For the Love of Dogs and Fireworks.

Aiight, folks!

Let's just stop clicking on the comment link, raise our hands, and slooowwwly back away from the computer...okay...?

::pssshhht::

"I've got target in site. Permission to take the shot. Over."

::pssshhht::

Ignore that.

Anyway, in the interests of killing the previous posting's fruitful-yet-brevity-challenged discussion thread, I'd like to put this out there:
Last time I checked, my lunar calendar restarting didn't have too much to do with Dogs eating red envelopes, but that might just be me. I mean, yes, I understand that the Chinese Zodiac is on Dog year and it's all explained on my placemat at Peking Garden but who gave them preeminence over all other lunar calendars and why can't I use chopsticks with even a remote semblance of efficiency?

Viva Muharram!

This Bud's for You.

Most of you know the slogan I'm talking about because, like me, you are victims of a non-stop barrage of advertising that began just around the time you were able to cognitively process audio and visual information with a minimal degree of comprehension. This is why, if you don't drink and grew up in America, you are very unique if you did not, for a femtosecond, consider what you could've been doing on your 21st birthday. While there may never have been an outright longing in your heart for alcohol, you have at a minimum laughed at a beer commercial. And that's all they need you to do. Laughing creates a positive psychological/emotional experience and its correlation with the advertisement eventually leads to a belief in causation.

This is why a lot of us, for instance, will actually consider Geico ("Omg, like, I love those commercials!") for car insurance if/when we get our own vehicles. We laugh at the ads and end up remembering that we may save upto 15%. Even if we don't remember the 15%, we will likely go for Geico just because of the ads. Ultimately, if those coverage plans are bad, we won't buy them - but the advertising is what made us think of them first. And that's what most of advertising really is: planting/seeding the future customer base.

But the point is not to view this as advertising, but for what it really is: da'wa. There are only two directions that da'wa can proceed: either you are carrying it out or it's being carried out on you. How do you know which one is going on? Well, if you're not doing it actively, then someone else is doing it to you. Like me on you, right now. Yup.

The difference with advertising, though, is that the da'wa is engineered by a team of psychologists and investors. It's for this reason that I am just appalled at the percentage of women that fall for typical advertising and don't see how their physiques are only a centuries-old marketing tool for the unscrupulous. Let's examine this ad, for instance:

If you can't tell already, this is an ad by "bebe," yes, the salacious women posing at bus stop shelter inserts. I have to thank them for this one being less nasty, overall, though. The ones at the bus stops are just wretched, bizarre, and uncalled for. Clearly, they are seeding a consumer base with those ads because typical bus riders are unlikely bebe enthusiasts, to say the least.

Anyways, look at the woman: tan, she's made up, her hair's done, high cheekbones, distinct jawline, she's thin, slightly curvy, arms/shoulders back (to improve chest visibility), hands placed - on purpose - framing the hips; although wearing an affordable-looking and simple outfit, she is clearly evoking a runway with the dark background and lighting scheme - you can almost picture parallel rows of people taking notes and examining her on either side of the catwalk - flashbulbs going off everywhere.

If you're among the majority of men, this ad is another hot woman and you wouldn't mind ending up with someone like that. (It might even lead you to seek women like that.) If you're a woman, there's more nuance to your reaction: some will say she's cute and appreciate certain aspects of the fashion, you have been duped; others will wish they could look like that, you have been bought; and a small percentage will feel bad for what she represents - the continued denigration of women for the sake of economic gain. Nobody at bebe, after all, cares how you feel - they just want you to buy their clothing and to do so they have to create an image that is internalized...even just by driving past a bus shelter.

But that's not all, look at the text: "dress up denim," "steal the spotlight," "sparkle & shimmer." Essentially, this ad is a textual/visual guide to becoming the center of attention and if you don't see that this was the goal of the designers of the ad, then you are stupid or not forcing yourself to think. Even look to the low placement of the text, emphasizing that the angle of the shot is "looking up" to this model, as she, ostensibly, with her chin up and lowered eyelids, looks down her nose at you. These images are clearly designed to project superiority of the one who embodies the image.

