I TRIED TO STOP THE PASSING DAY

I TRIED TO STOP THE PASSING DAY 

I TRIED TO TURN BACK THE HANDS OF TIME,

BUT MOMENTS FLEW LIKE A PLEASENT BREEEZE,

AND LEFT ME WITH ITS SOOTHING TOUCH..... 

EVERY MOMENT THAT I SPENT WITH YOU

IS ETCHED IN MY MIND

THE MEMORIES YOU'VE GIVEN ME

ARE MY COMPANION FOR LIFE

THE LAUGHTER I SHARED WITH YOU

THE TEARS I SHED FOR YOU

THE TIME I GAVE YOU

JUST DOESN'T SEEM ENOUGH,

BUT I AM HELPLESS

WHAT YOU GAVE ME WAS MORE THAN MY EXPECTATIONS

TOO BAD I COULDN'T HOLD ONTO YOU FOR LONG

I LOST YOU IN MY BATTLE WITH TIME.

ITS FUNNY HOW WE MET AS STRANGERS

AND WITHIN FEW DAYS TIME

OUR HEARTS GOT LINKED

WITH STRONG BOND OF FRIENDSHIP

I DONT KNOW WHAT LIFE HAS IN STORE FOR US

SO JUST WANT TO THANK YOU,

FOR MAKING ME A PART OF UR LIFE.....

DEDICATED TO ALL MY FRIENDS

by Mahrukh Anees (A2)

Why do we read Quran ?

Why do we read Quran, even if we can't understand a single Arabic word????

This is a beautiful story.

An old American Muslim lived on a farm in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky with his grandson. Each morning Grandpa was up early sitting at the kitchen table reading  his  Quran.  His grandson wanted to be just

like him and tried to imitate  him in every way he could.

 

One day the grandson asked, "Grandpa! I try to read the Quran just like you but I don't understand it, and what I do understand I forget as soon as I close the book. What good does reading the Qur'an do?"

The Grandfather quietly turned from putting coal in the stove and replied, "Take this coal basket down to the river and bring me back a basket of water." 

 

The boy did as he was told, but all the water leaked out before he got back to the house. The grandfather laughed and said, "You'll have to move a little faster next time," and sent him back to  the river with the basket

to try again. This time the boy ran faster, but again the basket was empty before he returned home. Out of breath, he told his grandfather that it was impossible to carry water in a basket, and  he went to get a bucket instead.

 

The old man said, "I don't want a bucket of water; I want a basket of water. You're just not trying hard enough," and he went out the door to watch the boy try again.

 

At this point, the boy knew it was impossible, but he wanted to show his Grandfather that even if he ran as fast as he could, the water would leak out before he got back to the house. The boy again dipped the basket into river and ran hard, but when  he reached his grandfather the basket was again empty. Out of breath, he said, "See Grandpa, it's useless!"

"So you think it is useless?" The old man said, "Look at the basket." 

 

The boy looked at the basket and for the first time realized that the basket was different. It had been transformed from a dirty old coal basket and was now clean, inside and out.

 

"Son, that’s what happens when you read the Qur'an. You might not understand or  remember everything, but when you read it, you will be changed, inside and out. That is the work of Allah in our lives."

submitted by,

Syed Muhammad bin Khalid UOL

They Did Not See the Danger until It Was Too Late

She could hear the machines beeping, and although all the medication had made her disorientated she was conscious enough to realize where this was leading. Thinking too much made her head hurt, so now she tried hard to keep everything at the back of her mind. 

Crying and whining would not do her any good, nor would regret. She traveled back in time to her life which millions of people dreamed of living. She had whatever she laid her eyes on. She recalled from her childhood how crazy she was about brands and smiled. From an expensive Valentino exquisite dress to Prada shoes from a private collection, Tiffany jewelry, and a house on the hill with architecture from the best designer. She had everything.

Now it was all slipping away from her hands, and so was her life. She had enough money to buy herself anything she pleased, except her health. She paid the best doctors, but now it was too late. All the money in the world could not buy the time lost, the misjudgment of her health diagnosis. It was late and she was dying.

It had been the premier of the film she had been dying to be a part of. She had walked the red carpet many times, but this was the highlight of her career. The snaps and flash of the camera blinded her; that is what she thought. She had reached this point after all those sacrifices. Ignoring her family and ignoring her own needs to fulfill this one dream. This one grand night she had waited for the whole previous year. She could see a change in herself, and not a positive one. But after this one night, everything would be different. She will go back to her family, her dear ones and as for her health issues; they would be dealt with too. That’s when the so called flashes blinded her completely, and she fainted. It was actually the aggravated sickness inside her. 

Next when she opened her eyes, it was the white hospital walls that she saw and the doctor telling her that the fainting spell was due to stress. She blanked out again. Her next hospital memory was of panic and the queasy feeling in her stomach hinting her about the forthcoming troubles. 

Now she lay in a sterilized hospital room, craving for the openness outside. She couldn’t even muster any anger for her previous doctor for his mishap. She wanted to leave the world with good deeds to her name.

By Nadia Erum AS Commerce

But Mom Everybody Makes Mistakes!

Young people are filled with hopes, dreams and what they perceive as new ideas. Older people are often scoffed at. The younger generation believes that the world would be so much better off if they were in power. Keeping this in mind as soon as we reach teenage years, our automatic reaction is to rebel against the very thing our parents tell us to do. I’m no different. I do the same. 

