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my cats
Friday night family zikr with subtitles
I felt grief and zikr bubbling up inside me. So our little family and cat gathered for a circle tonight. It was lovely; I felt Presence. We sent love and sawab to all the shuhada, and prayed for all our flourishing and freedom — from Palestine to the Amazon and Xinjiang.
My Chishti Sabri silsila does loud zikr and I follow the usual pattern my pir set. But today I interspersed occasional rhythmic English formulae: La ilaha illallah mixed with the occasional there is no god but Allah, no beloved but Allah, there is no goal but Allah, there is no one but Allah. And starting rabbuna Allah, hasbunallah, and tawakkaltu Allah with the translations.
White spouse and browncasian child appreciated the inclusion, and indeed so did I. It does help me reach all the corners of the words when I travel through Arabic, Urdu, English, and Persian.
hu.
the taste of propaganda lies
Over the past two months, I’ve read a number of exposés discrediting numerous Israeli propaganda campaigns. I’ve come to realize that most people in the world do not even spend time wrestling with racist fabrications about Palestinians. They know what colonizers do.
Debunking happens pretty easily, almost immediately, and no one is actually surprised. Except for Zionists and their sympathizers, no one takes that propaganda seriously. The taste of the lie exposes it.
Prison break
I want the United States and Europe out of the region out of all our lands. Wherever they show up with their pasty faces, their doublespeak, their bottomless greed, everything turns to shit. The whole SWANA region is ablaze with old and new Euro/US/Israeli fires.
It is unbearable that Palestinians are so horribly, constantly vulnerable to the absolute worst violence, death, dispossession in their own land. We must stop waiting for validation of what we know to be true: That Palestine must be free. We must all be free.
The architects of our captivity, the builders of our prisons will never validate our freedom. Their NY Times, their CNN, their ICC, their BBC, their EU, their universities, their authorities will never willingly stamp our papers of emancipation. It must be a prison break.
keyboard warrior
On the day of judgement, Muslims believe our body parts will bear witness to the good/bad actions they did.
I’m at the point where my finger-tips will say “we boosted a lot of good causes on the internet” and the other body parts will be like “yeah, we got nothing”
Dying kings, crumbling crowns Bring them down, burn it down
furniture
I have bought many kinds of furniture as an adult. But nothing will ever match the wonder and excitement of being an independent professional woman for the first time in 1991, and buying cane furniture from the new shops in Rawalpindi. Nothing will match the power and choice of surveying the cane products and being able to afford a nice bookshelf, and arriving proudly with my beautiful new-found property, a simple cane bookshelf, at the International Islamic University hostel in F-8, Islamabad.
Gaza genocide
I don’t know where to put my horror.
I make myself useful. I share information with my networks. I troll Biden and Blinken. I crack dark dry jokes.
Everything falls flat. I have nothing left.
My head is pounding with unreleased, unresolved horror. It has nowhere to go.
I am constantly imploding.
I have no tears. Haven’t cried. I’m in shock.
I don’t know whether to scream about the babies who have no legs or the fathers who are burying their daughters or the heroes who were killed while buying bread.
Live to see the end of the whole damn thing. Shut it down.
Sainted women
I love this beautiful image that includes the names of the revered women, Asiya (the wife of the Pharoah), Maryam / Mary, Khadijah, and Fatimah رضي الله عنهن
Shared by Prof. Alan Godlas, who also shared the commentary.
Center: (Hadith) Paradise is under the feet of the mothers!
Bottom: (Qur’an, Surat al-Hujurat 49:12) Indeed, we have created you from male and female
Calligraphed by Mithat Topaç: H. 1444 / M. 2022-2023 in the Nesih, Sülüs, Celi Sülüs scripts.
Illumination and geometric designs done by Hacer Topbaş Jamini
H. 1444 / M. 2023 Tezhip (Zencerek), Geometrik Tasarım.
Original image from
https://ketebe.org/eser/8122?ref=artworks
Shabana Mir's blog: Koonj - the crane 