And the mountains shall turn into heaps of sand, after it had once been hard rock. And then the trumpet will be blown, so those in the heavens and on earth will be terrified, except for whoever Allah wills…(Imam Ali (AS) attributed in al-Amali ch. 31, # 3)

Mount Diablo (lit. devil’s mountain) like many such areas of what is now called “north america”, was and is considered sacred by many first nation peoples who lived here before the european invasion of this land. It is interesting to see how often the european invaders misunderstood sacred “energy” of the immensely beautiful mountains, forests, rivers, and deserts of this land to be “evil” and named them after “the devil.”

Someone asked the Prophet, peace be upon him and his family, about the timings of the Daily Prayers, and the Prophet, peace be upon him and his family, replied: ‘Jibraeel came to me and showed me the timings. He prayed Zohr when the sun passed the meridian as it declined to his right, and then he showed me the time of Asr, when the shadows of every object become equal to its size. Then he prayed Maghrib when the sun set, and he prayed Isha when the twilight disappeared. And he prayed the Subh prayers in the last part of the night’s darkness (near dawn) as the stars flickered. So you say your prayers on these times, and remain constant on the known tradition and upon the clear path. (narrated by Imam Ali (AS) attributed in al-Amali ch. 31, # 3)

(comment: The more we depend on printed paper schedules the more we become distant from our ecology and environment. The time for fajr is not “between 5:03 A.M. and 6:25 A.M. standard time). The time is: “the last part of the night’s darkness (near dawn) as the stars flickered”. Yes, given our present circumstances it is difficult to be in touch with our natural environment that we are a part off - do we even know what the words of the Prophet mean, without looking at that schedule stuck on our refrigerator? But still, we can atleast try, to the best of our abilities, inshallah).

Amirul Mo’mineen, peace be upon him said: “Knowledge is the most precious legacy, and civility and good behavior are beautiful adornments, and thinking intellectually is a clean mirror, and drawing lessons from the events is the best warner and advisor. The best way to cultivate yourself is to avoid that which you would not like others to do to you.” May Allah bless you our master Muhammad, the Prophet, and his pure Family. (attributed in al-Amali, ch. 39, #7)

Justice and Remembrance: Introducing the Spirituality of Imam Ali (AS) by Reza Shah-Kazemi

” ‘Consider not who said (it), rather look at what he said.’ The stress here is placed on the meaning, and the meaning takes priority over the speaker; the ’speaker’ stands for the whole gamut of historical factors that generate a ‘text.’ Simply to locate a text in history -who wrote it, when and with what purpose–is not the same thing as explaining or assimilating its meaning.

This is not to deny the importance of history; it is, rather, to deny that universal truths, or spiritual wisdom, can be substantially determined by something so contingent as history. The forms of the expression may change but the truth of the deepest kind, pertaining to what is most profound and immutable in the human spirit, are universal and abiding in human experience.

Truths that can change from generation to generation can hardly be called truths; they cannot be said to touch that which makes the human spirit what it is. “

“There is a means of comfort for all. The birds get their rest from being with other birds. Likewise believers (momin) rest when they associate with other believers.” (Imam Jafer Sadeq (AS) as narrated in Mishkat al-Anwar hadith #492)

Mike Davis writes:

Dubai, together with its emirate neighbors, has achieved the state of the art in the disenfranchisement of labour. In a country that only abolished slavery in 1963, trade unions, most strikes and all agitators are illegal, and 99 per cent of the private-sector workforce are immediately deportable non-citizens. Indeed, the deep thinkers at the American Enterprise and Cato Institutes must salivate when they contemplate the system of classes and entitlements in Dubai.

At the top of the social pyramid, of course, are the al-Maktoums and their cousins who own every lucrative grain of sand in the sheikhdom. Next, the native 15 per cent of the population (many of them originally Arab-speakers from southern Iran) constitutes a leisure class whose uniform of privilege is the traditional white dishdash. Their obedience to the dynasty is rewarded by income transfers, free education, subsidized homes and government jobs. A step below are the pampered mercenaries: more than 100,000 British expatriates (another 100,000 uk citizens own second homes or condos in Dubai), along with other European, Lebanese, Iranian and Indian managers and professionals, who take full advantage of their air-conditioned affluence and two months of overseas leave every summer. The Brits, led by David Beckham (who owns a beach) and Rod Stewart (who owns an island), are probably the biggest cheerleaders for al-Maktoums paradise, and many of them luxuriate in a social world that recalls the lost splendour of gin-and-tonics at Raffles and white mischief in Simlas bungalows. Dubai is expert at catering to colonial nostalgia.

The city-state is also a miniature Raj in a more important and notorious aspect. The great mass of the population are South Asian contract labourers, legally bound to a single employer and subject to totalitarian social controls. Dubais luxury lifestyles are attended by vast numbers of Filipina, Sri Lankan and Indian maids, while the building boom (which employs fully one-quarter of the workforce) is carried on the shoulders of an army of poorly paid Pakistanis and Indians, the largest contingent from Kerala, working twelve-hour shifts, six and a half days a week, in the asphalt-melting desert heat.

more here