Once, the Prophet ﷺ kissed Hasan in front of a Qurayshi man, who reacted in dismay. “I have ten children, but I have never kissed any one of them,” the man said, a reflection of a society and age where children were thought of as objects and mere sources of prestige. The response of the Prophet ﷺ was simple: “Whoever is not merciful to others will not be treated mercifully.” In other hadith, the Prophet ﷺ made this point even more explicitly about young people, saying “Whoever does not show mercy to our young ones, or acknowledge the rights of our elders, is not one of us.” The Prophet ﷺ had exceptional moral vision and clarity in many ways, all while existing amid an incredibly harsh and repressive society. His treatment of children and the young is just one example of this; treatment that was full of care and genuine concern for the well-being and humanity of the young in an age which dehumanized them and thought of having children in entirely utilitarian terms. The Prophet ﷺ exemplified this regard for the young in his conduct, a shining model of those who are older not regarding themselves as somehow superior by virtue of age alone. 

Today, more than 13,000 children in Gaza have been killed by Israeli bombardment, and those left behind face conditions of famine and the destruction of educational and medical infrastructure that will impact them for the rest of their lives. And yet, much of the world seems to sit idly by, exhibiting no real sense of compassion or empathy for their plight, let alone doing anything about it: like in the time of the Prophet ﷺ, children are being regarded as having no value and are relegated to being mere casualty numbers and objects for news reports. Understanding the Prophetic practice of caring for the young feels particularly vital today then, as we find ourselves in the face of a genocide that dehumanizes and destroys the lives of children. In these conditions of crisis, the ummah must seriously ask ourselves whether we are, like the Prophet ﷺ, standing against this culture of disregarding children or are we acquiescing to the culture of dehumanization around us? Why are we failing to live up to the example of intense care and valuing of youth given by the Prophet ﷺ? Are we sincerely striving to honor the children of our ummah, to be a mercy to them, and make them feel important and empowered? 

The Ummah’s Children in Contemporary Art 

These questions of how we hear children’s voices in times of crisis have taken on a dramatic, three-dimensional form on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in its most recent Roof Garden Commission. Standing on the roof, looking out over the view of Central Park and the City’s famous skyline, one’s vision is interrupted by large, cartoon-like metal renderings of spiders, birds, flowers, and a wide range of other imagery and symbols. 

These sculptures are, at least on the surface, the work of Kosovar artist Petrit Halilaj, but their real authorship becomes more complicated when considering Halilaj’s source material. If Halilaj’s work appears whimsical or childlike, it is because it is: the sculptures on the roof garden are based on children’s drawings and writings on desks from the school in Halilaj’s hometown of Runik, Kosovo, and from across Albania and the former Yugoslavia. In Abetare, the title of the Met exhibit taken from the title of a Kosovar alphabet textbook, and in other works like Very volcanic over this green feather based on his own childhood drawings from his time in a refugee camp, Halilaj draws on the work and imagination of children to ask serious questions about history, trauma, and memory. 

Children As Witnesses and Historians 

Kosovo is perhaps a forgotten chapter in the history of the ummah for many Muslims: the Balkans do not often figure into people’s imagination of what is considered the “Muslim world,” even if over 95% of Kosovo’s population is Muslim. However, what Halilaj’s work makes clear is that the rest of the ummah, the ostensible adults in the room, may fail to remember and mourn the ethnic cleansing of Kosovar Muslims, the over one million people displaced by a genocidal Serbian regime, or the entire villages and histories erased. But the children of Kosovo will not forget. The example of the Prophet ﷺ is not just to care for young people, but to actively entrust them with knowledge and responsibility, such as his appointment of the teenager Usama Ibn Zayd as a general to lead other prominent sahaba, and Halilaj’s artwork is evidence of this tradition of the youth of the ummah stepping into roles with great stakes.

An exhibit from Halilaj’s ‘Abetare’ at the MET

These doodles on desks are not, after all, just doodles: they are fragments of history, archives of conflict, genocide, and migration produced through the unique vision and imagination of the young.

As the exhibit’s wall text describes, “In Abetare, culturally specific references to different political ideologies, religions, and local heroes coexist with more universal symbols and playful nods to pop culture, art history, and sports,” meaning there is a deep significance to these drawings as a record of Kosovo’s powerful history.

Far from mere drawings, these cultural productions show the active role of young people in knowledge production, in preserving memory, and in defining the meaning of important moments. Intuitively, one might associate the past with the old, but Halilaj’s elevation of childhood drawings to the prestigious walls of the Met reminds us that the process of bearing witness knows no age limit. When we learn to recognize the young as historical actors, we see the deep consciousness, imagination, and courage that infuses their acts of witnessing, the assertion of a presence “here” that cannot be ignored. 

