Food Paradise By: Ibn Amjed

    

     “FOOD OF PARADISE”

by: Ibn Amjed

The Food of Paradise is a story about hope and faith towards our God. Mullah is the main character in this story, he is a teacher before he was tired and got a lower salary, he decided to go to the City of Baghdad wherein near the river, even though he was lazy, he always has a trust in Allah his God.

This is a story about, a devoted man, Ibrahim that taught Islam to his Moslem students. Ibrahim is the main character of the story, He feels like no one appreciates him . He always asks his God “why do I have to suffer?” Like some of us do. And this is his story.  His work was thankless and ill-paid. Once, while sitting in the meditation, his hands folded in his lap, he thought of his sorry sake.” Why is it,” he asked himself, “that a holy man like me must toil so hard teaching a pack of blockheads, when others who have earned nothing through pious work, eat sumptuous every day? And without having to work?”.  Ibrahim left the seminary and walked out of the city of Baghdad where he had lived for a couple of years. Once, he slept without eating and woke up too faint to stand up, but he did not lose faith. In the end he learned that “Allah surely gives food to everyone; but it’s quality and kind are dictated by what man deserves. 

The part that really caught my attention was the part where a hermit narrated the history of “Silver City''. The “silver city” in the bible is what most people come to think of as Heaven. It is a vast metropolis of mortal souls and angels. It's an ideal city with broad avenues and no traffic. Like the earthly Jerusalem once was, the Silver City is walled surrounded by blocks of semi precious stones. Allah is the God in The Arabian Bible,  I didn’t actually understand it at first but as I read through the pages then it struck me, the history of the “silver city” is just like other fairy tales. A poor man fell in love with a princess, the parents disagree but still they live happily ever after. The part where they narrated the history of the silver city struck me since it reminded me of the “Alamat ng Marinduque'' from our Filipino class. “The Alamat ng Marinduque” is about a princess with a royalty family and a boy who just makes poems for their town, they fought for each other and they lived happily ever after, however the history of the silver city had a little twist. When the king tried to make an army to recover his daughter, Pasha's magic was too strong and it compelled the king to give up. a pasha represents his power to bind and free obstacles. After a while the princess and Pasha passed on and left behind their daughter who governs the castle. It also caught my attention that they put jinn’s in the story, Jinn’s are shape-shifting spirits made of fire and air with origins in pre-Islamic Arabia. They are the inspiration for Aladdin's genie, and have held space in Arab culture for almost as long as Arab. The Koran states that Allah fashioned angels from light and then made jinn from smokeless fire. Man was formed later, out of clay culture itself.  The jinn promised Ibrahim to aid him in breaking the magic spells of the castle but if he helps them. In short, Ibrahim saw the young princess. The princess blushed so deeply that her face turned crimson. And Ibrahim realized something.

This story left us with a message, never lose hope, never lose faith and Never give up. Sometimes we feel like we’ve done everything but the universe is somehow against us because we expect that we did such a thing. We get something more valuable, but we are wrong, not everything you ask for comes true when you don’t have patience. Be patient, don’t feel like everything comes fast sometimes it might take you a month, a year or even decades. If you are having trouble doing such thing don’t lose faith/ hope, Don’t give up too easily, you don’t know it may not work right now but it might work out someday, just never lose faith, because “it’s not the universe who’s against us, it us against the universe”, we just to realize that no work will be done when you don’t have patience and faith.   

I have come to a conclusion that sometimes we need to sacrifice, we need to feel pain and even if we think that everything we do we get the opposite, however we are just blind we think that we deserve everything because we did the chores but in reality “God gives food to everyone; but it’s the quality and kind are dictated by what man deserves.

Reference

• Alamat ng Marinduque (batangas)

• Quote “it’s not the universe who’s against us, it us against the universe” from Phineas and Ferb 

The Movie: Candace Against the Universe.

Allah - symbol It is taken by Muslims to mean that Allah cannot be captured in an image

by human hand, such is his beauty and grandeur

               JINN

PASHA