Category Archives: Rockstar and Crescent

join the club Two flyers I noticed the other da…

Rockstar and Crescent, Suckool

join the club

Two flyers I noticed the other day while taking a psychology midterm I most likely failed but that’s okay:

“MAKE BEARDS NOT BOMBS”

– and –

“All the COOL guys have beards.

WHY DON’T YOU?”

In a seeming reference to the Campus Crusade for Christ (a student organization on our university campus), the bottom of each flyer states:

“Brought to you by the Beard Liberation Front.

(Which, of course, has nothing to do with the Campus Crusade for Chaos & Confusion, nope, nope, no connection whatsoever.)”

I’ve been having mentally slow days lately, so the irony is all lost on me and I can’t tell whether the Campus Crusade (while being coy and protesting a bit too much) actually did design the flyers, or whether some other group posted them in a deliberate dig at the Crusade. Why would the Campus Crusade be talking about beards anyway? Then again, the prophet Jesus (peace and blessings of God be upon him) is commonly depicted by non-Muslims as bearded.

But whatever. All I know is that the Muslim Students Association couldn’t have come up with the flyers, because, quite frankly, my MSA just isn’t that funny, and they’re a bit too prim and proper to be engaging in such bizarre, comical antics. But it’s okay, my MSA is cool for the most part, kinda sorta sometimes. Now the MSA at UC Berkeley, on the other hand… I can just see them doing something like this. Huh, Bean? You know it.

But I go to school with weird people, too. Who woulda thought.

and words can never really help you say/what you want them to anyway

Conversations and Encounters, NineToFive outside the 925, Rockstar and Crescent, Suckool

I had an idea for a Women of Color Conference workshop that involves a film, followed by discussion. The film is entitled The Way Home, and I saw it over a year ago, so the details are somewhat fuzzy, but I think it just might work.

All I actually wanted was to hear feedback on my workshop design, but the program coordinator considered our circle of a dozen and said, “Some of you haven’t had to deal with a difficult workshop participant before. How would you handle a situation where someone was extremely vocal about his or her perspectives and beliefs, and didn’t want to listen to anyone else’s thoughts?”

We decided to try it out.

C, a Latina female, was designated “Maria,” the difficult workshop participant, while two others were assigned to be facilitators. The rest of us were to play regular workshop participants.

Having forgotten much of the film’s detailed dialogue, I made an unsteady attempt to start off the discussion by vaguely remarking that, as a Muslim, I felt I could identify with some of the experiences and stereotypes discussed by the Arab American women in the video. “Maria” raised her eyebrows disdainfully and said, “What stereotypes? I’ve never heard of any Arab or Muslim stereotypes.”

“Just because you’re ignorant of them doesn’t mean the stereotypes don’t exist,” I retorted.

She waved her hand dismissively and changed tactics. “I don’t feel my ethnic group was properly represented in this film. After all, the stereotypes and experiences of my people are harsher and much more hurtful than anything experienced by any of you. Any of you!” She tossed her head and stared around the circle defiantly.

I narrowed my eyes. “What makes you think you have the right to validate your experiences at the expense of negating mine?” I shot back hotly, and it all went downhill from there. For nearly two hours.

C slipped into her role so effortlessly that it was almost too easy to forget this was a practice session, that each of us was supposed to be playing a role, that each scornful remark C made in her role as “Maria” does not reflect any view she personally holds. It sounds ludicrous, but I felt betrayed, sitting across from this girl I thought I knew well enough, hearing her dismiss my experiences, thoughts, and feelings as irrelevant, imaginary, unimportant. She may have been playing a role, but the resentment I felt was very real.

I’ve been intensively trained in workshop facilitation, cross-cultural communication, leadership skills, diversity issues, all that fun stuff. I think I’m good at it, and I know I’m getting better. But for once, I was in the position of a participant and not a facilitator. It was almost exhilarating, ignoring the ground rules – especially: This is a dialogue, not a debate and Listen to others with respect – and forging ahead, making my sarcastic retorts in response to “Maria’s” sneering generalizations. I wanted to wipe that smirk off her face oh so badly, to hurt her just as much as I was feeling hurt by her sweeping statements and cold indifference, to attack her just as I was personally feeling attacked.

Simply put, I was pissed off. It’s a good thing she was sitting across the circle, otherwise I was so angry that I felt like, in the words of a colleague, “reaching over and strangling her with her own hair.”

