Moving Out, Part II (see below)

I was in a big hurry to get out of my parents' house by the time Friday arrived. I hadn't spoken to my mom all week, and only a few words to my dad. I don't know if I mentioned the fact that I had two exams coming up (Monday) and a paper due (also on Monday.) There is a point where stress becomes too much for me, and I just give up on something. My sorority had a dinner banquet on Thursday, and I had to install a treasurer and membership educator, and plan the trip to the international convention in Chicago. I've since decided not to go. At first, I thought it would cost about $250, but since only 7 people are going now (instead of 13 who were originally planning to) it will be free or mostly free for all of them. And I guess, if it were free, I could technically afford it. But I'll be working...

That's right, no vacation for me, not all summer. I might be off for 4th of July and Memorial Day, but other than that... You see, that is how tight my money will be. Financially, I was not in any way ready to move out, and that was part of why I panicked. I was planning to take a class this summer (one that I had given up on (failed) early on in this spring semester to concentrate on the others) and work part-time, about 25 hours a week. That would be enough to pay for school over the summer, and I thought the fall would be covered. Such is not the case. I'm now going to be working full time (thank God my boss has no problems with that.) and am currently not registered for classes.

My plan now, then, is to save up money to actually go to school again in the fall, but only part-time so I can still work. I really hate this. I never liked having to work and go to school at the same time, but it was nice that I didn't have to cover the expense of rent. But having to work nearly full-time while still taking a full load? I don't know about that. If I continue to do poorly in school, I really think my job may be in jeopardy. But God willing my supervisors will understand, and not be too upset that my graduation date keeps moving further away.

But anyway, I am pursuing an option for taking classes in the fall, which is to take humanities courses at a community college and only my engineering courses at the university. That's because going full time at NCSU is about $2400, for 12 hours. At a community college, it's about $40 per credit hour tuition plus about $15-25 total in fees. Going part-time at NCSU at 8 hours (2 4-hr engr classes) would be $1200, including fees. Goign part-time at tech school for 6 hours (2 3-hr humanities) would be $260. I can do that and still technically be a "full-time student" with 14 hours spending about $1000 less for school.

Now what to do with my free time? There are 168 hours in a week, and I'll be working 40 of them and sleeping 56, inshallah. So what to do with the rest of my time? I looked into taking a summer night class, but didn't see any available. The mosque was teaching Arabic classes on Sundays but stopped for the summer... isn't that ironic? But maybe I can learn a little bit on my own (practice hard) and find some Arabic speaker to help. A number of guys have offered to help, but... we'll see, I guess.

And of course, I have not exhausted the Islam section at the bookstore, lol! I will probably just devour books this summer, inshallah. And even if that gets boring I can read about other religions. There is so much I have wanted to read...

Moving out, Part I

I'm already tired, but I keep meaning to post this... on Monday, April 24th, my parents informed me that I was no longer welcome in their house. Not to live, anyway. If your life has ever been turned upside down, you might understand how I felt. I panicked, basically, and had to deal with a range of emotions that could have torn me apart. I was angry, and I was hurt. I lost my home, and it felt like I was losing my family too.

That was Monday--I had a good cry on Monday, talked to some very nice and supportive Muslims in chat (you know who you are) and moved on to Tuesday. Cried more on Tuesday, and then Wednesday I went to see my sister to ask about my parents. In short, that didn't go very well. I left thinking that I never wanted to see her again. It was a very emotional week...

By that night I was looking for apartments to move into--found one where the girl wanted to leave right away, even though her lease was through July. Thursday she sent me the application, and on Friday we went to the landlord's office and I signed the "sublease." I'm moving this upcoming Saturday. What was really nice about this is that my parents did offer to "cosign" on the lease so I didn't need a security deposit.

When I got home Friday night, my parents told me then that they felt bad at what they had put me through, and that they wanted to help me out, so they offered to pay my first month's rent. And I can add, that offer was graciously accepted!!

Stroke of brilliance

At some point today, I was struck with an excellent idea to write about on my blog. Since then, I have forgotten where I was, when it occurred, and most importantly, what it actually was!

