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  • My Guilt About Women in Niqab

    I feel extremely guilty but also bitter whenever I see photos intended to elevate the awareness and appreciation for women that wear niqab, and I despise myself for it. I’ve always held such women in the highest esteem. Living in a non-Muslim country, my respect for them was even greater knowing that they were establishing such modesty without anyone compelling them to do so.

    But after my absolutely close encounter with the hypocrisy and cowardliness that exists in these circles, it has tainted my views about niqabi’s in ways that have made it extremely difficult for me to reconcile my experiences with what could be a very different reality. Anyone that knows me will know that I despise generalisations, or holding people to account for something that they’re not responsible for. I also despise dragging people down if they’re making an effort to improve themselves while others are constantly focusing on their shortcomings. I’ve been on the receiving end for all of these trends, and it’s for these reasons, among others, that I despise my current state that leads me to feel repulsed at the sight of a woman in niqab. In fact, the word ‘despise’ is an understatement in this context.

    My negative experiences with women in niqab far outweigh my positive experiences, not because they were wearing niqab, but because of their actions and behaviours as individuals. So this is really a horrible case of memory by association that is really troubling me. I will let go of the association between my bad experiences and bad memories, and the act of wearing a beautiful adornment for women of modesty, Insha-Allah. But until then, this will always be a blatant reminder for me that the actions of those that appear overtly as Muslims can so easily taint the reputation of Muslims and Islam, and thereby drive others away from the beauty it has to offer, instead of inviting them through the simple acts that are beneficial and encouraged for us to practise.

    The same is true for men that dress according to the sunnah, wear the full length beard, adorn their heads with appropriate head coverings, and attend masjid for salaah with jamaah five times a day, and then swindle people out of money in order to make a profit, or beat their wives up out of frustration at the lack of their own manliness, or abuse the rights of their workers because they have authority over them.

    This is a pointless post, but Insha-Allah I’m hoping that writing about this for the first time in over a year since my horrid experiences with a niqabi in pursuit of a halaal marriage through halaal means will finally set me on the path towards putting that firmly behind me. It’s not a matter of needing to forgive, because that has already been done. It’s now clearly a matter of needing to forget.

  • I’m in a strange mood this evening. This simple yet serene photo brought tears to my eyes. The humble act of worship defines us in its simplicity, yet it’s the greatest demand ever placed on our egos. I cannot worship if I consider myself to be godly by nature. But I cannot submit if I consider submission to be a weakness either.

    I dream of peace.

    (Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/emre44/6410407749/)

  • Timely Rambles

    I’m tired of taking photos of places that I visit in the hope of sharing it with others in abstract. It never completes the moment. Worse still, I never feel fulfilled in having shared it, because after the click of the shutter, I’m still standing there alone with the camera.

    Business trips used to have a specific appeal for me in the past. It provided some sort of affirmation about my significance. Someone was willing to pay for my indulgence because they valued what I had to offer. That’s how it felt before. Now it feels like a chore. An obligation that needs to be fulfilled, and despite the apparent prestige of the function I fulfill at times, it doesn’t provide the comfort that I need nor does it fill the void of purpose in my life.

    It scares me when I see young people dedicating their lives to academic and professional pursuits with little or no focus on wholesome endeavours. They’re so excited about carving their niche into a world that will never fully accept them, and will only ever affirm them as long as they have something to contribute. Once they’ve passed their shelf life, they’ll be put out to pasture like everyone else in this consumption-based world, and if they haven’t secured a truly meaningful relationship by that time, it will erase the successes they enjoyed and the true meaning of ‘ephemeral’ will finally be revealed to them.

    Recently I’ve been obsessed with the realisation of how short life is when I reflect on the lives I’ve already lived. The future that awaits seems too short to achieve what I had hoped to achieve in life while the purpose of life is changing hues almost constantly these days. The swaying pendulum is catching up with me, and I sometimes feel as if it will not carry me in its swing but instead it will cut me off at the knees providing final confirmation that time was never on my side to begin with.

    Time sniggers at me. It was never a welcoming friend, but rather a saluting foe. It always pretended to be giving me more all the time, but instead it has been taking away from my treasures. But because it seemed like an inexhaustible supply, I assumed its source was other than my own vault. I was deluded. It was  feeding me from my own resources, and upon each indulgence it was my own store that was being depleted even though I assumed that that was the intended use of this scarce commodity.

    I now think of years as hours, if not minutes. What used to seem like a long 365 days is now simply a changing of the seasons without respite. The ground hogs are laughing while we’re distracting ourselves with our self-importance. Life is slipping away while I look on helplessly.

  • Disordered Minds

    For those of you that had a good laugh at my expense regarding my niece’s association between her topic for a speech at school and me, I thought I’d share the final product of what I wrote for her. The actual topic was Disordered Minds and not Destructive Minds. I’m still not too keen on the association though. There’s some subtle self-indulgence given that she is not aware of this blog of mine, so I included a few of my own quotes in the third person, in the hope of indoctrinating her with my ramblings. 🙂

    I’m eighteen. It’s that age when I believe I have all the answers and grow frustrated at the stupidity of the world. It’s also that age when the intensity of my emotions often overpowers my sense of reason. Worse still, it’s that age when the government believes that by having existed for this long, I am supposedly capable of making important life-altering decisions for myself. But nonetheless, it is an age full of passion, often misguided, but always full of desire to change the world. I’ve lived an interesting life, often with more challenges than most, but those challenges have shaped me into who I am today.

