courant.com | Muslim Campground Raided, But Why?

courant.com | Muslim Campground Raided, But Why?

A Tennessee-based blog called “Ginny’s Thoughts and Things” also seeks answers about the East Haddam raid: “I’m totally confused on this one. Could someone

explain this to me?”

Assalamu alaikum, yep I was quoted! And to think how strange my day was going yesterday! I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone, as it was, and to have my blog quoted! I sure didn’t expect it! I mean, if my blog was going to be quoted, I thought they would have quoted something, I don’t know, more profound? Like maybe something more than “can someone explain this to me?” Kinda makes me sound like an airhead. Which maybe I am to some extent.

But the way yesterday was going, the only thing more weird or strange than having my blog quoted by a newspaper would be to have had my ex-husband all of a sudden resurface in my life, without warning, to proclaim how much he messed up, and send me all the receipts for the cost of all the intensive counselling sessions he’d gone to in order to deal with his abusiveness. And / or to have one or more upright and pious men come and tell me how unfailingly pious / religious he’s become and what a good Muslim he is. And how much he wants me back in his life! But then again, if that were to ever happen, I think I’d truly be afraid, because the day that happens is the day it snows in July in Senegal, and if it were to ever snow in July in Senegal, then I’d truly be afraid that the Last Hour is truly upon us! Subhanallah! But even if he were to try to come back in my life, I just wouldn’t want him! He’d have to go and bring me the moon and maybe a few stars thrown in for good measure before I’d even consider even remotely dealing with him again! And we all know that is impossible! I mean, my life has become so much better without him in it, in so many ways! And to think he said I’d never succeed without him! OK, enough of that! Astaghfirullah! I did not plan to make this blog a place for me to vent about past wrongs done to me by people! May Allah forgive me!

But I have been thinking a lot about how much better my life has gotten since my divorce, and to think, sometimes I actually had moments where I thought maybe I was better with him! Maybe I’d never succeed! This just truly goes to show that Allah truly takes care of people, that He is in control, not some mere man who beats blind women! Allahu Akbar! Allah truly is Most Merciful, Most Kind! And is that thunder I’m hearing? OK, gotta go! Or else I might be making dua for a new computer, because this one’s gotten zapped by lightning.

Bill Bennett: "[Y]ou could abort every black ba … [Media Matters]

Bill Bennett: “[Y]ou could abort every black ba … [Media Matters]

Assalamu alaikum / greetings, got the above link from Ousman’s blog Just wanted to give credit. Is anyone else talking about this? Is anyone in the “mainstream” news media talking about this? I haven’t listened to any kind of news today except for NPR on the way home and they did not mention it, at least not in the time I was listening.

Nightmare for African Women: Birthing Injury and Little Help – The New York Times

Nightmare for African Women: Birthing Injury and Little Help – The New York Times

Assalamu alaikum, before the “developed world” wasn’t so developed, I’d imagine that this was also a problem, too. This reminds me of the hadith that paradise is at the feet of the mothers. When you think of all women throughout history have had to go through to carry a child to term, give birth to them, and raise them, Subhanallah! Also, Islamically, isn’t there something somewhere which says that if a woman dies while giving birth that she will be a martyr or something like that? I couldn’t even imagine having something like a fistula, and then be in the position of not being able to get it fixed. Subhanallah, I can try to imagine, but imagining isn’t like suffering from something like this! And you don’t only suffer from the physical affects of a fistula but also the emotional / societal affects, because of how people treat you.

More thoughts on racism

Assalamu alaikum, as I’ve said in previous posts / comments, on my first post on race and racism, I really don’t think I dealt with the subject in an adequate way. Racism / prejudice is a very complex subject, and racism can come in many forms, and racism doesn’t just have to be in horrifying images of men in white sheets running around lynching people. A case in point is a quote from Bill Bennett where he says that the crime rate would go down if every black baby was aborted. Huh? Now how can that not be racist? I’d sure like to hear how Sean Hanity or Rush Limbaugh would spin this one. Oh, I take that back, no I wouldn’t. I can’t stand any more than about 5 minutes listening to those two, and if I have to suffer through them in the car with my dad on the way home, out come the dhikr beads and I launchin to mad dhikr, just so I can drown them out!

As I’ve said before on this blog, or maybe I haven’t, but, this whole issue of racism has fascinated / angered / I don’t know what else, ever since I relized that said issue existed! I mean, for me, the concept of color itself is a hard enough thing for me, someone who has never seen it, to understand. And what is more, it’s harder for me to understand even more how the color of one’s eyes or hair doesn’t really matter so much, but yet the color of one’s skin has come to mean so much! I’d really like for you sightlings ( just kidding ), to explain that one to me! And though many have tried, I can understand color in the abstract sense, like I know it’s there, but because I’ve never seen it, I don’t think I’ll ever quote understand it.