I’m still wondering why I was so impatient at her attitude and annoyed with her comments, why it was so difficult for me to sit back and let her finish so much as a sentence without making aggressive statements of my own. Perhaps I expect my own generation, especially the university students I interact with on a daily basis, to be more open-minded and knowledgeable than other strangers I’ve come across, and this exercise made it frighteningly obvious that I can’t always trust myself to be calm and coherent in situations where others are ignorant about who I am and what I stand for.

forget the village, it takes a halaqa I’ve figu…

All-Star Crackstar Squad, Rockstar and Crescent

forget the village, it takes a halaqa

I’ve figured out a great way to form lasting friendships: Go ice skating. This is especially successful if you don’t know how to ice skate in the first place. After all, it’s practically impossible to remain dignified or reserved if you have little or no skating experience. After the people you go skating with haul you around the ice while you grip their hands and repeat, “Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod,” after they see you fall on your ass a bajillion times, after they laugh at you and take photos of you falling on your ass and then good-naturedly haul you back up to stand on slippery ice in shaky skates, there’s really no way to keep those guards up. You’re practically forced to build lasting friendships this way. After all, don’t forget, they still have those incriminating photos of you falling on your ass, you know.

Went ice skating with the halaqa crew a couple days ago. This was my second time, the first time being three years ago. Not that I retained any skills from the first time anyway. The first ten minutes were spent holding tightly to either S or M’s hands and gingerly gliding along behind them as they hauled me around the rink. After we went down the rink once, S turned around and led me down in the opposite direction. “Oh my God,” I screamed, as we whizzed through a streaming mass of skaters, “we’re going against oncoming traffic!” She couldn’t stop laughing at me. F was involved in holding onto the wall and mumbling, “Ohmygod, ohmygod…” M patiently responded with, “Ya Allah…,” while I was far more occupied with frowning at the ice and muttering, “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.” I’m a great role model, what can I say.

I refused to lift my feet at first, because I was afraid I would fall. Needless to say, I fell on my ass several times anyway. “Oh, I get it!” I said excitedly to M, after the first fall. “If you fall on your ass, it’s not so painful, really.” I condescendingly patted F on the shoulder and advised, “Falling doesn’t even hurt. You just need to go ahead and fall the first time and get over it.” Served me right for my overconfidence, then, that when I fell the second time, it was hard enough that I got the breath knocked out of me. That was right before I started laughing and the girls crowded around to laugh and take photos. Later, when I had decided that taking cautious, tentative steps on my own was more useful than holding on to people, I made a halting, solo trip around the rink. I got better at it after a while, too. I made funny faces at all the little kids, cautiously dodged the parents, and enviously watched the 5-year-olds who whizzed by like pros. Jerks.

I was admiring the jeans of the girl in front of me – made up of light- and dark-blue patches – and thinking, “Hey, that’s cool, I want a pair like that!” when I fell again. Along came the good ol’ halaqa crew to my rescue, once again. In the resulting confusion as they tried to haul me back up, a couple more girls fell. My sister laughed and remarked, “It takes a halaqa.” I laughed, too. “I’m going to write a book,” I said. “Forget It Takes a Village. This one’s going to be called, It Takes a Halaqa.” I’m amusing, I know.

The best part, by far, was when we wrangled a bucket from somewhere, turned it upside down, and zoomed around the skating rink. M pushed me over the ice while I hunched my shoulders, laughed helplessly and held on to the bucket for dear life. After one turn around, she stopped and looked at me questioningly. “Let’s do it again!” I said. So we did. Fun times, yo.

I’ve been paying for all those falls though. Me, I don’t even know how to sit down correctly – sitting like a lady, as more proper people would call it. This is actually a problem, I’ve realized over the past couple of days. Every time I fling myself into a chair or sofa or the front seat of my car, my butt hurts, and my leg muscles cramp up. And rotating my arms and shoulders to wrap my hijab around my head in the mornings is semi-painful, too. But it was all well-worth it, don’t worry.

This is what M had to say about our day:

Doughnuts from Albertsons: $4

Getting into Iceland: $7

Renting skates: $3

Pushing a giggling Yasmine on the ice while she sits on a bucket: Priceless

Sometimes I can’t believe I’m at least 5 years older than some of these girls.

And just re-reading how many times I’ve used the word “ass” in this post is making me giggle, too. Looks like my inner preschooler tendencies are alive and well. Then again, I would hope preschoolers had a better vocabulary than that. Based on my own experiences with them, preschoolers are far more amused by the word “underwear” anyway. Smart kids.

fake post III – what i did yesterday, blah blah bl…

Rockstar and Crescent

fake post III – what i did yesterday, blah blah blah (the standard is really decreasing, or what?)

