannot find water. So a dry toilet with only a roll of tissue paper will not qualify for exception, according to this interpretation, because there is a water tap just outside where you wash your hands. On the other extreme, there are opinions that says that it is simply not convenient to insist on using water when the toilet is designed to be dry, so convinience is a reason for exception to not use water.

In between there are people who seeks the middle ground. Yes it is designed to be a dry toilet, but water is still available. No, it is not convinient to insist on using water as in wet toilet, so some kind of improvisation is needed. More on this later.

The second exception is on the medium used: if not water then what? The religious text, that is relevant for the situation in the desert environment, says that stones should be used if there is no water. At least three stones (and only stones with smooth surface, btw) must be used. But stone is totally irrelevant for a multi-story building, you cannot expect somebody to rush down the building just to collect some stones while on the way to the toilet.

For this reason, another opinion says that (dry) toilet tissue is a valid medium to wash the najis. Logically, using toilet tissue is cleaner then using stone. However, the main argumen against this opinion remains: water is available so there is no reason to use other medium.

The middle way: wet toilet tissue. My friend has posted this article in his blog (in Indonesian language only). In a nutshell, put some water over several (three-four) sheets of toilet tissue. That in effect becomes the source of water, so instead of pouring water, just squeeze the wet tissue to extract all the water. The argument against this opinion is the amount of water provided by the wet tissue, it is simply too little to clean.

Yet another solution: dry tissue followed by the wet tissue. Cleaning up with dry toilet tissue will reduce the amount of water needed to clean the najis. But then again, this is relevant only for the small one (urinating). For the big one, I do not think wet tissue will do the job, and at least a small bottle of water is needed. So keep those recycled bottle of mineral water handy.

***

That’a all folks, its already long for an introduction. Let me know in the comment section below if I missed anything. I will continue with the second post later next week.

Its a plain marketing stunt to sell the bed side lamp ($4.90 only), despite the elaborate stunt to pity those who prefer it dark. The message is simple:

Another one from IKEA.

What I see is a concerted effort to make the driver — the company’s most valued asset — feels important. First of all by calling them captain instead of plain old driver. We may joke about it, but in the end of the day, it will make everyone who reads the warning to remember that the person sitting there is more than just a driver.

Secondly is of course the message of the sign. Not only they deserve a better designation, but they also deserve a safe place to work. They don’t deserve any abuse from the passenger, physical abuse or even verbal abuse. Anybody who tries to abuse them will find themselves get reported to the police.

I see this as a basic acknowledgement from an employer that the captains are important.

Compare that to bus drivers in Jakarta, well, enough said.

But then, Singapore’s creativity stops short of inventing the most delicious flavor of all: prata durian. Well, most delicious, that is, in my not-so-humble opinion.

Here is what I have for ifthar yesterday: prata kosong, durian, and hot teh tarik. I thought I could have just bought this in a single stop, but no, I still have to buy the prata and the durian separately.

In case you are curious, I first have prata durian (or canai durian, as they call it there) more than 15 years ago in the village of Geudong in my hometown Aceh. Since I cannot buy prata durian any place else, this is what I have come up with: buy durian and buy prata, there you have it. Yummmy.

One of the things that I asked Paul Horstman, who was driving the other day, was about taxi: how many kinds of taxi do you know? I think he was unprepared for that question. “What do you mean how many?” he asked. A taxi is a taxi.

Well, yeah, I said, you probably know only one kind of taxi, which is a car. For us in Indonesia, we know a lot of other kinds of taxi. Of course, we have the standard taxi as it is known here in the US.

But apart from that, we also have motorcyle taxi, which is called ojek.

picture from expat.or.id

As you can see in the picture above, ojek is mainly run by individuals. They wait for the passengers usually at the entrance of big housing complexes where there is no public transport serving the complex. Safety is not a very big concern when you ride an ojek, some of them might offer you a helmet, but most of them will just “tancap gas” (which means go off) right after he feels (he wont even look at you) that you have been seated behind him without even asking you where to go. Only after riding for a while that he asks where to go.

Apart from that, we also have ojek sepeda (see picture below) which means bicycle taxi. Its similar to the ojek, but the driver gets a little bit more sweat as he has to paddle the bicycle under the tropical sun.

A fancy counterpart of ojek sepeda can be found in the City of Buffalo (below). I might be mistaken, but the bike taxi in Buffalo seems to be more of a tourist attraction than a transportation solution.

Source: Buffalo Bike Taxi

There is nothing fancy about ojek sepeda. It is there because of pure demand. The demand of getting some money (albeit very minimal) for the driver, and the demand of transportation for the client who needed the bike taxi service because the areas are not covered by the public transport.