Maybe that’s why I don’t understand racism. Maybe that is why I don’t understand why anyone would make such a preposterous statement as to suggest that aborting black babies would reduce the crime rate in this country! Or that one race, because of skin color is superior to other races. Or, what would possess a group of men to go and terrorize unsuspecting people, for no other reason than they are black. Or, well, I could go on. I just don’t get it.

Or what would cause people to engage in economic, social, and other practices that put people of color at the bottom of the economic and power structure.

The thing is, prejudice and racism still exist in this country, at least, in a big way. And my previous post on racism was in no way trying to say that it didn’t. But at the same time, there is a difference between prejudice and racism. And while there are still many racist and prejudiced people in this world, their actions and words should call them out as such, not just merely because they happen to be of a certain color. what I’m saying is that when people look at me, I don’t want to be automatically assumed to be some kind of racist or whatever, before you’ve even sat down and talked to me, simply because I’m white. To me, that is terribly unfair.

Now, if I were to go around making the sorts of statements that Bill Bennett is making, then it would be a different story.

Another thing that I’ve often wondered about is who can or cannot be a racist? If racism merely means the feeling of superiority of one race over another, then I’d say anyone who feels that one race is superior to another can be a racist. However, if you feel that racism not only supposes that one holds one race as superior to another but also the ability to enforce that superiority, I guess you could say, then I’d say that no, at this time, being that white people are at the top of the political and economic structure, then other races and ethnic groups cannot be racist.

On the other hand, however, anyone can be prejudiced. White people don’t have a monopoly on prejudice. Just to cite a few examples, I’ve seen prejudice exhibited from all types of people, from the white person who thinks black people are violent or lazy or whatever, to all kinds of people who think all Muslims or Arabs are terrorists, to even African-Americans who think most or all Africans are dishonest, though none of the people mentioned above have dealt with Africans, African-Americans, or Muslims, or have never even dealt with said people face to face. They only believe what they’ve been told, or they take one bad experience they’ve had and label all Muslims as such-and-such or all Africans as such-and-such or all black people as such-and-such. I can sort of understand the tendency to do this, but it’s not right.

I just wanted to point out that I’m not so naive to think that racism in this country isn’t alive and well. It’s just taken different, more acceptable, more politically correct forms. So there you go, take what I’vve said for what you think it’s worth.

Commenting on comments.

     Assalamu alaikum, being that I turned on the word verification option, which is inaccessible to me, as of now, I have to comment to any comments you guys make via blog posts.  Sorry.  I wanted to get rid of the spam, but I didn’t want to at the same time, deny myself access to comments on my own blog.  But anyway, below is the comment I’d wanted to make.

 

Assalamu alaikum, you wrote:

 

Or what about the case of the well-educated investment banker who went to the Ivy League school and knows all people are created equal but in their job
is still willing to make callous economic decisions which exploit and adversely affect large numbers of people in the Third world? Sure, they are different
from the Klansman but there is a certain family resemblance. What would you call them?

 

I don’t know… food for thought.

 

 

 

You make a good point.  And then there’s where you get into overt vs. covert racism, I guess.  Or at least racism and prejudice that is not so tangible and in your face.  The thing is, in my haste to put upa post dealing with racism and prejudice, I think maybe I oversimplified the issue, or that maybe I didn’t explore te issue in as much depth as I should have, or that I would have liked to.  Racism and prejudice are very complex issues, and maybe one blog post can’t possibly deal with the myriad of issues that prejudice and racism tend to encompass.

Ramadan : How Tos of Fasting

Ramadan : How Tos of Fasting

Turn off that stove! An eight-step Ramadan plan for sisters

Turn off that stove! An eight-step Ramadan plan for sisters

Race and Racism

     Assalamu alaikum, I’ve been thinking a whole lot about this whole racism thing lately.  I’m not sure why, really.  Maybe it’s because of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and how that hurricane laid bare the racial and class structures of this country, laid them open for all the world to see.

 

     The thing is, while I agree that there is such a thing as “white privilege” and while I agree that there is a lot of prejudice in the world, I am not sure I’d go so far as to say that “all white people are racist”, because quite simply, I don’t think that is true.  Some white people may indeed be.  But most aren’t.  As a white person myself, I’d venture to say that most white people may be terribly ignorant of groups of people different from themselves, and they may hold awful stereotypes about said people.  However, I think most white people, at least in today’s world, would draw the line when it comes to the sorts of violence visited upon black people, for example, in this country, as late as the 1960’s and even in some isolated events even today, by groups such as the Klan.  I mean, I am not God, and as such, I can’t see into the hearts of everyone.  I don’t know their hearts, I don’t know their intentions, so I can’t say for certin that “all white people are racists”, because I am not All-Knowing, so this I do not know.