I've been reading a book I really don't like, and I guess I should finish it before I start publicizing such harsh criticism of it because it is really quite popular. But the reasons that I don't like it are what bother me, and what have been bothering me, so I'm going to discuss it anyway, with the full intention of finishing it.

The book is called Towards Understanding Islam and was originally written in Urdu by Sayyed Abul A'la Mawdudi. The foreward states that the purpose was to explain "the fundamentals of Islam to young students and less-educated adults in a simple and straight-forward manner." Now, I am not sure if that means non-Muslims it was written for, or Muslims. Of course now it is distributed as dawah, and I have to admit to the biases I have coming from Christianity. Therein lies my problem, which is over the seemingly obsessive nature in which this book described Muhammad. In fact, it seems to describe Islam as a construct of Muhammad, and that Muhammad is the only reason to follow it! Peace be upon him.

Lately I have given a lot of thought to how I view the Prophet, salallahu alaihi wa salaam, comparing my thoughts now to what they have been in the past. When I first converted to Islam, I still viewed Jesus, as a much higher prophet in status than Muhammad, pbut. Somehow, the status of Jesus, pbuh, had to be lowered; Christians consider him God, after all. But even when I converted I didn't see Muhammad pbuh as much more than the man who delivered the Qur'an. If anyone knew me then, they'll probably remember I rejected the Sunnah, considered it largely unimportant and false. I have come past that, and now view Muhammad, pbuh, as a truly great man and Prophet of God. But I still have to draw the line on calling him the best man who ever lived--because that implies he was better than all the other Prophets and I just can't do that. I can't.

And that is what this book does. Despite that, it has given me a much better understanding about Prophethood in general, and instilled greater respect for all the prophets. However, I think the discussion in this book is adoration on par with worship, directed at Muhammad pbuh himself and not his inspiration. I wonder... did men become Prophets because they were great men, or were they great men because they were Prophets?

I think the latter. That because God had inspired them, and was working through them, they were the best of men. Unfortunately, the way this book seems to be talking about Muhammad, pbuh, is like he were the only Prophet and also that he was so great in and of himself, that he was wise enough to give us the message. That does not jive with my view of prophets at all, because it seems to me that they are great, yes, but given the Message by God--they didn't go out and discover it through their own reflection, but God gave it to them. And because of that, they had greater understanding and could teach about it.

The book just seems to be going further to say that Muhammad pbuh was such a great man, etc., and he taught this and that, and he knew this and that, but not that God had actually inspired him to do this. That conflicting viewpoint has turned me off, but I have to consider whether or not I am wrong in this. And I suppose that will take even more reflection and growth (spiritually) on my part.

The missing rights of women?

I have a dilemma this morning. Last night I heard this imam or sheikh or whatever he was talking at my masjid. His topic was 'The Role of Women in Society.' Overall, I think he did a very poor job, and he's made me question a few things. Early in his lecture he said when people ask him why women have no rights in Islam, he respond with the question, what rights do they not have? And he proceeded to address a few similarities/differences between instructions regarding women in Islam and Christianity and Judaism. I wouldn't say he was especially informed in that regard, personally. He did a brief discussion about exemplary women in the Qur'an, and provided some ahadith about how the Prophet treated his wives. In my opinion, that had absolutely nothing to do with the Role of Women, but is rather the treatment of women--and it was not directed at the mixed-gender audience present, but to male listeners only. I get the impression that many in the audience disagreed with him, I think, as much as I did.

Some of the points he made, which are common in discussions about women, were normal, but he had, in my opinion, a very poor approach. In defense of polygamy, he described a confrontation with a young woman asking about it. He described her attributes, that she was a very attractive young lady, and that no man would man would be ashamed of marrying her. He then suggested that she may, through some accident, scar her beauty (her face) and no longer be attractive. And then, he provided two options for the husband: first, that he divorce her and marry another woman, and second that he keep her and marry another one. In both situations he gravely insulted women in general, by suggesting that beauty, namely on the face, is the only reason for a man to be attracted to a woman, and that if a woman cannot boast such beauty, then she does not deserve a husband to herself. This was a particularly vile way of defending a man's right to marry more than one woman, in my opinion; not false, but vile, despicable. There is a right that a woman has lost--the right to value as a wife greater than her beauty.

