Dunia's Stranger

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.