Witnessing Our Children 

These are not merely speculative thoughts about art though: we are seeing the deeply practical significance of Halilaj’s work before our eyes, as the children of Gaza continue the tradition of the young bearing witness. Every day, so much of the material that alerts the rest of the world to what is happening in Gaza is produced by the young; videos of children testifying to what is happening and showing the world the resilience of the Palestinian people have been a constant online. What Halilaj’s work can make clear for us, as witnesses to these witnesses, is that the young people who take on this work of memory are not idle victims. Rather, they are the active producers of history, of memory and meaning, and the question for us becomes how we will honor their agency and force as historical agents. Writing on the shared etymology of witness and martyr in Arabic, University of Chicago Islamic Studies Professor Alireza Doostdar draws on the work of Islamic philosopher Ali Shariati to point to the responsibility of those left behind to the memory of the martyr:

“For Shariati, every death on the path of God was an act of witnessing with one’s life, whereby one declares one’s commitment to the truth before God and human history. Shariati thought it paramount to include humanity as the audience for a martyr’s act of witness (along with God) because he believed that the martyr’s truth was a message meant to be communicated to others so that they could in turn receive and act upon it. The martyr/witness offers testimony with her or his life not only for the sake of salvation, but also to enable others to receive the truth, and, in turn, bear witness.” 

Halilaj’s work reminds us of this responsibility we have to bear witness to the children of Gaza bearing witness. Their brave acts of witnessing are incomplete unless we have the moral fortitude and insight to recognize the significance of what they are doing. Let us learn from Halilaj’s work on Kosovo so that we might achieve that recognition now, while the situation cannot be more urgent, rather than waiting 30 years for a museum to do it for us. 

[Petri Halilaj: Abetare is on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through October 27th. Admission to the exhibit is included with a Museum ticket.]

Related:

– Oped: The Treachery Of Spreading Bosnia Genocide Denial In The Muslim Community

– Real-Time Scholasticide: The War On Education In Gaza

The post Centering The Children Of The Ummah – Artist Petrit Halilaj’s Work On Kosovo Resonates In The Moment Of Palestine appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

Finding Solace in the Names of Allah

Pottery has long been a space of therapy, worship, and contemplation in my life. It makes sense then, after enduring a sustained experience of anti-Muslim bigotry, in the context of decades of dehumanization and violence against Muslims and other targeted communities, I turned to the clay to remember that which keeps me centered and reminds me of who I want to be regardless of the behavior of others. I also had to do some soul searching about how I landed in that job in the first place. 

I sculpted 99 clay vessels to represent the 99 names of God in Islam, known as Asma Al-Husna (The Beautiful Names), a collection of aspirational characteristics that we contemplate and recite as worship. The 99 embody the Islamic principle of tawhid, or monotheism, the diversity of all encapsulated in the One. I chose the simplicity of the pinch pot as a primordial vessel which represents our bodies as vessels of the soul, that which is sacred and unique to each of us, a vessel inscribed with our own divine message and purpose. I also chose pinch pots because it was outside of my typical art practice as a wheel thrower, so I wanted to create vessels that pushed the boundaries of my own identity to signify my love of learning and my ability to grow out of the challenges that inspired the creation of this artwork. 

I pit fired the vessels, a low-tech process where we bury the pots in a simple box  constructed with loose bricks and feed the fire with wood for a number of hours. I chose this firing process because it produces dramatic marks that perfectly mirror images of the cosmos. This project is a visual reminder that we are a microcosm of the macrocosm, we are manifestations of the 99 names, and we are each beautifully created and worthy of respect and dignity. The entire process was an attempt to embody and enact a sacredness that was defiled in the way I was treated by my bigoted co-workers. 

I had a few ideas about how I wanted the vessels to live in the world, namely to have 99 Muslim women hold the pots while reciting the 99 names of God, known as dhikr, or remembrance, which is a powerful ritual of affirmation. But I got busy with life and then the global Covid-19 pandemic dashed any hope of sharing the vessels in a crowded public setting. 

One day, while working at my dining room table, I faced the half-wall of glass shelves where the 99 vessels were stored. They called out to me, “why are we sitting on a shelf in this cabinet when we should be sharing the gifts we shared with you?” I was inspired but feeling stuck by what sharing might look like, so I got in conversation with my art community at Red Dirt Studio in Mount Rainier, Maryland, an incubator of multimedia artists founded by clay artist, soil lover, and community organizer Margaret Boozer in 1996. 