In the Q&A session, he brought up another right that he has taken away from women, and that is the right to actually go anywhere. Not only is it haram for women to travel, apparently, it is actually haram to leave their homes without a mahram. For claiming he didn't want to cry haram all night, he said it awfully frequently. Why is this right absent from women in Islam, why are they denied the right to leave their homes? This is my problem with how he presented his entire lecture--women are not people, to be treated with respect or honor, but they are like children, who need constant protection and supervision. So they have gone from property in other cultures, to children in Islam. Women can't go anywhere because it isn't safe, apparently, as though this man has any idea what is safe and not for a woman in this country. Because according to him, it is necessary or a woman to shop, so it is allowed for her to shop without a mahram. However, it is not necessary for her to go to the masjid, so she must go with a mahram. Utter nonsense. How can this man say that the grocery store is safer than the masjid?? The fact of the matter is that it's not, but it seems probably too tedious for a man to have to always shop with his wife or sister or daughter or mother--yes, too tedious--so she may do it alone. But in the masjid? He then suggested that a prayer of a woman is better in her home--a hadith which I mysteriously cannot find. Nor can I find the one saying that a woman leaving her home without a mahram is haram.

Now I know that I'm not a scholar, but I know that women would go to fajr prayer without mahrams to pray with the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wa salaam, and I know that he told men specifically to not prevent women from going to the masjids. He didn't say, don't prevent them from going, not prevent them from going alone, or go with them so they don't go alone... simply don't prevent them. How could it be haram, then? From a fatwa on islamonline, I read the following summary:

Women in the West go everywhere. They are in the markets, in malls, in restaurants, and in offices. It is ironic that some men allow them to go to all the places of temptation, but they want to stop them from coming to the places where they can pray to their Lord and learn about their faith.

It is ironic indeed that women are permitted to do those other things but not attend the masjid--absolute nonsense, if you ask me, especially in the name of safety and protection. But since all the women around me disagreed with this man, and even some of the men (the ones I could see seemed upset by it as well) I guess I shouldn't worry too much. One sister is planning to ask the imam of this masjid about it, because it seems contradictory to everything he has told them. That is nice.

Woe.

This is a rather general overview of my current situation as regarding my family... things are not bright. I emailed it to someone previously, in case any of you, my loyal readers (blush) wonder about the format.

I've recently told my parents about my Islam, and that decision was partly driven by the fact that I donned hijab a month or so ago. While they have little problems with my belief, they abhor the scarf and most of my family doesn't want me to wear it at all around them, no matter where we are.

One is afraid he will have to answer questions about why he knows a Muslim. Another reason is they are afraid the little kids will ask questions they don't want to answer--probably because they aren't able to answer questions about their own faith but that's neither here nor there.

As it is, they say my wearing it is offensive, and a cultural issue that I am adopting that is not part of the religion. How do they presume to know more about it than I, when I've been studying it far longer than they? Besides, I was opposed to it at first too...

But they are threatening to not allow me to have any contact with them if I choose to want to wear it in public. I have sort of acquiesced to their desire I not wear it in their homes, but out in public I think it is degrading that they force me to take it off.

I wish I could explain that to them, what an insult it is, how they are humiliating me!! Argh!!!

Sorry... just needed to get that out!

I want to leave

Leave what?

School? My job? My home? My family? Islam?

Yes.

It was a wise decision on my part to refrain from telling my parents about my embracing Islam. But wise was not the decision to tell them a few days ago. The respect I have for my family is dwindling--in particular, my mother, my oldest sister, and my brother-in-law. Their behavior is disgusting, their ignorance profound, and their dislike of me most obvious.

Today I was most unfortunate to miss every single prayer. I tried to get up for fajr... slept through my alarm. When I came home around 12:30 I was too exhausted for anything but a nap--too tired even for a shower which I desperately needed after all the work I did this morning. And once again, slept through the prayer time, missing zhuhr. By the time I got up, I needed to take a shower but still piddled around the house for a while trying to build up energy, and really just stay awake. After my shower it was nearly time for maghrib--so I prayed zhuhr. But I really had to get ready to go.