I’ve finally figured out that I am certifiably insane. (No kidding?) Yesterday, I used one of my breaks from class to stop by a little market and buy some fruits and vegetables for home. I love the place. Run by a Mexican family, it’s practically a little hole in the wall, but the produce is amazingly cheaper than the price I’d have to pay at a grocery chain. I still need to get used to referring to cilantro, though. I grew up calling it “green coriander” – as opposed to ground coriander, you see. Grocery stores, however, call it “cilantro.” Okay. And for those people who are yet having difficulty grasping the concept of persimmons, there was a nice helpful sign stating, “Eat it just like an apple!” So there you have it.

As for me being insane – I gathered together my baskets of fruits and vegetables, and made my way to the register. As I passed by the ice cream cart, I suddenly had this inexplicable craving for ice cream, so I bought myself one of those yummy ice cream bars. Got in my car, and there I was, driving along back to campus. And, in case you’ve missed it, I absolutely hate the cold. So I’m all bundled up in my sweater, a scarf wrapped twice around my neck, the heat’s turned on to the max, my teeth are chattering like crazy, and I’m just chomping on this cold, frozen ice cream bar. Hilarious. I just had to laugh at myself. It was one of those moments when you want to pick up the phone and call a friend and say, “Guess what I’m doing right now?” so that they can tell you what a psychopath you are. But, between the steering wheel and the ice cream bar, my hands were otherwise occupied, so… So yeah, it’s okay.

At around 5pm, we drove from campus to Sacramento for an MSA banquet at Sac State. Took us only a half-hour, which isn’t bad considering the numerous times we got lost. But hey, we made so many U-turns that they cancelled each other out, and so theoretically it shouldn’t count at all. Great philosophy, no? Gorgeous campus, by the way. Re-cap of the evening: Ate amazing food, laughed with beautiful people, bought a Longing for the Divine wall-calendar (highly recommended), watched/listened to two people take shahadah, took lots of group photographs because I was coerced into doing so and also because it doesn’t take much persuasion for me to flash the cheesy grin.

Not-so-hot highlights: Hearing far too many people exclaim over how “tired and stressed” I supposedly looked. Someone accused me of potentially “ruining other people’s forthcoming smiles” if I kept up the exhausted face. As if I were purposely cultivating the expression. (Excuse me? How tired would you look if you had slept an average of 2 hours/night all week and had just finished seven papers?) Also: The event, though impressively well-organized, was just too long. Imam Zaid Shaker, the keynote speaker, was scheduled for the end, and spoke at length about “bringing the Muslim community together,” or something to that effect. I feel that a speaker of his caliber could have done well with a better topic. Not his fault though, because he went along with what they gave him, and they should have given him a better topic. I don’t know what. Don’t ask me right now.

By 9pm, halfway through Imam Zaid’s speech, we decided to leave. My 90-minute drive home wasn’t looking too appealing at the moment, especially considering how tired I was. Gave my friend Jason a ride over to his place, and on the way we talked about the shahadahs we had witnessed that evening. He brought up the hadith regarding the fact that a convert is considered, by his conversion to Islam, pure and free of any previous sin – all his previous sins are wiped out entirely (Saheeh Muslim #121). “Remember, when I took my shahadah last year, what you said to me when the imam told me that hadith?” he asked.
“No, what did I say?” I replied curiously.
He laughed, “You said, ‘I’m jealous!’”
Hey, I’m still jealous. I wish I could have clean slate like that.

Funny, I had forgotten that envious remark of mine though. What I remember instead is having an MSA girl approach me the morning after Jason’s shahadah to ask boldly, “So, don’t take this the wrong way, but we were just wondering… About your friend – did he become Muslim for you?” I remember my jaw dropping at her audacity, then recovering enough to raise my eyebrow and reply coldly, “I would hope he had far better reasons than that,” then turning and walking away.

I don’t understand girls, especially not the exaggerated soap opera drama-queen endeavors and unnecessary/misplaced nosiness that seems to go with being a girl. I’m just not cut out for it. I shoulda been a boy, I’m telling you.

multiple choice Felt like updating, but I’m maj…

Rockstar and Crescent

multiple choice

Felt like updating, but I’m majorly exhausted, as evidenced by the fact that I made it to Taraweeh at the masjid for the first time in a week, and then kept dozing off while standing in prayer. Terrible, isn’t it?

I need lots of sleep, and you all could use some constructive breaks from my psycho randomness, I’m sure. So, speaking of masjids, Javed has put together a survey entitled “Muslim Women and the Mosque.” The survey’s pretty self-explanatory, but you could also check out his post here.

