My Journey

 

Alhamdullillah, through the mercy of the Almighty Allah tonight I will be leaving to perform umrah Inshaa-Allah!

 

If you can please try and remember me and my family in your prayers. I am sure that I will have some very interesting experiences to share when I return Inshaa-Allah!

 

In the meantime, I wish you all a blessed year ahead, may Allah keep you and your families in peace!

Roots

I just finished read a book called “Roots” written by Alex Haley (the author of the Autobiography of Malcolm X). It's an old book, published in 1976. This book tells the story about an African man who was captured in his native village in West Africa and sold into slavery in America. It’s a distressing book because it focuses on the atrociousness of slavery, but at the same time, it’s a book which makes you realize the importance of knowing where you come from, and where your family comes from. A person’s roots plays a huge role in the development of their own identity, and this is one of the important lessons of this book.

 

There are actually so many important insights from this book and that’s why I decided to write about it here:

-          Firstly, in my previous post I wrote briefly about how people don’t have any value for others. Well, if I thought I knew what I was talking about then that’s nothing compared to the sufferings that people had to endure in the time of slavery. People were stolen away from their families, their lives and their culture and treated worse than animals. This is such a deep issue, the systematic and continuous devaluing of people’s lives was so intense that I could probably go on about it forever, but all I will say is that it was purely evil.

 

-          Secondly, the native people of different lands, were people with a culture, value system, social and religious system, and all this was replaced through oppressive regimes such as slavery and later on colonialism and imperialism. Now as a result, we have meagre traces of those rich cultures which once existed as most people are forced to “assimilate” within a Euro-American culture which is pale in comparison to the native cultures.

 

-          As a result so many of us do not know our own family roots and obviously this means that we cannot form solid identities and that’s why most people seem to be always in search of something.

 

-          Even in today’s times, people who attempt to hold on to their cultures and roots are regarded as people who are “backwards”. A “civilized nation” has somehow come to represent people who speak English, who live in cities, who work in office buildings and who basically have no connection with nature, except of course for the occasional spectator role we tend to take on. Yet the people who are regarded as “uncivilized” have this deep connection with nature. They can tell their way by the use of stars and the sun and moon (they don’t need any modern day navigation devices). They can determine things by focusing on the animals. They understand the language of nature and their communication is intricate and advanced, but still they will be regarded in all the negative terms because they don’t fit dominant ideas of civilization.

 

-          Finally, modern day slavery still exists, it’s all around us, it’s just that it’s disguised and made to look glamorous. Think about the soccer players who get traded and sold at will. Yes surely they get paid a lot to do what they do, but are they really “free”? What about the models or actresses who cannot afford to even eat things that they would like to, who have to look a and dress a certain way all the time, are they completely “free”? And what about the rest of us who find ourselves stuck within a system that determines what time we have to go to work, which days we have to work, how we live, how we dress (that is if we care about following fashion), how we speak, what we buy, what we watch and so on, can we say that we are really free? Or are the people who live in villages and work each day without having to worry about paying off debts or meeting deadlines or buying the latest things, actually the ones who are “free”?

- Sadly, you can easily see how events of the past have shaped the world today. So many things of today can be explained easily if we turn to the past, so the actions of our ancestors actually impacts on us directly and although many of us might regard history as something very boring, it is in effect an important key that opens so many doors of understanding.

Besides these issues, I think the thing that stuck with me from the book is that In order to understand where we are going; we need to know where we came from, this statement is made so much more profound after reading “Roots”.

 

So yes, I guess that even though it was distressing to read this book, and some parts really left me feeling so despondent about human beings that I was filled with anger, nonetheless, the lessons I’ve learnt are crucial and I hope that I am able to hold on to some of them.

 

The thing that I needed to focus on throughout the book is that Allah sees everything and although it may seem as if things have gone unseen, in fact Allah has only given people some time before they have to reckon for their deeds. In truth Allah Almighty sees and hears everything and nothing has gone unseen.

