EXPERIENCING BELGIUM
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
 

Dhaik kar Roza Nazar Meri Jhuk jaati hay . Haq Ya Rasool ALLAH!

Posted by Matthew Crouch at 04:57

Sheikh e Kamil, Great Naqshbandi Saint of Sindh, Hadhrat Muhammad Tahir Bakhshi Naqshbandi addressing the huge gathering in Allahabad Shareef, Kandiyaro Nowshero Feroz Sindh, Pakistan,

sufism islam pakistan

dhikr rememberance of ALLAH and His beloved Prophet Muhammad sallalahoalleyheywasalam. Ahl e Sunnah wal Jammat. HAQ Mahboob Sajjan Saeen

Friday, December 01, 2006
 

Sami Yusuf Live in Sana'a, Yemen

Posted by Matthew Crouch at 00:39

Earlier this evening I telephoned my Palestinian pal in Yemen because he had sent me a message that the Sami Yusuf concert there earlier today live in Sana'a had made him very happy. Mohammed wasn't actually planning to go even though he and our world traveling Pakistani pal Umer turned me on to Sami Yusuf's album Al Mu'allim. Al Mu'allim was instrumental so to speak in lighting my way toward Islam. I missed the Sami Yusuf concert a few weeks ago in Utrecht because I hadn't heard about it until the night before the concert and because the day after the concert I had a big Dutch exam to contend with. When I happened to smurf (I don't surf I smurf around) online onto info about Sami Yusuf performing in Yemen I telephoned Mohammed immediately to tell him. He e-mailed back a few days later saying he didn't think he would be able to go because he couldn't find where to actually buy the tickets. The media there announced the concert but failed to say where or what time. But Yemen is cute this way, it is all part of the charm that is old Yemen. It seems just before the show Mohammed heard about the location by word of mouth and later found a man in a car before the performance hall selling the tickets for 5000 Riyals which in Yemen - lets just say - that buys alot of Qat! He wasn't even sure if the man in the car was a ticket scalper or if that was indeed a Yemeni style ticket office on wheels.

The Sami Yusuf album Al Mu'allim I first heard sometime around Ramadan 2003 on Moroccan radio in Brussels. I first heard those songs before I even knew they were new music for the Muslim masses. Moroccan radio in Brussels is a trip and I've been listening to it since I moved here more than typical Belgian radio which is incidently quite good. Check out Studio Brussel online or when you are in town if you don't believe me! By the next Ramadan my pal Umer had me listening to the Al Mu'allim CD and by the following Christmas I was running around Southeastern Pakistan having been named after the Sami Yusuf song Ya Mustafa. These days I pretty much answer to Mustafa which is truely a great name that I will never live up to.

By Summer of 2005 I was running around Sana'a answering to the name Mustafa after having formally converted to Islam at the Center for the Foreigners Call in June in time for my 40th birthday. I made the Shahadah with a very kind and wise Yemeni man with a beard the likes of which I had only seen on CNN. And yes I was actually in Yemen studying the Arabic language, Tajweed (Qur'anic recitation that is like the purest form of poetry that has to be experienced to be believed) - I was also learning how to make Salah and wudu five times a day at the beautiful old Masjids with some very enthusiatic Yemeni, Syrian and Palestinian Brothers. Contrary to some of my paranoid Western white friends who do not like to travel I was not learning how to dismantle or reassemble a Kalashnikov and for the most part tried to steer clear of the Suq in Sana'a famous for selling such arms. Neither was I involved in any Soft Cell groups or "training camp", camp. Honestly where does the terror for the masses inducing media come up with these ideas? But yeah I am still American and we Constitutionally believe in one's right to bear arms wether we are for or against them as a matter of principle. American's should love visiting Yemen as it's full of guns and knives brandished about proudly like a new Mercedeez in the West.

Back to Sami Yusuf live in concert in Yemen. His more recent album My Ummah when it came out in '05 Mohammed e-mailed me from Yemen to tell me to go get a copy for myself. So I found a old little Moroccan Islamic bookshop and found the album and bought it. Mohammed though far away via internet is now never very far from hand. Mohammed who has lived the life of a typical Palestinian refugee brought up abroad and confined to a life played out as a landless foreigner in the Arabian penninsula -without any internationally recognized papers with which to travel - Mohammed found the Sami Yusuf concert to be - I don't know it's about this point when I think about what Mohammed has and has not seen in life - that a happy evening enjoying a music concert is so hard to come buy - that just knowing he had a fun night out at a Sami Yusuf concert makes me happy in a way which tears come to my eyes.

So if you are reading this and work for or know or are indeed Sami Yusuf - then I want to hear from you! Thank you Sami Yusuf for going to Yemen for Mohammed and his brothers to enjoy something of modern Muslim culture as they are living out their lives though in Islamic lands in cultures not quite their own. For what it is worth Sami Yusuf your songs and music including your work with Mesut Kurtis on the CD Salawat have helped light my lifes path in such a way to make Islam for a Westerner like me possible to not just find but make possible in my own personal life.

Mohammed did say at one point Sami Yusuf lost his eye glasses on stage and that either they were damaged or swallowed up by the audience all of which worried Mohammed. On the phone Mohammed kept saying "Mustafa Sami Yusuf looks just like you! OK he has dark hair and dark eyes but he look like you!" Which of course was flattering to hear and somehow I guess to Mohammed my caucasian looks have some common denominator I suppose with an handsome Azeri fellow - Mohammed was like "Mustafa he look like you before you had the beard" - Mohammed is a sweet fellow who said he really had to fight the urge to jump up and retrieve the fallen eyeglasses at the stage edge. Mohammed's brother got to shake Sami's hand and in this world you can't ever under estimate the power of a handshake or any human contact like that.

So this evening Mohammed and I chatted long distance from Brussels to Sana'a about Sami Yusuf - We were wondering if while in town there in Sana'a if Sami Yusuf got to travel around the majestic old city of Sana'a which if you have never been there let me tell you is like traveling back in time to the world of Old Testament Bible stories.

More and more it is looking like a well deserved and optimistic New Day In Old Sana'a.

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