YOU KNOW YOUR ISLAM IS IN TROUBLE WHEN…
By Taha Ghaznavi

• the last thing you learnt about Islam, the Quran, or Jihad was from CNN
• all your conversations with your friends have to do with guys/girls, or movies, or guys/girls in movies
• you spend more nights at the club during Ramadan than at a Masjid
• you can't remember the last time you asked someone a question about something you didn't understand in Islam
• you find time to watch three movies a week but find yourself too busy to pray Salah regularly
• that Quran translation you were given last 'Eid is still sitting on the top shelf of your bookrack
• the 'inner voice' you hear when you are in complete silence sounds surprisingly similar to the latest hip-hop song you heard
• you don't know any people who you can say Salaams to without feeling embarrassed
• the feeling that God is watching you in all that you do is never more than a passing thought
• you are available to receive phone calls at 2 a.m.
• your clothes and hair smell of cigarettes on Sunday mornings even though you don't smoke
• knowing something is right or wrong and feeling guilty about it does not effect whether you actually do it or not
• you gave hope of ever entering Paradise because you don't feel you deserve it after 'all that I have done'
• when you want something in your life you fantasize about it and say "I wish!"
• you can't figure out why you are never truly happy deep in your heart and why nothing good in your life ever seems to last (why does it always have to end?)
• the happiest day of your life so far was on a Christmas, Valentine, or a dance
• you are loneliest when you are sad or when something bad has happened to you (where did all my friends go?)
• you don't think of the Prophet at least once a day
• when you hear of Muslims dying somewhere in the world, you consider it part of 'politics' which you have nothing to do with
• your 'best friend' is a person of the opposite gender yet not your husband or wife
• you have no motivation to change things in your life
• when your faults are pointed out to you, you reply "This is who I am, for better or for worse!"
• listening to the Quran does not make you feel guilty
• you are actually flattered when people on the street stare or ask you out
• you friends never object to any of your bad habits or behaviours and vice versa
• you don't care whether you go to heaven or hell since no one can really be sure about these things
• to you, Islam is just another 'organized institutionalized religion'
• you actually agreed with everything your philosophy professor taught in class
• you generally feel crappy and often find yourself telling people that
• your consider and justify your sins as 'a part of who I am'
• you want to travel around the world someday but Makkah is not one of your planned stops
• your parents hate you and have said so to you
• you read the horoscopes yet have never performed Salat-ul-Istikharah
• you have never felt like falling down on your face and crying to Allah
• you look down upon people who are more practicing than yourself as 'just mullahs and molvis'
• your past bad experiences with some Muslims prevent you from getting closer to Islam and other Muslims