Down that road

I recently had this question in a comment:

 

Please how far have you been pleased in Islam. I want to know before I enter into it.

 

Can I just say, what a sensible question that is and yet it is one that is so rarely asked, even though I’m sure lots of people wonder it.

It doesn’t help that many of our most vocal brethren and sistren in the deen (aka the haram police) are so fond of stating all the things they don’t do, disapprove of and all the things they have given up, that to the casual observer two thoughts must surely come to mind: 1)What on earth do you do for fun, are you even allowed fun? and more sadly, 2) That sounds like one nit-picking God you worship.

Well, a saying I read recently, was “better to be a sincere struggler than a fake saint”, so from a sincere struggler, nearly eight years along the path (Alhamdulilah):

I am happy being a Muslim and I would say overall, that I am more contented then I was as a non-Muslim. I feel that being a Muslim has improved my life in many ways. It has given me focus, guidance, helped me appreciate the beauty and fleeting nature of life and the world. I have met people from all over the world and learned so much.

I once watched a documentary about the women’s movement, one women said that she felt her involvement in the movement had given her the courage to lead a different life, I feel like that about Islam, I feel like it’s being able to see a new colour or see an additional dimension to life.

Alhamdulilah for all those things.

 

I will say very clearly, as I have done before: If being Muslim does not make you happier, you are doing it wrong.

 

Things can be very hard for converts. This article is a great overview of what some of those problems can be: http://www.suhaibwebb.com/islam-studies/islam-101/misconceptions/8-things-you-should-understand-about-converts/ and I would advise anyone to read it, convert or not.

However, instead of going through all the various problems that can befall, remembering of course, that life has it’s own problems anyway; I want to give one piece of advice, something to remember above everything else:

 

Always make your own decisions and accept full responsibility for those decisions.

Unlike other faith systems, individual responsibility is a key part of Islam, no one can bear the sins of another person. Yet, we often hear about converts being bombarded with advice, often on very life changing issues, and often with guilt trips, “this is what a good Muslim does” and so on.

Throw in some

cultural confusion,

the idea that the best thing to do is to dive into everything,

a need to belong

and converts can often find themselves, several years down the road in a life they have no idea how they ended up with and are not even sure if they want.

 Don’t let this be you.

No is a complete sentence, thanks but no thanks, bless your heart, thank you for you consideration, sometimes you will have to tell people to back off.

Know that it is ok to be you as a Muslim, you don’t have to pretend to be someone else, just try to be a better version of yourself, but know that the trying is as important as the achieving.

Know that only Allah is all-knowing.

Don’t be intimidated or over-awed by titles like Sheikh, Iman, Hafiz, etc. They may tell you the level of someone’s knowledge (and sometimes even that’s iffy), not whether they are a good person or not  and they still can’t live your life for you and nor should they sit in it’s driving seat.

In conclusion, only you can decide if Islam is for you, just remember that you decisions and capacity for choice don’t end there.

 

4 Years Later…

Just over four years ago, I wrote the following about hosting the Olympics in London:

To all you non-U.K readers, I will let you in on a little secret: The country as a whole is absolutely petrified about hosting the next Olympics.

Our bid was a load of hot air and blagging and we don’t really have that much money. Plus, the city of London is an infrastructural nightmare and we are very bad at building things 1) Within budget 2)To schedule. I think the fact that our main rivals for the bid were the French, led to it becoming a big “We can’t possibly lose to them”- fest and we just said anything to convince the judges.

Such fears are not helped by the fact that Beijing have just held the biggest and most expensive Olympics ever and we’re worried ours will look like a school sports day in comparison.

Well, Alhamdulilah the U.K did not shame itself and we managed to host a marvellous Olympics and Paralympics, with the latter being treated like the major event (click here for the brilliant tv trailer for the Paralympics) it is, not an afterthought.

Like my previous post, I still loved the the Rhythmic Gymnastics with every fibre of my sequin-seeking heart, and the Artistic Gymnastics too. Of the many, many Team GB highlights (yippee!), I think Jade Jones winning her Taekwondo gold and throwing her helmet into the air with glee is my favourite.

