Muslim convert & drifter wanted to fly but did months in jail

Assalamu alaikum, I’m starting to wonder if going to deen intensives and / or traveling to other events in order to seek knowledge will get me introuble one day?  I know I should make dua and Inshallah, Allah will be protected, but it’s still scary, and I don’t think I’d hold up well if I were interrogated. 

Link: New York Daily News – Home – Muslim convert & drifter wanted to fly but did months in jail.

Muslim convert & drifter wanted to fly but did months in jail

Assalamu alaikum, I’m starting to wonder if going to deen intensives and / or traveling to other events in order to seek knowledge will get me introuble one day?  I know I should make dua and Inshallah, Allah will be protected, but it’s still scary, and I don’t think I’d hold up well if I were interrogated. 

Link: New York Daily News – Home – Muslim convert & drifter wanted to fly but did months in jail.

Muslim convert & drifter wanted to fly but did months in jail

Assalamu alaikum, I’m starting to wonder if going to deen intensives and / or traveling to other events in order to seek knowledge will get me introuble one day?  I know I should make dua and Inshallah, Allah will be protected, but it’s still scary, and I don’t think I’d hold up well if I were interrogated. 

Link: New York Daily News – Home – Muslim convert & drifter wanted to fly but did months in jail.

Reports say Islamic couple must wait 100 days to remarry

Assalamu alaikum, surely, any divorce or "talaq" wouldn’t be valid if said while sleeping!?  Even if it’s the "triple talaq"?  I don’t know, though.

Link: CNN.com – Report:?Sleep ‘divorce’ counts – Mar 27, 2006.

Update on the Independent NewsPaper of The Gambia – by Baba Galleh Jallow

Today, Friday, March 31st, marks five full days after the offices of The Independent newspaper were sealed off and the paper’s editor-in-chief Musa Saidykhan
and General Manager Madi Ceesay were arrested and whisked off by security forces. Up till this evening, the offices remain sealed and guarded by armed
paramilitary officers and Ceesay and Saidykhan remain held. They have not been charged with any crime and we are still not able to establish the reason
for this outrage. Even the company’s lawyer has not been able to establish the reason for this action. Senior police officers involved in the arrests told
our lawyer that they do not know why they are holding Ceesay and Saidykhan.

End of statement.

     What?  The police don’t know why they’re holding them?  Uh, could it be that Jammeh told them to?

BBC NEWS | Africa | Taylor trial ‘may move to Hague’

Assalamu alaikum, Alhamdulillah that this guy was finally caught!  I’d thought, when he first disappeared in Nigeria, that they’d never catch him!  Well, he’s caught!  When’s Jammeh’s time coming!?  Maybe not in front of the UN or the Hague, or maybe not even in this life, but Inshallah, Jammeh, like other evil people, will have to answer for their deeds one day.

Link: BBC NEWS | Africa | Taylor trial ‘may move to Hague’.

GAMBIA: Journalists still held, raising alarm

Assalamu alaikum, * yawn *.  Here we go again.  There’s a supposed attempted coup, and what does Jammeh do?  The same thing that all good dictators do, clamp down on anything they feel is "out to get them".  I wonder if there was even a coup to begin with.  He’ll probably just use this as a reason to once again kill innocent people and throw them in pit latrines.  And yes, he, or at least, people working on his orders, have been known to do that.  And his coup was supposed to be a "coup with a difference".  Weren’t he and the rest of the soldiers who overthrew the Jawara government supposed to be "soldiers with a difference".  Hmmm, some difference.  I don’t think this was the "difference", that Gambians wanted.  The "difference" of being worse than anything the Jawara government ever did.  But anyway. 

Link: CPJ Protests: 2006.

You’ve Got to be Kidding me!

Assalamu alaikum, you’ve really got to be kidding me!  When I started to read this article, not too long before leave work, I almost started crying, right there!  It was a good thing it was almost time to go, and that Alhamdulillah, I was able to pull myself together and take the final call of the day.  I mean, I don’t even know what to say, I don’t even know where to start!  The author of this article claims he’s fighting hate, when really, it seems he’s just creating more of it.  And it seems that he’s using some bad childhood, and other, experiences he’s had, as an excuse to lash out at people.  Note, how, in an article about why he started his "Americans Against Hate" site he talks about how good it felt when he got his roommate kicked out of school for smoking weed.  It’s a power thing, ya know.  And right now, Muslims are the weak and oppressed, and he can make himself feel better by kicking us when we’re down.  I guess he won’t be satisfied himself until we’re in camps and gas chambers just like the Jews were during the Holocaust.  Then, maybe he’ll feel like he’s accomplished something.  But what will he do when the Muslims aren’t around to kick anymore?  Maybe he’;ll start focusing on someone else?  I’m angry guys, really I am.  And what he’s doing is potentially putting people in danger, and this isn’t funny.  So, in his zeal to stop hate, does he think it OK for thos "Moslems" to be receiving death threats?  I guess he thinks that’s OK, because it’s stopping hate.  Does he think that innocent people should be targeted because of their faith?  Because that is what the kinds of articles he writes and publishes leads to.  So I guess hatred of Americans, or Jews, or African-Americans, is bad.  But hatred and oppression and murder of Muslims is OK, because they’re just going to come and bomb us anyway.

