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i to visit vancouver + victoria bc
wes_ak
02/29/04 at 01:43:27
[slm]

any muslims in vancouver or victoria bc who can show me around or point out cool places?

i plan on being there in april insha'allah, and plan on attending jumah at some local masjid. would like to know good places to visit, if there are any places where i can buy some 'islamic' merchandise like thobes, etc.

im going to be there as a mahram to my mom, she's going to be down their for business, so its a vacation for me :) . i'll be doing some reasearch on the net, i've found halal pizza places that i would be interested in being a patron of  :-X .

im an alaskan muslim, and theres not many muslims up here, only musalahs, no masjids yet. so im looking forward to going to my first masjid insha'allah, making my five prayers there and getting to know the muslim community down there.

would be greatly appreciated. jazakallahu khair.

see you in bc insha'allah  :-[
[slm]
Re: i to visit vancouver + victoria bc
jannah
02/29/04 at 02:06:48
[wlm]

In 4th grade I read this story about a Muslim girl who lived in Alaska. (from Caravan Tales and Plays for Children). I was simply amazed. I remember it to this day.

Please tell us how you came to be a Muslim in Alaska and what it's like!!
Re: i to visit vancouver + victoria bc
wes_ak
02/29/04 at 22:25:10
bismillah
[slm]

;D al hamdulilah

how i came to be alaskan, AND muslim, was all by the will of allah (swt).

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    Introduction

i was not raised as muslim, i am the second member of my family to convert to islam last year. i am 1/4 mixed european, 1/4 mixed eskimo, and 1/2 white. i am 17 years old, and born and raised in alaska (i've only left for vacations). i was born in anchorage alaska, the largest city in alaska, oft mistaken as the capital. i converted (or reverted, as it was my fitrah/natural inclination) this last year, on may 30 2003.

there is a very small muslim community here masha'allah, consisting of mostly foreigners (non natives), mostly paki, arab, african, black, and some white (im guessing thats how it is in many communities). But, there are some native muslims masha'allah. i only know of 7, my self included. i dont know the stories of the other converts, as i dont see them that often (i think they spend alot of time in 'the bush'- villages and really small communites).

my mother was the first to convert to islam in our family. she had an internet friend whom she met in chat named mohammed. i dont think she had met a muslim before and she wanted to know something about islam. i dont think he was a practicing muslim, she asked him questions and he would change the subject or something (may allah guide him) so she looked it up for herself. she must've been reading about islam for some months, visiting the local musalah every friday and attending some potlucks. she had converted to islam in january of last year. i didnt know what to think. so i figured that if i were going to live with a muslim (my mother) i might as well know what islam is about. so i went with her once to jumah.

    I.- Experience at Jumah

i went this was last year, post 9/11 and i felt very uncomfortable being there. i thought everyone was looking at me like i didnt belong and what i was doing thare, my mom had donned a hijab to be there and she was comfortable as she had been there often. i know that it was all in my head, but these people made me nervous. people were prostating towards the front of the room as they came in, i was taken aback. i dont remember everything from that jumah, but i do remember liking the khutbah/sermon, and thinking it was too short. the imam was talking something about this life, and not being greedy for it, and not eating too much, the 1/3 air, water and food. it was good and i agreed with him. then it got weird. it was time for the communal prayer   :o.

i thought i should have left and not pray with them as it might have been disrespectful, but i didnt want to walk away, and seem disrespectful... so in the beginning of the prayer, i was almost pushed into the lign. then the guy who i fiqure was a muslim priest started speaking in arabic. i crossed my arms like everybody else and was looking at the brother standing next to me to guide me. i didnt feel comfortable. but then we were moving. prostrating with my face on the ground was humbling. i thought, if theres any way god ought to be worshipped it ought to be this way. i think i remembered from the bible at church (i'll get to that later,insha'allah) that that was how jesus (isa alayhi salam) had prayed.

