Dunia's Stranger

2012-02-05T23:04:00.000-08:00

Aqeedah with Sh. Waleed Basyouni

Alhumdulillah, this whole weekend I attended a seminar on Aqeedah titled 'Light to Darkness' from the Al Maghrib Institute learning. I learned a lot and still have to review my notes for all things I thought about that I want to review for the future from this seminar.

I thought about a few things this weekend when I was sitting in the seminar. The first being that this Qabeelah Tayybah did not exist when I was in college. I remember meeting with brothers when we thought about getting Al Maghrib seminars going in NYC... and now it's a reality. I disappeared from NYC for 3 years while I went to law school. It's good to be back and attending seminars - especially with someone I respect like Sh. Basyouni... the man is knowledgeable, dedicated teacher, very prepared for his students, humble, and light hearted; all traits that I was able to observe first hand when I sat with him Saturday night for a brief dinner.

I've been lost for the last few months... lost in my work as a lawyer - trying to make sense of my life and sad by the condition of my eman and the mistakes I've made... but a part of me is tired of that state and wants to improve myself again.

2012-01-08T00:22:00.000-08:00

Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention

In my mind, Malcolm X stood for justice, humanity, and confidence. I read his 'Autobiography' book as fourteen year old and it made a lasting impression on my thinking. Almost no Muslim leaders existed in the early 90s or were visible on a national scale.

I'd like to share some excerpts of from the Malcolm X biography by Manning Marble that was released last year.

This first section is Malcolm's experience during Hajj...

Still, the powerful sight of thousands of people of different nationalities and ethnicities praying in unison to the same God deeply moved Malcolm, as he struggled to reconcile the few remaining fragments of NOI dogma he still believed in with the universalism he saw embodied in the hajj. Like many tourists, Malcolm purchased dozens of postcards and send them to acquaintances back home. These letters revealed the profound shift in his attitudes about white people. Writing to Alex Haley on April 25, Malcolm confessed, "I began to perceive that 'white man,' as commonly used, means complexion only secondarily; primarily it describes attitudes and actions." In the Muslim world he had witnessed individuals who in the United States would be classified as white but who "were more genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been." Malcolm was quick to credit Islam with the power of transform whites into nonracists. This revelation reinforced Mlacolm's newfound decision to separate himself completely from the Nation of Islam, not simply from its leadership, but froom its theology."

The near 500 page biography of Malcolm briefly covers his Hajj but Marble aptly notes how the experience was a shift in way of thinking about white and black. Was Malcolm still a black nationalist? Irrefutably yes, but his thinking of what 'black power' meant was not simplistic as 'hate' of white people just on the basis of them having white complexion skin but the embodiment of denying others, like blacks in America or non-whites internationally, their rights - be it civil rights in America or self rule internationally.

One final excerpt I must share...

[After the Hajj] Malcolm then flew to Medina, Saudia Arabia on April 25, and en route he continued to make detailed notes on his travel diary. He was convinced on the pilgrimage "everyone forgets Self and turns to God and out this submission to the One God comes a brotherhood in which all are equals." He embraced an inner peace he had not known since the years he was incarcerated in Massachusetts . "there is no greater serenity of mind." Malcolm reflected, "than when one can shut the hectic noise and pace of the materialistic outside world, and seek inner peace within one-self." Late that evening Malcolm wrote, "The very essences of the Islam religion in teaching the Oneness of God, gives the Believer genuine, voluntary obligations towards his fellow man (all of whom are One Human Family, brothers and sisters to each other) ... the True Believer recognizes the Oneness of all Humanity."

I think Malcolm captured the beauty of Islam: that submission to One God helps us realize that were all God's creation and to be respected and treated equally.

SubhanAllah.

2011-12-24T22:38:00.000-08:00

New Endings

Just as there are new beginnings, there are new endings...

The year is closing out and I'm ending a few chapters in my life. Some painful and some pleasant, but this year one in particular that was painful.

Earlier this year, I blogged through a post titled 'new beginnings' where I spoke about how I was beginning to look for my spouse and it brought a few surprises from my parents and family members. I'll elaborate more on the surprises. Essentially, my parents and family members always presumed that I would be passive in choosing my spouse and let them rather select the sisters that would be presented to me and then choose from their pre-approved 'pool' of sisters. I wasn't interested in that and found a sister I was interested in and whom I considered to be a good match for me. She didn't fit the bill my parents would have liked and most of this year was spent with me building my case for my interest in this sister.

I had put many hours of labor - physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual (yes, I made duaa' for the best) in trying to reach my goal: Marriage; specifically to this sister.

The outcome was different than what I hoped. I have learned much about myself and life in this process that I wish to pen down but I'll do that in another place more private.

I will say that for about three weeks, I was upset and felt miserable - melancholic. I walked around as a hollow being mechanically carrying out my work, knowing that inside of me I was wounded and hurt from the process.

Of course, I could not continue of wallow in remorse indefinitely and in the last 2-3 days I've been returning to normalcy.

I made a few decisions. InshAllah this 2012, I plan to make Umrah - I need to revitalize my soul and deen, and the best thing I can think of is visiting Bait'ul Allah in Mecca and visiting Madinah.

2011-06-14T16:07:00.001-07:00

One of My Favorite Hadiths

I just wanted to share this hadith I heard and my sister shared with via email:

The Messenger of Allah SallAllahu alaihi wasallam said, “I was made to love three things from this world – perfume, women, and prayer.’

The companions were sitting with him and Abu Bakr RadhiAllahu anhu said, “You have spoken the truth, O Messenger of Allah! I was made to love three things from this world – looking at the face of the Messenger of Allah SallAllahu alaihi wasallam, spending my wealth for the the Messenger of Allah SallAllahu alaihi wasallam, and giving my daughter in marriage to the Messenger of Allah SallAllahu alaihi wasallam.

‘Umar RadhiAllahu anhu said, “You have spoken truthfully, O Abu Bakr! I was made to love three things from this world – commanding good, forbidding evil, and worn garments.”

‘Uthman said, “You have spoken truthfully, O ‘Umar! And I was made to love three things from this world – feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and reading the Qur’an.”

‘Ali said, “You have spoken truthfully, O ‘Uthman! I was made to love three things from this world -serving the guest, fasting in summer, and fighting with the sword.”

As they were discoursing, Jibreel Alaihis Salam came and said, “Allah the Exalted sent me when He heard your discussion and has ordered you to ask me what I would have loved if I were to be from the people of this world. The Messenger of Allah SallAllahu alaihi wasallam asked, “If you were to be from the people of this world what would you have loved?”

Jibreel Alaihis Salam replied, “Guiding those led astray, keeping the company of contented strangers, and helping families afflicted with hardship.”

He continued, “The Lord of Honour loves three things from His servants – giving one’s utmost, crying when in regret, and being patient in times of poverty.”

I usually like to cite the hadith but I don't know where it's from but I'm willing to share it regardless since I've heard different scholars cite it. If anyone knows who narrated this hadith and which book of hadith contains it - please leave a response in the comments section.

2011-02-27T21:51:00.000-08:00

New Beginnings

Much has changed since I've last posted. I went on a hiatus for a while for many reasons. One of them being that my new career as lawyer in NY really was overwhelming in terms of work and time management. The other being that much of my family settings were changing as well. My father's mother passed away and my father went back home to the old country to settle family affairs. My little sister moved back into the house after being away for medical school and is trying to study for the USMLE Step 1 (may Allah make it easy for her).

Even for me personally, I've started going in new directions. I've become more open in terms of speaking with my parents as to how I'm looking for spouse. It's a little of a surprise for them but it is what it is.

I don't know if anyone comes around checking my blog since I've been inactive for a long time but I appreciate all visitors and drop a line or a hello.

peace my brothers & sisters

2010-09-10T06:49:00.001-07:00

Eid Mubarak & Thoughts of Another Language

Eid Mubarak to all my fellow Muslims. May our worship in Ramadan be accepted.

Today, I was thinking that I feel strange to the English language... a language that I speak better than any other, as well as think, dream, and pray in, but for some reason today I wanted to it to be foreign to me... I wanted to submerge myself in my Urdu language.

2010-06-11T23:07:00.000-07:00

Currently Reading

I've been reading a few books lately: (1) The Last Moughal and (2) Logicomix

The Last Moughal is one of the best south Asian history books I've read - in fact, I haven't read that many south Asian history books, so that statement doesn't mean much but the book is very good and has impressed me in many ways with it attention to interesting bits of information and structure.

Logicomix is comic book with the aim of teaching philosophy. Its a comic book on the life of English philosopher Bertrand Russell and his quest for the truth through philosophy.

I'll admit that I personally didn't like Russell's 'The History of Western Philosophy' since it marginalized Islamic philosophers of Spain and left me with a negative view of Russell but I the authors of Logicomix cast him as an interesting protagonist, much more interesting, than I though he could be.

I'll add more then I'm done with the 2 books InshAllah.

2010-03-14T21:45:00.000-07:00

Breaking Out of My Isolationism & 'Up in the Air'

For a long time I've been in an isolated state. Self imposed isolationism for a large part of this current decade.

I recently turned 26 and I've been thinking about the last 6 years of my 20s. I mean my 20s were suppose to be the best part of my life or one of the best parts right? Well, I've spent them alone for the most part.

I got thinking about my Isolationism because its similar to what Ryan (George Clooney) in the movie 'Up in the Air' goes through for the most part of his life. He's a successful business man who lives his life surrounded by people but distant from everyone. Watching that movie made me think about the way I've lived my life these last few years. I've really had 2-3 constant friends and have shunned social settings even though I've been surrounded by people, many people, at times.

In the end, my emptiness has caught up with me to point where its becoming an emotional/spiritual black hole consuming other aspects of my life. Thus, it has hindered my ability to function within society.

I needed to fight back and reclaim my life from this scourge of desolation. I need to break off and re-invent myself with an optimistic outlook of a person willing to take chances and try new things.

I am slowing doing that lately for the last 2 weeks. I've met and talked with people I would have ignored or shied away from in an 'old me.'

I'll keep you all updated.

:)

2010-02-20T15:18:00.000-08:00

Lines on my Mind

Times, Nothing's right, if you ain't here
I'll give all that I have, just to keep you near
I wrote you a letter, darling, tried to make it clear,
But you just don't believe that I'm sincere
...

Either way, Win or Lose,
When you're born into trouble,
You live the blues,
...

Just had these on my mind.

2010-01-31T21:36:00.001-08:00

Muslims in NYC Masjids: Living Our Lives As Strangers... To Eachother

To live your entire life of being a stranger is hard. Granted that we all know from the hadith that Muslims may come to be seen as strangers at a time but will we become strangers to each other as well.

I speak with first hand knowledge of the situation of many NYC masjids. I've been going to one for almost 16 years yet when I walk in there I feel like a stranger.

Few want to look me in the eye or say a word to me.

Its not as if they don't know me. They know me. They've seen me come to that same Masjid since I was in elementary school.

I remarked to a friend of mine how unfortunate it was that I often feel that the mood/atmosphere of the masjid is depressing. I rarely see people smile or laugh.

The look on people's faces is gloomy.

At times I felt betrayed by my community in the Masjid. I felt that very few cared to do anything positive in the Masjid by creating an inviting environment to the teenagers, youth, and even to the non-Muslims in our community.

I'm not talking about Inter-faith but at the least to try to do some dawah type outreach to the others surrounding us.

These 2 days I realized with a heavy sad heart that our community Masjid has failed our community.

Perhaps we, me included, have failed because our community is nothing more than the sum of all our efforts.

I thought about this happened and came to this conclusion.

NYC Masjids are immigrant masjids and as such, the faces of their parishioners reflects their daily struggles and uncertainties as immigrants in America.

This is a fact. Everyone in our Masjid is an immigrant. Mostly South Asian immigrants but there are a few African immigrants and a handful of immigrant Arabs as well.

I rarely see the children of these immigrants.

I know what the children think and their parents think.

They want to escape from this masjid and community. They want to 'make it' out with better jobs and their own house; not the crowed apartments and manual labor jobs their parents and them currently live and work.

To move to middle class Muslim communities of Long Island or NJ where they won't be reminded of their current lives struggling as lower working class people living in the current community and nearby Masjid is a dream.

Is that the answer for me too? To leave this community and Masjid for another?

And what about for now? I once thought about how and what I could do to make our community Masjid better... I now realize that people don't want to make this Masjid better.

Our Masjid is seen as the immigrant working class.

Immigrant dreams are to become part of the American middle class and this Masjid is not something they want to remind themselves of but rather to escape it.

And so, we will continue to be strangers to each other.

2010-01-01T16:08:00.000-08:00

Do Muslims Believe in Destined SoulMates

Sure, Muslims believe in Qadr, which means we believe in destiny but we also have choice in the future we create because of our free will. Without getting into questioning free will and pre-destination and turning this into a debate on those beliefs, lets just take my simple definitions on them.

So now on to soulmates. A soulmate as according to Oxford dictionary is defined as "a person ideally suited to another."

I'm sure everyone has a different meaning or definition of the word "soulmate" so I thought I'd just put a definition that the Oxford Dictionary people have defined for us in the english language.

Of course the word soulmate is more than just a definition - its an entire concept. Still the question remains, 'do Muslims believe in destined soulmates?'

I asked my sister that question and got a resilient no.

Her take on it was that Allah created our souls only for his worship and thus the notion that souls are made for each other is wrong. I tried to clarify that its not so much that those who believe in soulmates believe that our souls are for each other as an end means. Still I don't think she was feeling the idea.

I guess the real question I'm hinting at is there just 1 soul that is the most ideally suited for us that Allah has created?

Sure we may find many different degree of people suited to us - but I'm sure Allah created one that is the IDEAL. Is that one the only one that can be considered a soulmate? Can we have multiple degree of people who are ideally suited to us - I mean could one really tell the difference between a person who was 97% suited vs. 96% suited to us? If not, then what's the threshold at that we are going to be realize that this person "passes" for us? Maybe conceiving the idea of a soulmate on 0-100 scale is not the best way to view it?

I suppose I'm asking because I did believe in such a thing as a destined soulmate in the singular sense ... but I'm just wondering if I was wrong to believe it because it didn't come across it clearly in Islam (sure you can deduce it).

My sister says if I believe in it, its good because Allah gives us what we believe in.

I'm not sure what she means by that because she wasn't clearly interested in speaking more about the subject.

2009-12-28T10:26:00.000-08:00

Single Sons of Muslim Families

*These are just some preliminary thoughts. I wanted to post them immediately and then I'll develop them later in more detail.*

I am single son of a Muslim family. I have sisters along with my mother and father. I use the term 'single son' not to say that I am the only child but rather I am the only son.

For most Muslim families, be in the west or in their own native countries, their is an expectation that the sons and younger males of the family will carry them as the father figure ages and comes near retirement.

For single sons, the pressure is much more accentuated since its as if the family only has '1 shot to get it right.' Meaning, its all upon him to make it successful to represent the honor of the family.

Now I know that many readers might be thinking that this is a chauvinistic perspective since it doesn't include the women/sisters as a source of support for the family or a means to be honored. I think that even with taking those into account, the pressure will still remain upon the single son.

The reason being that the Muslim family will consider her daughter - regardless of how successful she is to be a part of her new family. Its not what the sister/daughter can do but rather what expectations exist for the family. Expectations can change from family to family but I'm think they still remain a general norm in the larger family.

2009-11-06T15:40:00.000-08:00

A Muslim Perspective on "knowing the path and walking the path"

One of my all time favorite movies has a quote that stood out to me when I first heard it. In The Matrix there is a scene where Morpheus says to Neo:

"There's a difference between knowing the path and walking the path."

The quote is said at one of the climax's of the movie when Neo rescues Morpheus from the government/machine compound against near all odds of success.

No this post is not about the movie but rather a Muslim's perspective on what that quote means to Muslims - or at least my take on what it means to Muslims.

I personally see this in context of my latest struggles with low points of eman. Alhumdulliah, my eman is higher now than where it was but we all know that our eman increases and decreases.

One thing I realized in my low points of eman was that as one of the reasons my eman decreased was that I was approaching my eman in the wrong way: I was only focused on the knowledge aspect of Islamic learning without much emphasis on practicing the knowledge I knew.

For instance, I found feeling low points of eman and I would just end up reading about different things of Islam like hadith or Seerah. The Islamic knowledge I gained I stored in my mind but still I felt down. I didn't understand why I still feeling down because I thought I was doing things to correct my low eman: increasing knowledge of the deen.

However, my failure was that I wasn't embodying the knowledge I was taking in.

To put it in a Muslim perspective...

'There is a difference in knowing what is Islam and living Islam.'

Even though I've always know that Islam is not just about intellect and there are actions that must accompany knowledge and speech, I somehow never manifested the final part.

Sure, I prayed and would read the Qur'an and thought that it would be enough.

It wasn't and isn't. At least not for me.

I needed to do more acts and study Islamic knowledge that I can actually implement into my life - not just study it purely as an intellectual pursuit.

I recently started to focus more of dikhr and small acts of Allah's remembrance that when I study, I know that I can implement these acts into my daily worship, thereby seeing an actual impact in my life as a Muslim.

Alhumdulliah, I know what it means to be Muslim and know for quite some time now.

But now, I'm living more and more of the Islam I know.

I hope that I will not only know what is eman but also taste the sweetness of eman.

2009-08-02T23:30:00.000-07:00

A Muslim Man's Beard & An African American Woman's Hair

Chris Rock has documentary out at Sundance Film Festival titled Good Hair, navigating himself through the world of black women's hair.

Watching the trailer for it made me realize that there is a great amount of similarities between a Muslim brother who lets his beard grow in accordance to the Sunnah and an African American woman who keeps her hair natural.

For a Muslim brother, there is pressure to conform and be clean shaved or to have goat tee or have the 2 or 3 day beard shadow for two reasons.

1st reason is that well, it doesn't bring attention to you. You don't stand out without facial hair or a small shadow beard (especially in NYC).

The 2nd reason is that many (key word many) Muslim sisters and most other women want men with some facial hair but not really a beard.

Lets face it, many Muslim sisters who consider themselves practicing and want another practicing Muslim brother want him to have George Clooney's facial hair...

Rather than than Yusuf Islam ...

The point I'm getting at is that many Muslim men have the same experience of millions of black women in America when it comes to changing their hair.

For Muslim men its shaving or keep a shadow of their beard, where as for Black women it means getting a weave or using chemicals in their hair to 'relax' it or straighten it. Like the reasons I mentioned about brothers not keeping the beard because of it trying to fit into their jobs/careers in America or subtly motivated by the impression that sisters have put out there about their preferences for the beard, I find reasons about black women that there is preference for straight hair in corporate America or that their man wants them to look that way and gives them money to get their hair done.

Anyways, these are just some of my thoughts. I'd love some feedback from others - especially African American women.

I'd love a Muslim brother to go out there and make documentary about the beard.

2009-03-24T20:38:00.000-07:00

Moments of Low Eman

Yes. I am at a low point in my eman. Have I rock bottom? Not sure but I have never been more low in my last 5 years.

I have tried to speak to good friends, family, and even an Imam of a local masjid and their answers have been very weak.

Two of my closest friends confided that they also had low points in their eman and after a while I got the 'deal with vibe' from them - although not in negative way.

I've come realize that there is no support group for Muslims in small communities - even large city communities. For Muslim men, we are told to be strong "men" and most take that literally and show little about their true feelings when they are are having eman problems.

The eman low problem is coupled with my loneliness. While not thoughts of depression - I do have feelings of emptiness. I've spent my time killing it with sports news and other things to distract me from realizing my emptiness but I don't think I can no longer do this.

Perhaps its because all my good friends have gotten married (no - I'm not a woman) but Muslim guys to feel that maybe they are missing the boat on marriage. I don't know.

For some reason I feel an emotional/spiritual pain. I don't know why. Its a feeling that has sat at the bottom of my heart for a while.

I tried to cry the other day to see if it would but I could not find myself to cry after salah. I haven't cried in the longest time. Perhaps years. I think it used to help me.

I saw a girl crying yesterday. I was prosecuting her (I'm a 3L) at my externship. I felt bad... she was a recovering drug addict. Hearing her talk about her addiction made me realize my own spiritual pain.

2009-02-24T15:03:00.000-08:00

One of these mornings
Won't be very long
You will look for me
And I'll be gone

Have not been able to post much lately

life has got me on a short leash. Many things are stressing me out. That combined with fact that I've never felt more alone in my life - there are days when i rarely see or speak with anyone in person.

2008-12-16T03:17:00.000-08:00

Gifs Of the Bush Shoe Fiasco

For those who missed it, here is the original:

Here are the gifs...

NOTE: These are not mine - I saw them on the web

Matrix

Austin Powers

Dragonball Z

2008-12-14T04:05:00.000-08:00

Simpons continue to amuse me...

Wit x-mas coming...

2008-12-07T21:00:00.000-08:00

It Took Me Over 5 Years To Come to This...

I posted the below in the Muslim Matter post "The Beard Story: Exclusive Interview With Yasir Qadhi"

I've come to a point in my life where I realized that I've wasted - yes I will use the word "wasted" - much of my time reading, researching, and discussing what is and is not acceptable of my beard.

In the end, I gained little piety or beneficial knowledge from a narrow fiqh issue.

As a Muslim teenager in college who decided to be a good practicing Muslim, the issue of the beard with thrust upon me by these "clear" rulings/fatwas by Great Scholars of the past on growing the full beard (I was initially under the impression that even trimming more than what a fist holds was not the preferred method).

This coupled with the "zealous" young Muslim brothers around me who emphasized the need for a beard so much that it shaped the way I perceived Muslim men who shaved/kept small beards as being open sinners for openly doing something directly in opposition to what the prophet told use to do (let our beards grow).

In fact, some even pointed me towards the likes of Shaykh Yasir Qadi is an example of of an intelligent American Muslim who held firm to his Islamic principles and let his beard grow in the Sunnah manner. Seeing and knowing that Shaykh Yasir was out there in America and doing great dawah work and even attending Yale later with his Sunnah beard gave me much hope and inspiration to pursue my own academic and professional studies with the feeling that 'hey, if Yasir is doing it with the full Sunnah beard - I should be able to pull it off as well.'

This helped me not to cave into all my other family members who regularly pressed me that I should at least shape up my beard and make it "neat and not unkempt looking" since my beard was thick, curly, and frizzy. This concern was further magnified by them when I (still currently am) began my graduate studies and went to job interviews looking very much like the Medina Yasir in terms of my beard.

Yet now, in this lecture I come to find that I had it all wrong: I should have made my beard "neat and professional" as Shaykh Yasir points out in lecture tape 1 (24:40 mark). I guess I was wrong and stubborn for trying to keep what I genuinely perceived to be a Sunnah beard (coming from the same scholars who I learned/read about hadith & aqeedah and the one's Shaykh Yasir quoted and referenced in his lectures/books).

In the end, all this emphasis on following the "correct sunnah" of the Prophet ended up distancing me for learning and practicing other important aspects of Islam - from memorizing more of the Quran, reading more Seerah, and making more prayers/adkhar.

After 5 years from my teenage years, I've come to to this point: I no longer care about what others do/ have about their beard or may think about mine. All of this has left me disillusioned about my Muslim identity and feeling like the narrator in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man - only the Muslim version.

2008-12-04T16:01:00.000-08:00

Why I Won't Tire of 'The Simpsons'

I know its an older episode but wanted to post it since turkey day was recent.

2008-11-24T13:45:00.000-08:00

Where is the voice of Muslim Yusuf (a.k.a. Muslim Joe)

While I like all the Muslim blogs, I feel that many of the issues they discuss are not what lower middle/working class Muslims - arguably Muslim immigrants - are facing are not discussed.

I guess I'd like see some perspectives from those types of Muslims.

If anyone has recommendations to those types of blogs, leave them in the comments section.

2008-09-07T23:49:00.000-07:00

An Observation of Innocence

As I stood at gate 69, a girl with beautiful brown complexioned skin and curly hair in a pink shirt and blue shorts playing with her stuffed bear came with at least one of her parents, possibly a sister, or a grandmother.

She was the most precious child I had ever seen since my own little sister was about her age. Precious to the point that my stomach ached and heart grew heavy for the challenges and the difficulties she would face in a brutal world where all the ones who cared for her can do is stand by watch as I do now.

Where lied the beauty in that girl? It lay in her innocence.

In a world where humanity's pain and suffering exist to a point where we no longer appreciate it - where a genocide rages in country as the world worries about black runs through the

2008-08-13T15:02:00.000-07:00

Where to Sit? At Least You Have the Option of Where to Sit.

Muslim Matters has an interesting article discussing the role of gender relations on train/subway (click for link: Where Do You Sit? An Imaginary “Real Life” Gender Interaction Scenario). For some reason my own comment did not show up, so I'll post what I had said with regards to question where to sit?

Get Real.

Don't over-analyze situations more than they need to be. I don't know where you take the train/subway but at least you have seats to sit on, and if your physically fit (i.e. not overweight, you should fit easily within the die-cast mold of the seat, without overflowing onto the other person).

The trains I take force me be to smashed up against strangers bodies for 15-20s mins (try taking the N train off Queens Borough Plaza to the Lex 6 train stop between 7:30 and 9 am or the 5 pm to 6 pm F going back to Queens).

Perhaps I should stand there on the platform and conjecture my ill fated endeavor to get to where I'm going on time with a half a dozen strangers bodies pressed up like canned sardines.

O' the fitnah!

Sorry peeps - I'm getting on that train and getting home.

as salaamu alaikum

Yea, its quite a luxury to talk about where to sit when your literally squeezed between a 250 pound construction worker and a 15 year old Catholic school girl in her miniskirt on 95 degree NYC summer afternoon with sporadic air conditioning on the train.

That's reality.

