Islam or Hislam?

The other day while our children played together, I chatted with a couple of Arab Muslim men about problems facing people living in America. I mentioned that once, while walking to the grocery store in Detroit, a gang of teenage boys followed me and I overheard them discussing throwing me into the trunk of their car. One brother asked immediately whether or not I had been wearing hijab. I said, “No, that was before I became Muslim – but I was wearing totally normal clothes and it was broad daylight.” Nevertheless, he commented without a hint of shame at his audacity, “Women who walk around uncovered are asking for it.” Restraining my shock, I allowed the other brother to gently disagree with this extremely offensive statement. I ended my story by saying that an Iraqi shopkeeper noticed the hoodlums waiting for me outside his shop door and chased them away, likely saving my life. So then of course it became a story of how great Arabs are. The brother never even thought to apologize for insinuating that I had dressed provocatively and had thus invited attack.

How can it be that a young woman, minding her own business, on her way to buy some milk, could be asking to be kidnapped, gang-raped, or murdered? Those men who advocate hijab as a means for avoiding attack are only looking at their own perspective. Perhaps they themselves would be less likely to rape a woman who was wearing hijab, and perhaps in certain neighborhoods, wearing hijab would make a woman less likely to be harmed. But in some other neighborhoods, a woman would be more likely to be raped or killed if she was wearing hijab, because her dress would attract negative attention from people who hate Muslims – or who view hijab as a rejection of their manhood.

In some cases, wearing Islamic gear can even attract unwanted sexual harassment! My friend Layla mentioned to me that a stranger in a restaurant once came up to her and said, “You dress like this when you go out, but I bet you sleep naked.” Another woman Maryam, wearing full covering including niqab, visited New York City with her husband and overheard some passersby having a disagreement over whether or not she might be beautiful or ugly. Instead of protecting her from objectification, Maryam’s Islamic gear actually invited a conversation about her physical beauty (or lack thereof)!

Quran says women should dress appropriately when they go outside, so that they would not be harassed. Yet, those women who are serious about not being harassed will have to do more than simply cover themselves with a certain amount of cloth. Recent American women converts can be especially vulnerable to loud laughter and jeering from strangers, as they unsuccessfully attempt to gracefully don ill-fitting, hand-me-down foreign costumes. Women who are seriously trying to avoid attracting unwanted attention have to respect the culture of the majority of people around them. They should dress modestly in a way that says, “I am a high class lady who commands respect” in a fashion language, which the local culture understands. This will vary. Women who seek to avoid harassment should not dress in a way that invites attention, mockery, or disrespect, even if that dress is considered Islamic.

There are certain types of rapists who actually target women with loose-fitting garments, who lurk outside fitness centers because sweat pants with their elastic waistbands are so quickly and easily removed, even if the woman is resisting. Contrast that ugly situation with the scene in an alley that a friend of mine, Liz, witnessed from a window. A man was attempting to forcibly remove the clothes of a woman who was screaming and fighting. Liz called the police and shouted out her window as the man relentlessly struggled with the woman but just could not rape her. Why? She was wearing extremely tight button-fly jeans that were so incredibly difficult to remove that the police arrived before the man had succeeded in sexually violating her. Therefore women who are serious about not being raped will have to do far more than merely wear loose-fitting clothing. They should consider wearing skin-tight button-fly jeans underneath their jilbabs. 

While it is easy to find examples of male chauvinism in Muslim cultures, it also exists in the West. Because of the blurry lines defining what is socially acceptable vs. immoral behavior, women are easily violated and then blamed for being victimized. An American woman, Amy was at a party and was offered whiskey. Trying to be cool, she drank from the bottle that was being passed around. Before she realized it, she was unconscious on the sofa. When she awoke, she found herself without her clothes on, having no memory of the past four hours except for a few seconds in which things were being done to her, without her being in any condition to react or respond. Feeling horribly wronged, and knowing she never flirted with anyone nor agreed to get naked with anyone, she tried to get some sympathy from a friend but was told that she should have known that “men are pigs,” and was shamed for allowing herself to lose control of the situation. While this experience will certainly be a lesson for Amy about the evils of drink, is it really true that a person cannot reasonably expect to pass out on a friend’s couch without inviting oneself to be wronged in front of other party guests? Because she was a woman, Amy was expected to accept that “boys will be boys” and take the blame for what happened.

Huda al Khattab writes in “Bent Rib: A Journey Through Women’s Issues in Islam” about the hypocrisy of male chauvinism: “In most traditional societies, and even to some extent in the west, the entire responsibility for protecting morality is placed squarely on our (supposedly delicate and weak) shoulders. That this should be so is astounding – are men so feeble-minded and weak-willed that they are so easily led astray?… Moreover, such notions of women’s moral burden are in stark contrast to the Quran, where the command to lower one’s gaze and guard one’s modesty is given to men first.”

While moralists can argue that God commands mercy and justice among His people, and that all He basically asks of us is that we not wrong each other, realists can’t deny that there are plenty of egoists who would view only those aspects of Islam that benefit themselves as laws, while those aspects of Islam that require more in depth personal responsibility, they would view as mere moral recommendations.

As the weaker sex, women are always going to be vulnerable to various forms of oppression, tyranny and dehumanization. We cannot be fools.

Developing Creative Intelligence

This morning Gail, my hairdresser told me an interesting story. Some years ago, she had a dream that her mother had died, and during the funeral her father sighed, “If only she had gone to the doctor!” She and her mother speak almost daily on the phone, so Gail mentioned the dream in passing. A couple weeks later her mother told her that she was supposed to go in for a chest scan but had not made the appointment until after Gail had that dream. The scan showed that she had Stage 1 lung cancer.

“Is your mother still alive?” I asked. Yes! Gail’s mother is not only alive but well – thanks to early detection and treatment, something very rare with lung cancer, which is usually only detected in its final and fatal stages. Not normally mystical in her orientation, Gail explained that “God usually talks to me in the daytime, not in dreams.” But because at that time, she happened to be reading the story of the Prophet Joseph (sa) in the Bible, she took this dream more seriously than she had taken other dreams.

Most of us have had times in our lives when we allowed our creative intelligence take priority over our academic training or rational intelligence. Sometimes following our dreams can lead us to great things, and other times it can provide us with a deep and abiding lesson about the laws of cause and effect.

Einstein said that no problem can be solved on the same mental level as it was created. He experienced many of his brainy “jumps” to unique conclusions of various long-unsolved problems at completely random moments such as while riding the bus, simply allowing his mind to wander freely.

Solving problems creatively by overriding dominant patterns of thinking requires the ability to make subconscious connections between billions of memories of thoughts and impressions; bring that information into personal consciousness in a clear moment’ and translate this raw data into words and pictures, so that this information could then be transmitted to other human beings. Creative intelligence incorporates yet supersedes both emotional and rational intelligence, because it tunes into and taps into the Divine Spirit which is beyond ego.

How do we become creative and spiritual human beings?

“Failure often overwhelms people who desire, or think they desire, to take up and maintain a spiritual orientation to life. This is so because the ego is the greatest test there is. We may wake up any morning with the firmest resolve that we will concentrate only on the purest, most blessed, and highest thoughts. Yet all it takes is a phone call, telling us that we are overdrawn at the bank, or that the children have broken a window, and before we know what has happened, we have lost our concentration. Only later in the afternoon do we recall our resolution to remember God. Therefore, one must constantly restate and restart one’s intention all the time. At first, it may be difficult, and failures may occur. But sooner than one would imagine, the intention leads to a habit, the most positive habit possible. After a time, you don’t forget,” writes Shaykh Hakim Moinuddin Chishti in his “Book of Sufi Healing.”

Chishti concludes, “Thus with obedience and the grace of Allah does the soul progress from its state at inception – of helpless egotism – to divine unity, if Allah wills it.”

As parents, is there a way to help our children develop habits that will lead to creative intelligence? How do we help them move from a state of mind where the world exists only to meet the child’s needs, to a state of mind where a person develops, who wants to honor the Creator through service?

“Children with creative intelligence have a more developed sense of imagination. They can play games with a few blocks or faceless dolls. They often create imaginary friends. They don’t need a lot to be stimulated. When too much is done for them, they don’t develop their imagination,” writes popular psychologist John Gray, PhD, in “Children Are From Heaven.”

“Too much TV, where images are visual, can weaken children’s ability to imagine. Just as every intelligence grows by being used, a creative intelligence grows when imagination is stimulated, enabling children to think differently. They succeed in life where others fail because they can look at things in a new and different way,” Gray concludes.

“Because the images from television and the movies are so powerful and change so quickly, children often do not understand the story line, and are left imitating the rapid movements and the elements that make the strongest impressions: chasing, shooting, crashing, and so on,” writes Waldorf educator Rahima Baldwin-Dancy in “You Are Your Child’s First Teacher.”

“As a preschool and kindergarten teacher, I observed a dramatic difference in the quality of the play of children who did not watch television. Their inside play was much more imaginative and more likely to have a story line, compared to the running around and catching one another that was dominant with the other children.”

Since God is the Creator, developing creative intelligence requires aligning our consciousness with His, and often this is helped along by tuning into our subconscious inner symbolism. So, in a lot of ways, the less we do and the less input we give our children, the better. Instead of teaching them anything in particular, we can help them find what is within themselves, simply by eliminating distractions.

Halloween Descends Upon America

An Irish Blessing for Halloween


At all Hallow’s Tide, may God keep you safe

From goblin and pooka and black-hearted stranger,

From harm of the water and hurt of the fire,

From thorns of the bramble, from all other danger,

From Will o’ the Wisp haunting the mire;

From stumbles and tumbles and tricksters to vex you,

May God in His Mercy, this week protect you.


