When Marshal Mcluhan said “Medium is the message” he was wrong! It’s not what it is, it’s what you do with it. And if you don’t believe me, I can always throw the rusty knife example (no pun intended) at you. It goes like this: A knife is bad if you kill someone with it, but it’s good if you cut an apple with it.

So why am I ranting about something that makes no sense? Maybe because I want to start converting aluminum cigar holders into fancy Miswak Holders with Arabic calligraphy on them. Now that I’m getting emails and phone calls from all around the world, saying “Haram brother!” “Bida brother!” you understand why I had to give such a lengthy and defensive introduction to this concept.

You have to admit it will be pretty useful. I’ve seen brothers carry their Miswak in their dirty pockets, dashboards, mouths and other places which might not pass the censors – have some concern for hygiene ikhwati fillah!

Comment and let me know:

(1) How this idea flies with you?

(2) How much you would pay for it, with or without Miswak inside?

(3) Would you get it as a gift for someone else?

Stop rolling, start tapping!

Ever been really excited about something, and then your friend says:

“Isn’t that haram?”

Yeah it can be a real downer. I was telling my friend about our new found love for Monopoly and the epic games that had been taking place downtown Toronto, when he quoted a pretty solid hadith about the use of dice. It goes like this:

“He who plays with dice will be deemed as a person thrusting his hands in pig’s blood.” (Reported by Muslim on the authority of Buraydah)

http://www.islamonline.net/english/In_Depth/Religious/SportsinIslam/PlayingSports/Articles/05.shtml#ixzz0dGo4plqV

Yeah, I know all you super chilled out, Islam is love, peace and goodwill people are going “How extreeeeme! Dude, this is not what our deen is about!” However, the least we can do is to read the hadith a couple of times, let it sink in and get some scholarly opinions about it. OR, we can just go invent a Random Number Generator (RNG). This is one of the best things about the Shariah, it forces you to be creative and think outside the box. The RNC will not just be a bareboned LED Digital Clock (like some of you NON-creative people would have come with), it will actually be embedded in the middle of the boardgame (as shown in the picture). All you have to do is tap the interface and it will come up with a random number for you – Genius eh!

Anyone wishing to contribute to the development of this product, comment below with improvements and additions. It’s going to make millions!

Happy rolling, umm… tapping!

Recently I lay down in my bed to go to sleep at night and realized that I couldnt remember the adhkar for going to sleep and that sometimes I would forget to say these adhkar all-together.

This got me thinking, imagine if I had these adkhar near my bed, on the wall … not just that but when I switched off the lights to sleep these adhkar would glow … this way I would never forget to say these adhkar for sure … Insha’Allah. It would help me fulfill the sunnah, have the protection of Allah (swt) when I go to sleep and allow me to sleep in a state of islam insha’Allah …

What a great way to teach kids adhkaar too… Allah o alam, so thats the idea… Glow-in-the-dark Adhkaar… what do you guys think?

This is a demo video of our Muslim Prayer in Progress Sign concept, see original article here.

I have always had trouble praying in public places like empty classrooms and parking lots, because if a non-Muslim passes by they get confused. I would like to be able to carry around a pocket sized sign that I could put up next to me so that people couldnt get confused. This would make me and passerbys more comfortable. I am not a designer myself so I am not sure these sketches make sense but I did a quick video with my friend Abdullah to demonstrate how it could work. Comments from the community and professional industrial designers about the usefulness/feasibility of this product would be much appreciated.