2008-05-24T22:55:00.000-07:00

An Ode to Our Mothers

Most people's impression of Rap is that is propagates violence, womanizing, and materialism. I pulled these two old school tracks that I heard the other day to remind that it doesn't have to be like that.

I usually never post music vids but I'll make an exception for these since they are poetic in some regard and express poverty, and struggle of single mothers.

Ghostface Killah ft. Mary J. - All I Got Is You

2Pac - Dear Mama

2008-05-22T08:09:00.000-07:00

Ibn Hazm's The Ring of the Dove

I've gotten an inquiry about where the previous post's poem was from and decided to post the link to the full online text. I recommend anyone - Non-Muslim and especially Muslim - to check out because its one of the most beautiful poetic verses I've read.

Also, its a very hard book to find with Amazon reporting it currently being either unavailable or 1 or 2 copies around.

If anyone is interested in more works by Ibn Hazm, its worth checking out his Al-Akhlâq wa’l-Siyar (Morals and Behaviour)

I actually wrote a poem a while back that you may want to check out. Its a fictional interaction between Ibn Hazm and Andrew Marvell in my TUESDAY, MAY 02, 2006 post.

2008-05-10T18:32:00.000-07:00

Ibn Hazm on
Falling In Love on First Sight

Just sharing some poetry - not to mention that photo that Niqabi is awe-and-then-some.

Against my heart mine eye designed
Great wrong, and anguish to my mind,
Which sin my spirit to requite
Hath loosed these tears against my sight.

How shall mine eye behold in fact
This justice that my tears exact,
Seeing that in their flood profound
My weeping eye is wholly drowned?

Since I had never seen her yet
I could not know her, when we met;
The final thing of her I knew
Was what I saw at that first view.

2008-04-19T13:53:00.000-07:00

Muslim Notions of Strangeness and Eminence Pt. 1

This previous Friday, the khateeb mentioned the all to famous quote on Islam, Muslims, and strangeness. A reminder that Islam and Muslims were seen as strange and that being seen as strange is not something to be seen as problematic.

Yet there is another notion of Islam and Muslims that is oft repeated. The history of Muslims academic, military, cultural, and political eminence - reminders of us to walk and talk with pride with others of our past and revive it.

On face value, these two seem conflicting opposite visions of what Muslims should live like... After all, to be accepted as the eminent authority in a field is exactly to leave you as the stranger.

I will continue part 2 - Feel free to leave preliminary thoughts on your own views below.

2008-04-12T22:46:00.000-07:00

The Philosopher and the Revolutionary
a short story

Standing outside the masjid, the philosopher embraced the idyllic snow that settled upon his beard, waiting to be brushed off or slowly lose shape and melt into water droplets that would seep into his hairs. It was the third friday of January in New York and the streets were visible with snow enough to mask the sight of pedestrians from a distance. The philosopher paced a few steps forward and then retreated to cover his initial steps. He had done this a few times over the last half hour while he waited for the revolutionary to meet up with him. The philosopher told the revolutionary to meet up with him in front of masjid so they could enter together. The real reason was that the discreet location of the masjid made it difficult for the untrained eye to pick it out from the apartment complexes surrounding it.

The philosopher did not mind the wait but rather took the moments to observe and reflect upon the congregation members who had passed him by to enter the building. He kept his distance from the middle aged women with the brown paper bag who asked for the congregation member for a donation as to prevent himself from being in that intimate space where one can ask another for help. Amongst those who passed him by were various African street sellers, South Asian cabbies, Arab restaurant workers, students from the local community college, and elderly people of different classes and backgrounds, each with their own pre-Jummah ritual and demeanor as they entered the masjid.

to be continued...

2008-04-06T16:33:00.000-07:00

Fathers and Daughters

I like these pictures. I'd like to share it with you because it shows how men can be loving fathers. I believe the girls featured in the picture are the daughters of the men, but symbolically it shows that men be be loving towards their children, specifically their daughters.

One day I hope to have children - I grew up around 2 sisters and in my teens saw my aunt give birth to 3 daughters who frequented our house often. I raised them in one way. I feel with little girls that I think that if all my children were girls, I would be content but not if all my children were boys.

2008-04-05T23:01:00.000-07:00

Confessions of a Former Poet

I used to be a poet. I used to see poetry in everything - I used see the rich complexities of life, the pain and pleasure of living... yes, I had that poet vision.

I have not see that vision in me... I'm afraid I have lost that sight. I want to return to that vision I had.

Any suggestions from the readers who pass by?

2008-03-19T21:30:00.000-07:00

I am still around

I know haven't posted in a while because for the last 3 months or so I was obsessed with The Wire.

Its one of the best shows I have ever seen - quite possibly the best ever for me, although after reading Ishamel Reed's criticism of The Wire, I do being to wonder if it is exploitation of the African American community as being affected by drugs and not showing how drugs are equally - if not more, destructive to white communities.

I personally believe that the show did more good than anything because it told a story that needed to be told.

Things are "changing" in our society so I've been keeping busy with following that.

Btw, I want to say that everyone - especially every Muslim should check out Rory Kennedy's latest documentary that was put on DVD - The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib - It was legally informative and really tragic.

2007-12-13T09:55:00.000-08:00

Man Gone Down

I just picked up a copy of Man Gone Down from the library. It got a great review by the NY Times and was listed as one of the 10 best books of 2007.

Actually, I have to confess that even if the book did not get any good reviews or accolades, I would have read it without thinking otherwise. Why? The writer, Michael Thomas, was a former professor of mine and considered him as a mentor.

Anyways, reading the book - I'm sitting there thinking, wow so this is what he must have been thinking 2 years ago when he came into class and was talking about Eliot or Baldwin.

Aside from the more personal connection, I the book is one of the few recent African American lit works out there and worth examining because its suppose to pick up speaking about where other greats like Ellison, Bladwin, Walker, and Morrison have left off.

If there is anyone else out there reading it or thinking about reading it, post here... I hope to discuss some sections/themes of the work.

2007-10-28T21:34:00.000-07:00

Revisiting Sex Without Love

A while back, I wrote about Sharon Olds’ poem Sex Without Love and its application to Muslims.

I was thinking about that poem again, when I found out about, surrogacy contracts . In its core essence, a surrogacy contract is between a party who wants a baby and a mother who will act as a surrogate to carry a child through pregnancy and then give the child to party – ending her relationship with the child at birth. It’s much more complicated than that since there is no uniform law on it, with some states absolutely against it, some for it, and others totally have no law on the matter (find out what your state law. is on the issue.

I mention surrogacy contracts and the Olds poem because Olds actually mentioned something similar to this:

How do they do it, the ones who make love
without love? […]
children at birth whose mothers are going to
give them away.

Surrogacy agreements got me thinking about this because Olds’ poem uses the example of the mothers giving away their children to equate how emotionally cold one’s act is when its sex without love.

The whole notion is upsetting to me. I feel as if the surrogate mother is an unaware victim. I say this because I personally believe that no woman can waive the right to a child she carries for months and endures the difficulties of pregnancy and childbirth, only to hand the living being over to another. While the law has made it very hard to engage in ‘selling babies,’ I still feel that it the core level – the law is sanctioning the transactions of humans.

2007-10-24T18:20:00.000-07:00

A Requiem of Self Sorrow

How did…

How did my heart become the cold rock that
Lies buried in dark abyss of an ocean
Of Isolation from

Allah.

Kyuh hum umpe dil ko dukhate h'ei
Jab humarah dil dukh sayhe baraeh hai

(Why do we wound our hearts
When our hearts are wounds themselves)

I felt something today, something that reached me deeper than the words that come as sound waves to my body. Today the words meshed through my clothing, through my skin and drowned my heart.

When my heart had drowned, I felt void in my chest.

All of this from words? Just simple words.

Words.

It has been a long time since I have met a person who has recently become Muslim. I didn't meet them today... but their words met me.

This person became Muslim only recently, last Sunday. I was told that they grew up believing without Allah... as a Muslim they other day, they started to cry when driving and seeing the trees and the creation of Allah.

I... I reflected on why I no longer felt this... did I ever feel this. In my heart I felt sorrow because I had neglect my heart to the point I could not feel this...

May Allah bless this Muslim for helping me see the condition I had fallen to myself.

Realizing this is only half the step, the next is to correct it. May Allah help me.

2007-09-24T11:33:00.000-07:00

Ramadan Is Upon Us - Check Yourself

I've been very busy lately, especially since its Ramadan, and hope to post regulary when its over.
But check out the Ramadan checklist - to track or at least consider your own progress. Click on the pic above.

2007-08-23T11:15:00.000-07:00

Footbaths

I remember in college this used be an issue with some Muslims and non-Muslims. Some people in our school's MSA wanted a footbath near the MSA entrance (very impractical and dangerous). I admit that for those who wash their feet or didn't have wudu when they put their socks on, it would be very convenient to have a foothbath but I personally didn't feel the need since I would wipe over the socks. I can see other students who don't would feel a need for a footbath.

Check this article - hat tip to Abu Aisha.

Universities Install Footbaths to Benefit Muslims, and Not Everyone Is Pleased

By TAMAR LEWIN
When pools of water began accumulating on the floor in some restrooms at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, and the sinks pulling away from the walls, the problem was easy to pinpoint. On this campus, more than 10 percent of the students are Muslims, and as part of ritual ablutions required before their five-times-a-day prayers, some were washing their feet in the sinks.
The solution seemed straightforward. After discussions with the Muslim Students' Association, the university announced that it would install $25,000 foot-washing stations in several restrooms.
But as a legal and political matter, that solution has not been quite so simple. When word of the plan got out this spring, it created instant controversy, with bloggers going on about the Islamification of the university, students divided on the use of their building-maintenance fees, and tricky legal questions about whether the plan is a legitimate accommodation of students' right to practice their religion -- or unconstitutional government support for that religion.
''It's an awkward thing,'' said Alexis Oesterle, a junior. ''If I'm sitting with Muslim friends, I wouldn't want to bring it up. In this country, at this time, it's not so easy to discuss the issues of Muslims in American society.''
As the nation's Muslim population grows, issues of religious accommodation are becoming more common, and more complicated. Many public school districts are grappling with questions about prayer rooms for Muslim students, halal food in cafeterias and scheduling around important Muslim holidays. As Muslim students point out, the school calendar already accommodates Christians, with Sundays off and vacations around Christmas and Easter.
''Starting about two years ago, school attorneys have been asking more and more questions about accommodations for Muslim students,'' said Lisa Soronen, a National School Boards Association lawyer. ''These issues don't get litigated very often; they're usually worked out one by one.''
Nationwide, more than a dozen universities have footbaths, many installed in new buildings. On some campuses, like George Mason University in Virginia, and Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Mich., there was no outcry. At Eastern Michigan, even some Muslim students were surprised by the appearance of the footbath -- a single spigot delivering 45 seconds of water -- in a partitioned corner of the restroom in the new student union.
''My sister told me about it, and I didn't believe it,'' said Najla Malaibari, a graduate student at Eastern Michigan. ''I was, 'No way,' and she said, 'Yeah, go crazy.' It really is convenient.''
But after a Muslim student at Minneapolis Community and Technical College slipped and hurt herself last fall while washing her feet in a sink, word got out there that the college was considering installing a footbath, and a local columnist accused the college of a double standard -- stopping a campus coffee cart from playing Christmas music but taking a different attitude toward Islam.
''After the column, a Christian conservative group issued an action alert to its members, which prompted 3,000 e-mail and 600 voice messages to me and/or legislators,'' said Phil Davis, president of the college.
Mr. Davis said that after a legal briefing, the board concluded that installing footbaths was constitutional, and that the college hoped to have a plan in place by the next school year.
Here in Dearborn, the university called the footbaths a health and safety measure, not a religious decision. And it argued that while the footbaths may benefit Muslim students, they will be available to others, like lacrosse players who want to wash their feet.
Still, the plans are controversial.
''My first reaction was, 'Where's the money coming from?' '' said Emily Hutfloetz, a senior. ''I feel like it's favoring one group of people.''
On her Web site, Debbie Schlussel, a conservative lawyer and blogger in Southfield, Mich., posted, ''Forget about the Constitutionally mandated separation of church and state ... at least when it comes to mosque and state.''
And in an editorial, the student newspaper, The Michigan Journal, worried that opponents would turn their hostility ''on Muslim students at the university and Islam as a whole.''
Hal Downs, president of the Michigan chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said, ''The university claims it's available for Western students as well, but, traditionally, Western students don't wash their feet five times day.''
''They're building a structure for a particular religious tradition,'' Mr. Downs added, ''and the Constitution says the government isn't supposed to endorse a particular religion.''
The American Civil Liberties Union says the footbath issue is complex.
''Our policy is to object whenever public funds are spent on any brick and mortar component of religion,'' said Kary Moss, director of the Michigan Civil Liberties Union. ''What makes this different, though, is that the footbaths themselves can be used by anyone, don't have any symbolic value and are not stylized in a religious way. They're in a regular restroom, and could be just as useful to a janitor filling up buckets, or someone coming off the basketball court, as to Muslim students.''
Then, too, Ms. Moss said, the health and safety component is not normally part of religious accommodation cases.
''This came from the maintenance staff, which was worried about the wet floors,'' she said. ''We were also aware that if the university said students could not wash their feet in the sink anymore, that could present a different civil liberties problem, interfering with Muslim students' ability to practice their religion.''
Some Muslim students seem bothered by the controversy, saying they might not have considered footbaths worth fighting for.
''I think this was the school's way to try to draw more Muslims, by showing that they were welcoming,'' said Zahraa Aljebori, a sophomore at Dearborn, who said she never even washed her feet in the sink.
As at other campuses, Dearborn's Muslim Students' Association chapter has pushed for, and won, halal food and a ''reflection room,'' used mostly for Muslim prayers, but occasionally by Christian groups. But it did not ask for the footbaths, said Farhan Latif, a graduate student and adviser to the group.
''The idea came from the administration, and we were consulted,'' Mr. Latif said. ''And we were surprised at the hate mail that came in after it got into the media.''

Correction: August 8, 2007, Wednesday A picture caption with an article yesterday about a debate at some colleges over the installation of footbaths that Muslim students can use in ritual ablutions before prayers referred incorrectly to footbaths at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. The university is planning to install them, but has not yet done so.

2007-07-28T22:05:00.000-07:00

Thoughts on the New Passing's Affect on the Future of African American Literature

After reading Umm Adam and Tariq Nelson's pieces on the "new passing," I was reminded about this theme discussed in when I took African American Literature in college. I recommend you guys check out both of their pieces - they are quite long and worth it - especially the some of the comments.

From Tariq:

If most of the grandchildren of the Tiger Woods’, Harold Fords, Derek Jeters, Soledad O’briens and other talented individuals (that are not necessarily famous) opt into the non-black category, the perception of what is ‘black’ (i.e., the poorer darker skinned masses) will likely be defined down to be significantly worse than it is today.

After hearing all of this, the brother said something that he probably already felt anyway. “That (opting out of blackness) may not be such a bad idea”

I suppose it could be called a new passing. This passing is not into whiteness, but into “non-blackness”.

According to this article between 35,000 and 50,000 young adults every year, who previously were identified by their parents as Black, switch to identifying themselves publicly as White or Hispanic. That sounds like a large number, but I can believe that many young adults - many for the good reason that they are racially mixed - have moved away from identifying themselves as solely black to being “other”. The “new passing” is not that drastic.

From Umm Adam:

I was once befriended by an Afro-Saudi family. They wanted me to find them white husbands. Their mixed cousins (Syrian mom/Afro-Saudi dad) came right out and told me that they wanted to lighten the family up. They were making progress and not going back. With their black father dead and out of the picture they blended in just fine. The oldest son took dad’s job at the oil company, the house was paid for upon his death, the government supported them, and the father’s/son’s boss married his white daughter to the son and since I couldn’t/wouldn’t find white husbands for the daughters they have all settled for white Saudis. There will be no trace of black in their family, and they want it that way.

How does all of this relate to future African American literature? Well to being with, I like to share a little bit of my experiance of reading 'passing' in the classical African American literature. I have always been avid reader of African American literature. I really can't put a finger on why I was attracted to it. Ever since I read The Autobiography of Malcolm X in Junior High School and again in High School, I was draw to his intimate portrayal of being raised black and facing racism and how he found Islam. Initially I was drawn to the book because it gave me role model and someone to admire that was respected by the larger community as well - this was the time Spike Lee made the book into the Movie starring Denzel Washington (btw, as "good looking" as Denzel is, he is no comparison to Malcolm). Perhaps it was the closest I felt to anyone in a Muslim male figure. My father rarely spoke to me other than encouraging me to "study hard and top the class" and the book's first person narration helped feel connected to strong male role model figure. I don't want to digress to much because I want to talk about the 'new passing' phenomenon.

Anyhow, one of the things that stands out in my mind from that book for some reason is Malcolm speaking about his mother's relationship with his children. Her being a very fair ("high yellow") woman who married a darker African American Minister because of she knew her light skin was the result of a rape of one of her ancestors (if I recall correctly). With regards to Malcolm, who was one of the lightest skin of all her children, Malcolm spoke about her emotionally distancing herself from him because of what his lighter skin color meant to her psychologically. On the other hand, she favored his brother was a much darker like his father and showed her love to him.

While this incident in Malcolm X's book is not heavily analyzed as part of the 'passing' literature as say James Weldon Johnson's The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man,it is interesting for me to mention. Ex-Colored Man is brilliant display of the psychological crisis facing an African American man who could easily pass as white and does so after witnessing a lynching - only to end up regretting it in the last moments of his life with the last line of the book: "I have sold my birthright for a mess of pottage."

Johnson's Ex-Colored Man dealt with a real sociological and psychological dilemma facing African Americans who could pass off their African American heritage because of their light skin in the early to mid 20th century, and it makes me wonder if what will the result of this new phenomenon on African American or black literature. I ask this because literature, at least to me, embodies the narrative of a people's struggles, hopes, dreams, dilemmas, and perhaps most importantly, the need to seek or search an identity of themselves in society (btw, check out Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man - one of my favs).

All this begs the question, how will the future African American literature be affected by this social change. In the past, many like Johnson's narrator did it to show how racism and the fear of violence drove a black man from his identity but it seems from brother Tariq's post, those factors seem to be mitigated but others like socio-economic standing seem to weigh much more as well.

As a black person rises in educational attainment and/or Socioeconomic Status (SES), they become more likely to marry outside of their race. With each level of rising SES, the number of black/non-black couples increase.

To illustrate this, at the highest income level ($100,000 and above) there are nearly as many black/non-black couples as there are black/black couples. (86,443 both-black couples vs 75,410 mixed race couples). On educational attainment, couples with graduate or professional degrees were again almost even, with 160,367 black/black couples vs 146,763 black/non-black couples (More information on this can be found at here) One also has to wonder how many of those high SES black/black couples include high-yellow (’Yella’)or redbone wives.

I'm curious if there are any African American writers dealing with issue? If so, give me a heads up because if those stats continue to be steady - we can expect that as a new sub-genre in the African American literature.

2007-07-24T00:02:00.000-07:00

A Stranger Stops and Asks

Once in a while, a traveling stranger walking through unknow lands, having passed thousands of faces of people and not have uttered a word or introduction, pauses for a moment.

A moment where he, I in my case, asks himself that perhaps he should say a word or two to them. After all, having shared the same weary earth with them ties them to him in some unexplainable way.

In turn, I ask you - many of you anonymous bloggers or passer-bys, to leave a simple ‘hello’ or ‘hey’ if you drop by here every once in a while. Even if the web constitutes no real terrain that we share in reality – it is a virtual land we tread – passing each other by.

I stop and say, hello to you all.

2007-06-24T19:00:00.000-07:00

Help Make Eid an Official NYC Public School Holiday

I was forwarded this email and consider it important enough to post on a blog as a means of getting the word out on helping make Eid a Holiday in NYC school - kids get off to be with their families, and perhaps come to understand that Muslims like the Jews and Christians, can look forward to days off on their religious days.

From: Senator John Sabini
To: 'John Sabini'

Subject: URGENT ACTION ALERT: Help Make Eid an Official NYC Public School Holiday

Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 14:11:06 -0400

Dear Friend:

Earlier this year, I introduced a bill in the New York State Senate that makes Eid-al-Adha and Eid-al-Fitr official holidays in New York City public schools.

This bill, S3142, would have a significantly better chance of passing if you and other supporters would call, email or fax your respective State Senators and tell them to bring the bill to the floor for a vote. I have prepared a brief guide (below) to help you simply and effectively accomplish this. With the Senate's regular session ending on Thursday, June 21, it is urgent that this be done as soon as possible.

Thank you for your support. If you have any questions, please contact Shams Tarek in my District Office at (718) 639-8469.

Sincerely,

JOHN D. SABINI
Senator

STATE SENATOR JOHN D. SABINI

Eid School Holiday Bill (S3142) Supporter's Guide

1) How to Get Your State Senator's Contact Info

If you don't already know who your State Senator is, find out by visiting www.nypirg.org and clicking on the "Who Represents Me?" link on the left-hand side. This site will list all of your elected representatives, as well as their email addresses and District Office telephone numbers. To get a State Senator's Albany office number through this method, call the District Office and ask. If you live outside New York City, the "Who Represents Me" site won't work; use the "Senators" link on www.senate.state.ny.us. If you cannot visit the Web, contact my District Office at (718) 639-8469.

2) If You Want to Call

If you want to call your State Senator about my Eid School Holiday Bill, call his or her Albany office (518 area code). You will most likely have to leave a message with a staff member. You may use the following sample script:

Hello, my name is [your full name] and I'm one of your constituents. I would like Senator [your State Senator's last name] to please support S3142, which makes Eid, the holiest day of the Muslim calendar, a public school holiday in New York City.

3) If You Want to Fax or Email

If you want to write your State Senator, you may use the following sample message:

Dear Senator [your State Senator's last name]:

As someone who cares about the right of Muslim students in New York City--who make up 10 percent of the public school population there--to observe their religion without disruption, I urge you to please support S3142. This important bill would make Eid-al-Adha and Eid-al-Fitr, two of Islam's holiest days of the year, official public school holidays. The days have been recognized on the New York City Department of Transportation's Parking Calendar for years; it's time for the Department of Education to recognize them, too.

Sincerely,

[your full name]

[your home address]

4) OPTIONAL: In addition to contacting your own State Senator, call, fax or email:

- Majority (Republican) State Senators who represent parts of New York City or other areas with large Muslim populations. They include Senators Serphin Maltese, Frank Padavan and Martin Golden.

- Senate Education Chair Stephen M. Saland. Tel. (518) 455-2411, Fax (518) 426-6920, Email saland@senate.state.ny.us

2007-06-20T22:02:00.000-07:00

'Old Neighborhood Boys'

When I returned home to New York City after a year away in PA, I decided to take a long walk through the streets of Corona to see if the neighborhood might have changed in some small way since I had been gone. I was wrong. After walking a few blocks I began to think about what the narrator in James Baldwin’s in Sonny’s Blues said about his New York neighborhood after being away from it for years: “These streets hadn’t changed, […] houses exactly like the past yet dominated the landscape, boys exactly like boys we once had been found themselves smothering in these houses, came down into the streets for light and air found themselves encircled by disaster.” I found an eerie reality of Corona that mirrored the lines Baldwin use to describe Harlem of the late 1950s: a trap. “Some escaped the trap, most didn’t. Those who got out always left something of themselves behind, as some animals amputate a arm and leave it in the trap.” As someone with a college degree and now working towards a graduate degree, many of the same people I grew up with looked at me as an outsider - as one of the few who had escaped the “trap.”

When my family immigrated to the United States, we settled into the neighborhood of Corona because it had one of few Masajid (Mosques) in Queens and an apartment my father could afford on a blue-collar job. My sister and I enrolled in the local elementary school where more than ninety percent of the students were the children of immigrants and spoke a second language other than English at home. While I struggled with English, I learned the language quickly because no bilingual classes existed like those available to my Spanish-speaking friends. With a majority of the students enrolled in bilingual classes, overcrowded classrooms and pressure from parents and the Board of Education district officials to prepare students to pass citywide exams, elementary school teachers focused on teaching us enough to ensure that we would pass the citywide exams – the sole indicator of our and our teachers’ success. We passed through middle school with a work ethic that emphasized doing just enough to succeed, and believed high school would be no different.

However, high school brought new academic challenges because teachers no longer repeated lessons that students did not initially grasp and were willing to fail students without a second thought. It didn’t help that a culture of gangs and sex dominated the social scene during high school and encouraged people to skip classes or drop out. Some of the boys I had played with in the park as a kid were now eager to prove their loyalty and physical toughness through violent and criminal acts to gangs like the ‘Latin Kings and ‘Dominicans Don’t Play.’ When a triple homicide occurred outside of my apartment building due to a long gang rivalry between members from two different towns in Mexico, I found it hard to believe that such disregard for human life existed over seemingly trivial matters. It was often worse for girls – their beauty became their curse as it attracted the attention of older teenagers and men who showered them with jewelry and clothing in return for being their girlfriends. It wasn’t uncommon to see girls from my neighborhood getting pregnant when they were only beginning to start high school – sometimes by the same boys aspiring to be gangsters. Issues of teenage sex, pregnancy, and abortion became a norm in our school to the extent that it didn’t seem unusual that our high school’s Junior Pageant winner was a sixteen-year-old mother with an infant son.

