ME, ANTI-SOCIAL!

I was checking through the divider and then I saw these award plaques. Inscribed on the plaque were my alma mater’s logo and the words 13TH ANNUAL AWARD NIGHT PRESENTED TO BEST NIGERIAN MIME ACT. The other award was for BEST NEW TALENT.  I travelled back in time and actually reminisced that social night. The mime act was STYL-PLUS’S CALL MY NAME but fast forward to present day Abdulmujeeb. Well now, music is a quondam for me (though it was one of the things I found very difficult to give up).

*******

 ‘Are you are anti-social?’, he asked.
‘Me, ANTI-SOCIAL!’, I thought.  That question was like hitting me below the belt. Though it is not the first time I have been told that. Two times in a row I have been presented with the award (though no plaques) for ‘ALWAYS INDOORS’ in the hostel I reside in school. My younger brother has accused me of being a bore (when he saw the title I gave this piece, he acceded). Am I truly anti-social?. I do not see myself as a religious person (I try my best to fulfill the obligations in the deen) but even though does being religious mean being anti-social? I recall that some brothers in Darul Haqq would say I laugh too much and then when I am in some other gatherings I hear I am anti-social. No doubt we are social beings and nobody wants to be lonely. Little wonder prisoners are kept behind bars away from the society and the worst of them are placed in Solitary confinement. It’s all about keeping them lonely. Seeing people every day is one of those things we take for granted. You could ask those who remained in school after the Okada-Mopol incident in school last year. I am not in the category of those who think Muslims should go and live in the bush neither am I in the league of those who think it is okay to be around people all the time. There are times you need your ME time (you know those times you just want be alone). It is true many of what people call socializing are not Islamic values like clubbing, drinking and all that and this also confirms  Allah’s words:
‘O ye who believe! take not into your intimacy those outside your ranks; they will not fail to corrupt you. They only desire your ruin: rank hatred has already appeared from their mouths; what their hearts conceal is far worse. We have made plain to you the Signs if ye have wisdom.’ Q3:118

            Yet sometimes people see your trying to save yourself from being corrupt  like you are arrogant, anti-social or that you discriminate and I am not just talking about non Muslims some Muslims also feel that way. Sometimes you can’t blame them since some people truly behave in such manner(arrogant or discriminate) and at other times it’s so untrue. I recall when I noticed that there was this distance between a friend and I so I queried him and he replied that it was because of the new principles I had started from the Sharia. I had told him I was still a fun-loving person provided it was Halal (sign me up!). I was still me but now  come to think of it some of us truly shut down our fun loving sides because of some DON’Ts in the deen. Some of us never even joke, yes it’s true that we should not tell lies even if it is a joke but does that mean we should not have any sense of humor. Any ‘DON’T’ we know is in the deen it is incumbent we try to find the Halal substitute (though I know it’s not always easy to find one, even in some cases you might not find any) but then a good number of us just turn off completely and the only time we’re excited is when issues about the deen is discussed. I will grab a gamepad to play Pro Evolution Soccer (@ TAOFEEK ALLI, when are you going to accept my challenge?) or watch any TYLER PERRY produced Movie. In the end I am still me. I want to be a balanced person, I want to stick to the middle path because that’s the Sunnah, and though I might be anti-social to some nevertheless I don’t want to be boring either.

WHO WILL DANCE FOR US?

“Dance! Dance, Champ! Dance! ”

“He’s throwing combinations like God put a motor in his body, uppercuts, lefts and rights, whipping that sucker all over the ring!