As for the Paralympics, I love the track events best, with the races of Jason Smyth, David Weir and the 400m that Oscar Pistorius won, being my favourite performances.

I could go, but every single aspect of Olympiana has covered and gone over repeatedly here, but I just thought I’d have to document it in the blog after writing about it so many years ago.

E.T.A

Four years ago, Oreo was still the Little Occupant. Now one of her favourite games involves me putting an imaginary medal around her neck, handing her an equally imaginary bouquet of flowers and humming the national anthem, while she stares proudly into the middle distance. It seems the inspiring of generation has started very young indeed!

Transphobia makes me mardy

Here’s why:

Point by point. 1) I really dislike the fixation with genitalia, especially as I have encountered so many cases of various ambiguous genitalia. You can be XY and have no penis and XX and have a penis (both I’ve seen). We don’t know why people are trans. It is possible that there is an underlying medical condition causing trans ness, we just haven’t discovered it yet. Not that I think it is necessary to have a big shiny reason for being trans and I completely understand those who reject medically labels surrounding trans gender.

For me one of the prime tenets of feminism is My Body, My Business. Policing genitals and bodies contravenes this. Everyone should have the right to bodily integrity. Also considering the high levels of rape and abuse trans women often suffer, it feels very cruel to paint them as predators.

2)Sheila Jefferys and her ilk think Trans people should not exist. She would ban gender surgery. I think trans people have every right to be angry towards people who want to eliminate them and deem them mentally ill (very ironic for rad fems to use the dsm IV to do this, homosexuality was in there until 1973, now it’s ok to cite against your enemies).

3)Aside from being eliminationist, have you read the things that rad fems write about trans women? Calling post op genitals (again with the fixation) “fuck-holes” which “smell of dead meat” starting websites called Pretendbian which post photos with names of trans lesbian women, which is unspeakably evil and dangerous for these women shown. But then trans women can’t win either they will be sneered at as “never passing” or deemed as “tricksters”.

The above came from a Facebook comment I wrote. What in my haste I did not emphasise is just the level of vitriol these supposed saviours of feminism use about trans people. It is chilling and sickening. Your average not massively informed person would struggle to summon up this level of hatred.

Saying no to transphobia is saying no to hate, saying no to interfering with people’s bodily autonomy, saying no to mockery and disdain. It is helping the marginalised and the brave. Yes, brave. And I will side with braveness against victimising bigots on any occasion.

And there’s a storm that’s raging.

Three and a half years ago, I was six months pregnant, sandwiched in the back seat of a car on a long journey to the Syrian coast. My sister in law is blasting some dire Arab pop and I’m listening to the same 11 songs on a loop on my mobile phone.

Desperate to distract my bladder from what is likely to be an unpleasant encounter with a motorway toilet, I decide to play a game. I will see how long I can go without seeing a picture of Bashar Assad and/or his assorted family members.

We are on a motorway in the middle of the countryside. My game lasts 30 seconds.

Before I had even visited Syria, I knew that the government, or rather ruling regime, were bastards (that’s a one word description for an unelected, repressive, corrupt, murderous and largely inept regime). The facts if anything, were even worse than what I had been told.After I had visited Syria, I knew of the special kind of psychic terror inflicted by the regime, that you would never be able to forget who was in charge, ever, because you would never be too far from an opportunity to gaze upon the countenance of the original Thief in Chief and his offspring.

One night, after pausing to close the windows, we talked of the future. I said I hoped that one day, I would visit and see that people had started to write on the posters, to kick upwards and against.

In January last year, I was again sat in my in laws front room watching Al Jazeera. Could such an uprising occur in Syria? I hoped that it could, my family were very doubtful. Not here. The people are too scared.

Later that month, I would meet some Syrians at work. 2000 miles from Syria and we are hesitant to discuss Syrian politics until we trust each other a little better. They too doubt that anything will happen.

Then it did. As soon as I saw the first film of someone stomping on a poster of Bashar’s fizzog I knew it wouldn’t stop. To have longed to do that for so long. It must have felt like ecstasy.

It is hard to find the words for what has followed. That the regime would enact a “Samson Option” on the country is not surprising. The Syrian people have always been fodder to them.

