One year ago: Muhajjibah = 1, Robber = 0

For those of you who have not been so fortunate as to hear about this shirt or know its creator, Mike Mallah, let me introduce you!

Mike is one of the most humble, polite, and caring people I’ve met. He has faced the kind of challenges that would break most people. But Mashallah, not only has he dealt with them all with grace and gratitude, he has used them to project himself into, Inshallah, a successful medical career. I’m lucky to know him.

Mike is a Palestinian who got sick of stereotypes and decided to do something about it. He realized that the root of most stereotyping is ignorance, so he started the Not A Wear company. At www.NotAWear.com, he sells this phenomenal tshirt – simple, black, with a message in red and white:

You should by this shirt, and you should wear it. The portion of the proceeds goes to Seeds of Peace and United Palestine Apparel.

Today, I was wearing my Not a Terrorist shirt in a very serious manner – black pants, black long sleeved shirt underneath, topped with a red hijab to highlight the colors (Sarah L. called it “blood red). It just looked like I was making a statement.

Today, I got a “look” – you know what look I mean – the “whoa…uh…okay….” kind of deer-in-headlights look when you’re wearing an emphatic t-shirt. I instinctively held my Evidence book so that it covered the message…..and then called myself a cop-out for doing that.

For some reason, the “looks” bother me more than they used to when I wore emphatic shirts in high school or college. (I had one from MuslimBasketball.com that was just a black tshirt with MUSLIM in big white letters across the chest. I loved that shirt. My mom, probably for my own good, hid it for a little while after 9-11 so I wouldn’t wear it to my high school). Maybe it’s because today I feel very strongly about presenting a professional appearance while in law school because it adds credibility to my external professional image, which might be a little hampered in some circles because of my hijab. I think twice about wearing this shirt every time, wondering what my professors will think. It could also be because today is the Law Review Symposium and there are legal professionals in suits walking around everywhere.

But, I want to get over that. I spend too much time sometimes thinking about what other people think of my professional appearance (though, you have to fairly grant me that in my profession, that is quite important in most circumstances). I find this shirt increasingly powerful as we move towards the election, and I’m going to wear it on Nov. 4th.

One year ago: H.Res. 635: Recognizing Ramadan.

Today is the third anniversary of the October 8th earthquake which started in Kashmir, Pakistan and killed more than 70,000 people. I wrote this on October 10, 2005 and I’m republishing it now in memory of those people, among them an uncle who left behind three young sons. May we never forget our brothers and sisters.

There’s something so different in watching a disaster on the news, reading about it, seeing pictures of the devastation, saying “SubhanAllah” as you watch the death toll rising – and actually experiencing the tragedy on a personal level. Why is that? What has extinguished our humanity such that the only time we feel true emotion about a calamity is if it affects us.

In the early days of Islam, the Prophet (S) did not yet have a pulpit, so he used to preach standing next to a palm tree. When a masjid was built and the Prophet was about to leave the palm tree for the last time, there came a sudden heart-shattering groaning, moaning sound. The sound was coming from the tree, and water actually started to leak from the tree’s trunk. Out of love for the Prophet (S), the tree had started to weep as if it were a human, so hard that the Companions could hear it groaning. The Prophet gently stroked the tree, and it stopped weeping.

Hearing the tree’s moaning, one of the companions said to the people – What is wrong with your hearts that you do not weep when you heard this sound?

At least 20,000 are dead. What is wrong with our hearts that we do not weep when we hear this number?

I am one of those for whom 20,000 was just a number, until I found out that an uncle was among them.

He was my father’s first cousin and was a colonel stationed in Kashmir. He had volunteered for a task and was driving a jeep when the earthquake shattered the mountain he was passing. A huge boulder smashed on top of his jeep. My uncle was thrown from the car and tumbled down a ravine. When they found him, his body was crushed. They airlifted him and he died in the helicopter. His wife became a 30-year old widow with three sons, aged 7 years to 8 months.

My uncle’s regiment lifted the rock which crushed him and placed it in their headquarters, where it stands now as a memorial to him and all those who died in the earthquake.

But my uncle is only one of those 20,000. A family friend of mine lost 20 people all at once. Another friend lost an uncle and cousin as they were trapped underneath the rubble of a collapsed apartment building in Islamabad. They could be heard calling for help, but then it rained. The 8-year old girl’s body was lifted out later.

May Allah soften our hearts such that 20,000 is not a number – such that 20,000 becomes 20,000 fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, daughters, husbands, wives, and children.

May Allah forgive all the dead their sins and enter them easily into Jannah. May Allah give their families patience and composure. May Allah help the areas hit repair and restart their lives.