(Incidentally, these slogans and imagery are almost exactly opposed to ayat in the Qur'an which warn women not to draw attention to themsleves and not to make a 'dazzling display' like the Days of Ignorance. They also negate the command upon believing men and women to lower their gaze. They also promote judging by appearance, also forbidden - not just in the deen, but in common courtesy.)

Some of you think I'm extreme because there's nothing wrong with her looking cute, for instance - it is clothing, after all, right? You must have humans in order to sell clothing, right? Sure, you do; but who determines the image that's projected?

And that is the trickiest part: somewhere along the way, and I don't know where, the woman begins to think that what is sold to her is actually not that big a deal. She may not feel she has to look like that, but she no longer frames the image in the context of it having been sold to her. And that's really the first step toward internalizing the image as acceptable. If you believe this is foreign and unnatural, you will be on guard - but once you take it as dominant culture and acceptable, you will spiral precipitously down an endless abyss of obsession with the outward. (Read this incoherent diatribe by a Muslim Arab woman in London railing against hijab - especially the fashion references in the final column. She is clearly oblivious to the fact that she hates dressing according to Islam because she wishes to follow popular trends.)

Am I telling women what to wear? No. I don't need to because if they're interested in keeping away from exploitation in all its forms, they can figure it out for themselves. What I am telling women is to recognize how the image they have of themselves has more to do with a violent psychological and emotional campaign that is making da'wa upon the hearts and minds of men and women, than it has to do with anything natural. As soon as you find something that is praiseworthy in a display like the above ad, you have let down your defense to an onslaught.

Even putting aside how a woman processes this da'wa, what about the models, actresses, and celebrities whose lives have become centered around their ability to market their bodies? Don't we feel bad for their exploitation? Why isn't that prostitution? By definition, it is:

I could take this tangentially ad nauseam, but I will suffice it to say that Islamically damaging da'wa is everywhere and unless you (especially women - future teachers of Islam) are aware of it, you will no sooner have it pointed out to you than you will believe it is ineffectual, despite being engulfed in its effects. (Just like some of you reading, thinking this post is a bit too theoretical, and that your personal Islam is independent of such influences.)

Who wants a cookie?

See if you can figure out what's wrong with this opening page from a manuscript entitled "Risālah fī al-bawāsīr" from c. 1187 CE composed, here, in the Maghribī style and originally written by Abū ‘Imrān Mūsá ibn ‘Ubayd Allāh Ibn Maymūn al-Qurtūbī (Anglicized: Maimonides). It's kind of amusing, unless I'm tripping out at 3 in the morning. Double points for figuring out what the title means. No cheating - only your brain and other people's brains. No encyclopedias or dictionaries.

Don't answer, Mus'ab.

Of poetics and idealism.

I unzipped some old files and found a sonnet I wrote for an assignment in my English Literature class when I was 16 years old. Although Mrs. Hugelen was kind of a pervert, siding a bit too often with unorthodox interpretations of the symbolism of certain descriptions and rhyme schemes, she did teach us some novelties in the realm of literature, like how to read with an Old English accent. (Think Canterbury Tales.)

Anyway, I think it's actually a really decent sonnet and don't feel like it's bragging to say so because I was a completely different person 8 years ago and hardly take pride in anything I did then, be it positive or negative. I made one grammatical change, indicated in brackets. The title is needlessly verbose, as I continue to be to this day. I hope you like it.

*********************************
"Insurmountably Unattainable"

I’ll try to quantify that which I know,
But numbers, words, cannot fulfill this deed.
For yours is beauty purer than the snow,
Of which the springtime flower grows from seed.

Like sparkling dewdrops, brightly shine your eyes,
And captivate my soul with passing glance.
Dismiss and laugh, I will, but I won’t cry,
Despite the fact: I’ll never have a chance.

My flower withered when you spoke his name,
My petals fell, my heart was almost burst,
Quite sad it is that my heart you should maim,
When no one loved you more from very first.