Now, tonight we were having a party for my sister's birthday. I decided not to wear hijab, as I really did not want attention from anyone about it, and of course it would insult more than the few I mentioned above. So in trying to get ready, I didn't have time for 'asr and maghrib, which killed me inside but I missed them anyway. When I arrived at the restaurant, my neices told me that my brothers-in-law had been fighting about me. Presumably, one against and one in my defense though I don't know the story and since it was my sister's birthday, I thought it inappropriate to ask.

I guess it means that my brother-in-law (of my oldest sister Wendy) knows about my Islam, though I don't know who told him. I didn't, and I had asked my sister (Becky, the other one, the first I told) to not tell my other brother-in-law (Thom) even though her husband (Dan) knew. And I had agreed with my parents not to tell Thom, but still...

Now, it's possible the reason he didn't show up for cake and presents after dinner at my sister's house was because the baby needed to go to bed... even though it is antisocial, he frequently does such things. But I still get the impression it was because I wanted to be there. And I wonder if he knows.

I drove back to Becky's house with my mother, and she insists that Islam the religion and the culture in which it is found cannot be separated. But when she refuses to acknowledge any differences therein, I have little to say to her. I really don't want to be part of a family that acts this way, I really don't.

Unfortunately we ended up staying at her house most of the night--doing absolutely nothing! We never stay that late, and despite numerous times I asked to leave, nobody seemed interested in moving an inch from their seats. It was late when we got there--8:30 or 9. 10pm would have been a good time to leave. But we stayed a full two hours after that. I'm in such a sour mood about this. I really wanted to go home and pray, go home and sleep, go home and maybe even do one of the many items of homework I have for this weekend, which I have yet to begin because I had such a busy morning today and since I napped the afternoon. Alas, no. By the time 11:45 around, I refused to sit on the couch and watch my sister play x-box--could there possibly be a less interesting way to waste time? Ugh. I decided to make wudhu and pray. So I prayed 'asr but by the time I was finished my mom and brother were finally ready to go. And then I prayed maghrib and isha at home.

I think the only word to describe me right now is sad. I really don't want anything to do with my family; I want to blame my religion. I want to blame my troubles on Islam, and still I am afraid of things, and doubts enter my mind. I start to not just question parts of the religion but to despise them.

And you know, we lose an hour of sleep tonight... that's just going to make everything better.

Yes, I'm still alive

Of course, I just haven't been posting in a while. I have been a little busy. Last week I had two enormous tests, and a lab report. And this week I had a lab report, and decided to pretend I'm not taking one of my 4-credit hour engineering classes to make more time in my schedule for things like sleep.

I had a great time at the beach... thought everyone should know.

Last night I told my parents that I was Muslim. That was pretty awkward--I told them over dinner, with very little warning. Of course, they probably had suspected for some time.

It's been tough lately, my mom was cooking more pork than usual, and I don't know if on purpose. I opted not to tell the girl planning my weekend retreat that I didn't eat pork, not figuring she would plan to cook it... bad idea. We had sausage for breakfast with the pancakes, and ham for dinner! I could skip the sausage no problem and just eat pancakes, but at dinner, just potatoes and casserole was not very filling. When I got home Sunday my mom cooked a pork stew-like dish. Rather than actually serving myself any, I just put some carrots and potatoes on my plate instead of any pork, and ate that. And then last Sunday she made chicken cordon blue (packaged stuff, not home made.) I pulled the ham out and just ate the chicken and cheese and breading. My dad asked why I wasn't eating it, I just said I didn't feel like it.

And then my dad wanted to order pizza two or three times in the last two weeks... I hate to be a nuisance so, "Sure, pepperoni is fine." And I pull it off, sneak it to the dog. But all that hiding just got old...

So I told them. More to come later inshallah.

It's Friday--yippee

On my way in to work today, I thought of dozens of gems to share on my blog but they vanished behind the heap of work sitting in front of my computer.

