Haji 2003

Another one of my series of photos of visitors to exhibitions:

Walker art gallery exhibit. I liked this and according to the label, so do many other visitors.

I saw this in an art gallery and Hamdi Bey reminded me of brother T.

Day trip in Liverpool today.

Breakfast earlier today, smashed avocados with poached eggs. Maryam took the tomatoes and gave me the capers from her salmon and cream cheese bagel.

Yes, I am sure some years from now we'll hear about how some entrepreneurs made good money, buying these up secondhand and using them in clever ways. For example, everyone talks about their being used for hub/spoke services that passengers don't like and they prefer point-to-point, which the smaller aircraft are better for. But the A380 is used on the SIngapore/Hong Kong route which is basically a bus service and I am sure there are many other routes where you have very large numbers of people wanting to travel and limited airport capacity. Not surprised that BA would go for secondhand. Thukkay planes for a thukki airline.

I wrote a few days ago about the free fruit for kids that my local supermarket offers. It's just one piece of apple, tangerine or banana. Anyway I picked up Maryam from school to get my 5 mile walk on a low carb diet. And on the way back, despite her protestations, we made a detour to the supermarket so that we could get the free fruit (on her account). I also show her where to get the discounted food that is on its sell-by date. So she picks up a tangerine and makes a face (as if she is too good for it) and we continue shopping. Later that day we go to Sakina's to wish her a happy birthday and in a pleasant show of generosity Maryam takes out the tangerine from her pocket and gives it to Sakina. The little toerag.

Happy days:

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/02/14/business/a380-airbus-news-emirates/index.html We can use this thread for your favourite memories of the A380.

The entire document is only about the Burial Fund. So the members being referred to are members of the burial fund, not jamaat members, as I understand it. No, I am not saying that. I don't know whether they can or they cannot. I was initially replying to the statement below: I felt that this was incorrect for the following reasons: The no burial costs applies to people who have paid into the burial fund The 'thousands of pounds of burial costs' you are referring to are simply the costs anyone would have to pay to have someone buried in that part of London and the bulk of those costs are paid to the local council Given the terms of the burial fund, I can well imagine why they may want to restrict membership to Khojas only, I do not know for a fact if that is the case, but assume from what you have said that it may be. I have had funerals for several close members of family undertaken via Stanmore. We are not Khoja. The services provided have been very professional and not lacking in any respect. We pay no membership fees to the jamaat and are not members of the burial fund. The charges they make are exceptionally modest and as I have pointed out above, the significant charges are payable to the local council and these everyone has to pay regardless of religion etc. I understand that many Khojas who help provide the services related to funerals do so on a voluntary basis. If anyone has made the inference from posts in this thread that there is some excess financial charge levied by Stanmore as a result of being non-Khoja, that inference is wrong.

The Burial Fund is run on a subscription basis, it pays out if you have paid your subscriptions. If you have not paid your subscriptions it does NOT pay (As I understand it) However, the Burial Fund accepts donations and on that basis I am guessing that perhaps needy Khojas are helped from these donations and perhaps others are not. I don't know what 'fees' you are referring to - but that must be entirely optional, because I've never paid a penny. I can't see any link between Khums and the burial fund, I am afraid. There are lots of reasons why people may give to different funds and projects, but I can't see how that gives them rights over other activities run by an institution. It seems to me that there are misplaced perceptions of rights and obligations going on here.

This is now available free to watch on BBC iplayer (only for people based in the United Kingdom, or those using VPN?): https://www.bbc.co.United Kingdom/iplayer/episode/m00029l8/timbuktu

If that is true, then why do they have a subscription-based burial fund (for Khoja jamaat members)? The following pdf is a set of accounts for their burial fund and it also gives the breakdown for burial charges and the bulk of these (in the thousands of pounds) appear to be the payment to the local council for the burial. https://www.poc.hujjat.org/wp-content/uploads/Report_2016-Dec_2017.pdf Now looking at typical council costs, I get the following from Brent Council, which runs Carpenders Park, which is one of the cemeteries that the Stanmore Imambara use. https://www.brent.gov.United Kingdom/media/16404213/cemetery-2016-2017-brent-fees.pdf The figures for the burial costs seem to be very similar. Can you explain whether the costs you incurred were an order of magnitude higher than the ones above?

But don't they pay via jamaat membership? As a non-Khoja, I make much use of many of the services that they provide without paying a cent and don't recall any family members making a fuss about any fees (in terms of scale) they've charged for burying people from my family. The kids attend their Madressa and access seems to be open to all. Given how much good they do I am inclined to call you out on this and to back up what you are claiming.