Hurricane Omar St.Kitts & Nevis Aftermath (Pics)

So I decided to do a little picture story on the Aftermath of Hurricane Omar. The Hurricane didn’t hit my island (St. Kitts) directly nor did it do very much damage (relative), but it did affect other caribbean island much worse. The following are some Hurricane Omar Aftermath Pictures, please click ont he images to see the full size image:

Crazy waves AFTER Hurricane Omar passed us by. This is the Carribean Sea, it’s usually much much calmer than the Atlantic Ocean side of the island.

This is supposed to be the main road that connects the main city on the island (Basseterre – as the locals refer to it “Town”) everything else besides the main city is a village except the tourist area and suburbs. The waves were so high it brought all the sand and sea debris onto the island’s roads and structures by the shoreline.

If you look closely at the left of this image there are soem waves hitting the rocks and going over. Right past those rocks is the main road which runs on the shoreline right in front of the Island’s main city. Again these waves are after the hurricane passed us by.

These two pictures are from the Bird Rock Beach Hotel. The Muslims have been praying Eid Salaah here for the past two Eids, we are just going to have to figure something out for our next Eid prayer. I happen to live one house down from his hotel, but I’m on a hill, so the elevation was good protect, after Allah’s Protection. I did step outside my house while the Hurricane was passing by just to see how strong it is, it wasn’t that strong, but because the water levels rose all the rocks, and sea debris came up onto the land and caused all this damage to the Hotel. This place is basically gone, dont knwo how long they’re going to take to get it back in business. In the left pic, in case you were wondering that is a boat on land, and to the right is what used to be the Hotel parking lot.

This is a picture of how the hurricane approached the island. You can see the dense clods approaching the island here. The landscape is of Frigate Bay, the tourist area of the island.

This is the crazy amount of water thsi hurricane left behind, The tourism area is on a fairly flat piece of land on the island, making it highly susceptible to flooding. Pictured above is what it did to the golf course. The large structure int he back is the Marriott Hotel & Resort. If anyone is coming, let me know, I think I can still get a student discount, which means rooms for like $100/night(compared to like $300).

This picture is actually from a friend’s Facebook Album, he lives in Dominica. Dominica is south of St. Kitts, a lot more south. Slight changes in water levels have huge impacts on small islands.

More pictures:

Nevis Blog‘s Picasa Album: Hurricane Omar Oct 2008

SKN Vibes(News and go-to website for St.Kitts&Nevis): Huricane Omar destroys St.Kitts & Nevis Coastline

Living in Beautiful St. Kitts

asSalaam ‘alaykum

Loooong time no blog post…..

Been traveling most of my summer and working and getting ready to move and stuff. I don’t live in Houston anymore…moved to St. Kitts and Nevis…..

It’s here …….

It’s a beautiful place…look below for a few pictures…..almost no fitnah here compared to the United States alhamdulillah. As long as you don’t go clubbing and don’t go to the bars or resorts and casinos…you’re fine. I love this place. there are a few Muslims here maybe about 200-300 max. but almost all of them are students at the Medical School here. The MSA is fairly big about 80 active members, it’s very open. And a few more people than that come to jumu’ah which takes place at the MSA President’s house (I think they call it the Jumu’ah House). If anyone decides to come here then holler at me.

Insha’Allah i plan on posting more often now that I might have frequent access to the internet.

until then enjoy-

This is the main mountain (i think), the highest peak ont he island…a dormant volcanoe…

 

The view from my place in S. Kitts. I came here with two other friends and it’s been really chill. We live in a fairly big villa, it has a huge patio facing th Atlantic ocean. The waves down at the beach are pretty rough, you can drown and I almost did. they’re crazy strong.

 

 

The beach across the road from our place –

 

 

The black thing at the bottom right is my head –

 

People who didn’t study….

This is hilarious, cracks me up…lol

 Click Here!

Abu Zahirah Abdullah Smith: Events in Houston 02/22 to 02/23

asSalaam ‘alaykum wa Rahamtullah,

We have an exciting week coming up for Houston, about which I am too excited about. We are having a speaker come down from Daytona Beach, Florida insha’Allah. His name is Abu Zahirah Abdullah Smith, a graduate form the Islamic University of Medina. He graduated fromt he College of Hadith with honors, ranking #15 in his class. He is also Hood‘s buddy while they went to school together. And the weekend is action packed, and I don’t have too much work either. Well to start off the first Event is on Thursday at 1.00 to 2.30 PM. It is a da’wah event for non-muslims (usually a lot of muslims end up coming which is also awesome) for Black History Month. The Flier:

MSA @ UH presents…

A LEGACY OF CONTRIBUTIONS
1:00 – 2:30PM at UH – Pacific Room UC
Free Food!