And Allah is the Knower of all things, the Greatest. Glory be to Allah !

 

May Allah help us all to leave behind us goodness wherever we go, and may Allah help us never to harm another person in any way at all.  

 

Image 1 from here

Image 2 from here

Those who don’t value others

 

Today was a weird day. My purse got stolen from my bag while I was doing shopping. Here’s how it happened. I was in the store with some other ladies, I thought we were all shopping for clothing, but they were shopping for something else. I had an odd feeling, I have to admit, I felt crowded by these women, it seemed that wherever I went they went, but I didn’t want to be rude or suspicious so I just carried on doing my shopping. Then one lady came to ask me to help her find the right size clothing for her daughter. All the while I still didn’t know what they were up to, I mean I’m not in the habit of assuming the worse of people. Anyway, I don’t know when they took it but when I got to the till to pay my purse was gone! It’s a terrible feeling, the initial shock and confusion, but Alhamdullillah it does simmer down after a while.

 

Luckily my mother and sister were with me, we tried to search the centre to see if we could find something, but nothing. It’s the habit for people here to steal, take what they want and discard of the rest so we thought maybe we’d find something in the dustbin or something, but we didn’t. Allah knows best!

 

It seems like a loss to me and a gain for the thieves, but actually it’s the other way around. They are the real losers. I may have lost some worldly things, but they are going to have to answer for it one day when they stand in front of their Creator and mine and I really don’t know what they’ll say. It’s a case of selling eternity for a trivial and passing happiness, that’s the way I see it.

 

The worst thing about all this is that they have no value for other people at all, it’s like people mean nothing. For them all my personal belongings are useless, they’ll take my money and discard everything else, everything else is nothing to them, it’s probably laying a bin somewhere, yet it meant something to me and they don’t even care.  They couldn’t be bothered about what their actions mean for me. I honestly don’t know how people live with themselves.

 

But this is a small thing, it’s true, it doesn’t mean much. Inshaa’Allah I will get back what I lost and life will go on. What about the people who do things to others that will last forever? What about the people who devalue others so much that they are fine with hurting, abusing, raping and even killing another human being. How can people place so little value on people and their lives, and as I think this I am saddened, not because I lost my purse, nor because I was duped and neither because I was absolutely helpless to do anything about it, I am saddened that my fellow human beings have lost so much of their humanity that they hurt others without even feeling guilty about it.

 

I have forgiven the ladies who stole my purse because I know that Allah likes us to forgive others and because I know that this is what my Beloved Prophet (PBUH) would do, after all, he (pbuh) forgave people for doing way way way worse things than this! Despite this, my sadness lingers on. What has happened to people? You don’t have to answer that question, and once again Allah knows best.

 

From Allah do we come and to Allah do we return, may Allah make us patient with everything we find ourselves in and may Allah help people to become like human beings once again.

 

Someone once told me that human beings have the ability to be higher than angels and lower than animals. 

May Allah not lower us, may Allah guide and help us all! 

 

 Image from here

Reflections of an absent blogger

My time away from blogging has allowed me to reflect on many things, one of which is my reason for starting a blog in the first place. I remember feeling the urgent need to “provide an alternative voice for Muslim women”. I was tired of all the negative stereotypes which are constantly being portrayed about Muslim women and I wanted people to understand that those stereotypes are more often than not, completely false, and perhaps can only be found to be true for a small percentage of Muslim women. I wanted people to realise that stereotypes about Muslim women could never be accurate, because in actual fact Muslim women are as diverse as the different flowers which can be found all around the world. I was pleased to find that there are many women out there who thought the same thing, but I’ve realised that in relation to this, is something which is also quite disturbing for me.

