Category: Islam

Here’s a blog from a few days back, before we got the phone line.

Blogging Today: An Exercise in Futility

By Sensei Incensed

Well, our phone line still doesn’t work, but at least we now know what the problem is. See, this whole time we’ve just been calling the PTCL (Pakistan Tele-Communications Limited) people and politely asking that the phone line be fixed. Apparently that’s not the way to do things.

My father has been calling the in-charge, and asking for over a week that the line be fixed. The in-charge said yes, of course, right away. I’ll do it right now. And of course he hasn’t. My father has been calling (from his office) him every day since then, and today my father called and said, “Sadaqat (actually name of actual loser) you’ve promised to fix my phone line every day for the last five days, why hasn’t it been fixed yet?”

In response to this question, Mr.Sadaqat told my father to piss off. Why? Because nothing was going to get done unless his palm was greased first. And still nothing will be done because my dad is not going to bribe the slime-ball.

:::gnashes teeth, tears at garments, pours dust on one’s own head out of angst:::

GRRRRRR! I am SO mad right now, first of all, because some loser had the nerve to tell my father to piss off. That’s completely uncalled-for, my father is an exceedingly polite man, even when he’s angry. My father has the right to be treated with as much respect as he treats other people. Everyone does.

Secondly, I am cheesed that bribery is so common here. I know, I already wrote a blog a while ago about how everyone keeps demanding to be bribed. Well, nothing has changed since then, it’s just infuriating that people are so shameless about it, like it’s their God-given right to take advantage of you. A friend of the family sent their son to study here at an Islamic university, and we were trying to help him get his paper-work and admissions taken care of. For some reason, the admissions office would not give him the letter of acceptance that he needed to get his student visa, they were withholding it but would not give a valid reason why. (I would know, I called them every day for a week!) Finally, some of his other friends went down to the university to see in person what the problem could be. It turns out that there was one thing missing, money. They paid the bribe that the clerk at the admissions office was demanding without telling him. (Eventually he found out.)

This same brother faced the same kinds of obstacles at every step, each obstacle causing him a few days delay, each few days eating away at the deadline for admissions. After a week, he was so fed up with the corruption he found in what was supposed to be an ISLAMIC university that he actually packed his bags and went home again. And I must say, his impression of Pakistan (it was his first time here) has been irremediably scarred. He has an uncle who lives here, who unfortunately shares the same opinion, that all Pakistanis are corrupt Rashi (bribe-takers) and cheaters. Since he was a foreigner, every Pakistani that dealt with him did their best to double and triple their prices for half of their services.

It’s a sad truth that this is very common, and it makes me depressed when I ask my foreign students (out of formality) what they think of Pakistan. They all say the same thing (thinking that I’m just American) that the country is beautiful, and the people are all cheaters. The only that I can say in defense of Pakistan is, “Well, not all the people are cheaters, maybe just eighty percent…” Then I give them the names and addresses of the pitifully few shops here that do not cheat foreigners.

All of my students have been Muslims. True, they’re Muslims from places like Turkey (where Islam is watered-down to say that least) and former Soviet-Bloc countries where Islam was illegal for decades, but even they can say that Islamically, something is wrong here. Not a single one of them prays regularly, and all but one drinks, but every single one of them has told me that their own secular gov’ts back home are doing ten times a better job at running things than this ‘Islamic Republic,’ and in their view, this is a potent argument for why secularism is a perfectly acceptable philosophy and Islam is a perfectly useless one. (See how much good your silly Islam does you?)

Of course, I explain that the problems in Pakistan are due, not to terrorism or sectarianism or anything that a secular government would prevent against (in theory), they’re due to the fact that we’re ignoring our own religion. We’re not practicing ENOUGH Islam. We need more, not less. And we also need a healthy dose of education, literacy, accountability and maybe a little helping of bloody revolution. Yeah, Sensei sounds mad, but she really has it in for those gov’t officials who take themselves and their families to Hajj every year on ZAKAT money when there are still people here in Pakistan who starve to death and children who die because they were too poor to afford medical treatment.

-sigh-

I know that every culture has its own favorite vice so it’s not like I’m saying that Pakistan stinks while the rest of the world smells of roses. This is just so depressing because it’s a prime example of how not enough Taqwa (God-consciousness) can ruin a whole society. If Sadaqat D. Loser had one ounce of fear of Divine Retribution (or the tiniest hope of Divine Reward) he would rather die than be a hard-core rashi, especially since bribery and corruption are such HUGE sins in Islam.

-double sigh-

Aaak. See, I’m typing this blog and I don’t even know how soon it can be posted. Who are we supposed to ask to fix the phone when the area in-charge (Sadaqat D. Loser) himself flatly and rudely refused to do anything until we bribed him?

Well, chances are, if I post this blog, it’ll be because I printed it out at home and have typed it up at the internet café. If that is the case, I’m glad this one’s a long one because I have no idea when I’ll be getting the phone line and y’all be getting an update. AllahuAalim.

I’m going to go rage against the machine now. And I’m taking Aniraz’s slingshot.

I don’t often wish I were a boy. Alhamdulillah, I’m usually quite happy with my lot in life, but today was an exception. Here’s why. My father was on the phone with a family friend, we’ll call him Uncle Jee. Uncle Jee was telling us about his son. Uncle Jee’s son was having a tough time, he was depressed and upset and generally displeased with life and work, and one day he disappears. Walks out of the front door and isn’t heard from. No one knows where he is and they start to get worried. A few days pass. Finally Uncle Jee gets a phone call.

It’s from his son. His son is in Saudi. He’s run away to Umrah, he’s doing fine and he’ll be home in a month. Thankyou, goodbye, KhudaHafiz.