‘’I’m calling to him: “Dance, Champ! Dance for the little children in orphanages don’t nobody want! Fight for them Champ! You the boss! Dance for the po’ people with no jobs , who got rent to pay! Dance for ‘em, Champ! Stick that sucker! Dance for them winos  sleepin’ in the gutter! For them people who got TB, cancer, for them prisoners locked in jails and ain’t fot no bail! Dance  for ‘em champ! Dance for them dope addicts everybody’s given up on! Dance for little pregnant girls who got  no husbands! Dance for em’ champ! Fight for ‘em! ”

“ Whip them suckers for ‘em! Shoeshine ‘em! Shoeshine ‘em! Fight for them people needin’ welfare, for old people who didn’t get no pension checks!  Dance for ‘em!  Go ‘head, whip that sucker’s…! Have no mercy! Dance for them tired old whores out there hustlin’! For all them lonely people drinkin’ in the taverns! In the pool halls! On the street corners! Dance for the sweepers, little people moppin’ up airport floors, train stations, bus depots, gas station! Fight for ‘em, Champ! For the maids in hotels makin’ up beds, cleanin’ toilets! Whip them suckers! Shorty told them to resurrect you, Shorty told them to dig you up out of the grave! Ain’t no Senators saved you, ain’t no Governors saved you, ain’t no President saved you! Ain’t no bankers saved you! Them people out there saved you. Them  people out there puttin’ new blood in your veins! Stick that sucker in front of you! Them people out there puttin’ new blood in your veins! Stick that sucker in front of you! Stick him all night long! Can’t nobody whip Muhammad Ali but Cassius Clay, and he ain’t here tonight! Dance, Champ, dance!”

The above words were what Bundini (one of Muhammad Ali’s aides) told the Champ in one of his first fights after his exile for not joining the US army in the Viet-Nam war. Though I do not agree with Bundini on calling God shorty and also for some people he said the Champ should dance for but I pretty much agree with the rest  except that I want to add a few.

‘Dance for em’ masses who don’t know the meaning of fuel subsidy removal  except that  they know life might just get really hard, Dance for em’ worrying and aging sisters who ain’t married yet, Dance for ‘em  students who got admission but got no money for tuition, Dance for them Champ! Dance! Dance for ‘em brothers who have tried hard to get married but hasn’t got someone to say YES or money is hindering them, Dance for ‘em strangers who want to be changers but the world puts in danger. Whip them suckers for ‘em, Dance for ‘em Champ Dance for ‘em lonely single mothers who want to fall in love again ”  but wait a minute they ain’t no champ I can tell  so who will dance for us? 

WE NEED HELP

My khushu was far from being high. It was Fajr prayer and I could hear him wailing. I wished he would stop but it only got louder. I guess the Imam felt the same way because the surah he recited was not long.

It was after exams and almost everyone had gone home for the break except for a few of us, particularly the graduating students.  She was a mother of three, a boy and two girls. I had never met their Dad so I cannot tell if he was dead or she had divorced him or worse he was just one of those men that left and never looked back.  I heard a door shut and then the boy said, ‘e kuku pami’. I could hear him sobbing as he walked down the passage. We all kept quiet in the masjid as if nothing had happened. After all we were just students and the mosque was situated by the house. I thought we were all weak. We were weak to see something wrong but not correct it. I knew she was struggling being a single mother with three children and one of them becoming a truant. I knew she tried so hard to make them all turn out right.  But I still thought she should not beat him like she was going to kill him. He needed his Dad, he needed a father figure there are issues a mother no matter how super she could be could not handle. I left the masjid pondering. We need help, I thought.

*** * **

I could hear her sobbing but what could I do? I was far away but I wanted to help her. How could he beat her and send her out late at night and she was pregnant! She did not deserve him and sometimes I thought she should pull out from the marriage. But later I realized it was not as easy as I thought. Umm Yousef, who is a survivor and DV(Domestic violence) advocate  said ‘The best explanation or metaphor that I came across over the last few years after I came to understand that what I had experienced in my marriage was, in fact, abuse was a YouTube PSA (public service announcement) that shows a woman slowly struggling and drowning in a tank of water, and just as she is about to drown the water gushes out and she gets a moment of relief, only to have the tank start filling up again. That is how the cycle of abuse works and feels…’ I ponder again but this time I try not to go asunder. Seriously we need help. The Ummah needs help and it is like we turn a blind eye to issues like this. Like it does not happen or like we do not know anyone that is going through such. I know talking about Tawheed, learning Fiqh are important issues but these things are also cogent and it is destroying our homes. It is destroying our very foundations. We need counselors, we need Muslim professionals not just the Scholars. I do not want to bear this burden anymore (at least not alone). So who’s with me?