I would have always been along your side,
But now my soul [has] gone and all but died.
*********************************

I love how this piece follows the classical meter, rhyme, and mood exactly with iambic pentameter (u/ x 5), abab cdcd efef gg, and the tone switch exactly at the 9th line, as is typical of the Shakespearian Sonnet.

In addendum

I had a beneficial discussion with one Hasan Hyder yesterday on the previous post and we uncovered some crucial points that I did not express:

1) Is knowledge of khalfiyya tantamount to "being" your khalfiyya?
2) What if your khalfiyya is, ostensibly, quite negative?
3) If each of us is an individual, ultimately independent of khalfiyya, why place weight on it?

So these are not all the things the "double H" and I covered, but what I recall and where I think the central points were. The answers are not fully distinct from one another.

As for "being" who your lineage says you are.

This is just not true and leads to all sorts of societal ills. If it were true, then we would be no different from those who say there is an inherently transferred sin affiliated simply with being human; nor would we be different, also, from those who ascribe validity to the caste system insofar as it is a comment on people's worth. (Some people do have alternative interpretations of what a caste is actually supposed to do, despite what it functionally does.)

No, you are not who your people are or have been. But knowing who they are/were gives you the chance to assess their negatives and positives and to see yourself as the next in the silsila, as it were. You can therefore choose to be someone to extend the chain of positives and end the negatives, if you so desire, improving and passing on the torch/baton/doughnut.

As for what to do if your khalfiyya is really just a cesspool of human indignity and worthlessness.

All praise is due to God for having given anyone in existence the mercy of existing. (The 'ulema of the heart discuss that existence is essentially the primordial, central mercy of God, since He could've chosen that you, as a spirit/mind/consciousness/person, not.) So barring examples I care not to get into, even if you have the singlemost ignoble family history on the face of the earth, you can still have the freedom to forsake that and move forward. Your lineage is not a value judgment of who you have the potential to be.

As for emphasizing origins and why they should be known.

We know boastful pride over one's ancestry is reprehensible and a practice of the Days of Ignorance. So why learn it? To appreciate the inextricably human experience that led, intentionally or not, to your entrance into the world. Whether or not that experience is laden with virtue or vice, knowing it allows you to feel that which you can choose to be a part of or leave behind.

Who are you and do you care?

الخلفية

This word is a noun derived from a three letter verbal root خلف pronounced, 'khalafa.' This base meaning literally means 'he deposited' or 'superseded.' In such a fashion, various words emerge from simple roots in the Arabic language with related and contorted meanings that link, in some way, back to a simple root. Sometimes common usage abolishes the apparent connection, but linguists have invested in this science much effort such that we can, to this day, know even the most esoteric meanings of words, based upon classical usage in pre-Islamic poetry.

This particular word, pronounced 'khalfiyya(t),' means background - as in heritage. Literally, it indicates that which is behind (or left behind).

Why am I talking about this? I believe, (and this is not novel, but an old concept), that cognizance of khalfiyya at an individual and group level is crucial for inspiration, honor, and a sense of purpose, among other things.

The decision to write this sort of overcame me when my maternal grandmother (Dadi) told me a deep and detailed account of her side of our family's history while she sat next to me as I washed the dishes and cleared the table one night. Compared to the usual reaction, this time I listened with the idea that this was not a story, but someone’s sentient, physical, emotional experience.

Typically, we become callous and deadened to the stories shared with us by older generations. This is where we get facetious phrases like having to 'walk to school barefoot, in the snow, 5 miles, uphill both ways.' Such phrases and mentalities exist because we poke fun, albeit without malice, at seemingly tall tales of yesteryear.

However, I would contend that the reason we do this is to compartmentalize the reality of the actual conditions that our heritage emerged from so as not to realize the multifarious magnitude of the responsibility it implicitly confers to us: the beneficiaries (or vicitms) of that struggle.

e.g. If you really understood what your grandparents (and even parents) likely did for, quite literally, the passage of the genes that comprise your being, would you really perceive that you have the luxury of living your life the way you do? (This is not meant to imply you're living your life 'wrongly,' but that you'd certainly change things in some relevant way.)