     OK, I’m going to stop now.  A brother I was talking to earlier wondered why I even read this sorts of things anyway.  He said how this was just hatred and ignorance, and we all know what the truth is, and just not to worry about it.  But….  I wanted to protest.  The author is trashing others’ character, lying about people, defaming them, etc.  But the brother kept saying, Allah / God knows the truth.  So just don’t get so worked up about it.  And so I’ll try not to, but it’s not easy.

Nobody likes to be maligned wrongly, whether it’s Danya Shakfeh or Joe Kaufmann.

Link: FrontPage magazine.com :: Ms. Jihad U by Joe Kaufman.

State: Are bloggers against hate, or feeding it?

Link: State: Are bloggers against hate, or feeding it?.

Sisters Only Deen Intensive

Assalamu alaikum / greetings.  If you guys don’t hear from me for a few days, it’s ’cause I’ll be attending the Sisters Only Deen Intensive this weekend in San Jose, California!  Alhamdulillah!  I’ll be leaving for the airport as soon as I finish work today, Inshallah.

      Please everyone make dua for me!  I really needed this, and I won’t elaborate as to why right now, but I really need a break away from, well, work, the Internet, etc.  I’ll try to explain more later.  But just suffice it to say, that I need some spiritual renewal. 

     So anyway, if anyone else is going, well, let me know.  Email me at quickgm@gmail.com or gmq0525@yahoo.com, you’ll get me at either address.  Assalamu alaikum and take care.

Tampabay: We don’t need reason to hold you, Hammoudeh told

Assalamu alaikum, uh, can someone remind me which country we are in?  Is this America?  Well, I guess it’s still America if you’re a white, Christian, Protestant Male, but otherwise, especially if you’re one of those "Moslems" or "A-rabs", well, you can just forget about any pretentions of freedom and democracy now!  I mean, the government actually is brazen enough ot come out and say it!

"We can hold you’ cause we can!" 

Link: Tampabay: We don’t need reason to hold you, Hammoudeh told.

I Feel Sad…

I am going through a bit of a depression. And reading the previous post about Abdulrahman Zaytoun didn’t help much either. I feel sad, though, because when I got to the part about the dead dogs, I just wanted to cry. And this ontop of everything else. The guy not being able to see the doctor and the court proceedings and all of that, reminded me of 1984 or all the holocaust books I used to read.

All of the right-wing pundants want to talk about freedom and democracy, and how our military is in Iraq to defend that freedom and democracy, but do we really have freedom and democracy to defend anymore, especially when our military treats our own people like common criminals? They arrested these guys on what? Just because they had water, when they were asked if they needed any? And these people got suspicious when they said no? I guess if these were white people, then they maybe would have given them the benefit of the doubt? Or they would say they were just “surviving” instead of looting? I guess bing white gives you a certain kind of privilege. And being white gives you the benefit of the doubt. And if you are not white then you are not allowed that privilege. If you are Muslim, or black, or a minority, then you can be thrown into jail with no charges brought against you, you can be accused of terrorism, you can be shot and killed by the police and have it all caught on video, and the police would still get away with it, they would still be found not guilty.

Any white person who doesn’t realize that they have “privilege”, simply because of the color of their skin, needs to really recognize! I almost want to say that I’m ashamed to be white, but I have to stop myself on that point, because Allah created me, and if I say that I’m “ashamed” then I’d somehow feel that I’d be questioning Allah’s Wisdom in creating me the way that He did.

Maybe I should rephrase my statement, and say that I’m ashamed at what white people have done throughout history. I was just reading an article today about how brutal some colonizers of Africa were, namely, the Belgians in Congo! And I felt so ashamed! I’d wanted to comment, but what could I say? Sorry? I’m sorry this happened? How can you say something like that to a group of, mostly Africans? Sorry this happened to your people, and as a white person, I don’t like it? That just seems like a slap in the face to me. So I just didn’t say anything, except to express my shock.