Wow man, I wish I could just up and zip off to Umrah whenever I was feeling low. But I can’t You can’t just up and zip off and leave the country without telling anyone, if you disappear for five minutes by yourself they assume you’re dead, or worse. But I’m not going to complain about always traveling with someone else, because it’s supremely stupid and unnecessarily risky for a young woman to travel alone. And that’s why we should all be boys. The end.

Whoops, wrong conclusion. Anyway. I’m happy for Uncle Jee’s son. He’s home again and feeling rather refreshed. Ha ha, boy is he lucky that he works for his father, if he disappeared on anyone else he would come home and find himself unemployed.

Late-breaking news. We regret to inform you that Umrah has been postponed. We do not, however, regret that is has been rescheduled for RAMADAN!! Oh yeah man…zillions more blessings InshaAllah, InshaAllah. We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.

I was reminded again today of how very little people know about Islam. One of my students, an eleven-year old girl asked me today, “Do you HAVE to wear a scarf?”

I said, “I don’t HAVE to, I choose to. I like it! What, you don’t like my scarf?”

And she said, “If you don’t wear it they’ll cut off your hair right?”

At this point I have two questions. The first one being: They who? Who will cut off my hair? And the second being: Where did an eleven year old hear such weirdness? From her parents? From a book? From a made-for-TV movie about them damn Moozlim terrorists?

I didn’t ask her where she heard it. I just laughed and tried to explain hijab to her as best I could, but you know, modesty is a complicated issue, and it’s hard to talk about it without mentioning the rape, immorality, and desensitization to nudity that modesty deters. I can’t talk to her about these things, her parents will fire me for teaching her potty-words!

So instead we talked about how weird it is when she wears shorts and people stare at her (we’re in Pakistan, knees are a novelty). “Yeah,” she said, “Boys are gross.”

So, we came to the conclusion that boys are gross. Okay. Good job Sensei.

Anyone have any bright ideas for explaining hijab to kids? I don’t seem to be doing too well…

I am pleased to report that there are no birds in the laundry today, or on top of the bookshelf. Let’s see them peck their way through duct tape! Ha! Oh yeah, and one new pic on the fotolog.

-ahem-

I am now going to make Aniraz mad at me by complaining about something that I probably shouldn’t discuss on my blog. Too bad. Aniraz is taking a nap and I’ve been left to my own devices.

So today I was at a tea-party when a friend of mine (she’s too old to be called baaji and too well-groomed to be called aunty) walks up to me and says hi. Then she launches into the typical aunty-interrogation, albeit in a more tactful way than most. How old are you. And your sister? You’re not the younger one? Really! Are you working. Did you get your degree here or in the US. What are you plans for the future, do they include marriage. I know a religious family in London looking for a hijabi…etc etc.

Here’s the part where I start complaining.

Why can’t there be any religious families in my part of the world? Why London? I don’t want to go to London! I just left the non-Muslim world, I’m not about to go back. And where are all the religious families in Pakistan? Why do I have to turn to the non-Muslim world to find practicing Muslims? Is it because in a kafir society there is almost no middle ground? Faced with such opposition to Islam, you either take it entirely or leave it entirely, and the ones who take it entirely are the ones so hard-pressed for hijabis that they look for them back in the home country. (Gallup poll: Nine out of ten Muslim women in the US do not practice any form of hijab.-CNN Abez Observation: The ones that do are usually lifers.)

Or maybe the practicing guys aren’t just abroad, maybe there are practicing Muslims here who just have such an easy time finding hijabis that they don’t even bothering looking very hard. Everyone knows at least five or six here, so I think the situation here is that we have a surplus of hijabis who are looking for nice Muslim guys.

You know, for a Muslim country, Pakistan is kinda short on nice Muslim guys. There are lots of culturally Muslim guys, but apparently not many who make Islam a conscious and practiced way of life, who consider faith a logical choice instead of a cultural obligation. Maybe that just isn’t Pakistan though, maybe this is how it is all over the world. Lots of people never do any independent thinking about their faith. Some of them go with the flow of whatever river they’re swimming in. If it’s the river of a Muslim country, they’ll go to Juma when everyone else does and they’ll practice whatever modesty everyone else does. If they suddenly change rivers/countries/communities, they change their directions accordingly. (When in Rome…) Do I know of a Muslim named George? Yes I know of a Muslim named George. You know why he changed his name? So his girlfriend’s father wouldn’t think his daughter was living with a terrorist…

And I know it isn’t just the guys. I know the brothers probably have the same complaints about the sisters. Ten years ago it was shocking to see a grown woman in no sleeves. We, as a Pakistani society, were collectively appalled. Now it’s normal to see even old ladies wearing sheer shirts with sleeveless undershirts. They might as well be wearing no sleeves, but we, the same community, don’t consider it immodest anymore. The rules of Islam haven’t changed, but the river has started flowing in a different direction, and we’re just floating. I think the phrase in Urdu is ‘darya ki pujaray’, worshippers of the river. This is compared to worshippers of God.

Same with shorts. Grown men are wearing shorts here. Short ones. Last I checked, though there were some differences about whether a man’s awrah included the knee or only extended until the knee (a minor point), there was a consensus about thighs. Thighs are most definitely awrah. Nobody’s thighs are supposed to be on public display, but men here wear shorts that do exactly that and more, especially when they sit down. (You know what my grandmother always said? If you can’t sit like a lady, then don’t wear a skirt.) This is culturally ok though.

But like I said, this probably isn’t just in Pakistan. River-worship is an international cult. It has followers from different faiths, people of all sorts who hold popular opinion to be the final word on what’s acceptable. (Low-riding jeans? Who cares! It’s in fashion! Your son’s a homosexual? No problem, our civilization has moved beyond such distinctions. Yay aaj kal kiya jaraha hay)

Hmmph.

