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  • La hawla wa la quwwata illa billah

    “Whatever of Mercy (i.e. of good), Allah may grant to mankind, none can withhold it, and whatever He may withhold, none can grant it thereafter. And He is the All-Mighty, the All-Wise.” (Qur’an, 35:2)


    The Qur’an states that if God wills something for you, no one can withhold it, and if God chooses to withhold something from you, no one and no thing can grant it.

    It makes sense, no? Without God we don’t even have existence, how then can we pretend to have any power or ability unless it comes from him? We acknowledge that because He is the Source, it is foolish to seek from anywhere else. Creations have no power over the Creator.

    There is no power nor strength except with God, so why then, do we put our faith and our hopes in people and things other than Him? Why do we feel that certain objects will possibly entice (or coerce?) God to grant a prayer that we feel hadn’t been answered so far? If nothing and no one in the world can withhold what Allah chooses to grant you, then why are we waving around holy chapattis and tying black strings around our childrens’ necks?

    That black string, btw, is called a tavees, and people take verses of the Qur’an or write Allah’s name on a piece of paper, sew it into a black piece of cloth (because black is holier than other colors?) and tie it around the necks of their children to protect them from harm. The power of this tavees is apparently stronger than that of God, because is this not a better, more surefire measure than simply asking God to protect your children? I mean, maybe God had intended to let your child get a cold, but then you tied a tavees around the kid’s neck and now God has been enticed/coerced into changing His mind? Astaghfirullah.

    Or hey, maybe you’ve had a bad fiscal year and someone tells you that you need to burn some chili peppers in your house while reciting verses from the Qur’an. So you’ve already been making dua and you feel it’s not working? Chili peppers also have the power to change your fate. God may have been testing you with a tough year, as He said he would, but chili peppers can change that because chili peppers are yet another way of making God reconsider His will. You thought they were just hot? Oh no, they’re also Powerful and Mighty.

    We know it’s wrong to lend divine power to people, it’s easier to say that the dirty man in the green satin has no power to either change or thwart God’s will. But why is it not wrong to try ‘curing’ things with burnt peppers and chapattis? Or a black goat sacrificed in the moonlight on a Friday facing East and reciting Surah Fatiha?

    “If Allah touches you with hurt, there is none can remove it but He; and if He intends any good for you, there is none who can repel His favor which He causes it to reach whomsoever of His slaves He will, and He is the Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.” (Qur’an, 10:117)


    We are all linked to God through our hearts, our thoughts, and our prayers, and there is nothing more direct, more “powerful” than asking Him for help. If you’ve been asking for something you haven’t gotten yet and you feel it’s time to take stronger, holier measures and break out the green peppers, what are you basing your actions on? Do you feel that God owes you something and that perhaps you should take stronger measures so that He grants it? Do we know something that God doesn’t, or are we just hoping to get our way with the Creator?

    “If Allah helps you none can overcome you, and if He forsakes you, who is there, after Him, that can help you. And in Allah (alone) let believers put their trust.” (Qur’an, 3:160)

    We must not let impatience with our trials lead us to the bizarre cultural form of shirk of associating foodstuff with our worship of God. We must also be wary of the shirk of drinks (make a prayer, blow on a glass of water and drink it, your prayer will be answered?), both hot and cold (try with an espresso?) Beware also of associating a certain location in your worship, because there are people who tell you that a prayer at such and such a grave will be answered, guaranteed. What guarantee are they talking about? Whose guarantee is it? The guarantee of the curator of the shrine, whose word supercedes God’s?

    “And whosoever fears Allah and keeps his duty to Him. He will make a way for him to get out (from) every (difficulty), and He will provide him from (sources) he could never imagine.” (Qur’an, 65:2-3)

    There is no power nor might except with God. Beware the outrageous belief that man can, with the power of worldly objects, change God’s mind about what’s been willed for him.

  • What the Muslim world needs is more chapatti

    What the Muslim world needs is more chapatti

    There’s a tv channel called QTV- Qur’an tv- upon which there’s a sort of ‘ask the scholar’ type of program. People call in with their problems and a learned man sitting off-camera advises them. Yesterday’s program was rather interesting.

    Woman caller: I have a problem with my son, he’s not disobedient, but he sleeps all day and he stays up all night. What should I do?

    Moderator: This is a common problem among our youth these days, what do you recommend?

    Learned man: When you wake him up for breakfast, make him a chappati and write ‘Ya Allah’ over it with your finger seven times. Then feed it to him.

    I’m sure there’s a logical reason for this. The logical explanation must be that chapatti has hyper-religious powers that we don’t. Even though Allah states that He is nearer to us than the jugular veins in our own necks, chapatti can bring Him even closer. That’s how to bring your teenager nearer to God, feed him God.

    And if you feel your prayers about your son have been going unanswered, then just address God on a chapatti, because despite the fact that Allah is All-Hearing and All-Knowing and listens to our quietest prayers and hears our secretest thoughts, chapatti is still better at getting His attention than we ever could be.

    Such wonders from a home-made flatbread.

    I wonder what miracles one could work with a jalebi?

    Auzubillah.

  • We now return you to your regularly scheduled apartment

    Well, I’m back home in ze apartment again, sleeping in my own bed and coughing germs onto my very own husband. Ah, the comforts of home. My three-day fever being over, I’ve moved on to tackling my five-day cough. It sounds pretty gross, really, and is not at all the debonair vocalization that one comes to expect from a ladies’ man like myself. *wiggles eyebrows*

    I’m sort of weak and wobbly feeling, and if I was a better sick person I could use this to my advantage. I could delicately wheeze and look yearningly towards the window, meaning I wanted an ice-cream sundae, or I could turn over in bed and sigh, indicating that I wanted a new laptop. The opportunities are endless, but I have failed to avail any of them because my brain is running below standard too, and by the time I come up with really good demands, the opportune little cough or sigh has already passed.

    I’m no good at being sick. I get bored lying in bed and I don’t want “sick person food” (except for my Momma’s chicken soup, which is magically delicious regardless of whether you’re diseased). I want ice cream. I want pizza. I want nachos and chocolate cookies and the stomach sez that if these things taste good, then logically they must be good. And what harm can come of it? Illness is bacterial, or viral, or psychological (hehe) not nutritional, so why can’t “sick person food” be stuff that makes you happy and therefore more energetic and more likely to recover? Does chocolate ice-cream not make one want to get up and dance? If they served more ice-cream in hospitals they would have a lot more dancing patients and therefore a lot less sick people.

    That’s it, isn’t it. Feeding sick people bland food is all a conspiracy by hospitals to keep you sicker for longer, therefore increasing hospital revenue. Trust me, I’ve had hospital food, and it definitely saps your will to carry on. We, the common people, have simply carried the hospital’s ‘wisdom’ into our own lives, not realizing the damage we are causing to ourselves.

    Friends, colleagues, I believe I have made a valid case, and a review of my theory (boring food makes you sad, sadness leads to lethargy and weakness, your weakness gives the germs the upper hand in the battle) proves, without a doubt, that HF should bring home a pint of chocolate ice-cream.

    Stat.

    Thank you.

  • It’s been a long ole while

    What have I been up to lately? Well, at the moment I’m under quarantine. Momma, Owlie and I are ill and keeping each other company with flu germs. HF has gently and tactfully suggested I enjoy the Chateau for as long as I like.. and am infectious, hehe. I suggested he come and visit me, he muttered something about sick people having such unreasonable demands. :p Everyone should keep their distance, actually. Knicq bhai, Mona, BL, back I say! back! The Chateau is a red zone for flu germs and unless you want to lose a week of your life to blown-out tissues and bottles of cough syrup and aspirin, you’ll stay away.

