Ginny’s Thoughts & Things

Assalamu alaikum, all I can say is Mashallah. I find it interesting / sad / funny / ironic that I’ve never read of any Muslims helping in protecting Jews from the Holocaust, even though countries like Bosnia and Albania and Turkey were involved in World War II, and were directly affected by the Holocaust. I wonder why that is? Well, I can guess, but I won’t. But Mashallah, what a good article.

Link: On Holocaust Exploiters, Deniers, & Heroes - altmuslim.com.

Assalamu alaikum, all I can say is Mashallah. I find it interesting / sad / funny / ironic that I’ve never read of any Muslims helping in protecting Jews from the Holocaust, even though countries like Bosnia and Albania and Turkey were involved in World War II, and were directly affected by the Holocaust. I wonder why that is? Well, I can guess, but I won’t. But Mashallah, what a good article.

Link: On Holocaust Exploiters, Deniers, & Heroes - altmuslim.com.

Assalamu alaikum, all I can say is Mashallah. I find it interesting / sad / funny / ironic that I’ve never read of any Muslims helping in protecting Jews from the Holocaust, even though countries like Bosnia and Albania and Turkey were involved in World War II, and were directly affected by the Holocaust. I wonder why that is? Well, I can guess, but I won’t. But Mashallah, what a good article.

Link: On Holocaust Exploiters, Deniers, & Heroes - altmuslim.com.

Assalamu alaikum, all I can say is Mashallah. I find it interesting / sad / funny / ironic that I’ve never read of any Muslims helping in protecting Jews from the Holocaust, even though countries like Bosnia and Albania and Turkey were involved in World War II, and were directly affected by the Holocaust. I wonder why that is? Well, I can guess, but I won’t. But Mashallah, what a good article.

Link: On Holocaust Exploiters, Deniers, & Heroes - altmuslim.com.

Assalamu alaikum, Izzy Mo has some thoughts on Umm Zaid’s post dealing with Muslim men married to non-Muslim women, etc.

Let’s just say they’ve said things a lot better than I could have, and leave it at that. And I had a whole post written out and all, and it just kinda sorta disappeared, for no apparent reason!

But anyway, I’m tired, so guess I’ll go now.

I’m still mulling over "The Burning Bed". But don’t mind me, I’ll just obsess over this for a while and then promptly get distracted by something else, move on, and forget about it.

Assalamu alaikum, why do I do this to myself? I’m watching "The Burning Bed", on one of the Encore channels, but I don’t remember which one.

For anyone who doesn’t know, "The Burning Bed" is the story of Francine Hughes, a woman who, after enduring years of abuse from her husband, killed him one night, by setting the house on fire while he slept.

I don’t know why I’m even watching this movie, seeing as how these sorts of things are really hard for me to watch, for obvious reasons. And the really sad thing is, this woman felt the need to take this step, because she didn’t feel like she could get help anywhere else. What was really angering to me was the family pretty much telling her that she should deal with it and how it was her job to keep things together, and then to have her mother-in-law sit there and lie on the stand and say that her son didn’t do the sorts of things that the defense lawyer was alleging. I mean, she said something to the affect of "I don’t know where you got your information", etc. But all that did was kind of make her look bad, and sort of gave me the impression that, well, now you know the source, now you know how he could have got that way. But Subhanallah, I shouldn’t say that. But it was the whole trying to either justify the behavior or just plain pretend or lie and say that it didn’t exist or it didn’t happen, or that if anything did happen, it was minimalized and brushed over, like it was no big thing.

Not that murdering abusive husbands is OK, but I guess if someone is pushed to an extreme, then they will do extreme things.

I can say from my experience that many times I had wondered if I was going crazy. You really feel completely alone and afraid and so indecisive because you don’t know whether to go one way or another, and your primary motivation becomes just trying not to make him mad, so he doesn’t beat you. It’s like it becomes all about survival, and I mean this literally.

But you also are trying to keep yourself from going crazy. It’s almost like you feel like you’re going insane or losing your mind. And you find yourself trying so hard to be what you think he wants you to be, so that he’ll stop abusing you, that you start to not even know who you are anymore. And trying to be someone you’re not, and in trying to suppress who you are, the real you, because * he * doesn’t like it, it really can drive you crazy.

And this isn’t even talking about your self-esteem, your feelings of self-worth. And this is why abuse is so insidious, and why it is so destructive to a person. I’d had moments where I just plain wanted to die. I wouldn’t say that I was suicidal, well, I’d say borderline suicidal, because I just wished for death. I know it’s wrong, I know it might be haram. But at that time, I felt like I was the lowest thing on the face of the earth. I was completely depressed. I felt like the world would be better off without me, and glad to see me gone. I even despaired of Allah’s Mercy and Forgiveness, may Allah prevent me from getting to that point again. And I had moments where I thought, if Allah decides to take me now, He would probably send me to Hell now, because I wasn’t as good of a Muslim as I should have been, because I was going through a phase where I wasn’t praying regularly, Astaghfirullah. Or because I couldn’t keep my husband happy, or any myriad of reasons that my mind came up with.