So, ladies: Take the survey.

Ladies and gentlemen alike: Feel free to share your thoughts and experiences on the matter, either in my comment box or Javed’s, or both. His is more reliable though, seriously.

I’d post some of my own observations on the subject, but all this yawning is hampering my attempts at coherent writing. My jaw’s about to pop, I swear. I’ll get to commenting about this tomorrow, insha’Allah.

Good night, y’all.

Ramadan mubarak to you all

Loss and laments and letting go, Rockstar and Crescent, Salaam Namaste

For all my joking that my mental age is in the single digits (and, hey, it is, okay), all I really want is to be fourteen again.

I was still two weeks shy of my thirteenth birthday the year I traveled to Pakistan, in the midst of Ramadan, for what would ultimately become an eighteen-month stay. That first Ramadan in the village passed in nothing more than a jet-lagged stupor. We kids stubbornly slept through iftar, and then remained wide-awake following suhoor, bundled up in heavy quilts against the numbing late-February cold, tossing paper airplanes back and forth across the vast, dimly-lit room as a means of passing time. The daylight hours were spent staring shyly, uncertainly at an endless sea of curious faces, fellow villagers who came out to see this family from America.

I was fourteen by the time Ramadan rolled around the next year. The village had become home by then, and that’s the Ramadan I remember most clearly, the one I compare all others to, the one I seek to regain in terms of simplicity and spirituality. The months leading up to that Ramadan were interesting, to say the least. Mainly, I remember the hours spent in learning to read and write Urdu, and learning to recite the Qur’an in Arabic. I remember picking up Urdu with staggering fluency, surpassing my teacher’s and father’s and even my own expectations. And once I ran out of Naseem Hijazi novels and short story anthologies and magazines and poetry in Urdu, I turned to Urdu hadith collections and translations of the Qur’an. I still recall reading my first set of hadith in Urdu, and the feeling of epiphany that came with it, the sense that I had finally grasped the essential nature of what it really meant to be Muslim, and what was expected of me now that I possessed that sacred knowledge.

During that second Ramadan, I completed the recitation of the Qur’an three times, in Arabic, supplemented with full translation, so that I could understand exactly what it was that I was reciting. But most of all, though, I remember the prayers. I had never been in a masjid, much less prayed in jama’at. That, unfortunately, just wasn’t done in the village. Instead, I used to pray taraweeh, the night prayers, in our long, narrow behtuk, lights dim and door closed, my tasbeeh carefully placed on the chair next to me, a small handful of date pits on the floor next to my prayer rug, to help me keep track of the raka’at. Some nights I’d pray out in the courtyard, on the marble slab created for that purpose. Either way, more often than not, the electricity would go out, and my mother would have forgotten to bring me a lantern, and so I’d be left to pray in utter darkness, which only served to enhance my prayer and make the experience more beautiful.

Six months later, I was back in the U.S. After a year or two, things began to change. I let them. Life got in the way. I somehow let that happen, too.

I sat in halaqa yesterday morning and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Everything I’ve been learning over the past several years, through conferences and lectures and halaqas, is stuff I already know. Or, actually, stuff I used to know, before I let myself lose that edge of clarity I once took for granted.

And that is the most frustrating thing of all, to know that if I stretch just a bit further, I could perhaps grasp that clarity once more, and to yet also know, at the same time, that I’m just not trying as hard enough as I have the potential to.

Last night, I went to pray the first taraweeh of the month in jama’at at the masjid, as I usually do now. I walked out of there nearly two hours later, with the soles of my feet aching from standing so long and my knees tingling from rug-burn, yet elated at having captured some of that closeness to God. Not every congregational prayer can do that for me. Mostly, I’ve found praying in jama’at to be distracting. What I usually need is solitude, to enhance my level of concentration.

This morning, I prayed fajr in solitude, hearing aids and lamps and overhead lights all switched off, door closed firmly against the rest of the house. I prayed surrounded by absolute silence and inky darkness, and at some point I could feel that sense of peace…not exactly flooding back – that would be too simple, now, wouldn’t it? – but more as if tentatively pressing back against the walls of the room, simply there if only I reached out, concentrated just enough.

Earlier today, driving up to school, I listened to Shaykh Ali Abdur-Rahman Al-Hudhaify’s recitation of Surahs Ya-Seen and Ar-Rahman. Reciting along easily, I was surprised, as always, by how I’ve unconsciously managed to memorize most of those Qur’anic chapters merely through sporadically listening to them on my more stressful days. And I wonder, if I’ve managed to do that much unconsciously, think of how much I could do if I just put my mind to it.