    On top of it all, because I’m, err.. hehe, expecting (InshaAllah, InshaAllah) the meds I can take are quite limited. Acetamenaphen is safe, and so is Robitussin DM, but nothing else that I know of is ok for now. I have to pop in to my Tabiba and ask her what will clear up my nose without hurting my lil Bebe.

    *sappy smile*

    Yeah, we’re expecting a Bebe, a cute little bundle of MashaAllah to be delivered late this March, hopefully via UPS, and InshaAllah healthy and well and naked and pink. 🙂 In the mean time, I’m still sick and I’m going back to bed. I woke up at the unholy hour of 7:30 am when the cough syrup wore off and have been up HTML’ing since. (I fixt my blog, see?) Back to sleep with me.

  • Testing!

    You know, for a while I broke my blog? hehe

  • To a new Muslim and an old friend.

    AssalamuAlaikum Luv!!!

    I would have replied earlier but I’ve been meaning to sit down and really, really reply with all me brains to ye. However, seeing as how I’m never going to have all of something that I never had, heh, I’ll just begin.

    Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah, welcome to Islam luv, and welcome to all the same questions and the confusions and sometimes doubts that we all have. *hugs* Faith is never a surety. If it were, they wouldn’t call it faith, they would call it ‘Duh,’ and the test we’re all taking right now would be rigged. :p

    About the severity of hell: You may not know this, but for every single time that hell is mentioned in the Qur’an, heaven is mentioned. They are referred to in equal numbers, and correspondingly, hell is as awful as heaven is amazing.

    The severity of hell is scary, you’re right, and it may seem harsh because we think ‘who really deserves that?’ We forget a few things though.

    “When God decreed Creation He pledged Himself by writing in His book which is laid down with Him: My mercy prevails over my wrath.” -Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) Hadith Qudsi Number 1.

    First, God promises, He has pledged Himself in fact, that His Mercy will be stronger than His wrath. That said, God, who is the best of Judges, and the knower of everything, knows who really, really deserves Wrath with a capital W. I may be mistaken, and Allah knows best, but a few types of people come to mind. (those who order genocide, murderers of entire nations, warlords, tyrants, mass murderers, unrepentant child molesters, etc.) I’d type out the name of a specific German WWII personality, but only God can judge people.

    Now, because God is the best Judge, you have to trust that no one, absolutely no one will get hell who didn’t deserve it. After all, what reason have you to doubt God’s word? Has He ever lied to us? No. God speaks only the truth, and God says hell is severe but nowhere does He say that people will be treated undeservedly harsh. Alhamdulillah. In fact, many many people will be treated undeservedly gently, and they’ll get into heaven because God’s Mercy prevails over his wrath. Take this Hadith Qudsi (I’ll explain what a Hadith Qudsi is in a sec.)

    “A man from among those who were before you was called to account. Nothing in the way of good was found in him except that he used to have dealings with people, and being well-to-do, he would order his servants to let off the man in straightened circumstances [from repaying a debt.] He (the Prophet) said that Allah said: We are worthier than you of that (generosity) Let him off.”

    Imagine that, a guy who has no good deeds at all, nothing good in him found at all, except that he would forgive poor people who owed him debts. So God released him from his debt of sin. There’s also a hadith that mentions a prostitute who, seeing a thirsty dog standing at a well, fills her slipper full of water and gives it to the dog. For that kindness, God forgave her sins and granted her paradise.

    God makes it ridiculously easy for man to earn blessings, “Allah has written down the good deeds and the bad ones. Then He explained it [by saying that] he who has intended a good deed and has not done it, Allah writes it down with Himself as one full good deed, but if he has intended and done it, Allah writes it down with Himself as from ten good deeds to seven hundred times, or many times over. But, if he has intended a bad deed and has not done it, Allah writes it down as one full good deed, but if he has intended it and done it, Allah writes it down as one bad deed.” -Hadith Qudsi 16

    So here’s the breakdown-

    1. You intend to do something good, you get the full blessings of having done it regardless of whether it gets done.{bonus!}
    2. You actually go through with it, and the deed is written for you as ten good deeds, or seven hundred, or however many times over Allah wants to multiply it for you. {bonus!}

    3. If you intend a bad deed but then change you mind, you actually get a full good deed. {bonus!}
    4. if you intend a bad deed and do it, it counts as just one bad deed. Just one. No multiplying. Allah is overwhelmingly generous in his Mercy, but perfectly Just in his punishment. You’ll be rewarded many times over for doing one nice thing, and only penalized once for doing one bad thing. {fair}

    Even having sinned, God makes being forgiven wonderfully easy. Forgiveness, called Taubah in Arabic, has four steps.

    1. stop the sin
    2. feel sorry
    3. resolve not to do it again
    4. make up for it if possible (if you have stolen, give it back, etc.)

    As long as you sincerely apologize for something, you are forgiven, and it doesn’t matter if you, out of error, fall into the same thing again. God’s forgiveness and mercy are without limit for those who seek them.

    “O son of Adam, so long as you call upon Me and ask of Me, I shall forgive you for what you have done, and I shall not mind.

    O son of Adam, were your sins to reach the clouds of the sky and were you then to ask forgiveness of me, I would forgive you.

    O son of Adam, were you to come to Me with sins nearly as great as the earth and were you then to face Me, ascribing no partner to Me, I would bring you forgiveness nearly as great as it.” [as great as the earth] Hadith Qudsi 34

    Ah yes, a Hadith is a saying of the Prophet, and Qudsi means ‘Sacred,’ and is used to refer to things the Prophet said that God said directly. I highly recommend picking up a copy of 40 Hadith Qudsi. That’s the name of the book, it’s fairly easy to find in any Islamic bookstore, and I know the one in F-8 markaz, right around Szabist university has it. If you can’t find one lemme know and be ten to seven hundred times happy to send you one. 😉

    It’s true, in spite of God’s Mercy, some people will make it to hell. After all, God can only forgive you for the sins you sought forgiveness for. What do you do with a person who dies unrepentant and proud of the hurt they’ve done to other people? If you reward the good then you must punish the bad, such is justice. Even so, consider:

    “There will come out of the Hell-fire he who has said There is no god but Allah, and who has in his heart goodness weighing a barley-corn. then there will come out of the Hell-fire he who has said There is no god but Allah, and who has in his heart goodness weighing a grain of wheat, then there will come out of the Hell-fire he who has said There is no god but Allah, and who has in his heart goodness weighing an atom.” Hadith Qudsi 36

    Note: the word Allah is not a proper name. It is simply God with a capital G in Arabic. What does it take to get out of hell once you’ve fulfilled your term? Faith in God and an atom’s worth of goodness. Alhamdulillah.

    Faith is hard, yeah. It’s hard for all of us luv. Everyone has questions and only God has all the answers. In the mean time, we’re here to help one another and assuage our smaller doubts with the greater certainties: God created us and nurtures us and expects us to be grateful to Him and good to one another.

    The first verse of the Qur’an, Surah Fatiha, is often called ‘The Essence of the Qur’an,’ because it sums everything up so beautifully. All Praise is due to Allah, Lord of the Worlds, the Merciful, the Beneficent, Master of the Day of Judgment. Thee alone do we worship and thee alone do we seek help from. Guide us along the path that is straight; the path of those who have earned your Mercy, not that of those who have earned your wrath and gone astray.

    [Praise is due to God. God, please guide us to righteousness.]