I can’t tell you how many times I’d just lay in the bed and cry, how many times I would cry and he wouldn’t even know it! How he’d be right in the next room, or right next to me, and I’d just be crying. And I’d be in so much unbelievable pain, but I couldn’t express it to the one person that I wanted to care. The one person who should have cared.

I remember making dua that Allah would help me, I’d ask forgiveness for wanting to die, I’d ask forgiveness for feeling so low. But I’d make dua that things would get better, even if Death was the only way that they would.

I remember thinking sometimes, that I wish that he’d just hit me hard enough so maybe I’d just black out and just not wake up again. But of course, any time I tried to express to him what kind of pain I was in, I’d get told that I was messed up mentally, though those were not his exact words, and that would just be used to show just what a terrible person I was, and how I should consider myself lucky that he chose to stay with me.

So if you can’t understand why a woman would kill her abusive husband, well, go and talk to women who have benn abused. And no, killing your abusive husband is not OK, as I’ve said before. But a lot of times, you’re just plain not thinking clearly. And I’d even venture to say that your mental state is completely altered. You just want the pain to stop, you just want the abuse to stop. And if you feel like there is nowhere you can go to, well then, you might get to such a point of desperation that you’ll either kill yourself or the person abusing you. Yeah, it may not be right, yeah, it may not be pretty. But it does happen, sad to say.

Anyway, so I guess I’ll finish watching this movie. But it’s moments like these, when I see a movie, or recall a past event in my own life, which really makes me wonder if I’ve made as much progress in healing from this, getting over it, and moving on as I think I have.

I really think that coming to terms with this sort of thing is truly a day-by-day experience, and you don’t just get over it over night. And even though in the movie, she was found not guilty by reason of temporary insanity, and the movie had a happy ending, I’d also imagine that she probably had a lot of healing to do.

All I can say is "Alhamdulillah!" that I had the strength to get out and be able to make a better life for myself. And I know this may be wrong, but there is a part of me that would love to see my ex-husband now, just so I can say, "Look at me! Look at what I’ve done. I’ve done everything you said I wouldn’t do." I’ve succeeded without him, I didn’t fail, I didn’t "amount to nothing". And you know, this might be a complete shocker to him, but, well, some man might actually want to marry me some day! "Oh, the horror!" I’m sure my ex is thinking, but let him! Let him think what he wants. Yaum-al-qiyama is coming, just as sure as anything, and he will have to answer to Allah for what he has done. So I take solace in that.

But it feels good to know that I’ve survived. It feels good to know that I’ve succeeded, by the Will and Permission of Allah, and with His help, and His Mercy. He has given me everything, and given me the strength to persevere and keep going. And I am truly thankful for that.

Assalamu alaikum, well, hmmm, where do I start with this? And this is written strictly off the cuff, right off the top of my head, so take it for what it’s worth. I, personally, don’t think I have anything particularly against non-Muslim women who are married to Muslim men. I think any negative reaction that I have is directed more toward the man, than the woman, because, I don’t know, I just think that the man should know better. And I wonder sometimes if Muslim men purposefully go after American or Western women, whether they are Muslim or not, simply because they think they can get away with things that they would not be able to get away with, if they married a Muslim woman, say, from their own culture? I don’t know, and I certainly don’t want to give the impression that I think all Muslim men are bad or anything, but enough of them do this, and it seems that some Muslims sort of shrug this sort of behavior off, like it’s OK, or something, that it’s kind of becoming sort of a blight on the community. I just don’t like this idea that some Muslims, and in this case men, treat non-Muslims as inferior, and the thought just occurred to me that this could not only be applied to the marriage thing, and to women, in general, but you can also see this situation played out in the whole "Muslims owning liquor stores" thing. Yeah, it’s haram, yeah, Muslims don’t drink alcohol, and the owners of said stores wouldn’t dare serve it to their Muslim brothers and sisters, but they, at the same time, see no problem with making it available to non-Muslims. But what’s wrong is wrong, isn’t it? I mean, you still have rights and obligations and there’s still the halal and haram, and it doesn’t matter if you’re dealing with Muslims or non-Muslims, does it? Or does it? Is it that there’s one standard that some apply to Muslims, and another that they apply to non-Muslims, because, as we know, they’re just kafir and infidels anyway, so who cares how badly we treat them, or what kind of poison we feed them. Is that how it is? And someone please tell me how is that good dawa? How do you expect to call people to Islam if you’re acting like this? And the answer is, I don’t know. This just reminds me of what I’ve always thought, that the morality of a society shouldn’t be put squarely on the shoulders of the women. Because as they say, it takes two to tango, ya know? Why aren’t men being pushed, as women are, to be modest, chaste, Allah-fearing men? Why can you find a million books on hijab and the ideal Muslim woman, etc, but what about the man? Shouldn’t the man be a good Muslim, honest, modest, all of that? I don’t know if I even want to get started on this whole topic. And why can’t a woman state that she does not want to be in a polygynous marriage? I know I don’t. Am I somehow wrong for saying that? Am I somehow less of a Muslim, because I’m honest enough with myself to say that I don’t think that could be a situation that I could deal with? Why is it that women who don’t feel comfortable with polygamy are somehow viewed as being "too Western" or not Muslim enough, or somehow flouting the deen? While at the same time, you have some sisters who seem to be afraid of the single Muslimahs in the community, because they are afraid that their husbands will want them for the "second wife"? How is that for double standards? You’re going to chastise a woman for not being down with the polygamy thing, yet at the same time, get jealous because you’re afraid that some single Muslimah’s got her eye on your husband. Subhanallah… And before anyone says anything, I want to say that I am not against polygyny, in principle, but I think in a lot of instances, it is not handled or practiced correctly, and that’s the problem I have. Not to mention my own personal, emotional, hang-ups about it, which makes me think of something else. So, if I say I don’t want to be in a polygynous marriage, does that make me selfish? That’s another one you often here. But anyway, I guess that is all I’d wanted to say, so go read the article below…

