Aphantasia

I can't seem to find the post, but I recall at one point that I wrote something about the ability to paint pictures and hear sounds and music in one's mind, and what life would be like if we didn't have that amazing capability.  I wrote something about the brain being a theatre in which we controlled every actor, every voice, and every note in the soundtrack.  In writing that, I think it was the first time that I really thought about how amazing it is that we can synthesize even a smell or the feeling of touching a certain fabric with a high degree of precision.

So today, I learned that out that this capability actually isn't universal. That such people exist who cannot visualize images and synthesize sounds in their minds.  It's a fascinating read, even moreso given that the author is in fact a highly intelligent and successful software engineer and entrepreneur, one of the founders of the Mozilla Firefox project and other major internet cornerstones.

Read here!

Paris

Some irrelevant opinions on recent events:

1. While I abhor the violence that is rampant in the world in the name of Islam, I don't feel any need to repeatedly "condemn" it to prove I don't support it. Those accused or suspected of violence against innocent civilians do not represent me in any way, I never elected them to represent my voice in the world, nor have I ever met them.

2. What most bothers me and most of the Muslims I know is the blatant hypocrisy. It is absolutely ridiculous for many of the world leaders to stand in rallies condemning the violence in Paris while they have way more blood on their own hands. And these are mostly elected leaders; they are pursuing wars and occupations that are killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people, imprisoning and torturing thousands of people without any trials, and stand quiet when atrocities are being committed on their own soil if it doesn't align with their anti-Islam narrative. The Norway attacks were just a few years ago and were much worse than Paris, but we didn't see any world leaders marching against the anti-Muslim ideologies that fueled those terrible attacks. And then there are all the other atrocities that gets almost no media attention at all because we can't blame Middle Eastern bad guys.

3. If we truly believe in democracy, then we should be holding ourselves accountable for the atrocities our elected leaders are committing. In this case, we actually do share in that blame, because we've been given a voice that we're not using. If we resign ourselves into believing that there's nothing we can do, then this is a much bigger attack on democracy than anything the Al-Qaedas or ISIS's of the world have done.

4. In the last several years, France has seen significant unrest from the immigrant and second-generation youth primarily due to unemployment and implicitly racist policies that prevented their advancement in society. Take anyone in these circumstances and then repeatedly insult the things they hold most dear, and you will definitely provoke a negative reaction. Of course, that was exactly what they wanted. To claim "Je suis Charlie" is to claim that you support hateful speech that targets the most disenfranchised people of society.

5. Our Muslim leaders and Islamic institutions in Canada are not the problem. They condemn the violence and they promote good character and good citizenship. It is when people isolate themselves from traditional Islamic scholarship and reliable institutions that they drift into radical territory. I would advise anyone who questions what really goes on in the mosques to just go and visit one. Attend the Friday sermon or participate in a community lecture. Sit in the children's classes to see what they're actually being taught. There's nothing to hide.

6. It seems it doesn't even matter if we condemn things, because people don't believe it anyway. Every internet forum will have someone who will say "Of course they'll lie about it...taqiyyah and kitman - look it up", referring to an obscure provision in Shia Islam that allows someone to conceal their belief for fear of persecution. I think I speak for the majority of Muslims in saying that I'd never heard of these terms ever until these internet forums. In all my life, having travelled to hundreds of mosques around the world, having read tonnes of books, and having listened to hundreds of different scholars, I've never heard of taqiyyah or kitman or any of the other words these commenters like to use as some sort of Internet Forum trump card. It's not some sort of dark principle that we all secretly follow.

Of course, many of you who read this will probably disbelieve this whole statement because taqiyyah. Suit yourself.

7. When I was growing up, I never heard about Islam in the news and was perfectly happy to go about doing my own thing without anyone worrying about it. Now, the word Islam is everywhere and usually for all the wrong reasons. This has made it difficult for a lot of young Muslims to find their place in society, trying to balance their own beliefs against the prejudices held against them.

But for me, being Muslim has never been about adhering to popular opinion. Ultimately, it comes down to the basics: There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad, peace be upon him, is His messenger.

I believe in One Creator, who created and controls the entire universe. I support this belief by doing what Allah asks us, to observe the universe and witness the marvel of His creation. I am amazed by the order of the universe, the ordered revolution of planets around the sun, the perfect balance given to the Earth which provides us night and day, summer and winter, air and water, plants and animals, and life itself. I am amazed by each and every single living thing, and wonder how anyone can deny the magnificence of our own design when they witness the birth of a child or study the life sciences. All of life is a miracle, and we should never underestimate the magnificence and improbability of all of it.

I also acknowledge the Quran itself as a miracle, a book that has such beauty in its reading that nothing else compares. A book that can be memorized, letter for letter, by small children who don't even speak the language. A book that withstands the test of time as a guide for humanity.

And I believe that Muhammad, peace be upon him, was the best humanity has ever seen, and the history books will attest to that in spite of what some people write (or draw) today. Through his teachings, I am a better person, a better employee, a better husband, and a better father than I would have been otherwise. And society as a whole, including every single one of you reading this, has benefited tremendously from his legacy whether you believe it or not.

Is there anybody out there?

Hello.  Is there anybody out there? Just nod if you can hear me.

Is there anyone home?

I.LEAD Part Two: Play to your Strengths

This is why I'm writing again.

Every person has been made different, with different skills and talents.  Not everyone is going to be a scholar, and not everyone is going to be a doctor.  It is a blessing of humanity that we're not all wired the same way, otherwise the world would struggle with imbalance even moreso than it already is.

At the I.LEAD conference, not every speaker was a scholar.  Some speakers were not even all that eloquent.  But eloquence isn't necessary for delivering a message, really; it is more a function of passion and conviction.  And in my case, it was the ineloquence of a full-on rant that woke me up.

