Marriage and Islam: Quest for the Right One

2010-02-19T12:28:00.001-08:00

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The day has come when I have resumed sketching again.

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2010-02-05T14:17:00.001-08:00

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Today has officially been beauty day. I had my hair done. Face taken are of. New foundation. And two people said I look beautiful today. Only in Lebanon can a run-down raggedy teacher like me who is worn down from whatever turn into a beauty queen in less than two hours at a local beirut salon. Magic makers.

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2010-02-04T13:04:00.000-08:00

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No really. This is getting suffocating. People here are crazy. Period. And I love them. Period. Help!

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2010-01-31T13:17:00.000-08:00

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I love how it's almost 1am and people down the street are huddled up watching soccer on T.V. And so I learn that Ghana just lost to Egypt. My family in Ghana won't like this. I remember the pictures they sent last time Ghana won to Cameroon. The party went wild on the streets!

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2010-01-30T15:50:00.000-08:00

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One thing I learned to do in Lebanon, by Lebanon, because of Lebanon, is to love being alone even if for a full day or two. I see that it is a form of protection from the alternative of being out there and getting exposed to things I probably can't handle. Or can't handle yet. So I say to myself, Allah is protecting you and not isolating you. Yippee Ka Yeh cow girl! :-)

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2010-01-27T13:34:00.000-08:00

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There is melody in the air today ...

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2010-01-26T08:05:00.000-08:00

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Most teachers at the university here say the same thing -- first and second year english lit students can't put sentences together. But they will and can discuss voltaire with you like grad students.

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2010-01-25T15:23:00.000-08:00

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Everywhere I turn in Beirut, I seem to hear this new song by a Lebanese singer named Elissa -- if you can get the subtitles, you'll like it more. Here it is!

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2010-01-25T14:55:00.000-08:00

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I'm now on toot!

Check out the link and tell me what you think!

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2010-01-16T12:04:00.000-08:00

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Sometimes, I think I'm too child-like.

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2010-01-14T06:07:00.001-08:00

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Want to donate for Haiti? What to help out? Go to:

http://twitter.com/YELEHAITI

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2010-01-14T05:42:00.000-08:00

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On Earthquake situation in Haiti from Al Jazeera English: "Tuesday's quake - along with the more than 30 aftershocks measuring up to 5.9 in magnitude - was the latest tragedy to hammer the country, which has been scarred by years of unrest, crime and political tumult".

Follow the situation on Twitter by typing in: #Haiti

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2010-01-13T15:44:00.000-08:00

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Don't you love it, ladies, when he turns out to be gay?

PS: Did I mention that he is Muslim ...

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2010-01-12T09:58:00.000-08:00

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In the news: foreigners who look "foreign" aka white Caucasian, have been violently attacked and robbed in Lebanon. :-9

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2010-01-12T04:39:00.000-08:00

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شعر من كتابة محمود درويش :

وضعوا على فمه السلاسل
ربطوا يديه بيصخرة الموتى
و قالوا : أنت قاتل

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2010-01-09T12:33:00.000-08:00

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Some things are just unbarable. She tells me she's a muslim girl who prays and doesn't drink or do haram things and that she's happy to have met a muslim girl like me. Next day I find out she is dating three guys. And if you ask her, she insists that she doesn't drink or do haram things and that she's happy to have met a muslim girl like me.

The schizophrenia of muslims here is rrrrrrrrrrrreallly getting on my last nerrrrrrrrve!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And this girl was raised in Toronto!

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2010-01-07T15:43:00.000-08:00

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There is a saying among the ladies here that Arab men are an open book in their emotions because it all shows easily, but a closed book in terms of their minds, because you can never know what they're thinking, even if you've lived with them for 20 years.

eek!

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2010-01-06T14:18:00.000-08:00

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Heartbreak hotel #2: Another acquaintance of mine said she moved to Beirut so she can marry her fiancee of one year. Two months after she came, he broke off the engagement. He said, once his mother saw her, she taught/thought she was "not pretty" enough for her son.

No joke, this woman's life changed completely, because one mother, influenced her son, who by the way is 33 years old.

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2010-01-05T15:09:00.000-08:00

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After this experience, I say with might and glory: Alhamdullilah I've known Islam in Canada and not here.

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2010-01-05T05:39:00.000-08:00

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I feel so old when the most, most, most most talented people I've ever met in my life are here and they're between the age of 20 and 23. Alhamdullilah I look younger than my age :-)

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2010-01-04T15:33:00.000-08:00

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My all time favorite Arab rap song ever ever ever!!!!!! for real, by boikutt, 20 year old palestinian boyyyyy: If you understand arabic hence the lyrics, you're lucky, some depth here...

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2010-01-04T14:09:00.000-08:00

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Some straight up palestinian rap by Boikutt (Ramallah Underground) performed in palestine back in 2007. Check it out.

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2010-01-04T12:48:00.001-08:00

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An acquaintance said she left her fiancee of two years because he wouldn't let her do yoga. hum. um. eh. err. okay.

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2010-01-02T05:26:00.000-08:00

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I'm sitting around in my pjs, marking papers, having choco puffs with milk, and listening to Tamer Hosny love songs. ya habibi what a life :-)

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2009-12-31T09:03:00.000-08:00

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Heading out to a New Year's dinner. Can't get out of it, don't wanna go.... heart too heavy, sad and frustrated from what I see around me. Urggghhh :-(

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2009-12-31T04:46:00.001-08:00

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My nation is the human race, no other nation alone can claim my attachment or loyalty (Naom Chomsky).

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2009-12-30T14:07:00.000-08:00

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My moral sense is tested when I choose to turn away from the suffering of other people in the world. I'm no selfish person. Feeling good as a Muslim is not all I want from life. It's not all about how "I" feel.

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2009-12-29T11:58:00.000-08:00

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Hip Hop and Rap from the refugee camps: click here for beats and breaths

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2009-12-29T10:44:00.000-08:00

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I think I'll grab my white T-Shirt, my black permanent marker and write this: " I couldn't organize a protest so I'm writing on my shirt: Free Gaza!"

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2009-12-29T02:09:00.000-08:00

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Find out when and where the Gaza Freedom March supporters are marching in your area: Canada, States, Europe, Australia etc. To do so, click here.

Click here for more information on the Gaza wall erection. Bring your friends, spread the word, don't stay put.

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2009-12-28T13:11:00.000-08:00

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.On December 31, participants are hoping to join Palestinians "in a non-violent march from northern Gaza to the Erez-Israeli border," the organisers said. (AlJazeera.com)

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2009-12-28T11:56:00.000-08:00

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.Beirut boils and sleeps at the same time: ashoura, karbala, xmas, gaza, new year -- and everyone else here who doesn't give a dime about it all.

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Twitter Approach

2009-12-28T11:43:00.000-08:00

Salams All!

I've decided to do a little adventurous thing with my blog. I want to try a twitter-like approach and see if it works. For a short while, I'll be posting one-liners (or two) with no pictures and will do so regularly. Just like twitter! This way I'd connect with you lovely folks more regularly, and I don't have to shift over to the real twitter just yet - don't wanna be all over the map :-)

So, hope it works, stay tuned!

Peace,
Q

GP

2009-12-27T08:53:00.000-08:00

Have you heard Kareem Salama's new debut of Generous Peace? He sings in Arabic too! I guess he was inspired. My favorite one is called Generous Peace Arabic (Pop Remix).

Boxing? Yep. Check out his new video clip in which the boy shows some slick boxing moves in the ring and out. Dang! : D

Peace,
Q

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Dabkeh

2009-12-22T10:09:00.000-08:00

My cousin's getting married in a few months and she's palestinian. Meaning, a palestinian wedding. Meaning, dabkeh. For those unfamiliar with it, a dabkeh is a folklore palestinian dance where people stand in one line and do the same moves with their legs, feet and upper body. In my opinion, there is nothing seductive or sultry about it, rather it's something like a Greek Zorba dance or a Texan line dance.

That is why both men and women do it at weddings, scratch that, all men and women MUST do the dabkeh especially if they're part of the bride or groom's family -- yikesss -- which means I better start training with my uncle or something. The other day I saw my thirteen year old cousin do the dabkeh and I tell you this -- I've got some serious learning to do. Whether the guests come from the south, north, east or west of Lebanon, once the dabkeh music is on, like some silent understanding, they all get up on the dance floor, line up and start the feet/leg movement like they were all one body. It's incredible to watch.

Just for sampling, here's a short video of a palestinian dabkeh I found on youtube. It's not the best one out there (don't mind the high-heels in there) but it'll do for now :-)

Peace,
Q

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Blogger From Beirut

2009-12-17T05:13:00.000-08:00

She made it to the #5 top blogs in Virgin Megastore here in Beirut, and her book ( a collection of her blog entries) is now international. Last time we had coffee, she was so happy about all this. Originally, she works as a graphic designer. She's only 23 years old. Too cool :-)

Check out her blog: Maya Zankoul blogs about life in beirut.

Peace,
Quest

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The N Word

2009-12-12T14:18:00.001-08:00

Nikah. What did you think I meant :-)

Here are some words on the spirit of marriage/nikah taken from the treasure-box that is the net.

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So... marriage....What is it? What does the Qur'an say about it?

The Prophet (s.a.) was once asked, "What is more important than prayer?" He replied, "The spirit of prayer" - the spirit that animates the prayer. He was asked what is more important than fasting - he replied, the spirit of fasting. For each question concerning an Islamic practice the answer was the same - because the spirit brings the action to life and unfolds its potentials. Without this animating spirit, the prayer is only movement, and the fasting only hunger. But when spirit enters, when a pure and concentrated intention enters, the action is transformed - the prayer gains the potential to become a miraj (an elevating spiritual journey), and the one fasting approaches towards the potential to witness laylatul qadr (the night of destiny - a night when blessings from the spiritual world descend to this world).

So what is more important than marriage? It is the spirit of marriage, the intention which underlies it, the treasures which it contains hidden within it but which must be brought out and realized by the married couple themselves.

The qur'an provides the signposts and waymarks for learning about this potential. It says:

"It is He who created you from a single soul, And made its mate of like nature in order that you might dwell with her in love...."(7:189) So the male and female complete each other - together they make a single self and this is how they must strive to make their lives together - as if they are one being, one person, one spirit.

The Qur'an says: "Your wives are a garment for you, and you are a garment for them." (2:187) So a husband and wife complete each other - each one takes on a new aspect of their humanity, a new facet and depth to their personality by entering into marriage and this is symbolized in this verse. Garments also conceal the body and protect the wearer so that a husband and wife are each other's protectors and helpers and each of them safeguards their partner's honor shaping the state of marriage into a haven and a sanctuary where each should feel safe and secure, sheltered in one another's care and guardianship.

The qur'an also says "And of everything we created a pair, that happily you may remember." (Qur'an 51:49) The word for spouse, "zawj", (this is the word that is used in the marriage ceremony, the Nikkah ceremony) - the word zawj literally means one part of a pair - and when the pair come together and act in concert with one another, then concealed potentials within them, potentials that were impossible to realize while they were apart make themselves evident. This is true throughout creation. And human marriage in the Qur'an is considered a reflection of a nature and tendency that exists at all levels of creation. When something is created as one part of a pair it is clearly incomplete without the other - as the Qur'an states, "He himself created the pair, male and female." (Qur'an 53:45)

The term nikkah which is used for marriage is also used figuratively to describe the coming together of various aspects of creation. For example it says, in the Qur'an, that "the rain married the soil" and then it describes how, from this intimate mingling, something new springs forth - that the earth brings forth flowers and herbage, it opens to new creations, new life, new potentials. So the act of marriage, the mingling through nikah, according to Islam, courses through all things, through all of creation. Each pair of the marriage brings something necessary and something unique to the marriage. The pairs are not identical but complimentary to one another and their unique qualities when they are mingled together produce that which neither one alone could produce.

So each individual of the pair undergoes change and transformation when they come together in marriage because marriage is an intimate mingling of the selves, the souls, the personalities and the beings of two individuals.

In human marriage the change takes place at many levels - from a change in lifestyle, to changes in behavior, to changes in the very soul of the person. And there must be that willingness, on the part of both individuals, to allow this unifying transformation to take place. To accept the self the way it is, is to lock oneself into stagnation and narrowness and to remain an individual - not part of an intimately joined pair. It is to limit and lock up the potential, the beauty and strength that is capable of emerging from the intimate unity made possible through marriage.

Since "God created everything in pairs", as it states in the Qur'an, and since He "created the male and the female from a single nature, from a single self", it is God that is the point of reference for the married pair. "He has set up the balance..." of all things, so He is to be looked for to set all things in the right equilibrium. If the two partners of a marriage set themselves in correct relation to God then certainly a perfect balance will be realized within their lives together.

Love is a movement towards unity, towards oneness, and since God is One, "the closer the heart is to Oneness, the stronger the power of love is within it."

Love is a movement towards unity, towards oneness. "God made their hearts familiar" (8:63) through the light of Oneness that yields spiritual love and familiarity in the heart. For love is the shadow of Oneness, familiarity the shadow of love, and balance the shadow of familiarity."

Let this married couple be helpers and protectors of one another, let them be a refuge and a comfort to one another, let them be beautiful garments for one another, and let them together experience the many treasures and beauties of marriage.

- Irshaad Hussain

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Happy So Many Things!

2009-11-26T05:11:00.000-08:00

On Friday it's Eid, and the international day of solidarity with the Palestinian people, of course a day after Thanksgiving which was on Thursday. And it's my nine-month anniversary of being in Lebanon.

So, Happyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy everything everyone!!!! :-)

With warmth,
Q

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The Color of Giving

2009-11-23T09:28:00.000-08:00

It is here! Like a colored petal floating in the wind over a dry hungry desert, my awaited break-of-silence from my routine work-filled day has come. I have now heard that the number is increasing to a dire level that requires much of our attention.

Yemen, a country bordering Saudi-Arabia, is now witnessing civil strife between a local armed group and the government, both fighting it out, which means local Yemenese civilians have had to flee their homes to seek refuge. They now live in refugee camps in the North named Al- Mazrak which borders Saudi Arabia.

The condition has it that the camp can only sustain around three thousand: it now holds ten thousand, not including some twenty thousand more living around the camp.

In a few days it will be Eid Al Adha -- a time of giving and care. There is no better time than now to think of our fellow brothers and sisters in the world who are dying of malnutrition, meaning lack of food which we have an abundance of especially when making that meat-sacrifice for Eid.

I don't know of all the ways to donate or help, but one of them could be unicef or unhcr -- both of which are international aid companies for refugees (unicef is more global).

Thank you for thinking of this with me. Jazakum Allah khayr.

Best warm wishes,
Q

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When Silence Speaks

2009-11-22T10:12:00.000-08:00

There are days when I miss blogging so much that I respect my need for silence, so I can come back because I truly and really want to. The blogosphere has its allure and there is no denying this. Here I am, again, afterall, with smiles again and again to my wonderful readers :-)

This Lebanon has an equal amount of allure in it, something like a mist of flower petals blowing over a dry and ordinary desert. In the stroll of routine work-filled days, something colorful occurs.

I’ll post it up when it happens.

Q

:-)

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There hath been an answer. All along.

2009-11-14T12:31:00.000-08:00

In the same person is the he and the she. The one and its opposite. The mars and the venus. The question and the answer.

So, Erich Fromm, a few pages down from the quote I posted earlier, writes...

"Love is not a sentiment which can be easily indulged in by anyone... man tries most actively to develop his total personality, so as to achieve a productive orientation; that satisfaction in individual love cannot be attained without the capacity to love one's neighbour, without true humility, courage, faith and discipline. In a culture in which these qualities are rare, the attainment of the capacity to love must remain a rare achievement".

How Islamic, I notice. I recall that the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) has taught us to open up our channels of love to extend outside the sexual or the romantic, to things like a neighbor, a parent, a cat, a tree, an idea, a friend, a companion, a value, a faith, a song, a poem, a moment of happiness. And the list continues in order for us to develop our total personality. To achieve an all-encompassing orientation or vision about the sentiment of love and marriage.

Funny. Some responses I get tend to be so dry, like: "God is most important in marriage not the wife", or " God is first not him or her".

Why this is dry? Because some people's vision is simply disconnected. They can't see that to love God in a true sense is to go through the channels He has opened up for us here on earth -- the neighbor, the parent, the cat, the tree, the friend, the companion and so on.

Can't push this point enough. Because some people. Are. Just. Dis. connected.

Q

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What do you think of this passage?

2009-11-12T06:01:00.000-08:00

I've missed you. What a distance this has been. Sorry about that :)

What do you think of this passage? Bring your critical tools and go at it! Remember that the Art of Love is a question not foreign to Islamic thought, too.
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"One of the errors leading to the assumption that there is nothing to be learned about love lies in the confusion between the initial experience of 'falling' in love, and the permanent state of 'being' in love, or as we might better say, of 'standing' in love.