After a productive critique, I reached out to Homayra Ziad, one of my colleagues in the aforesaid interfaith organization. After an anti-Palestinian smear campaign precipitated by a MuslimMatters article calling out efforts by the Shalom Hartman Institute to fund a cadre of non-Palestinian Muslims to ridicule and justify the occupation of Palestine, Homayra left the organization to direct the Islamic Studies Program at Johns Hopkins University. As a scholar of Islamic spiritual traditions, she offered to curate a collection of 99 Muslim authored poems that use clay, fire, and water as metaphors of spiritual transformation, another healing resource in the project, rooted in Islamic traditions. 

Putting Together The Muslim Women Storytelling Project

We then reached out to Sabrina N’Diaye, a psychotherapist and healer based in Baltimore who facilitates storytelling workshops all over the world with communities that have experienced trauma. She designed a three-day, ten-hour online workshop for groups of 11 Muslim women (to numerically align with the 99), an opportunity to reflect on experiences of trauma or heartbreak that come up for them in the workshop, which consists of multiple dialogue and writing prompts, interspersed with contemplative readings of specific characteristics included in the 99 names that surface in the conversation. 

As women identify a story that inspires them, we ask them to think about the art form they will use to share it on the 99clayvessels.com website. The role of artmaking in this project is to channel our creative potential as a practice of restoration. Making things with our hands fuels our imagination, opening possibilities about how we continue our healing by crafting a story that leaves us with a visual reminder of that transformative potential. In the sharing and releasing of these memories as individuals in community, we fuel the creation of a story, the channeling of Al Khaliq, The Creator, a definitive act of taking ownership over our own experiences and our representation. The storytelling workshops in this project are a celebration of Muslim women’s diverse self-expression, experiences, identities, and power.

The Muslim women participants all identify as social justice activists and advocates in different disciplines, connecting the personal and political struggle for justice. Importantly, not all the stories are outward facing, but include stories of intra-Muslim discrimination based on gender, sexuality, ethnicity, race, and class discrimination which is intensified or reinforced in the context of Islamophobia. We make space in this project for women to share any experiences of bigotry, including bigotry perpetrated by other Muslims, to honor the reality that experiences of bigotry are not discrete and cannot be easily demarcated and categorized. Capturing complex and intersectional stories allows for a greater breadth and depth of understanding of Muslim women’s experiences. The storytelling workshop participant lists evolved organically from personal contacts, who then suggested friends and colleagues, and continuously grew from each conversation with each participant. We are also working in collaboration with Muslim women-led nonprofits to offer workshops tailored to the communities they serve.

StoryTelling Begins

Our first storytelling workshop started in late May 2021 and over 60 women participated in the six workshops we offered so far. The accumulating artwork and stories provide a rich collage of experiences and perspectives. For example, Aseelah Rashid, an entrepreneur, interfaith leader, justice advocate and trained fashion designer, created a Letterman’s jacket that she wishes she had in 1oth grade to protect her from a respected teacher who ridiculed Aseelah’s religion. DJ Kiran, also known as Darakshan Raja, co-founder and co-director of Justice For Muslims Collective, a organization that focuses on fighting Islamophobia and building power among Muslim communities with a focus on the Greater Washington region, created a playlist of music as an expression of her passion to cultivate joy through music. Rahmah A. Abdulaleem, Executive Director of KARAMAH: Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights, wrote a talk back poem inspired by anti-slavery activist Sojourner Truth’s 1851 speech,  Ain’t I A Woman. Rahmah’s Ain’t I A Muslim Woman poem, offers a pointed critique of the way she is treated as a Black Muslim woman from Muslims who do not respect Black contributions to Islamic thought and practice in the U.S. In the latest cohort centered around the Asma Al Husna: Al Rahman and Al Raheem, Muslimmatters editor-in-chief Hena Zuberi wrote about her marriage, activism and finding herself. “The workshop really forces us look deep at why we do the work that we do and what is blocking us from taking the next steps in our j0urney,” says Hena. 

In addition to the 99 clay vessels, I also created a story about the woman who victimized me in the interfaith organization inspired by the Quranic verse, “God is closer to you than your jugular vein.” 