You know what I’m looking for? A rock. A big ole rock sitting in the middle of the river, letting the waves pass over them but not budge them a single inch. A person whose moral/ethical position is solid no matter which way the river is flowing. Someone whose belief is founded on faith, whose faith is founded on logic, whose logic cannot be swayed by mere force of popular opinion.

Who knew rocks were such a rarity?

I usually don’t vent on my blog but now seems as good a time as any. Besides, if I wait to blog any longer I may set a record of some sort. I try not to let more than two days go by without typing something, anything (quantity over quality, that’s me) so here I go.

English Night is tomorrow, and I have stuff to do. I’ve been so stressed lately that I’ve neglected my extracurricular teacherly duties and NOTHING is ready for English Night yet. (English Night= ESL students, Scrabble, Games, Munchies, Good Clean Fun) I haven’t bought or made prizes, I haven’t typed any madlibs, I haven’t put the stuff together for any of the games. I got on the computer to start my English Night stuff and you know what? I ended up typing this instead.

My mom is going back to the states for an unspecified period of time, minimum of eighteen months. We have some family issues that need to be settled back home and we don’t even know how long she’ll be gone for. Stinks. She doesn’t even want to go, but stuff has to be taken care of. Have I been ambiguous enough? Good. The point is, I’m gonna miss my mommy so bad (it already hurts) and I have too much to do and too much pressure on me to do it.

The longest period of time I was away from my parents was six months, when my sister and I lived in Karachi. That was torture. You can’t tear half your heart out and fly it across the globe and expect it not to hurt. I know some people wouldn’t care if they lived apart from their families, but our family is really close. Both of my parents stopped being my parents a long time and became good friends instead.

Aside from the stress and pressure of having my mother leave in a week, I’m also having my annual mid-life crisis. Is it annual? Maybe it’s bi or tri-annual. That’s where I want seriously, desperately to quit my job and do something useful for a change. Like go back to writing as a full time job, or do something in Islamic media. Problem is (and Bushra can relate to this) that there IS no thriving Islamic media in Pakistan. That leaves me teaching English and sulking. I feel like I’m wasting my life, one monotonous day at a time.

I know life has a point, I just don’t think mine does. What do I do all day? I wake up in the morning and I go and teach English. I come home. The End. Between work and home there are video games, reading, marginal house cleaning, mainly wholesale time wastage. I feel like I’m just biding my time, waiting for something important to happen, for something to change, but what?

I’m not making any positive difference in the world, or even myself. Iman-wise, I’m just scraping the bottom of the barrel. Not trying to excel or evolve, just trying to get by. And I waste all my brain power on teaching English (as compared to Islam or logic) and I waste all my time on trying not to die of ennui. It’s shameful that I should complain about this though, because ennui is a luxury. If I was poor, I couldn’t afford it. I have a good-paying job, Alhamdulillah, I shouldn’t complain about that either. And even though I’m fighting myself every day to keep going to work, I’ve still taken a new student. I think I just forgot to say no. I forgot that I wanted to quit for the two seconds it took to say yes. Stupid of me. I can’t be a very good teacher when I don’t even feel like teaching, can I. I’m hoping that this new student cancels at the last minute, or that something comes up, or just…something so I don’t have to go teach.

If I was smarter, I’d take a vacation from all my students, go down to Karachi for a few weeks and relax. But I’m not smart, and I have to wait until Rajab until I get to go to Umrah and find the spiritual vacation/sanctuary/reset button that I’m so badly in need of. Till then, I’m just going to go to bed and mope.

I went to a tea party today and had an interesting conversation about modesty and scarfyism (aka Hijab) and I was reminded of the fact that most people have no idea what’s going on inside of my head. I assume they all know why I wear a scarf, but that’s an error on my part, I suppose. Oh well. Here’s my attempt at rectifying it.

Never, in my entire life, had I imagined I would ever wear a scarf. Being a product of American society, I believed that modesty was oppression and man’s attempt to safe-guard his chattel, viz- his women, from those who would seek to steal them. It turns out that my idea was just slightly off, that modesty is not man’s attempt at safeguarding his chattel, it is woman’s attempt to safeguard her sexuality and humanity both.

So why do women’s sexuality and humanity need protecting, because we women are weak? No, because our society is weak. And what we are protecting ourselves against? Many things, but two major ones are:

1. The misuse of the power of human sexuality.

2. The dehumanization (and subsequent abuse!) of women through the overemphasis of sexual attributes.

Sexuality has power, really? Yes, really. Advertisers know it makes the marketing world go round, and they use sex-appeal to sell everything from shampoo to shoes. The power of sexuality has become a tool used for manipulation, but this is not what God gave us sexuality for.

Ideally, the human sexual experience is a private and passionate bond, a consummation of love and devotion. Though it is not the sole component of love, it is certainly a primary ingredient, and when enjoyed within the boundaries of marriage, it is even considered a meritorious act in Islam.

Currently, however, the human sexual experience has been stripped down to an animal act. It is no longer beautiful or special, it is fast, cheap, and largely free. It comes with no strings attached, in other words, no prerequisites of devotion or love. It cheapness and availability have turned it into a marketable product, and instead of selling products, advertisers are often selling sex and presenting their products as the appropriate accessories.

Hundreds of times a day, millions of times a year, women are made to display what would normally be private sexual behavior on camera to sell, to entertain, to cheapen the power of their sexuality to such an extent that it is meaningless. The sexy woman turns and gives an alluring look to the camera. (an alluring look, which under normal circumstances, would be reserved only for the man she would be sharing her life and bed with) She blinks and smiles meaningfully, her moist lips parting over perfect teeth. (an intimate gestured reduced to the cheapness of a marketing tactic) She stares longingly at the camera, and therefore at you, and eventually sips her cola. Drink Coke.