No, not yet. The list is not over yet. We still have “ojek payung“, which means umbrella taxi (below).

Source: Agus Syafii’s Blog

The kids with happy faces and colorful umbrella in the picture above are commonly found in front of malls and supermarkets in Indonesia. What they do is renting out the umbrella to people either to reach their car or the a bus stop with a shelter. Many of them usually bring two umbrellas, one for themselves and the other one for the customer. But most of them will simply walk in the rain.

Will many people hire the ojek payung, you said? That means you haven’t been in Indonesia, right? Indonesia has the kind of tropical rain that will make you soak just with a minute of shower. People will be happy to rent from them.

I think it was the first time that Paul heard about this, and he kept saying “what?!” repeatedly every time I told him about the kind of taxi he has never heard before. And those are the taxies that I quickly summarized for him just to give in the big picture.

***

As if those weird kinds of taxies are not enough, a new development in the world of taxies put me in no other position than to report (Paul, this one is for you) that there is a new kind of taxi in Indonesia: food taxi (ojek makanan). I actually do not know if such a thing exists, until the trouble in IPDN.

IPDN is a school that trains future administrators (and supposedly leaders) of local governments. Even though their future duties will be as civilian administrators, the education system in IPDN is very much militaristic in its approach. Furthermore, the senior students have the rights to beat up their juniors. Although the IPDN administrators said that those beatings not part of the system, the practice is widely know and has caused several death in the past, with many of the seniors were charged and convicted for the crime.

So as you can imagine, the campus of such school will have their own kitchen to cater for the needs of the students. The students are basically not allowed to buy food outside the campus kitchen.

But you know Indonesia, food is everywhere and your imagination is the limit of the variety. Those students has been exposed to that kind of environment before they come to IPDN, and now they have to refrain from buying those food, literally on other sides of the fence.

The solution: ojek makanan. There will always be someone who will bridge the gap between supply and demand. These people, the food taxi, are basically delivering the food into the IPDN campus. God knows how the students order the food in the first place. But in this SMS country, everything can be ordered with a text message through a cell phone.

Of course these transactions are deemed illegal by the IPDN, and these poor people could be charged of trespassing. They could be detained by the campus security.

But that does not stop them to continue to operate: they do what they have to do.

And don’t tell me that ojek makanan is the same thing as food delivery man that you find everywhere in the US. No food delivery will ever deliver your food to a campus where outside food is prohibited.

***

The ojeks actually remind me of what Hernando de Soto (in The Mystery of Capital) said about people in the failed-capitalist countries. We cannot be anywhere in those big cities “without someone trying to make a deal with you.”

These people keep on trying to squeeze some money out of impossible situations. Look at the creativity that they have to pursue new kind of business that we would have never thought possible.

Why am I writing this? Well, Paul might love this new addition of taxies that he would never thought exists. Other than that, I just want to show that Indonesians (and many people in other countries) actually work very hard for their own livelihood. The fact that they remain poor shows that somebody has to do something to help them jump off the poverty line. This somebody might be you, or the government, or whatever.

want to add to that list. Another kind of taxi

This is the transcript of my sermon delivered on Friday prayer 21-Mar-2008 at the Islamic Center of Boise.

Brothers and sisters,

I start this khutbah with an advice for every one of us to always increase our imaan and taqwa to Allah s.w.t. Allah says in the Quran (surah Ali Imran, surah no 3, verse no 102)

[3:102] O ye who believe! Have taqwa to Allah in the real form of taqwa, and do not die except in a state of Islam.

Our whole life is a struggle to get closer to Allah. According to this ayat, muslim is not a state of being, but a process of becoming. The ayat challenges us all to live however we want, and the only requirement is that we should be a real muslim at the time of our death. We will not succeed in that challenge if we do not seek the true meaning of takwa throughout our life.

Brothers and sisters,

In the month of Rabi’ul Awwal, the month of when the Prophet s.a.w. was born, the best topic to discuss in this khutbah is how we should remember the Prophet s.a.w. In particular, I want to explore how we should defend his noble status in the hearts of muslims, in this crazy world where people can freely mock the Prophet with insulting cartoon. I want to share my exploration into this matter with all of you, to see just how the Prophet s.a.w himself wants us to respond to such provocation.

Brothers and sisters,

If we love someone, we will talk about that person, we will honor the person, we wish the person well, and always remember the person. Our love to the Prophet is much stronger than our love to other people, even stronger than our love to our own parents. Our love to the Prophet is not only based on stories from his life, but also a religious obligation.