MEMORY LANE

I am walking down memory lane. I can see myself wearing a blue T-shirt on top of a black snoop-dogg jean pair of trousers. My feet are covered with a black All-star sneakers. I am stepping on my trousers all the way and the edge of the trousers is dirty already but I don’t care as long I am swaggering that’s all that matters. I walk down and I realize the queue in front of UBA. There’s a family friend around to help me get a post-UME form.’ I hate this school’, I say to myself ‘it’s not like U-I’ I continue. Weeks pass by, I have written the post-UME exam. I had prayed fervently that I should not be given admission to LAUTECH. I was hoping I would enter UI as a direct entry student courtesy GCE A-levels. Alas, the premiere University had decided to ‘normalize’ the school calendar so they went for a long break. I am tired of staying at home.
I can see my name ONAWOLE ABDULMUJEEB TOLU, PURE AND APPLIED CHEMISTRY. I am in front of the senate building in LAUTECH and I am looking at the admission list. Of all courses in the world CHEMISTRY! I did not like CHEMISTRY, no that’s an understatement I loathed chemistry. No form of excitement is on my face and my friends who accompanied me look at me like an ingrate. That was five years ago.
I have just concluded my final exams. My last paper GNS 208, FAMILY, MARRAIAGE & KINSHIP(What a course to round off with). I ponder and tell myself so you are a graduate of chemistry, What do you even know in chemistry? That ‘s a complicated question. I sigh and then feel a sense of regret. Regret for not doing so many things I ought to have done in the last five years. I regret pulling out of the STF, I regret avoiding the Shura (consultation) committee when they sent for me. I regret not memorizing more Surahs from the Qur’an. I regret not visiting the health centre every week like I planned. I regret not improving tremendously on my qira (recitation) of the the Qur’an, I regret not following Abu Khalid on his Adenike Dawah trips consistently, I regret not being a consistent academic tutor, I regret not giving in charity more, maybe I could have stopped some of my colleagues from dropping out of school, I regret not being a consistent tutor,I regret not being the best in my department, I regret not starting CATENATE earlier. I regret not being friends with some people earlier, the mountains we could have moved together, I regret so much…
But I could have been worse. I could have had a long list of all the girls I had laid or could have earned the nick name ‘brewery’. I could have been football crazy and cut classes like I just did not care. I could have cheated and been caught and be given extra semesters or worse rusticated. I could have been a club boy or just continued swaggering. I could have… but Alhamdulillahi I am not any of those but I still regret. True are the words of my Rabb:
  ‘…and it may be that you dislike a thing which is good for you, and that you like a thing which is bad for you. Allah knows but you do not know.’Q2.126

 I wanted to transform to OPTIMUS PRIME but all I came close to was becoming BUMBLE BEE and yet people think I am a STRANGER I am not I am still ‘becoming’. Now 5 years is gone and I realize this is the end of the beginning. I have never felt so much love by so many people, knowing what it means to be called ‘omo iya’ and now I am about to leave and you all make me grieve. They say home is where your heart is. Home is where you can return to. You all have made LAUTECH a home for me. But when I leave that’s when I would need your calls and messages more than ever before because I would be on my own. So please do not say AbdulMujeeb Onawole has graduated and so you do not call anymore, you do not send me messages to remind to be a better Muslim. To the muslim community in LAUTECH, THANK YOU SO MUCH for making me a better Muslim. It’s been a wonderful 5 years. I love you all for Allah’s sake and I miss you already. PLEASE FORGET ME NOT.