May Allah turn our hearts towards the truth. May Allah soften our hearts and grant us awareness, compassion, wisdom, and love for the fellow man. May Allah forgive our sins and keep us away from sin and may Allah protect us from the trials of the end of time and save us from the punishment of the grave. May Allah grant us all Jannah, InshAllah.

Inna lil-Allahi wa inna ilayhi raji3oon Truly, we are from Allah, and to him we return.

My first lolcat! It was originally captioned as something else but I think this fits better. Vote for it here!

Before this: My Big Fat Pakistani Syrian Life: The Beginning

So now that I was engaged, it was time to break the news to my friends. Ameir and I wanted to keep the engagement party small and intimate, just close friends and family.

First, I told Sumreen, my close friend and roommate of four years, who smiled that gorgeous smile of hers and hugged me tight. We promptly launched into a discussion of wedding clothes, colors, and what she’d wear to the wedding.

In our Senior year at UNC, Sumreen and I had just been blessed with the addition of two new roommates – the Masood Sisters, known collectively as HanaMona. So one evening, after we had prayed Maghrib together and were sitting on the living room floor, I said, “Ladies, we need to have a roommate meeting.” (Mona would later tell me that she thought “Oh God…they’re kicking us out…where will we live now?”)

“So, what are you guys doing on Labor Day Weekend?” I said. “Nothing…” HanaMona answered. “You’re coming to my engagement party,” I said. First, there was a moment of silence….followed by a “Dude. Oh my God.” from Mona and an “I’m going to throw up.” from Hana (she was happy for me, just shocked ). The rest of the week, Mona (a Punjabi mutayaaran in Hyderabadi skin) played Punjabi love songs as loud as they could go on her laptop, yelling “This one’s for you, Homie!”

As the day of my engagement got closer, I stayed pretty calm. I decided what to wear (a buttercup yellow shalwar kameez with yellow and green khussay). The night before the Fatiha, my friends came over and we decorated each other’s hands with mehndi. Nadia and Yasmin, who also spent the night, were surprised. “You’re the calmest bride I’ve ever seen! Why aren’t you nervous? You should be nervous.” But I was fine.

The day of the engagement, I slept in, waking up to the smell of my mom and our longtime friend, Nazia Auntie, cooking up delicious Desi food for the dinner. Wedding-related events usually work this way: one side hosts and the other side shows up en masse all at once. Ameir, his father, and their guests were going to pray Asr at the masjid and then come over to our house.

I was praying Asr in my room, dressed in my buttercup yellow shalwar kameez. Around the second rakah, it suddenly hit me – “Oh. My. God. I’m getting engaged in an hour.”

I finished my Salah, trembling, and started making dua with the words that came into my heart. “Allah, make Ameir and I pure spouses for each other in this life and the next.” This felt right, I knew, so there was no anxiety or discomfort. Instead, I was so thankful that Allah had given me a man that I could love and respect so much, and who loved and respected me in kind.

Yasmin and Nadia were at ease, though, about my nervousness. “Oh good, now you’re acting normally. We were worried about you.”

As we waited, Mona was helping set up the delicious and expansive spread of food my mom and aunts had made. She was making placards so that those with more delicate tastebuds could know what to avoid. (Some Arab friends who don’t eat the kind of tongue-burning spices us Desis do – why would anyone miss out, really? As they like to say, “What is wrong with you people? Even your yogurt is spicy!”).

Other friends were setting up plates, teacups, sitting with me to keep me calm, or peeking out the window on “Ameir watch.” From the living room, I heard someone laugh heartily from the buffet table. “Which Hydro,” laughed Mahroo, “Made these food labels?” Sure enough, there was the label for ground beef: Kheema.

The doorbell rang and I heard everyone come in (I couldn’t see anyone from where I was sitting). There was great joy and lots of hugging. The Muslim greeting “As-Salaam Alaikum!,” “Peace be upon you” was peppered with “Ahlan wa-Sahlan!” a Syrian greeting, rooted in the story of Ali (R) coming to ask the Prophet Muhammad (S) for his daughter’s hand in marriage, which means “We are family, so there is ease and comfort here.”

In the Arab tradition, the “bride’s side” brings food to the engagement party and the “groom’s side” brings flowers. As friends filed in, our house became filled with even more food and beautiful floral arrangements that somehow ended up close to me.

The “Ameir watch” friends became the “Ameir paparazzi” friends as dinner was served. They’d snap shots of him as he was going through the buffet and run back to show me (at no cost, how kind).

The Imam made Ameir take a scoopful of the spicy-hot spinach, saying “You’re marrying a Pakistani now! You have to eat this!” (I’m proud to say that Ameir can now handle almost more spice than I can). I couldn’t bring myself to eat much, but I was as happy and content as I could be (and less nervous, too!)