There is no wonder if many muslims are so angry if the Prophet was drawn in insulting cartoons. There is no wonder that so many muslims are even willing to die when the Prophet’s name was mocked.

However, curiously enough, many of those muslims who were so angry and even willing to die for that purpose, many of them are not devoted muslims. We see ourselves in our home countries, that many muslims are simply not practicing Islam. But when it comes to demonstration and public show of anger, they will be in the front row defending the Prophet and Islam.

Angry demonstration, public show of anger, killing people, those are extreme acts that can result from insulting the Prophet s.a.w. In this khutbah, I want to warn every one of you, Brothers and Sisters members of our congregation, that we should not defend our Prophet by doing any of these extreme acts.

The obvious reason for this warning is that because these extreme acts are against the law. Of course, you can say that I have to say this because we live here in the US, where you cannot say anything to approve those acts.

But let us stop there, and imagine that we live in our own countries, where you can get away with running amok, burn churches, harass the westerners, or even kill people, all in the name of defending the Prophet. Think about this question: does the Prophet really want us to do those things?

Does the Prophet really want us to kill those cartoonists who drew insulting cartoons? Absolutely not. Why would he want us to do that? He used to be called a witch, in front of his face. People called him crazy, in front of his face. They boycotted him. They spit on him. They put a wet camel skin over him when he prostrated in an attempt to kill him.

In the famous story that everyone knows, he was chased out of a village where everyone threw rocks on him. And what did he say to those people? Did he ask them all to be killed? Even when an angel lost his temper (can you imagine an angel lost his temper?), and proposed to the Prophet that he throws a mountain on that village, what did the Prophet said to the angel? He did not approve such action and said that “they are just ignorant people. If not them, I hope that their children will embrace this religion.”

And now these cartoonists depict the Prophet as terrorist, should we all kill them? Absolutely not!

Brothers and sisters, imagine it in your heart, ask that question to the Prophet: Ya Rasulallaah, should we all kill those people who insulted you?

Ask that question in your heart, and let the history of the Prophet answer that question for you. You would not believe that this kind hearted Prophet would approve such a thing, when he himself during his life time would resort to other ways of responding.

Ask another question, Brothers and Sisters, because these cartoonists are from Christian nations, should we burn the churches? Absolutely not. You will not believe that this kind hearted Prophet would approve burning churches in response to insulting him, when he himself during his lifetime has never burnt down any places of worships, from any religion.

But then the question remains, brothers and sisters, how should we respond to those insults?

O yes, I am sad and angry for those cartoons insulting the Prophet. We are all sad and angry, because people are mocking and insulting our beloved Prophet s.a.w. But our sadness and anger should not be shown in manners that are not consistent with the teachings of the Prophet s.a.w. How should we show our love to our Prophets in this uncertain time?

Brothers and sisters, the answer has been written down by the Prophet himself in the history of his life. I will summarize two ways of responding it.

The first way is on the personal level. Looking inward, what we should do is measure our love to the Prophet.

Allah says in the Quran, surah Al-Ahzab, surah 33, verse 6:

For the believers, the Prophet is “awla” even to themselves.

“Awla” means to have priorities in various forms. If you love the Prophet, you love him more than you love yourselves. If you protect the Prophet, you will protect him more than you protect yourselves.

Look at those cartoons, Brothers and Sisters, and if you feel nothing, then there is a problem with your relationship with the Prophets. This unfortunate event is an opportunity to gauge our love towards the Prophet.

Increase our love to the Prophet by repeating the shalawaat to him. Teach your children about this particular form of remembrance. In Indonesia, we even sing it together in the Masjid while we are waiting for the prayers to start:

[Allaahumma shalli alaa Muhammad, ya rabbii shalli alaihi wa sallim, Allaahumma shalli alaa Muhammad, ya rabbii balligh hul wasiilah]

Also on the personal level, do not forget to pray for those cartoonist who insult the Prophet, exactly the same prayer that the Prophet said to those people who chased him out of the village: May Allah bless them with hidayah. If not them, may their future generations be blessed with hidayah.

We as muslims believe that Allah is the “Muqallib al-quluub”, the One who change the feelings in our heart. As you all know, we cannot control how we feel. How many times that your anger was washed away by things outside your control? How many times that your joking mood erupted into anger?

We cannot even control who we love or who we hate. We have seen cases where the love of thirty years was changed into hate because of one single incident. We also have seen cases where eternal enemies suddenly become jealous lovers.