We’ve saturated the market to such an extent that we don’t think anything of a woman’s smile anymore. Here, women on billboards and magazines smile all the time and we don’t think anything of it. And yet, in more conservative cultures, a woman’s smile is still beautiful. It seems strange doesn’t it, that the smile of a woman would be a gentle and comforting gesture, a rare and precious gift.

Everyone believes in modesty in some form or another. Some people believe it starts at the calves, because legs are attractive, and they won’t wear anything shorter than that. Some people believe it starts at the elbows, because arms are attractive, so they won’t wear sleeveless dresses. Muslims believe that modesty starts at the wrist, ankles, and face, because all of the woman is attractive. We also believe that modesty is a state of behavior and mind as well as a choice of wardrobe. I’m sure many people agree that a woman in hijab who still flirts outrageously is outside the boundaries of modesty, so I don’t think I need to explain why modesty in behavior is inseparable from modesty in dress.

Not behaving in an overtly sexual manner in public, on screen or off screen, is part of behavioral modesty, and distancing ourselves from immodesty (on TV, in films, in music videos, etc) is part of keeping our actions consistent with our beliefs. To take enjoyment from watching other people do what we believe is wrong smacks of hypocrisy, does it not?

I know I’ve wandered a bit off topic, but this all ties into why I wear a scarf, why I won’t chill with guys, why I don’t watch tv or movies, why I won’t watch women sell themselves in music videos or listen to the songs from these videos either. (You wouldn’t watch a totally anti-Islamic video, therefore you wouldn’t buy the soundtrack either, would you?) There are other reasons for why I don’t listen to haram music, but that’s another blog.

Well, now that I’ve aired some of my brains in public, I’ve opened myself up to feedback. Some of it will be criticism I suppose, from people who maintain that man is more civilized then he was in ancient times, so it’s not like we need modesty to protect women anymore. Yeah, right.

Humor me. Let’s count to thirteen.

1…

2…

3…

4…

5…

6…

7…

8…

9…

10…

11…

12…

13…

Statistically speaking, a woman is raped every thirteen seconds in the US. How can this be happening if man is supposed to be more civilized now than he was before? Because society’s sexuality is out of control right now. We’ve got sex being broadcasted at us on TV, sung about on the radio, actually done on the big screen. Man is not more civilized than he was before, he’s LESS, and because he‘s always got the engine running, he tends to behave badly. Rape and prostitution have and will always exist in society because biologically, historically, inevitably, man is a sexually-oriented animal (I mean mankind, I’m not a femi-nazi) and there will always be a need for preventative measures (modesty) to keep sexuality in its proper place (the bedroom) and under control. Khallas.

Anything good or correct I have said is from the blessings and grace of Allah, and anything bad or incorrect is from myself or Shaitan. I seek refuge in Allah and ask His forgiveness. May He has mercy on all of us.

Randomness to the nth degree.

The Caliph and the delusional man

A certain man claimed to be God and was brought before the Caliph, who said to him, “Last year someone here claimed to be a prophet and he was put to death!”

The man replied, “It was well that you did so, for I did not send him.” (9th century joke)

_________

Oh…I’m too sleepy to type a real blog. Here, have something useful instead. Here is short list of verses from the Qur’an and some Hadith about war and conflict.

“Fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you, but begin not the hostilities. Lo! Allah loves not the aggressors.” The Holy Qur’an, 2:190

“And if they incline to peace, incline you also to it, and trust in Allah. Lo! He is the Hearer, the Knower.” The Holy Qur’an, 8:61

“The Messenger of Allah forbade killing of women and children” -Narrated by Abdullah bin Omar– Bukhari and Muslim.

“And slay not the life which Allah has forbidden save with right justification. Whoso is slain wrongfully, We have given power to his heir, but let him not commit excess in slaying! Lo! He will not be helped.” The Holy Qur’an 17:33

“For that cause We decreed for the Children of Israel that whosoever kills a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind, and whoso saves the life of one, it shall be as though he had saved the life of all mankind….” The Holy Qur’an 5:32

“As for the Abode of the Hereafter (Paradise) We assign it to those who seek not oppression in the earth, nor yet corruption. The sequel is for those who fear Allah (those who ward off evil.)” The Holy Qur’an, 33:69

“And let not the hatred of others make you avoid justice. Be just: that is nearer to piety…” The Holy Qur’an 5:8

_____________

Wait, I did have something that I wanted to mention. I haven’t been able to get on to the Bloggin Muslimz forum but I think the topic of discussion is making our blogs more Islamic or dawa-fied. Here’s my two cents. I propose that we make a list of websites that address issues we feel should be addressed, like the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the situation in Kashmir, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, etc, as well as some good Dawah sites like www.islam-guide.com, and we make big snazzy-looking buttons for them (and pass around the buttons and the html for them freely).

I was thinking of like ten neat-looking buttons that we can all put on our sites (on the side, maybe underneath the tag boards) that will always be there to point people towards the issues we feel need addressed. Just a suggestion. I am really sorry that I don’t have the technical skillz to do this myself though, I can’t even change my own tag board. 🙁

Well, whaddaya guys think?

____

Ok, I’ve just had cup of coffee number four and I’m feeling a little more alert (zingzingzing). Learned something new today. Apparently one common Turkish wedding custom involves having the bride step on the groom’s toes surreptitiously (or vice versa). During the signing ceremony, the bride and groom sit next to each other, but in separate chairs. There is also a large table in front of them, so their feet really can’t be seen. At some point after the papers are signed, either the bride or groom will secretly stick their foot out and squash the other’s toes.