Link: Sunni Sister: Blahg Blahg Blahg ? Blog Archive ? Good Enough.

Assalamu alaikum, this article is about the small Islamic center in Clarksville… Mashallah, nice to see some positive Muslim news.

Link: The Leaf Chronicle - www.theleafchronicle.com - Clarksville, TN.

     Assalamu alaikum, well, hmmm…  I didn’t even know that Lifetime had been pulled off of Dish Network, which is my sattelite provider, until I called to pay my bill, and in one of the menu options, of the choices was, "If you’re calling about missing Lifetime channels", and then you had to press Option 1, at hwihc point, you got a message saying that Lifetime wanted them to pay more or raise their rates, or something like that.

     I really don’t understand the whole contract dispute, except that it comes down to money.  I guess there is a dispute between what Lifetime wants to charge for Dish Netowrk to carry the channel, and how much Dish Netowrk wants to pay. 

     I watched Lifetime occasionally, and also Lifetime Movie Netowork, as well, but I guess not enough to really miss them.

     What I really don’t like, though, is Lifetime trying to make this a women’s issue, by saying and putting ads in newspapers saying that Dish Network doesn’t care about women, and that women should switch from Dish Netowork to cable

     Really?  Why should we, or I, as a woman, do that, just becuase you guys couldn’t agree on a contract?  And that is what this is about.  This is about money and business, pure and simple, and it has nothing to do with Dish Netowrk not caring about women.

     And if Dish Network didn’t care about women, then they wouldn’t be trying to fill the void by carrying Oxygen, a channel which it didn’t care before, and also making other channels available in lower packages which weren’t available before.

      Surely, there has to be some solution to this, but I don’t know what.  And this thing also happened with Outdoor life Netowrk, I think, and OLN didn’t put ads in the paper saying that Dish Network didn’t care about men.

      That is one thing I don’t like about many women’s groups is that they try to make a political issue out of everything. 

      Anyway, I used to watch "Strong Medicine" and "Any Day Now", when that show was on, but I don’t watch it anymore, obviously, since I’m not going to change sattelite or cable providers now, just to get a channel I never really watched before. 

     However, I don’t know, I think something’s got to give at some point, I guess.  But who knows.

     BTW, I know this hasn’t been my best written post, lol, but I just realized I’ve barely eaten all day, and I’m starting to feel really hungry!  So my brain is well, not working.  So again, excuse the typos, because I, again, don’t feel like correcting them. 

     Assalamu alaikum, I don’t know what’s going on, but I just wanted to add my two cents to the "support Sunni Sister" chorus.

     I don’t know what happened, I don’t know who said what, or what their disagreements or problems with the blog were, but, as I commented on Sister Scorpion’s blog, whatever happened to adab / maturity / common sense?

     And also, I agree with wht some have said, that if they, how he, or whoever "it" is, had disagreements with her, why not bring it up on their blog?

     But as I said, I don’t know exactly what happened, so I don’t want to start speculating or making pronouncements on something that I hardly know anything about, because feet don’t taste very good. 

     I just want to let Umm Zaid know that I support her, I definitely look forward to reading her postings / articles. 

     I don’t know what it is about January either, becuse it seems I had some drama crop up around January / February.  So maybe it’s January / February both that’s kinda weird. 

     OK, again, sorry for the typos, I just plain don’t feel like correcting them.  Sorry, I know it’s laziness. 

     OK, time to go put some more ointment in my eyes.  I’ve forgotten to do it the past few nights, and I can really feel it.