But the loss, such loss. All those people who were walking around, living, people on the earth who have been murdered and lost to us. May Allah swt keep them now. May Allah keep them and remember them, their lives and their truths and what was stolen from them in the name of naked greed, for something the murderers never had the right to have, let alone kill others to keep.

Then there are the others. Food prices and scarce oil mean that there are certainly people starving and freezing to death. Streets that used to be full of women are now full of shabiha. Those who the regime is not killing, they are brutalising in other ways.

But this is not surprising. It is horrific but not shocking.

The reaction of the outside world is another matter. Not only are Syrians being left to die, they are being told that they shouldn’t have a revolution at all.

The fact that Syria is a diverse country, because people have managed to coexist, is ignored in favour of smearing the revolution as sectarian.

That numbers of the dead are impossible to verify, means there aren’t “enough” dead to deserve outside help, what ever “enough” dead is.

Then the Syrians are denied the very thoughts and brains in their heads as some incredibly clever sorts state that it is all an imperialist plot by the Americans and the Syrians have been “manipulated” into rising up.

All this while saying that the regime’s actions are bad, but denigrating any actions the Syrian people may take or request to liberate themselves.

The regime is perpetrating the killings but their cheerleading squad is loud and diverse.

I have no words (that are not swear words) for these people.

No one likes a mouthy Married To- and initially, I kept quiet about what was happening in Syria. As events have continued this has become more difficult to do. I will claim no great, detailed knowledge of Syria, but I know enough that I cannot let such slanders go unchallenged, even if it is only in this tiny sliver internet.

The gap between what the Syrian people deserve and what they are receiving is ever-increasing. These words are just a thread across the chasm.

Air by G. Willow Wilson and M.K. Perker

Contains some spoilers.

I first came across Willow’s writing when she had a blog several years ago. Then some time after that, I read Cairo, her first graphic novel, with same illustrator as Air.

I read Cairo in one sitting (as I love to do). The plot was brilliant, the illustrations evocative…but the dialogue, ugh! Word that serviced the plot, rather then sounding like something anyone would actually say.

So I approached Air with mixed feelings (yucky cliche, there’s a reason why I’m no paid writer).

The good news is that the dialogue is much more naturalistic. The plot even better then Cairo, with the ingenuity and the concepts being enthralling and intriguing.

There was a bit too much Lead Character Is The Marvel Saviour of Mankind. Also, I didn’t quite 100% buy the love story, but that is because I’m a cynic who would love female characters to be motivated/have plot catalysts other then The Love Of A Dude. (There’s a reason why Goodbye Lenin! is my favourite film, and it’s not just Daniel Bruhl).

But the big miss-step is the part featuring Islam/Islamic extremists.

Look, I don’t care who’s writing it. I am tired beyond narcolepsy of reading about Islam in the guise of extremism.

Making matters considerably crappier is the insertion of a Taqwacore-esque “righteous jihadi” group. As Destiny’s Child said back in the day No, No, No. I wish the editor had drawn a big X through that part. It’s something ill judged that could have been easily replaced by something more inventive.

Air was cancelled rather then coming to a natural end and the ending does seem a tad rushed. I would have liked to have seen some more of Blythe’s adventures and there seems to have been much further to go with the character and that world. Maybe there will be a return trip someday…

*Update*
Just googled and there is a Volume 4! What sort of library has the first 3 volumes and not the 4th?! Right, I will endeavour to track that down at some point and update this review when I do so.

Check 1, 2

Between forgetting my blog password and then never deciding on what to write, it’s been I while.

Well, Insha Allah, 2012 is the year I resurrect this place. Part of that plan is putting wp on my phone so I can update whenever.

I’ll start with a little cheat. Here is a great post talking about accountability in the Feminist blogosphere and I’ve written a bit in the comments so: http://lubiddu.wordpress.com/2012/01/19/open-letter-to-jill-filopovic/

I find it amusing (sort of) that as a hijab-wearing, Muslim woman, there are many who would happily ex communicate me from the feminist movement, note the only blog to have a regular Muslimah contributor is the excellent Womanist Musings (http://www.womanist-musings.com/), but if you’re a man who has not only tried to kill his girlfriend, and been a wee bit racist on more then one occasion, then the movement could not possibly do without you.