By Maureen McCabe


As the nights become chilly, the leaves turn crunchy. The autumn equinox has passed us by, with or without a bonfire. We feel a shiver in our bones. It is only natural to think about life and death at this sacred time when all the flowers have turned into shriveled compost and the fruit is being collected. What we harvest this year will be what we rely upon this coming winter. That is a terrifying knowledge. No matter what your line of work, life changes with the falling temperatures.

Is your car ready for winter? Do you have a snow shovel? Do you have a scraper for your windshield? Is your heater working properly? Do you need to weatherize your apartment? Do all your children have mittens and coats and boots? And to top it all off, have you planned out the appropriate family-friendly activities such as ice skating and sledding into your already overbooked schedule?

If you think your life is stressful now, imagine what your life might have looked like before electricity. You would be feeling a genuine fear right now, that you or some member of your family might not see spring next year. The shorter days of less sunlight didn’t just mean emotional depression, back not so long ago. You might actually die of hunger or cold as a working person living in America. The genuine human fear of the fall season dates back thousands of years and is validated in the Halloween tradition, a largely Pagan/Catholic festival that is celebrated in many countries.

The ancient Irish tradition of carving a jack o’ lantern was intended to ward off evil spirits and ghosts as they traveled to the next world on All Saints’ Day, November 1. The mask face and costumes were supposed to trick soul-grabbers into bypassing those whom we love, who would otherwise die this winter.

Many different countries and cultures have traditions of making lanterns and encouraging children to parade through the streets begging for food or candy at the time of year when the days become shorter. Even the squirrels are collecting nuts at this time. Humans are made to fear and prepare for the cold.

While irrational fear is uncalled for, the autumn season can call us all as a nation to rational fear, even if we don’t celebrate Halloween. Thanksgiving, the day of feasting, comes about three weeks after Halloween. After that will come Christmas, the day of gift-giving. All of these occasions are great days for charity, for helping out those who are cold or lonely.

But don’t forget! Eid ul-Adha is supposed to fall on October 26 this year. This is the time when we give meat to the poor. Much more useful than a pumpkin, a freezer full of meat would indeed help guarantee survival to any family worried about the coming winter. Perhaps there could be a way to create an interfaith activity combining the concerns of Eid ul-Adha and Halloween? For those interested in gore, a visit to the local slaughterhouse might be more than appropriate!

Islam could play a role in easing American fears of the supernatural. To a Muslim, our death should be the best day of our lives, because this is the day when we will meet Allah. We spend our lives preparing for that day. We remember death often, not for drama, but for perspective.

I asked the cashiers at Ashmont Market in Boston for their opinion on the meaning of Halloween in their lives. Two young men, probably in their twenties, informed me that, as Irish Catholics growing up in Boston, Halloween was about two things only. Candy – and egging people’s houses. However, they had no idea where the tradition comes from, of egging people’s houses. I laughed and said in Detroit, Halloween was all about setting things on fire! They mentioned All Saint’s Day as being the official Catholic holiday, but they had never visited a cemetery nor did anything other than get the day off school.

November 2 is a huge holiday called “Day of the Dead” in Mexico, while October 30 is called “Devils Night” in the American Midwest, and “Mischief Night” in England. So basically, Haloween is a four day international holiday celebrating and mocking the fear of death. Halloween has replaced Christmas as the ultimate secular holiday that brings neighbors together, that causes people to knock on each others’ doors. The love of candy has surpassed the love of Christ, but really it’s the same concept of connecting with people on the ancient level of survival: sharing food. Americans hang “Indian Corn” on their doors during the autumn season. Marketed as purely decorative, this tradition points to the fact that ancient Americans used to worship corn as life itself.

While we are alive, we prove our holiness or holy aspirations by loving our neighbor, while trying to balance others’ needs with our own legitimate requirements. We are possessed with the power to notice, or not to notice, the needs and feelings of those people around us. Now and then, we may have to knock on a door to inquire whether or not our neighbor is doing fine. Because sometimes, our neighbor might not be doing fine.

The Benefits of Befriending Older People

One of the greatest things about reaching forty is that all people become truly interesting to talk to, regardless of age. When we are younger, we are generally encouraged to spend time socializing with people within our age group, who are experiencing the same life changes and struggles as ourselves. But finally, at a certain point, we reach a plateau and things are not changing that much anymore. We are simply living our lives. Often, we have made certain sacrifices so that we can provide a stable environment for the younger generation to thrive and grow and go through their own changes, very beautiful to observe. Other people come into focus, rather than the mere requirements of our own personal development. As we age, the years roll by faster and faster, like a rock rolling down a mountainside, but we fear less, because we have generally learned what to expect.
By the time we reach forty, we can truly interact as peers with anyone from age 20 to 60. It’s like being on a boat in the middle of a big lake and you can see the horizon from every angle of your vision and only the sky above. It’s a dizzying and electrifying time of life to experience! We are old enough to advise the younger generation on their path, and yet able to question the older generation still living. We must use our social skills to pry the personal stories out of our elders because there is probably nothing more valuable on earth, certainly not cash or gold, than the jokes and life tales of our elders. During my four decades, I have written tens of thousands of pages, but there are still things I have never mentioned to anyone. In many cases, it’s just because nobody ever asked. So, just ask an older person today, anything! Even if you have to beg them to tell you something that will make you really laugh hard or help you gain perspective on whatever it is!

Older people know what things are worth putting energy into and what issues are best to just drop like a hot potato. Heather, a woman with long white flowing hair who is still turning away suitors, who raised 8 children in a 2 bedroom apartment, only one her own, has many stories. Her advice regarding divorce? Her primary regret was that she spent way too much time in a state of rage at her ex-husband. “Think of him as a babysitter who sometimes shows up,” she advised others.
Joe, a semi-retired real estate attorney, admitted that when pressed, he told his wife whom he was planning to vote for. His wife protested in astonishment, and he explained to her that this is why he does not discuss politics with anyone. A brilliant part of growing up is realizing that not everyone has to agree with you, in order for you to love them; And also, that you can love someone totally and completely – without telling them everything. But you can really enjoy the stuff you discuss!
George, a retired musician, is absolutely thrilled by new inventions such as a microphone that plugs into an ipad, and thinks that Youtube is the best new thing since the car. Such things make his face light up like a child.

Leah, a housewife in New Jersey explains: “My first husband believed the conspiracy theory that America never actually landed on the moon, based on the observation that in the photo, the flag appeared to be waving in the wind. My second husband, who was older and remembered that day clearly, explained that it was in all the news back then that the US brought to the moon a wooden replica of a flag waving in the wind, just to look good for the photos!” Many old mysteries can be explained away simply by talking to people who were alive at that time. You don’t actually have to marry them, thankfully, but maybe feed them.
People who have lived through several decades can provide a certain amount of insight that we lack. When we have older friends, we can benefit from their successes and their mistakes. It is especially important to talk to people who have spent time in prison, or overcome major illnesses, for during that time they probably thought about a lot of things that we never had time to think about. And, unlike many of us, they really may have figured out what was important to them and what they wanted to do with their lives once they got their health and freedom back.

When we were young and had no idea about life, it appeared that there were so many choices and so many possible paths. Yet the older we became and the more wisdom we acquired, the fewer choices and paths there remained – because when you can predict the probable outcome of events, you will usually only choose the action that will lead to the desired outcome and avoid other choices. Shaykh Fadhlalla Haeri calls it “The Freedom of No Choice” in his book by that title. This is the Islamic Middle Path between the competing philosophies of Destiny vs. Free Will.
If your will were completely aligned with God’s will, and if you had all the information about every variable past and present, you would make the absolutely best choice in every situation. However, in most cases, you are fluctuating in between the opinions of your various internal selves and reacting emotionally. Loss is an inevitable part of going through time on this earth. Only loss enables us to fully experience the value of what we had. As we grow in spiritual experience, we learn which actions will lead to loss, and which actions will lead to gain. At the same time, growing older helps many of us to appreciate and enjoy God’s everyday gifts, like the weather, a phone call, or our eyesight. The more you learn to pray and meditate deeply with a clear mind, you will more quickly recognize and fix mistakes that you have made as they occur. This truly takes decades of practice.

The Importance of Pleasing Wives in Islam

“And among His signs is that He has created for you spouses from among yourselves so that you may live in tranquility with them; and He has created love and mercy between you. Verily in that are signs for those who reflect.” (Quran 30:21)



There have been several recent anthropological studies done on how feminism has influenced the goals of traditional Muslim women, and also a lot of discussion both private and public about the effects of Western influence on marriage and family within the Muslim community. When women marry young, with increasing frequency we find that around middle age, they start to feel like they have lost out on life because of their innocent devotion to husband, home and family. They start to regret that they never got their PhD, for example. The husband becomes in their mind like an obstacle to overcome in order to realize their true potential in life. One Arab woman commented to her husband that when she comes home, she doesn’t feel the same respect from him that she gets from her professors and the other students. An Iranian man whose wife left him after over 20 years of marriage was completely baffled by her decision. “I gave her everything. I bought her a car and let her drive all over the country. Maybe I gave her too much freedom?” An American woman abandoned her husband of ten years, leaving two young children behind for no reason other than to become a historical tour guide downtown.

These explanations for divorce focus on the lack of intellectual stimulation experienced by the majority of housewives and are no doubt partially true, but they overlook a key reason why some women might choose to focus excessively on personal or intellectual interests outside the home. Women around age 35 reach their biological sexual peak, while men begin to decline starting at 40. When a husband is older than his wife, this can become a serious problem, especially if he never studied the arts of love.

