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Some interesting happenings/reads:
A friend of mine pitched a segment on American Muslim women to KQED radio host Michael Krasny, which will be aired tomorrow (Tuesday, June 17th) from 10-11 am PST featuring other friends and acquaintances of mine from the SF Bay Area. Please tune in, call in with questions, or e-mail them to show your support of Muslim Women Entrepreneurs.
A re-broadcast of the show will be available online right afterwards, here.
Umm Layth has posted the Muslimahs Speak Up Carnival, featuring the excellent piece Being a Disabled Muslim Woman by Meghan Rose.
Meet the winner of the Danish Miss Headscarf contest.
Check out Eboo Patel’s take on Zaytuna Institute’s proposed first Islamic seminary in the US in Muslims and the Destiny of America.
Iranian-born American artist Seyed Alavi transforms East Bay utility boxes into eye-popping works of art.
Meet the incredible and inspiring paralyzed yoga instructor, Matthew Sanford.
How to publish your own photo mag at Photojojo.
Check out The Western Muslim - a magazine which “examines the weaving of the Muslim diaspora into the fabric of North American society through the lenses of politics, law, culture, religion, the arts and more.”
And finally, today’s poetry selection is a golden oldie from 1920.
Enjoy!
The Cool, Grey City of Love (San Francisco)
Tho I die on a distant strand,
And they give me a grave in that land,
Yet carry me back to my own city!
Carry me back to her grace and pity!
For I think I could not rest
Afar from her mighty breast.
She is fairer than others are
Whom they sing the beauty of.
Her heart is a song and a star–
My cool, grey city of love.
Tho they tear the rose from her brow,
To her is ever my vow;
Ever to her I give my duty–
First in rapture and first in beauty,
Wayward, passionate, brave,
Glad of the life God gave.
The sea-winds are her kiss,
And the sea-gull is her dove.
Cleanly and strong she is–
My cool, grey city of love.
The winds of the Future wait
At the iron walls of her Gate,
And the western ocean breaks in thunder,
And the western stars go slowly under,
And her gaze is ever West
In the dream of her young unrest.
Her sea is a voice that calls,
And her star a voice above,
And her wind a voice on her walls–
My cool, grey city of love.
Tho they stay her feet at the dance,
In her is the far romance.
Under the rain of winter falling,
Vine and rose will await recalling.
Tho the dark be cold and blind,
Yet her sea-fog’s touch is kind,
And her mightier caress
Is joy and the pain thereof;
And great is thy tenderness,
O cool, grey city of love!
- By George Sterling
This is one of my favorite Christian prayers, which a friend just reminded me of today. I think about the second line often.
I’m off to sunny Disneyland for the weekend with two nieces and two nephews, all under the age of six, including Mani’s son. Life moves on, and yet every time I look at him I am reminded.
Have a beautiful weekend!
St. Theresa’s Prayer
May today there be peace within.
May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.
May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.
May you be content knowing you are a child of God.
Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom
to sing, dance, praise and love.
It is there for each and every one of us.
My post Veneer is up at other matters.
Lesson
The green leaf opens and the leaf falls,
each branch is a flame
that gives in to fire;
and grief is the price
we pay for love,
and the death of love
the fee of all desire.
—
Robin Robertson is from the northeast coast of Scotland. His third collection, Swithering, received the 2006 Forward Poetry prize.
The BBC has a short news video on a “Miss Headscarf” fashion contest for women (Muslim or not) who send in a photo of themselves wearing a headscarf and the surrounding controversy on the contest.
While I agree that it is a mark of voluntary modesty, the analogy between nuns and Muslim women who wear the headscarf only goes so far. I also thinks it shows, yet again, that women choose to wear it for many different reasons.
I love beautiful and stylish clothes but feel that so much if it is inappropriate to wear as a practicing Muslim woman. It certainly isn’t easy to make modest clothing stylish to Western eyes like mine, but Dubai-based fashion designer Rabia Z is giving it a shot. My bet is that we’ll see a lot more Muslim women designers trying their hand at it in the next few years, especially in the US and Europe.
Rabia Z was named Dubai Fashion Week’s “Emerging Talent Winner” and is also the winner of the British Council’s “Young Entrepreneur of the Gulf” award. She says, “I want to make modesty look beautiful and also show a more beautiful side of Islam in media…I want my designs to be a bridge between practicing Muslims and non-practicing. You don’t always have to show skin to look beautiful: you can look beautiful and remain covered at the same time.”
If you know of other designers (Muslim or not) who are designing beautiful and modest clothing, please do share.
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