If two people who have been strangers, as all of us are, suddenly let the wall between them break down, and feel close, feel one, this moment of oneness in marriage is one of the most exhilirating, most exciting experiences in life. It is all the more wonderful and miraculous for persons who have been shut off, isolated, without love.

However, this type of love is by its very nature not lasting. The two persons become well acquainted in marriage, their intimacy loses more and more its miraculous character, until their antagonism, their disappointments, their mutual boredom kill whatever is left of the initial excitement.

Yet, in the beginning, they do not know all this: in fact, they take the intensity of the infatuation, this being 'crazy' about each other for proof of the intensity of their love, while it may only prove the degree of their preceeding loneliness".

Erich Fromm: The Art of Loving

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Prayer in a Poem and in a Woman

2009-11-03T10:52:00.000-08:00

This is the first time I look at how we pray from the eyes of a poem. Here's "My Sister's Prayer".

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She has never heard a woman call her
To prayer still she answers
Bears witness five times a day
She faces East
And washes her body covers her human form
In preparation to meet the Most High

She raises her hands
Aware of all who have come before her
Folds hands on her breast
Right on top of left
Between Arabic words heart beat breath
She raises her hands
In hope of all that will follow

Humble and knowing she needs no defense
She bows
Before no man
She bows
Behind the men
She bows
Knowing angels will raise her back up

Head to the ground
Even the floor she walks upon becomes sacred
She prays in prescribed form but knows
There is no language
the Universe does not accept
There is no posture void of God

She is Sarah's daughter
She is Hagar's daughter
And like her father Abraham her tent is open
In the four directions
For each wind will carry her prayers
From each direction will come her blessings
From the trees and the rocks
From the seas and the hills

All the while calling on Compassion and Mercy

Her hands are open
Her father taught her to read the words
Her mothers teach her to live them
Her brothers told her to live by the law
Her sisters tell her the only law. Is Love.

She invokes peace over her right shoulder
Then her left
She sits alone and patiently waits

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In you my peace remains

2009-10-30T11:51:00.000-07:00

Lady Detroit (not her real name unless we’re in a Miss America Beauty Contest) is new in Lebanon for less than a month, buzzing around town trying to unpack her 39 box-shipment that came with her from Michigan, and trying to put together a decent lesson plan each day for her classes along with understanding the overall famous “cultural complexity in Lebanon”.

At one point we talk about the assumptions made about American women in Lebanon. When I opened up my mouth about the topic, Lady Detroit who is a woman in her late 40s, lights up and pours her heart out with this: “ I don’t get it. The other day I was just over buying things at the grocery and then this nice man offers to help me with my bags. He says he is a professor at the Lebanese university and that he is a philosopher too. So I says okay, please do help me out nice sir. When we get near my building downstairs he tells me, ‘ I want to be your friend and lover’. I was like Whaaaat!! I took those bags over from him and asked him to leave.”

Lady Detroit’s story is not the first I hear around here: American or “white” women taken under the assumption that they are ‘easy’ and ‘willing’ because they’re from the “West”. The bigger surprise is that one hears stories about the ‘Hymen reconstruction’ business in the Middle East as a booming one. What’s further is that many of the clients for the hymen reconstruction business are veiled muslim women. Once again: veiled muslim women. You heard that right.

Lady Detroit says to me late that night: “you know what’s crazy is that I know a lot of Muslims in Detroit, and boy are they devout. Religion is religion and there’s no joke about that, whereas here there is so much of that cultural religion stuff and so much non-spirituality. I was raised in a family where a girl does not have sex before marriage, and that’s how I raised my own daughters. It must be so hard for you muslim girls who do want to have a sincere sense of faith here in Lebanon. There are so many other girls who are veiled who ruin Islam’s reputation here for you …. boy… what do you do with that?”

“ well, you just say no, like any other girl in the world chooses to say no” ( I was thinking of my post on Marc, here).

Lady Detroit is new, but other Caucasian women I know in Lebanon will tell me that the longer they stay here, the less they go out at night alone, for example. Harassment, physical abuse, taunting, and direct attack are not unheard of by Arab men towards ‘foreign-looking women’.

All I could think of, while Lady Detroit told me the story of how her daughter who got physically attacked in Egypt in broad daylight, hit and pushed down to the ground while everyone around watched and did nothing …. All that flashed in my head were the stories I heard in the news of veiled muslim women getting harassed in Texas by rednecks, or killed in other places in the world just for walking down the street and looking muslim …. And I said to myself…. Now you see the larger picture don’t you, that this sort of thing happens not only to us veiled girls but even to Caucasian women from Detroit or Canada or Europe or Australia who walk in the wrong place for them somewhere like Lebanon, Egypt or even Korea (I heard stories about that too).

I thought what if it was me who got harassed or pushed to the ground like that?

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Arab-Jewish Mixing a National Treason? But My Bestfriend Was ...

2009-10-28T15:56:00.000-07:00

An Article from Alternet:

"A local authority in Israel has announced that it is establishing a special team of youth counselors and psychologists whose job it will be to identify young Jewish women who are dating Arab men and "rescue" them.

The move by the municipality of Petah Tikva, a city close to Tel Aviv, is the latest in a series of separate -- and little discussed -- initiatives from official bodies, rabbis, private organisations and groups of Israeli residents to try to prevent interracial dating and marriage.

In a related development, the Israeli media reported this month that residents of Pisgat Zeev, a large Jewish settlement in the midst of Palestinian neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem, had formed a vigilante-style patrol to stop Arab men from mixing with local Jewish girls.

Hostility to intimate relationships developing across Israel's ethnic divide is shared by many Israeli Jews, who regard such behaviour as a threat to the state's Jewishness. One of the few polls on the subject, in 2007, found that more than half of Israeli Jews believed intermarriage should be equated with "national treason."

The Source. Alternet
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When someone sent me this little baby I was taken aback. Forget for a minute that dating is not in Islam, this article talks generally about dating, mixing and marriage in a pack.

Putting aside my analysis of all this, and after cooling off my waters (yeah come on, national treason?) ... I stopped and had a moment. I remembered highschool. Grade 9. My best friend was Janine. Her father was Palestinian and her mother was Jewish. She lived alone in Canada and considered herself very Jewish and not Palestinian, though she understood Arabic very well. We got along, two girls who just liked each others' company, no politics, not just yet. And now that I look back at those days, I remember more...

The first crush someone had on me: The first boy who I can say really truly had sincere feelings for me, a boy who would have pursued those feelings to the very end and probably admitted his love for me on national television with bells and whistles, had I given him one glimpse of hope, was Marc. He was Jewish. Captain of the football team, class president and valedictorian of the year. Beautiful green eyes, and dashing good looks. Smashing. Marc tried for three years until the very last day of grade 12 to look me in the eye and tell me he loved me. And each time, every time I saw that instinct coming in his eyes, I'd turn away, and he'd get it. Three years. That went on for three years. It took strength, on both sides.

Youth. We can be idealistic at times, I admit that much, and Marc was willing to keep away from his father's pro-Israeli local lobbying in Canada. Marc was willing to follow his heart. For all that it's worth and after reading this article above on inter-Jewish/Arab love as "national treason", I guess I'm lucky enough to have the memories of my teenage years to supplement my thinking here. Those Jewish psychologists in Palestine's Tel Aviv would have had a hard time "rescuing" Marc from me all the way in Canada. That's my point here. Leave people alone, they know what they want and don't want. Not to forget that Janine's parents were Arab-Israeli-Jewish in Canada. Regulate that.

If anything, the reason I stayed away from Marc is because I felt I was betraying my Islam and my "Arabness" had I allowed Marc to say the magic three words to me.

Not to overlook of course the humorous yet witty Romeo-Juliette backdrop in this picture: "Romeo, O Romeo, where arst thou Romeo?" " I'm over here across the apartheid wall, baby!"

In all, I don't know what all this means, but regardless, what I'm sure of is this: put all the national and religious lines aside, I can admit to myself that at one point in my life I was offered genuine feelings by a Jewish man, and an honest friendship by a Jewish-Palestinian best friend. And I'm honored by that.

Quest

.FYI: Marc is now a well-pronounced doctor and active member of the Jewish-Canadian community and the Jewish-Academic world in Canada.

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www.meiroun.blogspot.com

2009-10-27T10:07:00.001-07:00

Just a moment of Art.

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Grouping It

2009-10-26T15:21:00.000-07:00

It’s called a yearly group marriage. Every year, the ex-prime minister’s sister sponsors 100 couples in Lebanon – who are Palestinian or Lebanese – to get married. The group wedding happens in a sports stadium where people attend this mass celebration.

I remember trying to look up this event online having missed the actual thing which happened in the South. When I found no online sources, I relied on the conversation I had with my aunt at her apartment building across the stadium where the event took place. She describes it to me while we stood at her balcony one day.

Fast-Forward in time: Two Months later.

While talking on the phone with my mother …

Me: “ … and then I went to see aunty and she told me about that group-wedding”

Mom: “ Yes, I saw that on the Lebanese satellite channel, but didn’t you say Lebanese and Palestinian men are good-looking. I kept staring at the screen, they’re ugly”

Me: “ lol!’”

Mum: “ And the brides, they were too happy, dancing and singing all over that stadium. Must be the open space, they looked like they were about to take a run around that track in their wedding dresses too, like they’re on crack” (yes, mummy said that :-)

Me: “ umm, maybe they’re so happy because they get a free furnished apartment each one of them sponsored by the ex-prime minister’s sister”

Mum: “ What! You need to get your name on that marriage list”

Me: “ you think they’d toss in a husband along with that furnished apartment?”

:-)

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Grooming

2009-10-23T22:08:00.000-07:00

She was one of the warm faces when I first got here. Tall, slim, composed and gentle especially when she opens her mouth and speaks with her catching British accent. Let’s call her Sultry Suzy for this blog entry, shall we.

Of Arab parents but raised in London, U.K, Sultry Suzy is a faculty member in the department. She’ll look you in your unsettled face, that face of yours that says I’m a new puppy in town still trying to settle in, and she’ll warmly declare: “ I’ve been here for eight years darling and it’s been magic. You’ll be just fine”.

Sultry Suzy is over 30 years old, single and looking. Or so I assumed when we were walking home one day, each one carrying a box of essays to mark and literally being the sight for sore eyes on the street. While we talked she said: “ those embassy boys are just clueless. I mean come on, what’s left is that I throw my number on the floor and pretend I need someone to pick it up for me”.

I giggle, she looks me in the eyes to see where I stand on this issue of boys and ‘number-tossing’, we both see in each others’ eyes the differences we have, and we both decide, in the same moment, to respect our differences.

Days went by and I run into Sultry Suzy on my way to the copyroom. Still elegant as ever, she giggles my way about having coffee these days, we keep saying we’ll have coffee to each other but it seems we never actually get to it. Which remains a good topic to strike up in a hallway conversation.

As we talk, Sultry Suzy suddenly says, while still half giggling about some joke I had said: “ oh and did you check out the new faculty men, I’ll have you know since we’re both single that there’s a cute one there, a must see”.

She tells me his name.

I say: “ oh. Him. Not my style but let me know how it goes my dear. You’ll have me at the wedding now wouldn’t you”. We keep smiling and talking and being friendly while still reading each others’ eyes for those unheard declarations of differences on the question of being single, and looking.

Perhaps I’ve never given it thought, but it did catch my attention how Sultry Suzy categorizes me with herself as a single person who’s on the margins of aging for marriage and therefore ought to catch the next train, running, running very very fast with her best pair of Addidas on.

In my mind, deep in there I guess, I must have thought that such a stereotype about “aging women” would only come from older, more traditional women and not Sultry Suzy who chooses to live an un-Islamic (I’m not sure she’s Muslim, actually, can never tell unless I ask) lifestyle of a modern city girl who dates men in order to find a husband.

It is good to learn that despite the different routes we take to approach the question of marriage, what remains common to just about every person out there is that level of anxiety, perhaps a sprinkle of resistance against societal pressure, or the common disappointments one encounters in men/women throughout life, getting through bad choices or growing peaceful with the search for the right one. Or that instinct of waiting for love and not rush. Or to rush and get it over with, regardless of love.

That zone, now I see more clearly, is a universal one, even across genders.

With peace,
Q

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Connected

2009-10-22T11:31:00.000-07:00

Question: What effect has it had on your life (or not) to be a veiled woman in the West?

It's kinda fun answering these theory-based interview questions. They're always mind-opening.

My answer to the lady was: "being a veiled woman in the west has led me to live a fully Islamic life, perhaps in defense, really, to protect my faith in a largely secular state. And this distracted me from my national identity as a Palestinian-Lebanese Canadian. It did. Such a warm womb it is to crawl inside the bubble of Islamic identity and to forget everything else. So the veil can pretty much occupy a girl's mind and keep her in the Islamic mindset for a lifetime. This is not about good or bad ... I'm not complaining. I'm just thinking.

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Hijab. Maybe Your Ten Year Old?

2009-10-15T11:59:00.001-07:00

My very dear sister in Islam has approached me with a dilemma which I now share with you in hopes of advice. She has a ten year old daughter. The father wants the girl to wear the hijab for good as the family lives in North America in a primarily non-Muslim neighborhood.

The mother does not want the girl to wear the hijab so early in age, but the father insists. In between the two is the girl who remains anxious, worried and frozen about the entire issue as she goes back and forth between the "two schools of thought": aka: her parents.

I care for this little girl though she is miles away from me. Even from here, I feel her fears and tension. When the mother approached me with this question, my first inclination was to bring up educational material about the hijab and its rules or regulations for girls from online sources. The girl can take this material to her father.

Then, the mother would bring up her own material about the hijab from her own sources and offer those to the girl and the father. This way, there is some breathing space. While everyone stops. And thinks.

I'm in need of your advice. Or resources. If you have any suggestions of good sources about the hijab for girls, please let me know.

Think of yourself, perhaps, fast-forwarded in time when you are married and you have your daughter who is now ten years old. Your spouse has a different perspective on the hijab for your daughter than you do. Perhaps, before you married you had agreed on what to do -- but ten years later, you changed, or your spouse did.

What to do?

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From Tears to Laughs ( -:

2009-10-13T11:51:00.001-07:00

Mother in Laws: the mystery continues :-)

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Rain

2009-10-12T02:36:00.000-07:00

A blog entry offered kindly to us by Yin Yang who guest-posts here from time to time.

Gratefully,
Q

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Dancing in the Rain

It was a busy morning, about 8:30, when an elderly gentleman in his 80s arrived to have stitches removed from his thumb. He said he was in a hurry as he had an appointment at 9:00 am.

I took his vital signs and had him take a seat, knowing it would be over an hour before someone would to able to see him. I saw him looking at his watch and decided, since I was not busy with another patient, I would evaluate his wound. On exam, it was well healed, so I talked to one of the doctors, got the needed supplies to remove his sutures and redress his wound.

While taking care of his wound, I asked him if he had another doctor's appointment this morning, as he was in such a hurry.

The gentleman told me no, that he needed to go to the nursing home to eat breakfast with his wife. I inquired as to her health.

He told me that she had been there for a while and that she was a victim of Alzheimer's disease.

As we talked, I asked if she would be upset if he was a bit late.

He replied that she no longer knew who he was, that she had not recognized him in five years now.

I was surprised, and asked him, 'And you still go every morning, even though she doesn't know who you are?'

He smiled as he patted my hand and said,

'She doesn't know me,
but I still know who she is.'

I had to hold back tears as he left,
I had goose bumps on my arm, and thought,

'That is the kind of love I want in my life.'
True love is neither physical, nor romantic.

True love is an acceptance of all that is, has been,
will be, and will not be.

The happiest people don't necessarily have the best of everything;
they just make the best of everything they have.

'Life isn't about how to survive the storm,
but how to dance in the rain.

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Embarassing Sweetness

2009-10-09T06:43:00.000-07:00

While introducing myself to the class, I was saying: " As your teacher, I don't want your adacemic attention. I want your loyalty". Then, they rush in. Three of my students from last summer are now taking the next level of English with me this term.

They walk in while I was talking, and they say, with a sweet loyal smile and a cheeky tone: "Missssssss we're baaaack! We're with you forever misssss! English 102, 203, 204, 206 and whatever you teach. WE LOVE YOU!!!"

gosh darn it, this job doesn't help deflate my oh so growing ego. Oh boy. May Allah keep me straight on the path of humility and modesty, ameen :-)

Q
PS: maybe that's why I chose to discuss next time: "how to take criticism in the classroom of life" as my next topic :-)

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What is Art

2009-10-07T06:39:00.000-07:00

Leo Tolstoy once asked: What is Art? Then he wrote a book about it which many philosophers, writers and educators discuss in supposedly sophisticated circles of knowledge. But what happens when you discuss this in a first year English course with a bunch of juniors in Lebanon’s University?

Weehaaaaa! -- your horses run wild ‘n you do the Macarena with a square dance on the side possibly contemplating a moon-walk too. Never underestimate the mind of nobody.