That rant would be the speech delivered by an author of childrens' books, who bluntly expressed her opinions on parenting, societal and peer pressure, and mosque administration (more on that later) without holding anything back.  She was animated, at times crass, but above all, convincing in her delivery.  She clearly expressed her opinions, and spoke audaciously about issues that we would normally keep silent about.  And she found her place in the world as a storyteller, her writings as genuine as her speech.

For a few years, I was misplaced as an alternate khateeb at my then-local musallah.  This also happened to be during a period in which I was writing fairly regularly here on this blog as well as the local Muslim newspaper.  While I tried preparing every time for my khutbah, more often than not my speech ended up being more related to something I had blogged about earlier that week.  Whatever research and preparation I did, whatever great speech I listened to and wanted to repeat, I was never able to express very well.  But whatever I had written came out naturally in speech as I stood before the small congregation.

Writing, then, was the better fit for me; I accept now that I wasn't very good at the research or the attempted emulation of speakers I've enjoyed listening to.  And even after years of inactivity, writing remains as the most productive creative outlet at my disposal.  Hence, the best way for me to get personal benefit out of the I.LEAD conference would be to put it down on paper, so to speak.

This was the second major theme I gleaned from the days' events.  Too often, we miscast members of our communities into roles that are not suited for them.  We scoff at the non-traditional ideas that come from our youth, and relegate them instead to mundane tasks.  We raise our children to be doctors and engineers when their real talents have not even been discovered yet.  And we are disappointed when our expectations are unmet, without even considering whether those expectations were at all reasonable.  We fail to recognize the strengths and weaknesses in ourselves and our communities, and then wonder why things aren't moving  forward.  No matter how much we smash away, the square peg won't fit into the round hole.

Everyone has their talent, their skill, their one thing they can do better than anyone else.  And as a society, each individual has a role to play.  But our narrow views on family status and community responsibility blind us from those hidden talents.  We lose sight of what we can become, and assign ourselves to roles we don't fit.  And once anyone starts down that road, struggling down a path that they're not suited for, confidence breaks down and we fall into dejection and depression.  So much potential wasted, and so many hearts broken.

As a parent, this is my lesson: encourage my daughter in whatever productive pursuits she finds herself in.  Find ways to channel her talents into positive contributions to society.  This can't be forced, she has to discover herself what those talents are.  The responsibility of the parent is to provide some guidance, but let the child show what she can really do on her own.

Parenting was a common theme throughout the conference, as youth engagement begins first at the home.  The four A's, as articulated by Dr. Yassir Fazaga: affection, attention, acceptance, and appreciation.  Love and play with your children, and give them the right attention; too often, we let cartoons and internet raise our children, and then wonder why we don't recognize them later.  Accept who they are; it may not be what we anticipated, but it is what Allah chose for them, and in that there is surely some wisdom.  Appreciate what they do; if we learned to look past our own biases, we would be amazed at the talents Allah has placed in our children and youth.

As an individual, I need to do more with what Allah has given me.  We all do, with whatever gifts we have been given.  I think I know now what works for me, but this is really a journey of constant discovery, and my role today may be different than what is planned for me tomorrow.

Once we know our own strengths, it becomes that much easier to individually contribute.  But bringing that recognition from the personal level to the community level is extraordinarily difficult.  The mosque should be the hub for that community growth, but rarely is nowadays.  What I learned from I.LEAD about the rise and ruin of the mosque will be the topic of the next post.

I.LEAD Part One: Identity

I'm not generally a "conference" guy as I've written before, but I acknowledge that they have a place and a purpose, and that they do have the ability to change lives.  This isn't even an exaggeration; I'm sure most readers know at least one person whose life was deeply changed by the various Islamic conferences that take place around North America.  While I rarely found them personally beneficial, they can certainly be a means of promoting the greater good.

Nothing of this magnitude had been attempted in Ottawa before, at least to my knowledge.  This was not for lack of interest or enthusiasm; the local community has grown considerably and is blessed with a number of Islamic programs and organizations.  It was not for lack of unity either; recent years have seen the various Islamic organizations in the city come together in ways that seemed impossible a decade ago.  In fact, it may have only been for lack of physical space - it was only within the last couple of years that Ottawa had the facilities to host something of this scale.

In short, this was the right time for the city to take this on, and that must have become apparent to the early organizers.  Thus began fourteen months of effort to make the vision a reality, through the coordination of hundreds of selfless volunteers.  I hadn't even heard about the event until a few months ago, but the hype grew considerably in the final weeks to the tune of nearly 3,000 in attendance this past Saturday.

The title "I.LEAD" stood for "Islam: Learn, Engage, Achieve, Develop", with the official theme as "YES: Youth Engagement and Support".  I don't intend on repeating exactly what was said during the various lectures, but rather to comment on what I personally learned and understood.  So in the Irrelevant Opinions version of the days events, I extracted three separate themes, the first of which is "Identity".  I'll address this here, and insha-Allah the next two in separate posts.

The concept of Muslim Identity in the West is something that has always interested me.  One of the lectures was entitled "Can I be both Muslim & Canadian?", which I thought could have been an eight second speech: "Assalamu'alaykum.  Yes, you can.  Thank you."

But of course, it is not that simple, and this question is considerably more difficult for others than it has been for me.  Many people feel they have to choose between conformity or cultural isolation, resigning themselves to the belief that one can't have the best of both worlds.  Dr. Jamal Badawi addressed some of the obvious challenges, speaking of terrorism and how the media portrays Muslims.  It is an unfortunate reality that many are turned away from religion because of the negative media portrayals, but Dr. Badawi encouraged others to build the confidence to transcend those portrayals and challenge the stereotypes.  Many of the speakers and volunteers were the product of Dr. Badawi's da'wah efforts, a testament to the resonance of his message.

Others such as Dr. Yacoub Mahi spoke more about the personal choices one has to make to identify oneself, through social, intellectual, and spiritual frames.  Leaving aside how others may view a Muslim Canadian, how should one view oneself? For each frame of reference, he provided a structure for building closeness to Allah, and how one can bring value and honour into ones identity through this nearness.  On the other hand, he argued, one devalues himself - socially, intellectually and spiritually - when they seek recognition from the ghairullah.  This personal approach spoke more directly to me, as I've never been one to care for the media  portrayals anyway.

