a near death experience

on monday, june 7th, myself and two brothers needed to go to the smart village in the morning and come back to alexandria in the afternoon.  we rented a “limo,” (which is just a normal rental car with a driver) to take us, wait for us, and bring us back.  we left early in the morning, finished our work, and left cairo to go home a few minutes after maghrib.

the road that connects cairo to alexandria is called “taree2 (masr eskenderia) al sa7rawy,” or “cairo-alexandria desert road” as google maps translates it.  the distance is about 200km (~120 miles).  the way people in egypt drive, combined with the high speeds, bad lighting, and bad conditions of the road make this road a dangerous place, especially at night.

anyhow, along the way, after traveling about 46km from cairo, the driver smelled something and said, “i smell something, let me check on the tires” - he parked on the side of the road and found a tire had gone flat, so he put on the hazard lights and said he would replace it.  we looked and found a masjid right next to us and decided to go and pray maghrib and isha there while he finished repairing the tire.

the masjid was at a lower elevation than the road (10-20ft), so we went down (on quite a sandy area) to the masjid which was very small, old, etc.  we prayed, and started walking up to get to the car.  we saw the driver was done and started backing up the car a little bit.  we finally got to the top (to the shoulder of the highway).  we approached the car, and when we were one step away and i was about to open the door, i saw a medium sized going at full speed crash straight in the car, leaving a track of dust, glass, debris, and making the car fly into the ditch into the lower elevation of the area where the masjid is.  for a few seconds, we saw fire, and then it stopped.

when the dust had settled, we were really shocked and worried about the driver - miraculously, al7amdulillah, nothing happened to either driver - both were okay.

needless to say, we were very thankful - if there hadn’t been a masjid there, and if we hadn’t gone to pray, i would have been on the left passenger side of the car, the area of the car which took the majority of the impact.  if we had been just 3 seconds later, i would have been opening the car door and/or have gotten into the car, and in this case, i may have been seriously hurt.

so al7amdulillah that i am alive - as Allah (swt) says in:

“And He is the subjugator over His servants, and He sends over you guardian-angels until, when death comes to one of you, Our messengers take him, and they do not fail [in their duties].” 6:61

sub7anAllah.  so anyhow, it appears as though the driver of the truck had fallen asleep or something and thus hit the car, even though it was clear that it was on the shoulder (well inside), the blinkers on, etc.

after the accident, the car was in the hill between the higher and lower grounds - on it’s right side was a huge concrete block that the car could have hit.  the driver later told us that he felt something telling him to reverse the car - had he not, he would have hit one of many metal poles hanging out from the ground on his way down.

but get this - the truck stopped - in the middle lane of the highway, and that’s where it stayed for about an hour until a big truck was able to come.  people stopped the traffic manually (with nothing but one of those red-lit sticks) and had a big truck (literally) drag (with a rope) the medium sized truck to the side of the road.

[gallery exclude=“19” link=“file” columns=“2” orderby=“ID”]

anyhow - some interesting points were that 1.  the people that reside in the area where we stopped got out and left what they were doing to help us, offered water, support, and helped moving the cars to safety.  2.  people in egypt are really afraid of police, especially in high speed accidents.  3.  the man decided not to press charges when the police came (one possible reasoning is that the company he works for has brought the car into the country on a “diplomatic visa” so that they don’t pay taxes for it, and yet aren’t using it for “diplomatic purposes,” and so they could get in trouble).  3.  people in egypt drive at insane speeds on that road and corresponding small roads.

the driver had someone else working at the company come from alexandria to pick us up and drop us back.  it was hard to sleep on the way back - the new driver was a very aggressive one, and along the way, we encountered fire fighters putting out a car on fire from a different accident, a car going the opposite direction on the highway, and cars going extremely slowly in the left most lane of the highway, thereby almost causing accidents.

i’ll write about the aftermath in another post insha’Allah.

introduction

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم،

there are fobs and there are abcXs… being born in cairo and raised in the us, i happen to be neither and both at the same time.

this blog is entitled “عسل و طحينه” - the name was inspired by “عسل اسود” (molasses), a new movie (which i still haven’t seen) for ahmad helmy documenting an egyptian american’s attempt to move back to egypt after living in the us for years. “عسل و طحينه” is an (awesome) egyptian dish in which you put tahina on top of molasses and eat it with bread. the word tahina itself also means “hard, strenuous work or effort,” which i figured may add to the meaning as well.

since moving back to egypt almost a month ago, i often found myself thinking, “this situation would make a good blog post,” so i decided to start this blog to document my experiences here.

desktop screenshot for february 2010

full size

here’s a screenshot of my linux box taken on february 25th, 2010. click the image above for the full sized view. linux desktop running openbox, a bunch of transparent urxvt terminals, cairo clock, and trayer (with banshee, pidgin, transmission, pino, dropbox, guake, and tomboy running).

i recently finished watching the old star trek movies, hence the star trek influenced desktop. and, of course, here’s the problem with teleportation.

google buzz - friend or follow

i like the site for twitter, ‘friendorfollow,’ which tells me who i am following and isn’t following me back, who are following me and i am not following back, and so on. given that i got access to google buzz today, i decided to write a little script to help me determine the breakdown of my friends (specifically, who i am following and isn’t following me back, since the rest of the information is easy to read off of the website anyway).

this script will tell you who your friends are (lol, i wish), who your fans are, and who you are following but isn’t following you back. unfortunately, there’s a manual step involved (getting the server response with your friends and followers). there’s really no point in trying to automate this right now, because soon enough, i expect that one of the google apis will expose this functionality.