My goal for this Ramadan, then, is to regain at least some of that clarity and focus and discipline from the year I was fourteen, so that my prayers become less routine movements and rote memorization, and more personal conversations with God, just as they once used to be.

Whatever your own goals for Ramadan, I hope you find within you the strength and dedication and drive to fulfill your goals, and to maintain and implement those changes following Ramadan, too. May your fasting become a manifestation of patience. May He accept your repentance and make it sound and permanent, and grant you guidance and success in following the straight path. May He purify your intentions, accept your fasting and tears, forgive your sins, and bless you with mercy and peace during this month and throughout the year. Ameen.

oh no, I’ve said too much/I haven’t said enough…

Conversations and Encounters, Rockstar and Crescent

I am sitting in the café’s patio, alone, surrounded by mosaic tiles and empty wrought-iron furniture, late afternoon sunlight slanting across my table, classical music streaming from the speakers.

Just this morning, exasperated at running out of lined paper during my lecture and having misplaced my favorite pen, I walked over to the campus bookstore to remedy the situation. I bought two legal pads and a beautiful pen – a needle tip, 0.5mm ballpoint pen with blue liquid gel ink. Sitting in the patio now, I congratulate myself on a good purchase. I am in love with my new pen, enjoying the ease with which my angular handwriting spills out and across the pages. Having spent far too many of the past days in front of computer screens, pounding away at keyboards, typing out academic papers, I now revel in writing that is completely unrelated to lecture notes.

I have filled three pages of the legal pad when the door between the café and patio suddenly flies open, and out emerges a man in his 60s, precariously balancing a slice of cake, a steaming cup of coffee, and the day’s newspaper. He bustles over to the table next to mine, seats himself, and raises his coffee cup to his mouth, boldly staring at me over the rim. My sense of peace is shot, no matter how hard I try to ignore him.

He makes a great show of noisily unfolding his newspaper and shaking it out, then solemnly peruses the headlines. “Let’s see if there’s been anything good going on in the world!” he exclaims to no one in particular, and yet the comment is quite obviously directed at me, because there is no one else there. My view that he is addressing me is justified, for only a half-second later he pointedly looks over at me, laughing at his ironic joke. I smile wryly in response and busy myself once more with writing, but it is not meant to be.

“So, where are you from?” he asks.

I look over and raise an eyebrow. “Are you asking for my ethnicity, nationality, or hometown?”

“Originally,” he says. “Originally, where are you from?”

“Pakistan,” I answer.

“What’s it like, the part where you’re from?” he asks interestedly, so I tell him a little bit about my village and the times I’ve spent there, about the simplicity inherent in that way of life.

“Huh,” he answers. “So are you planning on retiring there in forty years?”

My tone of response is not self-deprecating as I had meant it, but instead more defensive than I had intended. “I can barely plan ahead four days at a time,” I answer sharply. “Forty years is beyond my capabilities at the moment.”

He throws his head back and shouts with laughter. “Good answer,” he says. “Very good answer.” I relax a little, and analyze his appearance.

His crown of gray hair sticks up in tufts, as do his thick arching eyebrows. He has a deep laugh that shakes his entire body. When he makes an emphatic point, he raises those eyebrows and opens his blue eyes wide in mock surprise, flashing a slightly malicious grin. He reminds me very, very much of the actor Jack Nicholson, and, to be honest, I find that fact somewhat intimidating.

“There are two categories of non-Americans,” he remarks. “Either they want to come to the U.S. and live here, or they want to blow it up instead.” He pauses. “I don’t get it,” he says. “Why they want to blow us up, I mean. You know what I think? I think those that can’t make it to here are jealous of those who do, so they decide to try and blow us up. Simple as that!”

Inwardly, I wince at his logic – or lack thereof – and his naïveté. The U.S. is disliked abroad for many reasons, but I doubt petty jealousy was truly a motivating or defining factor in such unpleasant and heartbreaking incidents as those of September 11th.

Before I can respond to the absurdity of his previous statement, he’s already on a roll. He throws rapid-fire questions and comments at me, bringing up Iraq, Iran, Turkey, the Arab nations, Wahhabis, Afghanistan, democratic versus secular versus fundamentalist forms of government, and, of course, Osama bin Laden, the “most fucked up of them all.” While I try to tackle one subject, he leaps ahead to another as easily as children skip between hopscotch squares on sidewalk pavements. He never lets me finish an idea, interrupting me before I can complete a sentence, before I can wrap up my thoughts. He does this deliberately, I know.