Perhaps nothing is more central to ones identity than the leanings of ones' heart, and this is what Shaykh Riad Saloojee focused on.  The heart is not bound by the geographic constraints of national citizenship, and thus can be in any state in any place.  A heart that yearns for nearness to Allah is a pure heart, whether it be residing in Canada or Madinah, and one that yearns for the world will be eternally unsatisfied wherever it exists.  Thus, it should never be a matter of deciding between being Canadian or being Muslim; it is only a matter of deciding between a heart that seeks purity or one that succumbs to corruption.  Spiritual purity and corruption are not products of the country we live in, but are rather products of our aspirations.

My appreciation of this conference was driven largely by the diversity of viewpoints on topics such as this.  It was not a conference that promoted a specific way of thinking, the audience was free to interpret it however they liked as I am doing now.  Some may argue that this was a very "soft" approach, avoiding the controversial topics that keep Muslim hearts racing.  No matter; controversy is overrated, and an inclusive approach is a better way to capture the hearts and minds of large gatherings like this.

Ultimately, discussions of identity are very personal, and thus the debates and arguments are largely internal.  This is perhaps why this topic is often neglected; introspection doesn't get people excited.  But ultimately, if one wants to change a society, one needs to change oneself.  And to change oneself, one must know oneself.

Once we get past the internal struggle, the external struggles follow.  The next two themes fall in the latter category.  Stay tuned.

The Forgotten Slaves: The Curious Case of Slave Lake

Our perspectives repeatedly clashed, but we typically got along very well. Me, having lived all my life in Canada; him, having grown up in Africa, then migrating to Canada, then returning to Africa for studies, and eventually settling back in Canada. He was uneasy, unsettled, ready to leave at the first opportunity in order to secure the value of tradition in his family. That I felt no desire to leave, he felt, was a sign that I rejected tradition and embraced a culture that placed no value in family and morality.

While leaving has crossed my mind in the past, it usually ended up detouring to Tim Hortons before forgetting where it was trying to go. The thought could never make full the journey from idea to objective; the body, meanwhile, remained unmoved entirely by those fleeting ideas.

He never did feel comfortable in Ottawa, afraid for his daughter born days before my own. How could it be, he argued, that his daughter grow up in this society, with this culture, and still find room in her heart to embrace and practice her faith? How could she identify with the religion when she could not identify with a land that embraced the religion?

It was a conversation that carried on for a while, as we travelled westward towards the Rockies before the journey north to Yellowknife. It was an intimidating journey, one that would take days to complete, but it was sure to become a memorable experience.

And then we arrived at Slave Lake.

After the Second World War, as Muslim immigrants began migrating in large numbers to Edmonton, a smaller community made the journey northwards to this small fur trading town to establish business. Muslim generations grew up in this small town, mixing with the larger community until they were as much a part of them as they were of each other. By the 1990s, a small mosque was established to finally meet the needs of this growing congregation.

However, the mosque was something of an anomaly for Slave Lake. While the Muslim community worked for generations to mesh with the greater population to the point of becoming indistinguishable, the mosque stood out like a weird uncle. It didn't quite fit the family values, nephews would pretend they weren't related, but ultimately it still was part of the family - it had to be tended to, respected, and visited. And like this, the community maintained a relationship, however tenuous, with the mosque. Its existence was a significant achievement for the city as a whole, but it suffered from a lack of scholarship, a dearth of individuals capable of teaching, and a general disconnect with the larger urban centres nearby. As such, the promising Muslim community of Slave Lake, with roots four generations deep, lost touch with their identities.

Then, in the days following 9/11, the mosque was set ablaze, leaving a fiery ruin that suffocated whatever little spirit was left.

The people became afraid. It was never established, at least to me, who caused the fire - it may have been the Muslims themselves, it may have been others. It may have been a freak coincidence. But however it happened, it gave birth to a prevailing sense of fear in the community, the desperate feeling among the threatened populace that they could no longer be associated with this religion any longer.

A new mosque was rebuilt, eventually. A beautiful mosque, in fact - one of the best I've seen in the country, for its size. But it was little beyond mere walls; barely five people, mostly travelers, would join the Friday prayer, standing behind an imam who with his best intentions struggled with even basic Islamic terms. The mosque timetable only included 'Asr and 'Maghrib prayers - there was no expectation that one might actually pray outside of those hours during the summer, and no expectation of any prayers at all during the winter.

But more depressing was the refusal of basic services to those of us passing through the city who appeared visibly Muslim. "All I want is a slice of pizza!", pleaded a friend at one Lebanese-owned pizza place. But his beard indicated to the owner that he had other intentions, and the owner kicked him out with no meal. The business owners, afraid of being associated with those who identify themselves as Muslims, refused even to sell to us travelers, ironic given the economic history of the city.

This, my friend argued, was what our second generation communities were coming to. He felt that Slave Lake represented a microcosm of the growth of a new community in the West - initial optimism, gradual loss of tradition, and an eventual disappearance of all connection to Islam within a matter of three to four generations. This, he argued, was why he could not raise his own children in this country; perhaps, with Allah's help, they could keep things going through one generation, but two or three generations down the road, they may be refusing pizzas to men with beards.

Circumstances are different, I felt. Slave Lake was a small town, isolated and detached. The size, my friend argued, only accelerated the process of decline, but that decline was indeed the path all Muslim communities in the West will take over time. For larger cities, perhaps the decline would be more gradual, but loss of religion was inevitable.

Given my own upbringing, I have always decoupled the concepts of geographic tradition and religious tradition; one does not necessarily lead to the other in my mind. There is no guarantee that raising a child in a Muslim country would result in a better upbringing anyway; in fact, there are enough examples I can think of where youth embraced their religion only after leaving their Muslim homelands behind. But my friend was convinced otherwise, and who was I to argue with this friend whom I greatly respected; he had far more knowledge and experience than myself, and had traveled far more extensively throughout the country and world than I had. He was speaking out of experience, whereas I was only speaking out of false, misplaced hope.

