My (earnest, irate) thoughts

Al-Fatiha means The Opening. This is the first chapter of the Qur’an, the Muslim holy book. Muslims recite this sura twenty to forty times a day in their daily prayers. The English is OK, but the Arabic is extraordinary. I wish sometimes that I was internally fluent in Arabic. I wish for this to happen magically, though no work of my own. But then, once upon a time in Bayside, Queens, one of my ESL students, a young woman from Palestine, informed me that Qur’anic Arabic is difficult even for a native speaker, and that Arabs must study it and read commentary on the verses just like we do. I used to love to watch her jotting notes to herself in the margins of the worksheets I passed out. Loops and dots in the margins.

Bismillah.hirrahman.nirrahim
(In the name of Allah, most Gracious, most Merciful)
Elhamdulillahi.rabbil.allemin
(Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds)
Errahman.nirrahim
(Most Gracious, most Merciful)
Maliki.yeumiddin
(Master of the Day of Judgment)
Iyyake.neabudu.we.iyyake.nestayin
(You alone do we worship, You alone do we ask for help)
Ihdinas.surratal.mustagkim
(Show us the straight path)
Surratal.ethine.enamte.aleyhim.gayrilmadubi.aleyhim.welled.dallin.Amin.
(The path of those You have favored, not the path of those who earn Your anger nor of those who go astray. Amen.)

It’s really beautiful to hear someone singing Al-Fatiha as it’s meant to sound. In Konya, Turkey — a city that is famous to me for two reasons only: it is the final resting place of the Sufi poet Rumi, and it is the home of etli ekmek, a thin-crust pizza that is insane — we went to a mosque for sunset prayer. I was beside myself as I stood in line with Turkish ladies and we listened to the imam sing Al-Fatiha. He sang it really slowly and carefully and beautifully, and at that moment I wished with all my heart that this was my religion from birth, that this was my home and that these were my people… that a small part of me didn’t feel forever strange and left out, both in America and in Turkey.

This is the best thing I have ever read that was written using a religious perspective on illness, suffering and death. It’s long, but it’s absolutely worth reading. God willing, one day I can have such a wonderful perspective on human mortality, particularly my own.

Some excerpts:
According to tradition, the prophet Muhammad had a neighbor who purposefully dumped trash on Muhammad’s doorstep and walkway. Once when Muhammad noticed that he didn’t have to wade through garbage to leave his house, he was seen soon after at the neighbor’s door — asking about their health and if he could be of service. This is the premium of helping the ill.

In one account, during Judgment, God will ask some people why when He was hungry they did not offer food, or when He was thirsty why they did not provide drink, or when He was ill why they did not visit. The response will, of course, be one of confusion: “Glory be to You, Lord of Reality — you are above such needs and suffering?!” The reply will be, “Yes, but you were aware that my servant here was hungry, and my servant there was thirsty, and my servant over there was ill, and through serving them, you would have found Me.”

In the name of God, most compassionate, most merciful.

It’s a quarter to 5, and even though I’ve only been asleep for five hours and even though it’s still dark outside, I know I must eat three eggs, three slices of bread, a large bowl of Raisin Bran with yogurt, and an overripe pear, and then drink two 16-ounce glasses of water, and 8 ounces of black tea.

Now it still looks black outside, but there is a faint light on the horizon. At about 6, my stomach sloshing with liquid, I will wash my face, head, arms and feet, and perform the dawn prayer. I will ask God to please accept today’s fast. I’ve read that for some, daytime fasting is merely hunger, night prayer merely wakefulness… they remain unchanged by these experiences, or do them for the wrong reasons, and it is not accepted by God. I don’t want that to be me. I don’t want to feel this discomfort for nothing. I want God to change my heart and make me good enough — make me kind, compassionate, thoughtful, tolerant so my heart is wide like the ocean. I beg God to have mercy on me, to give me just that square foot, to accept my fast that is broken sometimes by bad words, my prayers that are full of mistakes, my heart that is weak.

I have enough time to sleep for two more hours. I burrow under the covers, marveling at how lovely it is to return to my soft comforter, my warm sheets. The weak light of dawn streams in the windows. It reminds me of when I was a kid, and I used to set my alarm two hours before I actually had to get up. I would hit the snooze button every twenty minutes, feeling a blurry happiness that I didn’t have to get up yet. But a minute later, my alarm is beeping, and I feel a surge of anger that two hours have already passed.

My mouth is bone-dry. I have a slight headache. My face is puffy and creased with sleep lines. I look truly ugly. That moment is when I feel and look the worst that I will all day. God willing. What’s strange is a few hours from now, my mind will be cleared, my face will be flushed and my eyes will be bright. People look lovely when they fast. It’s something I didn’t know.