In order to cope with these social problems, many Muslims in our neighborhood, including myself, found solace our Islamic faith to help resist the surrounding social pressures. Coincidentally, some of the aspiring gang members became Muslim after spending time in corrections facilities and speaking with incarcerated black and Latino Muslims who were former gang members. Unfortunately, when they were released, they found it hard to stay away from the same friends and were often found staying in the Masjid to avoid going back to their troubled homes or friends. I once recall helping a seventeen-year-old Puerto Rican friend named Jafar who grew up with me and became Muslim after being spending time in a juvenile detention center, prepare for the GED tests confess to me how he had been spending most of his time in the Masjid (Mosque) and didn’t mind being back in juvenile detention because he was safer there than around his old friends and our neighborhood. A few weeks our planning for the GED tests, I saw Jafar with his old friends – he ignored as he walked on by with them.

After returning home this summer, I met Jafar on the streets again – this time he didn’t ignore. He told me that he had recently gotten married and his wife was pregnant and expecting soon. I wanted to ask him about whether he ever thought about the GED test we once spoke about but I felt as if I was a stranger asking him a personal question. If I did escape the trap that is my neighborhood, as everyone believes I have, I know that the metaphorical limb I have had to sacrifice is a part of my psyche; my identity of being one of the ‘old neighborhood boys.’

2007-06-18T18:16:00.000-07:00

An Unusual Father for this "Father's Day"

I don't care much for "Father's Day," and there are alot of bad fathers out there (many good ones as well) but this one the below quote is speaking of one - is quite unusual.

Moshe Dayan , IDF General and Israeli Defense Minister during the 1967, remarked to a Palestinian poet that the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians (after Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories) would be like that between a Bedouin man and a young girl he takes against her wishes: Their children would not recall the rape but would view the man as their father.

I told my sister about this quote and she, being a psysch major, told me:

interesting. sad. true.
Perhaps the sadder part is that in these situations (once the children are away from the mother) the children will still always be attracted to their father and will want to reconcile with him, perhas hoping he can offer an apology and they can be the united happy family--something they saw but never had.

How about that? Seems like serious phychological/emotional problem... One could easily see the children seeking therapy or counseling in the future - so does that mean the Palestinian people as a whole are probably suffering from a physchological crisis? Perhaps.

2007-06-16T11:34:00.000-07:00

Interesting News

I wanted to post the whole story below because its worth reading for a couple of reasons. The first reason is to show that discrimination is still prevlant - even in the multiculturally diverse NYC - this is Staten Island - not South Carolina. However, I found this story a little disturbing because the parents of Osama changed his name to "Sammy" ... thats right, SAMMY!?

Sammy is ok name if your a Dominican baseball player for the Texas Rangers but for Muslim... not really. Personally, I've hate it when Muslims introduce themselves as Westernized nicknames of their Islamic names (i.e. Mo for Muhammad, Manny for Usman, etc.) but this an entire name change done by the Parents. Parents are suppose to show support for their children in tough times. Instead, here we see the boy wanting to keep his name as Osama and the parents caving into the pressures.

I give the brother props, I know H.S. is really tough in America with all these social pressures - I hope that he does chnage his name back to Osama eventually.

Tough times for Island boy named Osama

Family files suit over alleged harassment at Tottenville H.S. that nearly caused suicide

Tuesday, June 12, 2007
By JUDY L. RANDALL
STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A Staten Island teen said yesterday he was taunted and harassed for more than two years by Tottenville High School teachers and personnel, sending the one-time honors student into suicidal bouts of depression, all because he shares his first name with 9/11 terrorist Osama Bin Laden.

Jordanian-born Osama Al-Najjar, 16, of Rosebank -- whose parents have since changed his name to "Sammy" against his wishes -- is seeking unspecified financial damages against the city and the Department of Education, alleging that Tottenville administrators acknowledged his plight in private meetings with his parents but did nothing to stop it.

"They did not deny it," asserted his mother, Suad Abuhasna. Rather, she said, a Tottenville assistant principal suggested she enroll Osama in an Islamic school.

Osama's father, Bassam Al-Najjar, said he and his wife wrote letters appealing for help to Rep. Vito Fossella, City Councilman James Oddo and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, to no avail.

What's more, at a press conference in his attorney's Manhattan office, Osama and his parents said the tormenting by teachers and school security guards made them fearful and sent them fleeing upstate for a time. Osama also tried to slit his wrists, placed a cord around his neck and self-medicated.

The lawsuit, filed in Brooklyn federal court, alleges that a gym teacher at the Huguenot school mocked Osama, saying, "I thought you were in a cave somewhere."

Another time, a security guard told him, "We don't want Bin Laden's son in our school."

And two math teachers verbally abused Osama because of his name, including one who repeatedly called him "Bin Laden" and advised him he'd never receive a passing grade.

The lawsuit, filed by attorney Omar Mohammedi, says Osama was the subject of "racial profiling" while at Tottenville High and was "maliciously harassed and discriminated against" by school staff, leaving his "welfare greatly endangered."

Mohammedi said Osama's teacher tormentors "should have been suspended right away."

Calls left at Tottenville High School and Board of Education offices seeking comment went unreturned yesterday.

When the harassment first began, Osama said he regarded it as "stupid stuff, to get my attention." He said, for example, that his gym teacher routinely mocked him "in front of the whole class."

Only one teacher, his ninth-grade math teacher, later apologized, he said.

Osama said at first he wanted to live up to his parents' credo "to give respect to my teachers." Later, he tried to argue with teachers seemingly bent on tormenting him. In the end, he would call his mother and ask to be picked up from school.

Eventually, Osama's grades plummeted and he said he did not want to return to school.

He "withdrew from everything," said his mother, "kept in his room" and "couldn't sleep."

"I used to stay up all night wondering what is going to happen to him," added Ms. Abuhasna. "Being a Muslim is not a crime."

Osama said he had friends at school and that his classmates were generally supportive.

He left Tottenville High School in March 2006, and has since transferred to Telecommunications High School for Art and Technology in Bay Ridge, which the family said has a special program for students with "school phobias."

Osama, dressed in jeans, sneakers and a polo shirt, seemed uneasy with all the media attention. However, he made it clear that it was his parents' idea to change his first name to Sammy. He said he still thinks of himself as Osama and suggested he might change it back when he turns 18.

"I didn't want to change my name," said Osama, who aspires to be a lawyer. "If it was up to me, I'd have that name now."

Ms. Abuhasna, who wears a gold letter "O" around her neck, said she still thinks of her son as Osama, the name bestowed on him by his grandfather.

She added that she initially wanted Osama to attend Tottenville High School because it was a "good school" with an honors program.

After the press conference, Ms. Abuhasna told the Advance that when she and her family first moved to Staten Island from Brooklyn three years ago, "we did not have any problems."

But she said after their problems began at Tottenville High, friends on the Island told her "they had faced problems if they were Arab, Muslim, Jewish, black."

"I don't think it is so welcoming," said Ms. Abuhasna. "I don't think they want it to be mixed."

She said that while she wants to move back to Brooklyn, her family says "you can't run away."

The case is slated to be heard July 12.

http://www.silive.com/news/advance/index.ssf?/base/news/118164877262220.xml&coll=1

2007-04-21T13:09:00.000-07:00

I am...

Apparently,
if I were a poem, I would be
Pablo Neruda's Sonnet XVII:

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

in which there is no I or you
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand
so intimate that when you fall asleep it is my eyes that close

I was somewhat suprised because I thought I might end up being Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.

2007-04-17T21:06:00.000-07:00

Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?

Why does my heart
Feel so bad?
Why does my soul
Feel so bad?

The weight of world bears down on you,
Yet you already doomed yourself by walking into quicksand.

-- Ever have that feeling? I feel like that right now at 12:12 am on a Wednesday.

2007-03-30T08:43:00.000-07:00

Tears, Idle Tears?

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather in the eyes, [...]
And thinking of the days that are no more.
- Alfred Lord Tennyson

Ms. Saadoun's phone call to a nearby military base kept her family from being falsely evicted, but she was killed the next day at a market. Her granddaughters were among those in mourning.

The NYTimes ran this article about Suaada Saadoun, a Sunni Iraqi woman who stood up to thugs that tried to intimidate her into leaving her home in Baghdad.

The two men showed up on Tuesday afternoon to evict Suaada Saadoun’s family. One was carrying a shiny black pistol.

Ms. Saadoun was a Sunni Arab living in a Shiite enclave of western Baghdad. A widowed mother of seven, she and her family had been chased out once before. This time, she called American and Kurdish soldiers at a base less than a mile to the east.

The men tried to drive away, but the soldiers had blocked the street. They pulled the men out of the car.

“If anything happens to us, they’re the ones responsible,” said Ms. Saadoun, 49, a burly, boisterous woman in a black robe and lavender-blue head scarf.

The Americans shoved the men into a Humvee. Neighbors clapped and cheered as if their soccer team had just won a title.

The next morning, Ms. Saadoun was shot dead while walking by a bakery in the local market.

After the police took the body away, all that remained in the alleyway was a pool of blood, a bullet casing and the upper half of Ms. Saadoun’s set of false teeth. [...]

“I told you, ‘Don’t go out, they’ll kill you,’ ” one daughter cried out. “I told you, my lovely mother, ‘Don’t go out, they’ll kill you.’ ”

Suaada Saadoun with Kurdish and American soldiers on Tuesday after they stopped two Shiite men who had tried to evict her from her home on false premises.

I found this an emotional story - a story that one can shed tears to in the privacy of their home when they read about her resolve to stand up to injustice even though she is a widow living with her daughters and granddaughters - but I stop myself because I ask, are these tears I shed any use? Are they just idle tears?

Ms. Saadoun's is only one of the many that are taking placing everyday in Iraq. Do not be fooled by reading one story from the NYTimes that we somehow we are doing our part in what we can do.

I don't intend this to be a retorical question about 'what can we do?'

Nor is this a socratic exercise where I pose the question, 'what can be done?' and end it at that.

I can do what many of us do in such times. Leave you with some reflections from the Qu'ran:

"Be sure we shall test you with something of fear and hunger, some loss in goods or lives or the fruits (of your toil), but give glad tidings to those who patiently persevere,

Who say, when afflicted with calamity: "To Allah We belong, and to Him is our return":-

They are those on whom (Descend) blessings from Allah, and Mercy, and they are the ones that receive guidance."
[2:155-157]

Yet, both you and I know that our deen compels us to offer more to our Muslim brothers and sisters than mere recitation.

2007-03-02T21:17:00.000-08:00

What is it about Sex?

I was thinking... In my post 'Sex without Love' I had many comments - 5 - but then in my post 'Law as a New Religion,' I had none - 0 - which made me think that hey, 'theology is a much more important think than sex! Or is it?'

Blogspot postings are no measure or indicator of what people think is important or spark interest in them to comment, but I guess that people are more interested about sex than theology.

Good Night.

2007-02-15T19:08:00.000-08:00

Law as the New Religion

"Man cannot exist without bowing before something…. Let him reject God, and he will bow before an idol” - Dostoevsky

I’ve been reading this book “Law’s Quandary”for sometime now and thought I’d share some of the interesting discussions mentioned in the book about the relationship between law as the religion of people (particularly in the US legal tradition). I’ve had discussions with my friends about our impressions of this feeling and the author of the book details this theory in full.

In the gist of the two arguments he lays out for the view of the law as this new religion of people, the first:

Is this persistence in the practice of law as the people’s new religion but NOT in the metaphysical premises that seem necessary to support the practice. To shift the religious vocabulary, if contemporary law is a species of idolatry, it is a peculiar and confusing sort of idolatry in which the devotees regulary deny that the idol has the transcendent qualities it would need to justify the uses they make of it.

This confusing condition leads to considering the second, not only different but almost opposite possible view: Could it be that at some level legal practitioners do sincerely believe in “the law,’ and that if they are guilty of ‘bad faith,’ their misrepresentation or self-deception occurs not when they engage in the practice an discourse of the law but rather when they consciously or explicity disavow its metaphysical commitments? Meaning, while lawyers and judges might be in ‘bad faith’ when they engage in practice of law, their overall behavior seems more consistent with the hypothesis that self-deception occurs when they engage in explicit theorizing about law- and when in the course of such theorizing they deny the metaphysical commitments that they in fact hold.

Interesting huh? Not many lawyers, judges, or even Americans view their legal system in such a light… and this isn’t even comming from a Muslim but thier own legal theorists.

In the end, I found Smith's answers quite shallow. I mean he resorts to the platonic thinkers mode of analysis and says that that should be or could be the best way to consider the question of how we can know that the law exists and is. The problem with the platonic mode is the reliance upon this "form" of "law" out there that everyone assumes exists - and somehow agrees is the same form of "law."

I felt he coped out of real answer - or just found it hard to admit that there was none or he didn't have one. I know his answer or semi-answer is more complicated than that, especially his explantion of the ontological gap, but I'll discuss that another time.

2007-02-09T07:52:00.000-08:00

The Qur’ān and Us

This is from the first sections of an article I was sent on the Quran and our relationship with it. It's one of the few things I've read recently that has actually been able to get past my surface.

I admit that I am most affected by the 'post-modern' state of mind because of the nature of the beast I am with. I'm surrounded by people all day who are obsessed with only what is present before them. Even if they have their own spiritual beliefs and views, they check them in at the door when the arrive and pick them up on their way out.

Perhaps I am over reacting to this and it may be a blessing to be with people who don't speak about their religion or look to propogate it ... I think I just need a spiritual vocation. I've never had one in my life.

Anyways, read the below article - its worth it.

One of the results of living in our post-modern societies in the West is our increased cynicism with all that which is classical, holy, blessed, miraculous, supernatural etc. This has been a direct side-effect from growing up and living in a community which is purely secular in nature, where God has no significance, and where anything that can not be directly observed and proved is immediately rubbished. Call it the Age of Empiricism or call it the Age of Ignorance, what can not be doubted is how it has affected the mindset of millions of Muslims in the “developed” world, and worse even, now starting to play its way down into the Muslim (often synonymous with the) “developing” world.

It’s unfortunate that many Muslims hesitate to act freely in certain issues, afraid that others surrounding them might consider such actions or beliefs as backward or strange. Hence for example, we find some Muslims whilst still having an internal theoretical faith in the subject, are unwilling to express their belief in the supernatural or as the Qur’ān describes it, al-‘Ālam’l-Ghayb or the “Unseen Realm”.

Consequently, we find great difficulty in having a serious discussion about Angels or the Jinn. We find it complicated to talk about al-Hajr’l-Aswad (the Black Stone) or al-Rukn al-Yamāni (the Yemeni Corner of the Ka‘bah) etc. Likewise, to freely extol the blessings of a certain act, or a certain day or a certain night such as Laylat’l-Qadr becomes strained, especially if questioned on the rationale or logic. Naturally, the Believer recognises the basis of such belief in the Unseen and is strong upon that but yet must still recognise the threat. If the prevailing environment still hasn’t shaken the internal belief, it seems apparent from ones observations that the frequency and intensity of religious devotional practice of the external is very much in danger.

Add to this the incredibly fast-paced way we live our lives with the further problem of materialism and secularist ideology insisting that religion be practised and expressed on the “down-low” and then we can recognise a real problem facing our Muslims today.

Couple this modern problem with the ever-existent ikhtilāf or difference of opinion that exists amongst scholars with respect to certain spiritual acts and rituals and one might not be blamed for believing that deep spirituality and emotions such as esteem and sanctity are under attack.

As this section is dealing with the Qur’ān, one can observe specific problems of a similar nature with respect to our direct relationship with the Holy Book.

It is a sad fact that people are not reflecting and benefiting from this great gift to humanity: a deep spiritual message and yet expansive code of conduct for life itself. It is a shame that so many people, whilst recognising its internal beauty and melody, its healing power and the way it invokes ones strongest emotions and yet logically clarifies ones senses, still find difficulty in connecting to this holiest and most sanctified of words – indeed the words of our Creator, Allah, the Mighty and Exalted.

2007-01-25T23:12:00.000-08:00

Blade Runner Redux

I recently re-watched Blade Runner, Director's Cut, version and was amazed at how good the movie was for something that came out in 1982. I say this because this movie picks up so many literary and philosophical themes, from Frankenstein to Crime and Punishment style existentialism.

I wonder how Muslims would deal with the ethical questions concerning genetically created androids or clones. I know that we would obviously object to such creations but what if others like non-Muslims created them, how would we deal with them?

I don't have the answers and Islam will deal with them when the situation arises. But I'm just wondering...

2007-01-20T18:27:00.000-08:00

The Virtues of Allah’s Sacred Month of Muharram

Is Muharram an Important Month?

Given that we are entering the month of Muharram, there are few things to be noted about this particular month.

Allah’s sacred month of Muharram is a blessed and important month, not just because it is the first month of the Hijri calendar, but also because it is one of the four sacred months concerning which Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):

“Verily, the number of months with Allaah is twelve months (in a year), so it was ordained by Allaah on the Day when He created the heavens and the earth; of them, four are sacred. That is the right religion, so wrong not yourselves therein…” [al-Tawbah 9:36]

Abu Bakrah (may Allaah be pleased with him) reported that the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “The year is twelve months of which four are sacred, the three consecutive months of Dhu’l-Qa’dah, Dhu’l-Hijjah and Muharram, and Rajab Mudar which comes between Jumaada and Sha’baan.” (Reported by al-Bukhaari, 2958).

Muharram is so called because it is a sacred (muharram) month and to confirm its sanctity.

Allaah’s words (interpretation of the meaning): “so wrong not yourselves therein…” mean do not wrong yourselves in these sacred months, because sin in these months is worse than in other months.
It was reported that Ibn ‘Abbaas said that this phrase (so wrong not yourselves therein…) referred to all the months, then these four were singled out and made sacred, so that sin in these months is more serious and good deeds bring a greater reward.

What Can We Do In Muharram?

Abu Hurayrah (may Allaah be pleased with him) said: “The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: ‘The best of fasting after Ramadaan is fasting Allaah’s month of Muharram.’” (reported by Muslim, 1982).

The phrase “Allaah’s month”, connecting the name of the month to the name of Allaah in a genitive grammatical structure, signifies the importance of the month. Al-Qaari said: “The apparent meaning is all of the month of Muharram.” But it was proven that the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) never fasted any whole month apart from Ramadan, so this hadeeth is probably meant to encourage increasing one’s fasting during Muharram, without meaning that one should fast for the entire month.

It was reported that the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) used to fast more in Sha’baan. It is likely that the virtue of Muharram was not revealed to him until the end of his life, before he was able to fast during this month.
(Sharh al-Nawawi ‘ala Saheeh Muslim).

What Day or Days Should One Fast

Ibn ‘Abbaas (may Allaah be pleased with him) said: “The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) came to Madeenah and saw the Jews fasting on the day of ‘Aashooraa’. He said, ‘What is this?’ They said, ‘This is a righteous day, it is the day when Allaah saved the Children of Israel from their enemies, so Moosa fasted on this day.’ He said, ‘We have more right to Moosa than you,’ so he fasted on that day and commanded [the Muslims] to fast on that day.” (Reported by al-Bukhaari, 1865).

The virtues of fasting ‘Aashooraa’

Ibn ‘Abbaas (may Allaah be pleased with them both) said: “I never saw the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) so keen to fast any day and give it priority over any other than this day, the day of ‘Aashooraa’, and this month, meaning Ramadaan.” (Reported by al-Bukhaari, 1867).

The meaning of his being keen was that he intended to fast on that day in the hope of earning the reward for doing so.

The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “For fasting the day of ‘Aashooraa’, I hope that Allaah will accept it as expiation for the year that went before.” (Reported by Muslim, 1976). This is from the bounty of Allaah towards us: for fasting one day He gives us expiation for the sins of a whole year. And Allaah is the Owner of Great Bounty.

It is mustahabb (encouraged) to fast Taasoo’aa’ with ‘Aashooraa’

‘Abd-Allaah ibn ‘Abbaas (may Allaah be pleased with them both) said: “When the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) fasted on ‘Aashooraa’ and commanded the Muslims to fast as well, they said, ‘O Messenger of Allaah, it is a day that is venerated by the Jews and Christians.’ The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said, ‘If I live to see the next year, inshallaah, we will fast on the ninth day too.’ But it so happened that the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) passed away before the next year came.” (Reported by Muslim, 1916).

On this basis it may be said that there are varying degrees of fasting ‘Aashooraa’, the least of which is to fast only on the tenth and the best of which is to fast the ninth as well. The more one fasts in Muharram, the better it is.

The strongest reason for fasting the ninth along with the tenth is being different from the People of the Book. Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyah (may Allaah have mercy on him) said: “The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) forbade imitating the People of the Book in many ahaadeeth, for example, his words concerning ‘Aashooraa’: ‘If I live until the next year, I will certainly fast on the ninth day.’” (al-Fataawa al-Kubra, part 6, Sadd al-Dharaa’i’ al-Mufdiyah ila’l-Mahaarim )

Ruling on fasting only on the day of ‘Aashooraa’

Shaykh al-Islam said: “Fasting on the day of ‘Aashoraa’ is an expiation for a year, and it is not makrooh to fast only that day…” (al-Fataawa al-Kubra, part 5). In Tuhfat al-Muhtaaj by Ibn Hajar al-Haytami, it says: “There is nothing wrong with fasting only on ‘Aashooraa’.” (part 3, Baab Sawm al-Tatawwu’).

Fasting ‘Aashooraa’ – for what does it offer expiation?

Imaam al-Nawawi (may Allaah have mercy on him) said:

“It expiates for all minor sins, i.e., it brings forgiveness of all sins except major sins.”

Then he said (may Allaah have mercy on him):

“Fasting the day of ‘Arafaah expiates for two years, and the day of ‘Aashooraa’ expiates for one year. If when a person says ‘Aameen’ it coincides with the ‘Aameen’ of the angels, he will be forgiven all his previous sins… Each one of the things that we have mentioned will bring expiation. If there are minor sins for which expiation is needed, expiation for them will be accepted; if there are no minor sins or major sins, good deeds will be added to his account and he will be raised in status… If he had committed major sins but no minor sins, we hope that his major sins will be reduced.” (al-Majmoo’ Sharh al-Muhadhdhab, part 6, Sawm Yawm ‘Arafaah).

Correcting Some Common Misconceptions About This Month & Fasting on Aashooraa

Some people who are deceived rely too much on things like fasting on ‘Aashooraa’ or the day of ‘Arafaah, to the extent that some of them say, “Fasting on ‘Aashooraa’ will expiate for the sins of the whole year, and fasting on the day of ‘Arafaah will bring extra rewards.” Ibn al-Qayyim said: ‘This misguided person does not know that fasting in Ramadaan and praying five times a day are much more important than fasting on the day of ‘Arafaah and ‘Aashooraa’, and that they expiate for the sins between one Ramadaan and the next, or between one Friday and the next, so long as one avoids major sins. But they cannot expiate for minor sins unless one also avoids major sins; when the two things are put together, they have the strength to expiate for minor sins. Among those deceived people may be one who thinks that his good deeds are more than his sins, because he does not pay attention to his bad deeds or check on his sins, but if he does a good deed he remembers it and relies on it. This is like the one who seeks Allaah’s forgiveness with his tongue (i.e., by words only), and glorifies Allaah by saying “Subhaan Allaah” one hundred times a day, then he backbites about the Muslims and slanders their honour, and speaks all day long about things that are not pleasing to Allaah. This person is always thinking about the virtues of his tasbeehaat (saying “Subhaan Allaah”) and tahleelaat (saying “Laa ilaaha ill-Allaah”) but he pays no attention to what has been reported concerning those who backbite, tell lies and slander others, or commit other sins of the tongue. They are completely deceived.” (al-Mawsoo’ah al-Fiqhiyyah, part 31, Ghuroor).

2007-01-16T01:10:00.000-08:00

Busy in 07

I've been unable to post much recently since I've been busy with a few things like research on a Haiti for a project.

I did want to respond to a comment posted on my previous post. An "Anonymous" person said this about my recent post:

When lovers meet thousand pains disappear but how often do lovers truly meet. The world is true cruel a place and sometimes they are like birds who are separated even before meeting. Sex is important no doubt but sometimes lovers are so intoxicated that sex is only a small part of their existence. They are too caught up in meeting each other and trying to escape the pains of their surroundings in each others eyes.

Yes, perhaps that may be true but when all is done, the intoxication will wear off those "lovers" and if the sex is not attached to something more than just the act itself, an empty feeling will come within their existence - only only to pain them more.

2006-12-18T01:30:00.000-08:00

Sex Without Love

I second questioned myself about posting my response to this poem I read. I have been reading alot of poetry for the last two days. I felt the need to since I don't know I've appreciated fine writing and treated by eyes to beautiful prose in a long time. Anyways, I found this poem by Sharon Olds 'Sex Without Love' and it got me thinking to the point where I started breaking it down to its core. Here is the text of the original poem:

Sex Without Love
By Sharon Olds

How do they do it, the ones who make love
without love? Beautiful as dancers,
Gliding over each other like ice-skaters
over the ice, fingers hooked
inside each other's bodies, faces
red as steak, wine, wet as the
children at birth, whose mothers are going to
give them away. How do they come to the
come to the come to the God come to the
still waters, and not love
the one who came there with them, light
rising slowly as steam off their joined
skin? These are the true religious,
the purists, the pros, the ones who will not
accept a false Messiah, love the
priest instead of the God. They do not
mistake the lover for their own pleasure,
they are like great runners: they know they are alone
with the road surface, the cold, the wind,
the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardio
vascular health--just factors, like the partner
in the bed, and not the truth, which is the
single body alone in the universe
against its own best time.

Analysis of ‘Sex Without Love’

In “Sex Without Love,” Sharon Olds takes a direct approach of asking a question many people may have considered: How do they do it, the ones who make love without love? One of the most interesting things about the poem, aside from the question she asks, is her decision to simple state the heart of her poem. Unlike other poets who construct complex imagery, symbolism, and other forms of fugitive speech to allude to the heart of the poem, Olds takes the opposite approach and simply presents it to the reader. However, this does not take away from the poem or even lose the interest of the reader but it is arguable that such a question captures their attention.