But false hope is hope nonetheless. And it is that hope, misplaced as it may be, that can inspire a generation, while fear can suffocate it as it has done in Slave Lake. As Muslims, we are to live between hope and fear, which for me exists right where I am right now; it is home.

Nauman Theory

Nauman Theory: A Special Presentation of Irrelevant Opinions.

Congratulations to Nauman on his marriage!

Open publication - Free publishing

Newborn, three others injured in 417 rollover

Newborn, three others injured in 417 rollover

Alhamdulillah, we're all safe, and avoided any life-threatening injuries. Please make du'a for me and my family, that everyone makes a full recovery, and that this incident brings us closer to Allah.

Everything in life is a test, and Allah will test the believers on their gratitude and patience. May He accept all of us.

Hafsa

On Monday, September 7th 2009 (appropriately, Labour Day) at 5:32 pm - the 17th of Ramadhan, Allah Subhana wa ta'Ala blessed my wife and I with a beautiful baby daughter, Hafsa. She clocked in at 6 pounds and 9 ounces, and is doing very well masha-Allah, and her mother is doing well also masha-Allah.

Ummul Momineen - Mother of the Believers - Hafsa Radhiallahu'anha was the daughter of Sayyidina 'Umar RadhiAllahu'anh, and a wife of the Prophet Salallahu'alayhi wa salam. She was known for her piety and devotion to prayer. Little Hafsa is named in her honour.

I've also rethemed Irrelevant Opinions; the old theme was getting rather dull over time. This one is courtesy of RayCreations, but I'll possibly customize it to my liking over time. (Actually, I probably won't.)

Please remember little Hafsa in your special Ramadhan du'as, that she lives a healthy and productive life. May Allah accept and protect all of our children, and make them a means of comfort and happiness in this world and in the hereafter.

Nine Thousand Miles

If the opportunity was presented to you to start a new life, over nine thousand miles away from everything you knew and loved growing up, would you consider it?

Many people live their entire lives within a small radius that doesn't even exceed the daily commute of many people working and living in large cities.  The home they were born in was the home their parents were born in, and their children would live there too, or if they were adventurous, then perhaps they would settle a few miles away.

In this part of the world, it is uncommon for people to stay in one place for so long; sedentary lifestyles are looked down upon, and it is often considered a vice to remain physically attached to one's roots.  I was the adventurous one in the family, settling only a couple hundred kilometres away from the rest.  In my pursuit of a livelihood, I was happy settling on the mantra, "anywhere but Toronto".

During the fifteen months that my rizq was spread out across the country, I travelled over two hundred thousand miles, more than the distance to the moon.  And since then, my wings have been clipped, grounded in one place for two years.  While life has been extremely kind to me and my family, I've always wondered about what else may be in store outside the artificial boundaries I have constrained myself to.

Nine thousand miles is a long distance to cover.  "Permanent" can be a long time.  And a life away from everything I knew and loved may be difficult to bear.  But the Prophet Muhammad Salallahu'alayhi wa salam taught us to live our lives as travellers, as there is nothing permanent about this life.  And Allah Subhana Wa Ta'Ala has made this earth vast, and has placed within it many colours and cultures for us to experience and learn from.  What better way to live that life and experience those realities than by taking that step into the unknown?

And with a new life coming into this world, isn't this an appropriate time to consider a new life for myself?

Resolution

A lot is going on these days - it is amazing how many things have been changing and will change in the coming months. Insha-Allah, the challenges will be met and things will go smoothly. I just have to promise myself one thing:

Do not let the depressing hockey scores put you in a bad mood. Do not dwell in the misery of Montreal's losing streak.

Update: Oh, and I also intend to write more. Sometime, eventually, maybe.

Prayers for Chachi

Please pray for my aunt, the mother of my cousin Nauman, who has recently been diagnosed with colon cancer. Unfortunately, cancer is nothing new to our family, but Allah has been merciful and has cured afflicted family members in the past; insha-Allah, this time will be no different.

Please convey your well-wishes to Nauman here.

Comfort of the Eyes

'O Our Lord', grant us from our wives and offspring, the comfort of our eyes, and make us the leaders of the pious. (25:74)

As of two days, the author of this blog is married.  This was not what he had in mind at all.

Motionless Journey II: All The Wrong Reasons

Usually, a person learns more from failure than from success. Without facing any challenges, a person tends to become complacent, and would be poorly prepared when their hopes are dashed and things eventually go awry. Failure is one of the greatest teachers in life, and it is something that we should not be ashamed of if it leads to personal growth.

At least, that's the spiel I gave to a job interviewer when, upon reviewing my university transcript and my disastrous Fall 2003 semester, he exclaimed, "what the hell happened here?!"

That same interviewer is now one of my current managers.

It wasn't just fluff I made up to gloss over one of my most difficult stretches of academia. It was something I always believed, perhaps as a defense mechanism against frustration. When things didn't go my way, I tried to generally find some lesson to derive out of those situations. That particular semester of university was almost a revelation for me, learning that the world doesn't end when things go poorly. Life goes on, and in fact, it almost certainly will get better.

You don't want to set yourself up for failure though just to get the lessons. You need to prepare and equip yourself for success, and take failure in stride. When it came to issues of my life and my future, I was always afraid that I'd have to hit a major emotional setback first in order to achieve my goals, so I always kept my emotions heavily guarded. On matters of such importance, I'd rather not learn things the hard way.

My first home after moving away from my family was a shared house with three other Muslim brothers. One of them, who left shortly after I moved in, became a very close friend very quickly. He had graduated from university a couple of years earlier, and had moved to Ottawa after leaving a great job in the city where he grew up and studied. He was part of a good family, had a good job, and was a hafiz to boot, and his welcoming personality made my own transition much easier. As he explained to me, however, his arrival in Ottawa was under less than ideal circumstances.