Whoever does the toe-squashing first is supposed to be the one in charge for the remainder of their married life. The Iranis do this too. My Irani student was telling me that she was too shy to squish her husband’s toes during the ceremony, so an old aunt grabbed the groom by the leg and practically forced her to stomp on his foot, not just once, but thrice for good measure. The old aunt loved her very much and wanted her to be the one ruling the household.

Well, as usual, my students went off on a tangent and we started discussing various cultural customs. If you’re about to go on a journey, both the Iranis and the Turkish will present you with a bowl of water (and various other things depending on which part of the country you’re from) which they’ll toss out after you when you depart on your journey. I have no idea why. Neither do my students.

The Russians will drink a toast to your health and friendship, and then hurl the empty crystal glass into the fireplace, effectively destroying it. This is supposed to mean that your friendship means more to them than crystal. Sounds expensive to me. I say keep the crystal and get new friends!

Pakistanis (my family included) will hold a groom’s shoes hostage until he pays up a sizeable chunk of cash. This is what the sisters and female cousins of the bride do. The boys surround the groom’s car and blockade him (preventing him from getting home again after the wedding) until he pays up as well.

Do either of these customs have any meaning or significance? No, they’re just extortion, plain and simple. The groom pays through the nose and the money is divvied up between the siblings and cousins of the bride. He he…

I’m beginning to think that maybe Americans are a little weirder than everyone else (just a little) as far as mint is concerned. I was talking to two of my students about spices and cooking and asking them about how their own ethnic cuisines differ from the food they find in Pakistan (this is a great way to make people open their dictionary and find words by the way) and we started talking about spices and herbs. Well, we got to mint, and I mentioned how I loved a strong shot of mint in my coffee. (pow!) Well, apparently this is quite shocking to some people. And from the look I registered on my students’ faces, quite disgusting too. He he. They were appalled with the idea of putting mint in chocolate too.

“The only place that mint belongs,” one of my students said, “Is in toothpaste.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, “But it’s also good in chocolate, in coffee, in milkshakes, in chewing gum…”

-gasp-

They also thought I was nuts for drinking coffee flavored with both chocolate and peppermint simultaneously (with a dollop of halal marshmallow fluff on top!). Today, at class with another one of my students (German) I thought I’d drop a mint into my coffee and see what happened. Well, she was horrified by it too. He he. I enjoy shocking people, ain’t I a stinker? :p I swear, I’m the kind of guy that would show everybody their jar of pickled appendix (if they had let me keep it) whether they wanted to see it or not. I’m just a seven year-old at heart.

Oh yeah, and on the way home from work today I saw another great car sticker. This one said Cat Computer. I wonder what that was supposed to mean. That the guy’s cat is a computer? Or that he computes cats? I guess the world will never know.

Ah yes, and I almost ran over a malang too. In case you’re fortunate enough to not have malangs where you live, allow me to explain. A malang is a ‘holy man,’ despite that fact that there is no valid Islamic basis (or tradition) for these dudes. They never bathe, they wear dozens of tasbihs around their necks, they travel around begging and smoke marijuana to excess and in plain view. Malangs seem to be a direct knock-off of a type of Hindu holy men (sansi?) who do exactly the same things, except they don’t do it in the name of Islam. And as far as I know, they don’t jump out in front of your car and try to hail you down to demand money from you, Allah kay naam say…. (In the name of God…)

Talk about pro-active begging! It’s more like highway robbery. That’s what a malang did to me today, he stepped jauntily out in front of my car with his begging bowl in his hand, signaling me to pull over. Actually, it took me rather by surprise and I nearly turned him into an asphalt waffle. (street pizza, road kill, two-dimensional pedestrian, etc)

The weirdest part is, when I came home and told my mom about it, she told me the same thing happened to her! A malang tried to hail her down too. We compared notes, trying to see if it was the same one. Well, mine was deathly skinny, pretty young looking, wearing beads, with yards and yards of green satin wrapped around his head and trailing around his filthy shirts. All four of them. Oh yeah, and he only had one hand.

Well, my mom’s malang turned out to be a different one. Hers was a big guy, with a mop of exceedingly filthy hair, no green satin, and -ahem- no pants. Well, mine wasn’t wearing pants either. Apparently pants-free highway robbery is a common modus oparendi for malangs. They’re not as common as normal beggars, but they’re a lot more aggressive. Many people will avoid getting on their bad side because they’re supposed to be holy or something. Aniraz sez I should’ve run him over. It would serve him right for not wearing pants in public! Hmmph!

“Oh ye who believe! Turn to Allah in sincere repentance! It may be that our Lord will remit (and clean) you from you evil deeds and bring you into gardens beneath which rivers flow.” -The Holy Qur’an, 28:8

I learned something very interesting yesterday. One of my students was telling us about a man they know who claims to be a faith-healer. The guy takes a piece of aluminum foil, dips it in water, recites a few verses of the Qur’an over it, presses it between his hands…and then it ignites! Poof! Then he places the warm foil over whatever part of the body ails you and you’re supposed to be cured. Luckily, my student did some homework on his own and found out that all it takes is a little chloride in the water and the aluminum foil will catch fire every time.

I find this to be very amazing and disgusting at the same time.

Amazing: Because my student was actually able to track down the trick just by doing a search on the internet. Makes you wonder, is there anything left that isn’t on the internet? My student gets an A+ resourcefulness and diligence!

Disgusting: Because this *&^*R #$@* “faith healer” is making a sham, a joke, a parlor trick out of Islam and the Qur’an and I want to bash his head in for misleading people. See, the great thing about being able to pull off a trick like this is that there is no shortage of poor people here to believe you. Even if you ‘cure’ them for free, that still guarantees a steady stream of cash, gifts, disciples, and maybe even your own shrine.