I told you not to put your socks on the bed. I told you, you were not wrapped warmly enough; now don’t whine about your flu. I told you to start studying earlier, I told you, and I told you to do this. Why did you have to go and do that? My child just won’t listen to me.

Isn’t this the cry of every parent nowadays? From the beginning of time, there has been some kind of discord between each generation. To quote what a wise lion once said, ‘it is the circle of life.’

  

A few days ago, my family was at a wedding that was held outside in winters under the open sky. My parents, in their experience and wisdom had asked me time and time again to wear warm clothing and proper shoes with socks. But no, off I went in my pretty heels and half sleeves shirt (it was really cold and foggy, I might add). Well, we all know what happened next, yes I fell sick.

So what is this within us that makes us ignore our parents repeated instructions, often at our own cost! I think it is our drive towards our independence. Since we are not on our own; enjoying complete liberty and all its perks, we try to find ways of distinguishing ourselves from our parents, to feel we have some measure of control over our lives. We are on an eternal quest for the niche that fits us perfectly. Getting noses and eyebrows pierced, listening to music our parents cannot stand, adopting completely different political view points, are but a few examples. Nothing really compares to the thrill of working and living on your own, but you take what you can get in those transitional years, don’t you? It’s the only way for us to say, “I am not my parent; I am an individual in my own right.”

However, it is these very expressions of individuality which are the cause of frustration for parents worldwide. Moms and Dads just don’t understand when their trusting toddler becomes that moody teenager, all thanks to the fluctuating hormones. Our first bike, our first cell phone, our first iPod and our first part time jobs are all steps away from our parents. With every milestone we become less dependent, less reliant on them. Understandably, thus we become a source if anxiety. Where has the child gone who used to bring you broken toys to fix, believed you had super powers and could make everything right again? 

Unfortunately, the progression is inevitable, eventually all parents will have to accept the fact that their child is now an opinionated and an outspoken teenager. So why fight it? Why mollycoddle your children? You regale them with stories of your hard work and struggle everyday. If those hardships got you where you are now, they know they have to make their shares of mistakes. Their frost bitten toes will teach them the lesson. Your insight gained through the years will reach them some way somehow. So let them explore and experiment. Let them broaden their horizons; let them wear fancy heels when it’s chilly. “Now I have to go ask mama about the rock concert next week.”

Areeba Khan

AS Commerce

CAN DEATH BE AVOIDED??

‘Frozen to death’ is a phrase well heard of but ‘frozen to live’ still appears strange to the ears. Humans have advanced rapidly in science and technology and finally have attained some grounds on dealing with the major obstacle to human immortality that is DEATH! Success of scientists in this field is still unknown yet they are hopeful.

Many people have been dead for years and their bodies frozen. They choose a method called cryonics in the hope that when medical science has advanced they will be thawed from their frozen state and cured for the diseases that killed them.

    

Cryonics (from Greek kryos- meaning icy cold) is the low-temperature preservation of humans and animals who can no longer be sustained by contemporary medicine, with the hope that healing and resuscitation may be possible in the future. Cryopreservation of people or large animals is not reversible with current technology. The stated logic for cryonics is that people who are considered dead by current legal or medical definitions may not necessarily be accepted as dead by all future technologies. It is proposed that cryopreserved people might someday be recovered by using highly advanced future technology!

Most physicians and scientists view cryonics with skepticism because cryonics is so dependent upon the future and because it is impossible to prove what future technology will be capable of doing. Nonetheless, a very high percentage of those who are involved in cryonics are scientists!

A central premise of cryonics is that long-term memory, personality, and identity are stored in durable cell structures and patterns within the brain that do not require continuous brain activity to survive. This premise is generally accepted in medicine; it is known that under certain conditions the brain can stop functioning and still later recover with retention of long-term memory. Additional scientific premises of cryonics are that brain structures encoding personality and long-term memory persist for some time after clinical death, these structures are preserved by cryopreservation, which as is expected would be restored to function later on with the help of advanced future technology.

Long-term cryopreservation can be achieved by cooling to near 77.15 Kelvin, the boiling point of liquid nitrogen. It is a common mistaken belief that cells will burst due to the formation of ice crystals within the cell, but this only occurs if the freezing rate exceeds the osmotic loss of water to the extra cellular space. However, damage from freezing can still be serious; ice may still form between cells, causing mechanical and chemical damage. Cryonics organizations use cryoprotectants to reduce this damage. Cryoprotectant solutions are circulated through blood vessels to remove and replace water inside cells with chemicals that prevent freezing. This can reduce damage greatly, but freezing of whole people still causes injuries that are not reversible today.

As of 2010, only around 200 people have undergone the procedure since it was first proposed in 1962. In the United States, cryonics can only be legally performed on humans after they have been pronounced legally dead.

People get themselves frozen via cryogenics to wake up at a later time. This is done sometimes because they have incurable diseases and sometimes because they think humans will figure out at some point how to live forever. So, they want to be frozen till that point comes in human technology.

God states that each human being shall taste death at one point. To someone religious this is an undeniable truth, as is evidenced by people dying throughout time.

If one is not religious, when do you think the time will come when human technology will be able to grant humans immortality? Is it even possible?

By

Sana Abdullah. As Pre-Medical