Imam Ali taught that “Almighty God has created the sexual desire in ten parts; He gave nine parts to women and one to men,” but that “God gave the women equal parts of shyness.”

“Many times this shyness makes the man ignore the desires of his wife,” writes Sayyid Muhammad Rizvi in Marriage and Morals in Islam. Fatima Mernissi has also written about the cultural tendency among many Muslim men to avoid emotional investment in women.

The Prophet (sa) said, “When one of you sees a woman and he feels attracted to her, he should hurry to his wife. With her, it would be the same as with the other one.” Yet a dawah pamphlet published in Pakistan summarizes this minimally offensive hadith in an astonishingly cheap way by stating that the man should hurry to his wife in order to “put his sperm in the proper receptacle.”

At a certain point, women who have been thought about or treated in such a way, if they have any intelligence, will become tired of it and want something more – whether or not they have been exposed to feminist theory. They will desire the passionate love that true Islam promises. A man should make love to his wife like he is worshipping Allah, with the same spiritual intensity.

The Prophet (sa) said, “When a man approaches his wife, he is guarded by two angels and he is like a warrior fighting for the cause of Allah. When he has intercourse with her, his sins fall like the leaves of the tree [in fall season]. When he performs the major ablution, he is cleansed from sins.”

Imam Jafar as-Sadiq said, “I do not think that a person’s faith can increase positively unless his love for women has increased… Whenever a person’s love for women increases, his faith increases in quality.”

There is no room in the prophetic tradition to regard wives as halal containers, like sacred toilets, for the collection of distasteful male emissions. Women in Islam are rather revered as spiritual pleasure mates whose physical enjoyment is regarded as a right.

The Prophet (sa) said, “Three people are cruel, [including] a person who has sex with his wife before foreplay.” The Prophet (sa) also said that the mutual foreplay of a man with his wife is haqq, in other words it is a means to the realization of Truth. Therefore, women who have learned how to actively pleasure themselves with their husbands are rewarded with high status:

“The best woman among you is the one who discards the armor of shyness when she undresses for her husband, and puts on the armor of shyness when she dresses up again,” stated Imam Muhammad al-Baqir.

Married people are described in the Quran as being “garments” for each other, because when people are satisfied at home, they can go out in the world with a clean heart and don’t attract sexual attention from others. They are spiritually “covered” because their chastity is protected by the love of their spouse. Yet many men are not aware of their Islamic duty to protect their wives spiritually by fulfilling their desires.

Imam Ghazali wrote, “The woman’s ejaculation is sometimes a much slower process and during that process her sexual desire grows stronger and to withdraw from her before she reaches her pleasure is harmful to her” (at-Tabrasi, al-Ihtijaj).

Imam Ali said, “When you intend to have sex with your wife, do not rush because the woman also has needs.” When Imam Jafar as-Sadiq was asked about this, he answered, “It means kissing and talking.”

According to a hadith related by Ubaydullah bin Zurarah, an old man owned a young slave-girl. Because of his old age, he could not fully satisfy her during sexual intercourse. She would therefore ask him to do some things to please her as she liked it.

It is remarkable to note that many Muslim wives today can only dream about the respect that even a slave-girl was given in the early days of Islam.

Jane Digby el Mezrab, Umm el-Laban (Mother of Milk)

Jane Digby el Mezrab, Umm el-Laban


article with portrait of Jane Digby: http://muslimmedianetwork.com/mmn/?p=12041


The story of Jane Digby (1807–1881) is presented among other historical biographies of white women who escaped the confines of 19th Century Europe by going to live among the Muslims in “The Wilder Shores of Love” by Lesley Blanch. Digby, born an aristocrat in Norfolk England, was known in Europe as Lady Ellenborough, Baroness Vennigan, and later as Countess Theotoky. She had married and divorced four times and was 48 years old when she met her fifth and last husband, her true love, a dark-skinned Syrian warlord Sheik Abdul Medjuel El Mezrab, who was fifteen years her junior. She died in his arms after nearly thirty years of marriage.

Jane Digby’s life was such a fabulous scandal that I am surprised that I had never heard of her before. During her youth, she was the mistress of many princes and kings, including Napoleon before he was famous. In old age, she slept in a Bedouin tent and rode side by side with her husband on horseback to battle, also granting protection to desert travelers in exchange for a large fee. She received adventurous royalty and traveling dignitaries from all over Europe in her husband’s luxurious Damascus home, including Richard Burton, the famed “Lawrence of Arabia.” His wife, Isabel Burton, knew Jane Digby since youth and regarded her as a peer. Blanch writes: “Everyone who knew her in Syria, from the local missionaries to Dom Pedro, Emperor of Brazil, was enchanted with the timeless charm and simplicity of the real woman.”

While other women of that era were fighting for the right to vote, Digby never doubted her equality with men. Clearly, she loved men. She had no sense of being bound by the social conventions of her time. Her freedom was of course enhanced by the regular income she received by right of her noble status, yet she was not a manipulative person, nor was she seeking political influence. There was just something about her that instantly attracted men of high caliber. She was very well-read, which made her an exceedingly pleasant conversational partner. Traveling scholars would seek her to learn of the latest news in archeology, for she was considered to be very knowledgeable on that topic. Yet she was no academic. She was a Romantic. She was athletic, wild and adventurous, and she possessed some kind of eternal idealism free of cynicism. She was 74 years old when she finally accepted the role of a wife who stays home while her husband goes out, and this pained her as greatly as her death which soon followed.

Her passionate love of horses no doubt contributed to her mystique and led her to her fate. She went to Syria to purchase an Arabian stallion. There she met a desert nomad who told her, “This horse is untameable, but I love it more than I love my three wives.” It is said that this Lady had made slaves of kings just by making eye contact and this horse was no different. The animal submitted to her, seemingly without any effort on her part. The Sheik told her, “I see you have tamed my wild horse, but still I will not sell it to you for any price, except one.” It was in this fashion that he proposed marriage. She considered it on condition that he dismiss his other wives and live with her as man and wife in the European sense. He protested, “But I am not a poor man. It would be embarrassing for someone of my stature to only have one wife.” So, she went on with her travels, marrying another Muslim man, who took her on pilgrimage to Iraq. Upon hearing news of her return and learning that the relationship with this other man did not work out, the Sheik sent someone to meet her en route with a gift of his best horse. This time she agreed to marry him.

Her marriage with the Sheik is an interesting lesson in both interfaith and intercultural relations. First off, they agreed to a marital compromise that for three years, he would be her monogamous husband. After that, he was free to reinstate his harem. He lived with her for life as a devoted husband, though in later years he quietly married his son’s step-daughter. Half the year, they camped in a tent and half the year they lived in the house.

Jane Digby never converted to Islam. Given her British noble ancestry, this made political sense. She served as a cultural bridge between the Christian and Muslim worlds. She didn’t want to live as a secluded Arab wife. She insisted on being her noble husband’s equal. She threw herself into her husband’s culture with pleasure, for she spoke Arabic fluently in many dialects, and she was having a great time, dressing in the Muslim gear, smoking from the nargila and sleeping on the ground. By remaining a Christian, she was able to continue to define herself by her own rules, never to conform, except as she chose.

Digby insisted upon being buried in a Protestant Christian cemetery when she died. However, she gave up her British citizenship and became a Turkish citizen upon marriage. This became a problem in 1871, for the British embassy could be of no assistance when Kurds and Druze reportedly raped, massacred and mutilated all the Christians in Damascus. It is said that corpses were piled high and the stench and noise of the tortured and dying filled the air. Digby’s house on the outskirts of town remained unharmed, for she was protected by her husband. However, upon hearing of the carnage, Jane left her home to go see what was going on in the city. There was not much of anything she could do, and she returned home soon. But her action embarrassed the Sheik, for it seemed that she was taking sides with the Christians, and his interest in her cooled. True to fashion, she used this opportunity to kindle a brief flame with a rival Arabian warlord Sheik Fares. She made her husband jealous and won him back into her spell. Digby’s life was never boring. She was not a saint, but she was a genius.

During her very solemn funeral procession, her husband caused a scene by jumping out of his carriage and running away. His action surely caused a lot of whispers. However, just as she was about to be put in the ground, he returned, galloping on his wife’s favorite black steed. He knew that she would want her horse to be in attendance at her burial. The Sheik truly understood that beloved woman, even if no one else ever will. Like Cleopatra, Umm el-Laban was a remarkable woman who never lost her beauty. Her life makes clear that through Allah, all things are possible.

What is Love?

One of the most controversial issues about Islam is the topic of Marriage and Divorce. Even though Christianity demands the same thing, most Westerners recoil at the idea of a wife being obligated to “obey” her husband. In real life, what does this look like? Maybe a man might say to his wife, “Honey, could you bake some of your awesome lasagna for my parents when they visit?” and the woman might say, “Sure, sweetie, no problem. Just give me the money to buy the ingredients and I’ll be on it today.”

In most cases, especially when she is sure that she is loved, a woman will not hesitate to do whatever her husband asked her to do. Hopefully, if she asked her husband to pick up some postage stamps on the way home from work he would do it too.

Legally the issue regarding “obedience” is most likely to arise when it comes to physical relations. Legal systems vary widely when it comes to whether a woman has the right to insist on engaging in or refusing intercourse of her own free will and the extent to which her husband has the right to demand this of her. In Islam, a man has the right to expect to be loved, however, it is usually unclear how far he can go to force love to happen. Women of course also have the right to expect to be loved, however, it is nearly impossible to force her husband to please her if he cannot, for biological reasons.