For Tolstoy, art is when an artist feels something – pain, happiness, sadness, wonder, confusion, frustration, then writes or sings as a result of that feeling. Then the receiver who comes across this piece of art later in time, perhaps hundreds of years later, looks at the piece of painting for instance and feels the exact same feeling that the artist felt when he first drew the painting. Infected, as it were, by the original feeling. Only now has the artist succeeded at his art.

Like the difference, if you will, between a Bush speech and an Obama speech, or a conference on genomes in biotechnology as opposed to a Che Guevara talk on humanity. One can use words to transmit thoughts or one can use words artistically to change people.

The critics of Tolstoy might argue that this approach to art is a selfish perspective because it really just says: “art is about me and me and me. Get it, or get out”. Deeper critics of Tolstoy suggest an alternative: “Feel the original feeling that inspired the creation of the song or the painting – sadness or happiness – and go and create a piece of art of your own, in other words, get infected by the art, or get inspired. Don’t turn into Tolstoy, just get inspired by him”.

Something like a soothing Qur’anic recitation by a beautiful voice that inspires faith and piety, or a talk by a believing scholar on the condition of the ummah at an MSA social, for instance. For Tolstoy, art transforms just like faith transforms.

I ask: “What if you read a piece of art that completely offends your values or beliefs that you hold very dearly. Will you allow the infection of art to happen?”
Like a Salman Rushdie book.

I tell the kids a story that happened to me. Once when I was in third year university, the professor assigned Salman Rushdie’s book “The Satanic Verses”. For those unfamiliar with this work as were some of my students, Rushdie is a Persian writer who has lived in England for a long time. In his book, he took the figure of Prophet Muhammad who is an important aspect of the Islamic faith, and wrote of him as if a person who “sells” faith like a sales-person or a business man. Rushdie’s book is read all over the world except in the Middle East and the Khomeini had issued a ‘fatwa’ or Islamic ruling that allows for the killing of Rushdie because of this book he published.

When I went to class, a girl came up to me and said: “we can’t allow this book in class. We have to go to the Dean and report this. Nobody can read this book at the university”. Turns out this girl is Muslim and Persian too. I had no idea I had a Muslim classmate until that moment. After feeling puzzled, I tell the girl: “I’ll get back to you on that after I read the book”.

To enter a community of minds through art might also mean knowing more about yourself than about other people. What your values are, what your boundaries are: you might surprise yourself time after time. I told the students that I will reserve my opinion about Rushdie’s book when I read it, but the point is this: For Tolstoy, as a student eloquently put it, once you enter a community of minds, you will change and be changed. That is art.

But if you enter just to say your two cents and leave, then that’s just using words to transmit your thoughts. Something like a type-writer, or a Microsoft Word document, or like that person who sits at a gathering and talks with eloquent words, fluid sentences and perhaps a big word or two, and after 20 minutes of hearing him you kinda feel like that guy talked so much but said nothing. Even his thoughts he couldn’t transmit.

If anything I have learned that Leo Tolstoy’s dense philosophy tastes better when discussed in a first year English class, not all of them, just my noon class full of thirty bright young people. It is clear to see that this class has the capacity to receive, and the art to express.

With heart,
Quest

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Eight Pictures

2009-10-04T08:26:00.000-07:00

You know how you go on vacation and you take your camera? You take tons of pictures to share with friends or even upload them on facebook? Yes. I took photos during this weekend’s trip to the South, but this time I took “mind pictures” which I’m sharing with you :-)

From sleepy head, with smiles
Quest
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Snapshot One

In my diary: My father’s mother had a sister. That sister had a son. That son has a family up in the village of Babliyeh, a few miles away from Akbiyeh or Basriyeh: all of these primarily Palestinian villages are not too far from Tyr in South Lebanon where many have witnessed missile exchanges between Israel and Lebanon’s Southern borders. We spent the weekend there during this summer-like October along with my father’s sister, who came to visit from Germany for a week. Confused? Fabulous …

These villages are full of orchards also known in Arabic as “Basateen” where many Palestinians would live as farmers in lands other people own who are primarily Lebanese citizens. The ordinary scenario is one in which a Palestinian father and mother have a dozen, literally, children running around in the “Bustan” (singular for Basateen, or orchards) where some of these children would take pride in making money tilling the earth, while the rest of them dream elsewhere far beyond the boundaries of the orchard and never take interest in becoming future farmers like their parents. This last one, this last category was my father who dreamt of becoming a journalist while living at the orchard with his dad who was very business-minded and believed his son should be more practical in his career decisions. Hence the title of my father’s first book published around the age of 21 in Lebanon titled: “Father, have mercy”.

Everyone in the family seems to know the same story which goes like this: my father defied all odds, walked a tough journey and became what he wanted to become. Then he died of cancer. But what remains in the air as I step on the earth in the orchard, step after step, probably on the same earth that my father threaded around 50 years ago as we both walk towards the sunset in between a line of lemon trees shading us along the way … is …

Snapshot Two

At the village in Babliyeh: Asma is 14 years old and she has cancer. She is one of the daughters. I don’t want to think of her sentimentally because that’s the last thing on her mind. Last Ramadan, in 2008, this family lost their other 22 year old daughter in a bus accident: she was standing at the bus stop, bus came, hit her, she died. Six months ago, the family lost another one of their daughter to illness. Two butterflies hang on the wall in their living room right above the frames of their two angel daughters who are as beautiful as sunset in October.

When I did not know yet, I asked Asma who is their living sister who those girls were in the pictures. She looked at them and said with a smile and casual manner: “oh that’s Halimah and Bisan”. We continued talking and I just thought that the girls were married off somewhere.

Snapshot Three

In the hallway: “ You’re sure he’s gone?”
“Yessss I promise dad’s in the other room!”
“Okay just one more time. Ready!”

Asma and I are in the hallway and we’re ready to Tango! :-) Like literally. Okay hands on my waist Asma, head up like a Chihuahua, rrrrrrrrrrrrready aaaaand go! Ta Ta Ta Ta TA Ra RA RA Ra Ta TA TA TA Ta RA RA RA RA “heyyyyy I taught I’m Al Pacino and you’re the girrrrllll: you’re so not my senorita” and we laugh!! :-)

Snapshot Four

In the girl’s bedroom: Have you heard the latest song called Bisan?

No I haven’t, let me hear it.

Asma hands me her music player and describes the song to me while she gets the headphones ready. “The story is about this girl named Bisan, she was in a car with her cousin going home. Her fiancée who really really really loved her was driving in the car behind them. The car with the girl in it lost control and went flying in the valley and the guy saw all this while he sat in the other car driving behind them. So he wrote this song after he lost his fiancée who he really really really loved”. She giggles.

I hear the song.

Oh Asma I can’t continue hearing it. So touching I’ll cry and you’ll need to get me tissues. Let’s go outside and see what the cat is doing …

Snapshot Five

At the garden outside: Aunty, I really want you to help me with this. I need to get my Palestinian ID issued. For god’s sakes there is nothing on this green earth in any official document out there that proves I’m Arab. I’ve got a Canadian passport that says I’m born in Germany. Do I look German to you.’

When I say this to my aunty, my friend interrupts and exclaims: “What for. You don’t need the ID. It’s enough that you know you’re Palestinian and Lebanese”.

Snapshot Six

At the Bustan (Orchard): So you are Abdullah, my cousin’s husband and these are your two boys eh, so nice to meet you.

Likewise. I’m looking for a second wife, by the way.

Snapshot Seven

Indoors: Dear Lord Jesus Lord Dear Lord Jesus Lord: where’s the washroom! Gotta go Gotta go Gotta go. I’m in the washroom getting ready to go. I lock the door. I turn around. Where’s the toilet? Where. Is. The toilet. I look around and hello: An Arabic style washroom lies there for my eyes to see and for my bowls to look forward to. An “Arabic style toilet”, for those interested, is a hole in the ground. And that’s where you go.

Snapshot Eight

On the bus back home, my friend says: “ I can’t believe the father smokes in front of his daughter who has cancer but he totally freaks out if she touches the cat because he thinks it carries ‘bacteria’. Like? I’m never coming to this country again (frown). Except for the food. And beaches. And cats”.

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Birthday Lights and Reflections - 2009

2009-09-30T15:18:00.000-07:00

Of Empathy and a Helpful Hand

I have always known that helping someone, anyone, revives me like an endless smile that lights up the world forever. I do feel youthful in these moments when I see or feel or sense that someone, anyone, has found happiness again. But I never placed this in the framework of marriage or even in the image of a husband.

Would he be a man with misery at heart, a man with a tear and a smile, a man who needs a friend who reminds him always of The Friend above in times of self-war and sin and tears and hardship…

In hurt but with pride, in short, a man I know how to know.

Of Courage

A man once said there’s a fool in us all that sees the mountain so tall but in the end it’s the valley that’s safe.

Foolish it is to think courage comes from the big shiny famous things we’ve done in life. And foolish it is to think true happiness comes from these statues of accomplishments gathered like gods in Roman temples. With this kind of seeing the world, with these pair of eyes, what happens is we imagine our happiness in people we do not have. Can never have. When he who sits right next to you is the happiness of your life. The one you thought is your mundane valley while you turn your cheek and dream of glorious mountains.

It takes courage, you see, to change. To change how we see. How we see our loved ones, and this matters when we think of soul-partners or husbands or wives. The pursuit of happiness (and the movie helps, too) is about re-learning how to see happiness in the person who truly offers it to you, and not to dream of it elsewhere.

And the same man said… and though folks might say you must conquer the heights, you ain’t conquering nothing without the valley inside …

Of Humor and Smiles

In a dream I once learned that the funny person is twice more serious than the not-so-funny person. Heart heavy, mind tactful, smile measured. But when I look in the mirror of my mind, I remember the words of my grade three teacher Mrs. Barbara who looked at me with her beautiful blue eyes and said in her lovely British accent: “ Never let anyone take your smile away from you, dear”.

I can understand if the world takes my smile away from me but what if that anyone is marriage?

I’m joking! Where’s my unearned ha-ha?

Of Writing

I will argue it to the grave. Writing is healing, ranging from bloggers to grade school writers, the inside cannot be seen unless penned with ink and paper. Or Mac and Microsoft Word. Or color paint and a white wall. Or napkin and an old school pen. Or a finger writing in thin air while you lie on your back looking up to the clouds passing by …

Of Quest for the Right One

This blog started with an idea. Why not make the quest for marriage, especially in the “West”, one step easier by starting up a space for communication and the exchange of thoughts. My older posts shoot straight at the title and address notions that seem much more relevant such as suitoring or choosing a husband or describing experiences about my friends and so on.

When real life experiences about marriage or suitoring ran out, I found myself in a two-forked way. Either be honest, or tell stories. Either stop the blog or make up stuff. So I took those two options, put them in the blender and created a third thing: Narrations that are as honest as the smile I flashed to my mother the last time I saw her. And if some of these narrations happen to be about marriage, that’s good too :-)

As mentioned in an older post, the quest for the right one has also become the quest for the right me within me. Only in this self-reflective state can I offer something beautiful to my soul-partner. Otherwise I’d just be a wife.

This said, I do apologize if the title of the blog seems more and more irrelevant, but if I can make it better, I’d advise you to get comfortable with this disrupt. Go into the unfamiliar with me. See what it brings. And don’t quit believing.

Thank you all for your insightful, loving and soft words! This birthday girl can now grow one year younger.

With Peace and Joy and Cha Cha Cha!!! :-)
Quest

PS: wanted to quickly say I'm so like super touched by the e-gifts I got. Totally unexpected, totally loving this :-)

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It's My Another Chance at LIfe Day!

2009-09-28T13:59:00.000-07:00

Next week is my Birthday! And she giggles like a little girl :-). With respect to all those who do not celebrate Birthdays, I take this day as an occasion to re-evaluate myself and all I've been and become. Can I ask you for a favor please :-) I want a present, and this is it:

Tell me one thing you've noticed about me from this blog, good or bad.

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Eeeeeeeeeid Gift to You --- :-)

2009-09-20T07:47:00.000-07:00

*** Sweeeeeeeeeeet blissful Eid Everyone!! ***

How can I forget my peeps on this special day. My sister knows I like masjid Al-Amin in Beirut so she filmed the inside of it for me.

I'm sharing this glimpse of Lebanon's Eid in unity and solidarity from this place to yours. Once more, Happpyy Eeeeeeeeeeeeid!!! :-)

Click HERE for the Eid Gift :-)

Quest

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Peekaboo for Zakat too

2009-09-17T16:16:00.001-07:00

With the idea of zakat in mind as money goes around, I felt a need to post this. We've been to the camps and slept over there and here's a note:

The question of Palestine is not about poverty. People generally aren't poor. It's about human rights. Dignity. The right to work, vote, own property, not to be disallowed from over 70 job types in the host country, about being allowed to travel with a Palestinian ID to Arab surrounding countries -- Qatar won't allow a Palestinian in the country (with very few exceptions).

So sending money through international aid is good, folks, but that's not all to see in the question of Palestine or the refugee situation. There is way too much focus on "money as aid to Palestine" idea, which is really a misconception now I see.

We think a refugee camp, we think a poor suffering child doing nothing waiting around. We think refugee only when a missile hits Gaza or the camps in Lebanon, only when that Palestinian is dying. When we think Palestine we don't think pharmacies with updated medicines, clothing stores, young boys selling vegetables. We don't think satellite dishes, girls with ipods, iftars during Ramadan free to families, or monthly allowances to every Palestinian kid. It's not about money. Trust me. Now I see, it's more about security, human rights, dignity.

To return to the homeland. Even this is under further investigation in my mind. Many, just too many, of the Palestinian youth I've spoken to, aren't thinking of the awdah or the return. They want out, into neighboring countries for work or education. Or better yet, they want the "dream" -- to go to America, Australia, Canada, Europe.

This idolization of "the west" is almost stomach turning. Anyone with any connection to the "West" is idolized, even secretly envied. Adults too, not just youth, want to migrate to foreign countries and not return to Palestine. They want to secure a future there.

Don't get me wrong, there are supporters of the awdah, the return, but they are NOT the majority, and the international audience needs to know this more deeply.

Yes, to answer some of the questions posed to me, my aunt and family do live in the refugee camps, and that is why we've been going and sleeping over and living there basically for a few days and permits are required of us of course. But this experience has really opened our eyes to many things we never focused on even as members of Palestinian human rights student groups in Canada, or just activists generally for human rights. We always thought the problem with Palestine is to return them to the homeland, because they have no country no more. Though this is true, as we said, it is partially true. There is so much more. So much more to this picture.

Some food for thought as we end this Ramadan. Peek. A. Boo.

Quest

Footnote: Since it is the commemoration today (Sept 17-18) of the massacres of Palestinians in Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon, I dedicate the above post to this day. I've been to Sabra and Shatila, interviewed people there, and walked through its streets ... though I appreciate the good will of people abroad in commemorating this day, it still bothers me how Palestinians are just a day to remember and then move away from.

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Peekaboo! :-)

2009-09-13T20:37:00.000-07:00

I watch her sleep as I write this. My sister's in town, I won't be blogging regularly for a while, but I'll peekaboo you every once a full moon :-)

Today we go South to visit our aunt at the refugee camps. First, we make a quick stop at the Lebanese Army Force to get permits, gulp.... though we do think of those missile exchanges that happened a few days ago in the South between Israel and Lebanon. But, people live on. And our family's there.

Make du'a for us.

I'll end with this sweet picture: my sister's nine year old daughter, my beautiful niece, calls and asks her mom on the phone: "how did you feel when you saw aunty?"

I was surpised at how quickly she answers: "it's like a big part of me was missing and now I'm whole".

Alhamdullilah for these things in life :-) ...
Until the next breath,
Quest

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Words for the Living

2009-09-10T17:16:00.001-07:00

The night befriends my waking hours as I stride through a funding application for my research that is due in less than a week. To take a break, and while I skim through reams of literature, some interesting quotes have come my way, some from past interviews and some from inspirational talent. Let them speak to you:

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“I would rather be amongst a pack of lions than lead a pack of sheep” (Ahmed Barakat).

“It is very important to understand that war is the result of a flawed peace” (Arundhati Roy from God of Small Things).

“Humans are beings that have knowledge as well as ignorance, memory as well as forgetfulness. In contrast with the rest of creation, they have to live with dignity, risk, and freedom, all at once” (Tarek Ramadan from In the Footsteps of the Prophet)

“This world is a form of pleasure ready to caress you, wound you, break you to pieces, so re-make yourself and remember. Always remember. Your ability to change” (mine).

“I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood” (Audre Lorde from When Silence Speaks).

“(Nationalism is) a set of beliefs taught to each generation in which the Motherland or the Fatherland becomes a burning cause for which one becomes willing to kill the children of other Motherlands or Fatherlands” (Howard Zinn, from The People’s History of the United States of America).

“Tonight it is raining in the tradition of my parents who wanted a daughter not a writer” (Suheir Hammad from poem Daughter).