I am going to the beach this weekend, leaving tonight. Now, in Raleigh it may be 65 today, and positively gorgeous, but at the beach, that feels like 50-55. So tomorrow, when it's going to be 50 in Raleigh... well, it's going to be frigid. And I am going to laugh so hard when people get pushed into the water. And it's not going to be me this time!

In case you don't know, on our last retreat I got pushed into the lake. There are some pretty awful pictures of it floating around on the internet too... I am not amused. But I am definitely looking forward to hanging out with my girls all weekend. And I'm going to come back so high and.. feminine, probably. Hanging out with only girls for a few days tends to have that effect.

The key question for the evening is: will NC State choke tonight against California? It's at 7:20... and since I'll probably be driving through most of that game, in a part of the state where nobody lives and probably can't get radio... somebody should call me every 10 minutes for updates, right? :-D

What is up with the green on St. Patick's Day? I never really understood that, except that lately it's just an excuse to get drunk. I was giving a friend of mine a ride yesterday, and she tells me that another of my friends is going all-out for this "holiday" with banners and decorations... so I'd better wear green. So I made a modest effort, sort of. There is green in the shirt I'm wearing... which happens to be covered up mostly by my sweater, and the rest by my hijab, so. When I got onto campus, these girls started running at me, "here, wear this so you don't get pinched!" It was a green ribbon with a pin. Uh... right. If somebody tries to pinch me, he's got another thing coming; that's all I have to say.

And now about Islam

The last few days my brother has been home, and we have had some interesting conversations. For two nights we watched 'Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet' which sparked some questions on his part. One night we watched Malcolm X, or most of it.

From the documentary, he had lots of questions about comparing Jesus and Muhammad, and I can't shake in his mind that Muslims see Muhammad the way Christians see Jesus. I'm trying to explain accurate Biblical explanations, but it's mostly lost on him. A few choice issues have come up recently, one of which is pork.

Now, although I can explain how the prohibition of pork exists in Judaic texts, and legitimate reasons for it to be there, my brother has the opinion that the law was only valid for that place/time at which it was revealed. He doesn't see the law as universal--for all peoples, all times. ** Whence do Christians get this idea? ** The answer to that should be very telling, I think. Jesus said that he came to fulfill the law and the prophets, not to abolish them. The law was never abolished. I have had a similar discussion with a man a work--somehow they are insulted that they have to follow laws if they already love God!

In their mind, I think it works like this: God loves us, we love him back. Naturally we try to obey his "suggestions" (not commandments, you see) at keeping law, but if we can't we're okay. The particular laws aren't really that important anyway.

One gave me the analogy: Imagine you got married, and then wrote a post-it note on the refrigerator telling your husband "You can't date any more women!" Analogies sometimes don't hit me very well, because I'm not good with the "imagine" part, but I think his point was that it would be rude for me to actually make a "law" that he would be expected to do anyway. Does that make sense to anyone else? If not, maybe I got it wrong. But if we love God, we wouldn't want to worship other gods... so what's wrong with God telling us not to? Okay. But for more detailed things, we can't expect ourselves to always know what is best for us, others, even mankind... but of God we can expect that, right? So I don't see what is so bad about following his laws!

But if one pretends that the laws in the Old Testament were only for people in the Old Testament, I guess he can assume that those laws don't apply to him. I think it's an easy way of ignoring the laws, but I think a lot of nutty things.

The other conversation I have had with my brother is about hijab. This may come as a surprise (and maybe not) that I really don't believe deep down that hijab (as in, a headcover) is mandated specifically by the Quran. I mean, I'm wearing it, and I still haven't been able to come to that conclusion. I don't want to fuss about whether it is or not, but I'm trying hard to actually find and believe evidence that it is... and I can't, which makes me very ineffective when trying to persuade someone that it is. Of course, the chief objections of my brother are that 1) he finds the headcover more distracting than nothing at all (western haircuts or caps) and 2) he thinks that even if it is mandated, the law doesn't apply today.

Frankly, I don't have the reasons, the evidence, to convince him that covering hair is the extent to which women must be modest. Especially when men are allowed to uncover their chests, which many women find attractive. And more so when he insists that he doesn't find hair as a chief attraction in women. I guess not, since he gets to see boobs and butts and all.

