activism

Last weekend I celebrated the Prophet's mawlid at Wrestlemania in Detroit.   It was the most perfect Wrestlemania weekend in all eternity, it must have been for the Prophet's sake.  I met my beloved Sabu.  I saw the Sheik inducted to the hall of fame.  We had 14th row ringside seats.  Now who but God could arrange that?  I walked around wide-eyed saying, alhamdolelah, over and over.  I put on hijab to meet Sabu at a photo-op event.  I thought it would be a good way to make introductions faster.  Hey, I am wearing a scarf, guess who I am?  When I walked up to him, he bowed slightly and said, "Assalamu alaykum."  He was dressed in a suit with his "I am an Arab-Muslim Heel" headdress on.  I returned his salams and asked to take a picture with him alone. He grabbed me and said in my ear, "Let's take this somewhere private." I replied, "Let's go. I'm a good Muslim girl, but not that good." He and I chatted some more, he gave me a hug and I was on my way.  Unfortunately, I did not find a slip of paper with his room number in my pocket. 

Sorry Ahmed; sorrry Jawad; sorry Pamela. But, I have to call it the way I see it. My first introduction to Progressive Islam was almost magical back towards the end of 2003. I was reminded of the captivation I felt by reading the resignation letter of the MCC board:

that many progressives believe there is a way to create a space in our umma that is welcoming to both the marginalized members of our community and the rest. We believe that the umma can nurture this. It was the Prophet's intent. The very people that the more conservative umma marginalize from the masjids, the Prophet himself had as company in his own home. We believe the umma can encompass us all. We believe the umma can talk about its very serious problems in ways that are beneficial to us all. We believe we can take action against the most serious problems in our communities in a beautiful way that transforms us all towards the good.

With each article I read, I knew I had finally found an expression to feelings which gnawed at me for so long: there was a third voice, one which would accept my positions and explorations of what it meant to be Muslim in the West and the Modern World without demanding self-censorship or dogmatic adherance to some manufactured orthodoxy. I drunk it all up.

I'll never claim my position, or lack of it, is noble. But I respect people enough not to decieve them by following some sort of party line and tell them something I don't mean just for the sake of showing a compassion I simply don't have much of. Accuse me of being undermature, fine. But, when I see my baby looking at me with sad eyes out of hunger, I feel compassion. As far as things that are abstract to me, its much harder. Perhaps its the cold calculations of cost-benefit, the absolute source of apathy. However sorrowful it may be, I think the reality is that there are many more people like me than not. People complain that the media feeds people not to care about certain issues designated as vital by $nefarious_force (insert world evil here).