“Break a vase, and the love that re-assembles the fragments is stronger than that love which took its symmetry for granted when it was whole” (Derek Walcott from Omeros)

...goodnight folks … slumber is calling ...
Quest

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Muslim Bachelor Looking for Wife!

2009-09-09T09:11:00.000-07:00

Alright, listen up single ladies, here is a shout-out from a muslim brother looking for his soulmate. Indeed, he has a "Quest" blog going on through which he tells his story (yes, but I blog in pink, beat that Mr. Quest! ;) and I've asked him to introduce himself to my followers and readers here. Because you never know where your naseeb or destiny is, my sweet sister. Check out his blog and feel free to contact him. Aight, let it spin Mr Quest!

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Assalamu Alaikum!

Nice to meet you, everyone! And thank you lady Quest for letting me do this and self-promote on your blog :-) I'm born and bred in the west. Brought up in a society that is fairly full of corruption. I've stayed close to my deen on this journey so far. I'm now looking for a wife.

As I look for a wife, and share my stories, I remain inspired by people around me who continue to share their own troubles, turbulances or successes and happiness as they go through life in the west... I'd really like to blog my journey to Mrs. Right along with a community of minds out there, and not alone, plus I'm a good writer so bring popcorn!

My blog encompasses events as they unfold through this journey. Events which you can either understand or relate to. Especially those born and/or raised in the west.
My blog welcomes the words from both genders and all kinds of stories because even though I'm seeking a wife, I'm also a regular guy with whom you could possibly relate to, even as your brother in Islam going through life in the West.

Here's my story. Join me on this journey: http://islamicsouls.blogspot.com/

Feel free to get in touch at: islamicsoulseek@googlemail.com

Respectfully,
SoulSeek

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The Mantra of Beauty in Ramadan

2009-09-08T14:33:00.000-07:00

A spiritual transformation can happen to the sounds of beauty. Silence the mind and its undying urge to understand or to know, leave your heart to the following:

Close your eyes and listen to a moment during Ramadan taraweeh prayers captured on youtube that certainly reminds me of some of my Ramadan experiences here in Lebanon. Resist your urge to run towards a translated or subtitled page of the verse that this Imam (who is one of my favorites) from Kuwait is reading, and take in the experience in its entirity. Notice the chandeliers, the Qur'ans with their wooden stands, the endless rows, the high ceiling, the space, the unity.

I am not surprised, the architecture of the Masjid here that I go to in Lebanon is inspired by the architecture of this one in Saudi Arabia, I believe, perhaps because the prime minister who built the Beirut masjid was friends or business partners, to use a mild term, with Saudi Arabia.

Now forget all I've said, empty your mind, and leave yourself to the Imam's recitation who undoubtedly reminds me of the Imam reading here in Beirut during taraweeh. Let it soothe you.

With spiritual love,
Q

Recitation of Qur'an during Ramadan

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Conference Decision!

2009-09-06T15:53:00.001-07:00

I’ve always liked it. Especially when she gains a few pounds and her face rounds up like a yummy muffin :-) ...

I approach her and I nail a big huge kiss on her round chubby cheeks like a cub pouncing at its mother! My mother will be getting one soon, inshAllah.

Remember that in every moment I rest in her arms, you’ve all earned part of the blessings that surround a mother and her child. With your caring thoughts and guiding words, you are in this picture. Thank you!

I’ll be giving word to the conference organizers tomorrow of my acceptance to their offer, inshAllah …

You know what really did it for me? … I called momz, told her the scenario. She answered the way she always does when I consult with her on things, which is to take a neutral diplomat position and say: “ Oh you know I don’t interfere with your decisions because you’re a big girl, and, I know that you know what’s good for you …”. Then, she pauses. And says: “ but … I miss you …”

There’s no thinking after that.

With warm melodies on the horizon :-) ...
Q

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Decisions Decisions ... D.E.C.I.S.I.O.N.S

2009-09-05T06:48:00.000-07:00

They say Libras can never make decisions easily. They keep weighing the two sides eternally and never come out from that state of mind in order to make a decision. Oh boy, perhaps it’s time I believe this of myself. I’ve been chewing on this pickle – more like a giant dill --- for a few days now. It must be a sin somewhere to take this long to decide. So, I’d love to know what you think ….

I’ve been invited to a conference on global youth development that will take place in Canada and Greece. The tickets and hotels are paid for. The downside is the timing. This thing happens like this: three days in Canada (September 21-24) and three days in Greece/Athens (September 28- Oct 1st).

Now, my sister is supposed to come here to Lebanon to visit between September 11th to October 12th. After my calculations, if I go to the conference, I really spend less than half of that time in sane vacationing with my sis in Lebanon.

Also, it takes around 11hrs to fly from Lebanon to Canada (not including airport waiting time, ranges from 3-6 extra hours) – only to stay for three days! Three measly little small days in Canada!

Upside: I’ll see my mummy! And my baby girl niece who I miss like crazy! But.But. But. It takes me a week, normally, to wake up from such a loooong flight. I’ll physically be with them for a few hours each day after conferencing while I’ll be jet lagged worst than anything you can imagine.

Barely will I awaken from all this, then I have to fly out to Greece! Another friggin’ ten hours. Then, to Lebanon.

When I come back, I have three days then. Yes. The semester starts and I’ll be teaching. Though my sister will still be in the country for another seven days, I’ll be teaching (while jetlagged) during most of the time. Oh Lord.

Dilemma: I really wanna see momz, my niece, even my girlz in Canada, participate in important conference, but it’s not fair for my sis … I want to spend time with her in a normal way without all this craziness, plus spend Eid with her in Lebanon and grow old with her on my birthday too which is in October.

… ach me needs your thoughts … what would you do? ... Libras always want to be just to everyone. but it'ssss harrrd ... :(

PS: I felt I should add this footnote, that I've been praying istikharah since I got the news of the conference, and the masjid gives it a peaceful environment to make the dua with heart, too. On the same page, everyone ;-) .... beyond that, what would you do to decide? ....

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Reflection on Chapter Ahzab or "the Enemy Parties"

2009-09-02T13:40:00.000-07:00

This is what happens when you have an engaging Imam in Ramadan. You start thinking :)

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This chapter of the Qur’an is very interesting because it talks about the art of submission during war. Simply because in times of war there must be submission, but the greater submission to Allah swt is harder to find under these conditions. If you look closely at this chapter, what you see is a very detailed description of how different everyone can get when there’s no peace around, and the road to the greater submission becomes unclear.

Groups. Sects. Parties (Ahzab). Take Lebanon for example. A country that has seen over 50yrs of war, from internal and external forces, it has over 11 different millets or branches/sects within Islam, just Islam. Not to count the political Islamist groups, the resistance groups. Other than Hamas, Hezbollah or the Brotherhood, there is Fateh Al-Islam which in itself has five different sub-groups. Not to count many many other Islamicized/politicized groups.

To return to the 11 millets or minority groups here, other than sunni or shiite, there are Alawis, Alevis, Yezidis, Druze and Isma’ili. Not to mention other religions entirely which include Roman Catholic, Jewish, Maronite, Greek Orthodox, Chaldean Catholic, Armenian Catholic and many more. What makes all this different from North America, where you can also find the same groups, is that here they’re part of the political and governmental infrastructure in a much more augmented degree. Some say there is no “real” government in Lebanon, that the country is run by all these groups.

Furthermore, this religious map of the country continues to change starting as far back as the 15th Century. The idea is that when “we” Muslims, we people, we human beings are in war, we are vulnerable to change (about human nature, see chapter 70, verse 19). And chapter Ahzab describes the many ways people do change.

Funny that a chapter named Ahzab, or enemy parties, when read closely, is not really about some other evil, nasty, monstrous, disbelieving army out there attacking us, but is rather describing us, yes, us believers and the many different ways we might possibly change the map of our faith when we’re tested and expecting mass danger. Allah swt says: “when they came from above you, and from beneath you, your eyes were terrified, your hearts ran out of patience, and you harbored unbefitting thoughts about God”. And He also says: “when the true believers saw the enemy parties ready to attack, [this dangerous situation] only strengthened their faith and augmented their submission” (33:22).

It is better, of course, not to be in a war zone. Sometimes, it's as simple as a man who lives in a village, tilling the earth, bringing back food to his family. Then one day, an army attacks his village, and he watches his daughter die in his arms. From an ordinary civilian of peace, he now is filled with hate, and picks up arms to fight. The same thing could happen to another man, and he might choose to live in peace, and not pick up arms. Like the people of Gaza, for example, where many civilians, despite all the death, still choose peace. It takes strength to do that. It is better not to be in a war zone because most likely the change is to the worst. This is how war functions. But if you happen to be in one, the Qur'an offers some tips to the believers.

It is hard to figure things out if you’re a person born into the schizophrenia of faith that maps the religious world in Lebanon, as in many other war-stricken zones. So in times of adversity, we are in a zone of change, and everything is unstable. But you are trained to deal with different wills and intentions all around you. And you are a master at building bridges between groups, if you want to. And you can be a master-warrior, honorable or unfortunately dishonorable, who fights wars like no other, if you wish to take this route.

So what do we learn from this chapter on enemy parties? Perhaps there is no one answer. But know that as you shift in and through the secrets of your heart, the good and the evil, know that while you understand your mistakes or your good actions especially if you live in a war zone, that “He is the one who helps you, together with His angels, to lead you out of darkness into the light” (33:43).

This is God’s eternal system. I will end with closing remarks by one of my favorite authors, Arundhati Roy from her book God of Small Things (1997): "It is very, very important to understand that war is the result of a flawed peace, and we must understand the systems that are at work here".

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Masjids and Musallahs in Ramadan

2009-08-31T17:23:00.000-07:00

I have never lived the sunni/shiite difference before. I only heard of it, or watched it as an unbiased spectator. When I was in school, I would only absorb the tensions or fury, the hopeful mediations or the call for unity by my friends who vocally proclaim that they are sunni or shiite, or the ones that want non of it and who proclaim: “I am Muslim. Period”.

But in a country such as Lebanon, this scene escalates and the division feels too real. I read books, too, about this situation. Although books kindle the mind, experience engraves the memory. And memory carves the soul eternally.

It is one thing to imagine divisions and wars in Islam when in Canada or America or any other “neutral/secular” state, getting it from books or TV or the media. It’s another thing to sit on this stage, down in a war-zone like Lebanon and to animate it all in your mind while everything around you reinforces division and war, yes, between sunnis and shiites. It’s no game. It’s too real.

In every country where there is co-existence, there is war. Where there is a masjid next to a church and a synagogue, there is also war. The people of the masjid fight between themselves, the people of the church fight between themselves, the people of the synagogue too, not every Jewish community is like the other. Therefore, where there are angels there are also people who want war. Never be naive about this.

I am at this Masjid you see in the photo back in Anjar, an area near Baalbeck, about an hour drive from Beirut. Baalbeck is a renowned shiite neighborhood in Lebanon. What I notice, instantly, is the soldier rhetoric. This region highlights the warrior/martyr/soldier spirit of Islam by commemorating it everywhere with huge billboards of soldiers born in this area and who died in resistance fighting. The color black is prominent.

As you see in the photo, the masjids look different than most of the ones in Beirut such as the Muhammad Al Amin masjid where I pray taraweeh during Ramadan. What is highlighted in Baalbeck’s masjids is ornamentation and decoration such as Arabic calligraphy on the walls. Other than Qur’anic verses, these writings are about martyrs. Or, about Hassan and Husseyn who are the relatives of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).

In Ramadan, the shiite neighborhood breaks its fast after the ‘sunni’ neighborhoods by around 15 minutes at Maghreb.

In Ramadan the world turns in different rhythms depending on where you are in the world. And what's around you. And you are the product of your environment ...

Counting Blessings in Ramadan

2009-08-30T08:41:00.000-07:00

In a strange chain of events I was reminded of a photo and then I stopped. To reflect.

I have traveled to Hawaii, Honolulu and to Lebanon in a period no longer than a year apart. Of the many bounties I have been offered throughout this year, this photo reminds me of a particular one.

When I was standing at Hanauma beach in Honolulu not too far from Waikiki, I remember clearly thinking, or even expressing to my sister who was with me for this week-long conference escapade, “no fair, I want to be in that water! I was raised on an island, in sea and ocean so every ounce of life in me wants to be in that water, like diving back body and soul into my childhood sensations under the sun immersed in the deep blue. No fair (pout)”.

About a year later, I’m in Lebanon. Not only do I swim in women-only beaches and take my liberty in every shape and form, but the sea I’m in is not just any sea. It’s the Mediterranean sea. It’s the one I grew up in.

Can we ever count the blessings of the Most Beautiful Allah? …

Reflect. When did you wish for something and He gave it to you? It's there. Just make the connection, then praise Allah with me ....

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Ramadan Sweetness

2009-08-29T14:10:00.001-07:00

Sahteyn! :-) in Lebanese, which loosely translates into "enjoy!" I took this picture when I went to the sweet store I go to, called "Rif'at Al-Hallab". In Ramadan, this store's line up is to the door, subhanAllah.

My favorite dessert there is called "knafeh bil gibneh". Translation? ummmm... many calories? :)

PS: I prayed at Masjid Al Amin today too (alhamdullilah) ... with my rhinestone Abayah. Come on, I did say that one of my intentions for ramadan is to find a good masjid, and stay there. Keepin' my word ;)

My next blog entry, inshAllah, will be a video post showing one of the refugee camps I'm looking into.

Sweet salams,
Q

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When Wealth and Spiritual Experience Mix

2009-08-28T16:30:00.000-07:00

As intended, I went to Masjid Al Amin and let me tell you about it before I … zzzzzzz go to sleep ;)

Is it wrong, people, to pray in a five star masjid?

I’m in the cab entering downtown from the bridge. We can hear the Qur’an being read on the speakers from the center of downtown where the Masjid is. Imagine that.

I’m out of the cab. I walk towards the masjid to the ladies entrance. At the door, a guard greets you and tells you, “this way, ma’am”.

As we go inside, you see a row of abayahs (as mentioned earlier), good quality, mind you, and a pair of hijab to go with it. There are about 30 or 40 of those lined up along with a drawer full of regular prayer outfits (the white ones) just in case more is needed.

On your right hand side is dark brown oak shelf for shoes. On your left, same thing.

I put on a black abayah – I choose a cute one with beads and rhinestone on the sleeves (so fly), I leave my slippers on the fine brown oak shoe-shelf and I head towards the elevator. Next to the elevator are two bathrooms and a wudhu (ablution) room.

Once upstairs, I step out of the elevator and I’m ushered by a woman who has a tag to show that she’s employed or volunteers there. She tells us, “this way, sisters”. We walk, fine queens that we are, and we enter the praying room. I mean hall. I mean gala. I mean soccer field that pretends to be a praying space. You dig? It. Was. Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge.

If you look up, you see a chandelier that must have belonged to the Queen of England in prior days. Up ahead, at the very front of the praying space, is a flat screen TV, a gigantic one, to project the men’s praying area and the imam.

On your left hand side, over there, yes, is a floor-to-ceiling book shelf that has a gazillion Qur’ans, with their “book-stand”, you know, those wooden ones.

I stand, in my brand new rhinestone abayah, with my hand-picked Qur’an from the big brown book shelf, and I pray two ruk’as in respect for the masjid. I bow for sujood. What is that? That scent? Dalias? Gardenias? Flowers from the heavens? Whatever carpet deodorizer they used, it was so good I didn’t want to get up from sujood! Maybe crawl in a fetal position and take a nap. Better than the gym socks aroma elsewhere, you dig?

In this place, all I needed was a throne, a couple of diamond rings to go with my rhinestone abayah, a few good men to fan me with peacock feathers, and I’m rollin! :-) heheheh lol!!

No, seriously. Where were we? Oh, sujood. Yes, I’m done the two ruk’as. We now pray Isha. The reciter/imam, subhanAllah, has the most beautiful way of reading I’ve ever heard. So serene. So engaging. MashaAllah.

Now in my normal days, when in Canada, I like to pick up the Qur’an and read along with the reciter during taraweeh. It has many benefits, such as it keeps me focused, it improves my memory of the verses, and also, I improve my Arabic. After three ramadans, there was a notable improvement in my Arabic reading as well as comprehension of the classical Arabic language (fus-ha) that is used in the Qur’an.

I do the same at this masjid and the experience was glorious, especially since the reader/imam is so good at what he does.

At one time, after one taraweeh prayer was over, I decide to look behind me. I was standing in the second row. Notice that each row holds about 60 women. I didn’t think there was more than a row behind me. When I look back, the rows went as far as the exit door. In this soccer field praying room! There were hundreds of women in there. SubhanAllah. They must have all liked the abayahs (wink).

No, seriously, the imam prays 20 rak’as (prostrations) each night at the Taj Mahal. I mean masjid. He also prays salat al-witr, the closing prayer. People come and go depending on their own time convenience.

