“[My mother] had handed down respect for the possibilities—and the will to grasp them.” – Alice Walker Today has been a strange day. It feels like one of those lifetimes where heaviness burdens you everywhere you go and shrouds everything you do. I still haven't arrived at a satisfactory narrative for this recurrent feeling, but … Continue reading Dear Mama
[This is the first of four instalments of my MA thesis "Transcending Idiosyncrasy: An Investigation into the Appropriation of Islām by Muslims", submitted to the Islamic College for Advanced Studies in collaboration with Middlesex University in September 2015]. "May God veil you from the exterior of the religious law, and may he reveal to you the reality of … Continue reading Transcending Idiosyncrasy: The Appropriation of Islām by Muslims
Submission. 'Islām'. Submission isn't necessarily about rituals, prophetic missions, institutional constructs, and religious directives. In fact, to be pronouncedly bold here, submission has little to do with the above at all. In its widest, most universal, and truly human sense, submission describes an attitude whereby one accepts, embraces, and confronts one's feelings, one's wounds, one's conflicts (internal and external), one's … Continue reading On submission
"If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever" - George Orwell The man wearing a penguin-shaped beanie rhythmically beat the cardboard box with an empty Lucozade bottle, the other blew into a poorly harmonica connected through a cord to a megaphone to amplify the sound. They sat on the cold … Continue reading Animal conditioning
"The self-assured believer is a greater sinner in the eyes of God than the troubled disbeliever" - Søren KierkegaardI was sneered at with pity, frowned upon with telling eyes that bequeathed a sense of "you're in need of reform” when I once entered a room brimming with hijab-clad women. Such instances used to unlatch a deep sense of insecurity back when … Continue reading Unplugged
