what happens in the kitchen, stays in the kitchen...

I'm currently in an extremely carnivorous (not vegetarian-friendly) city and I think it will be much harder to eat halal. Up until now, I've been able to avoid meat almost completely and would only eat meat if it was zabiha and a Muslim friend was specifically inviting me to a homemade meal. (I wouldn't go out of my way to eat meat). But now it seems like being vegetarian would mean eating salad all the time so I think I'm going to supplement my diet with seafood. I'm basically Hanafi so I'm still thinking about how shellfish is going to fit into all that.

Another consideration is if I go out to eat, even if I order the veggie burger or the grilled fish, I don't really know what else was cooked in the same wok or grill. In my previous location I knew how the food was being prepared so that was only an occasional passing thought, but now I'm eating out all the time so it is more of an ongoing concern. At the moment I'm thinking "what happens in the kitchen, stays in the kitchen" (or else I'll be left with eating salad all the time). Hopefully I'll be able to transition to a situation where I'm doing almost all my own cooking eventually.

a joyful work

A friend recently shared this poem of Hafiz with me, so I'm going to share it with you. And hopefully my new job will turn out to be a "joyful work" and not the alternative.

Last night
God posted on the tavern wall
A hard decree for all of love's inmates
Which read:
If your heart cannot find a joyful work
The jaws of this world
Will probably grab hold of your
Sweet ass

plaza granada

For various reasons I'm having less time to write these days. I'm thinking of moving to a new location. I still have to think a lot more about what I want in a neighborhood but one area I'm looking at is near an old shopping center called Plaza Granada. Hmmmm..... Maybe I'll have to change the name of the blog...

pain and suffering in theology

I think our understanding of unfairness in the world is mostly relative and based on our imagination which is based on our experiences. Even if the world were objectively better we would just adjust our expectations for happiness and fulfillment upwards and still suffer accordingly. If the average lifespan could be increased to 1000 years, then when someone dies at 316 folks would still say: "What a shame, she was cut down so young. She had so much of her life ahead of her". If no one ever got diseases like cancer or multiple sclerosis or Huntington's then atheists would use paper cuts to question the mercy of God.

I also think it works in reverse. If one of those bug species, where the female eats the male after sex, evolved into intelligent and sensitive creatures with technology and civilization but the same basic means of reproduction, they wouldn't necessarily be more likely to doubt God's mercy. They would probably just accept that violence was a part of their life cycle and move on. (Consider how, even for us human beings, in certain parts of the world family life is marked by violent rituals and customs, often with religious sanction).

Discuss.

nur az zaman (light of the age)

I wouldn't necessarily insist on all the theological claims below, but I'm glad to support the discussion of such an important Muslim scholar. The following is from Yusuf Yearwood:

Nur az Zaman

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nurazaman/

This yahoo group is dedicated to An-Nur a Zaman (the Light of the age) Shehu Uthman Dan Fodio and the true flag bearers of the Shehu's minhaj (methodology) The Jama'ah of Shehu Uthman Dan Fodio in America. It is mentioned by the great wali (friend) of Allah Shaykh Mukhtar al Kunti "The perfected friends of Allah in this age are three. One is an Arab who resides beyond Syria. His light is the light of La illaha ill Allah. The other is a Fulani in the land of the blacks, Uthman Dan Fodio. His light is the light of the seal of the Messenger of Allah, which was on his left shoulder. As for the last one his light is the light of the heart of the Messenger of Allah" Based on this and many other statments, there is consensus that the great mujadid (renewer) of the 12th Islamic century was Shaykh Uthman dan Fodio.

The Jama'ah of Shehu Uthman dan Fodio in America is directly connected to the broader community of Shehu Uthman through our Sultan, Al Haj AbuBakr ibn Muhammad At-Tahiru (residing in Mayurno, Sudan)the 16th caliph and direct descendent of Shehu Uthman dan Fodio. We are dedicated to reviving the Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad (sawws) by following the traditions of those great scholars who came before us and by adhering to the minhaj (methodology) of Shehu Uthman Dan Fodio and his community until the advent of Al-Mahdi(Peace be upon him).