Allah is the One who has full control of our feelings. That is why we always pray to Him, that He would keep our hearts steady in this religion.

In the same spirit of what the Prophet has done, we should always pray, may Allah change the hearts of those cartoonists. They may now hate the Prophet s.a.w., but may Allah turn that hate into love. And if not them, let their future sons and daughters be blessed with love and tolerance.

Brothers and sisters,

The second level is the public level. What should we do in public? The best way is to educate the people around us. We need to tell them that this is how we feel about the Prophets, about Muhammad s.a.w. and also all of other Prophets.

There was one incident not long ago in the Middle East. A western teacher (meaning a non-muslim) was asked by her student what is the best name for her teddy-bear. She answered “Why don’t you call it Muhammad?”

What happened next was typical of our reactions to this matter: public show of anger. It’s like: the more you show your anger, the more you love the Prophet. It’s a race in showing bigger and greater outrage.

The teacher lost her job, and might have faced criminal prosecution. I did not follow what happened next, but that is irrelevant for this khutbah.

What I want you to do is think about it. When she said to the student to name her teddy-bear Muhammad, did she intend to insult? On that very specific occasion, on spontaneous reaction to her student’s question, did she really mean to insult?

I don’t think so. The worse that could have happened is ignorance. The teacher might have even meant well when she suggested the name Muhammad. Probably she knows that Muhammad is a beloved person to muslims, and muslim girls love teddy-bear. So why not call the teddy-bear Muhammad, to show affection, to reflect love.

This is the ignorance on the teacher’s part. She do not know that we muslims do not show our love to the Prophet by calling a doll Muhammad. In fact such action can be seen as insulting. The fact that she does not know this disqualifies her from being a teacher.

But looking deeper into the community where she comes from, how could we blame her? The people in the western culture, including the people here in the US, they generally do not know how to show respect to religious figures. In this culture, people can affectionately call their dog Jesus, or Adam, or Moses. And this can happen innocently, without any ill spirit.

When somebody from this culture goes to muslim culture, and sees that muslims girl affectionately loves both teddy-bear and the Prophet, it is not hard to imagine that they would suggest Muhammad as the name of the doll. And mind you, there might not be any insult, it is plain ignorance.

Brothers and sisters,

And what is the best cure for ignorance? One word: education. Muhammad s.a.w. was sent to ignorant Arabs with a single mission: [li utammima makaarimal akhlaaq], to improve the moral values.

How did he do that? Not with killing those ignorant people, not by burning their churches. By education.

And the best education of all is by example. It means that we should show them how to respect all religious figures, including religious figures from other religions.

There is a constant question from this community, a question with accusing tone: if Muhammad was insulted the whole muslim world erupted. Would they do the same thing if religious figure from other religion is insulted?

I want to be able to answer this question with a strong: YES. But unfortunately, the reality is not.

But this only shows that education is really the answer to this issue. Let us start teaching and training ourselves to respect religious figures, whatever the religion is. Try to understand how other religion show respect to their religious figures, it might be different from us.

There was one important lesson from Indonesia that I want to share with you. A few years ago, a Muslim musician publish his song with a cover on the CD showing himself riding a bird-like figure. There is a complaint from Hindu community that this bird-like figure in the CD cover is one of the representations of Wishnu (one of the Hindu Gods).

Immediately after the complaint, the musician made a public apology, and all of the CD was withdrawn to be given a new cover.

Now think about this: Hindu is a very tiny minority in Indonesia. The musician and the authorities can simply ignore them, and with a little bit of intimidation the Hindus will probably forget about it. But instead of just ignoring them, the musician made a public apology.

This kind of spirit should be shown in our daily life: showing respect towards religious figures from other religions. This is the best education that you should always demonstrate and explain to the people around you.

Brothers and sisters,

Those are the main principles on how to show our love to the Prophet in the crazy world that we live in today. May Allah keep the love alive in our hearts towards the Prophet s.a.w., and may He keep us strong in our efforts to be his followers. May Allah guide us how to respond to the insults on the Prophet, and may our guided acts be an inspiration for others to know the beauty of mutual respect.

The push-up is the ultimate barometer of fitness. It tests the whole body, engaging muscle groups in the arms, chest, abdomen, hips and legs. It requires the body to be taut like a plank with toes and palms on the floor. The act of lifting and lowering one’s entire weight is taxing even for the very fit.

Read through this New York Times article “As a symbol of health and wellness, nothing surpasses the simple push-up“. And after that, compare your performance with this table from Washington Post.

What? How many times can I do it? That is a jealously guarded trade secret.

Keep pumping guys!