Don't Ask Me About 9/11.

"Islam is the religion of peace," has been the slogan on the lips of every Muslim American confronted by non-Muslims over the subject of Islam, terrorism, and 9/11. I know everyone is tired of talking about 9/11 but I have an important point to make, so hear me out. The utility of the saying is in its implication that those employing violence are not Muslim. Yes, the word Islam means "peaceful surrender" but does that make Islam the religion of peace, theoretically or otherwise? While Islam does not preach violence in the name of Islam, it also does not preach non-violence thereof. In fact, though judiciousness is a prerequisite, violence is commanded as a means of self preservation. In this context, saying, "Islam is a religion of peace," is just an inadequate defense to an unjust, racist accusation.

The intended audience of 9/11, was, in fact, supposed to include American Muslims for the same reason that Muslims feel compelled to disavow violence. It was a message to all Muslims, especially young Muslims, encouraging them out of lives of "humiliation" and into violent jihad against The West. Long story short, al-Qaeda protests the feeling that Muslims need to say, "Islam is a religion of peace," and would rather have us blow everyone, including ourselves, to pieces. However, the purveyors of al-Qaeda's message and those who openly received it, are just as oppressive as the circumstances they reject, if not more so, and towards their own people. This makes sense, since there is no hope, positivity, or compassion in their message, not to mention that it injudiciously condones violence. Summarily, though it took about ten years, al-Qaeda's message has been definitively rejected by Muslims around the world. Surprisingly, American (read: George Bush's) anti-Islam and European anti-multiculturalism's (which are really the same thing) "you're either with us or against us" sentiment has been much closer to al-Qaeda's message than anything any God fearing, sanity appreciating Muslim believes. (1)

In America, how do us American Muslims reconcile al-Qaeda's message and the American anti-Islam sentiment, both of which draw a black and white picture of east and west, specifically Islam and the west with our undeniably Muslim and irrefutably American lives? To do so by retreating into either Islam or western life styles would only prove the distinction correct, not to mention prove that we are cowards. But what happens when people say things like, "Islam is the religion of peace," which is nearly as misleading as saying it is the religion of violence, to answer the question, "Are you with us or against us?"

To that question, which is rarely asked directly, I see no way to choose either option. The gut response from me comes in the form of more questions. Questions like: Who are you and what army is "us"? Do you know how many Muslims there are in America? How many died in WTC? Did you know there were Muslims in America before 9/11 brought it to your attention? Did you know there were Muslims at all before 9/11? Do you have any Muslim friends? Were you with or against Timothy McVeigh? Did your ancestors own slaves? Did your ancestors drive Native Americans off their land? Do you believe in witches? What the HELL do you think gives YOU the right to ask ME that question?

Maybe that's a little passive-aggressive. It would probably be best to simply say, "You have no right to ask me that question." Either that or just walk away.

It's not a matter of making sure your hands are clean before you point your finger, it's just the fact that you are pointing a finger. I have no qualms with honest questions about Islam. If you want to talk about religion, I'd be more than happy to participate. Muslim Americans, myself included, have chosen to take up the responsibility of creating forums for people who want to know more about Islam. But if you approach me randomly and it has anything to do with violence (or patriarchy) I don't have sit around and have you patronize me.

Back when no one knew why 9/11 happened, it would have been perfectly acceptable for a Muslim to say, "Listen, I have no idea what's happening either and honestly, I'm pretty scared, too. All I know is that this has nothing to do with my faith," and answer any questions about Islam with anything other than, "Islam is a religion of peace," said to absolve the guilt put there by the accuser/"questioner." But now that everyone with any modicum of responsibility should know better, it is absolutely unacceptable to demean a Muslim American and make them feel guilty or responsible about anything 9/11 related by even asking them about it. If you do, al-Qaeda's message could be seen as reasonable and the world we live in is a terrible place.

Finally, though I know she might never see this, I'd like to thank my co-worker Christina for the solidarity today. I really appreciated that.