A failed marriage venture lead to his leaving his old city. In the past, he had been working with a young Muslim woman who was not particularly practicing, whose parents were vehemently opposed to any trace of religion entering their home. My roommate described her as the most beautiful girl in the office, adding that she was constantly teased by the older male coworkers. He was the only one who would give her due respect, warning her about what others were saying and visualizing behind her back. She was touched by his courtesy, and quickly began changing her life by adopting regular prayer and modesty in dress, much to the chagrin of her parents. The first day she came home from work wearing hijab, my friend narrated, she was subject to much verbal abuse by her father.

But she wanted to find a new home and a new family, and that hafiz at work seemed like the perfect candidate to share her life with. Talks began, and one day, the hafiz agreed to meet her parents at their home.

Upon seeing him, dressed in a black jalabiya and his long beard, the parents slammed the door. No way was this "mullah" going to marry their daughter.

They kept discussing, but her parents would not budge, and urged their daughter to leave that job and never to speak with that hafiz again. He did not want her to leave everything behind and break up her family, so he himself left the job and moved away. He kept in touch with her for some time, introducing her to other Muslim sisters in the area who could help her continue developing in Islam. But he recognized that there was no way he could envision a future with her, with a constant struggle between families and values. He needed to break away completely.

There was no happy ending to this story, per se. I lost touch with that roommate over time, so I don't know what happened to that young woman, though that roommate did eventually marry from back home. But as this story was being narrated to me eight years back, I made a number of mental notes about what to do and what to avoid should I find myself in the same situation. When it came to marriage, I was too afraid to learn from my own failed ventures; I wanted to learn from others instead.

As the years went by and I heard other, similar stories, I noticed a few recurring themes in the failed ventures. Usually, it came down to parents having conflicting values, or the prospective couple themselves being unable to reconcile petty differences. What put them together in the first place was usually quite a lengthy, and often dramatic, story.

And therein lies the rub, I thought. Nearly every failed engagement or failed marriage I have seen began with a long pre-engagement story. Often, people look for a story, because no one likes telling people at work that "my parents met her parents, and we spoke a few times, and decided to get married".

No, people want a story, a romantic adventure, a tale to tell their children about "how we met", perhaps even an entire theme for their blog. And often, it backfires, and the guy ends up marrying from back home to avoid "the hassle" (how offensive is that?) while the girl's parents lose all hope that anyone would ever marry her due to that one broken engagement or divorce. It's a terrible cycle that leaves families broken and divided, and the unfortunate victims in all this usually end up being the girls. They are stigmatized by a culture which fails to recognize their immense talents and capabilities.

On the other hand, most of the successful marriages I see are the result of a very formal and boring process. We even sarcastically call the initial meetings "interviews", likening the spouse search to the post-graduation job search. All the excitement is saved for after marriage, where the young couple learns to adapt to their new life together, building their relationship with exclusive commitment to each other. Of course, exceptions exist where things aren't as smooth, just as exceptions exist in the former case where couples complete their dramatic stories with beautiful marriages and cute children.

As was the case of my former roommate and a number of other stories I heard over the years, things went sour because of parents with all the wrong priorities, seeking marriage for their children for all the wrong reasons. In many of the more recent cases of failed engagements in my community, I was surprised no one else saw it coming; all the warning signs were clearly visible. But for parents who want wealthy husbands for their daughters, or those who want beautiful and fair-skinned wives for their sons, those signs often do not register.

We have been taught to judge compatibility based on a person's piety. But what does this actually mean? "Well, Allah has ordered men to provide for their families, so our future son-in-law must be a doctor, because he can provide the best, therefore he is the best in piety!" Or, "the Quran describes the women of Paradise as beautiful, and so beauty is part of deen! Beautiful and fair skinned and I never read anything in the Quran commanding hijab, why I know this one hijabi girl who you wouldn't believe the stories i heard blah blah blah ..." Um, not quite.

I never had much tolerance for that. If someone was inquiring about me, I wanted it to be for the right reasons. I remember being in Vancouver one day, receiving a phone call from some uncle in Toronto who clearly failed to recognize that there is a three hour time difference. A father to a daughter in her early 20s, he had spoken to my parents about my availability. But before properly introducing himself or even telling me so much as his daughter's name (which I never found out), he asked:

"So, what is your salary?"

I could have told him. Alhamdulillah, I do okay, but he had already turned me off. I sarcastically replied, "oh, it's somewhere in the five-figure range". He pressed further, but I had lost interest. He also encouraged me to pursue a Master's degree, because clearly I wasn't earning enough if I was not ready to divulge that information. I told him I was happy with the way my life is going, and don't see any need to change things considerably, particularly on the advice of someone who had never met me. It wasn't my best of moments, as I wasn't particularly polite, though perhaps the time of day affected my tone of voice. I never heard from him again, but he had already lost me long before I even said a word.

In retrospect, it didn't bother me much. I had been through much worse, and he certainly made my life easier by establishing his priorities from the outset. I should have thanked him for being so blunt.

A few weeks ago, I spent two hours driving between cities with one relative that I had never really spoken to very deeply before. He migrated to Canada from Pakistan in the early seventies, and married from Pakistan shortly thereafter. He told me the stories of his own marriage search, and it surprised me how similar his stories were to those I hear about here in Canada. I thought issues of marriage were so simple back then, but he taught me that it has always been this way, and perhaps it always will be. Now happily married for over thirty years with very cute grandchildren, he showed that things work out eventually if one goes in with the right intentions.

The right intentions. The right intentions are to obey the order of Allah and the tradition of the Prophet, peace be upon him, by choosing a companion to share one's life and afterlife with. So simple in concept, but in practice, we have introduced so many unnecessary complications that have made it one of most hotly-debated topics of our generation.