Then following this we have our monthly thursday night dinners where all the MSA peeps get together to just eat and have fun. The event itself is at Maghrib.

Then we move onto friday. We have the jumu’ah khutbah by Abdullah Smith and then followed by a talk by him: Tafseer of the last 3 verses of Surat alHashr a little after the jumu’ah khutbah. Followed by the Qur’an Competition.

Friday Night he will be speaking at a sister’s only halaqa at a Sister’s house.

Saturday is the class on hadith studies by Abdullah Smith again. He will be explaining a 34 line didactic poem written by Imam alBayquni (d. 1080 AH) on hadith terminologies. It is one of the msot popular traditional texts int he field of hadith studies and is taught all over the Muslim world. Insha’Allah I am working with one of the brothers to have a Live online class with this with not only audio feed but video feed as well. Insha’Allah I am really excited about this and I will post the information when itis available to me. Until then here is the flier for the explanation of Mandhumat alBayquniyya event:

You will recieve the poem in arabic and it’s translation for free for attending this event, insha’Allah.

Just for the record all this brought to you by the MSA @ the University of Houston. You can ask one of our elders, Amad or his wife Umm Reem or Irtiza Hasan, more about the legacy and history of our MSA.

How was it Making the Hajj Pilgrimage back in 1953?

asSalaam ‘alaykum wa Rahamtullah,

A good brother forwarded me this email with pics of people going to Hajj back in 1953. The photos were in an issue of National Geographic back in 1953. Click on the images to see the full size images, insha’Allah. I was talking to my dad after showing him these photos and he would tell me how different it was when he went back in the 1970s and then again in the 1980s, i think. And as we know Hajj has really changed now. Allahu ‘Alam.

The cover of the magazine.

These are people ready to go to hajj. This is probably the only thing that is the same now and has been since the time of the Prophet (sal Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) and Sahaaba (radi Allahu anha).

Passengers on a Hajj ship being unloaded.

No non-muslims beyond a certain point

Man writign a letter home that he has arrived safely.

The market.

Pick your slaughter.

Slaughter it or get it slaughtered.

Cool off with a coke.

AREES presents Arabic, Tafseer, and Asma wasSifaat Courses by Hanaa Gamal and Waleed Basyouni

asSalaam ‘alaykum wa Rahamtullah,

Seems like Houston, Texas is going to be a very very busy city this year insha’Allah. Just in the following few months I can already think of like a dozen events happening. (I can’t hold it in – Shaykh Salah asSawy is comming!). AREES Institute, directed by Shaykh Isam Rajab, has definitely become very active in organizing some very good islamic knowledge classes in Houston. They have a very academic method of teaching and it seems like it is much more hard work than say a course by the alMaghrib Institute. There are 6 or 8 classes a semester plus there is a 70 page research paper due every year, definitley not for the average Muslim. AREES is more for someone who has much more dedication and much more time they can devote for ‘ilm in my opinion, which is definitely a good thing. Also not to forget that the program started about a year ago and the first graduating class is insha’Allah in two more years (2009 I think?). The first two classes of the semester for open enrollment (even non-AREES students and enroll for these courses) are “Arabic Level I” for beginners and “Tafseer:Qur’anic Interpretation“, both taught by Professor/Shaykha Hanaa Gamal:

Click on Images to view full flyer.

Enroll for Both Courses Now!!

There is another surprise from AREES Institute this semester alhamdulillah, which is the class on “Allah’s Most Beautiful Names and Loft Attributes” taught by Shaykh Waleed Basyouni. I can’t say too much about Sr. Hanaa Gamal because I have never taken any of her classes (mainly because she lectures mostly to a female audience). If you don’t know Shaykh Waleed, you are missing out, and if you havent taken a class with Shaykh Waleed, well you are missing out even more. I took this one awesome class with Shaykh Waleed called “The Rope that Binds Us! – Part 1” (Part 2 should be taught anytime soon insha’Allah), which just blew me away alhamdulillah. I used to attend his Sahih alBukhari halaqas about a semester or more ago which was just ‘off the chain’, mainly because it covered Kitaab alFitan from Sahih alBukhari but it was also the way he taught the subject, masha’Allah. I strongly encourage others to enroll for these, as for me I have school for now at those times, but if I can change my schedule I might be attending some of them. Allahu ‘Alam.