(removed download since this probably doesn’t work anymore).

so sick of farmville...

wanted to take a short break, so i decided to take out 20 minutes and write a silly song about farmville (it’s a rip off of ne yo’s “so sick” song). note that the lyrics (and thus the mp3) are in pre-alpha (and are not likely to see any future revisions).

audio version

lyrics:

gotta change the favorites i have, for the new design in store, cuz right now i really can’t, take it any more, and i know it makes no sense, cuz my farm is nice fo’ sure, but i can’t wait for gas anymore.

it’s ridiculous… it’s been weeks, i’ve been playing and i can’t get over it, and my time’s worth more than this, enough is enough, no more sitting around, clicking around, i am so tired of farmin’ up, to get ahead of you,

and i am so sick of farmville, hear me loud and clear, so done with planting, flowers and corn ears, and i am so sick of farmville, and the much clickin’ fo sho' so why won’t this game leave me alone?

got nice equipment on board, a tractor and seeder, too bad they’re as useless as, a plastic weed eater, i am so sick of running out of gas, and clicking every square, and how every click must be multiplied by three…

that’s the reason that i am so sick of farmville, hear me loud and clear, so done with planting, flowers and corn ears, and i am so sick of farmville, and the much clickin’ fo sho' so why won’t this game leave me alone?

said i am so sick of farmville, hear me loud and clear, so done with playing a game, makes me bored to tears, and i am so sick of farmville, unless i find a bot, so why won’t this game leave me alone? why won’t this game leave me alone…

salam, android!

after the nexus one came out, i became a little more interested in android. while i had written a simple ‘salam world’ app some time ago, i figure it would be nice to delve a little deeper and try to write something remotely useful.

so without further adieu, introducing a (very simple) quran for android:

source code on github

for the most part, android is fairly fun and easy to develop for. however, one of the most frustrating parts is the extremely limited memory for apps. since apps can’t be on the sd card (due to some security issues), you are limited to the very small amount of memory on the device. consequently, in order to display the images for the quran in this app, the app must download the data to the user’s sd card.

note - try it at your own risk, i only tested it on the emulator…

so long, yahoo!

on july 19th, 2006, i posted my first blog post from california. i moved there to start a new job at yahoo! ~3.5 years later, it was time to go, and so at this point, i am officially a non-Yahoo!

what’s next? i don’t know yet, but i am both excited and optimistic about the future. insha’Allah khair. maybe it’s not a bad time to give a startup a shot…

a little rhyme about makkah

mok and i were chatting about makkah on im and we brought back a very old habit of ours from the days of highschool and college - rhyming about any and everything. so without further adieu, here’s a snippet from our im conversation:

omer: makkah makkah, i love u like i love my motha you are a city like which there is no otha above u the angels do hover

me: in you i am a little more pious i drop my prejudice and all my bias the times of salah set my pace, before the adhan to the haram i’d race

omer: as i see the nur coming off them hujjaj’s face

me: first floor, second floor, or even third watching the tawaf made by humans and birds

omer and i: seein people doing tawaf around the clock all types of people - doctors, engineers, nerds and jocks

omer: and as the clock, goes tick and the tock u listening to the rhyme by mok and ak

by the way, you can see a few of the pictures i took at the haram here.

quran jetpack script

so i had a little bit of time before i depart on my journey for hajj, so i wanted to play around with the firefox jetpack extension a little bit. so without further adieu, this post is here to introduce a simple quran plugin for jetpack :)

what is it this is a quran script for jetpack, a plugin for firefox which allows customizing the browser just through javascript.

when you are typing in a textarea (in wordpress, gmail, google talk, etc), if you highlight any text in the format of sura:ayah (ex 1:1) and right click on it, you will be given a menu that allows you to replace that with the actual verse (in arabic, transliteration, or translation).

this is very nifty for taking notes, chatting, sending emails, etc.

how does it look like? here is a screenshot:

known issues

• sometimes, the server appears to take long to reply so it doesn’t return and you are forced to try again.
• the plugin doesn’t work on google docs and other sites that overwrite right click functionality.
• the plugin also doesn’t seem to be working on gmail when rich formatting is on.

how to install it

• install jetpack for firefox.
• go to this page. on the top right corner of the webpage, you will find a button that says, “Install…”. click it.
• scroll to the very bottom, click the “auto-update this feature” checkbox, and then click on “i know what i am doing, install it!”