    I know it’s taken me way too long to get back to you. Aniraz told me about your email after I got back from a weekend trip and I was so happy for you darling, and I am, I really am praying for you. I want you to find peace and strength and happiness. I’m here for you, please, ask me any question at all, doesn’t matter, because chances are I’ve had the same ones. It’s taken me years to work things out, but if I can save you the time of having to search for the answers yourself then I can save you trouble that I wish I didn’t have to go through, because those spots of trouble weakened my faith for a while before God helped me through with comfort and answers. (yeah, I’m a bad little infidel.)

    Remember luv, God always hears the prayer of one who calls on Him, and when you call on God, He speaks your name, and if you reach out to Him, He comes to you at speed.*

    Love, Love, Love

    -Zeba

    *I am as My servant thinks I am. I am with him when he makes mention of Me. If he makes mention of Me to himself, I make mention of him to Myself; and if he makes mention of Me in an assembly, I make mention of him in an assemble better than it. And if he draws near to Me an arm’s length, I draw near to him a fathom’s length. And if he comes to Me walking, I go to him at speed. -Hadith Qudsi 15

  • Married Life: A Mighty Battle

    Married Life: A Mighty Battle

    I put an apple into HF‘s lunch this morning. It was dutiful and stayed where I placed it all through breakfast, but just as HF was getting up to go to work, it escaped. I saw it sitting on the dining table, looking guilty but smug for having evaded captivity, and I picked it up and said to HF, “Honey, this apple rolled out of your bag.”

    He said, “That’s ok, it looked better on the table.”

    Silly me, and I had blamed the apple.

    HF doesn’t like fruit. Or excercise. Or peanut butter, all of which are Good For You. Yes, I capitalized Good For You, to emphasize the importance. Fruit is healthy. Excercise is healthy. Peanut butter is just plain yummy. HF is mad I say, maaad!

    And yet, he thinks I’m nuts for not eating mangoes. You know, I actually ate a mango once. There was a piece of it in my fruit salad and I accidentally consumed it. Boy, whoever snuck that in there was a mean and evil person. And I don’t like mutton when it’s on the bone, because it smells funny and I can picture exactly what part of the sheep I’m gnawing on, and I don’t like green chilis in the raw, and any animal product other than skeletal muscle does not make it into my diet. No organ meats, thank you. I have enough spare parts of my own.

    But I digress. I think I may have to make a deal, like maybe if I eat a mango or something HF will excercise for the rest of his life, or maybe if I eat one raw green chili pepper HF will bring me ice cream and then excercise for the rest of his life. Or maybe if I eat all the peanut butter he won’t have to. Yes, I especially like that last one…

    It’s 5:46, do you know where your brain is? I don’t.

  • An Ode

    An Ode

    How shall I update? Let me count the ways.

    I shall update about the man in the white paper hat, a butcher. Oh how he sternly, how resolutely he worked, jaw firmly set, eyes focused straight ahead upon the task at hand, until the side of lamb he was weighing dropped wetly onto the floor and went -splat- Shall I speak of how his face changed, and how he quickly dropped down to pick the skinless lamb up and return it to its place on the meat hook? Shall I mention the hurried glance left, then right, to see if he had been seen? And is it possible to describe the nervous, amusing, lopsided smile he greeted me with when he realized I had been watching him, and laughing? Ah, the grocery store.

    Or shall I update about Litho, the gas station attendant, who knew not what flavors his slurpees were. Truth be told, it was midnight, and in the haze of sleep deprivation and late-night hours, the light blue slurpee looks alot like the dark blue slurpee, and the both of them look like close cousins of the teal slurpee. HF and I asked him what they were. He wasn’t sure. He went into the back to ask someone else and returned without an answer. He looked at the machine. Then he took out three cups and poured an inch of each blue into each of them respectively. He offered them to us. The teal one tasted like lemon-scented handsoap. The light blue one was an unknown, and it tasted like lemon-scented conditioner. The dark blue one tasted like lemon scented blue berries that had been left overnight in the radioactive core of a nuclear power plant, so we ordered one glass with two straws. My tongue was blue for a day and a half.

  • Married Life: This is what happens when you marry yourself

    Married Life: This is what happens when you marry yourself

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    I made HF’s glasses into the bed last week. Really. I tucked them neatly beneath the topsheet and the fitted sheet and then I threw the comforter over top of it all. Then I couldn’t find his glasses, because I hadn’t made them into the bed on purpose. No, because that would be foolish.

    I searched extensively for his glasses before I decided to retrace my steps for that morning.

    (Let’s see, I had your glasses in my hand and then I threw them on to the bed. Then I went into the kitchen, then I came back and made the bed.)

    My poor husband (who at that point, realized that the lumpy bits he had been sitting on were, in fact, his nice glasses) shook his head and sighed. He dug his glasses out of their cozy hiding spot and put them onto his nose.

    It serves him right I say. After all, did he not greet my cool new mandarin shirt with the iffy compliment, “Hey, you look like a Chinese assassin!” And has he not feigned seriousness, taking me quietly to one side of the hallway when there are guests in the living room, only to giggle into my ear and call out, “TROGDOR!” He has. And if, in exchange, I manage to make his glasses into the bed or make him rescue me when I get stuck behind the TV or make him sit through Monty Python skits on the computer late at night, I say he deserves it. This is what happens when weird people get happily married. 🙂

  • New Muslim Burnout: Dealing with bitterness

    New Muslim Burnout: Dealing with bitterness

    I have an article in Muslim Link, and it has typos, hehe.

    I first saw Nicole in December of 2000. She was a Christian then, but very interested in Islam and Muslims- in what we stood for and how we chose to do so. She was full of enthusiasm, eager to learn and willing to read any book. She could be found sitting front and center when any discussion about Islam took place, and she seemed to know more about it than most Muslims our age. That was 2000 and she was 20.

    The last I saw Nicole was August of 2004. She had been Muslim for three years and married to a Lebanese man who divorced her in six months. We were at yet another party, and this time, when an Islamic discussion started in the living room, she took her drink and walked out. That was 2004 and she was bitter.

    Ali converted to Islam when he was fifteen but had learned little beyond those first few months. At twenty he still did not know how to pray. “I started learning,” he once told me, “But then I guess I stopped. At least I’m not Jewish anymore.”

    Nicole and Ali are two examples of what often happen to us new Muslims. We start out on a spiritual high, we resolve to do amazing things with our faith, but we lose enthusiasm like Ali did, or worse yet, we become bitter like Nicole. Ali’s solution was relatively easy compared to Nicole’s, he changed his circle of friends and his location so that he could be around people who strengthened his faith, but what do you do if being around other Muslims only depresses you?… Read the rest…

    For the full article, visit www.muslimlink.ca and download Issue 10, Volume Three. I’m on page two.

  • UAE Internet Service Affected

    UAE Internet Service Affected

    Dubai, UAE- Internet traffic in the UAE is being affected after a submarine cable linking Mumbai and Penang was cut by gargantuan rampaging lobsters with wire cutters yesterday, taking out four of Etisalat’s 19 links.
    E-Company marketing manager Farooq Hasan said broadband customers who use the net for gaming and peer-to-peer applications will be most affected, but failed to mention that I would be unable to check my email.
    An official complaint has been lodged. No indication was given as to when the problem would be rectified, and an international lobster-hunt to apprehend those responsible is currently underway. -AFP (Abezi Fraud Press)
  • Married Life: I am pit crew, hear me roar

    Married Life: I am pit crew, hear me roar

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    So the popular question for everyone who emails me these days is: So, how’s married life? I suppose I should eventually answer the question.

    Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah, I have been blessed. Unlike most weddings in Pakistani culture, mine was not to a complete stranger. It wasn’t even to an acquaintance, it was to a person who became a good friend. That is probably why, when I try to describe things betweenMr. Abez and I, I say being married is like hanging out with a friend. All the time. Except when he’s at work and I’m home cooking and straightening up.