The topic has always attracted attention because of people’s conflicting views on sexuality. The reader does not get any simple answer to the question but follows Olds as she draws a beautiful rich image of two people having ‘gliding over each others bodies like ice-skaters as they grasp on their bodies, tender and vulnerable as new born children. The final clause of that sensual sentence describing sex, ‘whose mothers are going to give them away,’ is unexpected because the reader is naturally inclined to believe a mother will hold and caress a new born child, not give the child away – perhaps suggesting that sex without love is analogous to a new born that seeks the warmth of a mother but is denied that by the mother’s choice.

Instead, she describes those loveless sex partners as ‘purists’ who don’t mistake the pleasure they are achieving as coming from their partner but themselves. Yet the same purists who refuse to worship the false Messiah engage in contradictory behavior loving the Priest more God, like the one who engages in sex not mistaking another for their pleasure, only to make the bigger mistake of finding themselves as the lovers. In the end, they have engage in nothing more than mechanical behavior of running like great runners who lose scope of the larger picture achievement of running a marathon. In this loss and appreciation of love, Olds seems to suggest that sex without love is the single body alone in the universe measuring and demanding pleasure not from their lover but themselves.

The message is quite blunt and cold; after the beautiful prose they uses to describe two people in a seemingly affectionate act of passion, she reminds us that if there is no love between them it is nothing more than a discarded new born alone in time and space. Re-examining the writer’s choice of a restrictive-free style, the reader senses that Olds strengthened her ability to address a topic that must be of importance to the writer because of her forwardly intimate approach that ends with a pity-evoking image of loveless lovers.

Applying the Analysis to Muslims

For many Muslims, the topic is of sex and love is taboo. I’m not sure if many Muslims have made the distinction between love and sex, and hence treat is as one and the same. Meaning, you’ll find Muslims truly in love being denied marriage by their parents because the parents believe their children are just behaving lewd and lusting; something they’ll be over in a little while. On the flip side, some Muslims believe that the one courting them in marriage is only in for love (everlasting love) but we later find out it was more of a sexual desire and the two quickly jumped into marriage.

When attempting to apply the question of is there sex without love amongst Muslims, the answer seems like yes. But Muslim could have told you that - just as there is love without sex in Islam. For instance, the 2nd wife of the Prophet (saw), Sawda (ra), would give her night to be with the Prophet (saw) to Aisha (ra) because of her old age but just because the Prophet was going to Sawda (ra) at night did not mean he stopped loving her.

Considering the Analysis in Context of Islam

Since loveless sex is such a sad moment, the question to ask, does Islam promote loveless sex? (Short answer: no; longer answer to be explained below)

Considering that the only way any man and a woman will be able to engage sex in Islam is through relations after marriage. Hence, marriage is the pre-requisite to relations. This begs another question, who is marriage for?

Marriage is for Lovers

The answer to the above question, who is marriage for, is quite simple and beautifully expressed in a hadith of the Prophet (saw):

“There is nothing for two who love one another like marriage.” Recorded by Ibn Majah.

Hence, the conclusion: Marriage is for lovers!

Obviously the answer cannot be that simple. Lets examine some commentary by the Scholars on that hadith:

Faidh al-Qadeer (the commentary on Jami` as-Sagheer) al-Munaawi said:  

“‘It is when a man looks at an ajnabiyah [unrelated woman] and his heart has desire of intercourse, then marrying her will result in increased love.’ This was mentioned by at-Teebi. And more correct than him is the saying of some of the elders that the meaning is that it is the greatest remedy to treat the passion of desire for marital relations. For it is a remedy which there is no equal for by any means. And this is the meaning which is indicated by Allah, Glorious is He, after making women lawful; the free of them, and the slaves of them due to need, by His saying:  

“Allah wants to lighten [the burden] for you, and man was created weak.” (An-Nisa’ 4:28) 
 
So by Allah, Glorious is He, mentioning lightening in this subject and informing about man’s weakness, it proves that he is too weak to carry this desire, and that He, Glorious is He, lightened its matter for him by what He permitted for him of pure women. And with this explanation it clarifies that the information relates to when he intends to propose to a woman, and he sees her and feels love for her, then it is legislated that he may plan to marry her merely based on what he saw.”

In Kifayat al-Hajjah, (the commentary on Sunan Ibn Majah) as-Sindi said:  

“It is, when there is love between two, then that love will not be increased by anything among the various types of means of drawing nearer, nor will anything make it last, like the marriage tie. So if they are married with that love, then the love will increase and become stronger with every day.”

MashAllah! Just read above at the wisdom and deep understanding the Scholars have about love.

After reading this hadith, you may pause and ask yourself something like this: ‘hey, this hadith is saying that I need to be in love before I get married, and what other way to fall in love than by “getting to know” the other?

Getting to “Know” One Another?

Ah you see, Islam is a system that contains wisdom that would realize this type of reaction and makes it clear from the commentary that the meaning of “love” in the hadith, is desire, not the complicated concept of love that modern people intend.  

Abu Khaliyl, a student of knowledge who has ijazah in certain books of hadith from the deceased Safi ur Rahman Mubarakpuri, further adds:

So, a man loves bread, and his love of his bread is similar, and at the same time not similar, to his love of his wife. When he is hungry and he sees bread, his desire to consume it increases until he does so. And yet, we call that, “love” of bread.

This is the type of love that is common through out this topic, it is present in the two mentioned in the hadith, and it is present in the man when he sees bread.

But man’s love for bread does not increase after he consumed it, while marriage causes love to grow. So the love that comes from marriage, is not the same as the love (i.e. desire) before it. And this is obvious and common in normal speech.  

Conversely, the modern evil concepts of marriage dictate, ‘we must get to know each other well prior to marriage.’ While this has nothing to do with love, but “getting to know.” And knowing something is not the same as loving something. Then, it is no secret what this concept leads to, and even among Muslims.  So the Prophet (sall Allahu `alaihi wa sallam) did not say: “I have not seen anything for two who love each other like fornication.”  Rather, he said: “marriage.” That is, marriage increases love, while fornication will only lead to anguish, in this life and in the Hereafter.  

But man’s love for bread does not increase after he consumed it, while marriage causes love to grow. So the love that comes from marriage, is not the same as the love (i.e. desire) before it. And this is obvious and common in normal speech.

And Allah knows best

Great Stuff huh? Responses/comments welcome.

2006-12-12T18:47:00.000-08:00

Acknowledging the Holocaust & Regaining the Moral High Ground for Muslims

I keep reading about Muslims who want to question the severity of the Holocaust, or straight out deny that it ever happened. This has come to the forefront in the media recently because of the conference in Iran that seeks to question the Holocaust.

I read this recent article about a group of Jews who are against the state of Israel, arguing that the teachings of Judaism instruct that only the coming of the Jewish Messiah can lead to the creation of a Jewish state:

The book of Jewish law or Talmud, they say, teaches that believers may not use human force to create a Jewish state before the coming of the Messiah.

They also go on to make a valid point about how the Holocaust has been used by the Jewish people:

He [Austria-based Rabbi Moishe Ayre Friedman] says the Holocaust was being used to legitimise the suffering of other peoples and he wanted to break what he called a taboo on discussing it.
The main thing, he argued, was not Jewish suffering in the past but the use of the Holocaust as a "tool of commercial, military and media power".

These Jews were at the conference in Iran but they were there to object at Israel, not debate the valdity of the Holocaust, which they believe happened without a doubt. However, I believe just examining this group is important because they can teach us Muslims that you can accept the Holocaust and still find objection to Israel - which Muslims don't seem to understand.

Let us Muslims face the facts:

Any reasonable Jew would find any statement questioning if the Holocaust happened as offensive, and rightly so.

One the flip side, any Palestinian has a right to be offended when people (Jewish or non-Jewish) speak about Israel’s legitimate right to Palestinian land, especially using the Holocaust as a justification.

The Holocaust and Israel are two distinct issues that often get messed together because of emotions.

First, the issue of the Holocaust. As a Muslim and a human being, I find it offensive and foolish that anyone would try denying this horrible crime. People may debate about the specific ways or precise number of deaths that occurred but outright questioning whether it happened is absurd. The Holocaust was genocide, and genocide is a grave crime against humanity – humanity is something all people, regardless of creed are members of, and crimes against humanity are an offensive to us all.

The second issue is the state of Israel. The fact that the Holocaust happened doesn't give one the privilege to arrive in a foreign land (although historically Jewish) establish a new state and marginalize the native population. There were Jewish people living in Palestine before Israel was created but those seeking the creation of the Jewish state were European Jews who created the impetus and pressure upon England (i.e. Balfour Declaration) towards supporting a Jewish homeland in Palestine. This is one of the reasons, the main reason in my opinion, Arabs and Muslims in the world perceive Israel as a permanent mark and continuation of colonization (a period where the Arab/Muslim civilization was humiliated by Western Imperialists) upon the Arab/Muslim world.

I find it unfortunate that because of the creation of Israel, Muslims feel enmity towards the Jewish people because we really shouldn’t since Muslims and Jews have both suffered at the hands of a common oppressor: Western powers. Jews suffered through hundreds of years of persecution in Europe culminating to one of the greatest crimes ever committed. Likewise, the Arab/Muslim world also suffered at the hands of the Western colonialists and imperialistic powers for much of the 19th and 20th century.

Muslim should accept the Holocaust at its face value and take the moral high ground by pointing out that both of us have suffered but Jewish suffering didn’t privilege Jews to come into a land they left over two millennia and reclaim it as the state of Israel. The last they should be doing is having conferences that have former KKK leader David Duke.

However at this point, Arabs/Palestinians/Muslims should also realize there is no way to “get rid” of Israel since the state is clearly established. We should just focus on at least getting any Palestinian state because it seems like that option may not be available to Palestinians soon, even though in principle Palestinians had a greater claim to more land.

2006-12-11T15:06:00.000-08:00

Thoughts on Hijab/Niqab and Its Relationship with Modesty

The whisper of a pretty girl can be heard further than the roar of a lion.
[Arabic Proverb]

So I came across this discussion between two Muslims online about hijab. I wont comment on them but let you read what they said first.

Muslim X says:
Girls without hijab are like unwrapped hard candy...I won't touch that. If you saw a jollyrancher that has been opened and licked on, would you want to suck on it? Metephorically speaking: that is what a non hijabi is like!

Muslim Y responds:
THis is funny ..it reminds of my kid brother back home in Jordan..He would play pranks on his friends.. HE would take a jolly rancher candy ,unwrap it ,lick it ,Wrap it back and give it to his friends…and they would suck on it like champs!!

IT IS AS EASY AS THAT, 7ABIBI!

I have respect to all women ( in hijab or no hijab/ muslim-non muslim) . APPEARANCE don’t mean NOTHING! ITS ALL ABOUT MORALS!

YOU LIKE HIJABI GIRLS, GREAT!

BUT DON’T YOU EVER TRY TO DISRESPECT OR JUDGE OTHERS THAT DO NOT FOLLOW YOUR IDEOLOGY!

You would not touch unwrapped candy! I don’t think you can get any candy in the 1st place! PEOPLE LIKE YOU GIVE 3ARABS A BAD NAME! I wish we had a face to face conversation; there would have been a lot more interaction!

SO, when the big day comes , and you get your wrapped candy bar, remember my brothers pranks, ENJOY!

I was thinking about what I think this can be best analyzed through the principle of what hijab is, not the reality of people practicing it.

Hence, in Principle: Hijab functions as the phsyical dress form of modesty.

Modesty is the larger principle that hijab functions to serve. Modesty is principle that both Muslim men and women are encouraged by Islam to follow.

Thus, a sister wearing hijab is simply fulfilling one of the duties towards achieving modesty.

There are other duties commanded upon us, such lowering one's gaze (men and women), not shaking the opposite gender's hands (i know its hard), not being alone with a person of the opposite gender, etc., that as a whole function to create modesty.

In sum, people tend to be simplistic in their understanding of modesty by just associating modesty with dress. In reality, modesty is very difficult thing to achieve because it requires many things more than just hijab/niqab.

2006-12-09T13:36:00.000-08:00

Broken Doors

I'm re-posting this from a new blog I found... I really liked it and I thought I'd share it.

Why the Broken Doors

The Doors have been broken and the windows shattered. The glass is all lying around and i can’t hide from the wind. The rain i used to love is destroying the very foundation i built. I ask myself, “Why the Broken Doors only in my home”. I thought i could seek refuge behind the doors but all was shattered and even the curtains were razed. I was trying to hide from the rain only to be hurt by the glass all around. I tried to walk tiptoed to save myself from the broken glass but little did i realize i was numb to the pain. The glass became the canvas, rain the brush, and what better paint than my thick red blood.

I'll write more about my thoughts on it later, inshAllah.

2006-12-05T13:30:00.000-08:00

Tread softly because you tread upon my dreams

I feel the need to share this beautiful poem with others... I've been thinking about it lately. Its been defining my prespective for the last 2 weeks.

He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
by W.B. Yeats

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread upon my dreams.

I'm not sure what Yeats meant by the poem but it has taken on a different meaning for me. For me the title and poem's body speak to two different things. First, the title "He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven" speaks to the narrator's desire for something so beautiful, that it's heavenly. Second, when examining the body of what the narrator intends to do with that majestic cloth, it is to offer it to another - possible the beloved.

These desire expressed in the title means that it is only the means to achieve the real desire - to offer something to one's love. This begs, the question, why does one speak about offer something in the title, when in reality the objective is express the love to the loved?

The way i interprete this is that the narrator has lost focus of the loved and sees the 'Cloths of Heaven' as the only means of achieving love itself, so much so that he percives them as the end itself.

I especially feel this in the last few lines...
"But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread upon my dreams."

The narrator cannot offer those cloths but only his dreams in return. The dreams will be walked upon, but more importantly what are his dreams? Are his dreams the love for the loved or they his desire for the cloths of heaven?

I empathize with the narrator because he may not know the anwer himself... the process of pursuing his loved his led him to lose scope of what our dreams and desires are about: love in itself; not the material offers to win love.

Why have I been thinking about this so much... perhaps I to became like the narrator and lost prespective on what are my true dreams, since they cannot be the Cloths of Heaven I have been coveting.

When thinking about a dear friends situation with marriage, i feel this realization actualize more. My dear friend strives for the cloths of heaven in the hopes that he may spread them beneat her feet and express his love. But being poor, he has only his dreams, his dreams of love... if he spreads his dreams, she will tread upon his dreams, even if she treads softly.

2006-11-30T14:39:00.000-08:00

Where Are You? Where Am I?

Taken from Islamtoday.com

It is not easy for me, or for any of us as Muslims, to train ourselves to wake up daily before dawn in order to pray the Fajr prayer. It is also not easy to drag ourselves away from life's hectic schedule so we can always pray the rest of the five prayers on time. Yet, do we ever ask ourselves if Allah has accepted our prayers or not? Do we ever ask ourselves how we might improve the performance of our prayers?

In fact, I had never asked myself any of these questions until after reading the following words of Imam Ibn al-Qayyim (rahimahullâh). He writes:
Mankind, with regard to the performance of their prayers, are on five levels:

- The First: This is the level of one who is negligent and wrongs his soul. He is the one who falls short in performing wudû' properly, performing the prayer on time and within its specified limits, and in fulfilling its essential pillars.

- The Second: This is the level of one who guards his habit of offering his prayers on time and within their specified limits, who fulfils their essential pillars and performs his wudû' with care. However, his striving (in achieving the above) is wasted due to disturbances in his thoughts during prayer that distract him and turn his attention to other preoccupations and concerns.

-The Third: This is the level of one who guards his prayers within the specified limits, fulfils their essential pillars and strives within himself to repel the disturbances in his thoughts and extraneous concerns. He is busy struggling against his enemy (Satan) so that Satan does not steal from the prayer. Because of this, he is engaged in (both) prayer and struggle (jihad).

- The Fourth: This is the level of one who carries out the prayer, completing and perfecting its due rights and essential pillars, who performs it within its specified limits and with his heart fully engrossed in safeguarding its rights and specified limits, so that nothing of his prayer is wasted. His whole concern is directed towards its performance, its completion and its perfection – as it should be. His heart is immersed in the prayer and in servitude to his Lord, the Exalted.

- The Fifth: This is the level of one who carries out the prayer like the one mentioned above. However, on top of this, he has taken and placed his heart in front of his Lord, looking towards Him with his heart in anticipation, filled with His love and His might, as if he sees and witnesses Allah. The misgivings, thoughts and preoccupations have vanished and the veil between him and his Lord is lifted. The difference between this person and others with respect to the prayer is greater than the distance between the heavens and the Earth. This person is busy with his Lord, delighted with Him.

I am afriad that right now I seem to be stuck in the No 1 category... which is a bad thing because...

The people whose performance of prayer is at the first level will be punished, those at the second will be held to account, those at the third will have their sins and shortcomings expiated, those at the forth fourth will be rewarded, and those at the fifth will be close to their Lord, because they will receive the portion of the one who makes his prayer the delight and pleasure of his eye. Whoever makes his prayer the delight and pleasure of his eye will have the nearness of his Lord made the delight and pleasure of his eye in the Hereafter. He will also be made a pleasure to the eye in this world, since whoever makes Allah the pleasure of his eye in this world, every other eye will become delighted and pleased with him.

2006-11-18T23:44:00.000-08:00

The Secret Intimate Benefits of Hijab

I once recall telling a non-Muslim woman that Muslim men (who are married and their wife’s wear hijab) appreciate the full beauty of their wives more than men whose wives do not cover because the Muslim men see the hijab as obedience to Allah (which is beautiful in its own right) and a sign of the women sharing their beauty only with them. I was able to convince this woman with strong feminist beliefs that the hijab was more than what meets the eyes – it was a way of furthering the love and intimacy between a husband and a wife.

That conversation was over a year ago, but I think non-Muslim women are starting to realize that as point. I recently read this comment by New York Magazine’s Naomi Wolf:

I will never forget a visit I made to Ilana, an old friend who had become an Orthodox Jew in Jerusalem. When I saw her again, she had abandoned her jeans and T-shirts for long skirts and a head scarf. I could not get over it. Ilana has waist-length, wild and curly golden-blonde hair. “Can’t I even see your hair?” I asked, trying to find my old friend in there. “No,” she demurred quietly. “Only my husband,” she said with a calm sexual confidence, “ever gets to see my hair.”

When she showed me her little house in a settlement on a hill, and I saw the bedroom, draped in Middle Eastern embroideries, that she shares only with her husband—the kids are not allowed—the sexual intensity in the air was archaic, overwhelming. It was private. It was a feeling of erotic intensity deeper than any I have ever picked up between secular couples in the liberated West. And I thought: Our husbands see naked women all day—in Times Square if not on the Net. Her husband never even sees another woman’s hair.

She must feel, I thought, so hot.

Compare that steaminess with a conversation I had at Northwestern, after I had talked about the effect of porn on relationships. “Why have sex right away?” a boy with tousled hair and Bambi eyes was explaining. “Things are always a little tense and uncomfortable when you just start seeing someone,” he said. “I prefer to have sex right away just to get it over with. You know it’s going to happen anyway, and it gets rid of the tension.”

“Isn’t the tension kind of fun?” I asked. “Doesn’t that also get rid of the mystery?”

“Mystery?” He looked at me blankly. And then, without hesitating, he replied: “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Sex has no mystery.”

I think that the new generation of teenagers and twenty something year olds are all missing out on this secret aspect of intimacy between lovers. Although Naomi Wolf’s friend is a Orthodox Jewish woman who covers and shares her secret love with her husband, we can not readily find many Muslim sisters in the States who cover for the sake of Allah and the added benefit of appreciation from their husbands that their covering is a protection of the intimacy they share. Its sad that this person Wolf interviewed had lost notions of sex being perhaps mysterious.

2006-11-08T20:40:00.001-08:00

Hijab in Turkey: Another Reason I don't Like "Liberal Muslims"

This is from the BBC Europe editor Mark Mardell talking about hijab in Turkey.

I suspect many, probably most people in Britain would see this as a matter of freedom of choice, but it's not seen like this here. The government's tentative plans to change the law meet fierce opposition. Just last weekend there was a march through Ankara, a crowd of 12,000 people, to protest against the very possibility. It's an interesting twist that people who most probably would be leftie Hampstead liberals in Britain are here supporters of the army - the principal opponents of any weakening of what they see as the secular state.

Bedri Baykam is an artist who clearly loves to shock. He's working on a series called Picasso's women and his studio is covered with photographs of naked women. He says that women who wear the headscarf these days are making a statement that they are warriors for militant Islam. He says their head covering is not like the headscarves worn by his mother or grandmother but have tight elastic so that not one scrap of hair escapes. He says it's ridiculous that people should treat hair as though it's a sexual organ.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6130218.stm

When these types of Muslims immigrate to western states, they take on this very liberal guise of espousing freedom of choice, religion, etc rethoric, yet when they are back in their Muslim countries they support suppressive policies targeted towards practicing Muslims.

2006-11-08T20:13:00.000-08:00

Death of Muslims

It is a sad moment when a Muslim is wrongly killed.

It is a sadder moment when a Muslim is wrongly killed by a non-Muslim.

It is the saddest moment when a Muslim is wrongly killed by a Muslim.

I know whats happening in Palestine and Iraq and I hear Muslims outraged about whats happening there... Why don't I find the same outrage amongst Muslims of whats happening in Darfur. It seems as much, if not more Muslims are being Killed there.

2006-11-02T15:17:00.000-08:00

2006-11-01T12:44:00.000-08:00

Stranger no more?

Perhaps after this, I will become less of a stranger.

Height: 5’11
Color: Coffee
Some like to call me: "hey"
Piercing: none - doubt i'll get any.
Tattoos: nah.

Right now
Time: 3: 38 pm
Mood: after praying salah - mellow
Taste: spearmint gum
Weather: 64
Bad habit: procrastinator
Current crush: ... none, i guess?
Biggest regret: reading more books when i had the time.
Perfume(s): musk
Thing I want to do: workout at the gym.

Favorite
TV show: frontline.
Book: Criminal Law in Islam by Mohamed El Awah
Non alcoholic drink: chilled mango juice
Milk drink: straight up milk.
Brand: cotton - pure cotton.
Color: colors of fall
Emblem: ?
Perfume: Romance
Designer: i was into Diesel back in the day... now, i dont really care if it looks good.
Chocolate: snickers

Have I Ever
Broken the law: yea - j walking
Misused credit card: perhaps to order books.
Skipped school: college during Ramadan or when papers were due.
Fell asleep in the shower/bath: how is that possible?
Had children: not yet.
Been in love: no - i dont know if thats a good thing or bad.
Been hurt: never let anyone get to close to me to hurt - once again, not sure if this is a good thing or bad.

Random
Have a job: non-profit
My CD player has what in it right now: i dont have cd player.
If I were a crayon, the color: hazelnut.
What makes me happy: the recitation of Abdul Baset (!)... powerful.

When/What Was the Last
I got a real letter: last week.
Got an email: 5 mins ago.
Thing I purchased: office supplies.
TV program I watched: re-runs of 'living color' on youtube
Movie I saw in the theaters: An Inconvenient Truth
Hugged: mother last week.
Place I was an hour ago: office training.
Song heard: some cowboy song in Wendys.
Phone call: billing company.
Was depressed: Monday night - realizing that Ramadan was gone.

What Comes to Mind When I Hear
Car: dont have one.
Murder: homicide.
Cape: South Africa.
Cell: treo
Fun: non-existant.
Shoe: uptowns.
Crush: i dont know if i every had one.
Music: Gurabah; its a nasheed.
Love: What is love?

2006-10-31T23:45:00.000-08:00

Late Night Orwellian Thoughts

question:
(a) do our thoughts determine our language? Or,
(b) does our language determine our thoughts?

if (a),
do those with limited thoughts, construct a limited language?

if (b),
do those who control our language, control our thoughts?

2006-10-30T16:11:00.000-08:00

old thoughts

I found these old thoughts written down somewhere...

We are all looking for that something...

That something big,

That thing that will change our lives,

Our entire prespective on life itself.

It will make us become something big,

Something that will live on after us.

For a long time I thought those who inspired for immortality are foolish in their quest.
Little was I aware of the deepest desires of souls.
Indeed, this is one of our darkest passions that lay hidden in hearts of us all.

I was thinking about how I was a point in my life where I too had succum to this desire.

Thinking about what I written a while back, I wonder if that still exists within me ... can we ever let it go?

2006-10-28T09:17:00.000-07:00

"Wear a Hijab to Work Day" - Show Solidarity for Shaheed Sister

I was sent this email...

You may or may not have heard about the murder of Alia Ansari. She was recently gunned down while walking with her three year old daughter in a residential area in Fremont, California. Her family believes she was targeted as a result of her religious beliefs worn on her sleeve in the form of Hijab ( e.g. headscarf and modest dress as prescribed in Islam). This article provides insight into who Alia Ansari was, and still is, to those who knew her – an immigrant, a mother, a wife, a helper. The incident, which is clearly disturbing on many levels, speaks to the sometimes irreversible effects of irresponsible rhetoric, misconceptions and stereotypes stemming from ignorance and misunderstanding surrounding Muslims, immigrants (or those perceived to be) and Islam and … of course, hate.

In response to this incident, women leaders in the Freemont community decided to organize an event to show their support. November 13th has been declared “Wear a Hijab to Work Day. Hopefully other people can spread this message around.

2006-10-22T20:46:00.000-07:00

To My Brothers

In my life, I have come across some brothers with beautiful souls that have given me happiness. I wrote this for two of them. I want to share it with you all. Let this be my gift to you all for Eid - lets focus on the good stuff this one day.