The other biological issue is of course, children. When a woman has young children or is pregnant, it is very difficult to achieve financial independence without the assistance of the children’s father. Under normal circumstances, children cling to their mother. She cannot come and go as she pleases, unless someone else would help her with the children. She cannot study in college or work a job unless someone, normally her spouse, would help her. She cannot even run to the grocery store alone unless her husband decides that he is willing to allow her to get some air. Most women who succeed in their careers either have no children, or else have extremely helpful husbands.

Sadly, in today’s world, there are few men who possess the emotional maturity to be worthy to tell another human soul to obey him. Islam of course commands kindness to women, but in reality this means a man must care about someone else as much as he cares about himself. Girls are usually trained from birth to try to be pleasing and avoid displeasing others. They try to predict the needs of others in order to be helpful. This puts them at a disadvantage in a relationship where this level of attentiveness is not reciprocated. When girls and women are deprived of affection, their normal response is to try harder to be pleasing. Men however tend to withhold affection when they feel that they are being deprived of affection. This often creates a vicious cycle that could result in divorce. When it comes to divorce, the Quran states:
“…And women shall have rights similar to the rights against them, according to what is equitable, but men have a degree (of advantage) over them. And Allah is exalted in Power, Wise.” (2:28)

Aminah Wadud-Muhsin writes that this “degree of advantage” is in the man’s power to pronounce divorce by themselves, whereas women who seek divorce generally need some outside assistance. Yusuf Ali suggests that economic differences are what largely disadvantages adult females. Islam allows women to divorce a man without contest in the cases of mental illness, impotence, or not supporting the family, but as always, it’s his word against hers and in most cases, she is the primary caretaker of the children.

In many countries, including the US, women are often threatened with loss of custody of their children if they try to divorce their husbands. Islamic law also grants custody of the children to their father as a general rule. Originally, this law was perhaps intended to help divorced women remarry more quickly but nowadays, most men are not equipped to assume full time ownership of any youngsters by themselves. We don’t live in a time where people are surrounded by extended family, with someone guaranteed to be home at all times. Divorce is so complicated that it is often wise to consider reconciliation.

“…live with them on a footing of kindness and equity. If you take a dislike to them it may be that you dislike a thing, and Allah brings about through it a great deal of good.” (4:19)

In my middle age, I have discovered that the qualities that others find most controversial are my best qualities. If I obey those who dislike me, I am doomed to defeat. It is only when you embrace your true self that you can succeed in life, married or not.

This brings us back to the Golden Rule. Jesus (sa) said, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” while Prophet (s) said, “Do not do to someone else what you would not like done to you.” Empathy is key. When a man and woman marry, they have no idea what they are getting into. The person you are today is not the same person you will be in ten or twenty years. Sometimes people put out a lot of mixed messages about what they want from the other. To make things work, you have to care about the other person as much as you care about yourself. If he cannot sleep, she cannot sleep. If she has a splinter in her thumb, he will remove it for her. If your spouse displeases you, ask him or her, “Why did you do that?” That is love.

Opium Market Closed to Americans

The other day while waiting in line at CVS, I overheard an elderly man arguing about the cost of his prescription medication, which was well over $100. “Won’t my insurance cover it?” he protested. The pharmacist explained to him that the actual price of the drug was over $300 so yes, the insurance company was covering it, after the cost of the deductible. The old man did not have the money and walked away muttering under his breath. Access to medicine becomes a real problem when the supply is restricted and you are in immediate need.


I had my own CVS drama not that long ago myself. After a certain medical procedure, I was given a prescription for Oxycodine; however I was in so much pain that I could hardly stand up. Naturally, there were about eight people ahead of me in line. Luckily there was a folding chair nearby, so I grabbed it to stop from collapsing as I shook uncontrollably with waterfalls of sweat pouring down my face despite the chilly air conditioning. Finally I got to the head of the line. I sat on the folding chair and gasped out my prescription request. As soon as they gave me the pills I ripped open the package and swallowed one without even moving out of line. No one seemed at all shocked or even disturbed by my behavior – which makes me have to assume that they see this kind of thing a lot. When you are in pain, you can’t think about anything else except getting that pain to stop!

As our population ages, these types of problems will increase. Angela, a retired secretary in Boston admitted to me that she became addicted to Oxycontin, the painkiller her doctor gave her after hip replacement surgery. She also suffers residual pain from a neck fracture. If she cannot get her pain pills in time she becomes terribly sick, which has resulted in late night visits from a shady drug dealer. For as long as I’ve known her she’s been trying to wean herself off the pills, and earlier this year she actually became clean. However, this experience reminded her why she was taking the pills in the first place. She was in pain. She could not function! So, she started to take the pills again. The next problem that arose was that her doctor informed her that the continued use of her pain medication, especially coupled with her moderate but regular drinking habits, was destroying her liver. The doctor warned her that she might end up in the hospital soon from liver poisoning.

It makes me so sad that someone should have to choose between dying of liver disease and living with intense pain. It makes me so sad, and indeed outraged, that Americans like Angela and that old man at CVS are being put in desperate situations in want of pain medicine more than twenty years after the United States invaded Afghanistan to corner the market on narcotic poppy flowers. Why aren’t the marines bringing back that sweet sticky sap for their elders to mix with their tobacco? During the Reagan era, white and purple opium resin sold on the streets alongside hashish and marijuana. Opium, a traditional favorite of poets and artists, would make a smoker feel way too happy for his own good, but it was unlikely to cause sudden death. Heroin, a powdered derivative of opium, can easily kill a person overnight. It’s a similar situation with cocaine. South American villagers can chew coca leaves all day while they work the fields, and it gives them some kind of lift like we get from drinking coffee. But when you turn the coca leaves into cocaine, that’s when you have pharmaceutical grade drugs that could kill you overnight, especially if it’s injected or smoked as crack.

Why is it that Americans are suffering from a lack of medicine? How can this be possible, after we have invaded country after country, directly and indirectly, for control over their drugs? The rich have their pills while the poor have their heroin and crack, but why is it that in the United States of America my friend Angela, who is already a cigarette smoker, has never been given the opportunity to see if smoking opium might control her pain in a way that is less poisonous than pills and alcohol? Why are Angela’s friends calling her on the phone crying and begging her to share her painkillers? There are so many people living in pain. Why is pure opium not available to the American public?

Eric Margolis reported in his book, “War at the Top of the World” that during the Reagan administration, opium was transported to Pakistan for processing into heroin, and then was brought through Kosova into Europe for distribution. He mentions shootouts between the FBI and CIA since the FBI was over there to combat drugs while the CIA was there to make money to fund their wars. Then the Taliban took over, outlawing the growing of poppies. It was a huge change. They ran their politics by the force of faith. The Afghan farmers were so convinced that Mullah Omar was their Amir by the will of Allah that they pledged to obey his leadership even if their own children starved to death. According to UN reports, under Taliban rule, the growth of opium poppies was largely reduced. This made America angry. As soon as the US invaded Afghanistan under Clinton, the first thing we did was build local heroin processing plants. So now, once again, we have Afghan farmers growing opium for the world heroin supply, but for some reason the raw opium is only locally available. If an Afghan woman who doesn’t even have food has access to opium to help her baby sleep, why can’t my friend who is going to die if she doesn’t stop taking painkiller pills have some of it? There are people in our neighborhood injecting heroin and leaving needles in the alleyways, exposing people to AIDS, but Angela can’t kill her pain by smoking opium. Why are some drugs legal and some illegal? Why are some drugs available and others unavailable?

Lobsters Flourish as Fish Dwindle

“We have made of water everything living. Will they not then believe?” (Quran 21:30)


In recent times, over-fishing has resulted in common foods such as tuna, cod and haddock being listed along with zebras and elephants as endangered species! The popularity of Japanese sushi in the West has to a large extent been held responsible for the world shortage of tuna. Efforts have been made to establish fish farms, but these have often been reported to be watery breeding houses of disease.

Yet even as fish supply dwindles, large ships are decimating whales and other large marine life. Not only are these amazing animals being diced by propellers, but their very mode of communication, essential to group survival, is being interrupted by military radar used by ships and submarines.

Some scientists believe that dolphins and whales could be as intelligent, or perhaps more intelligent than humans, based on their brain size and ability to engage in empathy. A few years back, we even heard news reports about a Cuban child victim of a shipwreck who was saved by dolphins, and eventually landed in Florida, forcing the US to actually engage in diplomacy with Cuba in order to return the boy to his father. Using their radar-like signals, ocean mammals like dolphins and whales can communicate to each other through hundreds, even thousands of miles of water. However, due to human-caused electronic interference, their entire way of life has been cut off. It’s the kind of thing that might even make a person feel ashamed of being human.

So with all this bad news, I was pleasantly surprised to read in the Boston Globe that due to the warm temperatures this past summer, the state of Maine has been experiencing much higher than normal sizes of lobster catches. Naturally, humans are ungrateful. The abundance of lobster has inspired Canadian lobstermen in New Brunswick to engage in protests for several days, blocking a highway to prevent US lobsters from being delivered to processing plants, out of fear that the surplus of lobster would drive the price down so low that it would destroy their livelihoods. A Canadian court ruled that this obstruction of capitalism was unlawful, so the Maine lobsters are now being successfully sold on the free market at the going price. If the Canadians continue to try to prevent US lobsters from being processed in Canada, it won’t be long before the US opens up more food processing plants.

While I understand that many Muslims don’t eat shellfish, and in my personal opinion, a lobster looks very much like a large, creepy insect; nevertheless lobster is a very healthy source of protein and fatty acids essential to hormone stability in humans. Lobster is considered a delicacy in most of the United States, with a lobster roll sandwich selling for as much as $21 in Boston. So I’m guessing that among lobster lovers, any price reduction would actually be quite welcome. According to the Boston Globe:

“If the catch turns out to be an aberration, memories of this year’s crisis will quickly fade. But there is fear in Maine that with climate change, the warmer waters that triggered the bumper crop could become a more regular occurrence. If that happens, lobstermen are going to have to adjust to fundamental changes in the fishery… Lobstermen in both countries need to recognize they are fishing from the same ocean and work toward a common solution.”