Mid-morning and lunchtime hunger pangs pass after an hour or so. Thirst will ebb and flow like the tide. I try not to notice the crunching sounds of other people eating, the slurping sounds of other people drinking. I remind myself that I will appreciate food and drink more, because I know what it is to hunger and thirst. By late afternoon, the acid in my stomach may rumble a bit, making me long for yogurt or milk to calm it. I continue to throw myself into my work or my writing. I pass the time. I’ll come home from work, and consider the foods to break our fast. Often fish, usually rice, vegetables like broccoli or spinach. Fasting makes one long for real food, foods with vitamins and minerals. And water, only water.

But by dinnertime, which comes when the sun disappears over the horizon, I’ll be almost past the point of caring about food and drink. It’s half-past 7, and I’ve gotten used to my dry mouth, my empty stomach. I am calm. I almost don’t care that sunset has come. Almost.

I thank God briefly for the food — so briefly! —and that first sip of water is so cold, so welcome, so much better than the sweetest fruit juice. And this is the image that comes into my head: African children with sad eyes and protruding ribs. And I think of how they don’t know when their next drink is coming, that sunset doesn’t mean their fast is broken, and I am ashamed at my difficulties with thirst, I am embarrassed by my weakness in hunger, and I am stunned by the selfishness of our society. I am disheartened that we could make our world so unequal, that we can let even one day pass without us remembering it, guiltily.

What’s crazy is that people actually blame God for our world’s inequality. Though people clearly have free will, and clearly are not forced to obey any moral code whatsoever, the fact that most of the world goes to bed hungry is, of course, God’s fault.

The other day I was listening to the radio. One of the hosts was talking about how absurd it is that a state senator is suing God. They were discussing, along with callers, what things a person might want to sue God for. Natural disasters and world hunger topped the list. I pondered it for awhile. Then I read a post at jperdue.blogspot.com called God and the tsunami. And I realized that it’s a really good question — why does an all-powerful, all-merciful, all-knowing God allow suffering? If a leaf needs God’s permission to fall from a tree, how can already impoverished cities be toppled by earthquakes, leveled by hurricanes, and flooded by tsunamis? How can God let people go to sleep hungry?

I thought about it for awhile. Then I left a comment, which I will reproduce part of here.

“For believers, suffering is a test of our submission to the will of God. All hardships are an opportunity to gain rewards in heaven for our patience in matters beyond our control. Believers can rest easy knowing that not even a leaf can fall from a tree without God’s permission, and that we will never be tested beyond what we can endure.

For unbelievers, suffering has a two-fold purpose. It is both chastisement and mercy — a mercy because some will heed the wake-up call and be spared a far greater punishment. (Earth itself serves as proof of the existence of heaven and hell, because life on earth can lean either way.) It is only our extremely limited knowledge and understanding that makes events appear random and without purpose.”

We congratulate ourselves for the babies we bear, the money we earn, the food we eat. And yet we, who barely acknowledge God’s existence through the course of a given day — despite the abundant proof of God’s existence in the crazy, hilarious beauty of puppies and babies and flowers — readily acknowledge God’s “fault” in the inequalities of a world in which people choose 100 percent of our own words and actions.

Ramadan has made me, a sinner, incredibly aware of my own weaknesses, like being enslaved to my body and all its incessant wants and needs, but the holy month has also made me grateful for my own power, the power God grants each one of us, to speak good and to do good.

So Yusuf and I are sponsoring children through www.muslimhands.org, a British charity that reaches out to orphans and students of every religion in the poorest countries in the world (mostly Africa and south Asia). We are sponsoring Akbar, a 6-year-old from Bangladesh; Khadijatou, a 10-year-old from Gambia; and Amine, a 13-year-old from Senegal. I keep pictures of the two girls on my desk at work. When I’m hungry, I look at them. I can’t fathom how such a tiny amount of money every month could make a difference in their lives. I am not sure that it does. But I tell myself it is important to try. It’s like that commercial… (”For the price of a cup of coffee per day…”) For me it is such a small sacrifice, it’s not a sacrifice. I don’t even notice the absence of this money. So how could we not even try, especially after we have seen even a short glimpse of their lot in life?

There is a pervasive emptiness to everything lately. Attempting to ward off the devils of insecurity and doubt eating at my soul, I finished reading a book, Believing as Ourselves by J. Lynn Jones, for the third time… and as always, I was amazed at how succinctly she describes it.

“It” is the American convert to Islam, who looks more Arabic than the Arabs, and is so eager to please and so desperate to fit in that she sacrifices her authentic self — the questioning, subversive self that propelled her to Islam in the first place — and is left with a hollow soul, unsatisfying prayers, and relationships that smack of superficiality. Lately, that’s me to a T.