Recently I came across a project done by a group of American Muslim sisters. Their motivation behind this particular project was to “give Muslim women a voice”. They said things like, “we are tired of having others speak for us” and so on. All of this I can relate to easily, but the thing that created this nagging feeling inside of me is that all the talk was directed at showing the world that “we are just like you”. The bold claim being reiterated was that we want the rest of you to see that we are the same as you. Now please note that what I write here is my own opinion, you are allowed to differ with me and most of you probably will, but I’ll explain to you why I have a problem with this type of thinking.

You see as soon as we say that “we are just like you”, what we are doing is accepting a Standard. In this case, the “Standard” being mainstream Americans; and what this does is remove the place for cultural diversity and deny anything that is different. Instead of saying, ‘look we may be different, dress differently, speak differently and have different beliefs, but let’s find away to get along despite our differences’, what this type of thinking does is say, well you may see us as different but we are in actual fact just like you and we’ll do whatever we have to in order to prove this. That’s a completely different ball game because what we’re saying then is ‘we’ll only get along if we are the same!’ And that’s where I have a problem.

What stood out for me with this particular project was that American culture, beliefs and even way of dress was embraced to the detriment of Islamic beliefs. Now, I am not the judge of anyone, let us leave the judgement to the only one who owns judgement, Allah Almighty. However, to have a Muslim woman, dressed in western dress, and who does not wear a headscarf and who’s married to or engaged to an American man (which is not a problem in itself), sit there and say that “We’ve decided to speak for Muslim women”, really makes me wonder.

I just feel that a lot of the experiences that Muslim women face are lost in this case. For example, the discrimination that women who wear headscarves face for instance cannot be understood properly by a woman who does not wear a headscarf, and so on. Sure, the plight may be understood, but it’s not the same as actually experiencing it.

It just seems that there’s a whole lot of defensiveness going on, where Muslim women, from all walks, feel the need to stand up and “defend” who they are. And why should this be so? Why should anyone have to defend who they are? If you are happy with who you are and you are not harming anyone then why should you need to keep telling the world that they are wrong? In telling the world that they are wrong, does this actually change anything? And who gets to decide what “the Standard” is? Who gets to say that this is “wrong” and this is “right”? Are the powerful nations in the world automatically regarded as the “Standard” by default? Why do women all around the world have to lose their culture in order to fit in and embrace “empowerment”? Why do African women in my country feel the need to lose their traditional way of dress and start adopting a westernised style of dressing when they go to university or are in the workplace? Is losing your culture and fitting in with the western culture a prerequisite for good performance? Why do women from all cultures in my country (and there are many) all end up talking, dressing, looking and acting the same when they study and work? Is this empowerment?

Yes, as you can see my mind has been working overtime, I have so many questions and thoughts and I’ve contemplated writing this for a while because I didn’t know if it was going to come out of my head the way I intended. But nonetheless, I just feel saddened that we have to “justify” ourselves and that in order for Muslim women to fit in we have to keep making claims that “we are the same as you!”

So if I am to continue writing on this blog, I need to make certain things clear. I am different! I am different from what you claim as “the standard”. I do not dress the same, I do not have the same beliefs, I do not follow the same principles, I do not have the same culture. I do not have the same ideas of “empowerment” and “liberation”, I do not have the same understanding of “independence”. I do not have the same take on “gender relations”… But despite all this, I know that we have a lot in common. I am willing to accept you for who you are (although I disagree with a lot of what you say or do), and likewise I would expect that you accept me for who I am (although you disagree with a lot of what I say and do). I do not at any time expect you to tell me that you are the same as me, this would be taking away who you are. It doesn’t matter to me if you are different, as long as we don’t allow this difference to cause any harm to anyone.   

Furthermore, I have my own “standard” to follow. Being a Muslim woman, my standard is the example of my beloved Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), and likewise all the female companions and family members of my beloved Prophet are my example. I wish to emulate them only!

Finally, to make it clear, I cannot speak for all Muslim women. This would be ridiculous to claim. I can speak for myself, and the small group of women in my community and that’s about it. I can speak for us only because I know what our beliefs are since we are always discussing what we think and feel. Other than that, I can’t speak for Muslim women in America, England, Australia- hey I can’t even speak for Muslim women in another part of my own country.