BETWEEN VIRGINITY AND CHASTITY

‘Do you want to eat my virginity with soaked garri” that’s what she said. I remember that quote even though it has been years back. The earlier quote was from a passage in an English language examination I wrote in my first year in the senior secondary school. The story in the passage was about a couple’s first night together. The husband was not happy that he did not meet his wife at home and she justified herself by saying that how could he meet her a virgin knowing she was beautiful (guess one who wants to marry a virgin should not marry a beautiful woman- just kidding). The story brought about so many discussions after the exam and I recall being a peer educator for AFPAC (Armed Forces Program for AIDS Control) and the question of virginity had always come up. What we really preached about then as peer educators was A.B.C. (A for Abstinence B for Be Faithful and C for Condom) but I wondered why we did not preach ABC (Always Be Chaste). I am sure many adverts we hear on the media on AIDS control talk we often hear the cliché ‘’If U no fit hold body use condom’. To me it sounds like they are advising people to fornicate or commit adultery as the case may be.

                Many a time we often hear guys popping up the dreaded question to their proposed spouse ‘are you a virgin?’. The society has double standards we think it is ok for a guy to fool around and think a female is loose if the same happens. True there is no practical test to know if a male is a virgin but also one as is there a test to know if a female is a virgin (confused, I thought so too). We have to go to the genesis and ask ourselves the question “who is a virgin?” the common concept  is that a virgin is someone who has not had sex.  There are many things wrong with that concept  of the word virgin. If you asked a man whose wife engaged in oral and anal sex only before marriage and who has her hymen intact. The man would say he married a virgin. If you asked a man whose wife had her hymen replaced (there are operation that can do that) if he met his wife at home he would reply in the affirmative. All the mentioned examples show in reality of today there is practical no test for virginity.

                The word chastity has a much better meaning and it is not a double standard word neither is it confusing. It means morality with respect to sexual relations. So we can say a married person is chaste and if he or she is moral with respect to sexual relations likewise an unmarried person can be said to be chaste provided the person is moral with respect to sexual relations. So if an unmarried woman who never had any kind of sex is raped it does not strip her off her chastity. The society might say she is no longer a virgin but we cannot say she is not chaste the same applies to a female whose hymen is broken due to some other factors like horse riding or heavy menstrual flow. The word chastity does not use hymen as a test factor nor does it sound like it only applies to females.  Allah says in the Qur’ an: ‘For Muslim men and women for believing men and women for devout men and women for true men and women for men and women who are patient and constant for men and women who humble themselves for men and women who give in charity for men and women who fast (and deny themselves) for men and women who guard their chastity and for men and women who engage much in Allah's praise for them has Allah prepared forgiveness and great reward’ Q 33.65.  Little wonder the word chastity or chaste appear more in the Qur’an than virgin or virginity. Chastity covers a great deal, from the way an individual carries oneself in dressing, in character and so on but virginity is just about the sex. Another very unique thing about the word chaste is the issue of sincerity. Only Allah  knows who is truly chaste and hence it creates Ikhlas (sincerity). Many people are virgins for reasons that are not best. Some people are virgins thinking they would get virgins in return as spouses. Some are virgins because of fear if STI(sexually transmitted infections) but when an individual is chaste it is sincerely for the creator’s sake. Someone could be a virgin because of one of the reasons mentioned earlier, if the person died and never got the chance to get married or later the cure to all STI was found such a reason would have be a waste but if such an individual was chaste then it is the fear of Allah that is the intention of such an individual. Such a person does not need to be swayed for any reason to lose that chastity. For example we can find many men or women who commit adultery not because they wanted to initially but just because they wanted to get back at their spouse for cheating on them.

                To conclude , I advise my single brothers and sisters to pray for a  chaste spouse and also for chastity for themselves and for everyone at large let us follow the simple ABC(Always Be Chaste).