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I’m traveling to NYC and Atlanta today for two conferences, including Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow.
I’m very excited to meet some sensational bloggers including those from Spirit21, Muslimah Media Watch, AltMuslim, It’s My Life and others!
Of course, being from the cool gray pearl of San Francisco, I have nothing to wear once the weather gets over 80 degrees, so the next 8 days should be interesting!
One of my favorite writers is back!
Go forth and bask in his profound and charming mind.
Rachel of Velveteen Rabbi has exquisite and incisive insights.
Judaism and Islam are closely related and I loved reading her take on taharah and tumah (purity/impurity) and the ways in which it corresponds to our concepts of tahara and hadath.
(Just as in Judaism, Islamic notions of purity and impurity are not judgments about one’s personal value.)
Although I spent my teen years in Pakistan I had little interest in classical music, deeming it for parental listening only. Once I went off to college in the US, I discovered and embraced my roots, as many of us do when given the choice.
My favorite memory of Iqbal Bano is sitting in the NYC apartment that my newly-out friend shared with his flatmates.
He said, “You’ve got to listen to this tape my Dad just sent me from Lahore.”
He popped the tape into the deck and there she was, her voice melting away the heat and din of New York, transporting us to a room where people sat against cushions on the floor listening to poetry, their appreciative “Wah! Wah!” studding the cool night like stars.
Her voice was a bridge between the home we had left behind forever, and the place to which we did not yet completely belong.
May God grant her the joy of His Visage and the peace of His Presence, ameen.
inna lillahi wa inna illeyhi raji’oun - We belong to God, and to Him is our return
—
Related:
ATP’s Payaal mein geet hain – a celebration of her life
And Iqbal Bano’s famous rendition of Faiz’ Ahmed Faizs poem Hum Dekhenge (click here for translation and transliteration):
A Pakistani boy waits for his ration at a food distribution in Islamabad.
This broke my heart.
Especially as I’m working out constantly these days to keep the easy calories of the land of plenty off of my hips. The imbalance between that and his situation just seems so wrong.
I like Anokhi’s limited edition block-print scarves in breathable fabrics and pretty designs.
I wish their gorgeous clothes were available in the US too.
I had the pleasure and honor of meeting dear Brother Irving recently and he told me a wonderful story about the beard of love which we should all wear, male or female. Read more at his blog.
Meeting him I was surprised by his deep and resonant voice which seems created to declaim poetry. It also reminded me of the whale in Finding Nemo, a rumbling voice one could ride down into waters of deep stillness inside oneself.
Mash’Allah, the beauty one sees on his blog is amplified a hundred times when meeting our dear brother and his wife in person. May God bless and amplify their light and kindness, ameen.
In other readings, Timothy reminds me that heavier spiritual lifting is required so that my prayers don’t turn into empty shells that dissolve into dust at the merest touch.
And Brother Naeem sparks a lively and honest conversation in Am I a Sexist Jerk.
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