As an example, we can take this back a few generations and apply it on a societal level with cases like Black civil rights or Native American extermination. These are real experiences of our country’s historical background and emotional heritage. The extent to which we neglect them in our social consciousness is directly manifest in our nonchalant ability to repeat the self-same offenses without so much as a glance of collective insight.

This is why many of us can look at the Black and Native American socioeconomic and cultural reality and ask stupid questions while feeling justified: we don't think about khalfiyya. We think, why don't the former utilize their voting rights and why do the latter suffer from diabetes and alcoholism disproportionately? Why don't they take the initiative to change their condition?

Clearly, this is an infinitely extendable metaphor and one would be remiss not to take it to its natural conclusion, namely the Beginninglessly Eternal.

However, doing this is an extremely difficult task because it is, maybe, the very object of our lives to learn to appreciate what God has done for us; beginning at the end is quite difficult. Allah teaches us with human and natural examples. He does not speak to us of arcane and abstract virtues, but shows us, instead, our own psychosocial profile with a laundry list of those who came before us and how they behaved. In this case, the ‘us’ I am talking about is humankind – the ultimate heritage that we all share.

But we are clearly blinded to the fact that all our mitochondrial DNA can be traced back, by some accounts in present-day science, to 7 women; we are given to thinking we are all different. Be that as it may, we can all take the easier step of beginning, then, at a much more recent point, humanize it in our psyche and associate it with the source of all things, the one God.

I say this to myself before you:

Think - for just a few minutes a day, a week, a month, or if you are a wretched person, once a year - about who you are from and why you are from them. Realize that for your genetic makeup to exist, it is not unlikely that someone in history was killed while someone else escaped; someone studied while someone else failed; someone prayed while someone strayed. This may not be as far back in 'history' as you may think.

So who are you and do you care?

Truly, we are from God and, indeed, to Him we are returning

With conflicting reports, upwards of 200 hujjaj have died in stampedes on this last day of 'Eid ul-Adha. The latest estimates off of reputable sources claim in the 320s, with upto or over 1000 injured. Apparently luggage fell off of a truck nearby the jamarat and people tripped and were subsequently trampled by the crowds. It sounds savage to those who don't understand the situation, but there is no realistic way to avoid at least the remote possibility of such things with approximately 2.5 million pilgrims. We pray that those we know among them are safe and those who have passed have their pilgrimage accepted and are granted forgiveness and Paradise.

Commencing of Comments

I don't know how to retroactively make a given post 'commentable' per se, but you can comment on the previous posts by responding to this post, and on each post from here onwards.

Les Handicapés

As promised: yet another creation from the Google.com art department. In sharp contrast to 'Beaver 6' day, which I commented on a blog entry or two ago, "Colored Dots' day is a celebration that really embraces the multicultural reality in which today's globalized world finds itself. More than anything, however, these logos show us that you can find work doing almost anything in these days. (Although, I must say, I really like the Mondrian logo that he did, pictured below.)

A larger question does cross the mind, however, when glancing at the Braille logo for this commemoration of Louis Braille's birthday: Does the Muslim community recognize it's deficiency in providing access to those with special needs?

My freshman and sophomore years, I had two classmates in my Arabic classes who were either severely or completely hearing impaired. I can still remember when my instructor, a native of the Middle East, was doing question/answer sessions with the class regarding a particular assignment and asked one of the girls, through the in-class interpreter, what her hobbies were:

"Do you like music?" he asked, to my shock.
"No!" she signed back, emphatically.

I don't think he actually realized what he did, but he exemplified not a personally blameworthy trait of being ignorant of special needs, but a trait that was likely habituated in his time in the Muslim world. I can't fully pin it on his insensitivity because, really, the Western world is only latently sensitive to such concerns. There are probably unacceptable sociological reasons for this, some of which are perhaps telling as to why the Muslim communities abroad and at home are probably negligent of such needs.