As the human population is running out of fish protein, God provided us with too much lobster. Sadly, the increase in lobster also correlates with decreasing numbers of lobsters’ natural enemies like sharks, stingrays, groupers, sea turtles and seals. Yet the whole situation made me think about how when God takes something away, He replaces it with something else. Sometimes, the replacement can be pricier than the original loss! Perhaps the increase in lobster meat will give humans some more time before we all starve, to figure out how to save the ocean’s larger sea animals.

As smart as they are, they don’t seem to have picked up on human speech yet, and do not know how to advertise themselves in order to promote their own self-interest, but the haunting sounds of ocean mammals have been recorded by humans. Captive dolphins and whales have gone way beyond their comfort zones to learn how to communicate with humans using sign language and have even learned how to follow instructions in exchange for food. Because dolphins in particular are so emotionally sensitive, child psychologists have been using them to reach out to those with special needs, including autistic children, who are so internally withdrawn that they do not talk. In many cases, scientists have found that befriending a marine animal is so delightful that it stimulates emotional reactions that can lead to amazing progress in otherwise uncommunicative individuals.
We live in a time when Allah allowed human beings to talk to the creatures of the sea. It is truly an electrifying time to be alive, but with this increased knowledge comes a heavy responsibility. If we don’t take care of the oceans, nobody else will. And that’s a fact that we have to really think about, because our fate is permanently linked with the fate of the earth’s creatures as well as the environment of our planet.

Life Without Internet

I cancelled Comcast for the summer to save money, which has resulted in a TV and internet free environment for my family. Our entertainment has now been reduced to watching library DVDs on the computer. Because the computer is in the master bedroom, the scene is four kids trying to get away with eating pizza on the king sized futon and putting their feet on my pillows on a very regular basis. The upside of this situation is:


- The children will gladly make the bed and vacuum if it means they can watch a movie.

- Library DVDs usually have some educational or philosophical or cultural content.

- Nobody can watch anything while I am asleep or working on the computer.

Now that the summer of 2012 is nearing its close, I am evaluating the effects on my life of having no TV or internet in my home. On the negative side, it is harder for me to get updated on Islamic events. Today I rushed from the grocery store to the library to check my email 15 minutes before closing, but was too late. They had already shut down the computers. So I don’t know what time the Eid prayers will be held on Sunday. Luckily, I have someone’s phone number from the Islamic Center so no problem inshaAllah.

On the whole, the benefits outweigh the negatives, such as:

- Increased use of prioritizing internet time. The library only allows a person one hour on the computer, so Facebook time has been cut dramatically. Instead of checking all my friends’ updates, I go straight to my Inbox and reply only to personal mail, taking a half hour tops. That leaves me 30 minutes to pay an online bill, look up some item of interest, or update my blog. What a dramatic change from my old lifestyle of impatiently checking my updates all day long!

- Increased use of free print media. For wont of things to read to provoke my intellectual curiosity, I now more frequently pick up free neighborhood newspapers. As a result, I have been better informed about local events, very importantly including free public barbeque parties. A local bank’s five year anniversary party offered free burgers, hot dogs, chips, juice, cake, helium balloons, and a fistful of free pens. A local parish offered unlimited pony rides, a bouncy house, and food throughout another Saturday afternoon this summer. These events have turned out to be great ways to meet neighbors.

- Increased socializing. The upslope has not been dramatic, but steady. As my boredom increases with lack of contact with the outside world, the more the importance actual people take up of my time and energy; in particular people whose phone numbers I have. So whether it’s someone I knew from high school or someone I would like to know, the absence of internet in my home increases the likelihood of my calling them to say hello.

- Increased use of radio in the home. Needless to say, my tweenagers call the shots when it comes to what music we will listen to as we chop vegetables or tidy up the living room. This has given me increased insight as to what is meaningful to them. My son pointed out one popular song, telling me it was the story of my life, and I was touched that he had thought about the events of my life on such a level. On other occasions, the presence of radio in our home instead of the TV has resulted in family dance parties and recitals.

- Increased exercise. In the days when I had internet in my private office with a locked door that I could use to shut out all commotion, I spent the majority of my day with one hand on the mouse. This resulted in serious chronic muscle spasms in my neck as well as tendonitis in my arm. Now that we have no choice but to listen to CDs or cassettes, my children have become exposed to Pakistani Sufi music, Bob Dylan’s poetry, and the Beatles. It is so important for the human body to reach upwards with the arms. If we do not ever dance, we lose all the muscle tone in our shoulders, lungs, and stomach. Dance is the most intimate of physical activities beyond the marital act, so it is important to provide a private environment, but it is essential to the human condition to be able to express the human joy of living life to its full physical and emotional capacity.

- Going outside more. When there is nothing to do at home, the next thing to do is to leave. I am very proud of my 13 year old son, who has started walking home from the Boys and Girls Club to save me the trouble of picking him up, a walk which can take 40 minutes. When I was his age, I had to walk almost that far to school but nowadays we have to question whether or not walking home alone is safe. In my experience, a kid on a bike is more likely to get hassled, especially if someone wants to steal the bike. My advice is always to learn to ride a skateboard – it is faster than walking yet you can carry it onto a train or into a store so it is much more convenient than riding a bicycle.

School will soon begin again, and with school comes the stresses of homework, busses, and tests. I am glad we still live in a country where kids get the summer off, because even if they are not actually needed to tend to any crops, I still need them here to do chores around the home and help take care of their younger siblings. I want them to succeed academically but I am also very grateful to God that I had them here at home this summer so we could be a family.

Islamic Progress in America

Increasing reports of hate crimes against Muslims in recent years have created the impression that Muslim organizational efforts to raise awareness about Islam have been in vain, and that hostility against Muslims has been increasing in the US rather than declining. I am however reminded of the old saying that whenever you are preaching some obvious truth, the people will first laugh at you, then they will attack you, but in the end they will accept your insight as self-evident. It is only a matter of time before people connect the dots and hear Islam’s message of spiritual universalism.


This week I intended to review an obnoxious pseudo-documentary I saw at the library, which explored the question of how Islam inspires Lebanese militants to kill for the sake of God. I was so sickened by the DVD cover that I left, speechless, yet arguments rattled in my head about the extreme racism of how the question was phrased and marketed to a naïve American public, who would be almost guaranteed to have no concept of the context of political violence in Lebanon. I went to the library again today, my stomach in knots as I rehearsed how I was going to ask the librarian why they carry such vile racist stuff on their shelves. However, the DVD had already been checked out and I walked out with nothing more interesting than Blues Clues.

So now, some poor suckers are watching that slick propaganda financed by a seedy Zionist coalition of interest groups, and it will not likely occur to them to be as outraged as if they were watching a documentary questioning what psychopathology caused George Washington to decide to kill for the sake of God.

There is nothing particularly sinister about calling on God as you protect your humble village from being massacred by a foreign army. Popular freedom movements are generally based on the idea that God has given mankind certain inalienable rights. When some rag-tag militia stands up to a heavily armed, mighty empire, we usually regard such people as heroic – not as insane.

Yet, that evil racist mindset has been steadily promoted in the US throughout the past couple decades through seemingly benign but psychologically twisted docu-dramas and books, which are carefully calculated for psychological and political affect, framing religious Muslims as perpetrators of evil motivated by a bizarre alternate reality. Unfortunately, most people don’t see through it.

Today I attended a social event at a Unitarian Universalist Church in Boston, a denomination known for theological openness and social justice activism. So I was disturbed to read a recent sermon discussing forgiveness, citing Washington Post reporter Laura Blumenfeld, author of “Revenge, a Story of Hope,” whose American father, a rabbi, made “aliyah” to Israel and was shot (not seriously) in East Jerusalem by a Palestinian, Omar Khatib, who went to jail for that crime.

The pastor stated: “He says that what he did was not personal; that it was a necessary outcome of what he calls ‘the occupation’ of Palestinian lands by Israel.”

What he calls…? Why would the pastor of a respected church use newspaper-ese to downplay Israel’s siege upon the native population when people of conscience are boycotting Israel? Omar’s shortcomings aside, this level of insolence towards the oldest community of Christ’s followers on Earth, especially coming from a Christian minister, is seriously pathetic.

As the story goes, Laura writes to Omar in prison, and forgives him. Eventually, Omar goes free after promising never to hurt anyone ever again. This is all good, but the way the pastor frames it sounds blaringly racist:

“She wants her father to have a human face, to be real to them as well, and not be just some Jew that got in the way of the Palestinian quest for liberation.”

Some Jew who got in the way of the Palestinian quest for liberation? These Jews made the conscious decision to participate in a population war to squeeze out Palestinians from their own country. Her father accepted US taxpayers’ money to study Hebrew for free and receive government subsidies so that he would not have to work.

Laura didn’t participate in racist genocide because she was forced to by gunpoint, nor because she was a starving refugee. Laura was wealthy American Jew who simply decided to help ethnically cleanse people she had never met. You don’t move onto stolen property in the middle of a war zone and expect to live in peace, unless you are insane.

In this sermon, we never hear anything about how Laura realized that Zionism, a violent ethnic supremacist movement, was wrong. We never hear about how she apologized to Omar for self-worship that went so far beyond hate that she didn’t even visualize Palestinians as persons possessing legal rights. Laura never did repent for her blind arrogance, but she made a lot of money writing and promoting that book.

