Growing up in a Bangladeshi Village- A Bangladeshi Sylheti Anthology

I used to like buying balloons, as a kid growing up in Bangladesh there wasn't too many other entertainments. There was a small shop in the village selling biscuits and the likes. It was by the shores of the Kushiara on the way to my school, Chorya Prathomic Biddaloy Primary School. Often, if the village crazy man wasn't sitting outside, the group of children I would come home with would stop at the shop and buy Ozmi, balloons and Potato Crackers; it made us feel grown up transacting. My fascination was balloons, but really I hated it when they inevitably popped and would always cause me a fright, which I still seem to suffer from today. I noticed the shop was selling a different kind of balloon which looked bigger, firmer and made to last longer. It was hanging from a hook on front of the shop like AK47 ammos adjoined together around the chest of John Rambo going into war. I thought I'll buy those instead but the shopkeeper wouldn't sell it to me, he said these are not balloon. I said well what is it then? The man looking uneasy and flustered replied how many do you want and sold them to me. I indeed felt like a grown-up transacting. 

I was made to throw away all my balloons by the head-teacher, which I bought from my pocket money. It took me a decade to understand why he made me throw away my oily balloons!

That was the story of the very first time I bought condoms. Come to think of it I did have a great childhood, until I was banished to an unforgiving, cold and mean-spirited land for all my sins.

Friday in Islam

Abu Sa’id reported: The Prophet ﷺ said:

“If anyone recites Sūrah al-Kahf (Qur’ān chapter 18) on Friday, light will shine brightly for him till the next Friday.”

The Ulama agree that Friday begins from the start of Maghrib on Thursday and lasts until the end of Asr on Friday, therefore you can read Surah al-Kahf tonight and fulfill the requirements of the hadith!

Here are a list of some more Friday Sunnah’s that you should do to maximise the reward you get on the most blessed day of the week:

Invoking blessings on the Prophet Muhammad PBUH abundantly

Have a Ghusl (bath/shower) in the morning

Take care of your personal hygiene - clip nails, remove unwanted hair, use the miswak

Wear your nice clothes for Jumu’ah

Men should apply perfume before going to Jumu’ah prayers

Go to Jumu’ah prayer and listen attentively to the Khutbah

Make a lot of du’a - especially in the last hour before Maghrib begins

Albert Einstein hated Zionism

Before the illegal establishment of the Israel state in 1948, the figurehead of The Zionist terrorist organisation in America contacted Albert Einstein asking him to endorse this notorious movement. Since his heritage was Jewish, the organization assumed that Einstein, who himself had fled Nazi Germany and sought refuge from Hitler's policies, would be a vocal supporter. 

However, because Einstein had traveled to Palestine in 1922, and at that time seen first-hand the realities on the ground, he wrote this letter back, angrily disavowing any affiliation with Zionism. Einstein wanted a land in which Jews and Muslims lived together as equals, and he realized that the Zionist agenda would not be able to achieve its goals without inflicting massive sufferings and untold deaths on millions of people. He went so far as to claim that Zionism was a betrayal of the ideals of the Jewish people, and its practitioners at the time were nothing but terrorists.