Have I Ever Told You

Have I ever told you that I love you for the sake of Allah.
"If a man loves his brother in faith, he should tell him that he loves
him."[Abu Dawud]

Have I ever told you that you have helped me taste the sweetness of emaan.
"There are three things, that whoever attains, will find the sweetness
of faith: If Allah and his messenger are dearer to him than anyone
else; if he loves a person solely for the sake of Allah; and if he
would hate to return to disbelief (kufr) after Allah has rescued him
from it, as much as he would hate to be thrown into fire."[Agreed
upon]

Have I ever told you that if you need someone to lean on, you can count on me.
"The relationship between believers is like a wall, parts of which
support other parts."[Muslim]

Have I ever told you that I want to stand with you under the shade of Allah on
the Day of Resurrection.
Abu Hurairah (RA) reported: Messenger of Allah (SAW) said, "On the Day
of Resurrection, Allah, the Exalted, will say: `Where are those who
have mutual love for the sake of My Glory? Today I shall shelter them
in My Shade when there will be no shade except Mine"[Muslim]

Have I ever told you that I hope to sit on the pulpits of light on that
Day of Resurrection, as we are the envy of the Prophets and Martyrs.
On one occasion the Prophet(SAW) finished the prayer and turned toward
the people and said, "O people, listen and understand. Allah has
slaves who are neither prophets nor martyrs, but both the prophets and
martyrs envy them for their closeness to Allah." A bedouin stepped
forward, pointed to the Messenger of Allah and said, "O Messenger of
Allah, tell us about these people." The Prophet was pleased with the
bedouin's request and said, "They are from various peoples and tribes
who have no ties of relationship between them. They love each other
purely for the sake of Allah. On the Day of Resurrection, Allah will
present them pulpits of light for them to sit on. Their faces will be
light and their clothes will be light. The people will be scared on
the Day of Resurrection, but they will not be scared. They are the
friends of Allah who will not have any fear upon them nor will they
grieve. [Ahmad and Abu Ya'la with a hassan chain]

Have I ever told you that I have wanted to tell you this in my own
hope that may Allah love me, for whose sake I love you.
Anas bin Malik (RA) reported: A man was with the Prophet (SAW) when
another man passed by and the former said: "O Messenger of Allah! I
love this man (for Allah's sake)". Messenger of Allah (SAW) asked,
"Have you informed him?'' He said, "No". Messenger of Allah (SAW) then
said, "Tell him (that you love him)". So he went up to the man and
said to him, "I love you for the sake of Allah;'' and the other
replied, "May Allah, for Whose sake you love me, love you.'' [Abu
Dawud].

2006-10-18T16:02:00.000-07:00

Bell Hooks on 'Crash'

When I first saw the film Crash. I thought it was really nicely done and had a positive impression of it. I mentioned it to my African American literature professor and he didn't think it was worth it. I didnt understand intially until I thought about it more. I recently read this piece by Bell Hooks and I think I got a feeling for what was going through my professor's mind when he probably saw it as well. I've read Bell Hooks previous works and I must say that she is one of the most compelling critics of culture I've ever come across.

Well I could paraphrase what she said but nobody can express it better than herself:

James Baldwin was fond of saying that "sentimentality is the
ostentatious parading of excessive and spurious emotion. It is the
mark of dishonesty, the inability to feel."

Many people see Crash as a film which invokes deep pathos
and feelings. Actually, it is a sentimental and melodramatic film in
the classic mode of Hollywood.

In Hero With a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell shows how western
culture really thrives on the classical myth of hero. The classical
hero triumphs over his fellow man. He has strength. His heroism must
be recognized. He takes what he wants by force and dominates others.
In Crash, Matt Dillon's character Ryan is cast as the hero. He is the
only character who rises above personal limitations, personal
prejudices. His willingness to risk his life to save the life of a
black woman he has violated and humiliated springs not from a concern
for her humanity but rather from his desperate need to prove he is
worthy of the status of hero. It is his moment of glory. And like all
Hollywood heroes he steals the limelight. His sins are forgiven and he
is allowed to continue his domination over others.

Viewers may not consciously experience the film as yet
another film in a long line of racialized Hollywood narratives from
Birth of a Nation to the present day, where the theme and plot is
centered on white male triumph over bestial emotions. We may not be
conscious of that narrative, but it is playing itself out in the
unconscious. It is the film narrative they have come to expect.

The film is seductive to audiences at this historical moment, because
many black people feel that our voices and images, our pain, our
suffering caused by white supremacist exploitation and oppression is
being ignored. Black viewers were moved by the fact that someone would
take the time to portray the sense of violation we so often feel when
confronting everyday racism. When the white cop stops the black couple
a symbolic lynching occurs. There is castration. There is public
shaming and emasculation of the black man, not only by the white cop
but also by the black woman. These are the same old stereotypical
images. And ultimately, black women are blamed for black degradation,
for putting the black male down. The one black female who is
"together" is totally allied with whiteness and white male power. In
the late 60's and early 70's, the question was who will be raised to
revere the black woman? Crash tells us no one will ever revere the
black woman because the black woman is not worthy to be revered.
Thandie Newton's character as the biracial beauty epitomizes the
female body that is the meeting place for black and white male desire,
bringing another motif from slavery to the present day. She is the
elegant leading lady, the lady of mutual desire, but she too is
unworthy.

Like the stereotypical mulatto character Sarah Jane in the
film Imitation of Life, her heroic moment comes when she is facing
death. The Thandie Newton character becomes the total tragic mulatto
when she is able to "forgive" her sexual violator and surrenders to
his salvific touch. She begs the white male to save her and clings to
him.

Contrasting Crash as a public narrative about race with
the film The Bodyguard, audiences would be able to see the difference
between public open affirmation of white male regard for black woman
and the dehumanizing rituals that take place in Crash. In The
Bodyguard, there is a scene with a white woman who comes between the
Kevin Costner character and the black woman he desires. He lets this
white woman know: I am not choosing you. He does not degrade the black
female he cares about. Interestingly, in Crash, the Thandie Newton
character must be reduced to this demeaning dehumanized mess, pleading
with the white man to save her. He then becomes the Christ-like
figure. The image of her crying, clinging to the white male, appears
on many posters and advertisements for the film.

Rather than depicting her as an equal as in The Bodyguard,
we get the erasure of that liberating interracial narrative and the
substitution of an interracial narrative where the black woman is
always subordinated, dependent on the white male for her survival. No
matter how beautiful Newton 's character looks at the beginning of the
film, that moment when she is clinging to the white man in her baptism
by fire she looks monstrous. Her features are distorted. Ironically,
it is only this time we wee her being emotionally caring in
relationship to her black husband. Soon after this scene she calls and
says "I love you." We wonder what such love means in the context of
all the betrayals we see in this film. In real life, the bodies of
black females are not saved by heroic white male fascists.

In contemporary culture, the bodies of all those black
women abandoned and lost, disappeared and dead in the wake of
Hurricane Katrina let the world know that the black female body is not
worthy of salvation. It is an image of genocide. A disturbing aspect
of Crash is the fake narrative of white male redemption of black
womanness. In fact, the film overall is about how black womanness is
destroyed and degraded. We see how black men and women are set up to
be the agents of their own and other's destruction while the white
family is completely idealized. Even the Hispanic man is shown as
having tension with his wife. The message conveyed is that she is not
his equal. He is the parenting person, the authority – patriarchy is
intact. Crash offers the image of white men as tolerant and
compassionate and white women as weepy, unhappy, blundering idiots.
She is, in a sense, the continuation of the Victorian idea of the mad
woman in the attic. Yet, she is still worthy of respect, whereas black
people in this film get no respect. I am startled when black people
tell me that Crash talks about race in a new and different way. It
simply does not. One of the greatest films of our time to lead into a
profound discussion about race is Spike Lee's Four Little Girls. This
film has no raw sexuality, no raw contempt,no construction of nigger
as beast. In Crash, the images of black people are poorly executed
clones of the images of blackness depicted in Quentin Tarantino's film
Pulp Fiction and in black exploitation films.

Crash begins with sexuality, and sexuality is always racialized in
America . The white male is portrayed as a voyeur looking into the
bedroom of black man and woman (in this case, the car is the symbolic
bedroom).

Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.allaboutbell.com/crash_header.html

2006-09-19T18:34:00.000-07:00

Downfall

I must say that Downfall is one of the best movies I have seen all year. It is some of the best acting I have seen in a foreign film and it blows away anything the American screen has produced. I understand that it is a controversial film since many people argue that it is symathetic to the Nazis and Hitler but I disagree.

I think Roger Ebert sums it up best:

Admiration I did not feel. Sympathy I felt in the sense that I would feel it for a rabid dog, while accepting that it must be destroyed. I do not feel the film provides "a sufficient response to what Hitler actually did," because I feel no film can, and no response would be sufficient.
As we regard this broken and pathetic Hitler, we realize that he did not alone create the Third Reich, but was the focus for a spontaneous uprising by many of the German people, fueled by racism, xenophobia, grandiosity and fear. He was skilled in the ways he exploited that feeling, and surrounded himself by gifted strategists and propagandists, but he was not a great man, simply one armed by fate to unleash unimaginable evil. It is useful to reflect that racism, xenophobia, grandiosity and fear are still with us, and the defeat of one of their manifestations does not inoculate us against others.

2006-09-03T19:39:00.000-07:00

Over the Edge

A recent NY Times article titled, "The Trouble When Jane Becomes Jack," talks about the growing number of lesbian women getting surgical operations to become men. This trend has alarmed some lesbians and

One of the concerns amongst lesbians is summed up as follows:

Barbara Price, a former festival producer, said the uneasiness has been “a big topic among lesbians for quite some time.”

“There are many people who look at what these young women are doing, and say to themselves, ‘Hey, by turning yourselves into men, don’t you realize you’re going over to the other side?’ ” she said. “We thought we were all supposed to be in this together.”

The article goes on detail some other personal elements of a few lesbians and a woman who became a man.

The reason why I find it interesting is because it points out how lesbians are finding it odd to deal with these transgender individuals. Some are very hostile to the idea. For instance:

IN the most recent season of the lesbian soap opera, “The L Word,” a new character named Moira announced to her friends that, through surgery and hormone therapy, she would soon be a new person named Max. Her news was not well received.
“It just saddens me to see so many of our strong butch women giving up their womanhood to be a man,” one friend said.

The sentiment was a tamer version of what many other women wrote on lesbian blogs and Web sites in the weeks after the episode was broadcast last spring. Many called for the Max character to be killed off next season. One suggested dispatching him “by testosterone overdose.”

When I look at something like that, I say to myself… ‘its what happens when you’ve gone over the edge.’

In some ways, elements of contemporary society has pushed its boundaries to the edge of morality … and fallen off into the abyss.

At least some of those who were all about pushing those spheres, such as the gay and lesbian community, are now coming to realize that they don’t know how to deal with the newly emerging transgender community; and some are clearly hostile to it.

While larger society is having issues dealing with accepting the gay-lesbian community, they are unaware of the fact that if the gay-lesbian community is accepted – they may still have to accept this newly emerging transgender community.
What to make of the transgender community?

Islam has strictly prohibits this behavior. In one narration, it is reported that the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him & give him peace) cursed those men who imitate women and those women who imitate men. (Sahih al-Bukhari, 7/205)

And thats just the tip of the iceberg.

2006-08-27T16:19:00.000-07:00

Assessing the Relevance of Theoretical Explanations for Ethnic Civil War in Iraq

Another reason I had not been posting much recently was my work on a research paper. Alhumdulillah, I completed that project and would like to share some of its findings. Feel free to quote it please do not try to pass it as a academic work to since it was already submitted as an academic research thesis.

Introduction

A recent congressional report, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, found 85 percent of the insurgent attacks accounted from August 29 to September 16, 2005 occurred in four Sunni provinces, with the remaining 14 other provinces accounting for only 15 percent of the violence. A more revealing fact is that an overwhelming majority of the insurgents are indigenous Sunnis and the small minorities who are foreign al Qaeda members or its associates are only able to operate because Iraqi Sunnis provide them with the necessary support and resources. An assessment of suicide bombing mission trends shows that a majority of them are “directed at Shiite neighborhoods, especially in ethnically mixed areas such as Baghdad, Diyala, or northern Babil, where Sunni bombers have relatively easy access to non-Sunni targets.” Since the February bombing of the Shiite shrine in Samarra, threats and attacks upon civilians have sharply increased. As of June 2006, the Iraqi Ministry of Displacement and Migration reported that “some 100,000 people are internally displaced as a direct result of sectarian violence.” These considerations suggest that the conflict in Iraq has an ethnic-sectarian dimension. Commenting on these findings, military strategist Stephen Biddle asks, “[i]f the war in Iraq were chiefly a class-based or nationalist war, the violence would run along national, class, or ideological lines. It does not. [… Instead, it] is fundamentally a communal civil war.” Nicolas Sambias adds, “[t]he insurgency started while Iraq was under foreign occupation, but intensified since the handoff of sovereignty. The insurgents have been fighting continuously, violence affects all sides, and there have been more than 30,000 civilian and military deaths, dwarfing the median number of 18,000 deaths for all civil wars since 1945. […] What is no longer an open question, however, is the nature of the conflict. It is a civil war, not an insurgency.” Other leading Middle East and ethnic conflict experts have arrived at the same conclusion.

This paper agrees with the above assessment and establishes its research agenda on the premises that Iraq is in the middle of an ethnic civil war. The central puzzle of this paper is to explain why Iraqi ethno-sectarian groups are engaged in a low intensity civil war. The situation in Iraq is not a unique phenomenon but represents a microcosm of why ethnic conflict continues to be one of the central concerns in international security. A 2005 study confirms this assertion by identifying fifteen of the twenty ongoing major conflicts to be ethnic or communal in nature.

With the end of the Cold War, the international spread of ethnic conflict motivated some of the most prominent security studies specialists to examine the roots of communal violence. Since then, their efforts have generated an extensive and ever-expanding literature analyzing various dimensions of communal strife. Their findings on the causes of ethnic warfare are neither straightforward nor simple, often resulting in scholarly debates on the pages of leading academic journals. Despite the disagreements, the study of ethnic violence has shed light on the many complexities of ethnic violence. It should be noted that the results yielded from the study on ethnic conflict are also applicable to sectarian violence since many of the same problems afflict sectarian groups in conflict. This sectarian aspect is particularly relevant to Iraq because the major source of tension has not been amongst the ethnically different Kurds and Arabs, but rather amongst competing sects of Islam from the same Arab background.

After more than two decades of scholarly research, political scientists have been able to identify recurring themes that characterize ethnic warfare. The most popular approaches to explaining ethnic conflict center on three core concepts: inter-ethnic security dilemmas, belligerent leaders, and strategic dilemmas. These conceptual explanations have come to dominate the contemporary discussions on ethnic conflict. Earlier attempts to explain ethnic conflict also considered the “ancient hatreds” argument but recent findings have critiqued and disproved this view by showing how ethnic attitudes and identities have varied over history.

In this paper, I examine the current strife in Iraq through the lens of the three conceptual understandings on ethnic war. To begin this task, I analyze Chaim Kaufmann's security dilemmas arising from ‘inter-mixed settlement patterns’, Stuart Kaufman's political elite’s ethno-nationalist ‘outbidding’ spiral, and the information failures and commitment problems of David A. Lake and Donald Rothchild, and James D. Fearon. I have chosen these theoretical frameworks because they are considered to be the best articulated arguments of the three conceptual understandings of ethnic violence.

Barry Posen is credited as the first scholar to apply Robert Jervis’ security dilemma logic to explain ethnic conflict. Posen argues that demographically mixed settlement patterns create windows of vulnerability and opportunity for one group to strike offensively and subdue or eliminate its rivals. Chaim Kaufmann builds upon this logic to explain why ethnic group identities are inflexible in communal conflict as opposed to ideological wars. Stuart Kaufman takes the existence of security dilemmas in ethnic conflict as a premise but offers a compelling explanation about why belligerent leaders fan the flames of extremist politics to ignite communal violence. Lake and Rothschild build upon Fearon’s commitment problem coupled with information failures as the source of war between ethnic groups facing fear and anarchy.

That's just the intro... Here were my findings:

Conclusions on the Three Theories Findings and their Limitations
In this section, I summarize the findings of the three theories analyzed. Investigating the conceptual frameworks of understanding ethnic conflict suggests that there are elements of all three influencing Iraq’s ethnic-sectarian war. Intermixed settlement patterns, belligerent leaders, and information failures coupled with commitment problems all play a role in exacerbating communal strife. However, the investigation presented here finds intermixed settlement patterns based security dilemma explanation and strategic dilemmas capable of identifying the causes of Iraqi ethnic war better than the belligerent leaders’ explanation.

While the belligerent leaders’ framework predicted a mass insurgency amongst a subordinate group like the Sunnis, the mass insurgency has not led to Sunnis electing politicians with a separatist agenda. Instead, the opposite has occurred – Sunnis and their elite have pressed for a strong centralized government. Where as the Kurds, who are also an ethnic minority, have offered no violent resistance against the Shiite majority and have cooperated with them through much of the political process. Another shortcoming of the belligerent leaders’ theory is the lack of ethnic outbidding amongst the Shiites. True, they have engaged in government jingoism and there is an increase in sectarianism amongst Shiite voters but key Shiite religious leaders such as Grand Ayatollah Sistani, the most revered religious Shiite leader in Iraq, have urged restrain in the face of growing ethnic violence. This trend may change in the future if other Shiite leaders such as Sadr attempt to capitalize on growing Shiite fear and animosity of Sunni insurgents. Until then, the causes of ethnic strife lay elsewhere.

On the other hand, the inter-ethnic security dilemma premised explanation reveals the motives for much of the recent ethnic strife in demographically mixed cities such as Baghdad and Kirkurk. Ethnic identity has become the focus point of political and security organization in Iraq. Elections results indicate that cross-ethnic appeals are non-existent or a vain effort. The anarchic like situation in has forced civilians to find protection and security amongst their co-ethnics. The inability to distinguish between offensive and defense actions has forced ethnic groups to organize just in case their rivals mobilize for war. The fear of ethnic cleansing has compelled many communities like the Sunnis in the Shiite dominated southern provinces to migrate to Sunni majority provinces and vice versa. This macro level effect has replicated itself in ethnically mixed cities like Baghdad, forcing tens of thousands of Sunnis and Shiites to flee to their co-ethnics territory. The inter-ethnic security dilemma explains much of the ethnic violence taking place amongst ethnically mixed regions but it offers little insight on why a mass insurgency developed in the homogenous Sunni province of Anbar.

This presents a challenge for the security dilemma theory because no ethnic group was threatening Sunnis in their own province. While it is true that the insurgency was initially directed towards Coalition troops, recent attacks have been shifted to Shiite and Kurd civilians, police and army forces. Information failures and commitment problems can account for the existence of the Sunni insurgency. There is a strong correlation between the adoption of the 2005 Iraqi constitution and an increase in insurgent attacks upon Kurds and Shiites. During the drafting of the constitution, Sunni communicated their concerns on key issues such as strong centralized government and anti-Baathist sentiments. However, the Kurd-Shiite alliance could not commit to the Sunnis demands either because of possibly miscalculating the Sunnis willingness – resulting in an information failure and commitment problem.

It is difficult to judge any conclusion about ongoing conflict, especially since it is difficult to discern all the relevant information in Iraq. However, the evidence presented here suggests that it is possible to narrow the range of possible explanations down to two. The assessment of the three approaches in explaining Iraq’s ethnic war reveals that inter-ethnic security dilemmas and information failures along with commitment problems are the most relevant in assessing the causes of the current ethnic strife in Iraq. Together, the two conceptual frameworks present a plausible explanation: The inability of the Iraqi government to provide security for demographically mixed regions, such as central Iraq, creates security dilemmas that drive ethnic groups to mobilize for war, whereas a Sunni insurgency emerged and intensified in a largely homogenous Sunni Arab province because information failures and the lack of credible commitments to Sunnis from Shiites in the 2005 Iraqi constitution.

Here were some of my thoughts for the future:

Possible Solutions and their Future Implications for Iraq
An assessment of the historical record on ethnic wars in the last half century, Chaim Kaufmann found that ethnic conflicts have ended in only three ways: 1) complete victory of one side; 2) temporary cessation of hostilities by third party military intervention or; 3) self-governance of separate communities. Policymakers concerned with resolving Iraq’s civil war should heed these findings and wisely choose which solution they aim to implement because it may have dire consequences.

The first way to end ethnic war is perhaps the most atrocious – complete victory by one side. In such a scenario, it will usually be the majority ethnic group that will conquer the ethnic minority militarily and in some cases engage in ethnic cleansing or genocide. This scenario is the most troubling for Western liberal democracies and an outcome they wish to avoid – but at what cost? On this issue, Richard K. Betts has rightly noted that that third party impartial intervention may end a war if the outside party “takes complete command of the situation, overawes all the local competitors, and impose a settlement.” That is to say, there is a chance if decisive action is taken to initially create the peace amongst warring groups. In Iraq, the Coalition troops were sufficient to win the war but not enough secure the entire country. Imposing a settlement was also an unlikely scenario since the U.S. administration’s objective was to allow compromise amongst the different groups through a democratic process. In light of these failures, Iraq can easily be considered an instance of impartial intervention – a recipe for disaster in ethnic war and civil wars. According to Betts, impartial interventions might intensify ethnic or civil conflict when competing factions or groups compete for the third party intervener’s jobs, contracts, and cash. One group tends to manipulate the third party to their own advantage and against their rival group. This is already happening in Iraq as Kurds and Shiites have been able to extract promises from the coalition let them fight the Sunni insurgents.

Currently, Coalition forces are spread thin in Iraq and domestic opinion on Iraq has increasingly become negative – with a number of politicians and political scientists urging a timeline for withdrawal. In the event of a US withdrawal, there is a strong possibility that the country would spiral into a large scale civil war where one side defeats the others and imposes its rule by force. The most likely winner of such a war would be the numerically superior Shiites. However, they would pay a high price for such a victory since the fighting the Sunni insurgents and Kurdish Peshmegra militias would a difficult task. Some political scientists like Barry Posen argue that one side winning it all may further complicate things: “[A] bloody victory by the Shiites over the Sunni Arabs could prove inimical to American interests, because it would surely be accompanied by human-rights violations that would not serve the West well in the war on terror.” A Shiite Iraq would be heavily influenced by Iranian interests, resulting in theocratic government that imitates Iran’s foreign policy agenda.

The second possible ending is a temporary cessation of hostilities between all groups. This was and continues to be the US objective in Iraq. The hope is to stop the fighting and get warring groups to participate in a democratic government that will allow the U.S. to slowly decrease its troops as the Iraqi national government takes responsibility for security. Biddle proposes a similar scenario where the US "manipulate[s] the military balance of power among Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds to coerce them to negotiate." However others like Betts reject this reasoning because stopping an ethnic war often means choosing one side in a conflict. While this maybe a difficult thing for third parties democracies since it requires giving up their impartiality and openly favoring one side. While the U.S. struggles to balance all three groups into a political agreement, they continue to find themselves in an uphill battle against the Sunnis insurgency and are now is losing control of the Shiite provinces to the Badr Organization and Mahdi Army militias violence against Sunnis.

The last scenario of ending ethnic conflict is self governance of separate communities. In his analysis of Ted R. Gurr’s Minorities at Risk (MAR) database on how 27 ethnic conflicts have ended, Chaim Kaufmann concludes that demography is the critical variable in successful solutions to ethnic war; a stable resolution of ethnic civil war necessitates separating rival communities into defensible areas. In Iraq, this would translate into a decentralized national government along the lines of federalism or autonomous regions. This rational is premised upon Kaufmann observation that resolutions to ethnic civil wars are only possible when the competing groups are demographically separated into “defensible enclaves.” Separation of the ethnic groups into distinct communities eliminates the motive and the opportunity for ethnic violence or “cleansing.” Hence, the nature of the conflict changes from “mutual pre-emptive ethnic cleansing to something approaching conventional interstate war where normal deterrence dynamics apply.” With homogenous ethnic communities, attempts to seize more territory require a large conventional military offensive. Once distinguishable and separate ethnic territories are established, it may be necessary to move all enemy ethnics across the separation line and resettled in their co-ethnics territory. However, Kaufmann’s argues that this does not require ethnic purity in the regions but if minorities are present in a region, they must be small enough not to pose a threat to the dominating ethnic majority. How will this be implemented in Iraq? Kaufmann replies:
“Satisfying this obligation would mean using U.S. military strength to protect Iraqi refugees who wish to relocate. U.S. forces must defend the most vulnerable mixed towns and urban neighborhoods from both Sunni and Shiite attackers long enough to organize transport for those who want to move to safer locations.”

It is unclear how ethnically mixed cities like Baghdad, which consists of 25 percent of Iraq’s population, would be divided amongst ethnic rivals. Nor would Iraq’s infant economy and undeveloped infrastructure be able be handle the pressures of large population transfers. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that implementing such a solution may prove to be extremely difficult if communities resist moving from regions they have deeply attached sentiments and resided in for centuries. It is highly likely that Sunnis in the north would strongly resist being moved to the barren Sunni western provinces because there would lose their stakes in Iraq’s northern oil fields.