But here is how I see it. You start with a naked woman, and there is no modesty. What must first be covered up? The genitals--sexual organs, so now she has underwear. Then what is the chief attraction? The chest, probably, so you give her a bra. Now we have a woman in a bikini. What is least modest? Probably the amount of skin showing... so start to cover the skin around the hips and chest. So now we have a shirt and maybe some shorts on. What is distracting? The legs. So lengthen the shorts to the knee? Then perhaps the arms and shoulders. When do you get to the hair? When everything else is covered? Because even if the hair has so little significance... it will become primary once shape and skin are mostly covered, right? But then once you cover the hair, there is the face... and there are always extremes.

Now my brother acknowledged that in looking at a woman sexually, primary attractions are first body, then face, then hair. So it's hard to explain why cover hair but not face. Except that perhaps the face loses some sexual appeal without seeing the hair. I mean, how attractive is a bald woman? Does anyone say how great her face is, or do they just notice the absence of hair?

But even if he acknowledges the headcover as a form of modesty, he will still say it is unnecessary because the law is outdated, and does not apply today. I have come to the conclusion that only God through his Messengers can say when his law applies or when it doesn't.

So if someone could prove to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that hijab (headscarf for women) is mandated, i.e., the LAW, then I would be in a much better place to argue that point.

And I try to avoid questions, "Well are you going to go swimming? Will you wear a bathing suit if you go to the lake?" Blah, blah. I say that I'll deal with the issue when it comes--I didn't want to answer these questions when I put on hijab or before, and I don't want to now. Why? Because they are doubt, and they make me question my confidence. They and others are many questions that string out indefinitely as a list of excuses for doing something. I'm bad when it comes to excuses... there are always more excuses to avoid doing something than there are reasons to proceed. The task then is not to answer the questions or counter the excuses, but to let determination grow until it outweighs all doubt. That's how I started to pray, and how I put on hijab. Just put the excuses on the shelf for a while.

But my brother won't do that, so I get these annoying little questions like "Are you going to wear pants all summer?" I wouldn't go to the lake to sit there and cover up in hijab. Normally I would go to "relax" because sitting in the sun has the effect of draining your energy in a very pleasant sort of way... but I think I would simply avoid going, and spare my skin the trouble of freckles and sunburn likely to accompany such an outing.

But when something seems to make hijab impossible (or other aspects of Islam, for that matter), I know some people who are fond of saying...

Where there's a will, there's a way.

Inshallah.

So about grand-daddy...

My family had this conference tonight where we got together to talk about my aunt and my grandfather. My granddad is in the hospital right now, after exhibiting some strange behavior characteristics of a combination of various problems old people have. There is talk of putting him in a home, because he literally cannot take care of himself at this point, and needs almost constant supervision.

My aunt (my grandfather's daughter-in-law), the queen of exaggeration, has told us a variety of silliness about her own problems, which in actuality are probably quite serious, but she won't be able to take care of my grandfather for much longer. My uncle (my mother's brother) isn't home much and my cousin isn't interested in taking care of my grandfather. But she and her husband (who happens to be her first cousin) have moved in, presumably to take care of my aunt and uncle (who isn't doing so good now that my aunt is ill.)

Yeah, I thought my family is weird, until I found out that my cousin is married to her cousin--that seriously takes the prize of all the screwed-up-ness of this family. I could write volumes on that alone.

But my family, that is my immediate family being my parents, siblings, and their spouses, would like to bring my grandfather down here (3-4 hours away from where he is now) so we can have him put somwhere to be taken care of, and where we can visit him. It's not practical for us to visit him with my aunt/uncle in Charlottesville or where he wants to be, in Hopewell. His family is aging as well (btw he'll be 88 tomorrow inshallah) and couldn't visit him even if he were there.
So right now my family is trying to get power of attorney and have him moved down here. Will that be more comfortable for him? I don't know.

How much longer is my aunt going to last? I have no idea... what she said, or what my parents said she said, is apparently nonsense according to my bro-in-law who is a nurse. It's tough to say.

So anyway, that is how my life is currently. It is apparently legal in Virginia to marry your first cousin. Sigh.