We need to be very careful that in our quest to “take back the voice of Muslim women”, we don’t end up further silencing the very people we claim to be speaking for!

I think that’s all I’ll write for now, although I have many more reflections, if time permits and if Allah Almighty wills then I will share some more, but until then, take care and stay in peace!

The Purpose of Education

I haven’t written an actual post on here for so long, it feels so strange, but I guess Life Happens and responsibilities have to take precedence over other things. Anyway, part of my reason for not blogging for ages was because I was asked to lecture a course at University. Naturally that takes a lot of preparation and the amount of reading I have to do makes me feel like I’m back at university myself. But all of this got me thinking about the true purpose of education.

 

I think I may be a bit idealistic when it comes to this topic, but I’ve always believed that the purpose of education is to learn, to gain knowledge and understanding about the world, about our role in the world and of course about ourselves. I guess I rather naively believed that most people study what they enjoy. This is perhaps why I had people looking at me strangely when I was in first year in university and I told them I was studying psychology. I still remember some of the comments; “but there’s no scope in that”, “will you be able to make money”... Okay, so these are realistic questions, which of course had no place in my “idealistic” idea of education.

It seems that nowadays “education” is about financial security and career advancement. People study with the idea that a degree will help them earn money and “live a good life”. Somehow we’ve all been led to believe that without an “education” we will be left to dwell in the lower socio-economic classes of society, struggling in poverty. This idea may make a lot of sense to many people, but not to me. You see I know people who haven’t even completed high school properly but they have multiple businesses and a lot of money, simply because of good business acumen and skills. (And of course firstly because that is what Allah Almighty had willed for them) In fact I can think of quite a few of these people, who have not studied further, but today they are “stinking rich”.

So clearly, receiving an education is not the only way to get rich and have a financially secure life, and placing economic value on education, in my opinion diminishes the true worth of education. There are many ways to get money, but education gained solely for the purpose of making money is questionable. Not only does it take away the value of important knowledge but it also gives the wrong impression to society. For instance, it makes people feel that they are inferior if they do not have a university degree. This is strange, especially considering that many people have a high degree of education which they have received in an informal way. And once again, can we really devalue the people who have knowledge about everyday life, just because they don’t have a university education. Take the mechanic for instance, or the plumber, or builder, these people don’t have a university degree, but I like to argue that their intelligence far outweighs mine. Think about it, if my car gets stuck on the side of the road, or if the pipes in my house are leaking, or if I need to build something, is a university degree really going to be able to help me?

So what then is “education”? Can it really be reduced to a university degree? And shouldn’t we be saying that our education should be ongoing, for the rest of our lives. It shouldn’t end when we receive the degree certificate, it shouldn’t end when we’re making a lot of money. In fact, we should “seek education from the cradle to the grave”, this is what was taught to us by our Beloved Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).

So I guess, we need to go back and look at our intention for receiving education. The reason why university degrees are regarded as “prestigious” is because it’s associated with money, power and status. In this sense then, the true value of education is lost. Someone can have a university degree and still be completely uneducated, because their purpose for “learning” was simply to get a certificate, which would gain them a career and money, but no real knowledge.  

When the purpose of education is removed from the money, power and status, then a different picture emerges, one that may not appeal to many people. Think of the Sufi dervish for instance, who gives up his life in pursuit of true knowledge, who lives in poverty and goes through difficulty just to end up learning life’s most important lessons. This is education!

This point can be debated, and I don’t claim to know it all because in fact I know very little, but this is simply my opinion. Education should be for the correct purposes and for the right intentions. Otherwise, you will have the status, the power, and the money, but not the knowledge. The knowledge will be lost when all those other things come in. Also, an educated person does not necessarily have to be one who went to university and received a degree, and in fact I’ve found that the most educated people are those who seem to be the stupidest.