(1) Aslan, Reza. "The Fire This Time: The Long Term Effects of 9/11." Los Angeles Review of Books, September 9, 2011. http://lareviewofbooks.org/post/9988565795/the-fire-this-time

Beauty Standards: Elitism and Skin Color

Since I was young, my mother compared my complexion to that of my paler sister and warned me not to get too much sun exposure. She made it a given that lighter skin was beautiful. Though I argued that tans fade, she said sun destroys the skin, so lighter skin became more than a beauty standard, it became a marker of an appreciation of beauty as well. She even mused over whether, among my white friends, my darker skin would lead to my being overlooked. I don't really blame my mom and her views didn't stop me from loving the warm sun on my skin or laughing when my white friends complained that I made them look ghostly pale, but I was surprised to learn that it has become a trend among paler South Asian girls to go tanning.

To provide contrast, I had an experience recently in the "ethnic hair section" at the store, where surprised to find skin lightening products alongside the olive oil shampoo I'd gone there to find. It's not surprising that skin lightening products exist. Fair and Lovely, an ayurvedic "treatment" for dark or uneven skin tone is big in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. I have heard horror stories of women who used more aggressive means to lighten their skin. My surprise came from my unawareness of the extent to which the standard of whiteness as beauty is prevalent in black culture.

From what I understand, in most cultures, the beauty that is associated with paleness is as an elitist beauty standard. Women of higher classes maintained their prized paleness as a mark of the privilege of not having to work or even go outside if they so chose.

In American slavery, lighter skin color lead to household jobs rather than fieldwork. If a black woman was light enough, depending on where she was, her freedom might even be purchased by a doting white man. Across the board, the illegitimate children of white masters and their black slaves, tended to receive better treatment, as though the whiteness of their philandering fathers made their blackness somewhat forgivable. Again, lightness was an elitist standard enforced though the system of slavery by those in power. It can even be argued that the elitism of skin pigmentation lead to the enslavement of Africans, whose darker skin color made it seem like they were made for manual labor.

Later, the tan was adopted by Europeans and Americans as a mark of imperial life, exotic vacations, and leisurely sun bathing. Though it was a more accessible standard of beauty, the favorable tan did not come from fieldwork, which is still derisively called a farmer's tan or being a redneck. Since fieldwork had largely been replaced by office work, the tan indicated the privilege of relaxation that separated white collar work from blue collar work.

In Islam, though elitism often goes unacknowledged in its perpetuation, there is a prevalent interpretation suggesting that beauty is equivalent with whiteness. In Qur'an and Woman, by Amina Wadud, Dr. Wadud explains the highest beauty is that of a face aglow with the "noor," which means light, of angelic faith. Another contribution to this beauty standard comes from that of the ethereal houri, creatures of heaven who are described as being beyond human in height, having transparent, glowing skin, and virginal bodies that do not age. Both the concept of "noor" and the houri in beauty standards have lead to beauty standards akin with white beauty standards, which Dr. Wadud dismisses due to its inconsideration for black beauty. 

Now with all this in consideration, going back to the tanning of pale South Asian girls, I am interested in where their motivation to do so is from. I have also seen black women obviously tanning themselves at the beach. Though I don't think it comes from an urge to uphold my mother's beauty standards, I am inclined to be critical of this practice. At first, I thought it might be a defiance of the beauty standard that is still prevalent in Bollywood. However, other enduring standards are those of elitism and western luxury, the later of which is especially endorsed by western residing and western educated South Asians.

In India, there is fierce enmity between the wealthy who uphold Bollywood standards and those who uphold western standards. In America, there is similar dissent between wealthy blacks who emulate old money standards and those who choose the flashy expression of new money. Though I'm not sure under which standard black tanners associate themselves, but South Asians in America likely propagate western standards of luxury. Either way, tanning is probably an expression of elitist standards that is definitely laced, ironically, with white/western beauty standards.

Long before I stopped being relieved when my sports tan finally faded and learned to enjoy the color of my skin, I felt slighted by the existence of standards of color and knew that no one should judge others or even themselves by a standard so superficial. Of course, the standard is not superficial in that it's steeped in elitism.

This doesn't mean I'm going to stop enjoying the sun. There is work being to done to prevent what has been called "shadeism." I think my views fall more toward the prevention of children growing up with so much stock in any standards of beauty at all. Sure, the pursuit of such standards, if successful, lead to confidence in one's image. But what people don't realize is that it's the confidence that's beautiful, not the image. So, since I'm not one for the abolition of all standards, rather than the pursuit of beauty standards, which seem rather insecure in their exclusivity alone, how about something more positive that anyone willing can achieve, something that understands difference and can't be evaluated with so little regard? What that might be is probably best left for you to decide.