Reading this book, I cried so hard that I wondered how it was possible to be in that much pain without an apocalyptic event beforehand. But recognizing the emptiness of my life — because I keep going away from God and back to other people to fill my void — brought me shame. The validation of others is so intoxicating, so powerful… like a drug. Even when I think I’m recovered from the addiction, there it is, calling me. And the holy month of Ramadan begins tomorrow. I hated myself. And I shook with sobs, because there is no worse hatred than the hatred of one’s own self.

Jones’ book is such a gift. Unlike most of the other books out there, that go on and on and on about all the glories of Islam and the shining wonders of being Muslim until you barf, she is honest and real. I am incredibly grateful to the friend who recommended it to me. Otherwise I might have ended up one of these jerky ex-Muslims I find sometimes on the Internet, who know just enough to be dangerous, but not enough to shed any light on anything.

Speaking of darkness… yesterday, the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 tragedies, meant newspapers filled with waving American flags, rhetoric about security and safety, and as always, plenty of stories about “Islamic militants.” So many stories about these terrorists with guns and religious zeal that it would give pause even to a lifelong Muslim, not to mention me, still toddling along in my baby steps to God. I forced myself to read articles, briefs and letters to the editor — no one’s going to say I’m turning a blind eye for my faith, I thought perversely — and by the end of it, I was shrinking into myself, eyes welling with tears, and wondering why my co-workers haven’t plotted my death for the greater good.

My (Turkish) husband is fairly convinced about the zionist bent of American media. Having grown up in a country that contains both secular media and religious media, he has trained himself to look for the agenda behind every article. But for me, his theory of the global domination of media outlets and the international banking system by rich Jewish people and Masons who hate Islam, is not enough to explain why. I like conspiracy theories — I thrive on them, actually — but they’re too simple to explain what has to be a more complex truth.

Yes, western media continually confuse 20th-century political conflicts — why are Palestinians routinely called “suicide bombers” instead of “freedom fighters” anyway? — with a 1,400-year-old religion that preaches peace, and only allows war in self-defense. But that could be genuine ignorance. Or bewilderment at the amount of history, politics and religion one would have to know to be truly “fair” in an article. Or, perhaps, at the top, the slants could be attempts by the West to justify many centuries’ worth of unjustifiable actions in the resource-rich Middle East since the Crusades.

Here’s a thought: Why is it that, even now, the word Arab brings to mind fierce deserts and fiercer tempers, curved Saracen blades, and adjectives like swarthy, brooding and bloodthirsty? But the British Empire and its progeny, the American Empire, have in just a few centuries spilled more blood than all the Islamic empires combined. Not to mention destroyed countless native religions, cultures and languages, raped countless women and mutilated countless babies. And yet, the word Brit brings to mind tea parties, and adjectives like wan, reserved and timid. It’s absurd. I wish I could change our collective consciousness, and make Brit call to mind adjectives like sadistic and diabolical, just for the sake of equal time.

Anyway, J. Lynn Jones is my hero. She describes the inabilities, flaws and sins of Muslims and their relationship to Islam as being a bit like students in a geometry class who fail to apply its principles correctly. Their inaptitude may make them fail a test, or the whole class, but does not in any way tarnish geometry itself. Reading those words turned on a light bulb… there are evil and ignorant people in this world, and some of them are, or think they are, Muslim. They do incomprehensible things. This does not change Islam.

So back to my ongoing quest to be an authentic human being. Here are the things in my life that seem artificial, contrived and “byzantine” — thanks Rusty — the things I would like to change. Like the Sufi proverb says, “No matter how far you’ve gone down the wrong road, come back.”

• My daily namaz, the ritual prayer, is sorely lacking. Sometimes I forget where I am in the prayer, and despite myself the long string of holy recitations in Arabic becomes a long string of meaningless sounds. My mind wanders. I worry God is looking down at me and my pathetic prayers with increasing disdain.

• My wearing of hijab, though I doubt it’s ever easy for anyone, is becoming increasingly difficult. Twice in recent weeks, strangers have harassed me. Both times, it was hoodlums wearing wife-beaters in pick-up trucks. They drive right up on my bumper, then peel around it, incensed that I had the audacity to drive only 5 mph above the speed limit. They look at me as they pass, and I feel their shock that I’m wearing a headscarf. Their middle fingers raised high, they yell things I’m glad I don’t understand, mocking me because I “hate freedom and the American way of life.” These guys would be jerks even if I were as naked as other women. But man, does it bug me, that they insult my religion to my face. I have slowly become a scared version of myself, an agoraphobe. I am afraid of new places and meeting new people, wondering how the scarf on my head will affect the situation. Lately all I can think about are the things I never did — scuba diving, rock climbing, backpacking through Europe — things I probably never would have done, but now I feel incredibly bothered at having the choice ripped away. My husband thinks that I really am this sedentary, unadventurous person, and cannot fathom why I suddenly want to go hiking in the mountains, or why wearing a scarf cannot possibly be part of it.

