The most amazing thing about the Mercy of Allah is that it's constant, never stops, whether you realise it or not. Its independence from our daily ignorance and oppression is itself an incredible mercy.

What's also amazing is the way we are sometimes reminded of His Mercy by something that might happen and you believe it to be a disaster at the time - yet afterwards, on reflection, you realise that it was as the Prophet (s) asserted in so many ahadith, ya'ni "it's all good."

Last night, we were the victims of an attempted burglary where the miskeen guy shimied up a broken pipe, jumped on to a ledge, forced upon a locked window (!), set off the alarm, entered a bedroom, panicked, ripped off a few sensors in hope of trying to stop the alarm, ran about a bit, tried to break the 'alarm pad', the alarm of course continued alerting everyone, panicked even more when my neighbours came round with police on the way, hid and waited and then legged it out the front as soon as they went to call me. The End.

Alhamdulillah, just a bit of minor damage and a little bit of mud but other than that absolutely nothing. Jack diddly, zilch. Just his baistee.

Why? Because what made me really laugh was the way he ripped my wireless Netgear router off the wall and smashed it in the full belief that this was my 'alarm box'. Miskeen.

The good thing is all the beneficial lessons. We've had our 'first time' now and got away with it so we can thank Allah for that. Also we'll be bolstering up gates and locks even more and don't discount their value for every deterrent has its value in these situations. We don't ever expect such things to totally stop someone getting in and doing something he's intent on but it'll sure be a huge pain in the backside for him trying to get it done. And then there's the satisfation that you've freaked the miskeen out after his huge big master-plan goes pear-shaped. Also, the warm feeling that he fell down the stairs as evident from his sliding footprints is more than enough for me to smile about.

Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah.

Remember, there has been an increase in thieves targetting Asian households particularly in Cheshire/Stockport/Manchester for a quick smash and grab for their gold and "non-taxable" earnings (of course) so be careful.

Unfortunately for Mr Tillah Banda, he forgot that 2nd generation British-Asians aren't all scamming minicab drivers and shopkeepers, so no kaash under the bed. Oh, and we Wahabis don't do gold either.

Alhamdullillah. Alhamdulillah.

So the moral of the story? Don't mess with Netgear - my internet was back on and running after the battering it took within...ooh...all of ten seconds?

:-)