There are stories of Palestinians who forgave Jewish terrorists, including a Muslim father who donated his murdered son’s organs to needy Jews without getting any thanks. These Islamic examples of radical acts of charity are not mentioned in many American churches, though, because they are not part of a slick propaganda machine churning out feel-good stories that glorify Jews and vilify Muslims.

How could those Jewish parents snub the Palestinian who gave their beloved child a beating heart? It’s all part of the colonial mindset, Manifest Destiny, in which Jews feel entitled to take all of Palestine, including the body parts of murdered Palestinian children.

Yet, no American is ever asked to psychoanalyze the personality defects that would cause a person to disregard the human rights of Muslims and Christians in the Holy Land.

It would actually be very easy to copy the format of these propaganda flicks but turn the argument around to accuse the actual perpetrators of political violence. Why has it not been done? The truth stands out clear from error. My eleven-year-old recently noted that Jews treat Christians like children who can’t be expected to understand. I think it’s time for Muslims to give Christians the respect they deserve as adults, and to engage with them in all honesty.

The Future of Racial Identity Politics

Racial difference was probably the most motivating force of 20th Century history, culminating in many racial genocides, two world wars, the American civil rights movement and the end of South African apartheid. There were various political movements that took place then, such as the Pan-African and Pan-Arab movements, which eventually morphed into a global Pan-Islamic movement, while European nationalist movements such as National Socialism eventually morphed into Zionism.

Widespread popular sentiment has diminished the value of Euro-America and Europe, classifying the former world powers collectively as a dying empire with low population growth. The mystery remains whether race wars will decide the fate of nations, or whether the keys to our cities will be handed over to the non-Europeans in an organized, educational and peaceful manner.

In the 21st Century, Americans have attained a certain legal equality on paper while social reform slowly progresses. However, despite the “code of color-blindness” usually enforced by upper-class liberal academic circles, racial identity seems to be just as important in our time. It is my hope that as our current century progresses, this time our motivation will be towards good not evil.

The two leading global competitors for both population growth and interracial cooperation are Islam and Catholicism, while locally, secular mainstream media’s promotion of interracial dating has resulted in our kindergarten classrooms looking much different than they did fifty years ago. Yet, it is not clear to me that we have moved beyond the Us vs. Them mentality.

Even though American mosques are probably the most racially diverse places you will ever find for human fellowship, I have always been startled again and again that no matter what city I’m in, the second question after “What’s your name?” is “Where are you from?” While I know that God created us into nations and tribes in order that we may know each other, it never c3eases to amaze me how quickly the question comes up.

If I say I’m from Michigan, I’ll be classified as a generic “white” person, so sometimes I want to explain that my parents were immigrants and that I too spent the first 20 years of my life trying to figure out how to fit in with American culture and the next 20 years coping with the realization that it’s never going to happen. But I have found that explaining that I’m Swiss only adds to the confusion.

I have had moments of feeling silently offended by Egyptian youngsters, who identified as Egyptian even if they were born in the US, labeling me as a “white” person, even though they were in many ways more assimilated than me! And I have come to shrink from the typical role of white women in the interracial mosque atmosphere, which has emerged as a sort of backlash against the stereotypical “Monica” depiction of white women in the media.

If you want to know who the white American converts are in any mosque, they are usually the ones wearing the most clothes. They are like the nuns of the Islamic movement. They often make the Asian, Arabic and African women uncomfortable with their exaggerated displays of piety. I was one of them once, and the reason was because I didn’t know what else to do. If the leadership asked me to give a talk in front of the congregation, I’d do it even though I’m naturally shy. If they asked me to visit women’s prisons to do some ministry I’d do it from the love of my heart. But I also realized that the reason they were asking me was because no one else would do it, because it’s not traditionally appropriate for a woman to be doing all this volunteer work outside of her home. It was a very bizarre situation to be stuck in! Why couldn’t I be the woman with the eyeliner and the great shoes who just shows up on Eid? No matter how much volunteer work I did, I’d never fit in because my sincerity just made people uncomfortable. Then I learned the “show a little hair” trick.

This is just a single example of a white person trying to negotiate her place in this confusing world, but even among Christians it has become a real issue of discussion. The white population is simply not reproducing itself, largely due to cultural factors, so those blue-eyes who remain among us are experiencing what it’s like to be a minority in the US.

While race advocates have expressed dismay that because the educated classes of white people use birth control, the only white people who are having babies are the stupid ones, who have babies by mistake, often out of wedlock. Popular media erodes the morality of white women, portraying them as blonde bimbos ready to trade their virtue for an alcoholic drink. Due to such stereotyping, white women face the threat of molestation or worse any time they travel abroad; meanwhile the US invasion of Kosova and Bosnia has resulted in a huge CIA sponsored business of kidnapping and trafficking white women as sex slaves in Israel and elsewhere.

As far as I know, nobody in my family ever enslaved, invaded or harmed black people in any way. Yet it may be hard for a lot of people to even sympathize with innocent white people, especially given the traditional American education, which casts group blame on an entire skin tone for the actions of very specific groups.

Malcolm X once stated that if whites would simply allow blacks to develop self-esteem, race war would become unnecessary. Half a century later, whites themselves have become demoralized and hopeless. Ultimately, what is probably needed is a Pan-European movement to increase the self-esteem of the new minority, which might eventually morph into the Pan-Islamic movement. When white people understand the value of what God gave them in their DNA, they will embrace peace.

Silence and Human Consciousness

One thing that has almost been lost in the modern world is silence. And with it, a large part of human consciousness. I have four children, and almost all of the time when we are together, they are all talking at once. It requires total focus to listen to four streams of thought simultaneously, especially while driving. I have been known to become hysterical, just begging them to please… stop… talking. If a downstairs neighbor falls asleep in front of the TV and leaves it on until morning, you will probably find me cranky tomorrow! As I write this, there has been some kind of verbal showdown between drunk drivers outside my window involving prolonged horn honking. With all that is going on around us, it is hard to complete a sentence even in our own minds. It is comforting that in this day and age there are places like mosques and temples and even prayer rooms in airports, where one could recharge, clear out and refresh the intellect.

Noise pollution affects all of our lives. Obviously, we need and want social interaction but we also need some time of the day when nobody is asking us about anything. Our mental files need to be sorted alphabetically so that we can recall them at future notice. We need our thoughts, so we can learn from our experiences. We need a time of silence to plan our dreams. Some people have said my home sounds like a grave, but truly I sometimes need a music-free environment to dig deeper, and to be reborn with a fresh point of view.

A lot of radio stations or TV stations seem like they are actually screaming at us to notice them and their advertisements! The constant stream of pseudo-information can become unpleasant within the kitchen situation when family members are trying to help each other and talk at the same time. Sometimes I even wish I could just unplug the refrigerator to escape that infernal humming and groaning. When I go to sleep I have to put on a loud fan to tune out the neighbors.

The Islamic warnings against music are not new to the 21st century, but the effect of canned music, such as from radio or Cd’s, is worth discussing primarily because of the commercialization of art. An average person could be exposed to someone else’s poetry literally 24 hours a day. Studies have shown that people who listen to popular country music radio have noticeably higher suicide rates. When you invite somebody’ else’s song into your house, you invite their heartache, their life story. This can have a profound effect on the personality.

Most Americans are addicted to constant external noise in their homes, broadcast from the satellites. They are completely terrified of being left alone with themselves. Because the second we turn off the TV and there is no one there but the bushes outside our window, we are left alone with God. We are left alone with our own thoughts, which we sometimes cannot even tolerate. The burden of withstanding our own company is so painful that we would fill it with radio commercials to take up the time, but until when? Until it’s time for dinner, until it’s time for the children to go to bed, until the morning when some talk show host will be telling you what to think about at breakfast? Tuning into public broadcast gives us a sense of passing the time, participating in public opinion, and perhaps for some, even doing our public duty to be “informed.”

At this particular moment in writing this article, I became overwhelmed by the silence in my own vicinity and elected to take a walk instead of filling the silence with noise. It was a beautiful night. The walk gave me time to replay scenes from earlier today and wonder what they meant. My cells filled with oxygen as I walked under the trees. The clouds glowed mysteriously in front of the moon. Even though the clouds and moon are always there, noticing their beauty can invigorate an entire evening.

When I was in fifth grade, I got elected to sing in the Ann Arbor All-City Choir, and the song we sang was “the Sound of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkel. My parents being immigrants, I had never heard it though my classmates were already familiar with the music. It must have spoken to me though because I went on amazon last month and bought a $3 used cassette tape of Simon and Garfunkel’s greatest hits to listen to in the car. According to the song, “the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenement halls, and whispered in the sounds of silence.” Without question, the words of the prophets (pbut) were derived in moments of silence.

It is only in moments of silence that we can distinguish truth from falsehood, good ideas from bad ideas. We need to slow down once in a while and tune out so we can tune into our own thoughts and needs and ideas. Really, sometimes we don’t even know what we ourselves are about to do unless we sit down and discuss it with ourselves. Even if the plan is to just sit here for a while and not think.

Looking at the water flow always helps erase the past, but the best way to experience time is to just be. Just be yourself now, because “God don’t make no junk.” Ask yourself why you are here, how you got here, and where you are going. People who don’t do this just react to every event like some amoeba going after food or avoiding pain. We must take a few minutes a day to reflect, in order to stay human.

Boston-Area Activist Faces Prison

In January 2011, 39 year-old drywall taper Michael Williams of Bedford, Massachusetts attended a demonstration in New York commemorating the two year anniversary of Israel’s Operation Cast Lead. After the rally, he noticed a drunken white man shouting, “Go back to your country, you [expletive] terrorists!” at some teenage girls wearing hijab in front of a pizzeria. Williams and a friend intervened to defend the girls, who had also just attended the rally, and then led them in an impromptu chant of “Free, Free Palestine!”

