Recently I logged into my email to find a photo of a relative’s baby posing with a furry little bunny looking back at me. The baby was beautiful and the bunny was…well, cute as a bunny. But the photo disturbed me because the baby sat smiling next to the Easter Bunny. The baby is Muslim and the Easter Bunny, well, not so much. But the Easter picture was a drop in the bucket compared to the ire Christmas brings to my heart.
Read More
*The names in this article have been changed for privacy purposes.
I recently received a disturbing call from a former client’s wife informing me that her husband had passed on a few months prior. My heart sank. While serving as Adam’s attorney, I had developed an unlikely friendship with this particular client. Although his documents gave no description of Adam other than “drug addict,” it did not take me long to discover that he was a floundering but pure soul whose shortcomings belied his innate goodness.
Read MoreRecently, Nausheena Ahmed wrote a piece entitled “Hard question, simple answer,” in which she claimed that if we wish for our children to find and marry Muslim spouses, we must integrate them into the local Muslim community from an early age. While I too would want my future children to marry partners who share their faith, and I understand that we tend to marry within the groups we are most entrenched in, I would argue that this end goal demands a more rigorous examination.
Read More“Noni, Mami has a prayer shirt, and I have a prayer hat. Don’t you have one?” That’s how my mother discovered I had converted to Islam. I had been praying the five daily prayers for three months, and my four-year-old finally found a way to communicate my new habit. Certainly not my planned reveal, but it was fitting that he, an innocent child, had shared the news, perhaps softening the blow.
Read MoreMany years ago at my sister’s wedding, I overheard a conversation between my father and one of his old friends. The friend asked my father how he had managed to marry off his two daughters to two good Muslim men when the friend couldn’t persuade his own three grown children to even attend a mosque function. He confided that he had despaired of his children ever finding Muslim mates or remaining within the Muslim faith.
Read MoreWhen we met each other three years ago over french-fries at a classy late night McDonald’s hangout, we had no idea we would be embarking together on a humble but hopeful journey to create a safe space for survivors of sexual violence. Motivated by our own personal traumas and the similar experiences of many of our friends, we decided that shaking out heads in dismay at horrifying news articles wasn’t enough. We wanted to start a larger conversation.
Read More“He (Musa) said: ‘Oh my Lord! Expand my breast for me and make my affair easy to me, and loose the knot from my tongue (that) they may understand my word … (Quran 20:25:28)”
One and a half years ago, I took the plunge and began sharing our son’s life lived with autism, my struggles with keeping strong in my Islamic faith and residing at this intersection of faith and autism. With a post on Ramadan Despair, I shared what was then my lowest point, and I had no purpose in laying bare our struggle other than I was tired of feeling alone.
Once upon a time, mosques were places where one could find God. Both men and women could meet and mingle with the fellow faithful, find refuge from the daily hectic-ness of life, and, perhaps most importantly, find peace. Given many women’s unpleasant experiences in mosques these days, one wonders if such peace and unconditional compassion ever even existed in mosques.
Read MoreAlthough I had stood up to my atheist boyfriend when he had spoken disparagingly about Islam, I did not return to my childhood faith in the months or even years that followed. The anger and bitterness I felt towards my Creator for the sexual abuse I had endured as a child had set down deep, gnarled roots in my heart, roots that could not be pulled out overnight. But an overwhelming desire to earn God’s forgiveness had now also begun to bud alongside those dark emotions.
Read MoreThere it was, the Holy Ka’ba, right in front of me. I pressed my palms and forehead against the cool stone, my whole body overwhelmed with the desire for Allah’s forgiveness, love. After a long period of darkness in my life, I finally believed that I would receive it.
I had struggled in my relationship with Allah almost my entire life. I had never doubted that God is merciful and loving. I did not believe, however, that I would be the recipient of His mercy, because I felt sure I did not deserve it.
Read More