I touched on this topic before, when writing of Goldilocks last year. It was a direct response to incidents from only days before, and I still look upon it as one of my personal favourites from this blog. Unfortunately, Goldilocks did not fare too well, a fate I wrote as something of a personal warning. I learn more from failures than from success, so I figured I can just fictionalize the failures so I don't need to experience them myself. It turned out to be a good move.

I'll try to finish this sometime early next week, insha-Allah. Eid Mubarak, everyone!

Motionless Journey I: A Dawning Reality

I was always a bit naïve when it came to the way things worked in love and life. I was born and raised in one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, but somehow felt that really, the society around me didn't tread too far away from our traditions of marriage and companionship. The process was a bit different, but the goals were ultimately the same.

I always assumed that what I saw on sitcoms, where characters would have a new girlfriend or boyfriend every week or two (or sometimes several in one episode), was purely fiction. Or, if not fiction, then more a product of American society, and not at all reflective of my image of pure, pristine Canada. A completely different world, I thought! In Canada, any relationship between a boy and a girl was just the precursor to marriage and traditional, suburban life. Kids, minivans, and problems that are solved in thirty minutes minus commercials.

I am not sure how I managed all those years being so aloof. What really went on around me, among my friends and classmates at the time, was quite far off from my understanding. Eventually, friends would confide in me with their stories, and I was quietly horrified by the clearly foolish decisions they made. I didn't understand how people could be so negligent of their own realities.

As I grew up and began living on my own, I became much more appreciative of the traditional rishta system of family and marriage; when executed in conjunction with the rest of Islamic principles, it actually worked. During my early university years, there was no pressure, and I was free from the stress that complex emotional relationships bring while navigating through my engineering degree. I understood that everything had a time, and my time was not soon. I didn't need to worry.

Of course, things changed, and MSA began consuming a good chunk of my time. And of course, late night discussions with fellow MSA brothers would invariably lead to discussions about marriage. The popular opinion was that the system was "broken" in North America, or that it was, at best, an unsolved problem. I observed with great curiosity as others took their steps on that path, many unsuccessfully. I kept myself comfortably distanced, making mental notes of every mistake I caught and every good idea I witnessed.

The stories I heard were not uncommon; issues with potential in-laws, conflicting ambitions, incompatible cultures, distance, et cetera. None of these seemed all that threatening to me, having heard much worse from my high school days. I didn't find the system to be broken, per se, as rarely did any of these incidents leave lasting emotional scars. In the entire journey, they were mere blips, frustrating only for those who expected instant results.

A broken system, in my mind, involved men and women scouting singles bars, drowning their inhibitions to score for a night, without much thought about the days or weeks after. A broken system makes "commitment" a bad word. A broken system involves suppressing your good conscience via intoxication or ignorance, letting animalistic desire take over. A broken system includes "relationship experts" who can't get their own act together, let alone advise others. Just by providing me the foresight and tools to avoid all this, I qualified our pseudo-Islamic-but-largely-cultural system, even in North America, as functional and credible.

I remember watching an episode of Frasier one day. The ongoing storyline in that series involved the infatuation of Frasier's brother Niles with the housekeeper Daphne. Eventually, Niles won the object of his affection, and at some point had this conversation with his brother:

Niles: I think we may be taking our relationship to the next level.

Frasier: Oh, my God, Niles! You're going to propose?

Niles: No, not that level, the level before that.

Frasier: You're going to ask her to move in with you?

Niles: One more level before that.

Frasier: Well, you're already dating...

Niles: No, that's two levels.

Frasier: Oh, for heaven's sake, just tell me!

Niles: Well, you know. We're going to... consummate our relationship.

According to this exchange, the sequence is as follows:

1. Dating
2. Consummation
3. Living together
4. Engagement / Marriage

The model is almost a complete reversal of the Islamic model. Thinking about all the stories I heard from friends and colleagues who attempted to exercise this model, it always struck me as stupid - as evidenced by a success rate that would barely qualify as a passing grade in the substandard Ontario school system.

I would have thought that, at some point, people would have re-evaluated this process and realized it needed tweaking. No high-performing business would maintain a business model that yielded such a high failure rate. In any productive society, the family is the most fundamental structure, and should thus be built on the most solid foundations. Exposing the family to this much risk is not enlightenment, it is simply poor planning.

When I think about the quality of most of the Muslim brothers and sisters I have known over the years, particularly those born and raised in the West, I can only conclude that the traditional system works reliably. These wonderful people I have known are the products of this system, and many have already established families of their own. Yes, we complain about the actual search for a spouse being difficult and convoluted, but this is only one stage in a much larger process. In the context of the lifetime influences this system has on us, we should feel extremely grateful. Life could have been so much more complicated.

The West introduced first generation Canadian Muslims like myself to a system which appeared liberating, exciting, and emotionally gratifying. In reality, it's not any of these things. It's much more of an unsolved problem than Muslim marriage in the West, inefficient and prone to failure. While things are not always perfect in every Muslim household, the traditional Muslim family structure is still something to cherish and be proud of. Certainly, things can always be improved, but nothing in life is easy; furthermore, if things were too easy, we would have no appreciation for it. The day we recognize how fortunate we are to have our convoluted system is the day our own journey becomes smoother.

The steps to achieving that realization, of course, are not always smooth in itself. A few stories in particular helped shape my understanding, and continue to help forge my path forward. To be eventually continued...

Pre-Ramadhan Randomness

I have a lot to write these days, but have been under the weather for some time now. So for now, I will just link to the most recent edition of Muslim Link, which includes my first article there in over a year.

Muslim Link Ramadhan Issue
Original, unedited version

The front page article is mine, though unfortunately it went through a few edits that screwed up the grammar and wording. I'm tempted to volunteer regularly again as an editor because they certainly need the help, but have a few other requests that I need to respond to first. I need to learn to prioritize.

The following topics have been on my mind of late, and I'll probably write about at least one of these eventually, not sure which.

