Twofer

Since I am sore/tired/lazy these past few days and I stayed WAY too late at a friend's house eating tater tot hotdish (yum!) and baklava (double-yum!) while we caught up on nonsense, I decided to combine my disciplines today and combine the exercise with the Islam.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this.

My friend and I had thought of some ways I could get out of both by saying we TALKED about Islam and we were GOING to walk but it was too dark out but I said to myself, "This whole justification of slothdom has to stop somewhere!" So I came to a compromise.


ISLAM/EXERCISE
Since some people think the Quran sounds like chanting and I previously thought you HAD to chant when doing yoga, so I put the two together in a new-agey sort of way. I practiced my new yoga poses/stretches that I learned last week while listening to the Quran. I'm hoping I will be less sore tomorrow after the stretching.

I chose to listen to Sheikh Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais, or just "Sudais" because his recitation is beautiful. He's the cheif imam (leader of prayer and more) at the Haram, or the mosque which surrounds the Kaaba in Mecca. This is where Muslims go for Hajj, or the pilgrimage, at least once in their lifetimes, if possible. May Allah make me one of those who is blessed to make this trip one day.

I listened to Surah Yusuf, the story of prophet Yusuf/Joseph which is similar, but much more beautiful than the "Dreamcoat" version you may know. It was revealed to Prophet Muhammad (Salli Allahu alayhi wa sallam) to prove his prophethood to people who had to admit he would have no way of knowing this story of so long ago if it weren't revealed by Allah to him.

The video is less than 30 minutes and has a beautiful aerial view of the Masjid al-Haram. If you can get over the awkward word-by-word translation you can get the full story of Yusuf as told in the Quran. An awesome story.