Un Momento

Nine months?!

I cannot believe it as been that long since writing anything here. It’s not even that I did not want to write anything, I would mean to, but then the moment would pass. Repeatedly.

Alhamdulilah for everything is pretty much the unofficial motto of this blog and so it has been through this year, which has swung between highs and lows with equal vigour.

But the good moments, the good memories and the joy you hold inside your head, as well as the people around you are what helps you through the bad times.

Earlier this year, when I was briefly but painfully in hospital, what made things better was thinking about walking along on a sunny day, with my little girl’s hand in mine. Such a small, everyday, practical thing and yet I feel it so deeply.

Alhamdulilah, Oreo is such an easy child and she came so easily to us too. We had just started to think about trying for a baby and weeks later, I found that yes, you could indeed feel pregant from very early on.

We were always going to have at least one more baby and that would be perfect. Inwardly, I prepared for pregnancy and the joy of snuggling up to a newborn. Outwardly, I started taking folic acid.

Sometimes bad things just happen, they drop down in front of you like an anvil in a Roadrunner cartoon. Sometimes, they slowly come into focus, like someone else is adjusting the lenses on your vision.

Slight abdominal pains. Maybe it’s stress. There again. Maybe it’s bad digestion. Worse. The GP agrees it’s bad digestion. Medication. I wake up and not only is the pain worse, but it’s taken up permanent residence. A prescription, a bit better and then worse and then I’m at my parent’s and my Mum is telling me to go to A&E.

Later, when I’m lying in a hospital bed and IV fluid is chugging through a drip at high speed because I’m that dehydrated, I’m wondering how I could have let myself get this poorly?

Probably because I didn’t want to be that poorly and the pain was in the wrong place to be appendicitis and digestive pain can be that excruiciating, so no need to be melodramatic.

Later, after the surgery the talk turns to risks of infertility (high) and the possibility of IVF, it appear that my body was indeed going for maximum drama. Something was going wrong inside me and I didn’t even know.

And I want to bury my face and cry until my whole body shakes with it, but the tears won’t come.

However, while it would have been much better for this have happened when I had finished having children, so I could be all “Any more bad behaviour from you, internal reproductive organs and I’ll kick you down the street! See if I care!”, I did the whole seeking comfort in faith thing. We don’t get anything we can’t handle.

Well, if having one lovely child is what I’m going to get, then Insha Allah, I can handle that.

Of course being Muslim has the other side which is some of my co-religionists think that a one child family is a terrible thing and that Mr Outlines would be well within his rights to get shot of me, or take a second wife. In truth no has said that to me, though we all know how the thinking goes.

Most of all, it would be a waste of their pity. Maybe there will be a fourth member of our family, maybe not, but we are a family. It is something that my younger self could never imagine. So Alhamdulilah for this and everything else too.

The sunshine fills my hair and dreams hang in the air: Convert Truths Carnival

This is not a negative post. I am very happy that I am Muslim. Alhamdulilah.

I make no apologies for that because I do not have to justify my Islam to other people, whatever shade or disposition of Muslim or Non-Muslim they are. Oh, I’ve been called a bad Muslim by plenty, but then I realised that being a Muslim is about me and Allah, hence their opinion was of as much weight as candy floss on the sun.

Having been on the blogging scene for a while, I know that Muslim-related blogging can often seem monochromatic. Either Muslim life is wonderful, with prose interspersed with hadiths and tales of wonderful husbands from far away or it is very terrible and those husbands are nasty immigrants, as is the religion itself, with plenty of hadiths quoted again.

There is a lot of focus on the convert vs the community, but that means that the effects of conversion within the individual are often ignored. For it is not a normal thing to undergo such a major change and I wonder, we talk about the community not accepting us, but I think it takes us a long time to accept ourselves.

For me, it took me a long time to work out what exactly I should be as a Muslim. It doesn’t help that everyone and the internet will tell you everything else except the most important part: building a relationship with Allah/God. The whole clique/flag waving mentality is another barrier. I spent far too much time worrying about who was who.