• Condescending uncles and their derision for "mullahs".
• Agreeing to disagree, in the light of the sunnah.
• My take on all the marriage discussion around the blogosphere these days.
• Jum'ah woes; responding to the recent imam controversies in Ottawa.
• Why I strongly dislike 99% of the wedding speeches I keep hearing.

In the meantime, I might as well share some pictures from my trip to Banff earlier this year. I meant to post these up five months ago, but it kept slipping my mind. Enjoy!

Where is the future of knowledge?

A few weeks ago, as I was walking through the basement of my apartment building, I noticed this sitting in a corner normally used for dropping bulk garbage:


It was a complete set of the Encyclopedia Britannica in perfect condition. Encyclopedias are not cheap, and the Britannica in particular is one of the more reputable ones. This edition was graced by many colour pictures on glossy pages, and must have cost the owner at least a thousand dollars when initially purchased.

Of course, it was from 1986. Since then, the world has changed significantly, and almost every article in those 24 volumes and several thousands of pages would be obsolete.

I remember elementary school and high school well. In elementary school, kindergarten to grade six in my home province, we used to do projects every once in a while about an animal or a country or a person. That meant going to both the school's library as well as the local municipal library, and spending hours searching through books and encyclopedias to find the information I needed. Then I would put it all together in one unified piece, load the pages into a duotang (do people still use duotangs?), and then submit it to my teacher. The research and consolidation was a lot of work, but it certainly helped me become a better writer and thinker.

I don't need to do any of this work anymore, and neither do those kids who are doing those same projects. I can see the rationale of that family that threw out their Encyclopedia set; they must have asked themselves, "will we or anyone else ever refer to this encyclopedia again?" There really is no reason to do so ever. The encyclopedia only serves an aesthetic purpose today, and offers nothing else of value.


In spite of the completely open nature of Wikipedia, it is surprisingly an extremely well managed resource. You may not get 100% accurate information every time, but what you get is usually of excellent quality regardless, even on the most obscure topics. At the same time, what guarantee do I have that Britannica was 100% accurate in it's heyday?

I originally planned on writing this when Google's Knol project first opened up to the public last week. Knol aims to distinguish itself from Wikipedia by putting more accountability on the content authors. Users are only expected to contribute "Knols" if they are authorities on their topic.

When I first started exploring Knol, there was no entry on Islam, and I thought I would contribute one lest it be scooped up by a so-called "experts" who interpret the faith according to their own whims and desires. A week later, there are no fewer than 34 articles about Islam, though many of them appear to be simple copy/pastes from Wikipedia articles or other websites. I haven't read anything particularly inflammatory yet, but Google's system here somehow seems more prone to bias and personal opinion.

I don't think Knol will catch on, mainly because the presentation is quite poor so far. Wikipedia is beautifully consistent, and makes finding the information I want much easier, whereas every Knol article appears to adopt it's own layout rules and writing style. But I'd still like to contribute some of my "expertise" somehow, but what topics (outside of twisted metaphors) can I be considered an "authority" in?

Whether Google succeeds or not, it is clear that the future of knowledge will not lie on paper. Books will always have their place, but bits of binary data flowing through the tubes of the Internet will serve as the records of our time for future historians studying life in the 21st century.

In the past, they said that "history is written by the winners." That statement is soon to be irrelevant. Going forward, history will be written by the people with flexible data plans.

WILTW4 – The Ottawa Terrorism Trial

Like most Muslims in Ottawa, my attention this week was largely focused on the trial of Momin Khawaja.  Momin was the first Canadian arrested under the post-9/11 Anti-Terrorism laws, back in March of 2004.  His whole family was detained by police that day, with one of his brothers picked up from home, another from our university, and his mother from a grocery store.  It was a calculated raid unlike any we had ever seen in this city, and the target was someone most of us knew personally.  After four years, during which Momin has been locked up in an Ottawa prison, his trial finally began this Monday.

It was a confusing time, those first few weeks after the arrests.  It shook the community to its core, forcing us out of our comfort zone and into a strange world of politics and conspiracy.  Many questions were raised, none answered.  We all thought it was a terrible mistake, and could not believe the accusations.  The family was a respectable one, prominent within their community and active at the local mosque.  But days after the arrests, their pictures were all over the newspapers alongside detailed diagrams of their neighbourhood showing the path that RCMP officers used to break into their home.  Days after the raid, the media had already smeared their name and proclaimed their guilt.  I can’t begin to imagine how difficult life has been for them since.

It still is a confusing time.  The trial began with the testimony of star witness Junaid Babar garnering the most attention.  Mr. Babar had already pleaded guilty to terrorism-related offences in the past, but has been testifying against others in an effort to lighten his sentence.  Five British Muslims have already been sentenced to life in prison on his testimony, being accused of plotting an attack against a London nightclub.  Momin is accused of having conspired with that group.

Reading the news has been rather surreal, seeing pictures of those parents that I had seen before at community events and mosque fundraisers, seeing our friends on television sharing their insight.  The names being thrown around as unwilling participants in the alleged plot are names I see on my MSA mailing list.  According to some of the testimony, “hockey” was used as a code-word for Paintball sessions in order to avoid suspicion; I’ve heard that corroborated by my own friends.  Even some blogs I’ve read in the past have strange connections to the testimony being published throughout the world.  It’s all very real and very local, and is equally as disturbing as it is frightening.

This is very different from the so-called “Toronto 18”, which is slowly being revealed as a complete sham of a case.  No, the Ottawa arrest and the subsequent trial is far more calculated, far more drastic, with deeper ramifications for the future of national security policy and the place of Muslims in Canadian society.

Nothing is proven, of course, and the trial has only begun; it is expected to run for several more months.  Undoubtedly, we will hear more testimony, more perspectives, and the overall picture will become clearer over time.  In the meantime, I can only hope and pray that all is resolved in a just and fair manner.

What I Learned This Week – Part Two

The cryptic style of my first WILTW post wasn’t really what I was going for.  At the very least, I can be happy that it put some content on this site, but useless content is not much better than no content whatsoever.  So WILTW will instead focus on whatever lessons I managed to take out of the events of this week.