 

     Now, having said this, it doesn’t make the prejudice and ignorance exhibited by many white people as right.  I just think there is a definite difference between “racism” and “prejudice”.  Racism means that one feels that a certain race is superior to another.  Prejudice means having preconceived notions about a certain group of people, but having prejudices doesn’t necessarily mean that one feels one race superior to another.

 

     I will say, though, that many times, the line between racism and prejudice can be quite blurred, and it can be easy to confuse the two.

 

     I think the best thing to do, whoever you are, is to do your best to tackle whatever kinds of prejudices you see in yourself and do your best to fight them.

 

     I often find myself thinking how Islam can do so much to combat racism and prejudice among people.  For one thing, in Islam, all men and women are equal before God, and in fact, in the Prophet Muhammad’s (peace be upon him) last sermon, he emphatically stated that there is no difference between the black man or the white, the Arab or the non-Arab, except in acts of piety.

 

     Another thing that I thought of was this idea that “all white people are racist”.  How interesting, I thought to myself, that we as Muslims, are not supposed to be suspicious of others, or maybe it’s not suspicious.  Maybe what I’m trying to say is, we’re not supposed to be going around thinking we know what’s in people’s hearts, or questioning people’s intentions, because Allah knows best what is in people’s hearts.  All we can go on is people’s actions.  Or what we see outwardly.  and Allah indeed knows best what is in our hearts.  So to make the claim that so-and-so is racist, without any evidence of such is wrong, at least in an Islamic sense.  And especially so to make the claim that so-and-so is racist, or so-and-so is “dishonest” or whatever, simply because of some physical trait they possess, such as skin color, is completely wrong.

 

     I know I’m not doing as good of a job as I could in explaining myself.  But I’d wanted to get a post like this put up here, before time just got away from me. 

 

     Besides, Ramadan should Inshallah be starting next week, and once that happens, I will most likely have even less time for blogging than I do now.

 

     The thing is, Islam, especially in its more spiritual aspects, could definitely help in alleviating the problems of racism and prejudice, I think.  Especially when you start getting in to trying to purifying your own heart and intentions, and not worryingg so much about others.

 

    

A quote which caught my eye

     Assalamu alaikum, I came across the following quote on an email list… 

 

The prophets of both religions, Islam and Christianity, are light
skin. These are religions that were brutally forced upon black people. The gates of heaven, in both Islam and Christianity, are closed to those with black
skin. But we, blacks, don’t need to go to hell twice; we are already in hell on earth, aren’t we?

 

     People with black skin can’t get into heaven?  Huh?  Really?  I’ve never heard of anything like this before, unless it was maybe from some KKK, Neo-Nazi, white power group somewhere, but never in the mainstream!  I’ve been sort of turning this quote over and over in my head, sorta kinda pondering over it.  Hmmm…  All I can say is Subhanallah!

 

 

Sunni Sister: Blahg Blahg Blahg � Blog Archive � We Built This City on La illaha illa Allah

Sunni Sister: Blahg Blahg Blahg � Blog Archive � We Built This City on La illaha illa Allah

Assalamu alaikum, intentional Muslim communities? Hmmm…

Telegraph | News | Women bypass sex in favour of ‘instant pregnancies’

Telegraph | News | Women bypass sex in favour of ‘instant pregnancies’

BBC NEWS | Africa | Senegal’s powerful brotherhoods

BBC NEWS | Africa | Senegal’s powerful brotherhoods

Afropop Worldwide

Afropop Worldwide

Orientation

Stern’s Africa, 2005

courant.com | Agents Raid Muslim Campground

courant.com | Agents Raid Muslim Campground

Excerpt

Plant Specimens, Discs, Papers Seized

September 24, 2005

By GARY LIBOW, Courant Staff Writer

EAST HADDAM — Federal agents raided a Muslim campground in Moodus Friday morning, seizing specimens and seeds from what they believe is datashak, a plant

native to India.

Members of the FBI and U.S. Department of Agriculture said in documents that they also seized 19 computer discs and an assortment of documents from the

18-acre Town Street property, owned by Darul Uloom Shady Brook Inc.

Assaalamu alaikum, why did they take the seeds? I’m totally confused about this one? Could someone explain this to me?