Public speaking has always come easily to me: debates, presentations, workshops, speeches, statements. During such times, the words flow effortlessly, it seems. Yet public speaking situations also have the added convenience of a previously prepared statement, of an argument perfected ahead of time. In this case, however, I find myself fumbling, stumbling, searching for the right combination of words, trying to keep up with him as he continually jumps from one topic to another. It seems to me more an inquisition than a conversation. I feel a mix of defensiveness and a suspicion of being put on the spot.

Finally, I realize that I’m trying to say far too much, much too fast. So I slow down. I pause often, to gather my thoughts and lend them a semblance of coherence and authority. When he attempts once more to aggressively interrupt me in mid-sentence, I raise my voice slightly and steamroll right over his, so that he falters, lets me continue, and actually pays attention to what I am trying to say.

He brings up the issue of immigrants and the third-world countries that many of them leave behind. “The U.S. is full of immigrants,” he says thoughtfully. “They’re the best and brightest of the countries they come from, there’s no denying that. The problem is, once they get here, they choose to spend the rest of their lives here, and meanwhile, all the dumb-asses back home are fucking everything up. Their countries need the smart ones to actually return.” He looks at me inquisitively. “What are you planning on doing to help your country? They need a lot of help over there, you know.” Before I can answer, he has already moved on. “So why did you decide to come to the U.S.? And how long have you been here for?”

“My whole life, basically,” I say. “I was born here.”

“Oh, so you’re an American, then!” he says. This surprises him. There follows a moment of silence. I can almost see the wheels turning behind his eyes, in his mind, as he scrabbles around to reclassify me, redefine me. He had jumped to conclusions, his pigeonhole definition didn’t work out, I caught him off guard, and now he must start all over, it seems. “Hmm. So you’re not even an immigrant at all! You’re not even Pakistani, then. You’re just American.”

Surprisingly, I find myself resenting this, which is ironic if I remember how, after September 11th, I put special emphasis on the fact that I was just as much an American as everyone else around here. Yet I’ve never been “just [anything].” Each part of who I am, each facet of my identity, is shaped by a multitude of experiences and interactions, thoughts and encounters. I’ve worked hard to become who I am today, and “just American” does not even come close to encompassing all that I am. I resent his blatant dismissal of my roots, my heritage, the long eighteen months I spent learning my language and dialect and culture and traditions, the way I try to integrate all these into my life even today. He must see something of this in my face, for he hastily backtracks: “Well, I guess that makes you Pakistani American, then. A second-generation immigrant.”

Interestingly enough, it is only at the end of our conversation that he asks, “Are you Muslim?”

“Yes,” I say, no hesitation here.

“So you practice the Islamic faith.”

“Yes.”

There is a long stretch of silence as he looks at me broodingly, unblinkingly, a steady gaze from a stranger I’ll never see again, most likely. I force myself to return his stare firmly, unflinchingly.

“You’re different from what I imagined Muslims are like,” he says finally.

On his way back inside, he wishes me good luck in my future studies, adding, “Don’t forget to think about what you’re going to do to change the world!” He grins maliciously again. “After all, you inherited all this shit from my generation, and your father’s. And from our fathers. It’s up to you guys to clean it all up now.”

I raise an eyebrow at his terminology, but nod my head thoughtfully, reassuringly. He turns back for a second, serious once more. “So you’re Muslim, huh?” Before I can answer, he nods contemplatively. “Good for you. I bet you can change the world.” Then the door slams shut behind him.

We are Islam walking.

Never forget that.

[Acknowledgement for this post must go to Somayya,…

Rockstar and Crescent

[Acknowledgement for this post must go to Somayya, without whose generosity and understanding I would not have made it to yesterday’s program, who has successfully put me on several guilt trips over the past week and who has, yes, been quite justified in doing so, but who (I hope) understood why I had to be here and not there – and who loves me anyway, which is always more than I ever deserve.]

Friday, 10 October 2003: Unity Halaqa at Zaytuna Institute

[Subhan’Allah, Zaytuna is such a beautiful place. Somehow, I always feel that the time spent there cleanses my heart and soul. And who’s to say it doesn’t? The soothing environment, the interactions with other Muslims seeking the same sense of peace, our sheer proximity to such a wonderful resource for knowledge, are all instrumental in furthering and strengthening imaan.]

The lecture began. Calmed by the sea of strange faces and familiar smiles, the intimate sense of brotherhood and the cushioned seats, we were all listening intently, some of us busily scribbling away in notebooks or on hastily-gathered sheaves of paper, others simply leaning forward on the edges of their seats with hands clasped and brows furrowed. Absorption and fascination were evident on every face as he expounded on the Arabic concept of futuwwa, or chivalry. The virtue that is usually associated with youth, he informed us. That spirit of courage and self-sacrifice, the willingness to forego one’s needs to help someone else, the bravery required to stand up and challenge.