I loved my house as it was at that moment – filled with the love, smiles, laughter, and prayers of friends and family from all over the world. They were my religious teachers, my childhood friends, my aunties and uncles, 3mmos and khaltos, my parents and my close family. I felt that Allah had blessed me more than I could ever have asked for.

And then, after dinner, the nervousness began again. It was time……

(But you’ll have to wait for the next installment!)

Earlier posts of My Big Fat Pakistani Syrian Life:
MBFPSL: The beginning

Best read in coordination with: “So, where are you from?” and “The Professional Hijab”

One year ago: Jalaibi

I’m usually pretty good at standing up for myself with respect to making my personal religious boundaries known to those around me. It’s a deliberate action I think every Muslim in a majority non-Muslim society has to decide to do (or not, I guess, if that’s how you feel). Non-Mahram contact issues are especially predominant: Do I shake hands with someone of the opposite gender? Do I accept hugs from someone of the opposite gender (and how do I escape surprise hugs?) Then there’s the wudu and prayer time issues (getting caught with your foot in the sink).

Lawyers like to network. Networking means contacts, and contacts means jobs and referrals. But in the legal career, networking happens in places that I’m not to happy to be.

The newest thing I’m facing in law school is debating whether or not to attend social or professional events that significantly involve drinking. In college, I’d avoid having to make this choice by not involving myself with social groups that drank. Lawyers “network” by going to bars, cocktail parties, or hanging around the cash bar that inevitably operates at every legal event.

Case on point: UNC Law School organizations have “Bar Review” every Thursday night. Ten points for guessing what that means.

Clue: it’s not a study party.
(more…)

what does a food blog do during Ramadan? it fasts, obviously, just like its author. for this month, at least, food will take a back burner in my life. this is a month, like my teacher once explained, where a muslim intentionally creates a physical void inside his or her body and tries to fill it instead with an increased awareness and connection to God.

ramadan represents chance – a chance to focus on all aspects of yourself and your life. ramadan represents choice – the choice to use this blessed month to strike a balance between self-denial and self-fulfillment. instead of waiting around for something dynamic to happen in your life, waiting for a catalyst to push you into self-renewal – ramadan is a time for each person to take his or her life into their own hands – grasp every day and every night and throw themselves entirely into this life to transform it into a preparation for the hereafter.

there are a lot of things i want to change about myself. i’ve noticed myself slipping into a bare-bones minimum religious life (from what i tell myself is busy-ness and fatigue) and i’m not happy with that. i know where my mind and heart used to be, and i want to get back there and go beyond it to a higher level of spiritual strength.

i want to use this month to increase my patience and focus in many areas – faith, family, school. i want to make myself think more deeply about who i am (i.e. expand my mind beyond where law school has confined it for the past year), spend more time immersed in thought and exploring inside my own mind. i want to read more Quraan and spend time learning the words and meaning of the verses and thinking of ways to apply them to my life.

i’m not even sure why i’m writing this in a blog post. this really is a private matter, but i think if i post it and see it over and over, i’ll feel more of a sense of dedication to my goals. making myself write it down and put it in a place where i can see it is important to me.

my Lord has never turned His back on me. He’s always given me more than I could ever think to ask for, bestowing bounty and mercy on me without me even asking for it. even though i am not where i should be right now, i know that He will guide me once i make the intention and effort to learn and open my heart.

My dad bought a camera when I was born, a Nikon in a black leather case. It went with him everywhere, so needless to say, we have my entire childhood in photographic print. Drooling, crawling, walking, bathing, first day of school, school plays – he didn’t leave anything out. And my dad is a phenomenal photographer. He finds all the right angles, makes all the right compositions, finds the perfect scenes filled with perfect poses and action and color.

I think the biggest photography inspiration I’ve learned from my dad was the pleasure of sharing pictures with friends and family – looking at each one closely with awe and enjoyment, talking about it before moving onto the next one. Since my childhood, I remember that my dad used to take slides as well as print photos, and we’d spend hours with family and friends in a dark room marveling over pictures of community events, travels abroad, and family reunions.

I’d have to say that my second inspiration was my friend Ayesha, who often manages to be looking through a lens for at least half the time I am with her (and she’s made a career of it, too). With my dad, I was always on the receiving end of the picture. But Ayesha inspired me to look into the little black square, through the lens, click! and be amazed and pleased with what came out on the other side. She notices big things, like landscapes, but she also notices the little things like the shape and color of a flower. Ayesha showed me how looking through different angles can tell a completely different story – maybe from the side instead of from the front, or between bars instead of behind them. As I was learning my own way around a camera, I used to think – “how would Ayesha do this?”