In the area that we live in, there is a big ‘pir’ here, a ‘saint’. He’s called the ‘Pir of Golra Sharif.’ His father was a ‘pir’ and so was his father before him. His job is to sit around in his shrine and look wise, and periodically do faith-healings and pray for you….for a price. Incidentally, he drives a red Pajero. (Ford Montero SUV I think it’s called…) He’s quite a local celebrity.

My little brother has seen him many times. Last year, there was a disease traveling around all the buffalos in the village in front of our house, and so the villagers consulted the pir about what to do. He gave them instructions, and the next day, in the big cricket field up the road from our house, the villagers had assembled all their buffalos and were waiting for him. They had erected a sort of doorway made from three poles, two up and one laid across, and from the center of it, they had hung a Qur’an.

The Pir arrived, (in his red SUV) walked through the field with the thousands of buffalos and climbed up onto the platform. He then told the villagers to start walking their buffalos through the doorway they had assembled, underneath the hanging Qur’an. While they were doing this, he raised his hands to make dua and said, “OOOOOOOooooooOOOOOOOOO” (buffalo noise)

He was praying for the buffalos in their own language.

I wish I was joking, I really do, but my little brother saw it with his own eyes, heard the ‘saint’ himself, lowing like a buffalo for the entire time. He said he almost died trying not to laugh, and then he wanted to cry. The villagers were deadly-serious about the whole affair. It cost them a lot of money and they pinned their hopes on this pir (as compared to a veterinary doctor) to stop the spread of the disease. Apparently pirs aren’t big on science or anything, so he wouldn’t know that by gathering the buffalos together in one place, he was probably spreading the disease around.

Normally I’m not a violent man, but I would like to beat the holy -ahem- *stuff* out of the Pir and He-Who-Ignites-Aluminum-Foil and all those like him. The Qur’an is not a book of magic, and Islam is not sorcery. It’s a way of life. If you follow the way of life, you will cure your personal evils and save your society from contracting moral and ethical disease. (You’ll also earn bonus points and a palace in Paradise, what a deal!)

The Qur’an is like a prescription that a doctor has written you, not the medicine itself, but just the piece of paper. If you follow through with the prescription, if you do what the prescription says (Salah: Take five of these and call me in the morning) you will be cured. However, if you just take the prescription and read it over and over again (Aspirin! Aspirin! Aspirin!) nothing’s going to happen. The same applies to wearing the prescription around your neck to avert evil or disease, or hanging the prescription from a doorway and stampeding buffalos beneath it.

Astaghfirullah!

I had a whole different blog typed for today, but when I got on and took a look at my tag board, I decided to write something else instead. There are a few bizarre things happening on tag board right that I would like to address:

“… let us have a Muslim Dating Service, if am not mistaken, it was your (Aniraz’s) idea. and please don’t say these things are messing the world already. the more freedom we have, the more wonderful it will become. everybody wants that, including fundus and non-fundus…”

Aniraz washes her hands of the idea. It was intended as a joke, and most people understood it because it was such an outrageous suggestion that our fellows FUNdus reading it went, Ha ha ha, Yuk. And then it was over. Muslims would never take it seriously. However, since this is an international blog (what with the internet being the world-wide-web and all) I have some people who visit that aren’t part of my circle of FUNdus. I will therefore explain why dating is so nasty.



1. The biggest reason of all is, and always will be, cuz ISLAM SEZ SO! There are veritable volumes of material available in Islamic tradition and scripture that tell us that fornication is wrong wrong wrong. I’m not going to put them all here because it would be very, very long. If you’re a Muslim reading this, you know what I’m talking about. If you’re not a Muslim, email me and I‘ll give you the verses if you’re interested in reading them.

2. Dating is degrading to the sanctity of human sexuality and relations. Once upon a time, a physical relationship was an extremely private and extremely sacred thing. You guarded your chastity and modesty for your whole life, waiting for someone who was worth spending the rest of your life with, and when you found that someone, you pledged yourself to them and only them. Neither husband nor wife would ever had touched anyone else, neither of them were used or damaged goods when they married. The phrase, ‘Only you,’ had more meaning back then. If you said it, it was like, “Only you darling, from the day I was born until the day I die.” Now it’s more like, “Only you darling, for now, until I find someone else.”



3. What are we talking about? Dirty underwear? Like a physical relationship, underwear is an intimate, one-person-only thing, and once you’ve worn it once, it’s not fit for someone else to wear. You just can’t wear anyone else’s underwear! That’s disgusting, and that’s what dating turns everyone into- a pair of dirty underwear. You, poor guy, wander around trying to find a good wife, you find one, but somehow you’re supposed to be ok with the fact that she’s already used and your not the only guy she’s been with.

On the other hand, for the girls trying to get married, you search desperately for the man of you dreams and give yourself a nervous breakdown trying to please him because you know that if you don’t give him what he wants, he can go and get it from any other woman.

4. Dating makes humans disposable and relationships cheap. So cheap, in fact, that some people have called it a legalized form of prostitution. Dinner + Movie = Relations. In many cases, date-rape occurs when the guys feels cheated after giving the girl dinner and a movie, so he takes what he feels she owed him.

Now I know people are gonna jump down my throat and tell me that not all dates end in either sex or rape. Yes, thank you, I know that. But you cannot deny that a predominantly large number of them end up at that point eventually, sex more often than rape. You could find a practicing Jain Nun in America before you found a person over the age of legal consent who still had their virginity. (No insult to Jainism, it’s just not very common)

Dating is what happens when the system goes out of control. Here’s what the system is supposed to be like: Boy notices girl and likes her. If he likes her SO much that he wants to marry her, he asks her. She can say yes on the spot (which is rare and a bit impetuous anyway) or she can say, hold on, I’d like to get to know you in a better and yet completely halal way. So then they meet for lunch with one of her Mahram, or exchange letters that are open for parties on both sides to read. Then you sez, gee, that’s lame, they don’t get any privacy! Then I sez: they’re not married. You can determine whether or not someone is a nice/marriage-worthy person without having to inspect them privately, ok?