A few minutes into the speech, I felt a hesitant hand on my shoulder and turned to see the lady beside me – a middle-aged Pakistani woman seated next to a young girl I took to be her daughter – wearing an expression of bafflement as she gestured toward the front and whispered, “Who is he?”

“That’s Imam Zaid Shakir,” I explained. “Ahh, shukriyya,” she said, showing no evident signs of recognition even upon hearing his name. She simply nodded politely, and turned back to face the front of the room. I watched her profile for a moment, admittedly surprised that she didn’t know who he was. And then I was ashamed of myself for being surprised. After all, there was a time, not so long ago, when I myself hadn’t known who Imam Zaid Shakir was, either. I have only hazy memories of hearing him for the first time at the 2001 Zaytuna Conference. Then I heard him speak once more during the beginning of this year, and again at our event just a few weeks ago. And last night.

And yet? “Oh, look, there’s Imam Zaid,” we say casually. And, “Yeah, Shaykh Hamza’s gonna be there.” And, “Oh, hey, did you make it to Ustadh Suhaib’s lecture the other night?” As if we’re on a first-name basis with our Bay Area scholars. Shameless name-droppers, all of us.

Last night, thinking about the lady and my own reaction to her question, I was reminded once more of brother Ali Shayan’s observation that we have a tendency to take our access to such scholars, and their presence in our community, for granted.

Following some convoluted train of thought I don’t recall, I reflected on those who consistently participate in halaqas and masjid- or Islamic center-related events, who belong to MSAs, who help organize fundraisers/conferences/lectures, who travel to speak to fellow believers, who take part in rallies and demonstrations, who stumble and sometimes even fall yet remember to turn to Him during their times of need, who take active roles, who volunteer or intern, who profess to be practicing believers, who seek knowledge for His sake alone…

And I wondered – Are we doing enough?
– To get the word out, to teach others what we have learned, to refer them to someone else who knows more, to pass on knowledge we ourselves possess, to be active participants in society, to make our votes count, to speak out, to share, to listen, to implement what we know and to teach others how to do the same, to challenge, to smile confidently and fearlessly in the face of suspicious frowns, to disprove stereotypes, to speak the truth, to protest, to demonstrate by personal example, to practice what we preach, to take a stand, to tear down walls, to be assertive, to refuse to blend in, to show compassion, to work for what we believe in, to willingly step forward –

What are we doing? What am I doing?

jazak’Allah khayr for the memories… – of my prima…

Rockstar and Crescent

jazak’Allah khayr for the memories…

– of my primary email account, which must have broken any and all existing records in going over the maximum limit dozens of times over the past few months, and my cell phone bill, which should make me cringe when it arrives any day now.

– of a mother who may not have understood, and a father who did, but both of whom dealt with our event-consumed lives and the constant skipping of household chores with grace and humor, and didn’t lecture us (too much).

– of driving up to Sacramento the day before the event, to pick up some supplies for tabling. I hadn’t counted on the fact that there would be stop-and-go traffic at 3 in the afternoon, that the heat would be so oppressive, that it’d take me over two hours to get there (as opposed to the usual one hour). In the end, though, Somayya and I wandered around Wishing Well like gleeful children in a candy store, laughing our asses off at the decorations and masks and hats and fake boas, ultimately buying cheap tablecloths and tickets and, yes, candy!

– of buying last-minute posterboard, pens, masking tape, and markers from OfficeMax the day of. (Note to self: Next time, do this beforehand, yo.)

– of driving over to UC Berkeley with Somayya and L, listening to Somayya, sitting on the backseat, flipping through my pile of childrens books and reading them in her best imitation of a South Asian accent: “‘Papa,’ said Monica to her father, ‘please get the moon for me.” (“Oh!” cried Somayya as an aside, still immersed in her fobby accent, “this is a pop-up book!”) “My God,” said L derisively, the non-desi girl who speaks English, Arabic, and French fluently, “I can do a better desi accent than that,” and proceeded to illustrate with gusto.

– of the mass chaos and confusion and nearly unbearable sound levels that awaited me when I entered Wheeler Hall, of giving the merchants and organizations instructions about where they could table, of dealing with people who didn’t understand why they weren’t allowed to table in the lobby, of S who advised, “If they give you attitude, stand your ground.”