    II.-Church Munafiqs

i had left church years before unsatisfied with it. i had seen the christians at my church as hypocrites (they were only nice during church, if then) and i was not satisfied with jesus as god (he prayed to god, i couldn't accept the trinity). this was all when i was about 8 or 9. my mother didnt really practice christianity, it was my grandma who had brought me to church (may allah guide her to the straight path of islam). my grandma was methodist christian, and my grampa was russian orthodox (if you know anything about that). so from my grampa's practice of christianity we had icons around the house of mary w/ baby jesus, and a bunch of saints. there still up at my gramparents house. but i didnt accept the christian theology, i accepted jesus as a great, righteous and pious person, but the way he was conveyed to me thats all i could believe he was, the rest was too far fetched.

so after my jumah experience, i thought i should look into islam, as i would be living with a muslim. the imam had given my mother some books when she was learning about islam and still had them. i snatched em up. it was the illustrated guide to understanding islam, and the complete idiot's guide to understanding islam. i remember staying up all night, engrossed in the idiot's guide (like for dummies). i had already concluded to and believed in many things that islam did. i dont remember how much and what i had already believed in before that (cuz its all the same now). at one time (astaghfirullah) i was a very good science student.

    III.- There has to be a god

i had a teacher whom i really admired, my science teacher. it was my favorite class and i believed everything he had to say. we got to studying evolution and the origins of the universe, how scientists thought all those things happened by themselves, and my science teacher often made fun of religion. i knew that the bible was contradictory, but eventually science had made me an atheist (astaghfirullah). but then i got depressed.

so if theres no god, whats the point in living? if everything were random, there would be no point. you live, you pleasure yourself, you die. thats it. then why should anyone be restricted by morals? why should anyone care about starving children or oppressed people, whats the point if its going to end anyway? even before i had come to this belief i was trying to know the meaning of my existence. there had to be, HAD TO BE,  some reason, if not, why put up with it?

so i decided to forget about the reason. and somewhere after that i concluded that there had to be a god, nothing could have happened by itself, we (as a planet of life) are way too lucky to be here if this were all by chance (what other planets is there any other life? none that we know of) so i concluded that there was a creator, but i didnt know where to place him after creation, so i forgot about it.

    IV.-Conclusion

then islam came, al hamdulilah  :-X. i had nothing to worry about, i had the answer, men and jinn weren't created but to worship allah, the creator of everything. i wanted to know if there was anything else, any other reasons, but i was satisfied with this answer after thinking too much after that would be heresy (like what came before allah, why allah made the creation, etc. audhoobillah). al hamdulilah for islam, al hamdulilah for being guided on the straigh path, and being satisfied with it, may we stay on this path to jannah and to be pleasing to our lord, allah, the creator of the worlds, our purpose in life? is to worship allah!  :-X.

there's more details, but i dont want to write more of a book than i've started.

------------------------------------

    Epilogue

so now i am muslim, al hamdulilah. all i have to do is keep working on bettering my self, and my ibadah, and fighting the evil shaytan the cursed.

being alaskan and eskimo is a curiosity to my brothers and sisters, but i didnt choose to be eskimo, or to be born in alaska. but al hamdulilah. may allah guide my people, to islam. i can only convey the message to people, they have to choose islam for themselves.

its not difficult being an eskimo muslim either tho. eskimos diet is mostly fish, whale, and sometimes caribou. you wanna hear something neat, that i think may be related to a prophet who was sent to every nation? the eskimo's dont eat carnivores like the muslims, only herbivores and fish. they say that eating carnivorous animals will make you violent (allahu alim). i was so glad to find out that tanned leather is halal, now i get to keep all my eskimo gear! (parkas (warm jackets),mukluks (boots), snow shoes, etc.).

so being an alaskan muslim isnt all that different than being any other tribe and muslim. im a city eskimo, so i havent slaughtered a caribou zabiha yet. my only conflict with being an eskimo muslim is giving hugs to females (with natives, everyone is considered family) and drumming- i miss drumming, and pow-wows really bad. (may allah give me the patience to keep from it here so i may have it in jannah). al hamdulilah i can still have smoke fish and fried bread tho!

al hamdulilah!
------------------------

i apologize for the length, the abscence of many caps, and if it may not read so well. i didnt know i'd have this much to say.

i tried editing it, but i dont have patience for self editing any furthur than what is above. any other questions about alaska will be gladly answered, northern lights (aurora borealis), wild life, etc.

i drive to denali many times every summer, so if any brother or sister wants some tacky alaska tourist trap gear i'd be glad to send it down (my family gets it at a discount)... smoke fish, or recipe for fried bread...