    Yeah, he brings home the bacon and I turn it into pumpkin pies. Does that make me a housewife? It might, but I think there are too many negative connotations associated with that word. I prefer to use a different term. Allow me to explain. A race car has only one driver, but there’s a whole team of guys with power bolt-removers who go zzzummmzummmm and change the car’s tires real fast when the driver has made a pit stop. Could any one of them have driven the car? Probably. Could the driver change his own tires? Sure he could. But when you’re a part of a team, you do what needs done and you support your mateys.

    I am the man in the red jumpsuit. I am pit crew. I could be the driver, I could bring home the bacon and HF could put some biryani masala on it, but at the moment I’m simply not. And besides, his masala bacon is terrible and if he did the cooking we’d all die of grease poisoning. Keep that man away from olive oil, he thinks it’s God’s Answer to the scourge of low-fat foods.

    Do I mind being pit crew? Not at all. Especially since the pit has broadband internet access as well as the freedom to do as pit crew likes. And then there’s the stylish jumpsuit. And the power tools.

    -ahem- I know that some people consider huswifery to be a downgrade, possibly even the waste of an intelligent female. Considering the path to academic over-achievement that I was once on, this may not seem like the fruition of all those ‘you can be something’ speeches that the guidance counselor gave me, and yet, am I not something? I make pit crew what I want it to be. I don’t wake up and drag my feet to the kitchen (I wake up and HF drags my feet to the kitchen for me, hehe) I wake up and think about breakfast creatively. Then I make eggs with too much salt, but I digress.

    I don’t do household chores all day, I have a set agenda of things that need done in order to run a clean, smooth Formula 1 team, and I get them done as soon as possible so that I have time for the other things that are important to me. Do I still not have the time to blog properly? Yes, but that has nothing to do with housework and everything to do with chilling with my favorite race care driver. 🙂

    The mutual give and take of a successful relationship doesn’t end on the emotional level, it extends into the practical. Would ‘I love you’ be worth anything if I refused to make my husband a cup of tea when he was tired, or if he refused to help me when I was tired? I find nothing degrading in supporting the person who supports me. I’m proud to be part of an efficient, enthusiastic team.

    Got to go, HF will be making a pit stop soon and I need to put a radial tire, err, chicken in the oven. It’s the um, fuel for the engine, hehe.

  • The Husband Files: DIY Mango Milkshake

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    My husband has an interesting recipe for mango milkshake.

    Step 1. Ask your wife to make you a mango milkshake.
    Step 2. Look forlorn when your wife won’t make you one.
    Step 2.5 Discover that your wife doesn’t like mangoes.
    Step 3. Pout.
    Step 4. Dolefully accept ingredients from wife for do-it-yourself mango milkshake;

    • milk
    • icecubes
    • sugar
    • two mangoes

    Step 5. Begin combining ingredients. In a wok.

  • Coming soon:

    Is it a sin to be rich?

    For now: It has happened. I have given myself the first mortal wound of my married life. I do not wish to horrify those of you with delicate constitutions with the gory details. Nor do I wish to upset those readers who lack intestinal fortitude. (please, not on the computer chair…) So all I will say is this- There was a hot skillet and a cocky, no-good hash brown that refused to accept its rightful place in the circle of life, and when it took off I had to show it what’s what. I had to chase the sucker down and retrieve it, and being a Suggard does come with occupational hazards, and at some point during the high-speed chase, I invented a new recipe for Seared Abez. Tsssss. So now there’s the pink burn on my forearm of all places, almost into the crook of my elbow, and if you think that’s bad, you should see what I did to the hash brown. mwa. ha. ha. chomp.

    Oh, and I fought the Shogun and nearly lost the tip of my thumb, but the fruit salad does taste meatier for it. The End.

    And here, for the sake of posterity:

    Mortal Wound: TROGDOR!

    Mortal Wound: Sensei Presents

    Mortal Wound: Killing me softly with pineapple

    Mortal Wound: Oven-roasted Knuckles

    Mortal Wound: GONGGG!

    Mortal Wound: ZAP!

    Mortal Wound: Waxing your thumbs: pros and cons

    Mortal Wound: Carrot upside-down cake

    Mortal Wound: Crackers on the rebound

    Mortal Wound: Death By Exasperation

    Mortal Wound: The Mortal Wound Medley

  • Suggardh with a capital Sugg

    Photobucket

    Being a sensitive technical procedure, pancake production can be adversely affected by multiple factors- the size of the pan, the size of the burner beneath the pan, the type of the spatula, and the qualification of the pancake engineer. It is therefore necessary to generate a few pre-meal proto-types- a few little ones to account for such factors as well as fine-tune the heat of the griddle, the amount of baking powder necessary for desired fluffiness, etc.

    -ahem-

    I used up most of my batter on experimental and geographical-looking pancakes.

    There was only one truly round, truly ideal pancake, and it was the last one. It came off the griddle just as my sleepy-faced husband made it to the table last.

    “Sweetheart, I made pancakes. Yours is the one not shaped like Mississippi.”

    (shhh! I think they’re getting used to how weird I am.)

    Heh. I am so not a proper bahu. (daughter-in-law) I haven’t been living here in Husbandland for more than five days and already I’ve regressed to jeans and a kurta. And two of Monkey’s hairclips. (Zeba Mami, put it the clips!)

    Over the last few days we’ve been slowly evicting HF from the wardrobe and replacing his nicely folded shirts with my duds and ducky PJ’s. Today I finally finished unpacking the two suitcases I brought with me, and as I stood surveying the crammage, it occurred to me that I owned way too much junk for my wardrobe space. Which is why I should start getting rid of some of my husband’s clothes, mwahaha.

    Ok, seriously though. Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah. Here’s the deal, yo. I miss ma homeez, I miss my Dad, I miss my Mommasita, I miss my Owlie-face like nobody’s business. But I also love being with my charming HF, and his family is sweet, and lil Monkey brings light and innocence and a squeaky giggle to a situation that is getting easier as the days go by.

    Love to ma Monkey-Pirates,
    Abez

  • I’m baaAAaaaack!

    Back from running amok in married-land. Will update soon, going out for dinner now. 🙂

    Peace & Biryani Grease!
    -Mrs. Abez

  • heh.

    LB: Gaaaah!

    RB: Wheeee!

    LB: Wait, let’s try that again.

    RB: Ok. Ready, count of three. One, two-

    LB: WHEE!

    RB: GAAAH!

    LB: This isn’t working.

    RB: Wait, are we excited or are we stressed out? I can’t remember.

    LB: Well we’re obviously excited. Lookit the stupid grin on the face. You see that? That’s an excitedly stupid grin.

    RB: Yeah, but have you checked up on the stomach lately? It reports increased disturbance and decreased food supply.

    LB: The stomach’s a moron. You can’t trust anything it says. You know it had five scoops of Haagen Dasz last night?

    RB: Oh yeah, there was this zinging noise in here for a few hours afterwards.

    LB: mmm, yeah…

    RB: yeah…

    LB: …

    RB: …

    LB: Five scoops is too many, really.

    RB: Too many for what? It may be too much to eat, but it’s the perfect amount to cause chocolate overdose.

    LB: But it’s too little an amount to cause chocolate fatality and therefore chocolate nirvana.

    RB: But we don’t even believe in nirvana.

    LB: We do believe in chocolate.

    RB: Agreed.

    LB: …

    RB: …

    LB: Are you ready?

    RB: Ready.

    LB: Awesome.

    RB: Count of three. One, two-

    LB: CHOCOLATE!