This yahoo group is open to all Muslims.

my native costume

I'm a big Martin Espada fan but I especially like this poem because I actually have worn that outfit on multiple occasions in different combinations, so in some sense, it really is my "native costume". I guess that either means that 1) Martin Espada and I share a similar poetic sensibility growing out of our condition as educated Latinos struggling to navigate the cultural contradictions which are implicit in living and working in Anglo environments or 2) I still need help dressing myself.

My Native Costume

When you come to visit,
said a teacher
from the suburban school,
don’t forget to wear
your native costume.

But I’m a lawyer,
I said.
My native costume
is a pinstriped suit.

You know, the teacher said,
a Puerto Rican costume.

Like a guayabera?
The shirt? I said.
But it’s February.

The children want to see
a native costume,
the teacher said.

So I went
to the suburban school,
embroidered guayabera
short sleeved shirt
over a turtleneck,
and said, Look kids,
cultural adaptation.

you say you want a revolution...

I have no big plans for the fourth. I'm about to grab some lunch. Hopefully I'll be able to make more progress with cleaning out my room. If I have time, I'll pick through Zinn's A People's History of the United States and reread what it has to say about the American Revolution.

see also:
"when in the course of human events..."

i and i and thou

So from time to time I tend to ride on strange trains of thought. A while ago I wrote a post called the tao passes the turing test which tried to give an alternative way to think about God's existence (or more specifically, God's intelligence). Then I started to wonder if one could make use of Martin Buber's distinction between I-It relationships (objective, detached) and I-Thou relationships (loving, unconditional) to make a similar point. It isn't really surprising that Buber says it is possible to have I-It relationships with other people because it is all-too-easy to find examples of alienated, dehumanizing relationships. The funny thing is that Buber says it is possible to have I-Thou relationships with trees...

which for me evokes some lines from the Spearhead song, "Of Course you can"

In school they tried to tell me
that a rock is not alive
but I have seen a volcano growin' up and die
In school they tried to tell me
that a tree it couldn't feel
but I have felt a tree and it was bleeding for real
In school they tried to tell
me animals couldn't talk
but they can understand it when a dog starts to bark
in school they tried to tell me
man doesn't have a soul
"whet happened to his" I say "cause mine is
still whole!"

But if I-Thou relationships are possible with trees, then perhaps with "the Tao" as well? In other words, the question of God's personhood may have more to do with our subjective perspective than God's objective ontology. So if a hardcore skeptic has trouble accepting a theistic personal God, perhaps another kind of spiritual path would start with belief in a not-necessarily-personal Ultimate Realty (the Tao, Higher Power, Nature) but would then still find meaningful ways to relate to this Reality as an intelligent (in the sense of Turing) Thou (in the sense of Buber). Just a thought.

But that's all background. Actually the thought which most directly inspired this post was the question of whether anyone out in the blogosphere had ever compared Buber's terminology with the Rastafarian use of the phrase "I and I". And a couple of Google searches later I came across Caribbean blogger and published author, Geoffrey Philp and his fascinating post on Reggae, Rastafari and Aesthetics.

And more recently I was reading in Sadiq Alam's post Language of the Sufis how within Islam, mystics have also used pronouns in unconventional ways in order to transmit a higher level of truth. In fact, one could probably draw other analogies between the relationship between Rastafarianism and Christianity and the relationship between certain Sufi orders and Islam. But that will have to wait for another day.

turtle island muslims

Turtle Island is a Native American term for North America and Turtle Island Muslims is a website dedicated to the thoughts and experiences and Native American Muslims. Two pieces which I would recommend are Goodness Outside of Muslim Cultures? by Umm Zaid and Burying 'Digging for the Red Roots'. Both really challenge Muslims to deepen our understanding of Native cultures and their relationship to the Muslim community. In order for Muslim dawa-workers to avoid the mistakes of Christian missionaries, it is essential to think about the issues raised here.

moors gate - bab el magharbeh

Moors Gate is a remarkably well-done Moorish Science website. "New Age-y" at times, but nevertheless with interesting articles.