• Though I do remember how every single Christmas since I was 14 years old had always made me wonder: What do presents stuffed under a fir tree have to do with baby Jesus?… I miss Christmas carols. I miss belting out O Holy Night and accompanying myself on the piano. I miss wine, too. I miss many things about the life of a nominal Christian, of being a part of the rampant commercialism, as nonsensical and theologically unsound as it all was. I guess because some of my new holidays — Ramadan, the 30 days of daylong fasts, for example — necessarily lack some of the, let’s say, sparkle.

• The burdensome reminders of hadiths and sunna practices of the Prophet Muhammad. Even right now in my rebellion I don’t want to write “peace and blessings upon him” because it all just feels like missing the forest for the trees. I worry there’s a hadith, a saying of the Prophet, or a sunna, a behavior of the Prophet, for every possible human situation. Early Muslims were meticulous in jotting this stuff down. But it’s starting to make me crazy. Entering the bathroom with my left foot, drinking with my right hand, saying elhamdulillah every time I sneeze… my husband’s chidings sometimes makes me want to stab him in the neck with my pencil. I remember one time early on when I was reading the Qur’an, just for fun. Yusuf saw me and said, “Do you have abdest?” Abdest is the ritual washing Muslims do before they pray, or evidently, read the Qur’an. I quietly placed the book back on the shelf, and never picked it up voluntarily again.

I don’t even know where to begin to get back on my right path. I figured the first step was getting this down, in the hopes that somewhere, someone might have useful, hard-earned wisdom to share.

I know I just talked about how evil TV is, but here is a short, soon-to-be-updated list of movies that you need to watch immediately (if not sooner).

Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet is one of just a handful of movies that actually seeks out articulate spokespeople for Islam. This PBS documentary presents an imminently watchable, entertaining look at both the life of the Prophet, upon him be peace and blessings, and the varied lives of modern-day American Muslims. (Unfortunately, most movies that claim to “tell the truth about Islam” first begin by retelling all the lies already being told, and then putting a camera in front of a few uneducated, dirty Muslims with atypical opinions. Muslims, e.g., should have been called Muslim Problems.) But Legacy of a Prophet is full of touching scenes — a congressional aide washing himself for ritual prayer, a nurse comforting a dying man — mixed with flashbacks of how the revelation of the Qur’an profoundly affected the Prophet’s otherwise ordinary life. It is beautiful, and western scholar Karen Armstrong is especially enjoyable to watch.

Blood and Oil: A History of the Middle East in World War I is interesting only to a history nerd like myself for the first 90 percent of it. But after the Ottoman Empire surrenders to the Allied powers, and the war “ends” — the true desert storm begins. Several historians call that time the “peace to end all peace” because it created a situation that is inherently unstable, and rife with enough conflict to spark centuries of war. This movie uses snobby British historians, and never even comes close to being pro-Turk or pro-Arab — and the Anglocentric viewpoint makes a sordid history even more so… The Arabs, persuaded by Britain to fight for “independence” from the Turks, were doubly betrayed: A secret treaty between Britain and France, the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916, meant the two countries would divide the Middle East between them, carving up the Muslim empire into arbitrary “nations” and “peoples.” Then Zionist sympathies spawned the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which meant the British would guarantee a Jewish homeland in Palestine — the site of the ancient kingdom of Israel where Arabs had lived for more than a thousand years. This movie only begins to explain why the last century has meant only horror for Middle Easterners of every tongue, creed and color. I wish only that people would watch this movie, and perhaps begin to remove the veil that allows people to confuse these 20th-century political conflicts with a 1,400-year-old religion that preaches only peace.

Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price is very important to me personally. Every day I hear people, good people who are trying to raise thoughtful children, mention “When I got it at Wal-Mart…” and inwardly I startle, a bit surprised by how many good, God-fearing folks I know who shop there, blind to the inherent contradiction between goodness and supporting the largest, foulest, most ruthless behemoth in the world today. Watch it if you want to serve God, and if you believe Jesus meant it when he said that our faith is measured by how we treat “the least of these…” Watch it if you’re a humanist who believes in an egalitarian playing field. Watch it if you started boycotting Wal-Mart long ago, or if you still shop there. This documentary by Robert Greenwald will make you feel ashamed of yourself, and vow never to support Wal-Mart, or “Mao-Mart” as my brother calls it, with your hard-earned money ever again. And be honest: you’re not giving up a thing. Wal-Mart goods are inferior, Wal-Mart staff is overworked and prevented at every turn from unionizing, and the nickels you save were taken directly from the “least of these” — the impoverished Chinese.