Back to Basics

As a parent, this is strangely really satisfying . 

Our culture is one of materialism..so wherever a kid goes..there’s a new toy being thrust into his face.  (Not to mention candy .. I mean on eid day..why do I have to navigate my child away from the hoards of candy everyone seems to want to lovingly thrust into his face so that he’ll go hyper insane by the end of the day and ruin a perfectly good day but perhaps that’s another story for another time).

But now look..turns out all those ‘toys’ we thought were good for them are actually zapping their creativity. 

Lecture, Polygany

I just came back from that lecture I mentioned in my last post and it was simply inspiring and definitely thought provoking.  Maybe later I’ll post some of my notes or thoughts about the content.

 But for now, I just wanted to talk about a few things:

-This is not often but sometimes I hear or read about sisters who are excited and wanting to find a second wife for their husband.  I understand that it is something the Prophet saw practiced.  However, we all know that the wives of the Prophet saw had jealousy and they were not known(or perhaps maybe I don’t know?) to go out wanting to find the Prophet a new wife.  So the point I’m trying to make is that in our excitement to practice the sunnah, we may land ourselves into a situation that is known to be one that tests the patience of the parties involved to a higher degree than a monogamous marriage.  And we’re not supposed to go looking for tests. 

Major venting

I am sitting here thinking i should cherish these opportunities to go to a lecture (like tonight) because Allah knows there won’t be anything like this overseas(or am i wrong?)..at least not something where I could leave the kids with my husband and go. All these things come to mind: transportation/safety/driving bla bla.

If Allah granted me one wish, I would create a safe haven…a state that had the fair laws of Islam, interpreted by educated, intelligent judges, enforced by fair and just authorities, and the morality and the education and safety and the opportunities the west has granted to women. 

Sometimes us Muslims like to argue how women in the west are so oppressed and that Islam grants women so many rights.  I agree that Islam grants women so much, but unfortunately Muslim cultures do not.  And it’s not even about the puppet dictators. It is the mindset of the Muslim cultures themselves that keep the women shackled within cultural laws and away from the depth and breadth of Islam.

As for whether the west oppresses women or not, that’s debatable but I will say this.  For all those women, who are maids working for upper class people in the Muslim countries, do these maids have an honest, fair chance of moving up in society?  Forget even moving up, they are treated like a lower race, or at the very least talked and considered to be such.

The maid who comes to clean my mom’s house here in the US, makes decent money and has the opportunity to get an education and create another career for herself if she so wishes.  That to me is opportunity.  Even though there are many poor people here, shackled by their circumstances.  But we can’t deny that no avenues exist.

Social services?  Nonexistant in the muslim world.  Services for special ed children? Nothing like here.

Sometimes it just kills  me to think how behind we are intellectually and in helping the people of our sciety, and we think Islam is only about wearing a hijab and a beard and going to prayer 5 times a day.  I wish so badly that we would wake up, and study and educate ourselves in topics beyond just accounting, computer science, medicine, engineering and law.  I wish our societies would be filled with research institutes and services that helped people in all areas of their lives.

I wish , i wish , i wish…

On another note…

i have this love/hate conversation going on about saudi in my mind.

Interstingly i dont have the same feelings towards pakistan because since I  have lived there I can somehow embrace the paradoxes of life there and they dont seem so weird.

Its not like u can go out there alone at night by yourself(except certain areas) and feel completely safe.  But that somehow seems normal/regular and not soo outrageous because I’ve lived it…

But saudi…because it claims to be this great lovely land of Islam..and yet a single woman with kids couldn’t really survive there without harrassment and constant hassles .. I just think to myself: is this what the Prophet would have wanted?  A land that doesn’t support the weak and the needy?  The Prophet saw in multiple duas sought refuge from poverty and yet in the Muslim world, begging is a full-fledged business.  Little kids beggings.  That breaks your heart.  Are these kids gaining anything from being in this type of society? Do they think about a connection to God or are they just worried about feeding their hungry stomach?

I would be willing to bet its the later.