Words: Ground Zero Mosque vs. Cordoba House.

Sometimes I so want to not have to write about the things I write about. I think there is a poem or song lyrics somewhere about that. I am seriously disturbed at the recent fight over the "Ground Zero Mosque". So upset that I have't been able to write about it at all. But I have to, so here I go.

The idea that someone would have actually coined the term "Ground Zero Mosque" is just nauseating. Even I, who still hold the belief that chickens came home to roost that catastrophic morning of 9/11, am unnerved by the term. The actual name of the center is Cordoba House, and the Muslims who want to build it have been praying in the building that is currently there for quite some time. And it is not at ground zero. According to Matt Sledge's article (below) it is blocks away. The name Cordoba House is an interesting choice because, against Islamophobic wishes to change history, Cordoba in Spain was the capital of the Islamic caliphate that in the 10th and 11th century was one of the most advanced cities in the world with people of different religions coexisting peacefully. I am positive it is no mistake that the Muslims who want to build this new center in NYC chose that name very intentionally. While many people, including Mayor Bloomberg, get that, the haters out there currently led by Pat Robertson, have brought a lawsuit against the group to try to prevent the Islamic center from being built. To them I say, what would Jesus do? And, I'm all I can to say to the ADL's response is...grrrrr.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matt-sledge/just-how-far-is-the-groun_b_660585.html

Book on Somali Muslim women by....a Somali Muslim Woman!

Two sentences in an interview on Muslimah Media Watch made me want to read Yasmeen Maxamuud's book "Nomad Diaries":

Interviewer: "The influence of Islam remains in the background of the women’s experience within the novel, where the influence is a sustaining force and not oppressive in nature"

and:

Maxamuud: "If one believes the portrayals one sees in the Western media, one will come away thinking African Muslim women are weak and desperate and oppressed with no voice."

Sometimes it is really hard to remember that other women feel this way when faced daily with the worldwide Islamophobic media blitz. And, this book and it's focus are what my blog is all about, writing and Muslim women. Yay!

http://muslimahmediawatch.org/2010/07/an-interview-with-yasmeen-maxamuud/

http://www.amazon.com/Nomad-Diaries-Yasmeen-Maxamuud/dp/0970858736 

Modern conundrum for the conscientious Muslimah.

I <3 Sheikh Hamza Yusuf. I have followed him for years and years. Today I received an email from his organization, Zaytuna, advertising that if I donated a certain amount of money each month I would qualify to win an Umrah trip with Sheikh Hamza and Imam Zaid Shakir. Umrah is the "lesser" pilgrimage to Mecca, one that can be done any time of year, as opposed to the big Kahuna Hajj, which is performed during a certain time of year with millions of other Muslims. 

About 12 years ago I had a small inheritance from my grandmother and decided that I would like to go to Mecca on Umrah. I was a single female Muslim, and as an American convert I had no male family members to go with me which is a rule for Umrah according to many jurists. Also, the Saudi government will not let an unaccompanied woman into Mecca, so that is a problem also. The Hajj requires no such chaperone because it is obligatory for all Muslims if they can afford to go once in their lifetime, therefore, not King Saud nor all the members of the Saudi Royal Family could stop me from Hajj, but Umrah is a different case...

At the time, I wrote to Sheikh Hamza and asked him if this rule (having a male family member chaperone me) applied to converts like myself that couldn't come up with said dude. He wrote back personally telling me I could not go since it was not obligatory. I was sad, but at that time I still believed that these guys knew the "rules" better then me...

SO, now I have once again written Sheikh Hamza to ask if I will be automatically disqualified from his offer since I still have no male Muslim family member to chaperone me. Sounds like discrimination, no? We shall find out. 

Again, violence against women is...

A worldwide problem. Thanks Amnesty International for listing 3 countries as examples of violence against women and only 1 of them was an Islamic country. And for giving us an opportunity to help.

http://www.amnestyusa.org/emails/S1007A01.html

Please, not "Women's rights in Islam" again.

I decided this morning after yet another article about "women's rights in Islam" that I am sick of this buying into the idea that women are oppressed by "Islam". My slogan (taken from a poem of mine) is, "Islam does not oppress women, men do". I can not say enough how the religion of Islam (the Quran and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad) do not allow or teach oppression of women. There is substantial proof that the famous "beat your wife" verse has been mistakenly patriarchalized through misinterpretaion for centuries now, likewise, it is even being admitted by scholars more and more that there is no requirement for women to cover their heads (the mis-translated verse says for women to cover their "envelope" which means cleavage), even the verse which supposedly says a man has a degree (of power or whatever) above his wife doesn't say that. The word "rajal" simply means provider, therefore, when I was a single parent I was rajal in my family. The link below is to a thoughtful article about the burqa ban and why the various "reasons" it should be banned are flawed. Thank you Martha Nussbaum. And Allahu Akbar.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/veiled-threats/