When I read about violence or brutality, I just never become numb to it! I get angry! I want to cry! I just want to turn away, bury my head in the sand, cover my ears and just pretend not to hear it! I never become desensitized to it.

I just feel sad, a little depressed, tired, my head is hurting. And I feel powerless. I don’t know what else to say. I think the only thing that has kept anything bad from happening to me is my blindness and me being white. I’m sure if I was an Arab-looking woman wearing hijab, or an African-American woman wearing hijab, or a sighted person, well, I wonder if I’d be treated differently? I wonder sometimes if people realize that I’m Muslim, and I don’t think most people do. I had one guy ask, as I was walking down the sidewalk going toward home a few years ago, if I was Jewish. Nope, wrong answer. And I, sadly enough, was too afraid to tell him I was Muslim. Well, actually, “afraid” is not the word. It was more like, I didn’t feel like having a religious discussion with him. I had just come from the store, and I had a backpackful of groceries on my back, and I was trying to get home, because my then-husband was cooking, and he’d sent me to the store to get some things, and I needed to get back home, in order to give them to him. So I didn’t want to have a discussion with this man. I just wanted to get home.

But anyway, I don’t know what else to say. The world is just so crazy! And it is times like these, that I have to take solace in the fact that the Day of Judgment is coming, and we will all be held to account for our actions.

I really just want to cry guys! I’m just having a bad day!

Rescue efforts lead to arrest nightmare for N.O. businessman

Assalamu alaikum, this makes me really sad, this is still America, isn’t it?  I’m not even sure what to say.  BTW, I find this article via Izzy Mo’s blog.

Link: Bourbon Street Journal – NOLA Rising.

What?!

Assalamu alaikum, the following came from a news paper article, related to the article I posted earlier dealing with emails forwarded by Sen. Welker from Colorado. The following excerpt came from:

http://www.lovelandfyi.com/Top-Story.asp?ID=4402

Text excerpt: “Oxymoron: Can a devout Muslim be an American patriot and loyal citizen? … Politically, no. Because he must submit to the mullah, who teaches annihilation of Israel and destruction of America, the great Satan.”

Submit to the Mullah? What! I don’t recall having to “submit” to any mullah. The only one I thought I had to submit to was Allah Ta’ala. What “mullah” is tis email talking about?

As far as the destruction of Israel and America being the “great Satan”, these may be opinions / attitudes expressed by some people who happen to be Muslim, but this doesn’t mean that all Muslims are obligated to follow such opinions. Being a Muslim doesn’t mean you have to hate America or Israel, or anything. But anyway, the types of people who think like this, I just don’t think that you can convince these sorts of people. But it’s still frustrating, it’s still angering, and I feel like I just want to bury my head in the sand and just pretend that these sorts of things don’t exist.

I know this isn’t a good thing to do, but when I read things like this, and I hear about other anti-Muslim comments, and I read / hear about the targeting of Muslims, I just feel so powerless to do anything, so I just don’t what to know. And I wonder if it is feelings of powerlessness and anger and frustration which leads to “terrorism” and violent acts by a minority of Muslims, in, for example, the protests relating to the cartoon controversy. I’m not condoning such actions, but it seems that when one is feels, and is, powerless, and doesn’t have any way of affecting any change, people may resort to things that they may not have normally resorted to. I don’t know.

While Islam may not condone terrorism and wanton acts of violence, Muslims may engage of these things out of a feeling of frustration, powerlessness, or hatred. And I think that actions by the US government, among others, don’t help things either, because it pushes people, who may normally be “moderate” to the extreme, out of anger and again, powerlessness. Anyway, just some thoughts.

cbs4denver.com – Pastor: Lawmaker Sent Earlier E-Mail About Muslims

Link: cbs4denver.com – Pastor: Lawmaker Sent Earlier E-Mail About Muslims.

MUSLIM WHO SAYS THAT VIOLENCE HAS DESTROYED ISLAM GETS VIOLENT THREATS – Jeremy Reynalds

Assalamu alaikum, looks like another "Islamic reformer" in the making to me, but this is just my initial reaction. 

Link: MUSLIM WHO SAYS THAT VIOLENCE HAS DESTROYED ISLAM GETS VIOLENT THREATS – Jeremy Reynalds.

WNYC – News – Muslim Prison Chaplain Suspended After Speech

Link: WNYC – News – Muslim Prison Chaplain Suspended After Speech.

WBIR.COM – Man charged with sexual battery of blind students

Link: WBIR.COM – Man charged with sexual battery of blind students.

Chicago neighborhood grieves two killings

Link: Chicago neighborhood grieves two killings.

allahu akbar

Assalamu alaikum. This is a picture of a rainbow that my sister in law took last week after a storm we had had.