Better Living . . .

In times of the omnipresent demon of terrorism, we unfortunately and wrongly despair. Through the apparendy obtuse and absurd, our predicament can be illuminated. It is in that spirit that these enlightenments are presented.

1. Paradise is under mothers and swords. Both defend.

2. It is better to be a slave of something than a slave of nothing.

3. Intoxicate – or be intoxicated.

4. The television is the idiot box because it boxes idiots in.

5. The elves perished because they tired of immortality; men perish because they tire of mortality.

6. Hell is the sting of an endless string of good khutbas, the type that make you leave feeling so hapless. In addition, you are on fire.

7. A man who cannot prove anything is doomed to disprove everything.

8. The more you love Allah, the more others despise you.

9. Poetry is unpopular because it demands subordination to structure.

10. He’s a burden on himself who thinks himself too little; he’s a burden on others who thinks himself too much.

11. Hell is the combustible mix of regret and you.

12. Why do we hate people who remind us of us? Their similarity threatens our individuality. (I am not, therefore I am: We were created into nations and tribes so that we could preserve the self.)

13. The doors of i jtihad were not closed. They were hidden from us.

14. Bidayat al-Mujtahid: If there is no truth, there can be no error; if there can be no error, there is no truth.

15. Khilafa was the bait, Adam the hook. The Devil tempts man forever because man tempted the Devil once. In one day, we took a thousand years of worship from him. (Men are a race of thieves.)

16. Life is like a box of chocolates. The profit margin is unbelievable.

17. The revolutionaries shall perish, the reformists shall perish, the status quo shall perish.

18. Alexander was great because India defeated him.

19. The higher you climb, the less oxygen goes to your mind.

20. Our greatest technological achievements have a troublesome tendency to render us more mediocre, and our lives more mundane.

21. The uberman is the uberspender.

22. Hypocrites just want to be one.

23. Who gave the fat wa against deodorant?

24. Knowledge divides better than ignorance.

25. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle: Being a man, you can only skew nature.

26. Tablighifama ‘at: After forty days, you can have your life back.

27. The Ka’ba is a cube because the world is a sphere.

28. Arrogance produces ignorance. Ignorance produces arrogance. (Hence “bigot” sounds like “idiot.”)

29. Islamic Matrimony: If you like a girl, she doesn’t like you. If she likes you, you don’t like her. If you both like each other, your families don’t. If your families do, something is wrong. Find out what.

30. Careful what you wish for: Israel suffers because Zionism prospered.

31. The cult of the body is so phenotypically arrogant.

32. The right yells, the left whispers and the center stammers.

33. What consumes the consumer?

34. A prayer in the heart is worth twentyseven in the head.

35. The Muslim world is afraid of its future. The West is afraid of its past.

36. A wallet without a hand is capitalism. A hand without a wallet is socialism.

37. The hijab: Islam’s answer to Britney Spears.

38. George Bush makes me red. John Kerry makes me blue.

39. There is a first cause because there is a first effect.

40. Email reminds you of how irregularly people think of you.

41. The masses are the opium of religion.