The traits you look for in a good spouse- kindness, honesty, intelligence, similar religious inclinations, can be discovered without necking first. In fact, chances are you’d be more objective about choosing a spouse if you weren’t lusting over them so badly that your logic was warped. Therefore, privacy is counter-productive to making an intelligent and well-informed choice.

There’s nothing wrong with seeing a person for the purpose of knowing them better to decide if you want to marry them, so long as you DON’T VIOLATE ANY OF THE ISLAMIC RULES! No being alone together, no touching, no flirting, no risque anything. Get it? Got it? Good.

And now my second spiel: Freedom is not an ultimate good. What if everyone had the freedom to kill everyone that they wanted to? Well, would it still be considered murder, or would it be ok because it was done in the name of freedom? What about if everyone had the freedom to take whatever they wanted to? Would we still call that theft or rape, or would it be ok because it was done in the name of freedom?

Some people think that freedom means doing whatever you feel like doing. That doesn’t sound like freedom to me, that sounds like a recipe for disaster: what if people suddenly cried out for the freedom of watching child pornography, the way that some people are doing in the US right now? What if they demanded the freedom for incest?

They’re already demanding the freedom to take whatever drugs they want, they’ve got the freedom to drink alcohol and then go crashing into other cars, killing innocent people. They’ve got the freedom to sleep around with whoever they want despite the fact that it’s turning AIDS, STD’s and single-parent children into a national epidemic. None of this is real freedom. It’s anarchy.

The same applies to pre-marital relations and fornication. I don’t care whether you do it in the name of freedom or love or whatever warm-and fuzzy crap people believe in, it’s still called fornication!

We FUNdus are not waiting for someone to liberate us from our Islamic ‘Religious Imprisonment‘ (ha!). People say that we follow it only because we are forced to, but that’s because they can’t imagine anyone taking this path of their own volition, that’s because they have no understanding of Islam. I don’t need anyone to free me, I don’t need to date, and I certainly don’t want to be used or abused by a whole series of opportunistic losers before I find someone worth marrying.

I am not public domain.

Today, as my mother, Aniraz, and I drove through town, running our various errands, we achieved something of monumental and insidious potential: we distributed dozens of flies from our neighborhood to other parts of Islamabad, shooing a few out here and there every time we were able to stop at an intersection and swat at them with a handkerchief. See, this morning my mother left the car windows open for an hour or two before it was time to go, and that was sufficient time for a hundred or so flies to climb in and sit down. They must’ve thought they were hitching a ride.

We tried to shoo them all out before we left (at least those who didn’t have tickets, anyway) but flies are remarkably clever when it comes to hiding, so we drove away with dozens of them still in our car. We shooed a few out here, a few out there, and as I was swatting one of our home-flies out of the window in a downtown area, it occurred to me that spreading flies all over the city was a relatively easy and perfectly untraceable way of doing something really devious, if only we had something devious to do. I told my mother this, and she said, What, you want to spread some diseases?

No, I said, that would be horrible. I would rather infect the flies with something like common sense. Can flies carry common sense, I thought? No, I concluded, as one of them tried to fly into my eye.

How about SARS? my mom said.

SARS? I gasped, that would be horrible! Why would I want to spread SARS!

Not that SARS, she said, but Splendid Acute Religiousness Syndrome. We decided that we could give the flies a contagious Religiousness Syndrome and spread them throughout the city like we were doing now. I could just see it now: the city is struck with a sudden outbreak of Taqwa/God-consciousness. Fewer traffic lights are broken, crime hits an all-time low, instead of face-masks, people start wearing hijabs and kufis. A famous model is infected and the media struggles to deal with her sudden inclination towards modesty and charity. A hundred corrupt Pakistani politicians suddenly repent of going to Umrah on the Zakat fund and resign from their jobs. All the provinces start sharing water equally and no more nomads in the Cholistan Desert region die of thirst just so fat old bureaucrats in Islamabad can wash their Pajeros.

Rich, grasping phonies pretending to be saints would stop misleading ignorant people in their shrines. Villagers would stop making marijuana pakoras. Pakistani elite would dramatically smash their liquor bottles in the streets to end the double-standard, the hypocrisy, and the unregulated substance abuse. People might start spending money to help each other, the 2 million Afghani refugees in Pakistani would get decent water, housing, education and treatment. People would stop using the old skin-color caste-system and skin-bleaching cream sales would decline to null.

People would have so much Taqwa, that their daily decisions would be based on a humble and sincere effort to please Allah and to follow Islam to the best of their abilities, and since Islam forbids drinking alcohol, selling alcohol, or producing alcohol, our communities would be free from DUI damage and deaths. There would never be the need for organizations like MADD, and since the Mother Against Drunk Driving are often women who’ve had their children killed, I’m sure they’d be happy if they never had cause to get together either. We’d have significantly fewer cases of cirrhosis and other alcohol related diseases, and thus fewer income lost towards battling self-inflicted illness. The number of children marred by fetal alcohol syndrome would be zero.

Since Islam forbids using drugs, producing drugs, or selling drugs, society would be free from drug-related illness and crime. No children would be victim to their mother’s crack habit. (If you’ve ever seen a crack-baby, you understand why this was so important.) Families ruined by a parent’s drug habit would be a thing of the past. Like going dry, going drug free saves us from spending money to fight diseases we gave ourselves.