As troubling as the possible solutions and their implications for Iraq may seem, political science can only investigate the causes of political phenomena with the hope of gaining a better understanding of how to respond to them. This was the objective of this paper regarding Iraq’s ethno-sectarian civil war. In spite of these problematic findings, this paper ends by suggesting two possible remedies deduced from the findings of this paper. Iraqi ethno-sectarian groups are suffering from a combination of inter-ethnic security dilemmas, information failures, and commitment problems that place it on the edge of a large scale civil war. If the international community, and US forces are truly interested in preventing Iraq’s decline into an ethnic civil war, they must directly confront the security dilemma problem plaguing Iraqis. One of the ways they can resolve this situation temporarily is to increase the number of Coalition troops in ethnically mixed regions. In the past, the Coalition forces were primarily concerned with fighting the Sunni insurgency, depleting their resources and ability to efficiently patrol the ethically mixed cities of Baghdad, Kirkurk, and Mosul. Recent US military decisions reflect this change as “part of a fresh strategy to put down rising sectarian violence.” Also, it is not surprising to find “many Sunni Arab political and religious leaders once staunchly opposed to the American presence […] now saying they need American troops to protect them from the rampages of Shiite militias and Shiite-run government forces.” This suggests that Sunnis are fearful of Shiites engaging in government jingoism since the Sunnis have received no credible commitment that the Shiite majority will not seek revenge upon Sunnis from years of suffering under Saddam Hussein’s Sunni centered regime. However, if international forces are used to ‘keep the peace,’ they can only do so as long as they remain the enforcers. Drawing from Betts, the temporary peace imposed by Coalition forces would only prolong the conflict that will resume once peacekeepers leave. Hence, the second set of problem this paper finds necessary to address are the information failures and commitment problems. US Ambassador Khalizad’s political successes have been largely overlooked. He was able to orchestrate the resignation of Prime Minister Jaafari, who was seen as marginalizing the Sunnis, and has been able to include the once politically oblivious Sunnis in the political process. Greater diplomatic resources should be invested to get the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds to credibly commit with each other over constitutional issues such as federalism, religious or secular state identity, and perhaps most importantly: Oil revenues. This paper recommends that Sunni political concerns over Iraq’s oil wealth be formally included in a constitution. Striking such an agreement may be extremely difficult when groups have incentives to misrepresent, leading to rampant information failures. The US should use both coercive and non-coercive strategies to bring warring ethnic groups to make the necessary compromises. This might entail temporarily halting the Iraqi democratic process since it may require certain groups accepting unfavorable terms (i.e. disbanding Shiite and Kurds militias which the groups would not allow under a regular democratic process). However, this is a decision the US must be willing to make if it is truly interested in preventing an Iraqi civil war. To paraphrase Clausewitz, the US must realize that its military objectives are a continuation of the politics objectives it must accomplish. Therefore, if Iraq’s security is stabilized with Coalition forces which would mitigate the security dilemma, the next crucial step would be to find a political resolution to the commitment problems and potential belligerent leaders plaguing Iraq.

2006-08-25T20:50:00.000-07:00

In the Middle of Nowhere & Choose Your Party: Dems, GOP, or Islam?

The reason why you have not seen any recent posts is because I have been in the process of moving.
Yes, I moved from NYC to somewhere in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania. I haven't gotten internet access since I moved here so I wasn't able to post regularly.

In another note, I recently posted a comment on Umar Lee's blog post about "You might be a progressive Muslim if you..." .... One of the commentators, Etraz,had this to say about my remark:

As someone who self-identifies as a progressive (though I'd prefer just Muslim), I could see where all of these were coming from except this aforementioned one.

Politically and pragmatically speaking, those groups are least likely to persecute Muslims. Just remember: Bush is anti-abortion, anti-gay, and anti-communist.

I'm sure he'd give you lots of love Dunia Stranger.

My original comment was:

You forgot ...

You must politically organize with the "progressives" on their issues of abortion, gay marriage, and communism (read: atheism), in order to gain support for civil liberties for Muslims.

Ok. Lets clarify a few things... hating on the left or right does not mean one favors the other political party.

If I criticize the left or dems does not mean I am Republican. Unfortunately Muslims are forgetting that the Islam does not fit into the categories of Dem or Rep/ Liberl or Conservative... I fact, Islam is in its own unique cateory of a deen: a way of life.

Muslims have to stop applying the false dichotomy to Islam.

The truth is that Dems and Reps, or Liberals and Conservative are all messed up. Explain this conservative contradiction:
You are for Pro-life because you don’t want to kill innocent people yet you don not want to gun control laws passed? Doesn’t Gun control help save innocent peoples lives? I mean by all means have your handguns and what not… do you really need an automatic assault weapon?

Here is the liberal contradiction:
You will fight hard to uphold women’s rights but back down from limiting pornographic content? Explain to me how allowing graphic material that essentially portrays women in many, repeat many, ways as sexual objects conducive to helping uphold women’s rights? A dilemma of course (btw, I don’t buy the whole ‘porn empowers women’ argument).

Anyways, my central point is that Muslims should let their political parties define the issues but rather define them and their political choices by the issues.

2006-07-31T03:13:00.000-07:00

Iraq, Camus, and The Plague

I leave the readers with a personal anecdote political scientist John Mearsheimer used at the US Naval War College’s Annual Conference on International Strategy when he was asked the question, ‘What is the path to success in Iraq?’:

“I remember once in English class [at West Point Military Academy] we read Albert Camus's book The Plague. I didn't know what The Plague was about or why we were reading it. But afterwards the instructor explained to us that The Plague was being read because of the Vietnam War. What Camus was saying in The Plague was that the plague came and went of its own accord. All sorts of minions ran around trying to deal with the plague, and they operated under the illusion that they could affect the plague one way or another. But the plague operated on its own schedule. That is what we were told was going on in Vietnam. Every time I look at the situation in Iraq today, I think of Vietnam, and I think of The Plague, and I just don't think there's very much we can do at this point. It is just out of our hands. There are forces that we don't have control over that are at play, and will determine the outcome of this one. I understand that's very hard for Americans to understand, because Americans believe that they can shape the world in their interests.”

2006-07-24T16:21:00.000-07:00

Going Nowhere Fast

I got an email from a friend letting me know how they were planning on making Umrah. This is the 3rd time this person has been making Umrah since I have know them and every time around I get an email asking me to send them my duaas so because they are going to Umrah and every time I have sent the same duaa:

may Allah invite my family and me to baitullah.

I got their third email recently and I sent them the same duaa again... I know that there are many reasons that duaas do not get answered but...

Perhaps the 3rd time is the one.

2006-07-23T16:55:00.000-07:00

The Quran and the Spiders

Allah, the Almighty, said: (The parable of those who take protectors other than Allah is that of the spider, who builds (to itself) a house; but truly the flimsiest of houses is the spider's house;- if they but knew) (Surat Al-Ankabot: 41).

From these verses, the following universal signs can be detected:

(1) Confirmation of the fact that the spider's house is the flimsiest house, whether physically or spiritually. This has been proven by the late studies in zoology.

Following are some of the expositors' statements to explain the previous verses:

* In abbreviation, Ibn Kathir (May Allah bless his soul) mentioned: "This is an example given by Allah, the Almighty, of the idolaters who revere gods besides Allah. The idolaters hope that those gods will assist them, provide for them, and they turn to them in times of hardship. In this regard, they are like the spider's house, in its weakness and frailty, because by clinging to these gods they are like a person who holds on to a spider's web and does not gain any benefit from that. Had they known this, they would not have taken protectors other than Allah. This is unlike the Muslim believer, whose heart is devoted to Allah and, in addition, does well in following Allah's decrees. The Muslim has grasped the most trustworthy handle, the one that never breaks because of its strength and stability…"

* In Tafsir Al-Jalalain "Al-Jalalain Interpretation" (may Allah bless their souls), which was investigated and commented on by Sheikh Mohamed Kan'an (May Allah bestow good on him), the following was stated: (The parable of those who take protectors other than Allah): idols which they hope will benefit them (is that of the spider, who builds (to itself) a house) in order to lodge in it. (The flimsiest) the weakest (of houses is the spider's house) that does not protect from heat nor cold. The same thing applies to idols which do no good to their worshippers. (If they but knew), they would not have worshipped those idols.

* In Safwat Al-Bayan Lem'any Al-Quran, the following was stated: (The parable of those who take protectors other than Allah…), meaning that the parable of those who worship idols and depend on them, as well as, hope for benefit and meditation of those idols, is that of the spider which builds itself a weak house by its spinning. This house does not protect the spider from the hot or cold weather, nor does it protect from the rain or in times of danger.

* The authors of Al-Montakhab fey Tafsir Al-Quran Al-Karim (may Allah bestow good on them) stated the following:

The talkers of vanities, who follow others than Allah, are similar, in their weakness, frailty, and dependence on others, to the spider which builds itself a house to protect itself. The spider's house is the flimsiest of houses and farthest from being suitable for protection. If those talkers of vanities were people of knowledge and intelligence, they would not have done that.

The Spider from a Scientific Perspective

The spider is an animal of phylum Arthropoda, classified in Class Arachnida, which combines Order Araneida along with other orders including scorpions and mites.

The spider's body is divided into a prosoma where the head is connected to the breast and an undivided opisthosoma which includes the abdomen. The prosoma carries four pairs of legs, two pairs of feelers, and two chelicerae which resemble a pair of pincers or claws that contain the poison glands. The prosoma is separated from the opisthosoma by a thin waist.

An anatomical photograph of silk-making glands

The spider has simple eyes whose number might be eight or less. It is a predator of insects and has a thick skin covered with hair which is shed around 7 to 8 times until it reaches maturity. Zoologists today know more than thirty thousand types of spiders which vary in sizes (from less than a millimeter to ninety millimeters), shapes and colors. Most spiders live in the wild, mostly alone except at times of mating and egg hatching. The spiders' environment extends from sea level to heights of five thousand meters. The spider has three pairs of prominent moving protrusions in the lower abdomen. These protrusions have tiny holes from which the fluid used to make the threads for its house comes out; therefore, they are known as the spinners. This fluid which comes out from a number of special glands to outside the spider's body, through the rear spinners, dries as soon as it is subjected to air. When it dries, various threads are produced which differ in types, length, and strength according to the difference in the producing glands.

A photograph of the spider's threads being produced from the silk glands as if it were a thread factory

The spider might stay in its house, where it practices all life's activities, or it might have a nest or a hideout other than the house, which is connected to the house by a thread known as the trap thread. The spider escapes to this hideout at times of danger.

The Scientific Indications of the Holy Script

First: Referring to the spider in the singular form:

In Lissan Al-Arab, under the subject (ankab), it was mentioned that the (ankaboot "spider") is an animal which weaves in the air, and on the mouth of the well, a flimsy thin web. It is a feminine word, and may have been mentioned in poetry. The spider's house is called (al-akdaba). Al-Feraa said: the spider is feminine, and some Arabs may mention it. The plural form is (al-ankabotat), (al-anakeb), and (al-anakeeb). In Yemen's language, it is (aknabaah), as well as, (ankbaa) and (ankabowah). Sibawayh mentioned (ankabaa) while giving evidence on the addition of ta'a in (ankaboot), so he does not know if it is singular or plural. Ibn Al-A'rabey said" (al-ankab) is for the masculine, and (al-ankaba) is for the feminine. It was said that (al-ankab) is the spider's classification. Al-Ankaboot maybe masculine or feminine. Al-Moubarid said: al-ankaboot is feminine and can be used for the masculine.

Most likely, the term (al-ankaboot) is for the feminine singular, the plural of which is (al-anakeb).

Naming the noble surat with the singular form (Al-Ankaboot "The Spider") indicates the solitary life of this animal, except at times of mating and egg hatching. This can be compared to the two surats Al-Nahel (The Bees) and Al-Namel (The Ants), where the names are plural since these insects live in groups.

Second: In His saying: (Builds to itself a house):

In this noble quranic verse, there is a clear indication that the female spider is the one mainly undertaking the building of the house. Consequently, building the spider's house is a mission shouldered by the female spiders. It is the female which has in its body the glands for secretion of the silk material from which the spider's house is woven. Sometimes, the male spider might take part in helping with the building, repairing or expanding. However, the process of building is mainly feminine. It is here where we find the scientific miracle in Allah's (the Almighty) saying: builds to itself a house.

Third: In the Almighty's saying: (the flimsiest of houses is the spider's house…)

This miraculous quranic script indicates a number of important facts, some of which are:

(1) Physical weakness: The spider's house, from the physical point of view, is the weakest house of all, because it is made out of a number of very delicate silk threads. These threads are interwoven, leaving large separating spaces at most times. Therefore, they do not protect from the heat of the sun, or the extreme cold. These threads do not form adequate shade, nor protect from the rain, storming winds, or the dangers of attackers. This is despite the miraculous building of this house.

(2) The weakness is in the spider's house and not the threads; for the Almighty says (the flimsiest of houses). This is a clear indication that the weakness and frailty are within the spider's house and not the spider's threads. This is a very precise indication. The threads of the spider's house are made of very delicate silk. The thickness of one thread is usually one million of the squared inch, or one part of four thousand parts of the thickness of the ordinary human hair. Despite its delicacy, it is the strongest biological substance known to mankind so far. The silk threads which make up the spider's web are considered stronger than steel, and their strength is surpassed only by the melted quartz. The thin thread stretches to five times its length before it is cut. Therefore, the scientists call it "biological steel" or "bio-steel". It is twenty times stronger than the ordinary metal steel. Its tolerance measures 300,000 pound for the square inch. Hypothetically speaking, should there be a thick rope of the spider's threads, in the size of the thumb, it can easily carry a "jumbo" jet.

(3) Spiritual weakness: The spider's house, spiritually speaking, is the flimsiest of all houses, because it is deprived of all love and kindness, which are the pillars of any happy home. The female, in some types of spiders, kills the male as soon as the fertilization takes place. Being larger in size and more violent, the female kills the male and eats its body. In some cases, the female eats its youngsters mercilessly. In some types, the female dies after fertilizing its eggs, which are usually fostered in a silk bag. When the eggs hatch, spiderlings come out to find themselves in a very crowded place inside the eggs bag. The siblings then start to fight for food, space or both. The brother kills its brother and sister, and the sister kills its sister and brother, until the fight ends with a few spiderlings remaining. These spiderlings shed their skin and tear the eggs bag to come out one after the other with unhappy memories. They all then spread in the surrounding environment. Each female starts to build its house. On the road to achieve this goal, some of the spiderlings die, whereas those who survive repeat the same tragedy. This makes the spider's house the most violent and ruthless house, lacking all forms of kinship. Hence, Allah the Almighty sets it as a parable in its weakness and frailty because it lacks the simplest form of kindness between the husband and wife, the mother and her children, the brother and his siblings, and the sister and her siblings.

Fourth: In His saying: (If they but knew):

These facts were unknown to any human at the time of revelation, and for long centuries thereafter. They have been discovered after extensive studies of the behavior of the spider by hundreds of scientists, for tens of years, until they were realized in the last decades of the twentieth century. That is why our God (Exalted be He) ended the noble verse with His saying (if they but knew).

Consequently, the quranic description of the spider's house as being the flimsiest of all houses; this description which was revealed to an illiterate prophet (PBUH) in a nation with a majority of illiterates, fourteen hundred years ago, is considered a scientific achievement which no sensible person would imagine a source for other than Allah the Creator. Allah is the one who revealed the noble quran with His knowledge to the final Prophet and Messenger. It is Allah who protected the quran in the same language in which it was revealed (the Arabic language) for fourteen or more centuries. Allah will continue to protect the quran until He inherits earth and those who live on it. The quran will remain as evidence on all people till the Day of Judgment. The truth within quran will stand witness to the holy quran being the words of Allah, the Creator. It will also stand witness to the prophet hood and message bestowed on the Final Prophet and Messenger to whom the quran was revealed (PBUH). The Prophet has delivered the message, fulfilled the trust, advised the nation, and struggled in the cause of Allah until his final days. We ask you Allah, the Almighty, to reward him, our Prophet, with the best of the rewards given to a prophet for his works with his ummah, and the best of rewards given to a messenger for the fine fulfillment of his mission. We pray to Allah to bestow on our prophet the right of intercession and superiority and send him (on the Day of Judgment) to the highest standing (in Paradise) which He promised him, for Allah does not break His promises. We end our supplication by praising Allah, and praying to Him to bestow peace and blessing on our Prophet Mohamed, his family, companions and whoever follows his way till the Day of Judgment.

Some Hidden Quranic Signs:

A- The house of the spider is not merely its dwelling place. Being the sticky net it is, it constitutes a trap for flying insects such as flies and others. These insects are a prey on which the spider feeds. Similarly, those idolaters who revere gods besides Allah, and call people to those revered gods, are in fact calling them to an artful trap which leads them to their death and destruction in this life and the afterlife. Allah, the Almighty, said: (Allah forgiveth not that partners should be set up with Him; but He forgiveth anything else, to whom He pleaseth; to set up partners with Allah is to devise a sin Most heinous indeed.) (Surat Al- Nesaa: 48)

B- Warning against those with corrupt invocations who revere others besides Allah, whether money or whim. This warning is issued through indicating their hidden strings with which they hunt their victims. These strings can be money, sex, power, or any other hidden string which destroys the victim once it is trapped.

2006-07-21T11:58:00.000-07:00

Anecdote on Repentance

From Imaam ibn Qudaamah al-Maqdisi's Kitaab at-Tawwaabeen

When Maalik ibn Dinar [the well-known taabi'ee] was asked about the causes of his tawbah [repentance], he said:

"I was a policeman and I was given to drinking. I bought a beautiful slave who gave me a daughter [he named her Faatimah]. I doted over my daughter and when she began to crawl on all fours I grew even fonder of her. Whenever I put a strong drink In front of me she would come to me and pull me away from it, or she would spill it from me. When she completed two years she died. I became consumed with grief over her loss. When the night of mid Sha'baan came - it was the night before Jumu'ah - I stayed home and drank.

I did not pray the 'Isha prayer. Then I had a dream that the Day of Judgment had begun, the Trumpet was blown, the graves gave up their dead, mankind was gathered up, and I was among them. I heard something behind me. I turned around and saw a dragon of indescribable size, blue-black, rushing for me with wide open jaws. I fled in terror. I passed by a Shaykh dressed in spotless clothes, exuding a fragrant smell. I greeted him and he greeted me back. I said to him 'O Shaykh! Protect me from this dragon, and may Allaah protect you!' The Shaykh wept and said: 'I am weak and it is stronger than me, I cannot overcome it. Go quickly, perhaps Allaah will grant you something that will save you from it.'

I turned and resumed my flight. I climbed up onto one of the promontories of the Day of Resurrection overlooking the layers of Hellfire. I looked at the horror they contained and almost fell in for fear of the dragon. But a crier cried out to me: 'Go back! You are not amongst its mates.' His words stilled my fears and I went back. But the dragon again pursued me. I went back to the Shaykh and said: 'O Shaykh! I begged you to protect me from this dragon but you didn't protect me.' Again he wept and said: 'I am weak, but proceed to this mountain. In it are kept the stores (wada'i') of Muslims. If there is something in store (wadi'a) for you, then it will help you.'

I looked and saw a round-shaped mountain of silver topped with domes of hollowed pearl and hanging drapes, and every dome had two large gates of red gold encrusted with emeralds and pearls and overhung with drapes of silk. When I saw the mountain I fled to it with the dragon in hot pursuit. As I approached the mountain one of the angels cried: 'Raise up the veils, open the gates, and look out! Perhaps this wretched one has something in store with you that will save him from his enemy.' At this the veils were lifted, the gates were opened, and out of the palaces came children with faces like full moons.

The dragon was catching up to me and I was near despair. One of the children cried: 'Woe to you! Come and see, all of you! His enemy is very near him.' Whereupon the children came one wave after another and among them was the dear daughter of mine that had died two years before. When she saw me she wept and said: 'My father, by Allaah!' Then she leapt in a carriage of light and came near me with the speed of an arrow. She put her left hand in my right hand and I held onto her. Then she stretched her right hand towards the dragon and it turned around and fled. My daughter bade me sit, then she sat in my lap and began to stroke my beard and said: ' O my father! 'Has not the time come for those who believe, that their hearts become humble in the remembrance of Allaah?' (57:16).' I began to weep and said: 'O my daughter, you children know the Qur'aan?' She replied: 'My father! We know it better then you.' I said to her: 'Tell me about the dragon which wanted to destroy me.' She said: 'Those were your evil deeds which you built up and strengthened, and they wanted to take you to the Hellfire.' I asked: 'What about the Shaykh I passed by?' She replied: 'O my father, those were your righteous deeds, you made them weak until they were no match for your evil deeds.' I said: 'O my daughter! What are you all doing in this mountain?' she said: 'We are the children of Muslims, we have been given this dwelling until the Hour rises. We wait whatever you send forth to us, and we intercede for you.'

Then I awoke in a start and saw that morning had come. I flung the potion (alcohol) from me and shattered the drinking cups, and I repented to Allaah and that was the reason for my repentence."

--

I have also heard it said that when Maalik ibn Dinaar awoke, he was screaming, 'the time has indeed come, the time has indeed come!!' [in response to the ayah quoted by his daughter], and that he then made ghusul and went to pray fajr at the masjid, intending repentance, and that when he walked into the masjid, he found the imaam reading that very ayah, " Has not the time come for those who believe, that their hearts become humble in the remembrance of Allaah?", and he repented.

I know that many Muslims are struggling with this regard so inshAllah may they renew their intentions to repent and seek the mercy of Allah (SWT).

Islam Youngest Muslim Reverts in The World. Children in England Turn To Islam

2006-07-12T05:12:00.000-07:00


I saw this amazing video at WWW.TURNTOISLAM.COM ... the site has some other great Videos and Downloads. This is an Islamic Documentary featuring a group of children in a North England city who are attracted to Islam and spend much of their time at the mosque near there home.

My own thoughts on this video is that first: SubhanAllah, its quite beautiful to see such devotion at a time when most children are obsessed with video games and idle talk.

Second, the documentary shows how there are underlying tensions between Muslims (mostly South Asians) and the English as you can see the white child being called a 'gohra' and in response they have created their own slang to use; 'paki not porki'

Overall, I found the documentary very nicely done - the filmakers didnt try to force an image and let it flow.

2006-07-09T04:22:00.000-07:00

Food for Thought, Food for Marriage?

Facts:
Male 55 yr, Female 11 yr, are just married.

Stop: before you think of anything that may come to mind (i.e. this is wrong, how could this happen, etc) -

Consider this: Afghanistan is arguably one of the most dangerous places in the world which has an average life expentacy of 43 years (male and female), has virtually no economy (unless you count exporting opium and heroin), tribal warlord ruled country (the US considers it a democracy - which it helped create).

Child Brides article
(photos)

Just so you know, the article says that, "Husbands are not ordinarily old enough to be their wives' fathers or grandfathers, but such February-September couples as those pictured here are hardly rare either."

the choice for the poor family in Afghanistan: if boy, sell into bondage; if girl, get her married.
"Fathers then were especially keen to convert their daughters into brides. It was a way to deliver the girl from hunger — and a way to at least temporarily ward off famine for the rest of the family. Young boys were sold into bondage with the same painful practicality."

Economic Sense or Oppressive Nonsense?:
well, lets apply that to afghan society... the people are starving to death, more than half the country is under poverty line... so economist would say it is sensible transaction.
Feminist beg to differ - this would the height of anger for them. I remember many feminist who were critical of the Taliban over their treatment of women - flashforward today: regime change to democracy yet same situation in society.

2006-07-06T16:23:00.000-07:00

Nice Video

I saw this and I thought it was nice for them to show how people can still take time out for Salah and still enjoy themselves.

2006-06-25T01:01:00.000-07:00

The Lack of Muslim Financial Institutions

I have been doing some research on financial assistance for Muslims students and apparently I have come to 1 simple conclusion:

There is NO Sharia way for Muslims to get student loans from without having to pay interest!

This is something that has been bothering me recently because it affects me personally. Upon complete of my undergraduate studies from public university where the tuition is very affordable – I was and continue to be faced with a dilemma: How to pay for my graduate studies at an expensive school without having to take out interest based loans?

Ok, so I didn’t get any scholarships and grants from the school but still – many students who do get them do still take out a lot of loans. This predicament is particularly depressing for Muslim students wishing to pursue higher education because we cannot take loans out since they have interest (riba) components to them – even the Federal Stafford Loans have interest on them after 6 months of graduation and that means you better pay off that loan of multiple thousands of dollars within those 6 months or else the government will start putting interest on your payments.

Many students who wish to find ways to attend their graduate studies are forced to take interest based loans. I know smart undergrad from my school who told me that he knew very well that what he was doing was haram – but it was the only way he could pay for Med school since he could never come up with 30k in cash in a matter of a few months.

I knew that he was distressed by it and I could tell in the extra time he would spend in duaa …

All this makes me ask? Why don’t we have Muslim Financial Institutions that will help Muslim students find Islamic Sharia ways to pay for their education as opposed to taking interest?

I mean interest is no ordinary sin; its one of the major sins!

It’s a greater sin than drinking alcohol, gambling, Lying about Allah and His Messenger, Bearing false witness, Committing suicide, Wrongfully consuming the property of an orphan, and so many more…

http://www.themodernreligion.com/misc/hh/major_sins.htm

I only hope that one day inshAllah I can help in some way to resolve this absurd predicament facing Muslim Students in the West and even in many Muslim countries!

2006-06-21T18:45:00.000-07:00

In my Mind

I have been feeling the duality of my essence lately. I used to feel this way alot back when I was younger but I overcome and came to terms with it a few years ago... but I dont think I truly overcame it all since it still lingers within my psyche.

I remember taking a course on African American Narratives and in that class we read DuBois who wrote about the Negros' double consciousness and Ellison who spoke about their invisiblity... Reading their works was a powerful moment in my own short life because it helped me key in on what was afflicting many Muslims in the West; especially my own experiance as a Muslim in the West.

For instance, the if you take the word Negro out the second word of this statement and insert Muslim... It would make just as much sense...

""the [Negro (originally)] Muslim is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second sight in this American world, -a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double consciousness, this sense of always ooking at one's self through the eyes of others."

Likewise also consider Ellison's statement...

