10 years on IB

Assalamu Alaikum

I apologize in advance for the unorganized thoughts. I've been volunteered to make this post soo here goes.

10 years on LI/IB..what's it been like?


To me, this place will always be LI, sorry but it sounds too weird to call it IB lol. I'm trying to change my ways.

I joined when I was 15 years old, however I noticed everyone was older than me, so I went and introduced myself as a 16 year old (I later had someone delete that post for me) .


How I arrived here...

I used to be on a different Islamic forum, and I noticed the people were moving here. I think it had only been active for a few months when I arrived.

Honestly, there was nothing like this place. It was very warm and welcoming.

AND DID YOU KNOW there was never a brothers' super secret forum?! This was actually so hilarious because the brothers one day created a thread and started to post their Quran recitations and they would basically tell us (girls) that we weren't allowed to listen to them , even though they were public. At that time, out of respect to them, I hadn't listened. Seriously! But eventually the bro's section was made. boohoo.

To me the environment was very much sisterly/brotherly, and now I miss them all. Even the ones I hadn't gotten to know that well. I love them for the sake of Allah, and I hope that they know they were the best brothers/sisters I could have had at that very critical time in my life. I say critical because I could have been doing what other teenagers were doing, but I was addicted to Islam and the people that made me feel it's beauty.

Ok so for those who are still fairly new, the colors for our usernames were ugly...once we figured out that they can be changed, we basically started a war and it was EPIC. sorry for those that missed it. I think we just used the polls actually. It's all blurry now. Guys, I'm getting old. So we went through a period where our name colors were changing, until we came to this happy medium.

What else...

Man, the marriage posts we'd get...and we were mostly single at the time.

I was offered Mod position a few times...I respectfully declined at such a prestigious title. Oh that reminds me, a new member joined once, his name was "Mr. Butt" or something along those lines. Me and a sister Mod at that time were on MSN were all like "OMG that is so disrespectful", and she was about to ban the poor fellow when he informed her that "Butt" was an actual last name...Man that was embarrassing. I blame her though, she's desi :P she should have known.

When people would post in the Introduction section, some of us had our lil special greeting. There was Nasheed girl, who'd post a nasheed for the newbies. I'd give em a million smilies, others were more simple, but still iconic, and members would asked to be banned from the forum when they couldn't handle their schooling/work cuz of the LI addiction.

Ask me anything else that you'd like to know, there's so much I don't know where to start/end.

What have I learned from alllll of this?

Honestly, I've rewritten this part more than once...I don't want it to be too personal, but I don't want it to be too simple...all I can say is LI was a big part of my journey to Islam, to amazing friendships, and to knowledge. I think for each one of us it was different and we had our own special experience.

I feel really blessed because NOW it's difficult to find a group of people like the ones that were here during that time for a teenager still trying to figure life out. It's very easy to get lost in the traps of shaytan. I'm not saying that everything was perfect, but the people you surround yourself with and that you love often have a lasting impact on your life, and i'm glad mine was positive.

LI grew up with a lot of us, and it began to change as we were changing, and its a lot less active now..and maybe it's because of the new social media, but I also think its because we're all grown up with lives, jobs, and families. I see someone I know post, and it doesn't feel like the same someone I saw posting years ago. We've matured, we understand our boundaries, and it's much more formal now. Some of that charm is lost because we're all not as active as before, but...from time to time, I like to come here just to see if this place is still alive and reminisce.