[Briefly, I'd figure that Muslim nations, which are predominantly 3rd world, tend to spend more resources for seemingly primary concerns for their constituents: food/water/shelter. Special needs end up a backburner issue until a society has most of those primary needs taken care of. Is that right? Maybe not. But I think of it like a sociocultural triage with questionable validity.]

When the girls later did presentations in class, they explained their motive for learning sign language in Arabic was their exposure to families completely unable to communicate with their own children during a trip to Palestine. (The particular region is certinaly in distress, but the problem of resource scarcity with respect to this issue is not confined to war-ravaged regions of illegal occupation.) They told us about encountering families that basically pretended that their child wasn't deaf because of shame of the disability, an unwillingness to learn sign language, or the inaccessibility of resources, or all of the above.

I hadn't put much thought into this when it comes to Muslims in America, but I'm beginning to realize that I've never seen a single Muslim conference or deen intensive program that has sign language interpreters present by default. It's understandable with smaller programs that have 20 or 30 people, wherein you'd expect that people with disabilities would notify the program directors, etc. But the MAS or ISNA conferences really need to have interpreters in their main session halls by default, strictly based on the probability of hearing impaired.

An active sister I know locally (who is proficient in ASL) has given several talks in public schools where she's encountered Muslim students with hearing impairments who almost literally have not been taught anything about their deen.

If it's happening in Minnesota, land of Lake Wobegon, "where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average," then it's happening everywhere else. As we know, a significant reason that God places people in society with special needs is to test whether their community will come to their aid, as is the latter's duty and the former's right.

It's heartening to see Muslims studying ASL, for instance, but it's high time for Muslim institutions, especially schools and masjids, to create codes of good practice with respect to accessibility, whether physical, mental, or emotional.

Tokin' dat stuff.

I went to Dictionary.com and typed in 'recidivism' and the reply was 'a tendency to recidivate.'

Thanks. (To be fair, they define the verb more clearly.)

To recidivate is simply a fancy way of saying to fall back into previous patterns of behavior and it has a negative connotation, i.e. crime, sin, etc. I'll save the discussion for spiritual/religious recidivism when I'm no longer among mired in it.

Criminal recidivism, on the other hand, is probably the #1 failure of modern prison systems, if not in the past, as well. There have been a few major studies in the U.S. regarding this that I found online:

The first study was conducted in 1989 and tracked criminals released in 1983. Key findings related to the topic on recidivism included the following major points:

1. About 47% of former prisoners were convicted of a new crime, and
2. 41% were sent back to prison or jail.

The second study was conducted in 2002, examining criminals released in 1994. Specific stats can be seen here and the abstract highlighted the following:

1. Released prisoners with the highest rearrest rates were robbers (70.2%), burglars (74.0%), larcenists (74.6%), motor vehicle thieves (78.8%), those in prison for possessing or selling stolen property (77.4%), and those in prison for possessing, using, or selling illegal weapons (70.2%).
2. Within 3 years, 2.5% of released rapists were arrested for another rape, and 1.2% of those who had served time for homicide were arrested for homicide.
3. The 272,111 offenders discharged in 1994 had accumulated 4.1 million arrest charges before their most recent imprisonment and another 744,000 charges within 3 years of release."

For the graphically inclined, here are a couple of functional, but ugly, charts produced by the DOJ's people in this department. This page discusses statistics on re-entry of criminals into their neighborhoods and shows pretty much what the above stats already state.

There has been much analysis by substance abuse specialists, psychologists, and even former inmates suggesting ways that rehabilitation can be improved. Not being an expert in the field, I can't state any problems with their suggestions for improvement or objections to the status quo. The reality, however, is that most of these would require much firmer backing from the Federal government in the form of better programs, counseling, and follow-up, etc., if they are to succeed.

They also argue that the penalty is not as important as the treatment - that, in fact, the two are not synonymous. And that's obviously true as many of the cited statistics and studies above show that even as penalties for criminal activity have increased, recidivism is as high as ever. (I'm not even touching how this affects "white collar" criminals.)