And yet, somehow, life goes on.  This could have been the punchline to one of my favourite Calvin and Hobbes strips of all time, but the panel that follows is just as memorable.

I was reminded of this comic a few times by a colleague who is a fantastic complainer, finding fault in every little thing, be it the weather, the cafeteria food, or the width of the hallway.  I usually find this sort of extreme pessimism somewhat amusing, but it’s actually pretty sad.  As one friend liked to often repeat, “people are dying!” and we are complaining about the most immaterial things.  I often find myself guilty of complaining about minor things as well.

It’s often hard to keep that larger perspective, to sympathize with the sufferings of the rest of the world and appreciate how truly lucky we actually are.  Sometimes, it’s just too depressing, and instead of instilling a sense of gratitude, we simply feel helpless and annoyed.  Thus, taking some time to reflect on our own happiness is a worthy endeavour once in a while.

What is the value of tradition? Apparently, it’s $2.5 million dollars.  That is the price that the CBC was unwilling to pay for continued use of the famous Hockey Night in Canada theme.  CTV was rather shrewd in picking it up right away, effectively usurping forty years of tradition and history.  It will be interesting to see how things play out next season, if that song alone can draw people away from CBC and to the rival networks.

Unfortunately, the hilarious Colbert segment on the fiasco was pulled from YouTube. 

 

There are some professions that just wouldn’t suit me.  I’ve learned this week that the following professions would not suit me at all:

• Bus / Taxi Driver: I tend to take wrong turns way too often.  Plus, I don’t even like driving.
• Collections Agent: This is ironic because my first summer job was in Collections, and I was quite good at it.  But I can’t seem to bring myself to ask for things back after lending to others.
• Hitman: I wouldn’t even know where to begin here.
• Chef: Cereal doesn’t count.
• Judge / Police Man / Lawyer: I think I’d give people way too many chances if they seemed nice.

 

Other topics on my mind these days will hopefully come soon in the form of a more structured, better written post.  Until then, have a great weekend!

Fanaticism

They say hockey is a religion in Canada. It binds fans, amazes them, frustrates them, and gives them something to believe in when all else seems amiss. For many, it is the hope that keeps them optimistic through trials. It brings people from all walks of life together - the rich and the poor cheer side by side when their team wins, and sulk and complain together after losses. From those sitting in the luxury boxes, to those listening to the games on a borrowed radio, everyone shares the joy and pain together.

It is no wonder, then, that it is also plagued by a handful of overzealous fanatics who tarnish the good name of the game and it's fans. When the Habs finally put away the resilient Boston Bruins in the deciding seventh game last night, the "moderate" adherents celebrated by cheering through the streets. Millions of people throughout the province watched with joy as the fourth and fifth goals were scored to dash any chance of an improbable Bruin comeback. But for a few dozen alcohol-fueled hooligans, cheering was not enough.

And so they set aflame police cars, smashed windows of nearby stores, and caused over a half million dollars of damage throughout downtown Montreal in a senseless riot. Just like 1993, when the Habs last won the Stanley Cup. And 1994, in Vancouver. And probably in dozens of other cities for other sports with other passionate fans. In spite of the healthy competition and pure athleticism that define professional sports, it also brings out the worst in people.

Fans of a hockey team are always judged by their class. Every city likes to claim that it is home to the "classiest" fans, while all other teams are characterized by how "unclassy" their fans are. And now the entire hockey world is calling out the people of Montreal as classless, while Montrealers are arguing that the riots were isolated cases that do not truly represent the city of Montreal or the people that live there.

All this seems very familiar to me. The voice of the "true fans", the vast majority of them completely horrified by the barbarism that took place last night, is drowned out by a small number of idiots. And what else are others to think, when the images they see in the media are that of burning cars, smashed windows, and senseless yelling?

When the images in the media portray the same sort of violence and insanity in the Muslim world, it hurts over a billion people in a similar manner. We know what everyone is seeing in the media, and we know it doesn't represent our beliefs at all. But for all our efforts to clear our names, the next case of stupidity cancels out everything good that was said and done.

A few days earlier, in Boston, a Montrealer was beaten nearly to death for wearing a red jersey and being French. A couple of drunk Boston fans punched and kicked him to the ground, leaving him unconscious in a large pool of his own blood. Nearly killed for, essentially, his beliefs.

Some people criticize religion, based on what they observe in the media. They complain that it warps minds, kills reason, and incites hatred. What happened in Montreal, what happened in Boston last week - this was all that and more. Just like one wouldn't blame hockey in general for these ugly incidents, one can't blame religion in general for the ugly acts committed in it's name.

What can be blamed, however, is alcohol. It is that, and not hockey itself, that drives people to such idiocy. It is an unfortunate reality that beer is part of the hockey culture in Canada. One can't sit down and watch a game without being interrupted by a number of nonsensical beer commercials. It is like this with most professional sports, I'm sure, but I can't be bothered to check.

I absolutely hate smoking and cigarettes, and I fully support all the laws that seek to suppress it. Tobacco companies are forbidden from advertising on billboards and in television commercials, smokers are forced to pay extreme taxes to feed their habit, and even the cigarette boxes are required to contain graphic anti-smoking messages. But in spite of all this, I've never heard of anyone causing a half million dollars of damage due to the influence of cigarettes. I've never heard of someone beaten brutally due to the influence of cigarettes. I've never heard of someone cause a fatal car accident because of a tobacco overdose.

Alcohol has done all that, and more. And yet, it is not only a tolerated habit, it is celebrated. And it is somehow spared of any criticism when incidents like last night in Montreal, or last week in Boston, happen. Yes, these incidents are rare, but still much more common than violent religious fervour, which gets all the press.

Alhamdulillah that Islam has protected me from the habits that drive people to such foolishness. For all that critics argue against Islam and other religions, it is perhaps the only force that will protect us from the most fatal influences.