[slm]
02/29/04 at 22:27:21
wes_ak
Re: i to visit vancouver + victoria bc
wes_ak
02/29/04 at 23:15:29
[quote author=jannah link=board=bebzi;num=1078038268;start=0#1 date=02/29/04 at 02:06:48][wlm]

Please tell us how you came to be a Muslim in Alaska and what it's like!![/quote]

"and what it's like" i forgot to tell about this one, im in the process of writing another long lengthly post, but my sibling (she's muslim to masha'allah) wants to get on the computer, so i got to get off now, until later insha'allah

[slm]
Re: i to visit vancouver + victoria bc
jannah
03/01/04 at 14:52:21
wlm,

that is so cool :) welcome to the faith!!! may Allah guide and protect you always!

i swear that story in fourth grade kept me going so many times when i was young.. i always thought this girl way up in the wilderness struggled to keep her faith and here i have mosques, and muslim people and everything i need and i was wasting it.

so how do u guys pray when there's all darkness or all light? and do u find alaskans/eskimos to be very anti-islam because of the media and everything? is eskimo and inuit the same thing? so it seems like you have real prayer areas at least there.. are the other muslims welcoming? sorry for all the questions ;)

btw i've always wanted to visit vancouver too, i heard its so beautiful.. i hope someone can post who's been there

take care inshallah







Re: i to visit vancouver + victoria bc
wes_ak
03/02/04 at 03:03:07
[slm]


jannah: so how do u guys pray when there's all darkness or all light?

wes: its pretty cool, in the summer, the sun barely sets, its still bright out for all 24 ours, just a bit dimmer in the night tho. in the summer, brothers just stay at the musalah from maghrib, to isha, til fajr. . at the height of the summer, maghrib is at 11:40, isha at 12:40, and fajr's at 3:15, so between isha and fajr we either stay up and talk about things, read qur'an, or take a short nap. but winter's prayers are all really close together. the earliest fajr can be made is after school starts, fajr starts at 7:45, isha's at 6:10.


jannah: and do u find alaskans/eskimos to be very anti-islam because of the media and everything?

wes: i'll get back to this question later insha'allah in more detail, but genereally my answer is most are not very anti islam, the most people who are anti islam are usually non-natives (those who came up from the states/lower 48 )

jannah: is eskimo and inuit the same thing?

wes: yes, eskimo and inuit are the same thing. some eskimos dont like the term eskimo and prefer to be called inuit as they see it as deragatory. i think originally it was, but we've adopted it, like the black people have with the n-word. we call ourselves eskimo and we dont care (most of us) if other people do to, but some are self conscious, and they'd prefer to be called inuit. i heard from one who likes to be called inuit that eskimo literally means 'eaters of raw meat'. i dont mind, and in many cases its true (with fish, like the japanese)


jannah: so it seems like you have real prayer areas at least there.. are the other muslims welcoming?

wes: yes, al hamdulilah many of them are, most of them. one elder brother said i was 'the baddest of my tribe' (bad being good in this sense). but i've met a few racist brothers who make racist jokes against natives... i was so shocked i didnt tell him i was native... but al hamdulilah, may allah guide him to a better way than that

jannah: sorry for all the questions

wes: yea, its ok, glad to answer.

-----------------------------------------------

i'll get back insha'allah with more info on alaska, but i don't have the time right now as i usually get online right before i go to bed, until then

[slm]


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