The Miseducation of Me

Yesterday, I started working as a clerk at the public library. In a library, organization is very important. Things are classified a certain way and need to be kept accordingly so they can easily be located when needed. When something slips through the cracks of the obsessive structure of order, due to human error or subterfuge, it is tracked down and the situation is cleanly rectified.

Having studied post-colonial and vernacular English Literature, Gender Studies, and Philosophy in college, I am not trained to put things in a preordained order. I'm trained to question order. I'm trained to analyze, deconstruct, and reassess as exhaustively as possible and I am trained to defend as innovative a reassessment as I possibly can.

I wasn't really made for that sort of training. I'm a South Asian immigrant, I am a Muslim, I am a woman, and I am poor. College was a training that mostly sees the world for its disorder and dissonance. Despite the questioning of order, believe it or not, it is hard to avoid Western, patriarchal*, elitist values, since they are the values that get an American college its credibility. I at least attended a Catholic University that wore its Christian values on its sleeve and did not worship secularism.

While college helped me see my place in society, which I had previously felt I was lacking and that I needed to work hard and be creative to earn, it is a place in society where I increasingly feel like I am trespassing, a place I cannot earn no matter how hard I work. But it's a place that is rightfully mine. My college degree mostly made me painfully aware of the possibility that I struggle in futility. This is not something I am willing to easily accept.

Questioning order is infinitely constructive for the privileged, for people that order benefits. But of course they are the least likely to do so. That leaves it for those who order has forsaken. But after a certain point, for those that order has forsaken and has left to question it, all order becomes an enemy, life becomes meaningless and their questions become a threat to no one but themselves. This becomes a sort of order itself, created and supported by human error and subterfuge. It is unsettling to realize that you are not of the former group, though you've been a confident, straight "A" student your whole life, when you are in the middle of college.

I have to believe that order can be good. I have to see it. When a library patron is scanning a shelf that I ensured was organized, when someone comes in for something and I know exactly where it is, when I can learn from my mistakes rather than feel like everything I do is a mistake, it helps me feel that I can earn my place as a positive aspect of a constructive order.

Obviously, I don't think the objective way that libraries are ordered is a way that people can be ordered because people are not objects and what is just for objects is not just for subjects. Order should contain justice because a belief in order requires a belief in justice. This belief in justice is apparent in religion, and so religion has been called "The opium of the masses," and "slave mentality," Marx and Nietzsche respectively, for it's support of unjust order through a belief in cosmic justice. But that's what's called "blaming the victim," in my book, and it's ridiculous to blame disenfranchised people who can empower themselves by believing in any greater order.

So as it turns out, not all minimum wage jobs are soul-crushing.



*You can be a patriarchal feminist. You probably are one if you think matriarchal societies and lesbians are all feminists. Chew on that now.

Bengali Lessons

I is ami, rhyming with yummy.
You is thumi, rhyming with Rumi.

In Bengali, there are object pronouns.
As tu turns into te in Spanish,
thumi turns into thomakay,
which kind of sounds like stomachache.

Bhalo, in Bengali, means good.
It means satisfactory, proper, right,
well, nice.

Basha, in Bengali, means house or home
or where you're from.
My father uses the variation bari, when he speaks Bengali,
because up north in Rajshahi they speak Proper Bengali.
Rajshahi is officially
amar bari.
My ammu uses basha
because it's easier
on her southern dialect.
And by south, I mean Bhola,
which is a place
where I was born.

When we put the words together
for good
and
for home
we get the word for love: bhalobasha.

Bhalobasha is the noun and the root
that, when conjugated for ami,
is bhalobashi.

When we put the words together
(for good
and
for home)
Ami thomakay bhalobashi.

What does it mean to be a Muslim feminist?

In a previous post, I referenced a "theory" that the perceived Islamic patriarchy as it stands today was largely a relic of colonialism. The Emel Magazine article's author goes on to say that whether or not this is true, simple finger-pointing to the West does not absolve the fact of what is, which, specific to this article, is the denunciation of early Islamic female scholarship. The post-colonial theory is used to explain why few, including Islamic scholars, are aware of the female scholarship revivified in Dr. Akram Nadwi's canon.