I’m done. I go to the elevator. I get to the bottom floor. I take off my abayah with the rhinestones. I hang it back up on the wall. I go to the brown oak shoe shelf. I take my slippers. I exit the door and the guard says, “assalamu alaikum sister, have a good night”.

I’m out into the real world. Sigh.

You bet I’m praying there again. And again. And again. Like?

In contrast to the masjid next to my house. It’s an ordinary masjid, no rhinestone abayahs, but see, the reader, astaghfirullah, he reads real quick. And he’s not reading the Qur’an from beginning to end so he can finish it at the end of Ramadan. He just picks random surahs, in no particular order. Like? I want to finish the Qur’an by the end of Ramadan. Just because it’s not a “five star” masjid, it doesn’t mean that it offers a more spiritual experience.

I think I can truthfully say that in this case, class/wealth/style/posh and spirituality do mix. And I’m witness to it. So is my rhinestone abayah :-)

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Food For Thought: Don't Fast on this one

2009-08-28T05:32:00.000-07:00

7th Day of Ramadan: I'll Pray Here

2009-08-26T13:23:00.001-07:00

On Friday, inshAllah, I plan on going there, to the masjid in the picture, named Mohammad Al-Amin Masjid, the biggest in Beirut.

I've been to it before Ramadan. It's breath-taking. As I entered, there was a line of abayahs and scarves hung up in a row for women to wear in case they need one.

By the way, this masjid is smack next door to one of the largest churches in Beirut, like this:

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First Days in Ramadan

2009-08-25T06:58:00.000-07:00

Spent the past days in Tripoli, a city outside of Beirut. I was out on the balcony when it happened. I’m used to hearing the azan in Tripoli, but the first night in Ramadan was like this:

First, the “qari’” or the reciter from the Masjid starts reading verses from the Qur’an out loud on a microphone with speakers directed towards the center of the city. So, from my balcony, I hear the verses from the Qur’an. Beautiful. But. Wait a minute.

I can’t hear him properly, it’s as if there’s interference.

“Aunty, how come it sounds fuzzy?”

“See, what you’re hearing is not one but THREE speakers from three different masjids. One is straight ahead of you, up north. One is on your right, and another is on your left but they’re all hidden behind buildings”.

“Are they reading the same verses?”

“No, that’s why it sounds like Qur’an but you can’t make out the words”.

... :-) when the reading was over, the Maghreb Azan was on and this time it came from one Masjid. I looked at the balconies from buildings nearby. I could see people breaking their fast. Together. We all broke our fast together. One city. All listening to the same azan. We’re not checking our watches to make sure it’s time. There’s no doubt like that because the azan is our ‘watch/clock’.

When I came back to Beirut I had my first taraweeh prayer. There’s a masjid near my house. It was an adventure going there for the first time in Lebanon, first time fasting here, and first time praying taraweeh not with family in Tripoli, the South/camps, or in Canada.

There is a hadith that says, and I’m paraphrasing, the first part of Ramadan is mercy, the second part is forgiveness, and the last part is salvation from hellfire. For the first part, I sure felt the mercy. Alhamdullilah. I’m going to taraweeh again tonight, inshAllah.

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Palestinians and Ramadan

2009-08-25T06:15:00.001-07:00

I’m back from the photoshop lessons offered by the Norwegian Peoples Aid to the refugee camp students enrolled in the media and cultural association. I walk towards the center with the director of the cultural association who invited me to attend the lessons and to see how these sessions run, especially since I work with them when I give English lessons.

Him: “ you know, the question of Palestine is very complicated”

Me: “ what do you mean?”

Him: “for us NGOs who are not associated with any international organization like the UN or European aid, we have it hard”.

Me: “ I thought you have it easy because these international groups would die to collaborate with you local organizations, because you know more about your own problems”.

Him: “ha, you’d think ...”

Me: “yeah, don’t you?”

Him: “ see, it seems to me that funding comes ONLY AFTER the tragic fact. Meaning, only after a kid dies, or drops out of school, or a war breaks out, or our sewage system gives rise to an epidemic, only AFTER this tragic fact do these organizations rush to help us out.

What I want to do with my organization is to create preventative measures BEFORE the tragic fact. Like education and awareness.

I heard that some of these UN organizations kick out a teacher if he’s good, and if he teaches well. They want uneducated masses. The idea is as long as Palestinians suffer, there’s a market for these organizations. Because if we’re not suffering, who are these aid companies going to aid?

What will they tell their governments when they ask for huge lumps of money towards ‘aiding’ us, if we’re okay and well and educated? They’d be out of business.”

Me: “I see.”

Him: “ See, it’s Ramadan, and these kids, who are between the age of 14 and 20, come everyday and stay for two hours straight with no break working endlessly and tirelessly. Some of them come after work, others come from far distances. When class is over, some of them travel all the way home to make it for taraweeh prayers after breaking their fast, sometimes while still on the road. These are smart, dedicated kids and they won’t drop out, inshAllah. Tough luck for those aid companies”

... I smile. We continue walking. I attend the photoshop lesson. He’s right. These kids are smart, mashAllah ... and mostly, it’s very obvious that they want to learn.

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Happy Ramadan!!!

2009-08-20T10:10:00.001-07:00

Sweeeeeet warm merciful Ramadan to you!!

With smiles and sunshine :-) .... umm, my intentions for Ramadan? To find a good masjid, and stay there. But, I'm starting with family in Tripoli. Which is a travel from Beirut. Then, I'll try to get to family at the camps, which is another travel from Tripoli aaaaaaaaallll the way to the South.

yeah ... umm here it comes again ~~ Happppppyyyyyyyyyyy Ramadan!!! ~~ :-)

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Grief: Learn it

2009-08-17T17:22:00.001-07:00

“You have no idea what your phone call means to me”.

This is what Firas’s father said to me when I called to give my condolences.

I discovered something about myself.

There are two true losses in my life: My father, and Firas. Because I did not grief properly over my father, I did not know how to grief properly over Firas. That is why I struggled painfully these days.

Who knew that grief over loved ones is a skill. A skill I’ve been introduced to, through Firas’s death, because of Allah’s mercy.

Now the lesson is learnt, Allah, take care of my boys, I’ll see you, daddy and Firas, when it’s my time, but now, I live.

Grief: learn it. In every tragedy of life made by the Hands of the Beautiful Creator is an angel waiting to touch you, thresh you hard and carve you like diamonds born from the depths of black dark coal.

Bismillah ar-rahman ar-raheem, to a new beginning,

:)... I'm smiling, again.

Quest

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To Allah we belong, to Him we return: Rest in Peace

2009-08-13T10:44:00.000-07:00

To Allah we belong and to Him we shall return: Rest in Peace, Firas

I woke up. Like any other day. I go to my office and I decide to drop by the secretary for a morning chat. As I walk in she tells me: “did you read your email?” I tell her I’ve been escaping work-related emails all day yesterday. She tells me come here and read it. I do.

A campus wide email has been sent to announce the death of one of my students in a car accident while driving to Jordan to begin his summer vacation. He was 19. He died on Monday and the email went out later this week.

…. you know, he used to hate it when in the beginning of the term I would forget his name. I have two students named Firas so I would always forget which one he was. “Misssssss”, he’d say in a playful way, “you always forget my naaaaaame”, then he would put on a pout, jokingly.

The last time I saw him was ….different. He had come to my office to pick up his essay draft so he can correct his mistakes and write the final draft. There was a line-up outside my office and then it boiled down to him and another student. So he let the other student go ahead of him. He waited outside and the door was open.

He heard it all while I busted the chops of the other student who had cheated on his paper. I was rough, stern and especially unforgiving that day. I remember clearly my words to the other student: “You know, I don’t work hard at my job so you can go buy your essay off the streets. You want an 80? Everyone wants an 80 and 90 and 100! But you know what, I know other students who take the 60 and the 65 and accept it even though they feel they deserve more. Integrity. Honesty. This is what I teach you!”

I went on and on. Firas is not used to me being this way and when he walked in I could see his face a bit shaken up. So. I remember smiling at him. As if to say calm down little one, this is not about you. I remember his face until this moment as he was asking me questions about his essay. All diligent and dedicated.

When I read the email about his death at the secretary’s office, I ran down to my office. I cried while I hurriedly went through the piles of essays that the students handed in, hoping that maybe, just maybe, he handed his early so I can have it. Have Firas’s essay…. It wasn’t there. As I look into my folders, I see that I have no marked essay or quiz or draft of his. He was to hand them all in on Tuesday, the day after his accident.

Like dream and reality become one, I can still hear his voice and see his face. I have his emails, as recent as last Friday. “Miss”, he writes, “when can I come pick up my quiz?” …

Inna lillah wa inna ilayhee raj’oon … To Allah we belong and to Him we shall return.

Sometimes, one person’s tragedy is another person’s reminder. In some ways, and in a certain sense, Ramadan is coming, and I couldn’t have started in a better way. I’ve been shaken up hard by Firas’s passing away, and I’ve never prayed with so much heart right after I got the news.

Sometimes, it takes a good shake-up to place things into perspective and nothing like death can remind us more strongly of this.

As a teacher who sees her students every day of the week and is with them for hours and hours on end, watching them grow and push and strive and break boundaries or light up when they figure out something that’s hard, or shrink in frustration when they can’t understand something, and when I help them and they overcome the frustration – all this makes for a teacher-student bond that no words can describe.

Especially when the student is dedicated, creative and promising like Firas. I truly feel a loss. My duas during Ramadan inshAllah will be with Firas.

Many of us, like Firas, may not live to see this Ramadan, or the next one. Let us take nothing for granted.

While I sat in my office after getting the news, another student came in to drop off his essay.

Him: “Heyyyyyyy missss how are ya!”
Me: “I’m good, a bit sad too”.
Him: “why?”
Me: “Your classmate passed away, have you heard, Firas …”
Him: “I heard something but wasn’t sure who he was”
Me: “come on, he was in your class”
Him: “which one… is it the tall guy with spiky hair”
Me: “no he was dark skinned with short hair, he sat about two seats away from you”
Him: “oh yeah yeah yeah the guy who would always come to your office when I came, and he was tall and short haired and would come with his friend…. Oh my god, I can’t believe it’s him”.

This student, who did not know Firas, who had to remember how he looked like, ended up finding out who Firas’s brother is, got his phone number, and gave it to me so I can give my condolences by phone to Firas’s family in Jordan. Your classmate won’t forget who you are now, Firas ...

Please take a moment to make dua for my student, and then, please take this as a reminder of what we want to do with our lives while we’re still breathing.

Even though death is sudden, the impression we leave behind ripples through the days until eternity. May Allah swt forgive us all and guide us towards the best way to lead our lives. Ameen.

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Dreams and Visions. And Hijab

2009-08-12T16:44:00.000-07:00

In many parts of the world people talk about visions and dreams. In the Middle East people call them “ru’yah”. The person who can “see” things about others, or can interpret dreams is called a “wahi”.

As well, in other parts of the world people speak of seeing things, sights, visions, perhaps even sensing the presence of inanimate objects. Even movies explore just how true dreams can be. I think of Neo and Trinity in The Matrix, or Adel Imam’s Egyptian movie on the Jinn, or even something as simple as Groundhog day.

There is a word about this too. Pre-recognition: the ability to see the future. Dreams are part of this definition.

I am not speaking of the Islamic correctness of all this. That’s another discussion for another day.

I’m just remembering. See, a dialog or communication happened today after which I started thinking about dreams. My dreams. My dream. There’s only one.

I don’t normally get visions. If I do, I don’t remember them. I certainly do not remember how I felt in a dream. In short: I’m not a dreamer.

Except for that one time in my entire life and I’ve lived longer than a quarter of a century. There is only one dream, with a vision, and I remembered it when I woke up.

I was 19 when I had the dream. I remember it like it happened last night.

In the dream, it was me and my mother alone. I was a little girl, must have been seven or eight. My mother was an adult. Around us were dark mountains, the sky was dark, and in between the mountains was a very wide sea of lava and volcanic liquid. Had no big waves and no raging volcanic activity boiling the lava. It was just there.

Me and my mother were standing at the very edge of the ground that was at sea-level with the lava. If you look ahead of my little shoes as I stand there you will see the lava a few inches ahead of me, kept away from me only by the fact that I was on the ground. Because I was a little short girl I felt so horrifyingly close to it.

The dream begins.

The scene is set. I am standing there holding my mother’s hands. I am panting. I’m breathing hard. I’m losing myself in fear. I’m crying while still holding my mother’s hand because I am very, very afraid. I cry: “mama I’m scared!”

She, on the other hand, is cool as a Sunday breeze. I feel her hand against my scared, sweaty, panicking hand. She is calm like a baby in sleep. She is smiling. Looking ahead. She tells me: “don’t worry. There’s nothing to be afraid of”. She continues to smile, looking straight ahead. Still holding my hand.

I cry. And cry. My heart beats hard. I’m hysterical almost in shock. I’m in horror as if I am a second away from burning alive.

Tears everywhere and I’m saying; “mama I’m scared, mama I’m scared!”

The contrast between my mother and I in the dream was like day and night.

I wake up.

I am in my room in bed. And I’m crying like a baby shaken all up inside gripped by a fear I’ve never felt before in my life. I run to my mother’s room. Crying. Out loud. Something my mother is not accustomed to since she knows her girl doesn’t cry easy.

I fall in my mother’s arms and ask her to hug me hard. Real close. Real tight. Remember: I’m normally a rough 19 year old who doesn’t cry. And certainly I do not ask for hugs. This surprised both of us. I was terrified.

I tell her my dream while I’m crying and crying. Even years later, when I tell the story to my friends I feel myself clearing my throat making sure not to slip and break into tears. It shakes me up still, years later, just remembering it.

Standing on that ground under the open sky inches away from the lava felt so real I could still feel my feet on that ground after I woke up. While awake, the same heart that was racing in the dream kept racing while I was up, like dream and reality became one.

This dream was one of the biggest reasons why I put on my hijab, by the way. When I was telling my story to my mother, I said to her; “when I looked up at you, mom, while I was crying hysterically in front of that lava feeling so afraid, small and tiny in such a big scary world…..I looked up at you and you had your hijab on”.

At that time, my mother had recently put on the hijab. In the dream, she didn’t look like the non-hijabi mother I grew up with as a child. She looked like the mother I came to know as an adult.

Yes, indeed. This is the only dream I remember in my life. The only one I had, really. And I tell it sometimes, here and there when the occasion arises, say when I’m in a conversation with a girl about the story of my hijab …

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English Lesson

2009-08-12T05:16:00.000-07:00

In refugee camp English class. I ask them to pair up. I give them role-play exercises.

Okay listen up. Here’s the scenario. One of you is a psychologist, the other is the client. You are at the clinic and the client is feeling very sad. Come up with a conversation about this.

They start working. They pair themselves up but the third group has one strong student in it with good vocabulary and the other with weak vocabulary.

I watch them as they practice: group one is loud and proud with drama, already devising a scene on acute sadness, whatever that is.

Group two is busy coming up with “big words” to beat group one. I sit there and watch while group three is kinda quiet in the corner there.

So. I start with group three.

“okay guys let’s get this show on the roadddd! Take one, scene one aaaaaaaand Action!!”

Client (she’s the stronger student in language skills): hello

Psychologist (the weaker student in language skills): hello

Client: I am feeling sad because I can’t make friends in school. I moved to a new town and my neighbors are not friendly either. I’m only 13 and I feel so different both in school and in my neighborhood. These kids, they don’t act like kids. All they want to do is talk politics. I’m like why not talk about music.

Psychologist: ummmm .... (pause)

Client: and I want to try to make friends. I like those that talk about normal kid stuff. Like sports, and make up and ...

Psychologist: ...

Client: and then I want to go shopping but I have no-one to go with that’s sad and

Me: Okay. Let’s hear more from the psychologist, come on doctor.

Psychologist: ....

..........

We wait for him patiently and encouragingly so he can say something ... he looks around the class …looks at me. Then he looks at the client and says:

“clinic close now. Come tomorrow”.

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Gone Swine Free to Jeita Cave

2009-08-11T04:27:00.000-07:00

What's the best way to escape the flu? Good question.

I went to Jeita cave! This place is a wonder no words can describe. Maybe the pics up there and this wiki:

Jeita Cave on Wikipedia

The pictures aren't mine because they don't allow cameras in the cave. It supposedly erodes the minerals. Imagine my face as I gave up my camera to the security guard outside.

I pouted. I frowned. I asked questions like "one picture?" ... but subhanAllah, not having my camera forced me to focus on the beauty around me rather than make sure I got it all on camera. What a distraction that can be, eh?

I took the memory and the image with my eye's camera. And it is there for me to keep and tell to my kids when I grow old and grey :-)

I did enjoy the boat ride on the crystal blue water while dipping my hands in it as the boat sails on and the minerals shimmer like gold all around us. Magical.

PS: I think I'm swine free but just exhausted. Alhamdullilah with a cherry smile!!

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Swine

2009-08-06T14:25:00.000-07:00

Yahoo baby boo I think I got the swine flu. If anything, you can hate me for the sik rhymes.

