Outfoxed!

Here are two clips from a documentary called Outfoxed. It tells us about the reality of Fox News, which many couldn’t imagine about. Not either did I know about this, until we watched this documentary in our Civics class. I got shocked and amazed over the information given and about how we humans are influential nowadays by the media. I would recommend everyone to see this documentary, which can be found on YouTube when you search for Outfoxed.

Peace!
S.C

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: `Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear –
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.’

By: Percy Bysshe Shelley

This is a poem that I liked, especially when reading between the lines. One of my friends suggested this poem to me when I got the task in one of my subjects to look for a poem and read out for the class. At first, I didn’t pay much attention to the poem, although when I read it out allowed to the class, something struck me. I paid attention to the words and realised that this was actually an interesting poem when looking deep into the meanings. I think this poem was a reminder for me. So basically I’m going to tell a short analysis of this poem and refer it to how this reminder regards to us Muslims too.

The first vital point to note is that the poem is an Italian sonnet. It encapsulates a great story about Ramses, the past king of Egypt. The poem was written around 1800 and the fact that it was written in an “antique land” illustrates that the author was attempting to distance himself from Ramses, indicating the faded view of the past king Ozymandias.

Great opposition, irony and sarcasm appears when it is said, “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” Nothing beside remains.” This negative connotation shows that there once was a vast kingdom, but now that kingdom has disappeared. Neither property nor the king himself is immortal.

When it is said that the “lone and level sands stretch far away” the reader realizes that perhaps the sand is more vast now than the empire is.

Finally, when breaking down the word “Ozymandas” in the original Greek, we realize that the kingdom no longer exists. Ozy comes from the Greek “ozium,” which means to breath, or air. Mandias comes from the Greek “mandate,” which means to rule. Hence, Ozymandias is simply a “ruler of air” or a “ruler of nothing”. It is then obvious that the King of Kings spoken of in the poem is actually nature itself. Nature never disappears and nature represents the immortality not represented by the Ramses or any other individual or possession.

This is what we Muslims need to bear in mind. The life her in duniya is nothing, it’s rather the life after death and what’s going to happen to us then that is more essential for us to worry about. Even the most known celebrity, the popular person amongst a group or even the person with most friends means nothing. It’s better for us to concentrate more on how to benefit from this duniya to have a better life after death, so inshAllah we can have a place in Jannah!

After a while everyone will forget we exist; just as it happened to the most powerful King of all Kings as suggested in this poem.

Peace!
S.C

A new album from Sami Yusuf is finally released. It’s called Without You and is actually in my point of view quite different from the previous album released from him.

While on youtube, i found a song that really caught my attention.

Enjoy, Peace!
S.C