But, it’s ok to change and evolve. We laugh at the stern early stages we all went through, but I think those attempts to emulate what we think is the ‘best’ behaviour instead teach us that perfection is not attainable or even desirable. We learn to give others ‘wiggle room’ we so sorely need.

I’m pondering the colour theme of this carnival. In some areas we need black and white. We need to accept what ever people think about men and women, both genders are entitled to equal respect and kindness, that domestic abuse is never justifiable, no ifs or inbetweens. That women have a right to pray in the mosque.

But we need to embrace the grey. Some of the kindest, most generous Could-Ring-At-3am-And-They’d-Help-Me Muslims have been the ones I disagree with most. Recently, I read an article by a scholar on a social issue. It was shallow, poorly argued and
I disagreed with every word. Today I read another article by the same person and my reaction was reversed, I was nodding my head at every sentence.  So do I reject this scholar because our opinions differ, or respect the individual while disagreeing with some of their words? Surely the latter position is the healthiest?

For all talk of Muslims’ lack of cohesion, I never see anyone saying that there’s more than one God, or that Mohammed (peace be upon him) wasn’t the final prophet, or that the Qur’an isn’t the word of God and all this is the big Muslim-Making stuff.

Instead of the black and white of total rejection or blind acceptance of each other, I prefer the grey of realisation, we align and we scatter due to situations outside Islam and our experiences and beliefs within it. I wish we would accept that. If we agree on such key issues, why should the moon and a birthday divide us?

I know why people fight, because Islam matters and we all want to get it right and want others to do so too. Yet, the more we get into group semantics, the further we seem to travel from the starting point, which is Allah.

That’s my biggest lesson. We talk of worship, but not always the relationship. Yet, the worship is the actions, it is the relationship that requires the most work. This is where problems arise, as while Islam is all about worshipping Allah with no intermediaries, everyone and their pot plant claims you need to buy your walking boots and map from them in order to reach Allah and not get lost. Then you get so caught up shopping, your legs are too tired to climb that mountain.

But is there really a mountain anyway? The 5 pillars may not always be easy to do, but they are do-able and rather being some distant figure, Allah states that He is closer than our jugular vein. Not only that, but only we can do them. You can’t pray/fast etc on anyone else’s behalf. Therefore if no one else can act for you, don’t be so eager to let someone else think for you.

I want to finish with this extract from a book I’m currently reading:

‘I was given the task of grooming a horse..the teacher came along and said ‘Very poor job, superficial and sloppy.’ He and I watched as my heart sank. But then something rebounded: I knew I had done my best; I knew I couldn’t be a slave of reward and blame. In that moment, I saw the twinkle in his eye as he turned and left (Emphasis mine).

The Sun Won’t Swallow the Sky

One the many things I hope the wider world never discovers is my wikipedia search history. This is because, as well as a thirst for inanity, it also betrays all the grim, gory stuff I read about. Things I will feel no better for knowing, but have to look at anyway.

The other week, while looking for something else entirely, I came across a blog written by an ex-Muslim. I have been reading it avidly ever since.

Now, I am a Muslim, though one who falls into that category of being content with Islam and certainly very happy to have God in my life, but often displeased by the actions of certain Muslims. There is also the fact of certain events leaving me with a major distrust of most ‘authority figures’ in modern Islam.  

The thought of leaving Islam chills me. It’s not about the possible loss of my husband, the fracturing of my identity, as much as the thought of going back to having that empty space that my faith now fills. I did not like having that empty space, for me it was a world without a heartbeat.

There also the gasp factor around people leaving Islam.

This gasp factor is odd for two reasons:

1)I’ve known several people online leave Islam and at least one in real life. I am sure most people reading this have too. It is not that rare.

2)Until you get married and ‘settle’, converts are always being viewed as at risk of leaving Islam. Miss a few jummahs and people will quickly presume that you’re off being/with a crack whore.

This means we are too busy gasping to actually talk about why people leave Islam.

If we do talk about it, it’s soundbite-city.

“They didn’t know true Islam/ had weak faith”

“Other Muslims treated them badly”

“It’s all a plot and they we never Muslim in the first place.”

Then off course, there is the matter of our brethren who get all bloodthirsty when such things are mentioned.