Nah like my student has it and he told me AFTER I marked his paper with all the germs lurking aaaaaalll over there looking at me and going, “give him an A or else!”

I’m told if I get the fever in two days I should go get checked for the oink, I meant swine, flu. I’m also told I could get quarantined until I get better in case I do have it. Can a girl get a breakkkk, I can't vacation in a hospitttttttal: girl got planz. sheeesh!

PS: me needs to put a wholesome “F” on the boy’s paper you know what I’m sayinnnnn :-)

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Journalism with a :-(

2009-08-04T15:38:00.001-07:00

My sister will come in September to visit. By the way, it happened again :-). I finish emailing someone this message: “I’ve got no life until mid august when school’s out. Work and volunteering keep me tired. But there are rewards, for sure”.

Next email in my inbox, my sister. Click. It reads: “I want to say something. I’m totally over-worked, and it’s only August 4th!!!!”

Eeery spooky funky cool :-)

Anyway. The man says to me: “ you know how they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions? The opposite is true. The road to heaven is paved with bad intentions”.

He’s someone I wanted to interview, a war-child, lived in Beirut all his life. I say to him, “I feel like I’m using you. I don’t know if you want to tell your story to the world, to people you don’t know”.

Him: “Of course I do. As long as I get to say it. Not someone else says it for me”.

Me: “ It’s part of my research and work to do this. But I want you to be comfortable.”

On and on. Kept apologizing. Felt like I’m using him to forward my career. He’s had journalists/ngo workers/researchers come to him by the dozens from all over the world for interviews. He’s a “hot market commodity” it seems. I wonder. Did I go to him for the same reasons? Why do I feel so bad? Like a grimy rat digging up a good research topic. Yuk!

So he says to me, “the road to heaven is paved with bad intentions. Not to say you’re using me, but there’s nothing wrong with looking out for yourself, kid, that’s life”.

I feel like poop. Still. :-(

All I wanted was to help. To get him to say his story to the world so I can sit and watch him heal… :-(

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Warriorz

2009-08-03T13:04:00.001-07:00

“How old is this Palestinian boy?” She asks her friend, they sit sipping hot dark coffee under the Middle Eastern sun.

Some young students pass by wearing the khuffiyeh or the Palestinian scarf that’s black and white, now comes in many colors at the mall normally with a Che Guevara poster behind on the wall behind the manikin.

“21. He has organized protests in which hundreds have come to, he did this alone. He invited political speakers that are known nation-wide. Alone. He publishes in a local newspaper on the plight of the Palestinian people. Alone. He raises money when crisis hits in the camps such as during the Nahr El-Bared situation in which hundreds of Palestinians were displaced. Alone. He goes to camps regularly during the year and volunteers his help in all kinds of areas ranging from education to cleaning up houses. Alone.”

He passes by. Wearing the khuffiyeh. Real. Straight up man in there.

Tw.en.ty-Won. For real?

That khuffiyeh, makes sense on him.

She hears her friend talk. She looks up in the distant horizon: “woman, I can’t remember what I was doin’ when I was 21. Probably buying lip-gloss”.

Straight up. Makes you think, doesn’t it.

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Which Veil R Ya?

2009-07-30T14:14:00.000-07:00

One of the “souk” or markets out here looks like this: a line of tiny shops stuck wall to wall from here until as far as the eye can see. And in between are side streets and alleys. Each one leads to infinity. On a shopping spree in a place like this, I sure put on some comfy pump slippers and I have my healthy whole grains for energy in the morning. Plus some vitamins and I’m super duper shopper woman! :-)

First store. I pick up a pair of baggy pants. I wonder what to wear on top. Scary how the sales person lady almost reads my mind: “for that you need to wear it like the manikin over there. A sleeveless black short waist line shirt”. I look at the shirt and I say, “ummmm……”

She gives a smile and says, “but you would wear a long sleeved shirt underneath to make it work”.

I come up with some excuse and I don’t buy it. But the moment stays in mind, this picture of a short really tight sleeveless waistline shirt being “solved” for a veiled girl with a tight long sleeved shirt underneath. Huh. She must have thought I roll like that. Interesting :-)

Next store. I pick up a long shirt that goes below the bum area and above the knees, sort of in between that space. Sales lady comes along: “no that won’t work for you hunny. You guys wear longer. Let me show you the section that’ll work for you”. All the “shirts” she shows me are really long dresses that go below the knee area. To wear with a pair of pants underneath. They’re also generally dark colors.

Interesting. I thought. Humm. That stayed in my mind, too. So the “appropriate” shirt, this time, is below the knee length and anything less than that seems “not right for us guys”. Huh. Okay. She must have thought I roll like that :-)

I’m in the next store. A bubbly energized sales woman with a vibrant smile handles me. I try on this fine dress looking all like the swan princess with a hale berry touch. Fine dress. Dang! But. Tight from the “top”. I say: “you know it’s an issue for me as a veiled woman to have this top area so tight, though it’s an awesome dress you know what I’m sayinnnnnn’. Purrrrrfect except for the darn top area!”

She looks at me, then says: “ But like that’s normal to even have a “top” area. I mean you’re a woman aren’t you, I’m sure you have atleast a shirt or dress that looks like that. It’s just being a woman. You can’t go anywhere with it hunny, it’s going to be there. I’m a conservative dressing person too and believe it or not I was veiled once too, so I understand. The dress doesn’t show your figure. And the top area….. that’s normal hunny”.

:-) -- Sales people. They can convince themselves the earth is square then they’ll sell it to you like its gospel. :-) Anyways. That stayed in my mind, too. She must have thought I roll like that.

Funny the assumptions made about a veiled woman and the ‘type’ that she is, because apparently there are ‘types’. And sales women here know this. Those that wear tight clothes but just cover their heads. Others kinda go border line with baggy everything except for that ONE thing that’s sorta kinda tight.

Or the ones that wear long tall baggy all the way from head to toe, usually same style all the time – long long long jacket/shirt/abaya with pants underneath. I wonder what “other” veil types come up when I shop next time ….. :-) …

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Racism - Part Two

2009-07-27T05:03:00.000-07:00

Sweet is the taste of power against ignorance.

I guess I couldn’t get over that experience with the cab driver’s racism the other day. I teach on Monday at the University. I had prepared a class lesson plan, but didn't follow it.

I walked in. I looked at my students, the kids (I mean it positively in a warm way). These are the future, I said to myself. The Lebanon of tomorrow.

And I’m standing here as their teacher. I don’t know if I’ll ever get another chance to be here, I could die the instance I walk out of the classroom. So. I. Picked up the chalk. Went to the board and wrote these questions:

“Have you ever felt discriminated against in Lebanon? Did you ever feel hurt by someone else when you’ve done nothing wrong to them to deserve such treatment in the first place?”

Almost immediately, one student said: “Yes miss, I’m half French and many Lebanese here treat me as a fake Arab when I love the Lebanese side of me. I think I’m more Arab than I am French”.

Another student: “miss, we usually don’t feel it here”.

Me: “Have you seen it around?”

The class is quiet….

Have you ever wondered why you see it, but you don’t receive it? You’re Lebanese. Did you ever think of your “privileged” position in society here? You’re all well-to-do people, middle to high class citizens, otherwise you wouldn’t be enrolled in this prestigious university that costs an arm and leg for tuition each term. If you haven’t experienced discrimination in one form or another, did you ever ask yourself why? Because you know it’s around…

Then, I talk about the maid system in Lebanon.

One kid, I see him in the back of the class, he starts touching the sleeve of his T-shirt and then talks to his friend.

Me: “What’s up Ahmad?” (not his real name, I’ll keep him anonymous).

Him: “miss see my T-shirt, she did such a bad job, my maid, it’s not ironed well”.
The class giggles and laughs ……

Me: “oh dear lord Ahmad, I suggest capital punishment by hanging, or perhaps public whipping on the back, 80 times? How dare she not iron your T-shirt properly!”

Him: “nah miss come on I didn’t mean it this way, I love her. She raised me since I was a child and I spend more time with her than I do with my parents. Sometimes I feel she’s my mother. I’d never hurt her”.

Me: “Then watch your language Ahmad. Respect this woman you love like a mother by talking about her in a respectable way”.

Another kid jumps in: “we should always be tolerant of others”.

Me: “Yeah, sounds deep kid. Did you get that from an Aldo commercial sweety? ( they laugh out loud :-)) ….Sounds like a logo or motto I’ve seen on some ad. What is tolerance, this word we hear everywhere, this word politicians dish out to us all the time, this word that sounds so right, so honorable. What on earth is tolerance?”

Student: “miss, it’s to treat everyone equally”.

Me: “when was the last time you saw this happen? Reality is not equal (I play the devil’s advocate here). There are laborers, and middle class citizens, and then bosses and presidents of companies and of countries. The world is not all equal. So what kind of crap is it to say everyone is equal? Sounds like the wrong tool for the job.”

Students jump in: “no miss it’s not like that, yes it’s true that we’re not all the same but it’s not right to hurt others based on our status in life”. And other similar comments are made.

On and on and on. This is how the class went on for an hour. They say something, I question. They say another, I question. The idea was to break down aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallllll these abstract mottos they’ve been fed all these years, about equality, tolerance and liberty, these hallmark ideas that mean nothing if we don’t think harder about what they mean.

These kids need to stop. And think. We all need to stop. And think. Me first. We need to think of the difference between talking and acting.

My hope is that I have gotten these kids to ask a set of questions to themselves about such things as equality, racism and being in a ‘privileged’ position in life where you don’t receive racism, but you see it around you a lot, and never question it.

My hope is that these kids remember this discussion the next time they see racism happen.

Maybe Allah swt wanted to silence a confrontation between me and the racist cab driver the other day, so it eats me up inside enough for this class to happen.

So they can say no to any form of injustice and discrimination. So they can say to the cab driver what I wasn't able to say. Allahu a’lam….

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That's Racism You Jerk

2009-07-26T11:20:00.000-07:00

Racism or discrimination is not new to many of us. What’s new is the different ways and degrees and colors and style and expression and smell and tone and rhythm and manner it takes every single disgraceful forsaken time it crosses our path!

Just when I think I’ve forgotten…

Taxi. Today I’m standing on one side of a four lane road waiting for a cab. He’s driving on the other side of the road, in the opposite direction. The road is wide, four lanes wide. He manages to stop smack in the middle and burn rubber while slamming those poor breaks hard so the car comes to a full stop while he’s smack in the middle of a turning lane.

Looks at me.

I know how it works now. So I yell out, from the opposite side of the road, as loud as I can: “I’’’’’’’mmmmm goooooooiiiiiiiiiiinggggg dowwwwwwwwnnnnnntownnnnnn”.

Nods his head to say hop in. It’s on his way. He’ll drive me there for less than two dollars.

The routine. As usual. Once I get the “green light”, I start running. Dodge the incoming cars on my lane while heading towards the cab, cross over to the other side without getting run over. Meanwhile, he has his rear door open so I can take a dive like I’m in a James Bond movie.

I’m in. He’s an old man. White hair, tanned face, ticked off expression. I’ve seen it before on many cab drivers who have been on the road too long, not making too much money.

He is polite to me. The usual Lebanese etiquette that I’m used to: “Downtown it is young lady, your wish is my command”.

I’m all huffing and puffing from the good run. I’m settling in. I fiddle with my purse. Fix my dress. Fix my hijab… rub the sweat off…. wait…..I … hear….talking…..

I look to my side and I notice. Yes. I notice that there are two more passengers sitting next to me. They are two women from the Philippines.

I understand what they are saying. My best friends back in high school were from the Philippines and I worked with a lot of people from the Philippines throughout my life, so I recognize the basics of the language.

One of the women was new to the country, hired as a maid, the other one, also a maid who is not new to the country, was getting the first one acquainted with the place. They were saying stuff like you take this bus to get to Achrafieh, that bus to get to Hamra. You don’t pay more than ten bucks if you go to Jounieh by cab. But by bus it’s cheaper.

Suddenly. In English.

Cab driver: “okay. Which one pay me?”

Woman who is not new to Beirut: “Ana Ammo (In Arabic. Me, uncle).

Cab driver: “ yallah, pay me now!”

Woman: “tfaddal Ammo, shukran kteer. (here you go, uncle. Thank you very much).

They step out. While they’re stepping out, the cab driver curses at them in a low voice. I hear him. The two women are still thanking him while they’re stepping out of the cab.

I look at them as they stand on the sidewalk. Still thanking him so gently and so politely while he curses in his low voice.

Burns rubber in their face and drives away.

I don’t know what helpless feels like in a situation like this, but I was feeling reckless, frustrated, angry and helpless all at once. Like taking shots in the dark, I ask him: “take me to Charles Helou bus station for three dollars please”. All frustrated.

I was asking for a much cheaper rate.

Usually, the rate is at least five dollars to get to Charles helou bus station. But all of a sudden I wanted to bargain. Get him in the pocket. Nothing hurts a cab driver more. That jerk…..

He looks at me.

Him: “Young lady, you know that’s not the rate”.

Me: “ But Ammo (uncle), I’m sure you’ll help me out today”. A smile on the outside, a bitter bitter resentment on the inside.

Him: “hmmmm okay, but next time just tell me you want to go there, and not downtown”. He smiles. Never seen an uglier smile in my life.

Me: “okay ammo”.

……………………. what disturbs me the most, you see, is that it’s not like me to be quiet about racism. On normal days, hell breaks loose. But this time, I just don’t know what happened…. I hate that I wasn’t being myself, especially in situations like this.

I know that what I did is NOT the right way. All I could do was use my power over him as a woman who looks “Lebanese” and get him on his taxi rate. That doesn’t solve anything. It’s just not my style of handling things.

I have no idea what got over me, but I should never let racism slip without saying no to it.

I remember someone saying to me once that what makes evil men prosper is all the silent good men out there.

Urrrggghhh…….

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This is Loco .... :-)

2009-07-24T14:08:00.000-07:00

wut duh? :-)

You know when you’re working on your computer and suddenly a thought comes to your mind?

A thought that has been occupying you all week or something? Well …when this happened to me the other day, I opened a new window, went to my inbox and tossed over an email to my sister who lives on the other side of the world.

A total random one line email. Our previous emails had nothing to do with this line or topic or idea or nothing, so she had no possible clues to work with :-)

I write: “hey, my mind is heavy. I can’t stop thinking.”

10 minutes later she emails back. “ I know exactly what you’re thinking about. It’s …” And she says EXACTLY what was on my mind!

huuuuuuuuuuuuh!!??

It’s like you're in a conversation with someone, about something completely off, like farming, and suddenly that person looks you in the eye and tells you your deepest secret! hahahaha lol!! :-) --- so so so so so so sooooooooooooo random!

Like????? :-)

But you know what, it’s cool… :-) I like how my sister rolls ;-P

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Bring me to life

2009-07-22T13:03:00.000-07:00

“I want to learn English so I can talk back to my American boss and tell him what he’s doing is wrong”.

A cigarette burns in his hands, he smokes it, sucks the life out of it with his silent lips. Those lips burning quietly, when so much wants to come out, so much wants to voice itself, so much wants to unleash itself. But. He can’t speak English very well.

He’s been coming to my English classes at the refugee camp each day, a diligent 35 year old Palestinian married man with a five year old child named Mustapha: “ Miss, oh you’ve got to teach me that word again, I think Mustapha knows it!” -- he always thinks of his son when I ask him to come up with new words in class.

The other day, when I said to the class “choose a word from the board and make a sentence from it”, he chose the word – Pain. His sentence was, “pain has been my best friend since childhood”. Good sentence, I say, and I quickly move on before he remembers his pain. Or feels it. Again.

He makes eye contact with me as if to say, “ do you feel what I’m saying?” ….

Ahmad witnessed the war in Lebanon and as a result has a physical disability. He cannot hear well nor pronounce certain words. He works with an United Nations relief agency here in Lebanon, a job he’s been doing diligently for many years after the war. “It’s my way of resisting, I teach Palestinians who were torn from the war to integrate back into society. That’s my little contribution”. He’d say this to me after class while I pack my stuff, and while he lights up that fifth cigarette, sitting on the chair, looking at me.

Me: “Why do you want to tell off your boss?”

Him: “ He asks me to lie. The other day, he asked me to register 12,000 people living in a given refugee camp, when in fact there are 20,000. They don’t want to do more work or provide better service to the people. If they tell the government they have less than what’s really there, the government won’t ask them to meet the demand of 20,000 people – but only for the 12,000”.

Me: “You told me earlier you want to tell your war story. Why do you want to say it in English? Just say it in Arabic, you’ll never be able to say it in English”.

Him: “How could you say that! You don’t know me, I can!”

Me: “I didn’t mean it that way. Your experience in life is 100 times better and wiser than mine, even if I’m your teacher. I just meant your war story is so much deeper than any English you can learn in a month or even a year”.

Him: “ I want to learn the language of the age, so I can speak”.