    RB: GAAAH!

    LB: WEDDING!

    RB: WHEEE!

    LB: FRIENDS COMING FOR WEDDING!

    RB: WHEEE!

    LB: WEDDING DRESS AWOL!

    RB: GAAAAAAH!

    LB: LIFE-CHANGING EVENT!

    RB: GAH-uh- err- WHEE! err..

    LB: Nuts.

  • For a while we lived with people,
    but we saw no sign in them of the faithfullness we wanted.
    It’s better to hide completely within
    as water hides in metal, as fire hides in a rock.

    -Rumi

  • Beware of Oud

    Here we are, coming to you live from yet another net cafe in Sharjah where I am surrounded by people speaking the national language, this according to Knicq bhai, being not Arabic, but Malayalam. hehe

    I don’t know where to start. There are zillions of things to blog about, but I don’t know how to say them. Take, for example, the time I was sitting in the lobby of our hotel when the hotel manager, an Arab man in a white thobe and white head-thingy (amama?) came with an incense burner of Oud. I don’t know what Oud is, I only know that it is a fragrant wood that smells nice when smouldered in a funny little dish on the coffee table. Yesterday, the manager very happily brought this smoking, fragrant incense burner to us in his hands and said,

    “Do you know this?”

    “Yes,” I said, “It’s Oud, and it smells lovely.”

    “Wait one moment,” he said, kneeling at my feet. (Abez sez: wha…?)

    He then set the Oud on the floor and lifted the hem of his thobe so that the smoke wafted up into his clothes.

    “See?” he said happily as his dress filled with smoke, “It makes your clothes smell nice!”

    “Ok,” I nodded politely.

    Then he grabbed the hem of my jilb (shock!) and held it above the incense burner and suddenly my dress was filling with smoke.

    “Two weeks!” he said enthusiastically, “It will smell good for two weeks!” He then stood up and took his incense and went away, presumably to good-naturedly infringe upon the airspace of other hotel guests.

    There were several thoughts that pushed into my mind just then. The first was: did he just grab my clothes? The second was, Thank God I’m wearing pants and the third was, should I tell him I wash my clothes more often than every two weeks? hehe.

  • explain thyself

    The poem titled ‘From the Homely Brother’ was not written to be overtly sexual or deliberately offensive, but to explain behavior that is so often misunderstood by people- he doesn’t look at her, he must think men are better than women. He walks in front of her, what does he think he is, superior? He won’t even say her name, what a religious weirdo!

    My intention was to show how these behaviors were not callous or extreme or chauvinistic, but motivated by respect and geared towards preventing any debasement of a sister’s character. He doesn’t look at her because he respects her too much to lust after her. He doesn’t walk behind her because he won’t leer at her. He keeps his distance out of respect, in spite of the overwhelming emotion he has.

    It’s for Islam, not spite it
    That I will not meet your eye
    And it’s not romantic cowardice
    That keeps my smiles shy

    When I wrote this poem three years ago, I had been trying to see inside the heart of a person facing temptation in love but resisting for the sake of Allah and for the sake of the sister’s dignity.

    But sister my devotion
    To your honor is foremost

    We have enough of people giving in to temptation, of letting their desires override their morals and letting love be a higher god, this was supposed to be different. This was a brother dealing successfully and patiently with what he feels, not letting it go towards haram, but waiting to make his relationship halal, and until then, doing his best.

    So until Allah, He blesses me
    And you become my other half
    I will always close my ears
    To the melody of your laugh

    Why am I explaining myself right now? Well, apparently this poem has been misunderstood. Because I wrote it, what I meant is crystal clear to me and I therefore had no mental pause about posting this publicly. But the way people have been interpreting it has been very off from what I meant.

    ‘I love you,’ is what this brother is saying, ‘but for the sake of Allah and Islam and you, I will keep my distance until Allah makes you mine. And until that happens, don’t think my behaviour is rude or chauvanistic, I’m keeping my distance out of respect for you.’

    I seek refuge in Allah and seek his forgiveness for sins I have committed against others or against my own soul. Any good is from Allah and any bad is from shaitan or my own self, astaghfirullah wa atubu ileih.

  • For we have thought the longer thoughts
    And gone the shorter way.
    And we have danced to devil’s tunes
    Shivering home to pray;
    To serve one master in the night,
    Another in the day.

    — Ernest Hemingway

  • From the Homely Brother

    I want you too much to take you
    And cherish you too much to cheapen
    So sister accept my distance
    And watch my love slowly deepen

    I am but one man among many
    Who longingly thinks to savor
    Your warmth, your eyes, your smile,
    And wonder at its flavor

    My place among them is common
    Of merits, I cannot boast
    But sister my devotion
    To your honor is foremost

    And I alone among them
    Nearly burst with wrath
    When he of lusting eyes
    Stood and blocked your path

    When he of thieving hands
    Stole a caress from yours
    When he stood damn close to you
    As he would with common whores

    As I stood in my rage
    You stood in virgin shame
    I’d come to your defense
    If you’d only call my name

    If only you would see me
    As more than just a beard
    If only you could think of me
    As more than religiously weird

    It’s for Islam, not spite it
    That I will not meet your eye
    And it’s not romantic cowardice
    That keeps my smiles shy

    It’s not because I fear you
    That I will not call your name
    And when I call you sister
    I’m trying to be tame

    It’s not that you’re inferior
    It’s just that I’m so base
    I haven’t the control
    To gaze into your face

    Without my heart missing beats
    Without forgetting to be ‘brother’
    Without wishing your love
    Was for me, and no other

    So until Allah, He blesses me
    And you become my other half
    I will always close my ears
    To the melody of your laugh

    I will always close my eyes
    To the beauty of your face.
    I will kindly ask my heart
    To beat at normal pace.

    I will walk a step before you
    And cast no looks from behind
    I will move my lips in zhikr
    To keep yours off my mind.

    For I want you too much to take you
    And cherish you too much to cheapen
    Sister, accept my distance.
    Sister, watch my love deepen.

    -Zeba Khan

    (Dec 7,2002)

  • You are awesome.

    There’s a difference between critical self analysis and analytical ego-stroking. I’ve noticed that most online quizzes only fit into the latter category. All results are good. You are awesome. You are a leader or a protector or a bright sparkly light in the human cosmos. Post these results on your homepage.

    Are there any online quizzes that tell you that you are not awesome? That you maybe even suck? That you’re a lazy, self-satisfied machine who lives their life with blinders on?

    There’s a difference between critical self-analysis and just criticism though. There should be a quiz that tells you what your failings are, gently, and then advises you on how to correct them. Basically, the quiz should say, you’re a good person in spite of letting your personality and your spirituality slip. You need to stop thinking that you are where it’s at and you’ve reached the zenith of personal development. Life is a journey, personality is a matter of evolution, and any time you’ve stopped going forward is a time when you’re making no progress. Any time that you’re not making progress is a time when you could be stagnating. Stagnating is one step away from going backwards.

    I’ve missed Fajr three times this week. I was stagnating for a bit, and now I’m going backwards. I have so little Taqwa that I took the alarm clock this morning, turned it off and went to sleep with it in my hands. If I were, spiritually speaking, where I was just a few weeks ago, this wouldn’t have happened. And if, a few weeks ago, I had not stopped moving forward, I would not have been stagnating then so I could be regressing now- the regression being, not missing fajr, but missing Fajr and not feeling sorry. That’s the horrifying part. Everyone is a sinner, but to sin without regret… well… that’s a different matter altogether.