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf Hanson, based out of Hayward, CA once mentioned this issue of recidivism in a lecture on spiritual wellness and repentance. In it he lambasted current practices in criminal rehabilitation through the current parole - a system that sends the offender back to the very place from where he came. To be specific, he may have been talking about parole in California and practices elsewhere may differ.

Nonetheless, he commented that it's ludicrous to expect reform from parolees, for instance, when they are sent to reform amongst those whose company aided them in transgression in the first place. Unless the person is particularly special and resolute, it's expected that he will fall again.

The fantastic hadith of the murderer of 99 people (+1) seeking repentance is of particular relevance here and has a nice analysis on this website. One of the many points of this story was that the murderer was not able to reform in an environment that would not encourage him to do so. Seeking advice on how he can change his ways, he ends up killing the first advisor after having been told reform is not possible; only the second advisor tells him that he must go to such-and-such land where people are better in conduct and would thus increase his chance of rehabilitation (which, in this case, meant getting into paradise).

Also, if we look to Islamic theory of repentance, we find several conditions of critical importance that are intimately related to proper reform and rehabilitation:

1. The sinning must stop;
2. the sinner must feel regret/remorse;
3. he must resolve not to recidivate; and,
4. if the sin related to the rights of another, those rights, property, etc. should be reinstated.

This is found in Riyadh us Salihin, compiled by Imam Nawawi. Scholars and other ahadeeth have explained, with respect to the 3rd note, that this resolution needs to be accompanied by concrete steps to prevent situations from arising that lead to the sin:

e.g. You are a serial drug abuser and wish to stop, so you completely leave the company of those who partake in/condone/promote that behavior. Essentially, you take whatever steps are necessary to avoid perpetrating any environmental stimulus to your previously conditioned behavior...

The genius of the Islamic remedy is divine, literally, and simply confirmed in latter-day Pavlovian psychology. It is only dependent upon implementation. No matter the size of prisons, harshness of sentencing, or quality of rehabilitation programs, the individual's environmental reality cannot be ignored. If we don't provide a way for criminals to return to communities where they can really get a fresh start with brand new resources, encouragement, and successful models of reform, their incentive to strive will dwindle.

Sunrise at Beaver Ridge

Thank God Google.com made sure to make special logos for occasions such as 'Beaver 6' day. Lord knows, were it not for their crack team of artists, I'd probably have forgotten about it altogether. I'll be sure to produce running commentary on this phenomenon as it develops.

In the meantime, don't be fooled: Google wants your soul.

How do I know this? Frankly, I don't. But the advent of GoogleEarth makes me a bit wary, to say the least, that one day I won't go ahead and find my social security number posted at the top of a search result for my name. I have had more than a few unsettling incidents when I've typed in names of people I know, only to have the first listing come up as their name, address and phone number. Is that public information? Yes. But, typically, it's public by default. For instance, poor Abdis, look at these guys - what the hey did they know about this being available online? Probably not a whole lot.

It's no secret that Google is in a race with other prominent online information conduits to become the sole or dominant provider of all online information. Books are not the only thing, but multimedia and anything else you can really think of - they're trying to put online.

And that's not a bad thing, completely. It is a worldwide search engine that allows access to information around the world and that's not something to be taken lightly in its ability to equalize the playing field. Anyone with a dial-up and enough hard drive is going to be able access and store as much information as they can deal with. Although, I'm not expecting impoverished rural children in the DRC to utilize their ability to access free Mark Twain novels all of a sudden.

I guess I'm not so worried that Google wants my soul as much as the fact that the people who would want my soul have access to Google. Incidentally, I tried to open a wormhole to another dimension by typing 'Google' into the search field at Google.com. Much to my dismay, the wormhole led back instantly to the exact spot I was sitting just before entering it and closed just before I could see the path through which I'd just traveled. Additionally, I was covered in ice and smelled like gym socks. Never again, Google.