Walking along a busy east London road is weird and wacky on any normal day, but combine that with the limited edition of the British summer and it’s a concoction that will leave the mind wondering is the hat on too tight? Or perhaps they’ve had too much exposure to the sun!!

With the breaking of dawn out comes the sunshine and along with that on these hot summer days we get the ‘kitted’ up cars (more like sight for sore eyes!) with the windows rolled down and a group of young or the wannabe young with their shades on proud and their hair gelled back.
 
You have to grit your teeth as the ‘Shakespeare’ pours out of their mouth onto the poor passers by and then you think to yourself ya Allah is it due to the sun?

For our ‘budding poets’ you think nah it’s not the case because come rain or shine the ‘poetic lingo’ never strays from their lips. Hmmm perhaps ‘Shakespeare’ was their all time favourite!

I continue walking and think the ‘Romeos’ I can just about understand, but what baffles me more is the ghetto hooded boys who on this sticky summer day stay true to the hood and don down the street in their thick jumper suit, covered on the top with their black ‘bommer’ jacket and a woolly ski hat to top it all off.

The sight alone is enough to make us all break down in a sweat. But that isn’t the the icing on the cake. What really did it for me was the fact that their winter style clothes were broken down by the wearing of shades! Is that somehow meant to make the ‘bommer’ jacket look cooler in the sunshine? I ask, have they had an over exposure to the sun?

What a contrast I’ve seen today from the string vested poets in their car to the ghetto rappers from the hood. As I walk back home I think of these two groups and what pops into my head are the words of our Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) who told us all:

"A man follows the religion of his friend; so each one should consider whom he makes his friend" (Book 41, Number 4815 : Sunan Abu Dawud).

What lessons do the poets and the rappers teach each other? And it brings to question my friends and the ‘gangs’ that I have ended up with. Are they brothers and sisters of Islam bringing me closer to the deen? Will the following of ‘their religion’ bring me nearer to Allah? Or am I stuck amongst the poets and rappers, filling time up only for this dunya?

I pose the question to you ‘have you ever thought about your friends, have you thought what they can and will do for you? Have you considered which path are we going to lead each other down? I pray it is the one heading for Allah!

I leave you with Allah’s words as He says in the Quran:

"O you who believe, do not take your fathers or brothers as allies if they have preferred disbelief over belief, and whosoever among you does so, then it is those who are the transgressors" (Quran, 9:23)

Allah also says in the Quran:

"You shall force yourself to be with those who worship their Lord day and night, seeking Him alone. Do not turn your eyes away from them, seeking the vanities of this world. Nor shall you obey one whose heart we rendered oblivious to Our message; one who pursuits his own desires, and whose priorities are confused" (18:28).