    There has never been a single month in my life where I didn’t miss a Fajr, but to not feel the pangs of sincere regret in the morning is a definite backsliding. If I were to try and place my Fajr performance of now on a timeline of spiritual growth, I’d say I’ve gone back to being 19 again. At that age I was just struggling to pray five times a day, and I can remember making myself a chart that first month, just to see how many prayers I was actually missing. I remember that in the first month there were more than 20. They weren’t all Fajr. And I hadn’t felt sorry, only vaguely aware of them.

    When I think of where I’ve been as compared to where I am now, it scares me. At my spiritual highest I look forward to praying. Where I am now, it has become something I have to get out of the way before I move on to other things, Astaghfirullah. This is the way complacency works. You stop. You rest. You lean back, and sometimes you sit down even though it had taken you months to get on your feet.

    And yet, I can’t beat myself up too badly. Maybe this is because I’ve taken enough quizzes that tell me how awesome I am in spite of this. Or maybe it’s because I prefer to think solution-oriented thoughts. Yes, I am lame, spiritually substandard, lazy, and ought to be ashamed of my behavior. And yes, I will fix this. What’s my plan?

    Step One: Rebuild Taqwa. With enough Taqwa you get up for prayer even if you’re dying, because you are sincerely genuinely aware of how great your debt of gratitude is. Your death is always on your mind, not because you’re depressive or fatalistic, but because you know that death is the end of your opportunity to prove yourself worthy of God’s Mercy, and so you hurry up and work faster.

    Step Two: Get to bed earlier. Until I have enough Taqwa to pop out of bed like bread from an overly-enthusiastic toaster, being tired only makes things more difficult. So I am making a new rule for myself. If I’m not in bed by 2 am, then I am officially an idiot. Well, moreso than usual…

    Step Three: Figure out what the heck is wrong with the alarm clock! The high-powered, air-raid siren alarm hasn’t been working for the last few days, and we’ve been using the namby-pamby portable travel alarm since then- the quiet, little one that I can turn off in my sleep and then cuddle up with like an ugly, rectangular teddy-bear.

    There. That’s my plan. It’s 1:40 already so I need to get moving. Please remember me in your duas. I suck.

  • Can you find my donkey?

    Can you find my donkey?
    He’s wandered off, y’know.
    I’ve never really met him
    So I’m not sure where he’d go.
    I don’t think that I’ve seen him
    Or even know his name,
    But despite this, he’s valuable
    And needed all the same.
    You’ve got a donkey, too
    Whether you know it or not,
    But he may not be four-legged,
    He may be a lamp or pot.
    Everyone’s got a donkey,
    It’s something that they seek.
    Not an object that they’ve lost
    And will find again next week.
    Your donkey is what drives you
    In search of all your dreams.
    It’s pursuit is what leads you
    On a life of heady schemes.
    Some donkeys are ambition,
    And others- zest for life.
    Either way your donkey can
    Cause happiness or strife.
    So can you find my donkey?
    If you help me I’ll help you,
    And together we will search
    For my donkey and yours too,
    Or for my donkey and your trophy,
    Or my donkey and your soap,
    For my donkey and your dreams
    Or my donkey and your hope.

    -Z H Khan
    6-30-97
    4 am

  • Pretend like you know what I’m talking about

    How much is your anonymity worth to you? Because anonymity is a double edged sword, the privacy you cherish is the same privacy that people can hide behind when they take jabs at you. And really, who wants to be sucker-punched by someone they don’t even know? It hurts anyway.

    Everyone’s life has different facets and each facet has its own appropriate time, place, and circle of friends. My blog is a personal place for my friends. I don’t know if I want haters, and I don’t want traffic due to morbid curiosity either. That’s why, I think, I publish some things on other websites but not on my blog. You can’t please everyone all the time. At least let the grouchy people keep to the forums. :p

    Does this not make any sense darlings? Heh. It does to me.

    Nod and smile, smile and nod. 🙂

  • Rubaiyaat xiii-xv

    xiii- (Regrets)

    To think that I have wept for the fourteen hundred years
    That have passed between the time of the Messenger and I
    Yet spent my night in play while he in longing tears
    Lord guide me by his piety before I too should die.

    ***

    xiv-

    If ever you should find me
    In prayer, in tears, at night
    Don’t ask me what’s wrong
    For once, things might be right.

    ***

    xv- (The intellectual is sometimes suffocated under the weight of his own arguments)

    Seek seek seek, and man says ye shall find
    But man for all his seeking has left his faith behind
    Swiftly how he races now in philosophical discontent
    Tightly how his eyes closed now to plain truths that his Lord has sent.

    i-v
    vi-xii

  • This is one of the more amusing pictures I brought back from the UAE. This dress, it called to me from a boutique window, it beckoned and said, “Take me to your leader!”

    At which point I stopped in my tracks, shook my head uncertainly and asked the dress to repeat itself.

    “Excuse me?” I said unsurely to the store window, “Did you just ask me something?”

    The beads (all one million of them) shook malevolently and the bottom of the dress started turning funny colors (check the photo!). The dress thundered “FOOLISH HUMAN!” and I took off running before it could threaten to suck my brain out. This mannequin was actually an alien. How do I know? Because it was dressed like a belly dancer from space.

    Thank you and goodnight.

  • Inna Lillahi Wa Inna Ileihi Rajioon

    What do you say to a friend who has lost someone that they loved, that they really, really loved, in the strongest, most affectionate sense of the word. What if they passed away unexpectedly. What if you called up your friend and could hear the trembling of their voice and their complete inability to stop crying. Has anyone ever been comforted by hearing, ‘I’m sorry’?

    I don’t know. I remember that when my grandfather died I thought I would never smile, not ever again. I was fifteen, and it was the first time I had ever lost anyone, and although I had not been exceedingly close to my grandfather, and he had been ‘dying’ of cancer for the last few years, it was still a shock, and it was still painful.

    Emotion is relative and grief can’t be measured. It hits you, washes over you in waves until you’re so far down that you can’t imagine coming up again. When you think of that someone being gone, really gone, then part of you dies as well. It’s possible to feel a part of your heart suffocating, giving up, and then blackening. You can feel yourself becoming bitter. You wonder why God would allow you to love a person so strongly when he was just going to take her away. Cruelty. It all seems like cruelty. That is, if you think of her as gone.

    She’s not. She’s not gone, darling, she’s just gone ahead. You will meet her again, and she will be fresh and young and alive. You and she will sit, as you did in this life, down together over food and laughter and the company you miss now. She will be the same person, she will love you no less than she did in this life.

    It seems unfair, insensitive, downright horrible to tell you to not be sad. It’s natural to be sad, but whatever you do, don’t despair. Despair is an insult to God’s promise, to the fact that He very beautifully, very reassuringly stated, “My mercy overcomes My wrath.”

    And remember that God said in the Qur’an,

    “In the case of those who say, “Our Lord is Allah., and, further, stand straight and steadfast, the angels descend on them;”

    “Fear ye not!” (they suggest), “Nor grieve! but receive the Glad Tidings of the Garden (of Bliss), the which ye were promised!”

    “We are your protectors in this life and in the Hereafter: therein shall ye have all that your souls shall desire; therein shall ye have all that ye ask for!- A hospitable gift from one Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful!”

    The Holy Qur’an: Surah Ha-Mim 41:30-32

    Truly, in remembering God do hearts find rest.

  • Masha’Allah

    I used to wonder about people who were always muttering prayers under their breath, whether they were doing it consciously, whether they were doing it just to show how much Arabic they could memorize. That was back when my understanding of applied religion was much shallower. I can’t say it’s too terribly deep now, but I do at least know (SubhanAllah) that a person with true sincerity doesn’t give a hot-diggety damn whether other people see them muttering prayers to God or not. To them, it wouldn’t matter if the whole world thought they were crazy for it, because the world and everyone in it, with all their powers combined, still can’t pass a judgment as important or well-founded as God’s.