My “drug dealer” would have to be my husband, Ameir. He got me a Canon EOS Rebel Xt and a 50 mm portrait lens. He’s also always sending me photography tips and tricks that he comes across online, and is a constant source of encouragement (and more drugs, i.e. camera equipment).

When I photograph friends or family, I think of what goes through my mind when I look through a family photo album. Seeing pictures of my grandparents, my parents, and my other family brings back beautiful memories of the events or people depicted in that little rectangle. It’s surreal when I remember being there in that scene and can fill in details of what made me laugh just then, why I’m that face, or what event brought all those people together. For pictures I don’t recognize, there’s always a surreal world, imagining what’s happening just outside the edges of that lens.

This is what I love most about photography - the thrill of creating and capturing the perfect picture that creates memories and wonderment for people who look at the final result, and hopefully making them take pleasure in a little detail they’ve never noticed before. The joy is in everything that goes into producing that final little rectangle – composing the scene, choosing an angle and a focus, balancing colors, shapes, and textures. Capturing a moment, an expression, telling a story with just one frame – it’s a quest that I love to undertake every time my camera is in my hand.

It’s not the personal praise (although that’s nice too) but the reactions that most encourage me to continue- the smiles, the big eyes, the gasps. When a picture I take makes someone happier, the little click! was worth it.

In honor of my new gallery, still in the works: http://gallery.me.com/taiyyaba

i found an old blog I had on Xanga.com, somehow remembered the password, and got access to my old blogs, some public, some private. I’m republishing my favorite ones here. This is a series of poems i wrote in 2005 called “Blasted Stars.” They feel a little juvenile (and very morbid) now, but I still like them.

blasted stars

never assume that youre the only one who cant reach the stars
if we could all reach out and catch the falling stars we wouldnt be so entranced when they twinkle in a child’s eyes
and those blasted stars
just as i get strong enough to reach them
they set and i have to try again tomorrow
my arms hurt from stretching so much
from reaching for something that will burn in my hand once i catch it anyway
pull it from the sky into a coffin
because jars break and lanterns run out of oil and twinkling eyes have to close sometime
the coffin i’ll bury into the ground blasted star
blasted star i finally got the better of you
how does it feel to be mortal?

blasted stars 2

remember those blasted stars, my dear
the ones who mocked the stories i told?
they winked and smiled their eternal flames
in comedies only they wrote and understood

well i know something theyll never understand
theyre blind to something ive known all along

it’s only a reflection

and let me tell you something more

this is just the beginning

blasted stars

blasted stars 3

what do i have against them, you ask?
things of beauty, joys forever?

HA

don’t be decieved
decayed
delayed by their lustre
their poisonous
venemous
shine

but they already have you in their trap, poor fool, and you’ll suffocate before you can swim. they’ll hook you light but reel you in and kiss you sweet but burn your skin and quote you truth but prize your sin.

why, you asked?

competition

blasted stars

I just wanted to go to the moon….see the Earth from up above…..have the stars shining around me.

Was that too much to ask? Apparently, for NASA.

A family friend of ours works for NASA. Since taking Astronomy in freshman year with the wonderful Professor Dan Reichart (who had a marvelous way of explaining things, like “Imagine the universe to be like a big batch of blueberry muffin batter. The blueberries are the galaxies, and as the batter bakes, the blueberries get farther and farther apart. The universe is expanding!”), I’ve always engaged NASA Uncle in conversations about astronomy, space flight, and physics….to the limit that my legal brain allows.

So, when he recently told me I could apply to be an astronaut through NASA’s civilian astronaut application program….I….WAS…..PUMPED.

Seriously. What child doesn’t want to be an astronaut….and now, a NASA guy is telling me I CAN BE? WOOOOOOOT.

Except…..

I have to have a degree in math or science. And no, Political Science doesn’t count.

The progression of thought:
1. Stupid NASA.
2. I should’ve been a biologist like my parents.
3. Stupid NASA.
4. I wonder if I can still go back to school and get a math or science degree?
5. Am I kidding? Who’s gonna pay for that?
6. Am I kidding? I got a C in Geometry.
7. Stupid NASA.
8. Stupid NASA.
9. Now I just have to get really rich and buy a ticket.
10. Yeah, right.
11. Stupid NASA.

le sigh. RIP my childhood dream. RIP.

Greetings! World Tour 2008 was great, even though we were exhausted. It truly was a whirlwind – we spent 4 days in Saudi Arabia, 4 days in Syria, 4 days in Pakistan, and the rest in transit. I’m going to post some pictures of Syria and Pakistan on here a bit later.

In the meantime, I wanted to share this beautifully misspelled menu item for sale in Medina. There’s not much to be said about it – the picture says enough. Want some?