……… I feel sorrow for my student. It’s as if he’s waiting to come to life. He truly believes that this won’t happen until he learns English. Then tells his war story. Then dies. As his English teacher, I feel paralyzed because he can’t master the level of English he needs to tell a paragraph of his story, let alone all his memories of the war. And he won’t bulge, won’t change his mind.

When he asks me to teach him English, it’s as if he’s saying: “Bring me to life. Wake me up inside, so I can tell my story to the world before I die” …..

I remember someone telling me, "if you kill one muslim, it is like killing the entire ummah, and if you revive one muslim, it is like reviving all of humanity"....

Oh Allah swt, please show me the way to help ... ameen.

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Angel

2009-07-18T11:22:00.000-07:00

Goodbye angel.

Goodbye Ammo (“uncle”. Respectable way to address an older man in Arab communities).

The taxi driver is gone, old man talks to me all the way about Islam, the shiite and sunni differences and how we’re all one ummah, should never be divided. I enjoy his talk and I listen to it carefully. Some taxi drivers here in Beirut take my full attention when they talk during the ride, as if wisdom is speaking to me, while others take my deaf ear, especially the nosy ones with nonsense in mind.

But with this driver, my attentive face must have touched him in some good way like doves touch the spirit of dead souls … because, you see, with a face full of pride he says goodbye angel to me, then drops me off with a smile on his face like he was in the presence of something immaculate … Ah, if only I was immaculate, old man…

I’ve been coming to the beach on alternate weekends, though I’ve missed a couple. I’ve been working and volunteering like crazy to the point that I crash like a baby on weekends. Even my folks on both ends - Tripoli and the refugee camps - have been wondering where my crazy self has been lately. In bed. I promise, I keep saying to them :-)

The women-only resort was full as always. Brilliant blue jewels blanket the surface of the beach while the sun shines like yellow pearls over the water. The breeze is warm, the air soothing like a mother’s touch. A beautiful portrait. As always. This time I go straight to the indoor room where we keep our belongings in lockers to prevent theft at the beach. I put my stuff on the table and ask the lady for a key.

While searching for my wallet in my purse I somehow look up and I see a woman over there standing on the side wearing her prayer outfit. She's here to swim and duhr prayer time came in. She has a big plastic bag stretched in front of her. She was getting ready for prayer. Now. Stop with me for a minute.

Remember with me: this is not Canada or North America where the norm (generally) would be a line of women huddling up for prayer when duhr or Asr or whatever prayer comes in while they’re swimming either at a reserved pool area, or, at a privately owned pool that belongs to someone they know (in my experience, there are no womens-only beaches in North America).

In Beirut, things are different. First, see all those women, they’re not all Muslim. Some just come here to the resort for a change. On other weekends they go to mixed beaches. Other women are non –practicing Muslims who don’t pray. These are the majority here, unfortunately. And other women are like me – unfortunately, each time I come to swim, I pray duhr with Asr when I get back home.

And. There I was. I stood there watching that woman who brought her prayer outfit and was gearing up to pray. She saw me look at her. My face must have had a “thinking” look on it, or something, but whatever it was the woman did not like it. She must have thought that I was looking at her in disapproval. She is probably used to that --- because like I said, most women here who do not practice Islam (but are Muslims) not only do not practice, but they look down upon the ones who do. I'm speaking of what I sensed here.

Therefore, this woman must have thought I was one of them, looking at her in disapproval. Little did she know that in my mind I was saying, “is she praying? Oh my, is it duhr already? I didn’t hear the azan, oh man she’s so great I want to pray too. I wonder if she’ll let me borrow her praying outfit after she’s done…”

I was just about to utter the words out of my mouth and ask her if I can borrow her prayer outfit, when she finally “had enough of my staring” I think … because she picked up her stuff and walked away. Looking a bit frustrated. She did not pray. Must have gone to do so elsewhere.

All this happened so fast. As if in a split second. In a moment she was gone and there I was standing.

“Locker number 11”.

Excuse me?

“You can put your items in locker number 11 but make sure to pick up your stuff before 6pm”.

Thank you...

…. The woman who was going to pray does not know me, and I’ll probably never see her again. Little does she know that she’s changed something in me. She reminded me that I like praying on time, let alone doing it because Islam says so. From now onwards, inshAllah, it is my intention to pray duhr on time at the resort when I go to swim.

That old taxi driver, he saw angels in my face. But I saw angels in her.

Angel, thank you for reminding me.

.

Refugee

2009-07-13T08:11:00.000-07:00

Salams All :)

I was advised to copy and paste the entire text here. Usually I go for short and sweet but I'll try something new*

Click Ain El Helwe for background information on the place.

____________

Ein El Helwe Camp -- 2009
Refugee

“I’ll be wearing a red shirt. That’s how you’ll know me”. It was around 1pm under the sizzling sun in Saida (Tyr) home to my family from my father’s side. Inside Saida is a refugee camp known for being most notorious and over-populated. It is walled with a concrete fence that separates the camp from the rest of town. Only Palestinians live inside, and only they are allowed to walk in and out of the camp that has security blocks at every entrance.

The camp is about a two hour bus ride from Beirut. The bus station in Saida was crowded with taxi drivers hustling to get the passengers away from the buses, and vice versa. I didn’t expect to see so many shops and buildings in the town of Saida – it’s been hit so many times during the war. But I figured I’ll see the difference in the camp itself when I get there, it holds about 70,000 people, my aunt later tells me, and you can go around the entire place in less than half an hour. Crowded. That’s the picture.

I sat on the side of the road just inside the bus loop waiting to spot a young girl in a red shirt. This would be the first time in my life that I’d see my aunt and her family of seven children, the ones living with her. She has another four living abroad.

Sitting. My head down. Exhausted from the ride. I lift my head up. My eyes hit the eyes of a woman, old, heavy, veiled, dark-skinned, her eyes searching. I had a feeling. I locked my eyes on hers so she had no choice but to look at me. Then I say, “aunty Bahija?” She looks like her. She looks like my sitti (grandmother). Almost a photocopy of her. My aunt smiled and came over to hug me. Yasmine, her daughter with the red shirt, followed from afar as she was in the middle of sending me a text message to say they’ve arrived. She didn’t need to do that anymore. The contact was made.

What do you say, really, when you meet family-strangers? What’s the procedure when you meet family for the first time?

In this awkwardness mixed with a high level of comfort as if sitting with the past, with my sitti and daddy, like being at home but not really, me and aunty and Yasmine sat in the taxi that drove us from the bus station to the refugee camp, about a 12 minute ride. Quickly, our conversation moved from random stuff like, “you look like our side of the family” or “Saida is not what I imagined it to be” -- to succinct directions from my aunt on how to enter the refugee camp gate. I did not have my permit with me that day, my aunt knew this so she was devising a way to get me in there un-noticed by the guard at the gate.

“Hold my arm and walk close to me while Yasmine walks behind you. If he asks, we’ll say you’re my daughter and you’ve forgotten your permit today”. Luckily, the guard never asked and we walked straight in. I looked up, from the un-paved, broken, dirt filled ground of the street so narrow it barely fit one person. Up above were the buildings, low roofs, peeled decaying walls, cable wires cut in half and hanging from poles, puddles of muddy water in potholes everywhere, a lingering smell from drainage, and on the side there, yeah, over there is a little girl, happy, eyes smiling, in a messy dress, playing with a group of children. Over ahead of us is a group of teenage boys, shirtless soaking in the sun as they watch pedestrians walk past them.

We turn so many corners. Like rats in a maze. This is the second Palestinian refugee camp I’ve been to in Lebanon and the feeling is the same: how on earth do people know how to get around in these camps? No cross-sections, no borders, no end or beginning of something, a street, definitely no street name, and for land marks, well, to my untrained eye, every house looked just about the same, and so does the unpaved rough muddy dirt filled narrow walkways, sometimes called a street.

I could easily get lost in one of these ‘houses’ in a refugee camp, not because it’s big, at all, but because of its architecture. But that’s another story.

While we walk, and while I take in my surroundings, my ears want to notice the way my aunt talks. Heavy Palestinian (we’re from Acre, originally in Palestine) dialect with a deep mature tone that’s soft yet tough, has speed yet is easy to follow. Not without effort to speak, she’s old, heavy and with high blood pressure. All together like music to my ears.

We enter a narrow decaying old beige door. We face an open space. On the right hand side is the neighbor’s “house”, and on the left is my aunt’s house. A shared space to the point that when the neighbor washes his car (which he uses as a taxi in Saida outside the camp) my aunt’s house gets soaked. No wonder there’s so much humidity in the house, Or is it from the other neighbor, on the other side who washes and drains her laundry just above my aunt’s dining room walls, from the outside, so the walls soak up all the water?

In anycase, I walk in. First, I get introduced to my cousin Nada, then Abir, then Ibrahim, then Miriam. Finally, Ali. Maysoon wasn’t’ there. And then I hugged the two little girls. No. Wait. They’re the neighbor’s kids. See, my aunt leaves the main door of the house open for air to come in, which means just about anyone might be in her face at anytime. Consequently, she never leaves her hijab. It’s either in her pocket, in the kitchen, at the main door, or even, check this, tucked neatly in her pants under her abayah. Or (giggles) tucked in her bra.

Which obviously means I couldn’t take off my hijab either the entire time for the same reasons, but also because of her sons, who don’t work or go to school. Including Ali, who is a 30 year old adult unlike the rest. Ali had spent eight years in the gulf, Kuwait. He worked as a camera-man for special events. After eight years, his Syrian boss fires him. He’s now back to his parent’s house. Not working. Not married to the girl he was engaged to in Kuwait, and not with money which he spent in Kuwait. For a young man in the prime of his life, I wish him better things and a better life. But given that he only has the Palestinian ID, he cannot work much in Lebanon, and not much in places in the Middle East. He’s thinking of going to the Unites States – to his other sister, Hanan, the pride of the family. I’ll tell you about her later.

We talked so much me and the girls that by the time it was late afternoon/evening, I had sweat about a gallon worth of my bodily liquids. From the heat. The house, lower ground, is made of a small sitting-room cleaned up for guests. It has a small door. Open it and you’ll be in the T.V room which has a T.V, two floor mattresses for sitting and a huge wall-to-wall closet for storage. My aunt has the master key to the main cabinet that holds such things a shampoo, soap, biscuits, other condiments and of course, her purse with money. She opened that closet about 10 times a day in order to send little Ibrahim to buy her things from the corner store. First it was some rice. Then oil. Then watermelon for me. Then ice-cream for me. Then cheese for me. To go with the watermelon. Then Mulukiyyah (spinach) for me. Aunty fed me all day long. And Ibrahim kept going to that store all day long. With bribes of course, of a dollar per trip which came out of my aunt with tons of guilt trips to little Ibrahim, such as, “ wouldn’t you rather get my blessings as your mother than that dollar?” To which Ibrahim answers, “No”. That day he gathered all his bribe-money and went to the beach.

Next to the dining room, on the side, is a small entrance-opening. Walk through it and you’re in the kitchen. A table, a fridge, a stove, a sink. Look up and up above the stove is a big whole/space in the wall covered with curtains. It’s a storage space. Look down from there to the side next to the stove and you’ll see the bathroom. Toilet, sink and an opening inside the wall that’s uncovered. It’s the shower.

To go upstairs, you need to step outside the house. Yes. The girls have to put on their hijab each time because they are literally outside. Then, you walk a bit and there’s a staircase that leads to an upper level above the ground level house. Those are the bedrooms. A door, decaying beige one, insert the keys to get in. Once inside, I’m confused. Yes. I still get confused on how to get around such a small space, too. For example, the girl’s bedroom is separated from the corridor with curtains. The other bedroom has no door, it’s on the right hand side. Inside that bedroom is another door to another bedroom where aunty supposedly sleeps. Come out of all this, step back and you’re inside a T.V room (yes, lots of TVs in my family) and if you sit and look out the window, no, if you stick your arm out, you can touch the neighbor’s wall. Not the Taxi-driving neighbor, but the other one.

I told the girls I’d need directions just to walk around the house, so small with two levels to it and two entrances and an outside staircase.

We laughed. I knew before I came that it’ll be a new scene for me. One that would require my camera for photos and video recording. But I decided not to bring it with me. Not the first time. Not to my family. I didn’t want to use them like they were an interesting subject/site/scene for my camera or for my studies or even for my blog. Let the human experience the human – leave the cameras for later. Atleast after I’ve soaked it all in and especially after getting their permission. I could sense that my aunt wants to be interviewed by me about life in the camps. I sensed this when I talked to her about my studies and my journalism and how I am seeking to work with a local Palestinian researcher/journalist in Saida on interviews. Turns out she knows the man I’m talking about, he’s been her neighbor in the camps for many years and she admires his journalistic work.

Small world. But what’s better is that my own aunt who lived in the refugee camp for over fifteen years, who gave birth to most of her children in the camp, considers herself removed from the ‘true’ authentic Palestinian experience, as in those “true” ones who witnessed all the wars in there, all the deaths, the internal strife, division betweed Palestinian groups, those who ‘sold out’ and helped enemies, those who killed, those who survived and fought for their freedom. The mothers who gave their sons up for the cause, or those who died trying. My aunt witnessed only one war and she lived for many years abroad. For this reason, she feels it’s important to tell not only her story, but also the stories of the older generation of Palestinians who she knows, heard their stories. She wants, I feel, to honor them (especially those who passed away) by telling her story in comparison or contrast to theirs in order to deliver the larger picture, the diverse experiences in the camp of her generation, the older ones, and even, in forecast, the stories that her children might have.

I’ve always wondered about those reporters who come to the camps and take a few pictures, do a couple of interviews with translators, and then go back to report as if experts all of a sudden, on the Palestinian situation. I get mad at something like this. I will run interviews and I will take pictures. And I will never call myself an expert on the situation. My own aunt who lived here for 15 years hesitates to call herself a “true” Palestinian because she hasn’t experienced all of it. What gives me the right, or anybody from the outside, to pretend we know it all, to know such a complex life and place just by taking a few pictures? There is a market for the question of Palestine, but we’ll talk about that later.

Part Two

I’ve always known that my father’s sisters aren’t big fans of my mother. I know this in a superficial way, kind of like knowing the name of a person, but not knowing much about that person himself or herself. To me, I’ve always known that the ladies aren’t best friends. Period. But I still brought the topic up with aunt. We were in the kitchen where she was feeding me, of course, and we talked about how we’ve lost contact of each other for so many years. Then, suddenly, my aunt says what can be translated as, “may Allah swt forgive your mother”. I quickly say to her, “ we have to talk about this, your relationship with mom”.

My aunt smiles and moves on to wash the dishes, somehow changing the subject. And over two days, each time my mother comes up in a conversation, either my aunt has no reaction, or she shows a face that is obviously suppressing reaction. She’d answer or react in a passionless way, like we were talking about taxes.

Vice versa is also true. When I later called my mother from my apartment to tell her about my weekend, her reactions were also very similar, passionless. I imagine that if by some miracle, the two ladies were to open up to me about their past and their relationship with one another, I bet I’d hear lots of criticism, blame, unforgiven pain, unhealed wounds, maybe even hate. And somewhere in there was my father.

I was praying duhr in the living room at my aunt’s house, then I look up and on the shelf were some pictures. One of them was that of my father looking at the camera, posing with his regular glasses on, his wristwatch that he wore all the time, standing there at the sea-side with the Mediterranean sea behind him with some ships at the dock. He was around 50 years old, dark skinned from all the hot climate countries he’s been to all his life, now sporting that famous thick mustache he always had, and his smile, of course. My aunt and Yasmine were in the room with me when I was praying. When I finished and looked up, Yasmine pointed me to the pictures on the shelf to show me the rest of her brothers and sisters on graduation day, but my eye caught my dad’s picture.

Yasmine was saying, “And this is my brother Ahmad who graduated from university. And this is my sister and me and my … “. “Is that my dad?” I ask. “Yes, it is” says Yasmine who continues “and that’s my other sister over here on her graduation from highschool and … “. “ That’s my dad” I say, almost in trance like talking to myself, eyes nailed on him. Yasmine stops talking, she’s silent now, and so is my aunt. I just saw a picture of my dad not in some photo album in Canada, not in any other country but on the shelf in Ein El Helwe refugee camp on Palestinian territory in Lebanon inside his sister’s house.

But like I said, my mother and this side of the family weren’t best friends and this means that that loveless marriage between my parents which terrifies me so much, has deeper roots that just two people with uncommon interests. I’ve sensed this before but I never knew how to think about it.

What could possibly dry up a marriage especially after five kids and so many years? It must be forces large and outside the immediate family. Or atleast such things contribute to it all. It’s all one big circle of influence, especially because my father was the eldest in his family and was connected to them in many ways but mostly out of responsibility. And also, my mother always identified with her family as in defined herself year after year and many miles away from Lebanon, always in relation to her family.