    On a more basic level, this is something I had to overcome when Masha’Allah and Insha’Allah and Alhamdulillah first started creeping into my vocabulary. I was embarrassed at first, not in front of my non-Muslim friends- because they already knew I was crazy and didn’t care what I was muttering about- but in front of my Muslim friends. It’s sad, the judgment of our peers sometimes weighs more heavily than it should. I didn’t want them to think that I was trying to be religious just to show off, or trying to be so lame that I couldn’t think of anything but MashaAllah in a conversation.

    I passed Mr. Brown’s with a B!

    Hey man, that’s F****-awesome!

    MashaAllah…

    *roll eyes* (that religious weirdo is at is again)

    There was a lot I had to overcome in order to finally put the Subhan’Allah’s into my vocabulary. There was the self-consciousness (as seen above) as well as the fear of hypocrisy. I had always been wary of saying Masha’Allah, because in this culture people use Masha’Allah in a lot of ways that are not necessarily correct. Sometimes this religious phrase is used superstitiously, and could easily be substituted with ‘knock on wood.’

    She’s so pretty!

    Quick, say Masha’Allah! / Quick, knock on wood!

    MashaAllah is also used as a bashful way of saying thank you instead of sincerely praising God for the compliment.

    Wow, your hair is so pretty!

    *girl blushes* Aw, MashaAllah…

    And worst of all, it’s also used as a pick-up line. I’ve walked past groups of young men and heard MashaAllah’s and SubhanAllah’s that I know were not praising God. (Don’t worry, they weren’t for me, I just heard em, heh.) And then there’s the Masha’Allah leer: greasy man looks at you and says MashaAlllaaaaaah…

    And then there was the Bosnian wedding that went like this, as seen by a friend of mine:

    The wedding guests are sitting around the tables. At the far end of the hall a door opens and the bride enters in all her splendor. The DJ pushes play on a track that begins with a soft, melodic, MashaaaaaAllaaaaaah, MaashaaaaaAllaaaaah…

    The bride takes a few steps, and then a heavy bass kicks in.

    dooofdooofdooofdooof, MashaAllah, MashaAllah, doofdoof, MashaAllah!

    It’s a techno song. The guests are thrilled. They hop up onto the tables, both men and women, and begin dancing. My shocked and horrified friend leaves the wedding crying.

    Masha’Allah is used sarcastically even, and I remember standing in a packed elevator at the ISNA convention some years ago as one brother was entering all the floor numbers for the various people, and somehow, the whole panel reset. All the entries were lost. His friend turned angrily to him and said, “What did you do? Masha’Allah!”

    Ma means what. Sha‘ is want or will. Allah is God. Masha’Allah means ‘What God willed.‘ It is a reminder to us, who, when we are pleased with a situation, should remember that it is Allah’s will, and we should thank Him for it. Instead of turning it into a meaningless catch-phrase to ward off superstition or make inappropriate passes at girls in masjids, we need to take it back to what it really is: MashaAllah is zhikr. It is the audible escape of Taqwa through the lips. MashaAllah is a beautiful phrase. Let it be so.

  • On Pain

    On Pain

    And a woman spoke, saying, “Tell us of Pain.”

    And he said:

    Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

    Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.

    And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;

    And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.

    And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.

    Much of your pain is self-chosen.

    It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.

    Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquillity:

    For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen,

    And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears.

    Khalil Jibran

  • Introducing Mr. Abez

    Photobucket

    So we’re back from the UAE. I got:


    A fez


    Baklava


    A husband

    Any questions?

  • coming soon

    hold yer horses here people, update coming soon to a theater near you. 😉

  • tee. hee.

    We’re off to the Rainbow Steak House for a partee shartee. Biryani is being served. If you know what I mean. wink wink.

  • ambience

    Today is our third day in the UAE and to be honest, I’ve spent most of it sleeping. I just woke up from my second nap today (the first was an hour, this one was three) and I have to say, man, I needed that. As far as desert countries are concerned, this one is a bit cold right now, and after coming over on a cold Gulf Airways flight and then stepping into the cool weather, I’ve lost my voice and I’m developing a cough. 🙁 I’m also battling chronic sleep deprivation. I was up all night before we came, I slept three or four hours the first night, and three or four hours last night. I’ve been keeping up my will to vacation with frequent and powerful naps, without which, I found I kept mislocating the elevator. I would be standing in front of the elevator then everything would start spinning and the elevator would be listing steadily to the left. The fridge was eluding me too, veering off the right when I approached it. I need all my concentration in order to successfully use such badly behaved appliances, hence- the naps.

    It’s 4:50 pm and I woke up about ten minutes ago. The view from outside of our window is of a nice market area with shops of rugs on floors with hookahs spread between the patrons, strange boutiques, and the occasional upscale perfume shop. (The sandal wood and itar and some lovely thing called ‘Oud’ had snuck out of the door to tease us before we even got to the shop.) Also, we found a Baskin Robbins. That was a good and lovely thing, especially since the guy working there spoke Urdu. In spite of living abroad, I’ve never actually traveled to a country where I couldn’t speak to the shopkeepers, and after trying out my broken, nay, positively defunct Arabic out on other people, I was ready to hug the nice Indian man with the ice-cream scoop when he said he spoke my language. Hallelujah. We ordered a triple sundae and three spoons.

    We ate ice-cream until we found it difficult to walk back home. We spent 20 dirham. I don’t yet have an andaaza (a proper idea?) about what the value of a dirham is. I know it’s 16 rupees, but things are priced differently here. A small bottle of water was one dirham, and that’s cool, but the ice-cream sundae was 20 dirham, and that either means that water is very cheap or ice-cream is very expensive. I’m not sure yet.

    In the boutiques we wandered through, the average price for a dress was about 600 dirham. Walking through Marina Mall, we saw a phone that was priced at 5000 dirham. I’m all confused about the money here. Like Pakistan, different denominations are not only different colors, but they’re different sizes, and a handful of change involves a red, blue, green, and purply bits of paper in all different sizes that make me think of playing Monopoly. With Bedouins.

    The people walking the streets seem like a very wide mixture of humankind, there are of course, the Arab men in their gleaming white thobes (Thobe: the shirt that never ends!) and the Arab women in their gorgeous black abayahs and then there are Phillipinos who work in the shops, and they’re dressed like Americans. And the waitresses at the Steak House last night were in vests and short skirts, which was very weird initially. And the man who stamped our passports at customs was a deep and lovely black, and instead of the African accent I was expecting, his mouth issued forth rapid-fire Arabic. It was almost as weird as seeing that Chinese guy who sings ghazal in Urdu. Yes, he’s real. Does anyone else know who I’m talking about here?

    Well, everyone else here is dead asleep, since naps seem to be catching, so I’m going to sneak over to the refrigerator and see if I can find the leftovers from dinner last night at the Rainbow Steakhouse. We’ll have some pictures soon, InshaAllah, right after I wake up and go take some, haha.

    Peace & Shawarma Grease,
    -Abez

  • uae a-ok!