– of finally picking up our copies of the Burda, and the many, many thoughts of Seher that ran through my mind throughout the day. Remember when you read my post and emailed us to recommend the Burda as soothing? You were so right. Jazak’Allah, woman. You rock for reals.

– of the ten vendors/merchants and the twenty-two organizations who tabled, who with their mere presence lent our event an air of expertise and professionalism. And, from amongst these people, the many who came up to me and said, “Ahh, so you’re Yasmine! It’s good to finally meet you.”

– of the cute little old couple I saw, wandering around inside Wheeler Hall, holding hands, smiling serenely.

– of sitting down to listen to the speeches and performances, only to sprint back up the aisle and out the doors whenever my cell phone vibrated with calls from fellow organizers.

– of praying Dhuhr with Somayya in a peaceful little alcove (actually a side entrance for some campus building), and later praying ‘Isha shoulder-to-shoulder, along with literally hundreds of others, on a field close by Wheeler, the grass tickling our noses and foreheads during sajdah, looking upwards while making du’a to see the Campanile (the campus tower) beautifully lit up against the dark sky.

– of the countless guys and girls, strangers many of them, who came up to me, hands held out in appeal, pleading, “I want to help. Please. Give me something to do.”

– of constantly being mistaken for my sister. No, we don’t look anything alike.

– of listening to Ali Shayan say, “You have four scholars living amongst you: Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, Amir Abdul Malik Ali, Ustadh Suhaib Webb, Imam Zaid Shakir. I’m only here for one short day, and I’m running around like crazy trying to figure out how I can meet all these people in the span of one day, whereas you all have the opportunity to see them every single day,” and realizing that we truly do take our proximity to these people of knowledge for granted.

– of staring mesmerized (more like, gawking outright) at the sign language interpreter at the front of the room, a woman who calmly and competently displayed her fluency in that mysterious language made up of fluid gestures.

– of the deaf brother tabling for the UC Berkeley MSA, who asked me if I know sign language. No, I don’t, though I’ve been talking about learning for years.

– of listening to Dr. Sapphire Ahmed say emphatically, “Don’t ever ever let anyone judge you,” and looking around me, over a sea of faces, seeing people nodding their heads in agreement, knowing that that remark had hit close to home for many.

– of brother W, who must have changed his clothes at least three times that day, finally ending up in traditional clothing, including a mirrored and intricately-embroidered black-and-silver Afghan vest that brought back memories of our own childhood. “Hey, we used to have black-and-gold vests like that,” Somayya told him. “I don’t wear gold,” he said disdainfully. “Stop hatin’,” she reproved, while he countered that silver could be paired and matched with more items of clothing than gold. And he’s accused us of stealing his style. The nerve. All I know is, he was much easier to find when he was wearing the red t-shirt.

– of racing down to a drugstore just after they had closed up and locked their doors for the day, and the owner who smiled and let us in when we pleaded we had just stopped by for one item.

– of wandering over to the student store for water bottles and getting sidetracked by other things: “Blue slurpees!” I gasped theatrically. Too bad the blue raspberry slurpee machine was running way slow, and it would have taken me days to fill up a cup. I settled for lime, while Somayya artistically layered her cup with lemon, blue raspberry, and lime. Grand.

– of listening to the Arabic qasidahs near the end of the day, SA and I leaning our heads together and whispering the words along with the performers.

– of the hundreds upon hundreds of people who turned out for the event. We stopped formal registration procedures after the first 800 or so people, yet there were hundreds more milling around, crowds and clusters of diverse folk united by faith in One.

– of the three people who made shahadah. Subhan’Allah. May they always be blessed.

– of L again, who had the strength of spirit to give a plateful of food to a homeless man, one of sadly oh so, so many, sitting against a light pole on Berkeley’s Telegraph Ave.

– of our dinner two days later with Dr. Sapphire Ahmed, discussing with her politics and religion, medicine and activism. And, after dropping her off, conversing with the Pukhtun traffic control guy at Oakland Airport.

– of the follow-up emails from attendees, organizations, merchants, fellow organizers, congratulating us on a job well-done. Alhamdulillah. And the numerous requests for a video tape of the event. Heck, I want one, too.

People – merchants, organizations, attendees – have asked who was behind all this; what was the “big organization” behind the event. “There isn’t any,” we replied. Although the event was held on the UC Berkeley campus, it was not a UC Berkeley-related event. And although a few Bay Area masajid have pledged to help with our budget issues and out-of-pocket costs, it was not a masjid-sponsored event either.

It’s just us, a group of mostly college students in the East Bay, trying to figure out ways of livin’ it right.