Posted in academic on October 19, 2007 | 19 Comments »
For several years, before they get access to tenure and those coveted lazy summers, academics are unpaid concubines.
First, the academic spends years in the limbo of graduate student life. Depending on her area, she could easily spend up to a decade in a PhD. During most of that period, s/he will usually be discouraged from [...]
Posted in Pakistan on October 19, 2007 | No Comments »
Please say a prayer for the innocent victims of the blasts in Karachi. I can’t say anything right now so please just see Chapati Mystery for details.
Posted in Uncategorized on October 16, 2007 | 14 Comments »
Note: I started this poem on Eid day when I found myself sitting on the deck alone in the afternoon (we live in a small community and it’s hard getting a group together). If you don’t find your name mentioned in this poem, don’t be surprised. It was probably for the lack of a rhyme.
__________________________________________
I [...]
Posted in Islam, USA on October 12, 2007 | 10 Comments »
It appears to be Eid today in the Atlanta and Athens area. We found out late this morning (as the Eid congregational prayers at the Athens mosque were ending), since we’d been following both ISNA announcements and moonsighting.com. Now, I don’t know what reasons led to Eid in the Atlanta area, and I don’t [...]
Posted in Islam, USA, political on October 11, 2007 | 2 Comments »
Read Etaraz’s piece The Myth of Muslim Condemnation at the Huffington Post.
Excerpt:
“Second, heaping an expectation on Muslims - to call out “their” criminals - is absurd when no similar expectation is placed on any other religious, ethnic, or ideological group. Is it appropriate for a white man to tell “the hispanics” to make proclamations against [...]
Posted in USA, cultural, race on October 11, 2007 | 4 Comments »
This is hilarious: almost helps make up for the many many times I’ve had to sit through Hollywood depictions of the wonderful, white person who helps rescue the Blacks, the Latino/as and the funny looking people all over the world. His heroic Whiteness absorbs all their colour, her pretty Anglo-ness provides an always superior backdrop [...]
Posted in religion on October 4, 2007 | 9 Comments »
This was also posted at United Press International’s Religion & Spirituality page.
———————————————
Everything I do is based on text.
Everything I do is religious.
Everything I am is Qur’anic.
I am nothing except an embodied religion.
Non-Muslims are “people.” Whole, complicated, ethnic, contextual, diverse, multidimensional.
Christians are human beings. Muslims, however, are solid religion. There are no spaces in a Muslim [...]
Posted in Urdu, children on October 3, 2007 | 11 Comments »
I showed Raihana a spider yesterday and called it “makree” (in Urdu). Because I was trying to occupy her and keep her in the high chair for a meal, I had a brief conversation with her about the makree. In part this was because the makree gave me the heebie-jeebies something awful: this was no [...]
Posted in Islam on October 3, 2007 | 1 Comment »
Tonight is the night of the 21st of Ramzan. This is the first of the odd-numbered nights in the final ten during which it’s particularly recommended to pray.
Posted in children on October 2, 2007 | 8 Comments »
Raihana has started to look very much like a big kid, as in, toddler not baby. As she should, because today she turned 18 months old. I’ve tried not to compare her and yet have compared her to other kids her age, and I believe she’s started to look a little bigger than she is [...]
