Tariq Ramadan's Ramadan Chronicles

Renowned Islamic scholar and thinker, Dr Tariq Ramadan started this innovative Ramadan Chronicles on his website. Its basically a collection of short nasiha (words of wisdom) from this great man. Each day throughout Ramadan, he uploads a new nasiha for Muslims around the world.

In his own words: "These are reflections around some Prophetic traditions referring to fasting, its meaning, its objectives, and our responsibilities. A short talk lasting between 3 and 5 minutes in order to meditate, to think, and to share: your comments every day are most welcome.
I hope these exchanges are going to be useful and they will help, all of us, to reconcile ourselves with our hopes and our quest for peace.
May the Light go along with you and love you. May these days be profound, nice, and full of love. It is our prayer, and your gift in sha ar-Rahman (by the will of the Merciful)"

You can listen to them on his website.

For a taste of it, here is the Chronicle from day 1

past vs. present; success vs. failure

this is life. not everything is as it should be.
unfortunately in our case, Bangladeshis, most things are not.
however, as is always the case, just criticizing others and grumbling over the past will not change anything. as the wise man said, history is for us to learn from. thats all!! there is nothing we can do to change the past, so there is no point wasting our valuable time discussing what was right and what went wrong.

it is the present that we live in, and what we do here matters most. when i see all the injustices and screwed up things all around me, i get frustrated and pissed off. but then, when i ask myself what am i doing to make things better - i put myself to shame. i see that i am just talking the talk, but never walking the walk. eta nai, sheta nai; erokom kora uchit chilo, sherokom korle valo hoto: kintu korar khetre ami shunno.

so, my dear friends, let us stop talking the talk and start walking the walk. our capabilities and abilities may be little, our hands may be weak, and the destination may be too far away; but i am sure, together we can at least do something. we may never reach the goal, but we will at least be able to take one single step towards it.

remember, success is not reaching the goal, success is in working towards the right end. Similarly, failure is not failure to reach the target, it is failure to try.

they say its friendship day today

to my friends
-------------

once we dreamed of a perfect world, only to realize later that there is no utopia
then we dreamed of a bright future, only to find out that future also becomes present one day
today we dream of happiness, may be tomorrow we will discover that that too is an illusion
BUT
we have always dreamed of love, and still do. let us know, my dear friends, love is eternal. the flame of love will never falter.

love will keep us alive. love will keep our dreams alive.
love will keep our friendship alive.

long live our friendship
long live our struggle through life
long live our sweet and sour memories
and most importantly
long live our dreams and our love.
love for ourselves. love for our friendship. love for the Creator who gave us this friendship.

i love you all