Grenada's past:
moors, snakes and st. patrick

two latino ex-muslims

I would disagree with several of the comments made by GustavoMustafa (an Iranian-Afghan/Mexican ex-Muslim) over at ProgressiveIslam.org in his very brief post Latino Islam Esquina: Recognizing the Feminine in Divinity but I think he has some interesting things to say about cultural difference.

From Islam to Unitarian Universalism by Hafidha Acuay made me a little sad. Acuay was raised as an Afro-Latina Muslim but eventually made her way to U-U. I hope that Muslims are able to read her story as a cautionary tale about some of the failings and inconsistencies of the Muslim community and what some of the consequences are.

related Grenada links:
living islam out loud
return to guadalupe
different trajectories: quraysh ali lansana

another u.s. is necessary

So if you are going to be anywhere near Atlanta, Georgia between June 27 and July 1 the place to be is the U.S. Social Forum. This thing is going to be big. Just check out the list of workshops. I wish I was going.

See also: another world is still possible

architecture is not justice

They have monuments to liberty
And freedom of opinion, which is well and good.
But I explained to them that
Architecture is not justice.

An excerpt from Sami al Hajj's poem, Humiliated In The Shackles

publish or perish: guantanamo

I just found out about this story by reading the post Why Close Reading Matters I: Guantanamo Bay Poetry over at the Constructivist's blog. Basically, in spite of considerable hurdles and difficulties, a certain amount of poetry written by Guantanamo prisoners has been able to escape (even if the poets have not) and has been collected in a volume to be published in August by the University of Iowa Press. The story is also covered over at Common Dreams in: Inmates’ Words: The Poems of Guantanamo What is probably the most provocative and disturbing aspect of this story is the fact that some of the Guantanamo poems aren't being published due to U.S. national security concerns!

See also:
cagedprisoners.com (on Guantanamo)
nommo (politics and Muslim poets)

a rising voice: afro-latin americans

The Miami Herald recently published a five-part series on the situation of Afro-Latinos in various countries (including Nicaragua, Honduras, and Colombia as well as the more typical Brazil, Dominican Republic and Cuba). The series is really good. I was half-tempted to just cut- and- paste the entire thing into here. The pieces paint a much more complex picture than I would have expected in this type of story. In the past, many such articles would stop short at pointing out Africanisms in the local culture and repeating myths of racial democracy. More recently I've seen (and linked to) stories which acknowledge something of the racism in Latin America in a general and abstract way. But the series A Rising Voice: Afro-Latin Americans manages to cover a lot of ground with a surprising amount of richness and depth. I definitely recommend.

"i am both a muslim and christian"

A recent story in the Seattle Times deals with the Rev. Ann Holmes Redding who has been an Episcopal priest for over 20 years and Muslim for the past 15 months... simultaneously. The piece, "I am both Muslim and Christian" reminds me of the pastor of the Presbyterian church near my house who, in a conversation we had a few years ago, not only questioned the divinity of Christ, but blamed the dogma of Christ's divinity for distracting Christians from striving for social justice here on Earth. During the same conversation he also explained how he didn't believe in the inerrancy of the Bible and he expressed a great deal of heartfelt sympathy for a local Muslim activist who was deported in the wake of 9/11.

To be honest, as someone who came to Islam from an evangelical Christian background, I continue to be surprised by the extent to which many self-identified Christians seem to reject what I was raised to think of as basic and fundamental doctrines of Christianity. So I'm more shocked by the fact that Redding would call herself Christian than the fact that she calls herself Muslim. For a long time I've realized that the most liberal ends of the Christian spectrum are tolerant enough to include someone who embraces the shahada. But the amazing thing is how the parameters of Christian orthodoxy seem to have gotten so fuzzy.