In Islam, and particularly in certain schools of thought, the examples of people, both Muslim and non-Muslim, living around the time of the Prophet(SAW) strongly influence religious interpretation and practice.  So, though the Quran directly invokes that all believers-- men, women, children and everyone in between, are both literate, requiring that they can read and understand the Quran, and seek knowledge in the wider world, if there is no prevalent example of this among the early believers, it is believed by many to be a lesser aspect of Islamic practice. If there are only examples among the men and not among everyone else, it is believed to be an aspect of practice prescribed primarily, if not exclusively, to men.

Before Islam, the women of the Arabian peninsula could be treated as like chattel as were livestock. Not all women were treated this way-- as can be understood from the example of the prophet's first wife, Khadija, who was a successful and respected businesswoman, but there was nothing that prevented it. Islamic jurisprudence, called Sharia, drastically changed this, primarily by giving women the right to literacy, divorce and the inheritance of property. This was more than one thousand years before western countries began to conceptualize rights equivalent to those Islam brought to women. However, the post-colonialist theory is that, even before this, Western domination of Islamic countries brought with it the domination of Muslim women by Muslim men.

I am extremely interested in how this happened. Social change, especially that which entitles previously disempowered groups, is usually adopted gradually and embraced far after enacted legal reform. But how can such a long held reform been so pervasively swept away? Though the author of "The Lost Female Scholars of Islam" discourages finger-pointing for the sake of moving beyond such, I believe the fact that enough female scholarship to fill 40 volumes can have been lost under imperialism and colonialism demonstrates not only the sheer extent of cultural domination that happened but also a certain readiness to return to old habits.

As a teenager, I came across feminist discourse on the internet. This was before the prevalence of radical feminism and what I encountered, specifically the fact that the ERA is yet to be enacted, is what has been classified as first wave feminism. I was shocked by it and immediately identified myself as a feminist. Next, I found second wave feminism and the discussion of gender in college classrooms. What interested me the most about second wave feminism was the call to female scholarship for the purpose of social change. Knowledge, before then, had been so gendered for me that I usually assumed that most things I read were written by men and, in fact, didn't think anything of it. My encounter with second wave feminism changed that. Finally, I came upon belle hooks and the idea that American feminism is about white, middle class women.

This was the most difficult feminism for me to understand, and is probably so for most people who are socialized with the dominant white, middle class American culture. When American feminists rose up against the oppression of women in Islam, I felt distanced from both feminism and the treatment of women in Islam. I tried to read works by Islamic feminists. They usually called for feminist interpretations of the Quran. However, the imposition of American feminism (western, white, middle class feminism) upon the Quran did not feel right to me. It wasn't something I could bring home to my mom, who is both very religious and believes in women's rights. However, there are Islamic feminists, who by the American definition are third wave or multicultural feminists, and the tradition of female scholarship in Islam and its contribution to Islamic thought provides a framework from which Islamic feminism can be understood as an inherent part of Islam and more widely accepted by Muslims.Though second wavers may not necessarily concede to Islamic feminism, it's not really any of their business to do so.

9/11: 10 Years Since And It's Time for A Muslim President

Good afternoon, my fellow Americans.
Well, actually, I should be honest,
I’m not an American citizen.
I’m a permanent resident, by chance,
patiently awaiting citizenship since I was a child of two.
But, please, hear me out:

Imagine me,
ten years ago,
seventh grade gym class,
the teacher comes in late,
interrupting my musings
over whether my sneakers made my feet look big,
saying, to the other teacher,
“No, they need to know.”

We fall silent.
He says,
“Guys, a plane flew into the Twin Towers
down in New York. It’s really bad.”

Imagine,
the words meant nothing to me.
I didn’t hear anything else he said.
Gym class moved through its usual motions.
As the day went on, I saw it on TV.
A friend of mine said he was worried
because his dad worked nearby.
As the day went on,
I wrote a poem, watching the second plane,
for the thousandth time.

Later, I was asked to read it at a school assembly.
I was nervous, but that day, I understood I had a responsibility.
I joined the school newspaper
to answer questions from people I didn’t know.
Was I was related to Osama bin Laden?
Did I have explosives hidden in my basement?
Did I believe in Jesus Christ?

