Bismillah ~
So for starters: I was raised in a small Island in the Middle East called Bahrain. That’s a clue to what will be the appetizer in our wedding menu (STATING THE OBVIOUS, Hummus) “Ok, I promise to laugh at your bad jokes too”.
My profession, contagiously, is of a businessman and my academic education in Banking and Finance. I have a special place in my heart for Islamic Banking & Finance. If you meet me with someone who says that conventional banking and Islamic banking are the same….. I will wipe his tears after our discussion, because I am kind ^ ^
My family is small and cute. Me, my little sister, Mom and Dad. My dad is the most responsible man I have met in my life & my mom is the most supportive women I have ever had. And of course, I and my sister have a typical sibling relationship where she and I would give our kidney to each other if needed but won’t share the mobile charger.
My life is NOT typical 9 to 5. Because of business, my timings are very dynamic, it’s like anytime call to all day free. When I talk I could go on until you drop to sleep and when I listen I usually miss my morning meetings.
Before we get into the important stuff - I Love Food! (We all have our weaknesses). From the classic British Fish & Chips and Chicken & Chips to Sub-continental Street food, from the Malaysian Mee Goreng Mamak to Thailand's Tom Yum Soup, from Turkish Kebabs to Arabian Mandi Rice, From Hong Kong's Spicy Fried Rice to Macau's something I ate and don't know the name of. Every time I travel instead of sightseeing, I go for food seeing... Weirdly, also buying people food makes me happy. No, I’m not Obese if that's what you were thinking!
I can’t stand cigarettes or shisha nor carry any other addictions Alhamdulillah - although I do like to blow out air during winter just to have the feeling ^ ^
Ok moving on... (Hopefully you're not hungry)
Let me start by sharing with you some of my aspirations...
1 - Building the world’s best Muslim Brand - I already own a local brand, the idea is to expand it to promote Islamic values and social responsibilities that helps ummah at large.
2- Completing Quran memorisation by 35 (and you will have to help me with that OBVIOUSLY)
3- Understanding Quranic Arabic language by 28
4- Creating a School Curriculum (this needs explanation, can’t explain here - something I recently started working on)
5- Developing a school with the created curriculum
6 - Taking care/adopting orphan(s)
7 - Making a mark in Islamic Banking & hopefully shifting confidence of people towards Islamic Banking.
*Side Note* recently my friend told me about a concept he learnt from a vision workshop, that we don’t create General Vision in life but rather have a vision for every person in our life i.e Vision for parents, Vision for wife, Vision for Kids, Vision for Siblings, and Vision for the next of Kin and so on. I too have that, and believe, so should everyone else. Insha’Allah along with achieving the above, there are, and there will be, more to my list of aspirations as I learn and experience new and more important things in life.
He created an organisation called Helpers and I remember discussing one of my favourite slogans with him "we are not here to change the world, we are here to make it better". I honestly don’t know if it was copied, but I just know that it has been in my mind for longer than I can remember.
The world I talk about may not be the world that is geographically defined, but rather my world. My world is the world that is in my reach, wherever I step foot, wherever I am heard and wherever I am seen. That is my world and that is what I seek to bring betterment too.
One of the lessons I learnt from my teacher is "You may have EVERYTHING in life, but you will lose everything if you don't have this one thing, and that is Guidance".
I firmly believe that whatever good I have in me and in whatever way I may be benefiting others is firstly and most importantly because of Islam, and secondly because my parents, teachers the good companionship Allah has blessed me with. This is why learning about Islam is part of my weekly (if not daily) routine and I hope you hold the same, if not higher, passion for this Deen.
If you did manage to survive this crummy writing & didn’t fall asleep while reading, you just proved to yourself that you can actually deal with anything and especially me. So I’ll just stop here and insha’Allah if you want to ask any specifics - like what Islamic activities I do, likes and dislikes, more on food :], or anything I missed, just say Salam from the other side (if you are having second thoughts say أَعوذُ بِاللهِ مِنَ الشَّيْطانِ الرَّجِيم) (he-he)
May Allah grant you a righteous, loving, caring and beautiful spouse (My way of getting the Angels to make dua for me)
salam alaykum wa rehmatullah wa barakatuh ~