But questions of orthodoxy aside, I should say that I respect Rev. Redding's intentions and in the current political climate I definitely appreciate that someone like her is making serious efforts towards peacemaking between Christians and Muslims.

past posts:
robert karimi
islam and christianity blending in africa

submachine games

I think I will take a momentary break from being serious and will mention some games I've found online. The Submachine series is a collection of trippy, eerie, poetic, odd, surreal, mysterious, intriguing, puzzle-solving point-and-click adventures. You literally only need to use your mouse to interface with the game. I started with Submachine 1 which is relatively short and gives you a flavor of what the logic of the games is like. Submachine 2, 3 and 4 are much "bigger" games with more rooms to search through and more complex puzzles. (Although 3 stands out as having very little narrative. Basically you can move freely through a mostly monotonous "dungeon" and solve a sequence of logical/mathematical puzzles) Submachine 0 is the smallest of the bunch. I would say FLF is more "impressionistic" and less logical. It is bigger than 0 or 1, but not as difficult as 2-4. I would recommend playing the games more or less in the order given, both because of the increasing difficulty and also in order to appreciate the unfolding story.

Submachine 0: Ancient Adventure
Submachine 1
Submachine 2: The Lighthouse
Submachine 3: The Loop
Submachine 4: The Lab
Submachine FLF (Future Loop Foundation)

More "Grenada-esque" games:
darfur is dying
el emigrante
where is the beef?
bunny vs. world

marvin x on youtube

White Supremacy by Marvin X (part 1)
White Supremacy by Marvin X (part 2)

paris is america

An interesting nugget from IOZ by way of The Left End of the Dial 2.0:

Paris Hilton is America. Stupid, heedless, rich but not as rich as she beleieves, unhealthier than she likes to admit, casually destructive, immune to remorse, desirous of consequences for those who cross her but unable to contemplate that she should have to face any herself, acquisative, profligate, manipulative, needy, juvenile, boorish, proud, self-righteous, self-pitying, self-absorbed, and self-destructive. Her brief respite from the first real punishment of her life is the pause at the peak of the wave before the ship's keel falls sickeningly toward the trough. She's not a movie, she's a mirror.

dhoruba bin wahad: four points

In an earlier post, I already excerpted from Dhoruba Bin Wahad's "Fatwa on Pan-Arab racism" but I also wanted to highlight and invite comments on Dhoruba Bin Wahad's call for specific actions from the Black/Muslim communities:

Africans are of diverse faiths, varying degrees of spirituality. But for all Muslims there are requirements of faith that exhort them to resist tumult and oppression. To enjoin the good and forbid the wrong is a social and political obligation. Muslims are urged to defend the weak against the tyrant, and oppressors – not participate in rape and oppression. And for fulfilling these obligations we will be attacked, murdered, imprisoned, hunted, and martyred. Muslims have a command from Allah, the Most High, to lead in the struggle for righteousness – not wallow in the wake of unrighteous calamity.

* I am asking for Imam’s and Muslim activists of African ancestry to deliver Fatwas on the issues mention herein. To mobilize the Muslim community to act in opposition to Pan-Arab racism towards Black people.

* I am urging Imam’s in the Diaspora of African ancestry to organize a Majlis to guide the conduct of Pan-African Affairs on behalf of the Ummah, and to deliver a Fatwa on Darfur and Pan-Arab racism in general.

* I am urging activists of African ancestry, both Muslim and non-Muslim to support a campaign to pressure the AU to act forthrightly with the Darfur genocide and to resist U.S. backed (UN) initiatives to deploy UN troops in Somalia in support of an unpopular transitional government.

* I am Asking Muslims in the African Diaspora to establish foundation and convene a forum on the African continent to lay out a strategic vision of the role of Islam in Pan-African unification of Sub-Saharan Africa.