source code the source is also available as on github in this gist.

changelog november 16th, 2009

• fixed a bug in which the appended (sura:ayah) to the text was put at the end of the textarea rather than right after the ayah.
• added a little favicon for the menu.

thoughts before hajj

so i was sitting on a plane in san francisco awaiting the departure of my flight to atlanta, from where i will insha’Allah be leaving for hajj. the captain mentioned something about a leak that they have to fix, so i figured, “why not write a blog post on my phone in the meanwhile?” (the plane took off and i realized i had more stuff to add and edit, so the in-airplane mobile blogging commenced on land and in the air).

anyhow, i wanted to write the pieces of advice and gems given to me by my shuyookh, elders, family and friends who have already went to hajj.

hajj - themes and similitudes when i went to ummrah before, i have always been told how i7ram makes all people equal - you could be the richest of people or the poorest of people, you could be from america, china, or burkina faso, but ultimately, it didn’t matter - you were wearing the same simple non-embellished two pieces of cloth while doing your ummrah (or hajj).

however, the parallel i recently learned is that between hajj and the day of judgment. there is a plethora of people (millions), all moving towards the same place, each to themselves and not worrying about those around them. the rich and the poor, the arab and the non-arab, the powerful and the weak, the healthy and the sick all gather from all parts of the land for this journey. on this day, all are dressed in i7ram - similar to the burial shrouding one is wrapped in - and as though all are just being resurrected and walking towards “ard al ma7shar” to await reckoning - may Allah make that day easy upon us!

it is thus not surprising that surat al hajj would start with these verses (22:1-2).

hajj tips 0. first and foremost, the importance of time during hajj. so many people advised me, “don’t waste your time, maximize your time of worship.” others told me, “american crowds go to hajj in luxury, with constant buffets of the best of foods and so on - so eat minimally, especially from once you go to makkah until after the day of 3arafah!” (to stay light and avoid down time). another common advice was “watch who your company is on the trip and beware of bad company!” another tip was “lose the watch, you don’t need it!”

1. almost everyone advised “do not get angry!” i was told “forget logical reasoning, don’t resist or try to convince anyone of anything, you don’t want to lose your hajj.” i was also told “everyone will be on edge there, you will be pushed, shoved, and tested a lot there, so stay on your toes and whatever you do, don’t lose your cool!” may Allah make it easy! i think ayah 2:197 is very relevant.

2. the most important request people always make is for du3a2 - du3a2, du3a2, and more du3a2 - du3a2 for ones family, friends, shuyookh, those who have rights upon us, those who passed away before us, the ummah, and for ourselves - du3a2 for this world and for the next. may Allah make it easy and accept!

3. writing the waseya (islamic will) before leaving - this action in and of itself reminds a person that death can come at anytime, and thus reminds us of the importance of being prepared. may Allah grant us حسن الخاتمه - ameen.

4. on a related note, calling family, friends, and people with whom you may have had trouble in the past to ask them for forgiveness highlights the importance of brotherhood, good character, and making sure one is on good terms with all people.

hajj - aspirations/what to aim for 0. first and foremost, that Allah accepts it and makes it a hajj mabroor - this is absolutely critical, because without this, the trip would arguably be wasted.

speaking of mabroor, brother Ihab gave an awesome khutbah on hajj, in which he cited a hadith in which the Prophet (saw) said that there is no other reward for a hajj mabroor except for jannah. the sa7aba asked the Prophet (saw), “wa ma biruhu?” - and what causes a hajj to be mabroor? and he (saw) answered with “it3am alta3am” (feeding food) and “ifsha2 al salam” (spreading salam).

[note - i had forgotten the second item and found it in this blog post].

1. that Allah returns one home completely free of sin, and helps one to improve upon themselves and to become a better person (and ultimately, to grant them حسن الخاتمه and jannah).

2. that Allah accepts one’s du3a2s while there.

3. that Allah allows hajj to be a positive turning point in one’s life.

ayat/verses

• surat al-Baqarah verses 196-202

• surat al-Hajj verses 26-30

credits may Allah reward sheikh Mohamed, brother Ihab, and all of those who gave me hajj training, advice and shared their experiences with me in any way, shape, or form (the names are too many to mention here and i would undoubtedly forget someone, so i will suffice by saying, “may Allah reward you all”).

and finally… some last (and mostly unrelated notes):

• this is most probably the longest piece i have ever written on my phone (and on a plane). for the record, writing long articles on an iphone is a painful experience!

• that having been said, while i plan on taking my iphone with me, i am hoping not to use it - otherwise, knowing me, i’ll get distracted and start live blogging my hajj - (“i am now at mina! check out this picture/video!” - and, of course, “i am now on 3arafah! send your du3a2 requests via twitter before maghrib and i will pray for you!”)

• and yes, in case you are wondering, i felt strongly obliged to start my lists at 0.