    UAE Vignettes:

    This morning in the airport lounge, I went to do wudu for Fajr. As I walked into the bathroom and began my religious splishy-splash, I noticed a Pakistani woman come in behind me. She was dressed in a fancy green shalwar-qameez and she had a little girl, maybe one and a half years old, trailing behind her. I noticed, in the huge full-length, wall-long mirror, that instead of going to the bathroom, the woman began looking around the bathroom sneakily. You can always tell when someone’s trying to be sneaky. The effort it takes in trying to seem nonchalant is always a dead give away. She was definitely trying to be sneaky. First, she set her bag down on the counter, but when she turned and saw that she would be visible from the lounge when the bathroom door opened, she picked her bag up and carried it into the corner of the bathroom, directly behind me. She set her bag on the floor and began to rummage around in it with her back to me. Then she suddenly turned towards me with a cigarette dangling from her mouth. She lit it and sucked down on it like it was the very breath of life.

    Walking down the aisle of the plane mid-flight, I heard a man’s cell-phone go off. He had no plans on answering it, apparently, so it rang a few times and attracted the attention of the petite stewardess walking in front of me with a pot of coffee. I swear, she went razor-back. If you have a dog, then you know what I’m talking about. If you don’t, then a dog going razor-back is the snarling, teeth-baring, fur-standing-up precursor to attack. The stewardess, she went razor back, and reversed up the aisle to where the man was watching the phone ring. She said, ‘Excuse me sir, cell phone should be off.’ The man picked up his phone and, looking superciliously through the stewardess but not at her, dropped it into his pocket without turning it off. The stewardess repeated (as she bared her fangs) “Sir, your phone.” The man looked at her as if seeing her for the first time and took the phone out of his pocket. “My phone?” he asked innocently. She snatched it from his hand, turned it off, and gave it back. That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for the rest of us who can’t believe it when people refuse to turn their phones off and seem to harbor secret plans of wanting the plane’s equipment to go loopy and make us land nose-first in the ocean. Ha!

    Afghanistan is wrinkly. Seen from above, it is a reasonable facsimile of chocolate frosting that’s recently been whipped. It has folds and crisp, sharp edges from where the beaters were taken out and left stiff ridges. It looks distinctly… tasty. Now you know why they’re fighting so hard for it. I’d battle for Chocolate Frosting Land too.

    Abu Dhabi is a big golf course; a very green and lovely one with more palm trees on the sides of the roads alone than Pakistan has within its national borders. One of these days, I’m going to roll my sleeves up and try to climb one. When no one’s looking at me. As I scale greenery on the side of the road. (You! Stop looking!)

    The Kitchen is its own country. The apartment of our lovely and amazing hosts has a kitchen that’s bigger than my bedroom. I’m not joking. It’s huge. I’ve never seen so much counter space and so many cabinets at one time! Living in Pakistan, where kitchens are the size of walk-in closets, my sense of kitchen space has been warped. Back home I’m used to being able to work the stove, the microwave, the blender, and the kitchen sink without moving from my central position.

    At the Moment: It’s time for lunch, I heard the ding! of the microwave and I can smell parathas frying. Pity me for messing my stomach up the day before coming, my lunch will consist mainly of yogurt and fruit, but you know what, I put a serious dent in the fig population that used to inhabit the coffee table. Best. Figs. Ever. Excuse me, I think I may have missed a few.

  • this is an audio post - click to play

  • the part of the roller coaster where you go up

    Um, I haven’t had lunch yet and I still have clothes at the tailors. Two, they’re at two different tailors. Chai is on the way to wine and dine us at Chez Daddy. While out, I’ll harass my tailor. (Riaz Saab, barai mahrbani, is ki daman pay double siali marna, varna ajeeb lagay ga!) My tailor and I have an interesting relationship. I give him clothes, he does weird things with them. I take the clothes back to be fixed, and we have communication problems. In the end, after two or three return trips and confused bi-lingual exchanges about what’s wrong with the shirt, things are fixed, eventually, and we all live happily ever after. Sort of. Well, about 40% of what we give him lives quietly in the back of my closet and sees very little use (five inch cuffs, come on!) but still. He’s a willing a polite man. And he always does things in a rush for us, which may be part of the problem, but anyway. I have to get dressed and go eat tikkas. InshaAllah next time I blog will be from the Yoo-Ay-EEEEEEE!

  • one, two, package my shoe…

    *phew*

    2 am and now I get to sit down. But only for a bit. I have to pack my shoes. Yes, I’m packing two days in advance. Yes, my shoes are in little plastic bags. Yes, I’m weird like that. But I’m really excited! Wheee!

  • intermission

    The time is 4:42. It’s t-minus 78 minutes until guests arrive tonight, but we can’t be cooking or cleaning because someone (acutally, 12 someones) has rather unexpectedly showed up to view the house. They’re getting the tour upstairs while we, the scullions, hide downstairs with flour on our shirts, food waiting in the oven and visions of sugar in our tea. Owlie did try to throw some sugar into my tea just as we were running away (that would be just as the people were arriving) but most of it missed and landed on the counter. She squirted some milk in the direction of my teacup too, but that landed in a pile of grated carrots.

    As bad as the tea is, I’m enjoying this little break. Parties are really the most fun for the guests, the hosts have to set up and clean up, both before and after. But that’s ok. I wouldn’t be minding it at all if we would just get back to setting up and cleaning! Everything is on hold because there are seven men in the living room negotiating details of the house sale. There were five women too, but I think they’ve gone back to the car (or cars?) to wait.

    Well, the only consolation is that all my guests are friends, only a few are real adults, and none of them will mind if we put them to slave labor just to get the last minute preparations done. My mother, in fact, recommends that all the decorating for a party be left undone, so that the first guests to arrive have something to do while you’re still slaving away in the kitchen. I think I’m going to take a roll of crepe paper and some tape upstairs. Somewhere, we have tin-foil fish (Undersea Journalism Club Party: 2000) and possibly a few grass skirts. Voila! Instant fun!

    Ok, it’s now 4:52 and they’re still here. Hmmph. Owlie gave up and went to take a shower. I’m going to pray Asr and go through my extensive and stylish wardrobe (oops, am I lying again?) to see what I haven’t worn to three other parties this year already and maybe, just maybe, I’ll iron it. Decisions, decisions. :p

  • Friday, Friday Friday!

    So here’s my big Friday blog: we’re going to the UAE! Yay! My ‘rents are going to the UAE to check out property and new acquisitions and they’re taking us along! Shopping, baybee! I’m going to stuff myself on cream cheese and shawarma and stuff! Stuff! They didn’t want to take us, and I started having flashbacks of 1993 when my father and brother went for a three-day tour of Jordan and Petra (first class) without taking anyone else along. They came back with only stories of the amazing stone city they had seen, much to our chagrin. (my dad went to Petra and all I got was this lousy t-shirt?)

    So yes, after much negotiation and daughterly whining (daddy, you never take us anywhere!) Owlie and I have our tickets booked along with our parents’ and we’re all excited. It’s nice that we get to look around the UAE before actually moving there too, because as much as I like surprises, I’d prefer that a permanent move to a new country have as few as possible. If it’s searingly hot, I want to know that before I bring my sweaters next time, and if they don’t really have belly-dancing scorpions, then I’m just going to have to take some from here. Be prepared! that’s the boy scout motto. I may never have been a boy scout, but I met a girl scout once, and she tasted like cookies. I digress.

    As crazy as this sounds, this is my first real vacation, ever. Yes, I’ve been down on weekend trips to grandma’s house and summer trips to Pakistan and summer trips from Pakistan back to the US, and once I spent four days in Jackson Hole, but that was for a conference. I also got to spend a weekend in Alexandria (not Egypt, Virginia) but I have never been anywhere that wasn’t the US or Pakistan. Hey man, this time we’re even staying in a hotel and buying things like shiny hijab pins and halva and maybe even a sand dune. I like sand dunes, I’ll get one and my golden mole can live in it.

    So yeah, I’m going to Dubai! I’m going to Dubai! Woohoo!