Just to state the obvious here, death threats and hostile behaviour towards anyone is wrong and shameful. Yes, even if they are insulting Islam, because let’s face it, it will be the same half dozen accusations we have all heard many times over. Without seeming too obvious, but surely the best way to defend Islam, it to do good deeds and be generally lovely?

I digress.

The fact is this blog is detailed and very well written, showing someone’s gradual disillusionment with Islam and belief in God. I read elsewhere someone talking about this blog and they said they felt a lingering darkness reading it. Which is ironic, because the author would describe themselves as being very happy as an atheist.

I also felt this darkness and yet I cannot stop reading it. I think that is partly the odd compulsion to read something, even though it makes me feel uneasy and quite frankly, saddens me.

However, more than that, I read it because I think it is a viewpoint that we as Muslims need to hear. The blog holds up a mirror to our community and our discourses and the reflection is not what one might hope for.

People have always converted to and deserted from Islam, along with any other religion. Whether the numbers are rising or falling in either direction is difficult to define, and rightly so, as such matters are ultimately the property of our deepest selves.

So while what draws or repels someone from faith may be as unique as snowflakes, we as a community should not just look the other way, or mock.

Issues like:

• Over-emphasis on marriage, coupled with atrocious marital advice (complete stranger marriages and marriage for papers in particular)
• Obsessive legalism.
• Lack of emphasis on building a relationship with God
• Fixation with women’s roles. Not letting women figure this out for themselves.
• Complete lack of awareness has to how soul-destroying marital abuse can be. 
• Putting authority figures on pedestals.
• Claiming that Islam is very simple (pre-conversion) and then immediately post-conversion, the new Muslim is no longer allowed to make any decisions without asking so and so first.

None of this is an exaggeration, and I’m sure that most of us have struggled with at least one thing on the list. So who is to say, apart from God, why some lose their faith and others keep theirs.

In general, I always come to the same conclusion and that is that we are just not kind enough to each other.

Maybe people would still leave Islam anyway, but they would do so without rancour, accepting it as something they explored, but found wanting. For those who find this too laidback, I would say that Allah takes care of the akhirah, this life is all we have in our hands at the present.

For those within Islam, kindness may save them so much misery and pain. And that is no small matter.

I’m struggling to conclude this, because what I saying really is a mountain of obviousness and yet and yet. Is in fact our lack of actions and poor behaviour a larger indicator of low faith then any blog entry by a former believer?

Ramadan is here, the best month of the year

I didn’t make up that line, Native Deen did.

As always, I’ve been meaning to blog sooner, but I got into the ‘I want to write a proper post/but I haven’t got time/but my blog is dead’ cycle.

So it is Ramadan, unfortunately, I still have two essays to do, so I’m not as focused as I would like to be. Also, I’m still a heinous Waster of Time on The Internet. I wonder if it’s because so much of my time is spent doing things that need to be done, whether it’s looking after Oreo, working or studying, so when I have some free time I just want to relax and not do anything worthy.

Alhamdulilah, I’m not finding the fasting too hard, although trying to persuade Oreo not to feed me her apple today was somewhat difficult.

Some where in Twitter I found this really cynical piece about Ramadan, its commercial effect and so on. It had that whole ‘Oh those Muslims, they think they’re so pious but they’re not’ vibe about it. Or maybe I’m being oversensitive.

But it brings home to me that I’m tired, tired, tired of Islam and Muslims being discussed and pasted and debated everywhere. Just shush like Bjork says and leave us alone.

When I think about Ramadan, I think about peace and quiet. Eating my suhoor early in the morning, praying at night in the dark, the hungry feeling inside. Reading my Yusuf Ali transliteration. Not saying something I shouldn’t.  Just thinking about what Ramadan means. It’s a quiet month.

I could not read, not click, not see. I could get annoyed about the US-centric concern for a possible mosque (ish) many thousands of miles away, but that goes against my feelings that we should live and participate in this world, not just treat it as a waiting room.

But, I’m thinking about the clutter in my life and the peace I want instead.

So how to filter without turning away?

How to have peace when there is still so much to fight for, so much ignorance to combat?