Therefore, I come from a disconnected family. Immediate and extended. And now I realize and acknowledge that it could only be this way. And I could have only feared a loveless marriage. And it stems from many points of emotional disconnections that happened over many years and for various reasons between my parents, who tried hard for their kids to keep it normal. But now I see they could have never won the fight. But only dance to its rhythm until the end of their time. I know when I marry, I will always fear a loveless marriage. I also know it all depends on my other half, and the kind of history he will bring with him, the “chemicals” so to speak that will mix with mine. And if the chemicals don’t spark, at least now I know how to think about it all. And if the chemicals do spark, I know I’ll take the extra mile to maintain it.

.

FYI

2009-07-09T03:55:00.000-07:00

AA Quest,

I hope all is well, Insha' Allah. Could you kindly inform your readers of the second Muslim singles event scheduled for Saturday, August 15, 2009 at masjid SALAM in Sacramento, California. Our first event was quite successful with 80 brothers and sisters in attendance. To register, go to the following website:

http://www.salamcenter.org

For the Facebookers out there, please check out the FB page that we created for the event:

http://www.facebook.com/events.php?ref=sb&__a=1#/event.php?eid=110233708040

JAK,

A Brother in Islam

Marriage fears -- yeah. I got some

2009-07-05T23:36:00.000-07:00

I’ve been thinking of marriage-things lately and this always returns me to my parents. Let’s face it: if we want to be responsible adults, we better start facing our fears about marriage smack in the eyes as cold as that might be. I want to have a good answer to this. Better now than later …

What terrifies me to the bone chilling bottom of my spine is a loveless marriage. (There. I said it. Oh look I’m still alive) At times, I think single life is ten times more merciful than one of these babies. I honor, love and cherish the ground that my parents walk on – and at the same time, I don’t want to repeat some of their mistakes.

It is not easy to confess to myself that I grew up with parents who in my perception did not love each other. I do believe that they started out with love, I think it always starts there somewhere in that land of emotional sparks and fantasy of a perfect prince or princess. But then reality hits, and for my parents, we came into the world, all four of my siblings and myself. We looked at mummy and daddy and there they were …

In my eyes, if you had to ask me while growing up what is mummy and daddy, or what is marriage, I’d tell you it’s two people living in one place, and they seem to have children around them. I wouldn’t tell you, even now, at this older age, that it’s love/compassion and mercy between two people (at least not from my experience or memories while growing up) as is written in our beloved Qur’an and indicated in our sunnah.

As a child, I saw my parents each one of them separately as loving, compassionate and merciful people like no others I’ve seen in my life. But together, the chemicals just did not … spark.

I hear you, but I don’t agree. Love-mercy is not the same thing as compromise-submission. It is not a solution to switch the two concepts, because the end result is emotional suicide. It is honorable, no doubt, to stay in a loveless marriage for the sake of the children especially if they’re a hefty number like five, as we were.

But simply put, a scene of a family led by parents who compromise and submit to their loveless marriage in order to live, is one thing – and a family where the parents love each other is another scene.

This is not about right or wrong, it is not about good or bad, not about evil and right --- it’s simply about scenarios, and I’m talking about the one that scares me the most. I’m talking about the one that I know. And it horrifies me…

Those two, my parents, I remember like it was yesterday, they would radiate happiness when they were separate. When daddy took me to his gatherings… wow, that king, when he walked in the room everyone would stand up so he can go around and shake their hands. Man had a presence like Napoleon walked in the room.

And his eyes would shine with bliss as he led the conversation that night, while taking a quick peak from the corner of his eyes at his little girl to see if she was watching. Girls love their daddies, don’t they …

On other days, mummy would take me along with her to her friends’ house. Boy I’d never see her smile like that at home….mummy got jokes! Who knew. Beautiful woman she is, she would sit with her friends sipping coffee and she’d crack a joke here, tell a story there, cross her legs on her seat like she was Shahrazad telling her tale not to the king, but to her friends …. She’d shine with happiness.

When they came together at home, mummy and daddy did not hate each other. But little girl always wondered where her other mummy and daddy went, the other ones she’d see elsewhere not in her home. Kids. They have an emotional intelligence far exceeding that of adults. And they see things. Feel things. Don’t have the words to articulate it all, but they know.

I am an adult today. Thinking of this thing called marriage. May Allah swt shower His mercy and grace upon my two parents who have raised me with honor and commitment. To them, I am most indebted. And to return their favor, it is my duty to learn from them, especially from their mistakes, and to make my choices as a free woman.

Wow. I feel sssssssssssssssssso much better now that I have an answer to this. I feel ten pounds lighter baby. I love blogging. Okay. Your turn people. :-) --

.

The Power Of

2009-06-20T14:05:00.000-07:00

This writing came to life after I observed Pablo Picasso's painting titled " The Blue Guitar".

________________________________

I must have been 18. maybe 17. On a school field trip to the local museum. Or maybe in an art book in an art class. The blue guitar was the name of the painting. By Pablo Picasso el hombre mas incredibile en el mundo te digo pero la guitara con el hombre, si, los dos … Fuerza incredibile. But the force of the painting stopped me then and it stopped me now much older in life, supposedly more carved with the claws of life but the feeling.

That feeling. Was the same. Ever wonder why there are things out there that make you stop? Like moments. People. A breeze. A voice. A thought. A vision on the street. Why do we stop?

The power of.

They say in each and every one of us lies the seed of history. Pablo was a human being like each and every one of us with a dream to be an artist. But things got rough and this artist paints The Blue Guitar right after a close friend commits suicide. Four years. Four years he spent in grief – they call them the blue years.

What feelings moved that paint brush? What force of true, pure gush of sincerity. And the seed of history in Pablo sprouted like a blue rose out of his blood into his veins moving the tip of his fingers holding the paint brush stroking the canvas in blue and blue and blue. Because you see. Yes. You see.

You see the canvas and the man with his guitar. And you stop. And you don’t know what power is this that makes you, an ordinary human being walking by, to stop. Gripped by something. You don’t know what. In that painting. The power of.

In this way, Pablo Picasso becomes a man of history, because now, before, and forever his art speaks to the hearts of people for ages and ages to come. Can you, tell me, yes, in my ear….whisper to me…. can you do the same?

Men of history. People of history. They must have been just like you and me, who, suddenly, found themselves in blue. Blue years of grief. Like our Prophet. Yes. Him. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Need we number the grief he’s gone through?

I fear that I live life and feel sorrow, but not all of my sorrow. and love, but not all of my love. Then I have not lived.

.

..............???

2009-06-15T14:39:00.000-07:00

Can I ask a question? How do I let a non-muslim guy know I'm not interested, when I see he has feelings for me? It's not me.

It's my muslim friend. For real. But one thing we have in common is that we both put on a crazy mean attitude on like the kid in the picture, yeah, you see him, kinda like that :-)... so in the end the man runs so fast like he was in a nike commercial!

But come on. There's got to be a more civilized way. me and her just don't know it. Any ideas? ... :-)

And pweeeeez don't give me the "let's just be friends" thing cuz oh boy. that don't work if you put an energizer battery in it and slapped it hard on the back! But yeah...

.

ahahaha !!!! :-)

2009-06-06T15:33:00.000-07:00

boys still holla around here, and I think I've had built up anger and frustration about it for a while now but like. so I thought I was kinda sucking it up and letting it roll past me but I guess I was wrong -- :-) -- today while I'm walking some guy goes, what translates from Arabic to english as, " you so damn beautiful".

and like out of the blue i turn around, put on this mad lion grrrr face and bark out: "No I'm not beautiful!!!!!!!!!!" lol! hahahahha :-) so the guy shrinks in his place and he's like "okay".

hahahha :-) I can't stop laughing, his face, i can't forget hahahhaha :-)

.

Her Bum Was Showing

2009-06-05T18:20:00.001-07:00

It is with great pleasure that I think back to my sistaz. All beautiful covered head to toe hijab beauty queens like no other the world has seen before. I love you girls and let me tell you why.

I have a Muslim friend here in the mid east. She is not a practicing Muslim. Now I’ve been, and still continue to be a firm believer that I should never judge anybody for the way they live their lives, and I certainly will not tell them what to do, or how to embrace their faith. I’ve always been trained, as well, to believe that I should include all Muslims, from all walks of life, into mine, and to ask Allah (swt) to guide them to the right path in the way that He sees fit, for only He knows best what lies in the hearts and intentions of his followers.

Good. Now. Let’s see. Where were we. Oh yes, my non-practicing Muslim friend. So the other day she says, “hey, all faculty get into the university private beach from free so let’s go lady!” I was like okay, why not. That stack of papers to mark ain’t goin nowhere, might as well take it with me and mark in the company of beautiful blue sea.

When I stepped out of my apartment, I looked like this: baggy black pants, the ones I usually wear for work-out, long-sleeved shirt with a long T-Shirt on top, black socks, running shoes, purple hijab, a watch, an ipod, a small back-pack and a folder full of papers to mark.

My friend met me at the beach. Now. Ladies. I must say. This is the first time in my entire adult life that I’ve actually been this close in one place to a self-identified Muslim woman, who is my friend, who I accept into my life the way she is, the one I tolerate and absorb and include and embrace and and and and. The one I think of as part of the Muslim world. The one I think of as my sister in Islam by faith.

Well. This is the first time I’ve been this close in one place and see one in a tiny insy winsy little bikini that barely covers her butt or her upper thighs, let alone her chest area. This was. A real. True. Bikini!

Yeah. It’s one thing to see her at work, in the cafeteria, on the street, downtown, at the supermarket or anywhere else. Usually dressed normal. Not too revealing. Not too covered. Moderate.

It’s another thing to see her at THE BEACH. Now before I continue, I want you, veiled sisters in particular, to think of all the Muslim veiled women friends you have, especially the ones you think like oh she’s got attitude, or like she’s a bit of a snob, or she’s too annoying, or she stinks, or she talks too fast, or she’s dumb, or she’s too strict, or she’s too loose, or she’s too traditional, or she’s too attached to culture in a silly way, or she’s too blah, or she’s this or that or whatevah ...

…I want you to go to that veiled beautiful young woman. And kiss her. Yes. I kid you not. Hug and kiss her four times on the cheek and then tell her Quest loves you. And then tell her that you love her, and you realize how much Allah (swt) loves you for bringing her into your life.

Now. I continue. When I communicated to my friend that she’s almost naked, she says, basically, that she’s like this, and she thinks I am “constraining myself’ by being veiled. As much as I am a firm believer in diplomacy and love to all my Muslim sisters, I have now learned an important lesson in life. Not all sisters fit in my heart, my trust, my pure honest friendship. Sisters come in degrees. Of separation :-)

With this one, I learned, and decided, to always show her, nice and gently, that we can never be best friends, or true ‘sisters’ even if we agree on many other things. Complexity in friendships can be paralyzing if we don’t know what we can handle, and what we simply cannot and will not accept.

I will not cut my friend off, because I love many things about her, but I will always show her that I’m careful around her, so if she’s looking for a best-friend or a really close friend, I’m basically telling her you won’t find that with me. And when I look for a best friend it won’t be her. That’s the idea.

I will always voice my disagreement with things she does – such as wear a bikini cut for a four year old!

I will keep her distant, see her less than often, push her into further degrees of separation in the grid of sisterhood or friendship in my life. Again, complexity in friendships can be paralyzing if we don’t know what we can handle, and what we simply cannot and will not accept.

In the meantime, I’m looking for new friends!

.

Dinner

2009-06-05T15:06:00.000-07:00

Italian Marxists who are newspaper correspondents in Jerusalem, who have an adopted Palestinian child.

Womens Rights activist who works at the Lebanese-Italian embassy and films documentaries on oral story-telling by women in the Palestinian camps.

A Lebanese-American linguistics specialist who seems unhappy about having a Lebanese passport or citizenship. Obama lover, though.

A Jordanian NGO worker.

And my host: the person who invited me over to this dinner gathering tonight where I met all these people. He is a professor at the university who specializes in the Palestinian immigration problem.

There you have it. Lebanon. Life. Here. Is. Beautiful.

But elections are coming up, and the question of the night, among many others, was: Will Hizbollah win?

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Why

2009-06-04T05:38:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was an open mic poetry reading. A bunch of professors, teachers, instructors, poets, writers, artists, students too, come together at a cafe to read their creative writing.

An hour before this, I took something from this blog. I read it to one of my friends. Performed it. The one titled "Perfect Strangers - part six". I did the "little kid voice" and then the adult narrator. It kinda sounds like I'm acting.

So my friend really liked it. She said I should read it at the open mic.

We went. She read her stuff then asked me to read mine. I didn't .... I didn't read it. I don't know why ... could it be that I'm shy? afraid? maybe I'm not comfortable talking about personal stuff to a pack of strangers .... but then, you guys are strangers reading my stuff :-) ... not that I have a problem with that at all. On the contrary, I feel close to you guys even though I don't know you ...

A colleague who was there told me, "maybe you weren't feeling it. Don't be harsh on yourself".... it's weird... and I thought I liked attention :-).... why did I not pick up that mic? ...blah....

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Still up in Stars: On Teaching

2009-06-01T08:19:00.000-07:00

Like falling in true love. I imagine.

Allah (swt) puts us in paths to train us for our destiny. So when that heart beats. And beats. And beats. I know I'm on the right track.

At the end of the term, I asked the students to write a small reflective journal. "What did you learn this term?" -- was the question they had to answer.

One kid called me an optimistic leader. But that wasn't what got my heart racing like I was in love.

This did. A journal entry by one of the students who is french-educated, so he struggled in english when we first started the term.

And I didn't make this up, by the way, in case you're wondering. And. I can't prove that what I say is true but the beat of my heart racing as I read each line infront of my eyes which one day, for sure, will be asked in front of Allah (swt) to witness each word I say.

PS: I did proofread the piece for grammar mistakes. Sorry. I am annoying like that. Ask my students :-)

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"What did I learn this term" -- English 102/Final Portfolio

I am supposed to say in this essay what I have learned during this semester, and what I was able to achieve in this course. Typically, one would simply start by emphasizing on how much this course hepled him and pushed him to 'love' English. But I am going to be one of the honest people, and say what I truly believe.

I have learned from this course how much it has benefited me in my academic and non-academic life to take this course. And what I personally think of my professor.

I have never liked English class. I never took it seriously because I thought that I was actually too good to even take one in the first place. But in my defense, I was in a French education school which forced on us a "French teacher to teach us English". Imagine the irony in that!

I personally wasn't the best student and didn't have the best of grades. But I can affirm to you that I surely spoke better English than my own teacher!

She might have been better in the writing part but definately not in the oral part.

But it all changed when I got into AUB or even when I started to take my SAT. I had realized the lack of knowledge that I had in the English language. And this lack is what got me to take english 102 in the first place. But I don't hate this, because I actually got to see what it means to study English, and found it to be amazing.

I found it amazing to write an essay like this one or even a simple free-writing, I actually liked this in our class because in the French system I was forced to write about specific boring stuff in a certain way that I wasn't allowed to say what I truly beleive in the way I am doing right now.

This is what pushed me to get more interested in this course, the space that a student gets in writing.

And to a few words about the teacher. Well to be honest this is my first real English teacher, at least the first to actually speak the language correctly. But I am sure she is one of the best, due to a specific charisma and noticeable love for the material she teaches, shown by the hard work put in the choice of the texts we study.

But also the hope that she gives to a student like the stories she says from her personal experience as a teacher who at first missed the basics of English ( as she said to us), but then had to retake them in school and university to become who she is today.

That shows us that anyone, even someone without a very strong basis in English like me, can actually become something one day, if he decides to do so.

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Girlz. We be Stars

2009-05-30T10:48:00.000-07:00

Must admit. I loved it. Wrote it up in my other Canada2beirut blog a while back but you know me. Gotta come with it here too. Sorry if it’s not completely related to what I say here. But. We’ll see meaning in it, nuh? We be good like that...

End of semester came. It’s the last class for first year English at University. They’re doing presentations. I’m sitting in the back listening. Taking notes. Thinking of possible grades to give.

Kids are good. Topic was on representations of Arab youth in middle eastern music. Got a whole range of artists in the presentations, all the way from French-Lebanese rap to Palestinian music from the occupied territories, to old Syrian classics.

One after the other. They got better.

But they were done. Had few minutes left so I went up there and I said “well, it’s over folks. Been a pleasure. I can’t thank you enough for such an amazing experience, and I’ve felt very welcome with you guys as this was my first semester in the country … “

They said thank you back. It ends there. No? no. It came.

Applause. Loud. Louder. Louder. Louder. Louder! With wooohooos and table stomping. On and on and on. Boy oh boy. Can’t express the feeling. You get. When. You hear an applause from the heart baby. From the heart.

That meant the whole world to me and everything in it. Maybe I like to be a star. On stage. Up in class. Performing in front of those eyes. Receiving people’s validation. Confirmation. Applause.

Maybe I’m cut like that. To survive on their love and growth and bonding.

Dunno. But if I die tonight, I die one happy girl. Who. Maybe. Loves being a star in her classroom.

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