The next year,
I joined school government and was elected into office.
The next year,
a friend told me she wanted to be trusted and,
in an act of self preservation,
shed her most protective layer; her hijab.

The next year,
I wrote poem after poem,
trying to understand.
The next year, I began volunteering in my community.

The next year, I watched Fahrenheit 9/11,
and completely distracted from Michael Moore’s snark
by the violent war imagery,
I cried like a baby.
The next year,
I became a media junkie,
holding my breath at every Muslim name,
praying to God,
that this person
was someone like me.
The next year,
my teachers chose me
for the Frederick Douglas and Susan B. Anthony Award.

The next year,
I went to college.
I wanted to study civil rights
and this made my parents very nervous.
The next year, Barak Obama was elected
and my mom said,
“May God protect him.”

The next year,
I wanted to be a writer,
but I didn’t want to write about exotic food,
or men with beards and guns,
or women who were a pair of kohl darkened eyes.

Last year,
some people demonstrated against the construction of a community center,
because it would house the prayer of Islam,
prayer of, in English, peaceful surrender,
which they believed could taint the sanctity
of the nearby sacred space known as Ground Zero.

The Pew Poll found, this year,
Muslims are the most diverse religious group in America,
the most optimistic religious group,
and a group as loyal to America as they are to their religion.
This year, a GOP hopeful said on television
that any Muslim serving under him
would have to take a special loyalty oath.

I read somewhere,
that you aren’t culturally considered American
unless your family has been here at least two generations before your birth.
Every morning, all through school,
I pledged allegiance to the flag
Of the United States of America,
And to the Republic, for which it stands,
One nation, under God,
With liberty, and justice for all.

I’d like to thank you, my fellow Americans,
who’ve been as good on their pledge as I have.

Am I a Social Schizophreniac?

When academics say that growing up with a mixed cultural background is like having schizophrenia, I always thought the statement was a little dramatic. Over the past few years, I've begun to see their point.

I was raised as a Bengali, by immigrant parents. My mom, like many moms, strongly believed in socializing my sister and I. Until very recently, there was nothing that mortified my mother like a socially inappropriate blunder made by one of her children. Given that my mother is also kinda prude, I'm going to blame British imperialism for this one.

The thing is, my mom isn't exactly an anglophile. In fact, she has no respect for the British. She sums up her feelings about them by reminding me that, when they engaged in hand to hand combat with Hindus, they dipped their bayonets in cow fat and when the adversary was Muslim, pig fat. It wasn't enough to colonize or kill Indians, the British wanted to spiritually taint them for standing up for themselves. It is one thing to subject people to your rule and entirely another to poison them spiritually.

So,  I was socialized with a British value of socialization, and the rest of my home socialization is largely reflective of Bengali social practices, right? Wrong. I have always known Bengali social practice is highly influenced by Islamic social practice and the Islamic Empire (two separate sets of ideals) but I am still learning the extent to which colonialism had its hand in the mix. For example, there is a theory that the custom of female leadership and scholarship in Islam may have been lost in interactions with the Western world.


Until recently, I was able to maintain my Bengali socialization at home while socializing myself to school and work environments with simultaneous adeptness. By the time I visited Bangladesh and realized how Americanized I am, I had solidified my doubts over the value of my mother's social values in my own life. (Though my family was hardly lower middle class at it's social "peak," another value to which my mother ascribed,  that may have also come from India's days as England's crown jewel, as Jane Austen can tell you, was a reverence for the upper class.) However, I had also already gone away to college and realized that in my sheltered childhood, I had, ironically, failed to become American enough.


Though my mother's value of proper social behavior instilled in me a heightened awareness of social norms and a desire to shirk them, if need be, as quietly as possible, this happened at such a young age that socialization and social values are so deep for me that it's difficult for me to recognize anything more than a vague conception of them without very deep contemplation. When they are in flux,  I am divided between existential crisis and maintenance of my social status quo on top of being divided between the conflicting social values I encounter. On the other hand, only the instability I experience in it has lead me to realize that appropriate socialization is an integral part of me that allows me function normally.


So I suppose a lack of appropriate socialization, then, is a mental illness? I really need to read me some more Michel Foucault, apparently.