The drunk then hit Williams in the face, whereupon Williams punched him back and a fight ensued, for which both men were arrested.

Curiously, the District Attorney let the drunk man go free but charged Williams with first degree felony assault and endangerment of a child, crimes he did not commit – in fact Williams and the Muslim girls were the victims of a racist assault!

In June 2012, the case went to trial. Despite having six eyewitnesses and clear photographic evidence that the other guy hit him first, the jury after three days of deliberation found Williams guilty of second degree assault, a sentence which carries up to 7 years. He was released on a $7500 bail so that he could return to Massachusetts to coach his son’s baseball game. Williams’ sentencing is to scheduled for August 10, 2012. He will appeal. Anyone wishing to donate money to his legal fund this Ramadan may contact al-Awda New York.
Michael Williams, in an exclusive telephone interview with TMO, mentioned some dark details of his court ordeal. The Muslim girl who filmed the assault and served as a witness was asked to whom she showed the film and what organization she was serving. After the soft-spoken girl broke down in tears, the prosecutor stated: “The reason you are here today is because you want him to become a martyr.”

This changed the whole mood of the trial. Afterwards, another eyewitness was grilled regarding his affiliation with the Green Party and was asked if the party’s belief in self-defense included killing innocent people?

Al-Awda New York circulated a notice entitled, “Dire Verdict for Michael Williams in Self-Defense Against Anti-Muslim Bigot,” which states:

“Michael’s conviction – despite unchallenged evidence of self-defense – reflects the prosecution’s orchestrated campaign to punish and intimidate those who dare stand up for Palestinian rights and against racist attack. Over the repeated objection of attorney Lamis Deek, the prosecution was permitted to introduce grossly prejudicial anti-Muslim rhetoric against defense witnesses, one of whom was even questioned about his opposition to a US war with Iran. During deliberations, the court refused to answer juror’s questions about the law of self-defense. Thus, Michael and the young girls he defended have been double victimized in this case; First by a racist attack on January 11, 2011, and then by an unfair and politically motivated witch-hunt in the courts. The resulting conviction is a dire threat not only to Michael, but to all Muslims, communities of color, and social justice activists.”

Williams expressed to TMO his total confusion as to how and why this was happening to him. Of Irish and Italian descent, married with two children, Williams speaks with a thick Boston accent. He is not the kind of person one normally expects to find as a defendant in such a highly biased trial. He is better known to his community as an activist with the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades than for his views on the Middle East. Like most ordinary Americans, he remains largely unaware of pro-Palestine activist campaigns whether local or international. At that moment when he hit the man back, who had just swiped him in the face, he was acting as an American, doing what any other self-assured American man would be expected to do in the same situation. He kept on asking me, “What did I do? What have I done that was so wrong?”

Perhaps the most dangerous thing of all to the powers that be is when ordinary working class people start asking questions like those of Michael Williams: “What’s wrong with giving money to schools? Why can’t Gaza have a baseball field? How come I can buy an ice cream for my children but I can’t buy an ice cream for a Palestinian child? How is our system throwing innocent people in jail, labeling them as terrorists? The DA and the judge lied about me. They broke the law.

How could this happen? Why couldn’t my lawyer defend my innocence when everything was on film? How could the jury believe such obviously fabricated charges? This is an injustice!”

“I should have the right to an opinion,” Williams continued. “If you sat down and talked to me, you wouldn’t find any violence or hate in me. I believe everyone should have food and water. I love Jewish people. I love Palestinian people. I’m content with my life. I enjoy life. I believe that the capitalist system should allow Palestinian people to work and do business. I don’t hate people. I love people.

God don’t need you to fight for Him. Capitalism and Socialism go in cycles. In the end, it all boils down to economics. Israel will have to negotiate labor. The world is not coming to an end.”

About two years ago Williams called into Michael Graham’s radio talk show and mentioned that in Israel, it is illegal for Jews to rent or sell property to non-Jews. “Do you think that’s right?” he simply asked. Later that month, the FBI came to his house and arrested him in front of his children for “threatening to commit a crime” and “harassing” the talk show host. After making him go to court ten times, where they accused him of hating homosexuals and wanting to establish an Islamic caliphate, they finally dropped the charges. Due to the current zealousness of the prosecution to tie Williams to some unnamed terrorist organization based on bizarre and unsubstantiated insinuations, some wonder if the drunk man might have been an undercover agent.

“In the end, everything will come out. Nobody can conspire against God. The truth will come out of darkness and into the light,” Williams philosophized, admitting that he feels very alone right now. He feels like his life is in limbo and that he has no control over his fate.

His family will be destroyed if he goes to jail. He feels that he is being used as a pawn, but he doesn’t know what the game is.

Congress Hears Testimony on Islamism

On June 16, the US House of Representatives held another panel on Radicalism in the Muslim-American community, sparking outrage that the probe is a witch hunt akin to the 1950s anti-Communist campaign. It is unfortunate that any Muslims at all participated in such a demeaning event. No Muslim representative should or could ever explain to some authority what Islam means to me, or to anyone else. Especially when the judges in this particular tribunal are guilty of mass murdering Muslims in various countries via unprovoked war and war funding.

The Congressional discussions were premised on the obnoxious assumption that al Qaeda committed 9/11, and that al Qaeda is stepping up its efforts to recruit Americans for jihad using prison chaplains and the internet. My guess is that the 5% of Muslims said to hold positive views of al Qaeda are referring to their role in helping the US defeat the USSR, and do not believe that al Qaeda had anything to do with 9/11, like many Americans. During the Reagan era, the Afghans were referred to–by non-Muslims–as “freedom fighters,” not “terrorists.”

What American officials don’t understand, is that when Muslim-Americans talk about extremists in our mosques, we are talking about people who have narrow-minded viewpoints on things. For example, when I tried to publish an article questioning the farming background of Islamically slaughtered livestock in my local mosque’s newsletter, several local business owners intervened to prevent the publication of my article. So yes, every community organization has people who behave in a controlling way. They don’t like people who criticize or disagree with them. They don’t even like people who agree with them too loudly.

This is not the same thing as being guilty of terrorism.

“The greatest threat (to America) … is actually a theopolitical ideology that is hijacking my faith: … Islamism,” Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy told the House Homeland Security Committee hearing chaired by Rep. Peter T. King, New York Republican. Mainstream American Muslim groups are “in denial” about extremism, “claiming victimization,” Jasser said.

I am in total agreement that Islamism is the worship of Islam, while true Islam is the worship of God. What Muslim-Americans don’t seem to understand, though, is that when the US Congress asks you whether or not you are an “extremist,” they mean: Do you accept Israel as a Jewish State?

Zuhdi Jasser, who served as the primary expert witness for this panel, and has connections with famous Islamophobes such as Robert Spencer, has made a career of trying to force pro-Israel and pro-war viewpoints on the Muslim-American public. According to Wikipedia, “Jasser is an outspoken supporter of Israel, and believes that Muslim organizations and leaders need to be held to a litmus test to see whether they recognize Israel as a state, specifically condemn groups such as Hamas and al Qaeda, and governments such as the Saudi and Syrian dictatorships. ‘If they don’t … then you have to wonder where their allegiances are,’ said Jasser.”

Jasser is a Syrian-American. So basically, it sounds like he is saying, if you are from an Arab country, and you are not working with the US to overthrow your former government, then you don’t belong here. Given the intimidation of Muslim intellectuals regarding the pro-Israel litmus test, a Muslim-American activist or politician can’t be considered “moderate” unless they accept Israel as a Jewish State.

Jasser and the US government are actually creating a boundary between Muslim-Americans and their fellow Americans, preventing meaningful political interaction. They talk about “democracy,” but what they really fear is that Muslim-Americans will join their neighbors in political activism. Because no American wants to pay taxes to Israel.

It doesn’t matter if they are left wing or right wing. We all have bills to pay, we hate to see dead children, and giving money to Israel simply makes no sense.

As usual, the Muslims avoided the elephant in the room and debated between accusations of militancy and pleading innocence. Not a single person raised the issue of why Jewish-Americans are regularly sent to Israeli Army summer camp to help enforce a murderous racial apartheid no American would tolerate at home.

Opposing Israel makes perfect sense, if you’re an American. It has nothing to do with being Muslim. A future two-state solution is unlikely to happen, and even if so, it would involve the ethnic cleansing of the entire region and would probably be worse than anything we have ever seen before in Palestine. Remember, when India and Pakistan separated on religious grounds at the same time when Israel was created, 6 million people died as they were forced out of their homes to relocate in the religiously appropriate location.

Still, India has almost the largest Muslim population in the world, so the ethnic cleansing was entirely useless. It really makes no financial or moral sense to separate Jews and Muslims into separate governments.

The most American option, which would probably go over well with the majority of Americans, is an equal rights solution like eventually happened in the US and South Africa. This argument is so persuasive that there is really no rational counter-argument. This is why pro-Israel lobbyists are working very hard to tell Muslim-Americans that they should join the pro-Israel camp against the American people, by giving them the false story that they need to accept Zionism in order to be a socially acceptable member of society. Yes, friends.

It’s all about Israel. We Americans already know you are innocent of 9/11.

Israel Releases Player, Protests Continue

Palestinian soccer player Mahmoud Al-Sarsak (L) is greeted upon his arrival in Gaza City July 10, 2012. Israel released the Gaza soccer player on Tuesday in a deal to end his intermittent four-month hunger strike after he spent three years behind bars without being put on trial, officials said.


