Freedom's 3rd Birthday, and Happy Birthday, Prophet Mohammed!

"I was born in the cemetery
under the sign of the moon
raised from my grave
burned dead
and I was made a mercenary
in the legions of hell
now I'm king of pain
I'm insane"
- King Diamond

(Music: Sami Yusuf - Al Muallim)
Prophet Mohammed (Peace be upon him) was born in Mecca in the Sixth Century year of 570 AD, in the year known as the Year Of The Elephant, by the time when he was 40, he frequently spent time alone in a cave known as Huraa cave, when the Angel Garbiel desecended upon him with the first words of the Holy Quraan, signaling the beginning of Islam which spread onward to the rest of the world yadda yadda yadda and they married and lived happily ever after.

Now to important stuff.

Oblivious to everything as always and at 5 PM today, I was in my room pretending to study for my B.Sc but actually trying to get some highly inconveniently placed hairs in my nose, when I was subtly entranced by an array of sounds that pretty much resembled a mighty crash of so many kettles, teapots, and some other assorted faux-aluminum pans and pots all crashing together at the same time. Word? turns out it's the Birthday Surprise Party for Prophet Mohammed at the local mosque...usually at this time of day the mosque would broadcast subtle Quraan readings way until the Sunset (Maghrib) prayer but today they apparently hurled out the nearest cassette they can find of Prophet Praise, which I think was recorded in a kitchen. the guys in the scene were taking his Birthday as a subtle excuse for dancing the life out, 15 minutes onward, I just couldn't take it anymore and decided to join in the celebration my own way, by locking the room tight and shedding out my Gibson Airguitar Extravaganza and accessory
longhair wig for a lean'n'mean session of headbanging classics, a ritual I haven't done in a looong time, this is the only reason for the Mercyful Fate quote headlining this post.

Shortly afterwards though, power went down, silencing pretty much everyone.

The festival brought back some fond long-buried memories, too. Back in 1995, when I was a wee 12 years old, I was also, ahem, now this might shock you, but...I was a mosque enchanter.

* THE SECRET LIFE OF KONFUSED KID THE MOSQUE LEAD SINGER*
(Music : Led Zeppelin - What Is and What Never Should Be)

WHAM? SLAM? BAM? true, at the pristine age of 12 - my parents, both religiously committed, enlisted me at the local mosque to learn Chapter 30, the easiest one, of the Koran by heart - amongst other local kids, as the days approached the Birthday, we sensed some kind of frenzy amongst the mosque administration, turns out the mosques engaged in giving out some kinda 'activities' to cememorate the day, one of which included Islamic chants, so they took our group (some 6 students) and gave us some Islamic chants to chant, pretty soon, they discovered me - I had a good singing voice - and that I know all the Holy Names of God, a chant I figured in my childhood, and pretty soon I was made lead singer of the band.
This starts a tour amongst lots and lots of mosques in the area that pretty much lasted a month, we would chant for a bit and then I'd do my piece, only to be rewarded afterwards by a large dish of KOOZI (rice and lamb meat, amongst other niceties) which we would eat by hand like some hungry sons of bitches who's never tasted anything for the whole year, and there were some weird days, the first performance, we were gathered early for the chant so we decided to spend some time by playing soccer, luckily, there was a beautiful garden nearby where we could play much more nicely than the usual streets, to avoid tearing up our dishdasha (traditional Muslim white-cloth), unfortunately, after an hour-long of fights, curses (lots of which were
directed at God and all that is holy, as pretty much all street soccer matches are), and slide tackles, we ended up looking like....SHIT...that's all I could say, our white ironed dishdashas looked now like army camouflage with so many grass-brown stripes, and we were supposed to perform now.We did it anyway....them were days, but now the band's broken apart and everybody's gone their separate ways, no more touring for these bad, sad Afghan version of the backstreet boys...
* END *

Baby, if this ain't turning into a nice old Islamic Republic of Iraq...spitting image of its sister eastward - I am sure u noticed I'm kinda cranky at the subject, not that I mean any disrespect for the holy prophet (much to the annoyance of some of my marauding friends) but I am so sick and tired of these fucking religious ceremonies, Death of Hussein, ha, we got the Birth Of Mohammed, and all these Shiite visitors can't wait to visit Imam Ali to 'congratulate him on the birth of the prophet', as if they're both real, breathing persons and not old long-gone 7th century dudes.

(Music : Iron Maiden - The Evil That Men Do)
In reality, I think this festival is incorrect by its own right, and I think the prophet wouldn't approve of it if he was amongst it, there are only two 100% certified festivites in Islam : Eid Al-Adha and Eid Al-Fitr, all else is bid3a (creative balooney).

Crikey, verily.

Today, the prophet just made his 1436 birthday, damn that's a lot of candles, if we were to make a cake, I think people would be pretty much eating the wax off the 1436 candles than anything else. and what can we bring as presents anyway?

and of course there's that oh-so-adorable part-time hooker TV broadcaster on such cheap call-quiz Satellite stations such as STRIKE TV, who offered important statements that shed much-
needed light on the ceremony today :و

مرسي خالص للله و لحالكن و بنقول للنبي الكريم هابي برثداي

There sister, you just made yourself a hassana, may Allah put u in Janna.
And the answer to the riddle is an Ostrich, dammit, a fuckin' Ostrich.
Should i just call?
Ow, who cares!

Happy Birthday, Prophet Mohammed!

(MUSIC : Happy Birthday To You)

**************
In other news, today marks Freedom's 3rd year, she now knows how to walk and talk and is still stumbling through her first words way beyond normal age for talking, yesterday she almost spit out 'roadside bomb' and 'armed car with big boo-boo', Freedom looked pretty darn cute on the first days, but these days she's turning into a real ugly boar, we avoid looking in her face most of the time, her teeth are falling apart and something is growing at her nostrils, we are seriously considering dumping her at the nearest trash-joint...

If Saddam died these nearby days, I think the gravestone should read:
BETTER THE DEVIL YOU KNOW.
and he'd be glad, that son-of-a-gun.
Anyway,
Happy Birthday, Freedom! ....
(MUSIC : Mawtini)