""It goes a long way back, some twenty years. All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naive. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: That I am nobody but myself. But first I had to discover that I am an invisible man! "

I as a Muslim, I had rendered myself invisible within my own psyche... even now; after the answers have come to me its sort of odd feeling in my mind as well. I never expected the after-thought effect to so subtle... and simple. I guess I was always looking for the initial high like it would be drug but didnt like the low points of fluctuating eman.

2006-06-17T07:21:00.000-07:00

The Catholic Church Changing Before Our Eyes

When I have given Dawah to non-Muslims in the past, one of things I always make sure to highlight is that our prayers to God are in the original form he revealed them to us. I especially make this point to Christians because their texts have changed so many times in the past. Its no surprise when I read that Roman Catholic bishops in the United States voted yesterday to change the wording of many of the prayers and blessings that Catholics have recited at daily Mass for more than 35 years.

Some of the changes they did adopt are minor, but in other cases Catholics will have to learn longer and more awkward versions of familiar prayers. For example, instead of saying, "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you," in the prayer before Communion, they will say, "Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof." […]

"This translation will affect the worship life of every Catholic in the United States and beyond," said Bishop Donald W. Trautman of Erie, Pa., chairman of the bishops Committee on the Liturgy and a vocal critic of the Vatican's translation who insisted on amending it. […]

The Rev. Lawrence J. Madden, director of the Georgetown Center for Liturgy in Washington, said: "In hewing to the Latin more closely, it's making some of the English awkward. It isn't the English we speak. It's becoming more sacred English, rather than vernacular English."
Father Madden said, "That's one of the reasons why a large number of the bishops up to this point have been opposed to the translation, because they're afraid this is going to distance the liturgy from the people."

The unfortunate thing about all of this controversy about whether it should be more accessible English or Latin is the ignored fact that the original Bible is written in Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew; Not Latin! Hence, it makes me wonder what purpose this will serve since at the very best they are trying to match English to Latin, with the inherent assumption that the Latin is in perfect snyc with the original Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew.

I remember in a linguistics course I took, we actually used the Bible to examine language variation over time! For instance, The Lord’s Prayer , which is one of the most common and well know prayer amongst Christians and non-Christians (largely due to the pop culture of Thanksgiving & Christmas) has changed drastically over history. Below you will see examples of the Lord’s Prayer from Old English, Modern, and Late Modern English.

Old English
Lord's Prayer I (Exeter Book,10th c.)
1 [....]g fæder, þu þe on heofonum eardast,
2 geweorðad wuldres dreame. Sy þinum weorcum halgad
3 noma niþþa bearnum; þu eart nergend wera.
4 Cyme þin rice wide, ond þin rædfæst willa
5 aræred under rodores hrofe, eac þon on rumre foldan.
6 Syle us to dæge domfæstne blæd,
7 hlaf userne, helpend wera,
8 þone singalan, soðfæst meotod.
9 Ne læt usic costunga cnyssan to swiðe,
10 ac þu us freodom gief, folca waldend,
11 from yfla gewham, a to widan feore.

Modern English
The King James Bible (1611)
Our father which art in heauen, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdome come. Thy will be done, in earth, as it is in heauen.
Giue vs this day our daily bread.
And forgiue vs our debts, as we forgiue our debters.
And lead vs not into temptation, but deliuer vs from euill: For thine is the kingdome, and the power, and the glory, for euer, Amen.

Late Modern English
The Alba House New Testament (1970, tr. Condon)
Our Father in Heaven,
let your holy name be known,
let your kingdom come,
and your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today the bread that we need,
and forgive us our wrongs,
as we forgive those
who have done wrong to us.
Do not lead us into trial,
but save us from evil.

It’s interesting to note the changes overtime, especially as a Muslim. Its not even as if this a Muslim or non-Christian scholar revealed this truth but something that has been documented by Christian scholars. I know others have blogged about the origins of Christianity recently with all the hype about the Da Vinci Code but I’ll just say that anyone who believes that the Bible is the infallible “word of God” should consider these historical changes.

2006-06-11T17:16:00.000-07:00

The hourglass

Who am I to say you are mine?
Our lives are sand that slips through an hourglass of time,
Where I am but one speck,
a mere memory that drips and flows in this river.
Do I have a right to disturb the universe - prevent your pass?
Here comes another turn of the hourglass,
Perhaps if it is meant to be,
We shall meet at last.

2006-06-03T21:11:00.000-07:00

Spirituality Project: An Nawawi’s Forty Hadith

In the last few days, I have been thinking about the decline in my spirituality. This is not to say that my spirituality has only declined in the last few days, but rather to point out that in these last days I have been thinking about the rusted heart I have been carrying around in my chest.

I suppose it goes back more than year or two ago, when I started wearing the beard. As any Muslim these days, when we spot a Muslim with a beard we give them a sort of status that they are “spiritual” or firm on their faith. I suppose I feel into that trap of thinking that with the beard I will somehow be transformed into the perfect believer .

If things were only that easy. Instead I realized that looking like a Muslim is the easy part; living like a true Muslim (one who submits to the will of Allah) is the most difficult thing. For me, I realized this quickly, which is a blessing because some Muslims do not come to this conclusion. Yet I am not happy with just acknowledging a problem...

I want to work towards self-improvement and after many failed attempts in terms of spiritual projects and routines; I am beginning a simple spiritual self-progress program.

I will be reading and providing a summarized commentary of what scholars have said about Imam An Nawawi’s Collection of Forthy Hadith . While I want to stick to explaining what the scholars of Islam have said about the ahadith, I will try to make a connection to their relevance in contemporary affairs.

Imam An Nawawi’s Introduction

To proceed: It has been transmitted to us on the authority of Ali bin Abi Talib, Abdullah bin Masud, Muadh bin Jabal, Abu al-Darda, Ibn 'Umar, Ibn Abbas, Anas bin Malik, Abu Hurairah and Abu Sa'id al-Khudri, may Allah be pleased with them all, through many chains of authorities and in various versions, that the Messenger of Allah, sallallahu 'alayhi wasallam, said:

"Whosoever memorises and preserves for my community forty hadith concerning matters of this religion, Allah will resurrect him on the Day of Judgment in the company of jurists and religious scholars."

Imam Nawawi notes that the scholars of Hadith are agreed that it is a weak hadith despite its many lines of transmission.
However, Imam Nawawi points out that the scholars of Islam are agreed that it is permissible to put into practice a weak hadith if virtuous deeds are concerned; despite this, Imam Nawawi does not rely on this hadith but on the Prophet, sallallahu 'alayhi wasallam, having said the sound hadith:

"Let him who was a witness among you inform him who was absent"

These are reasons alone for anyone to value the study of hadith and Imam Nawawi rightly asserts that “every person wishing to attain the Hereafter should know these hadith because of the important matters they contain and the directions they give in respect of all forms of obedience, this being obvious to anyone who has reflected upon it.”

Reflecting on these words of advice, I think about the lack of knowledge in terms of hadith amongst Muslims these days. I myself do not know any hadith memorized in Arabic. The knowledge I do have of them in the English language is just the hadith without even knowing them precisely word-for-word.

Another important thing to mention is that Imam Nawawi tried to include only authentic hadith in his collection but he included two weak hadith (no. 30 and 41).

Hadith No. 1: Actions are judged by intentions

It is narrated on the authority of Amirul Mu'minin, Abu Hafs 'Umar bin al-Khattab, radiyallahu 'anhu, who said: I heard the Messenger of Allah, sallallahu 'alayhi wasallam, say:

"Actions are (judged) by motives (niyyah), so each man will have what he intended. Thus, he whose migration (hijrah) was to Allah and His Messenger, his migration is to Allah and His Messenger; but he whose migration was for some worldly thing he might gain, or for a wife he might marry, his migration is to that for which he migrated."

[Al-Bukhari & Muslim]

The scholars of Islam, such as Al-Imam al-Shafie said: “This Hadith is one third of the knowledge of Islam; related to about 70 topics of Fiqh.” Indeed the great scholar of Hadith, Imam Bukhari put this as the first hadith in his Sahih. Ibn Rajab has stated that, “the action itself contains what leads to its acceptance or rejection, according to the intention behind it. Also, the reward or punishment that will follow an action is tied to the intention that led such an action to be good and accepted, or evil and reject.”

There are three benefits from this hadith:
(1) Niyyah (intention) is part of Iman. Niyyah is an action take by the heart (not the tongue – meaning do not utter your intention out loud and announcing it aloud is an innovation).
(2) Actions will be accepted or rejected according to the niyyah that precedes them given that the act is halal to begin with.
(3) Muslims who seek to perform acts of worship must do so with good intention.

To me, this hadith presents a concept that I never appreciated fully and am constantly struggling to perfect. My intention for the sake of Allah. A remember the shock when I learned that Riyyah was a form of shirk! I was afraid that I had preformed that in many of my daily acts of worship towards Allah and had gotten nothing in return.

Perhaps more so in our society, we cannot tell whose intentions are true. I give most people the benefit of the doubt but only Allah knows best.

2006-06-02T17:03:00.000-07:00

Currently Listening to...

Saad Al Ghamdi's 'Ghurbah'. Its always nice to listen to it on a rainy new york Jumuah afternoon... sends a mellow vibe through the air.

The version I linked is a little fast paced than one I usually listen to, but either one is nice.

Ghurabaa`, ghurabaa`, ghurabaaa` ghurabaa`
Ghurabaa`, ghurabaa`, ghurabaaa` ghurabaa`
غرباء ولغير الله لا نحنى الجباة
Ghurabaa` do not bow the foreheads to anyone besides Allah
غرباء وارتضيناها شعارا للحياة
Ghurabaa` have chosen this to be the motto of life
غرباء ولغير الله لا نحنى الجباة
Ghurabaa` do not bow the foreheads to anyone besides Allah
غرباء وارتضيناها شعارا للحياة
Ghurabaa` have chosen this to be the motto of life
-------------------------------------------------
إن تسأل عنّا فإنّا لا نبال بالطغاة
If you ask about us, then we do not care about the tyrants
نحن جند الله دوما دربنا درب الأباة
We are the regular soldiers of Allah, our path is a reserved path
إن تسأل عنّا فإنّا لا نبال بالطغاة
If you ask about us, then we do not care about the tyrants
نحن جند الله دوما دربنا درب الأباة
We are the regular soldiers of Allah, our path is a reserved path
-------------------------------------------------
Ghurabaa`, ghurabaa`, ghurabaaa` ghurabaa`
Ghurabaa`, ghurabaa`, ghurabaaa` ghurabaa`
لن نبال للقيود بل سنمضى للخلود
We never care about the chains, rather we'll continue forever
لن نبال للقيود بل سنمضى للخلود
We never care about the chains, rather we'll continue forever
فلنجاهد ونناضل ونقاتل من جديد
So let us make jihad, and battle, and fight from the start
غرباء ... هكذا الأحرار في دنيا العبيد
Ghurabaa`, this is how they are free in the enslaved world
فلنجاهد ونناضل ونقاتل من جديد
So let us make jihad, and battle, and fight from the start
غرباء ... هكذا الأحرار في دنيا العبيد
Ghurabaa`, this is how they are free in the enslaved world
-------------------------------------------------
Ghurabaa`, ghurabaa`, ghurabaaa` ghurabaa`
Ghurabaa`, ghurabaa`, ghurabaaa` ghurabaa`
كم تذاكرنا زمانا نحن يوم كنّا سعداء
How many times we remembered a time when we were happy
بكتاب الله نتلوه صباحا أو مساءا
In the book of Allah, we recite in the morning and the evening
كم تذاكرنا زمانا نحن يوم كنّا سعداء
How many times we remembered a time when we were happy
بكتاب الله نتلوه صباحا أو مساءا
In the book of Allah, we recite in the morning and the evening
-------------------------------------------------
Ghurabaa`, ghurabaa`, ghurabaaa` ghurabaa`
Ghurabaa`, ghurabaa`, ghurabaaa` ghurabaa`
غرباء ولغير الله لا نحنى الجباة
Ghurabaa` do not bow the foreheads to anyone besides Allah
غرباء وارتضيناها شعارا للحياة
Ghurabaa` have chosen this to be the motto of life
غرباء ولغير الله لا نحنى الجباة
Ghurabaa` do not bow the foreheads to anyone besides Allah
غرباء وارتضيناها شعارا للحياة
Ghurabaa` have chosen this to be the motto of life
إن تسأل عنّا فإنّا لا نبال بالطغاة
If you ask about us, then we do not care about the tyrants
نحن جند الله دوما دربنا درب الأباة
We are the regular soldiers of Allah, our path is a reserved path
إن تسأل عنّا فإنّا لا نبال بالطغاة
If you ask about us, then we do not care about the tyrants
نحن جند الله دوما دربنا درب الأباة
We are the regular soldiers of Allah, our path is a reserved path
-------------------------------------------------
Ghurabaa`, ghurabaa`, ghurabaaa` ghurabaa`
Ghurabaa`, ghurabaa`, ghurabaaa` ghurabaa`
قال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم : بدأ الاسلام غريبا وسيعود غريبا كما بدأ فطوبى للغرباء
The Prophet SAW said "Islam began as something strange, and it will return as something strange the way it began. So Tooba for the Strangers"

2006-05-31T12:33:00.000-07:00

Pakistan most sex-starved

I was sent this story by a friend. I shows some disturbing bit of information about Pakistan and other Muslim countries. Basically when it comes to searching for smut on google, the winners are...

1. Pakistan
2. Egypt
3. Vietnam
4. Iran
5. Morocco
6. India
7. Saudi Arabia
8. Turkey
9. Philippines
10. Poland

Its sad that 6 of the 10 are Muslim states. I dont know what to make of it but I suppose Allah will not help us Muslims unless we help ourselves first. Here is the original article:

Pakistan most sex-starved
By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: Google, the world's most popular Internet search engine, has found in a survey that mostly Muslim states seek access to sex-related websites and Pakistan tops the list. Google found that of the top 10 countries - searching for sex-related sites - six were Muslim, with Pakistan on the top. The other Muslim countries are Egypt at number 2, Iran at 4, Morocco at 5, Saudi Arabia at 7 and Turkey at 8. Non-Muslim states are Vietnam at 3, India at 6, Philippines at 9 and Poland at 10.

Source: Daily Times

2006-05-29T13:01:00.000-07:00

Fiction Short Shorties 1 & 2
I was away from the computer for the weekend and could't put any of the fiction stories up but here they are.

The first one is, 'The Mourning After' and the second one is 'That Was Crazy.'
______________________________________________________
1.
The Mourning After

The pale-faced Pastor raised his eyes from the ground, nodding slightly to himself. He quietly ascended from the bench and began to walk towards the pulpit. Every death is a catastrophe and the Pastor must make the peace between grievers and the angel of death. On this particular hour, the faint beams of light flowing through the window panels made the pastor an apparition in the mourners’ reality. His customary black apparel enveloped his frail frame except for a protruding head that hovered above them all. Slowly folding his hands together while surveying the room, he said, “From ashes to ashes, dust to dust…”

After the utterance of the word dust, the Pastor’s speech became floating sentences that dissolved into molecules fading right before Jake’s eyes. Even so, Jake continued to stare at the the Pastor but heard nothing - the silence within the room began to grow until it seemed as if the room was a moment suspended within time. The silence was magnified by his short-quick breathing, struggling to inhale and exhale at the same time.. He lifted his eyes off the pastor and browsed the room with his gaze. He saw his daughter next to him, seeking refuge in warmth of her mother’s bosom. Their faces contained the sorrow, which pressed itself upon the people in the room. The weight of their sorrow increased as the Pastor continued with the eulogy. Beyond the Pastor, lay the unspoken; the soulless body of Jake’s son. A low voice whispered inside him, “my son…”

The blood began to swell within his fingers but he continued to tighten the grip the moment. The two pictures of Ishmael had been placed in the corner of the room to serve as memorial to those of short lived life. They paid homage to the one thing Jake had been unable to bring himself look at, let alone acknowledge; Ishmael’s coffin. His body became etherized before the coffin but his eyes squirmed around it like a man pleading for mercy before the barrel of a cocked gun. His groin tightened as he felt his stomach free fall into an abyss.
Jake brought his attention to the pictures of Ishmael on the sides of the casket. They distracted his mind from the coffin and its reality. The pictures, selected as memories of happiness were not his. The right picture was Ishmael in his horseback riding outfit standing next to the horse he was too used to ride. The other picture was close up picture Mary Elle had recently had taken of him with his younger sister. She was planning on having it sent to family and relatives for the holiday seasons. When he came to think of it, he hadn’t shared many memories with Ishmael. Most of them involved Ishmael leaving for one activity or another and when he wasn’t busy with them, he was away at boarding school. Jake and Mary Elle had planned much of his life away.

Ishmael began boarding school after the third grade and only came home on weekends or vocations. Jake was always a moment behind Ishmael. Mary Elle, Elle as Jake called her, often spoke about Ishmael studying at the Sorbonne. Jake had whole heartedly agreed to the idea but never imagined it would be possible. His son’s recent acceptance into the Worcester Academy of Massachusetts made it a real possibility since the Headmaster had mentioned the many successful Worcester graduates who were now studying at the Sorbonne.

A feeling of loss emerged within Jake as he contemplated a distant future that was surreal as the drifting past. Jake had always considered himself one of God’s lonely strangers wandering through unknown lands. Yet there was something more about the situation that evoked a question within his heart: “why was he in a Church?” The answer was obvious but he continued to ask since he wasn’t raised a Christian nor was his wife particularly religious.

He thought about his parents. To him, they were Turkish laborers who immigrated to America with nothing more than a will to do hard work. They had raised him with a strict work ethic and a sense that they considered themselves Muslims, although they didn’t know much about their religion. At his birth, they had named him Yacoub; the Qur’anic name for Jacob. Shortly after his nineteenth birthday, he had gone to the local courthouse and changed it to “Jake”. A name like Yacoub didn’t stand a chance in a business world where there is little difference between you, your name, and the stocks or bonds. They were all marketable commodities. He wondered why Elle had selected the name of her grandfather, a distinguished politician, for their son. Somewhere between the years of college, his MBA degree, and working in the corporate America, he had lost his Islamic sensibility. Sitting in the Church, he felt a larger emptiness within his life than the loss of Ishmael. Like a gothic statute, his face had relinquished any sign of life except for the sullen brown eyes that searched for answers in vain.

The preacher was silent now. Elle’s family began to quietly get up – most of the people were from Elle’s family. Two of Jake’s work colleagues had come to give their respects and stayed longer. Edward and Michael, along with two other cousins of Elle hoisted the coffin and carried it towards the hearse. Jake stood to the side as the coffin was carried through the aisle. The noise of quick drumbeats sounded every step they took down the stairs towards the car. Jake emerged from the Church to a grey sky that hung over funeral procession. Edward and Michael were organizing the drive funeral efforts to help Elle take her mind off Ishmael.

“Jake, follow us to the burial site,” said Michael as he moved got in the car with Elle. “Elle is going with mom, we’ll meet up there,” Edward added while escorting his mother into Elle’s Volkswagen. A sense of separation from Elle and his daughter bothered Jake who wanted to share the drive with them. “Sure, its probably best Elle go with them,” said Jake. “I’ll tag along with you Jake … to keep you company,” said Edward as he moved towards the Escalade. “Mind if I drive, I think you need the break.” Jake reached into his coat pocket and handed his keys over.

“Thanks, it’ll help me take my mind off things,” Jake said as he looked at the grey sky again. “You think it’ll rain again? I usually don’t get to check the weather since I’m at work most of day.” Edward briefly glanced at him and said, “Yea, this is typical New England weather. You’ve got to get out of Midtown Manhattan more often and spend time up here.” Jake thought about his work offices and how they occupied most of his last few years. He stepped up into the Escalade and closed the door behind him. Looking out of the window, Jake reached into his pocket to pull out his palm organizer, which showed missed a call from a 212 number. Jake glanced out of the window as Edward drove behind the procession. Last night’s rain still lay heavily in the autumn air, engulfing the surroundings in its mist and fog. The trees and bushes appeared and disappeared as layers of fog drifted before them to create shadows of their existence.

“Mind if I turn on the radio. I know a station that plays some smooth relaxing music,” said Edward as he turned his head towards Jake while placing his hand on the dial. Jake gave a light nod of approval and turned his head back towards the window. The Escalade was gift for the extra time Jake put in to help launch his firm’s financial services office in Tokyo. Jake remembered that the night before Ishmael’s last birthday, he was stuck in LA waiting for a connecting flight home from Japan.

“I think we’re about ten minutes away from the burial site. Shouldn’t be much longer,” said Edward as squinted his eyes in and tried to read the cross-streets names. Jake tuned into the song for a moment and heard, “And the cat’s in the cradle and the silver spoon, little blue and the man on moon.” He was unfamiliar with song and wasn’t pay attention to lyrics but its soothing melody slowly made Jake unconscious of his atmosphere.

Jake awakened to find Edward outside of car and knocking on the window. “We’re here. I thought you were resting your head but I didn’t know you fell asleep,” said Edward as he opened Jake’s passenger side door with surprised look upon his face. Jake slid out of the car and found himself weak legged and stumbling. He felt embarrassed that he had let himself get caught sleeping and was afraid it might send a message of indifference to the severity of the situation.

“Come on, follow me. I saw Elle and the others head that way,” said Edward as he put his arms around Jake to help him. The walked for a few minutes until Jake could see a crowd assembled around a coffin. The fog made it difficult to discern if it was his family from a distance. Edward began walking towards the crowd and joined them. Jake arrived and tried stand as close to Elle as possible. The Pastor acknowledged their presence and began to mention a few prayers and words of endearment towards his family. After his words, the Ishmael’s coffin was lowered down into the ground. Some wet mud stuck to sides of coffin’s marble encasing and Jake felt the urge to reach in and wipe it clean.

Slowly, Jake saw it descend into the grave until nothing but darkness was visible. A sudden silence came across the procession members who all stared into the grave’s darkness. Ishmael was a star who collapsed upon itself and become a black hole. And like a black hole, his coffin swallowed all existence of time and space. It emanated force of gravity that pulled the bodies, vision, and feelings of all those who stood near the center of the grave.

______________________________________________________
2.
That Was Crazy

“A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather them;
A time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces.”
Ecclesiastes 3:5

“Mom – Yea, how’s it going? Leah called me just now and said there was some good news.” Daniel said, as he stood holding the phone pressed against his right ear, trying to block out the noise from trucks rumbling by.

“Uhuh… you mean to say they have a donor for Rachel? That’s not good news - that’s great news! I only have a week left of mandatory service and once I’m done with that I’ll have a lot more time to spend with her.” He yelled enthusiastically into the phone hoping to drown out noisy distractions on the military base.

“Well, what do you mean? Of course we should accept it – mom, do you know how difficult it is to find a liver donor compatible with Rachel?” A look of puzzlement came upon his face as he fidgeted with the phone cord, twirling it around his fingers. “Look ma, we can’t wait forever – they kept Rachel on the list for 4 years already… What is it already – just say it already.” Daniel had now turned face towards the wall to gain privacy in a place that was constantly under surveillance.
“Who are the donors? … Oh, I see…” His face offered an expressionless look. “Does pa know about this? … I understand it’s complicated to explain it to him and we’re sure he’ll object but given the circumstances … It’s difficult, I know its difficult – I don’t know where I stand on it either but its like we planned this – it just came up now. The important thing is that there is a liver donor that it compatible with Rachel’s – even if it was a Palestinians. Listen ma –I’ll give you a call back later tonight when I return from patrol.” Said Daniel as he hung the phone up and walked away rubbing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.

He continued walking not considering which direction he was headed nor caring for that moment. His body pushed him to keep moving as it tried to keep up with thoughts and faces running through his mind. He kept walking until he came to the edge of the base that was fenced off with barbwire – in the distance lay clustered houses scattered amongst the barren dune hills that stretched deep into valley of Nablus. Daniel lifted his index finger and placed it on the barbwire. He pressed down upon the wire with the weight of the choice on his mind.

“Hey Danny, you been standing there long enough. How about we transfer you back from solitary confinement to the gulags,” said Sergeant Kuznets with smirk across his face. “Come on, we got patrol in less than an hour and your standing day dreaming like Socrates.” His gruff voice awakened Daniel to his senses. “ I got you figured out kid – its less than a week till you’re a free man and now you want more – the Army has become a part of you.” Daniel thought that. He thought about what he had become a part of.

---

“That was crazy… I didn’t expect that kid to come out of now where… I did what anyone of us would have done.” said Eli, as he looked into the distance hills behind Daniel. Daniel paused for a moment in front of Eli, slowly loosening the grip on his Galil assault rifle. Eli expected some words of condolences, perhaps even an “I understand, it could have been me in your place,” but he said nothing. The Sergeant asked Eli his account of the incident and asked Daniel, if he had anything to add to the official report. He didn’t. He stood in the moment he paused before Eli, thinking of his sister Rachel.

He still couldn’t make sense of what happened. It was suppose to be a standard patrol through Nablus. Nothing was planned – no operation or mission – just a regular patrol through the outer lying houses. Then the patrol truck was struck by random gunfire and placed everyone on alert. The Sergeant ordered Eli and Daniel and two other members of our team to pursue the target who scurried across rooftops under the noon heat. One of the boy’s shoes had fallen off as he jumped fervently from one house to the next, often landing clumsily and injuring himself in the process. Eli informed the two to keep him in sight as he and Daniel would run ahead into one of the houses and try to get onto the rooftop to circle him. Eli was older and more experienced but not in the best of shape and he tried to keep up with Daniel. After running a few dozen yards ahead of where the boy was, Daniel banged the butt of his rifle on the door and told them to immediately open it. After three seconds he kicked the wooden door open and yelled out amidst a screaming family that he was not here to hurt them.
“Listen, I’m here to get to the roof – that’s all,” he remembers shouting to the family, as he looked for the staircase to the roof. By then Eli had hustled his way to house and was trying to calm the children and woman yelling at the intruders. “I’m not here to do any harm to you all. Calm the kids down lady; we’ll be through in a minute or so… Danny, hurry up there so we can get out of this place.” Eli said, as he stood in the middle of the room trying to focus on the stairs Daniel had dashed up.