ZNet | Race | The Fears of White People

ZNet | Race | The Fears of White People

Assalamu alaikum, given my post below talking about race / marriage, how interesting to find this post kinda sorta linked on the Sunni Sister blog. Well, she linked it from antoher blog (what was the name of that blog again?). OK, gotta go to bed now.

Not Sure I want It…

Assalamu alaikum, I was reading a blog talking

about the upcoming mayoral election in Detroit. I guess

someone in the incumbent mayor’s camp said that his

opponent was “not black enough”, to which the blog

poster wanted to know what that had to do with anything,

that they understood slavery’s affect on

African-Americans and the whole color thing, but that

that shouldn’t be used to demean someone. So then, the

comments basically started talking about how some black

people will do anything they can to hurt other black

people, etc., then it turned to how even though some

black people might be “light-skinned” that maybe they do

still care about black people, Barack Obama was used an

example, because he married a black woman, so he really

does care about black people, and that if he’d married a

white woman, then black people wouldn’t trust him. And

it was basically said that if a black man marries a

white woman, black people can’t trust him because he’s

“sporting that white woman around”. It was a quite

interesting discussion, and you can read it
here if you

are interested.

So what does this have to do with anything? Well,

it once again brought up in my head, the topic of

marriage, which I do think about from time to time. I

tend to vascillate between wanting to get married, to

just not wanting to deal with the whole concept of

marriage at all! Right now, I’m in the “I don’t want

anything to do with it” stage. When I think about it,

it’s just so overwhelming! It’s finding a good wali,

weeding through all the potential prospects, if any

exist at all, it’s finally finding someone I might be

interested in, but then really wondering if he’s a good

brother, if he’s going to turn into someone else once I

marry him. And then, I think about this whole race /

ethnicity thing. Should I just not marry any

African-Americans because “black people won’t trust

him”, or because people will think I’m just a trophy, or

that I only married him because of “the myth”? And I’d

hope that some of you will know what “the myth” is.

So then, not only do I have to deal with the normal

difficulties of marriage, but then I / we, might also

have to deal with the outside stuff too? And do I

really want to deal with that? I most certainly

wouldn’t want any potential husband of mine, no matter

his ethnicity, to not be trusted by his ethnic group

simply because he married me, and simply because I

happen to be (gasp, shudder), white!

And I guess this would go for any ethnic group, be

it black, Arab, Pakistani, whatever. So, does that mean

that the only people I’m allowed to marry are white

converts like myself, so as to eliminate any hint of

mistrust or questioning of intentions from the ethnic

group of anyone I might choose to marry?

I came across a post on Yusuf’s blog, from many

months ago, dealing with Islam, race, and marriage, and

a commentor noted that “anyone who marries outside of

their race * always * has ulterior motives for doing

so”. Oh, really? Hmmm, let me sit here and question

myself. OK, yeah, I had ulterior motives for marrying

my ex-husband. Yep, I admit it! I wanted him to beat

me, I wanted him to cheat on me! Yep, that’s what I

wanted. So there’s my ulterior motive for all to see.

There you have it!

But seriously! The task of finding a spouse, the

task of getting married and then dealing with the

pressure of marriage, both inside and outside of the

marriage, just seems too overwhelming for me! And at

this moment, as I’m thinking about it, I’m not sure I

want it. As much as I’d love to be married again.

But at the same time, as I’m thinking about it, if

I don’t get married what will happen to me? Will I live

the rest of my life alone? does that really bother me?

While at this moment, being “alone” might not be such a

bad idea, what happens when I finally don’t want to be

alone anymore? What happens if I slip into the haram?

And that could happen, you know. So should I try to

marry for that purpose alone? Should I just settle for

the first good brother who comes along, and just marry

him because he’s there, and he actually agreed to marry

me? But what if he happens to be African-American?

Should I pass him up, because other black people won’t

trust him if he marries me? Does this same distrust

apply to other ethnic groups also? And now I’m back to

Square One…

OK, so I’m sure some will say “rely on Allah, trust

in Allah”, and I say, I know. And to me that’s a given

and doesn’t really need to be said. But at the same

time, I still think about this stuff, and it really does

bother me! Despite any apprehensions I might have, I

would like to be married again, but at this point, I

don’t know where to go, I don’t know where to start, I

don’t know who to talk to, that lives close enough to me

who could actually help me in this. Anyway, I’m all

writed out for now. I think I’ll curl up in the bed and

listen to the radio or read another book.

Wiretap mosques, Romney suggests – The Boston Globe

Wiretap mosques, Romney suggests – The Boston Globe

Marriage: It’s your choice!

The Muslim Weekly

Whatever: Being Poor

Whatever: Being Poor

Djembe and Djembefola

Drum Journey: Guide to community and world hand drumming.