    This realisation of self has not come easily. It has come at the expense of significant sacrifices and often tough choices. Before you dismiss me as being smug or conceited, hear what I have to say, then reflect on it, and lastly be brutally honest with yourself about the truth of it within the context of your own life.

    When faced with the prospect of having to write a speech on a selection of topics made available to me, I couldn’t decide between Disordered Minds or True Love. This confusion arose not only because I can often relate to both, but also because I see so much genius being wasted around me. True love is often quoted as being the trigger for much insanity in this world. This world is still a largely undiscovered space for me, although having access to Google often fools me and many of my peers into believing that we have acquired a level of wisdom that elevates us beyond many adults in our lives. However, we fail to realise the difference between the acquisitions of knowledge, versus the acquisition of wisdom. So I won’t assume to be an authority on true love, which leaves me with no other option but to write about that which plagues me most, a disordered mind.

    “A sane person to an insane society must appear insane.”

    This quote by Kurt Vonnegut reminds me of the reality of life as a teenager. Allow me to repeat that. A sane person to an insane society must appear insane. There is wisdom in this beyond what is immediately obvious. One of the points this raised for me is that in my quest to determine the course of my life, I often fail to realise that I may not be using the correct point of reference against which to determine the soundness of my decisions. Having the correct point of reference makes the difference between peace and chaos, or intelligence and stupidity. I also realised that my point of reference must be aligned with the value system that I want to live by. But this would mean that I would need to have established my value system before choosing, or else my choice will be grossly misinformed.

    Consider this. Would you watch the evening news or Isidingo* to determine the state of reality in South Africa? Although I must admit that with all the shenanigans by politicians these days, Isidingo is not far off. But seriously though, by extension, it would be foolish of me to look to other similarly troubled teenagers for direction on how to lead my life, when they’re obviously grappling with the same or similar issues as I am. This is what I mean by choosing my points of reference.

    Being bombarded with nonsensical and often inappropriate adult themes in movies, advertising, and promotions of all kinds, it makes it easy to assume that what we see around us is the only reality there is. If we just scratched very lightly beneath the surface, we’ll quickly witness how it all falls apart. Most of our choices are driven by a single feeble motivator; that is social acceptance. More often than not, I see people doing things they despise simply because their need for acceptance is greater than their need for self-respect.

    “Of all the things we take for granted in life, our power of choice is probably the most abused gift we’ll ever receive.”

    These are the words of a blogger that goes by the name of ‘Cynically Jaded’.  There’s one more thought that the same blogger shared that I believe is most appropriate right now:

    “There are two things in this world that should never define you. Society, and age.”

    Disordered minds are those that cave in to peer pressure and forget what they stand for. Disordered minds are a social liability. Be true to who you are, and remember that only those that stood apart managed to change the world, because those that tried to fit in faded into the background of the crowds that tried to be just like everyone else. Normal is over rated. I’d rather be unique.

    *Isidingo – South African soapie that often deals with topical issues affecting the average South African.

  • I’ve been waking up the last few days with this part of this specific ayat in my head. The full text of the ayat reads:

    [Jacob] said, “Rather, your souls have enticed you to something, so patience is most fitting. Perhaps Allah will bring them to me all together. Indeed it is He who is the Knowing, the Wise.” ` Sahih International

    Photo: (c) Cynically Jaded

    N3 Highway heading towards Johannesburg, South Africa, December 2010

  • Life’s Lessons

    Our life’s experiences don’t always leave a sweet after taste, but it always strengthens our senses to appreciate so much that the less-trialled may take for granted. I sometimes come across individuals that are matured well beyond their years, and my thoughts are usually ambivalent about their state.

    Do I feel happy for them that they have acquired an appreciation for life at such a tender age, or do I decry the hardships and struggles that they were already exposed to whilst others their age were pre-occupied with petty decisions about social circles and fashion fads?

    Perhaps they’re not at such a tender age after all. Perhaps society has, in its insatiable self-loathing and insecurity, stripped our youth of their maturity and instead caused children to appear as sensual adults. We’ve robbed them of their sense of wholesomeness and modesty and replaced it with an angst that even we don’t know how to unravel.

    Of all the teenagers and young adults that I’ve encountered in my life, the ones with the most grave misgivings about life were either spiritually void, or subscribed to a spiritual code out of fear or obligation, rather than conviction, which I guess leaves them spiritually void anyway. Spirituality is constantly being attacked out of sheer ignorance with science being presented as a dismal substitute.

    It’s just sad.

  • Ignoring a fool is not indifference, it’s wisdom.

    Zaid Ismail

  • Of all the things we take for granted in life, our power of choice is probably the most abused gift we’ll ever receive.

    Zaid Ismail