Daniel scanned the shanty housetops that reflected the burning sun off their metal coverings. He couldn’t find the kid anywhere in sight. “I’m getting tired of chasing after kids who get fun out of afternoon firefights.” A loud burst of gunfire roared from behind him stiffened his spine and jaws locked. Daniel sprinted down the rooftop opening as he tried not to slip on the poorly constructed dirt steps, the screaming had accentuated to a point where it siren going off in his head. A lady knelt over a body tried to cover the blood spewing out, she obstructed his view to who exactly had been shot. A question sparked in his head: where was Eli?

“Eli, where are you?!” Daniel ran from one corner of the house to the other, only to realize the other room contained an exit to the outhouse. He glanced down on the children clinging to the woman, who was face was wet from tears and blood marks and said, “We’ll rush him to a doctor. Hold on.” With that he opened the entrance door and saw Eli sitting down on the floor with his hand.

“You hit! Are you hit?” Daniel yelled at Eli, who let out a whimper and said, “I shot him.” From the corner of his left eye, Daniel could see Sergeants’ truck speeding towards them. Again Eli said, “I shot the kid.”

2006-05-25T22:15:00.000-07:00

I'm workin on a short fiction story. It might depart from the norm of what I have worked/written on but I thought I might as try it. (no, its not about embracing kufr or zina)

I'll put it up later today.

2006-05-18T16:28:00.000-07:00

NYC Subway Warning: No-Groping Zone

I recently read about an incident that happened on the subway train I take to College and feel kinda disgusted.

This led me to think about the problem of women’s harassment on the NYC subway system. I’m sure it’s not just the NYC subway but other major cities as well but I know that NYC has particular subway culture that one cannot avoid not taking the Subway.

Anyways, I feel that the NYC MTA should start considering what Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, and Tokyo subways have done: create No-Groping Zones.

Many women have welcomed the law as a relief from the groping and sexual harassment they regularly experience in the packed cars. "Men think it's extremely normal to do this. They don't feel guilty at all," says Monica Aranjo Neves, 34, an administrative assistant who has been groped on several occasions. "We have to go to work, then take care of everything at home, and we shouldn't have to deal with this on the train."

I hope New Yorkers can come to realize this is a problem amongst us and take similar action. If cities like Tokyo have already opted for this approach, then New York should definitely consider it… I think this would also be viable solution to many Muslim countries urban centers as well.

2006-05-09T16:35:00.000-07:00

The Ahl Al Hadith blog is becoming a must read for me and I strongly recommend it to others.In a recent project, the site’s coordinators examine the contemporary crisis facing Muslims through the lens of Seerah .

So we need to encourage each other to [as I was encouraged to talk about seerah by my brothers, may Allah reward them] read seerah as something that enlivens our lives because seerah is like a tafseer of the Quran, because it is the life of the Prophet [saw] and he was the walking Qur'an, meaning he lived it, lived the Qur'an.
This three tiered reading will help us:
Reading seerah
Reading how the Ummah declined
Reading the situation we live in
but the reality we live in and the decline of the Ummah must be understood from the angle of seerah so that we are grounded in knowledge or else we will fall into depression and also become plagued by problems
We want to use a book like crisis to analyse what took place and try to understand.
Likewise we want to root ourselves in seerah the same is to be said about the Qur'an but with the Quran we do not do this type of reflection because we have rules for tafsir that must be followed rather with the Quran we learn the stories of the former nations and the characteristics of people and look at the world from those stories and look at ourselves and our characteristics who do we exemplify, what people: the munafiquon, the people of Nuh, nabi Yunus [as] etc.
For example the character of the Prophet Yusuf [r] in Egypt, the character of Abu Lahab, the character of the people of Lut etc. all these things help us to see that humanity treads a path and that the straight path is Islam.
Seerah will help us understand Qur'an but we do not theorize in understanding Qur'an this is problematic rather we first root ourselves in understanding the arabic and then hadith. So to make up for that in English there is Ibn Kathir abridged and it is good to read between Raheequm Makhtum and Ibn Kathir which was abridged from the original.
All in all this is a very strong base, Qur'an, seerah, hadith and the book crisis which is an islamic based sociology, for this reflection we are talking about and will preoccupy us for a while along with these works three books should be read in the sciences of Quran and one in hadith sciences, in order that tafsir is understood consciously. We should try to apply the concepts learned in the following books to our reading and understanding of tafsir. The concepts are to be found in in the following books:
First: Quranic Sciences by Ahmad Von Denffer
Then Fauz Al Kabir by Al Muhaddith Shah Wali Ullah
Shah Wali Ullah will outline a pattern for you that is at work in the Quran.
And for the willing Ibn Taymiyah's principles of tafsir unfortunately is has no explanation but after reading the first two books they will kind of explain it.
And lastly Hadith Methodology by Azami this work I studied a while ago is one of the best works in english helps to build one's understanding sp that you ask about the grade of hadith and know the meaning of sahih, da'ef etc. in addition of you see a hadith with no chain then you know the terminiology for that etc and since we are dealing with Ibn Kathir which is hadith based this comes in handy.
Quranic sciences and Crisis of the Muslim mind are online I believe the rest have to be purchased. I am doing something to this effect at the moment so who ever wants to join in start and then brief me on your reflections so i can benefit too.

2006-05-05T17:51:00.000-07:00

Immigration, African Americans and the Experiance with Education

I've been following Tariq's comments about lets replace them with Latinos attitude. I've also sensed some other tensions between blacks and the recent wave of immigrants seeking citizenship.

Today's NYTimes notes the growing unease for some balcks on immigration. I think there are more gains than losses over this issue. As Jesse Jackson put it in the article:

"We too were denied citizenship," Mr. Jackson said. "We too were undocumented workers working without wages, without benefits, without the vote. "We should feel honored that other people are using tactics and strategies from our [civil rights movement] struggle. We shouldn't say they're stealing from us. They're learning from us."

Where as some black leaders such as Ronald Walters had this to say:

"Mr. Walters said he understood those conflicting emotions, saying he feels torn himself because of his concerns about the competition between immigrants and low-skilled black men for jobs. In 2004, 72 percent of black male high school dropouts in their 20's were jobless, compared with 34 percent of white and 19 percent of Hispanic dropouts.

"I applaud them moving out of the shadows and into the light because of the human rights issues involved," Mr. Walters said of illegal immigrants. "I've given my entire life to issues of social justice as an activist and an academic. In that sense, I'm with them.

"But they also represent a powerful ingredient to the perpetuation of our struggle," he said. "We have a problem where half of black males are unemployed in several cities. I can't ignore that and simply be my old progressive self and say it's not an issue. It is an issue.""

Tariq makes a point of jobs going to the immigration community, I say that yes that will happen in one way or another, particulary low-skilled labor orientated jobs but it may not lower wages amongst them as Um Abdullah suggests. For instance, a recent study published in the NYTimes argues that the Cost of Illegal Immigration May Be Less Than Meets the Eye. The study's results are debatable but worth considering.

Moreover, I feel that the US economy will have to deal with larger structural changes in the labor market. For instance, many manufacturing jobs have been outsourced recently and even jobs that put Americans in the middle class such IT services have are now being provided by Indians. Economists are suggesting that these changes are inevitable consequences of globalization and for a long time the US was the biggest winner of globalization but now other countries are catching up and leveling the economic playing field. The implications created by such changes means that over time, there will be trend towards services (financial, information, technical, etc.) as the largest component of our economy.

How do these global changes in the economy affect the African American community?
The question goes back to education. With an economy that will demand more highly educated and trained laborers, African Americans who are not highly educated will find themselves unemployed by the masses. They should not scapegoat the immigrant workers for the short-term gains of low skilled labor but should develop a plan to train members of their community to become part of the emerging highly educated workforce.

To draw a lesson from a pervious immigrant experience, when the Irish came to American they worked side by side with the blacks in many positions such as construction workers of the New York City subway tunnels. Back then, the Irish were competing with the African Americans for jobs; today it is the Latino community. In the future, the Latino community may become the ‘new Irish’ but the African American community will remain static. These observations pose some lager questions as to why the African American has remained static and continues to remain static.

Tariq, your concern should not lead you to worry about the Latino community. The Latinos currently outnumber the number of African Americans and they will be very potent political force in the future. In fact, it would be foolish if they Black community antagonized the Latino community over these issues and led to poor relations in the future.

Instead, the African American community has to look inward and ask why they find themselves economically pitted against the latest batch of new immigrants? The answer according to me is the lack of educational progress. Every new immigrant community in the US maximized the educational system of the US to establish itself. The African American community (along with Native Americans as well, but lets just stick to African Americans) has been unable to replicate the educational success of Jewish, Irish, and Asian immigrants. If the education problem stays the same way, then African Americans shouldn't be suprised to find themselves locked in a cycle of being pitted against the newest immigrant or minority group in the US.

2006-05-04T19:54:00.000-07:00

An Examination of “Honor Killings": A Case of Reciprocal Behavior?

It is not uncommon to find Western commentators criticizing “honor killings” in Muslim countries. Their rhetoric of championing women rights is window dressing for their subliminal attempt to portray Islam as religion that sanctions such killings.

That is a simply not the case.

Human Rights Watch, a non-profit organzation, testified before the 57th Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights that:

“Honor crimes are not specific to any religion, nor are they limited to any one region of the world. Human Rights Watch has worked on this issue in the Americas, Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa. Although there is increased awareness of this issue, states remain reluctant to take the necessary steps to end impunity for honor killings. For example, although the Supreme Court of Brazil struck down "defense of honor" as a justification for murder of a wife in 1991, ten years later, courts still fail to prosecute and convict men who claim they kill their wives because of their alleged infidelity.”

Given these considerations, let us examine an interesting case where a Pakistani woman beheaded her husband for his infidelity.

"The victim was said to bear a passion for women and Khatoon, who was already fed up with her husband's extramarital activities, got annoyed when he said he was going for a fourth marriage," said another police officer, Akhtar Shah Bangash.”

Would this be a reciprocal case of a “honor killing?”

2006-05-02T20:21:00.000-07:00

Poetry on my Mind

I've written some Islamic poetry in the past and thought I'd share them.
The last one is my favorite.

Late Night Hour

The black-blue sky split in half,
Reveals the late night hour of mercy,
When your Lord Descends down the Heavens
As humanity into its darkest abyss.

My soul left my heart
Lonely, looking for another.
Its absence filled my chest with a blanket of ice,ea
Tears frozen that freely flowed.
All that existed for the moment
Being, a body of heavy mass
Letting out a long slow breath that
Signals its emptiness.

Purify yourself,
Fold your hands,
Prostrate yourself.
Find your forhead on
The Earth as you acknowledge
Your origin and being from it.
Seek to cleanse the self before
Slumber sends your soul
Till it be revived at dawn.

Merciful Tears

Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
Falling into cupped palms of prayer.

O Allah!
As my duaas ascend to Your Glory,
Let them testify my plea for Your Mercy.
Allahul Musta3an.

My soul, pale from weariness,
Of climbing and gazing on earth
Yet I remind myself,
To Allah we belong, And onto Him we return.

---
I borrowed and modified the first 2 lines of 'Merciful Tears' from A.L. Tennyson.

The Feeling of Uncertainty

You know that feeling –
No, not the one when you’re frightened,
But the other one, when your stomach begins to shrink and tighten.
When the sudden squinting of eyes,
The hammering at the back of your head
Doesn’t prevent you from realizing
It’s the moment you’ve dread.

The dust has settled,
The lines have been drawn,
Between black and white,
They are gray.

That feeling ran through the valleys of north Georgia,
As those native to this land depart,
Leave a trail of tears,
Roses grow where mothers once wept.

That feeling ran through the hills of California,
As Pearl Harbor fell to attack,
The pain felt by a West Coast generation of
Children of the camps.

That feeling still runs through the streets of Brooklyn,
As twin towers disappeared on that black Tuesday,
Investigators and authorities lie await,
For fathers returning from houses of worship.

That is
The feeling of uncertainty.

A Prelude to The Clash of Civilizations: An Exchange Between Ibn Hazm & Andrew Marvell

Draw near so I may share with thee,
My afflicted heart’s ecstasy.
So tell me how to describe a sight,
That rivals the tranquility of a starry night.
A moment’s breath shall never give due essence,
A life’s journey – not enough to invoke her presence.
I find no difficulty in describing her delicacy,
For the challenge she presents, lies in her complexity -
Like a beginning without an end,
Mystifying to transcend.

Words of such intrigue
Confound my heart with mystique.
My dearly distressed guest,
Even we suffer from such symptoms in the West.
There lies no mercy from what you yearn,
When all is said and done, we are always left us with something to learn.
So put aside your emotional sentiments,
For I urge to speak about this beauty’s adornments.
Tell me, was this mistress young and fair,
A nymph with rosy cheeks and golden hair?
Did you pause upon her as she wandered carelessly
In flower gardens and swaying willow trees?
Did your indulge eyes upon her sight,
Be true now, were your intentions right?

She is more than the image you present,
I say this without resentment.
Purer in love than your innocent maiden,
Shown by the way she held her children.
Never a thought to her curves or flowing hair of gleaming dyes,
Since I was too lost in the melancholy of her eyes.
No need to hold her beyond heavens rise,
Giving the little she had to charity – she’s certainty one of paradise.
Inquiring from the beggar who received her generosity
Revealed a widowed mother of timeless serenity.
My intentions of full integrity – to ask her hand for eternity.

Where lays the charm, the seduction
In such a woman whom I’d hardly glance at, lest give devotion.
Surely on beauty and love we differ in our conceptions,
Perhaps, a prelude to the clash of civilizations.

2006-04-29T16:33:00.000-07:00

An Incomplete Education: Analyzing and Addressing the Problem of Secular Schooling

In the latest edition of Al Jummah Magazine, Sr. Maryam Haleem's article on An Incomplete Education highlights the dilemma Muslims face from secular education. Her central argument is that secular education stymies Muslims to distance themselves from their deen and that we need to synthesize secular education with Islamic knowledge. Here is what she says in her own words:

“If we do not have integration of Islam’s teaching in our daily subjects, it will just fade softly into separate fables and stories of olden morals and virtues. These prophetic narratives will become merely vague images of what somehow we ought to be, while at the same time there will be resounding feeling that these ancient moral men and women do not really understand what we are going through today, in our time, in our stage of the history of humanity, because they did not live in the same timeline as us, because they were always a world apart, because they were separate and untouched by the real world we were taught.

…

Because there is very little relevance accorded to Islam though any of the curricula (formal or informal) by which we are learning about Islam, and because virtually all of our education is based on secular (and predominantly Western) sources, our Muslim identity is greatly weakened and, in many cases, shattered. Whether our youth attend Islamic private schools or public schools, they are indoctrinated in the importance, relevance, and superiority in Western education, Secular education. Secularism in all its facets of life, becomes the standard, the pedestal, which we all strive to achieve.”

This wields a profound impact on the Muslim mindset, especially given our relatively ineffectual presence in the West and our sublimated spiritual identities. Instead of raising s up and bestowing upon us the mantle with which we can proudly and gratefully call ourselves Muslim, our education confuses and embarrasses us, even renders us averse to the idea of being Muslim.

…

Abashment emerges out of the knowledge that our Islamic heritage is somehow seen as less, less, less that our Western inheritance – less important, less civilized, and less sophisticated. This mortification naturally makes us much more inclined to sport our Western identities than our Muslim one. Such an inferiority complex, in many cases, leads to impatience with and, post you-know-what-date, and almost hysterical averseness to “excessive” Islamic thinking. It makes us, as community, far more eager to listen to someone with Western, secular credentials than another who embodies good eloquent, dignified, Islamic values, but who is lacking in a secular background.

This draws us even further away from the already drifting world of legendary prophets and their companions. It makes them the heroes of distant, enjoyable, inspirational stories for the end of the stressful secular day, when we can read about these larger-than-life figures, admire them from a safe remoteness, and all the while stroke ourselves with excuses as to why were are not more like them – inevitably pinning this to the fact that they lived in an obviously different and infinitely less complex world than our own multi-everything, modern one.”

Her analysis in insightful and warranted in era where more and more Muslim parents are placing greater emphasis on secular education at the price of Islamic knowledge. Even those parents that put their sons and daughters through traditional Islamic boarding schools or universities find that themselves and their children are isolated from the general trend amongst Muslims perception that Secular degrees, even in subjects such as ‘Islamic studies’ or Arabic where traditional Islamic schools are superior by Orientalists’ standards, are the only ones worth pursing.

To limit the perpetuation this problem, she suggests that:

We need to reconsider the Islamic way of learning. We need to establish it earnest in our schools… To say it in a sentence, integrating Islam into traditional subjects will give students not only knowledge but, but something of greater value: Wisdom.”

While Sr. Haleem’s analysis raises concerns about this important problem facing Muslims, I find her recommendations to counter this growing trend wanting. She presents an abstract course of action but does not identify the actors (family, community, or universities) who are necessary to implement it into reality.

My own personal belief is that addressing this problem has to begin at a micro-level, with emphasis on the self and the family as the vehicles of mobilization. Even the Qur’an attests that, “Verily, Allah will not change the condition of a people as long as they do not change the condition themselves [13:11].” Muslims parents and students should realize that the burden is upon them to preserve their own deen. Unfortunately, Muslims have not developed enough institutions or social organizations to rely on linking identities in the West with our Islamic values.

Imagine every eighteen to twenty-six year old Muslim having the free opportunity to make Umrah Umrah and spend a week appreciating the Holy cities of Mecca and Medinah. It would without a doubt rejuvenate their eman and remind them of their Islamic identity. Think it’s an absurd idea? The Jewish community already does its own version of it; free Birthright Israel trips.

On an optimistic note, Muslims should not become discouraged by our current situation but rather continue to strive towards integrating their family’s secular education with Islam so that one day, by the will of Allah, parents will crave that their children become Haziful Qur'ans and Muhaddiths.

2006-04-22T19:53:00.000-07:00

Fragmentation of Pakistan: A Microcosm of the Muslim World?

I’ve been reading some news about Pakistan and I’ve come to the conclusion that Pakistani society is fragmenting at an unprecedented rate.

Here are the two cases I present as my cases:

1. The Glasshouse’s Blogger writes:

“There is a restaurant in Karachi apparently well-known for the high quality of its cuisine. Many people go there for the excellence of its food, but not all. There is a growing set of jaded Seth housewives who visit this eating establishment merely to display their handbags.

Sounds weird doesn’t it? But I kid you not.

These ladies , I am told, live a life engrossed in reading vacuous magazines (such as ‘Hello!’ and ‘Tattler’), watching mindless US Television shows (‘Sex in the City’ and ‘Desperate Housewives’), and are obsessed with the latest diet fads so they can look their glamorous best for the next high profile ball. Even if they lack dress sense, clothes have to be bought in Bond Street or Knightsbridge, shoes from Italian fashion houses and, yes - the ultimate – a handbag or two from Hermes.
…As Ayesha Haq reported in the Herald magazine a few months ago, we have a bunch of housewives married to rich Sethia husbands, who try and one-up each other by exhibiting their Birkin bags during lunch. They are said to line their bags on the table for display, so even passing female diners can take note of these costly accessories.

Outside this restaurant one usually comes across poor beggar children trying to palm off small bouquet of flowers for Rs. 20. Less than half-mile from the restaurant lies Neelum Colony where some of the impoverished classes live. For these people the cheapest ‘Birkin’ bag (costing around Rs. 400,000) could feed and clothe a small family for ten years.”

2. The BBC reports on Pakistan’s Taliban in Waziristan:

Irrespective of whether money is involved or not, foreign militants are the crux of the problem, aren't they? I asked him.
"The issue is the government's poor understanding of the issue," Haji Omar says.
"Afghanistan was an Islamic country with an Islamic system. It has now descended into anarchy.
"The only way for us to put an end to the anarchy there is to wage a jihad against the Americans and anyone who supports them."
That includes Pakistan, the key American ally in the region.
"Yes, we treat all American allies as enemy. We have caught many people who were trying to help the Americans, either directly or through Pakistan," he said.
What happens when they catch such people?
"We do not waste our bullets on them," Haji Omar said with a smile.
"We slaughter them."

The growing divide is not only on issues of rich/wealth, Islamic/secular, rural/urban, but I suspect it runs deeper into other issues as well. I also believe that these are the same problems afflicting other Muslim countries.

2006-04-19T21:30:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Atlanta ... Sex Tourism of the Bible Belt

Welcome to Atlanta where the playas play
And we ride on them things like every day
Big beats, hit streets, see gangsta's roamin'
And parties dont stop til' eight in the mornin'

Ludacris knew about it before Reuters reported that sex tourism is thriving in the Bible belt.

Atlanta - In a sleazy hotel room, "Brittany," then aged 16 and drugged into oblivion, waited for the men to arrive. Her pimps sent as many as 17 clients an evening through the door.

A "john" could even pre-book the pretty young blonde for $1,000 a night, sometimes flying in and then flying out from a nearby airport.

None of this happened in Bangkok or Costa Rica, places that have become synonymous with sex tourism and underage sex.

It took place in Atlanta, the buckle of the U.S. Bible Belt, where the world's busiest passenger airport provides a cheaper, more convenient and safer underage sex destination for men seeking girls as young as 10.

"Men fly in, are met by pimps, have sex with a 14-year-old for lunch, and get home in time for dinner with the family," said Sanford Jones, the chief juvenile judge of Fulton County, Georgia.

"Men fly in, are met by pimps, have sex with a 14-year-old for lunch, and get home in time for dinner with the family," said Sanford Jones, the chief juvenile judge of Fulton County, Georgia.

Here is the craziest part:

The pimps even held an annual "Player's Ball" in Atlanta in 2003, openly buying and selling women and naming a "Player of the Year," according to the Atlanta Women's Agenda study.

The risks are worth it. While there are few reliable statistics, child sexual exploitation is believed to be the world's third-biggest money maker for organized crime, said Stephanie Davis, policy adviser to Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin.

These so called "pimps" are nothing more than modern-day slave traders! What's saddening is that how music videos and pop culture is glamorizing the once sleazy pimp into a respectable figure. Especially when songs like it's hard for a pimp out here are winning Ocars!

All I can say is you can only expect groups/artists producing alot more risqué music lyrics.

2006-04-18T22:37:00.000-07:00

Debunking An Economic Myth of Illegal Immigration

A recent NY Times report is casting doubt on the claim that illegal immigrants undercut the wages of Americans. Below is the first four paragraphs:

California may seem the best place to study the impact of illegal immigration on the prospects of American workers. Hordes of immigrants rushed into the state in the last 25 years, competing for jobs with the least educated among the native population. The wages of high school dropouts in California fell 17 percent from 1980 to 2004.

But before concluding that immigrants are undercutting the wages of the least fortunate Americans, perhaps one should consider Ohio. Unlike California, Ohio remains mostly free of illegal immigrants. And what happened to the wages of Ohio's high school dropouts from 1980 to 2004? They fell 31 percent.

As Congress debates an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws, several economists and news media pundits have sounded the alarm, contending that illegal immigrants are causing harm to Americans in the competition for jobs.

Yet a more careful examination of the economic data suggests that the argument is, at the very least, overstated. There is scant evidence that illegal immigrants have caused any significant damage to the wages of American workers.

Aside from the economics of it all, how the US should deal with its illegal immigrants is a complicated question, that will require a complicated solution. One thing it cannot do simply ignore it because it will create an American underclass, a 'shadow society'. In the end those illegal immigrants will eventually become citizens by marrying or having children in the US. In the mean time, the more we simply adopt an 'ignore them' policy, it will create a problem when they are legal citizens because then they will carry the resentment of being ignored and distance themselves from American civic society.

2006-04-17T17:47:00.000-07:00

The Irony of "Collateral Damage"

Today,the NY Times reported how the Supreme Court turned down a long-shot appeal filed on behalf of two Chinese Muslims being held at Guantanamo Bay while the U.S. government tries to find a country to take them.

What I find ironic is how the US gov't is holding these innocent Chinese Muslims (ethnic Uighurs) at Guantanamo Bay because returning them to their homeland will lead them to be persecuted.

Here is the rational for holding them:

''We don't want to put them on a boat and shove them offshore,'' said Robert Turner, a former high-level State Department official in the Reagan administration who now teaches at the University of Virginia. ''It's one of those tragic cases ... there are no easy answers. These guys are, in a sense, collateral damage to the war.''

Given that they return and will be persecuted by the Chinese gov't, I dont know if their conditions under the US are any better? After all, its still Guantanamo that they are comparing as a better option to returning to China!

2006-04-15T06:15:00.000-07:00

"Islam began as something strange, and it shall return to being something strange, so give glad tidings to the strangers."

As a Muslim, I often feel like a Stranger amongst other Muslims.

My mother recently had her operation (alhumdulillah, it went well) and in the aftermath of the local aunties comming to visit her as she recovers; they leave stories of the most recent neighborhood scandal.

I'm past the point of being tired of those never ending tales. After a point, one doesnt want to deal with that. But a sense of community with fellow Muslims still remains in ones heart.

-------------------------------------------

On a different note, Daniel Drezner's got a good dicussion on remind me again.... why hasn't Rumsfeld resigned?

The reality of the situation in Iraq has made it clear that serious strategic mistakes have put the US into Nietzsche's abyss. General Patton may have said, "Good tactics can save even the worst strategy. Bad tactics will destroy even the best strategy," but it seem the contropositive of that is equally true.