“I thank God and all the athletes in the world,” Mahmoud Sarsak told a Ma’an reporter as he was transferred to Shifa hospital in Gaza City for medical attention after being released in a “rapturous welcome” to relatives who were gathered in great celebration at the Palestinian side of the Israeli Erez crossing in northern Gaza on Tuesday. ESPN reports that “Islamic militants” fired rifles in the air in a rousing homecoming for a beloved member of the Palestinian national soccer team who was released by Israel after being held for three years in prison without charge, trial, or contact with his family.

South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, American author Alice Walker and others had chimed in to support his release. Sarsak, the jailed Gazan soccer star, freed on July 10, 2012 due to massive international attention, had been detained on his way to a national team match on the West Bank in 2009. While participating in a hunger strike by 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, Sarkar lost almost half of his body weight.

Shuaib Ahmed commented in the Morning Bark that “the world remains, as it always has been – hesitatingly observant.”

The Palestinian plight was brought to world attention by the campaign to free Sarsak. Palestinian National Team players are often blocked at checkpoints, jailed, or even killed. Sarkar’s arrest was part of a broader effort to degrade his “national team without a nation.”

British comedian Mark Steel joked in the UK’s Independent that the Palestinians “were employing that old terrorist tactic of becoming the national football team, then qualifying for the World Cup finals from where it’s a simple step to start an insurrection.”

Energetic protesters in the stands in Scotland added to the 8-0 humiliation of the Israeli national women’s team in a European championship match on June 17. The Israeli national anthem was also booed before kick-off. In Wales, Israel lost 5-0, and in France, protesters actually invaded the pitch to pressure Israel regarding Sarkar’s life.

An Israeli Embassy functionary responded that Sarsak was a terrorist and that calling him a “young Palestinian footballer” was “insulting to footballers.”

FIFPro, the international federation of professional footballers, stated that no other Palestinian footballers should have to go through what Sarsak has experienced. Yet there are two other Palestinian football stars held in indefinite detention, prevented from playing for Palestine.

President of the Palestinian Football Association, Jabril Rajoub, asked UEFA president Michel Platini to remember Olympic squad goalkeeper Omar Abu Rois and Ramallah player Mohammed Nimr, detained without charge by Israel.

“For athletes in Palestine, there is no real freedom of movement and the risks of being detained or even killed are always looming before their eyes.” Since Israel is in “direct violation of FIFA regulations and the International Olympic Charter,” Rajoub implored, “we ask Your Excellency to not give Israel the honour to host the next UEFA Under-21 Championship 2013.”

A similar plea was sent by 42 Palestinian football clubs based in Gaza, home to many of the world’s best football players.
Platini continues to ignore requests from concerned citizens, stating, “We cannot hold the Israeli Football Association responsible for the political situation in the region or for legal procedures in place in its country.”

What I want to understand is, if you knew that your country imprisoned a fellow athlete, how could you play for your country? I mean, given the obviousness of the treachery your playing would imply. How could any Israeli footballer, in good conscience, agree to play under these circumstances? And if you were an Israeli that chose to play, how should we look at you? Should we applaud your gains and cry for your losses, knowing that you didn’t care about simple obvious human rights issues regarding fellow players living close to you? Why are the Israeli teams not refusing to play another game? I would, if I were them.

For an explanation, let us look at the recent past.

In June, 2012, 12 year old Gazan Mamoun Hassouna was killed while playing football.

In 2011 Palestinian players flying in from a game in Thailand were prevented entry into the West Bank. Mohammed Samara and right back Majed Abusidu therefore missed the return game at home five days later.

In 2010, Gaza and West Bank winners had to postpone their cup final because the Gazan team was refused permission to travel. Also that year, Israel refused to allow six members of the Palestinian national team to travel from Gaza to Jordan for a match against Mauritania.

Ahmed Keshkesh was prevented from returning home for months.

During Operation Cast Lead in winter 2008-9, Israel was responsible for leveling much of Gaza including the Rafah National Stadium, and killing football players Ayman Alkurd, Shadi Sbakhe and Wajeh Moshate, as well as over 1400 other citizens.

In May 2008, the national team was not able to attend the AFC Challenge Cup, denying them qualification for the 2011 Asia Cup.

In 2006, Israeli missiles destroyed Gaza’s only football stadium.

Palestine had reached the top of their group in the qualifying rounds for the 2006 World Cup. They failed to qualify after the Israeli authorities refused permission for five key players to travel to a match against Uzbekistan in Qatar on September 7, 2005.

In 2005, while playing football, Ashraf Samir Ahmad Mussa and Khaled Fuad Sahker Ghanam, and Hassan Ahmad Khalil Abu Zeid, were shot dead by Israeli soldiers.

There are countless other such incidents. None of that is really news, just banality of evil. What is news is that international pressure freed one Palestinian prisoner. Dave Zirin reports in the Nation: “Not only does Sarsak live but the movement lives as well. It’s been strengthened by Sarsak’s survival and the revelation for many that the thankless, frustrating and often devastating work of international solidarity with political prisoners can actually work.”

Growth and Decay in Michigan’s Memory Lane

This summer, I packed my four kids into my Corolla and headed for the highway going south from Boston towards Michigan, where I was born and spent my first 28 years. Returning home was a very moving experience, both uplifting and disturbing.

Our first stop was Oak Tree Road in Iselin, New Jersey, where we bought cheap Indian trinkets and feasted on chickpeas, yogurt and fried bread. My daughter Iman and I knocked on the door of the tiny apartment where she was born at home in Piscataway eleven years ago and a kind Pakistani lady and her daughter let us come inside for a moment to look at the place. As we left, I burst into tears thinking of the years of our lives that seem to have vanished without a trace.

Not a lot had changed, but there was no one to visit, no familiar faces; just the ever-tender painful memories of a difficult yet sincere interracial marriage that ended in great loss nine years ago.

I told my children I would take them to the mosque if they wanted because we’d probably run into some of their relatives there, but they said no because they couldn’t even remember them. After learning that their favorite ice cream and candy store no longer existed, we agreed that there was no further reason to stop in New Jersey ever again.

When we arrived in Ann Arbor, Michigan the next day, I showed my children the Georgetown neighborhood where I grew up. While the cement structures I used to climb on as a toddler were still there, the shopping center where there used to be a Krogers, a drug store, a Hallmark gift shop, and a Chinese restaurant was all boarded up. The bank where I opened my first savings account as a child was empty and abandoned. I was not expecting Ann Arbor to look like Detroit! But the most remarkable change was the trees. When I was a kid I used to be able to see my best friend’s house from my porch. But now the pine trees are so huge that you cannot see across the street. While it is indisputably marvelous to see nature towering over one’s old home, it does create a troubling sense of the sheer irrelevance of America’s or perhaps humanity’s continued existence. Ann Arbor’s downtown still seemed to be thriving, and many of my old haunts like Orchid Lane, the Michigan Theater, and Jerusalem Garden were still there. I was startled to discover that there were two halal restaurants, one Indian and one Arab, located at the main intersection of State and Liberty Streets!

Then we took a trip to Detroit, where we stayed at the Duck and Roll Inn, a lovely three bedroom guest house with a duck farm in the backyard on the East Side on a street with many abandoned homes. The weather was scorching hot from a prolonged drought. As we visited in the garden with old friends from my old Wayne State University days, a brush fire across the street turned into a fifteen foot tall bonfire, and we watched lazily as the Detroit Fire Department eventually came and doused it with water. I felt a deep sense of time moving much more slowly than it does in Boston. It was a great relief to feel myself becoming myself again. It was so wonderful to be back among friends, who were practically competing for us to stay with them, even people I hadn’t seen in over 25 years.

Probably the most harrowing but important part of our journey was our visit to the Woodmere Cemetery in Detroit, where my first baby was buried 14 years ago. The Muslim section of the graveyard was almost entirely grown over. Thankfully, we found about four letters of my son’s name still visible beneath the brown, crispy grass. I knew the grave would need some cleanup but I was not expecting this level of neglect. My children and I ripped out grass for two hours, uncovering the stone. We poured the last of our drinking water over the gravestone and used twigs to clean out the mud from my son’s name and the dates of his short life. We worked until we were sick from heat exhaustion and completely filthy from the cemetery dirt. We planted a few wildflower seeds around his grave and prayed for rain, which actually did fall a couple days later. Oddly enough, I did not cry, but felt a deep sense of peace and satisfaction at having rescued my son’s grave from being overtaken by time. He is the only member of my family thus far to be buried in America, and the fact that his bones lay there in that terrible neighborhood with its burnt out buildings and vast expanses of desolation that was once a booming industry, provides me with a sense of permanency that does not exist on any other level in my life.

My family has all moved away from Michigan. All that remains are memories. It was incredibly healing to return to Ann Arbor to attend my high school reunion and to hug every single person that looked even vaguely familiar. For one weekend, I felt normal again. I went back to a time in the past when I knew who I was, and so did everybody else.

People in the Midwest are so polite and nice. All you have to do is look at them and they smile at you. My children wished we could stay there forever among friends, feeding the ducks in the pond, but I have no job there.

Back in Boston, for the past two days, I have experimented with trying to make eye contact and smile at people on the street without much success. They look right through me like I’m not there. Here in Boston, the weather is much milder and the health insurance is free, but people just make you feel so alone. Unless they perceive you as belonging to their socio-economic-political-racial status, they only talk to you if they are scolding you for something like if your bag accidentally brushed against them. When I lived in Michigan, I used to greet everybody and they were happy to greet me. These nine years I have lived in Boston, I have been deeply miserable. My summer vacation has taught me that it’s not my fault. I’m just a Michigan girl that somehow got lost like a leaf blowing in the wind.