Since Islam forbids pre-marital sex, there would be no AIDS, no STD’s, and no murder of unwanted children. There would be virtually no single-parent homes where children are raised by TV or the streets when their mother is out all day trying to earn a living.

Since Islam enjoins modesty, there’d be virtually no skin cancer, and no pornography (child pornography included) because no one would be willing to take their clothes off in public. Since modesty is a frame of mind as well as a sense of fashion, no one would be willing to look at the pornography even if you managed to import it from somewhere.

Since Islam encourages nobility of conduct and God-consciousness, people would behave even when the cops weren’t around. If the lights went out in New York, and all New Yorkers were Muslims with Taqwa, none of the stores would be looted and no women would find themselves groped or assaulted by otherwise normal men under the cover of darkness. This would be because people would fear Divine wrath ten times more than state-prosecution.

God-consciousness is also a deterrent to:

· Sexual Harassment

· Cruelty to Animals

· Exploitation of employees

· Rape

· Theft

· Lying

· Injustice

· Oppression

· Gossip

· Pre-marital sex, and therefore, STD’s, sexually-transmitted AIDS and abortion.

· Tainting court evidence

· Bearing false witness

· Adultery

· Child abuse

· Forgery

· Murder

· Hate-Crime

· Robbery

· Credit card fraud and theft

· Hijacking planes

· Indiscriminate warfare and bombing

· Genocide

· Child Pornography

· Domestic Violence

· Suicide

· Incest

· Kidnapping

· Bribery

· Promiscuity

· Terrorism

· State-terrorism

· Long list, isn’t it?

· It could be longer.

· I think you get the point.

I know, I dreaming. I’ve yet in invent Splendid Acute Religiousness Syndrome, but hey, at least I have a way of spreading it if I ever do… 🙂

American Christian + Pakistani Muslim = FUNdamentalist Hijabi?

In honor o’ Saint Patty’s day…oops…I mean cuz Yaz asked, here’s wassap with my family. My dad (a Pakistani Muslim) traveled all over the world (as a teacher, then a sailor, then a waiter, then a cook) and ended up in the US where he met my mom, an American Christian. Since they’re both optimists, they married, each thinking they were going to convert the other. And time has passed (as it is wont to do) and surprisingly, my dad’s still Muslim and my mom’s still Christian, and now they‘re both cynics. he he.

My bros and sis and I are all Muslim. If you ask my mom why, she’ll say it’s because my dad forced us. That’s just because she’s sore about being the only Christian in the house. If you ask us why we‘re Muslim, we’ll say it’s because my mother’s church made no sense to us and Islam made all the sense in the world. I went to church as a child more often than I went to the masjid, cuz my dad worked very long, hard hours and we kids were with our mother all the time. I still know more about Christianity than many young Christians do, including the hymns.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord

He is trampling on the vineyards where the grapes of wrath are stored

He has loosed the fateful lightening of his terrible swift sword

His truth is marching on!

Glory, glory hallelujah… (Teacher hit me with a ruler. I hit her on the bean with a rotten tangerine and she won’t do it anymore!…Yikes, who said that?)

And no, my parents are not divorced. The first thing I hear after I tell people about my parents is: so, how long have they been divorced? Which one do you live with? I think this is because the average person cannot fathom how my fundamentalist Christian mother and my practicing Muslim father have stayed married for over 25 years. It takes a lot of patience, and to be quite frank, that advice that I would give people is NEVER MARRY OUTSIDE YOUR FAITH!

Believe me, my parents made it work, but they are the are the only inter-faith marriage I’ve seen succeed, and believe me, I’ve seen a lot of failures. The kids are usually really messed up, especially concerning religion. Come on, who are you to believe when both of your parents tells you that the other one is damned to hell? It’s really confusing, and religion remains of a bone of contention forever. There’s no solution, if the kids go with the father’s religion, the mother gets angry. If the kids go with the mother, the father gets cheesed. And when the parents fight about religion every Friday or Sunday, respectively, the kids get traumatized. I speak from experience. Now you guys know why I’m so weird.

Hmmm, I think this started out as a story and has ended up as an earnest appeal to all the Muslim bros: NEVER MARRY OUTSIDE ISLAM! I’m deadly serious, please don’t do it. There’s a horrible chance that you’ll end up with kids with Muslim names and non-Muslim values, because the mother is always the primary educator. If you care about Islam, invest in a good religious instructor for your kids, viz- their mother!

Now you ask, if an inter-faith marriage is so bad for the kids’ religion then how come you’re a gung-ho Islamic? How did your dad save you? Answer: My dad didn’t save me, my Lord did. I have no one to thank for my faith except God. Not even myself. I had nothing to do with it finding Islam. Islam found me and hit me over the head (with logic, not force) and was like, “You dummy, you know this makes perfect sense, quit avoiding it!” So I was forced to accept some painfully obvious truths and here I am, here we are, all of us sibs Muslim, by the Grace of Allah. (by the skin of our teeth, he he…Astaghfirullah)

(Aniraz is trying juggle again and there are neon balls bouncing dangerously in my direction. Fire in the hole!)

Our house maintains a tense religious cease-fire. I won’t call it peace, because like India and Pakistan, the two religious factions are always trading shots over the border. We take humorous, and sometimes not-so-humorous jabs at each other and sometimes it gets laughs, sometimes it draws blood. (figuratively, not literally, thank God) It’s not the best situation in the world, but Alhamdulillah, we’re dealing with it I ‘spose. But yeah, prayers on behalf of my inter-faith family are always welcome. Boy this has gotten really long. I’ll end it here. Gotta go make a cookie delivery. Peace!

Your Jesmopolitain Cosmoplantery Leader,

Sensei