The project is ongoing as we still have four more storytelling workshops to complete to collect all 99 stories. The website will also eventually include a commissioned art video recitation of the 99 names of God by Salihah (Sasa) Aakil, a multimedia artist and writer. My final dream for the project is to gather a group of 99 Muslim women to practice a recitation of the 99 names over a series of months and then, as part of a larger exhibition of all the stories, perform the dhikr live, each woman holding one of the 99 vessels, as a final culminating celebration. The completed website of visual art, vocal recitation, and poetry serves as an ongoing online art exhibition, healing resource, publicly accessible learning tool, and historical archive, a beautiful heartfelt testament to the power of that which connects us to each another, the Oneness of It All. 

The post 99 Clay Vessels: The Muslim Women Storytelling Project appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

How can I justify saying this? Well, lets take any other aspect of life that you are definitely not bored by. The latest Star Wars movie perhaps, Super Bowl 50 or all 7 Harry Potter books. Anything at all. Odds are that you can remember a lot about them in vivid detail. But if you’re asked the same thing about pretty much any aspect of Islamic history, the details are likely to be nowhere near as clear or captivating.

Outsold by the story of a wizard kid by a factor of a Million to 1

Relax. For once, it is not your fault.

Islamic history is the poor cousin of the Islamic sciences. It can often be poorly taught, poorly understood and even more poorly preserved. The blame for this partly falls on the shoulders of the Islamic historians themselves. Apart from some notable exceptions, many Islamic history books are dreary affairs over-filled with numbers, dates and exceptionally long names of individuals who sound very similar.

It is not that Islamic history itself is boring. On the contrary, I would make the case that no other history is as palpitation inducing, full of giddy highs and dramatic – seemingly bottomless – lows. However, even the most amazing thriller can go from awe to yawn if the main focus is on the factual details rather than the story itself.

If the Dark Knight was described like your average text on Islamic history

In 2007 Deborah Small at the Wharton School of Business conducted an experiment to see how people would react to a charity campaign that was presented primarily using facts and figures as compared to the same campaign presented as a story. The outcome wasn’t even close. Stories trump stats every time. Or, as Stalin would say “The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.” He should know. He was kind of an expert on the subject.

Hipster Stalin – now he’s taken things too far.

In fact, we don’t need to look to modern research to prove this. The Quran itself is full of stories and lessons, but short on details. How many animals made it on to the Ark? Where exactly did Khidr live? What was the name of the Pharoah that was the arch-nemesis of Musa ? The lack of facts and figures detracts nothing from the power of these stories and their ability to inspire and transform those hearing them.

Allah was explicit on this point when it came to the stories of the Companions of the Cave. Allah admonishes those who debate on the exact number of those in the cave saying “Now some say they were three and the fourth one is their dog and some will say they were five and the sixth one is their dog, guessing randomly at the unseen.” It is unfortunate that we don’t heed this lesson when it comes to how we teach our own Islamic history.

From “Made to stick” by Chip and Dan Heath

Maya Angelou said ‘I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.’ If we want our Islamic history to be relevant and life-changing, we need to put away the facts and figures and bring out the monsters and legends.

The post Stats not Stories: Problems with our Islamic History appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

It was the day after the second Paris attack. Our local Muslim school sent parents a text-message telling them that security guards would flank the school gates the next day. Messages were flying around, complete with fuzzy CCTV footage of Muslim women who had been verbally or physically attacked in public places, in the climate of hatred and fear that seemed to hang like a cloud over us.

My sons, proudly wear traditional garments (thobe and white skullcap) when going to certain classes at the Mosque. It is the uniform for their Qur’an class. It’s of course not obligatory for them to wear it but they normally do. They were about to set out and catch a bus when a sense of dread came over me as I realised how vulnerable they looked and how so visibly ‘Muslim’. People had been fed a drip diet of negativity surrounding Islam and Muslims. The heinous crimes of some of our co-religionists, playing on 24-hour news channels had contributed to that climate. It would only take one angry person…

In that moment I considered telling my sons to pop their jeans on instead, reserving their traditional garb for when they were safely inside the mosque. In that moment I was terrified at the power I wielded as a parent to influence their mindset with a word I might utter. And in that moment, I bit my tongue and decided to choose Tawakkul and empowerment and banish victimhood and fear.

There was no real danger. Most of our fellow citizens are not full of hatred. Most of them do know a Muslim well enough to know better. I believe much of the fear-mongering that goes on in Muslim circles, is manufactured and perpetuated by people continuously forwarding unconfirmed scare stories to one another (or perhaps people infiltrating our lists and groups, maliciously intending to spread panic).

In the aftermath of these attacks it’s important to continue living as you normally live day to day as much as possible and since my sons usually do wear these clothes to the mosque without issue, I didn’t want to introduce the idea of hiding being a Muslim to them.

It’s not about fanatically holding onto garments. Indeed if there is real and present danger we should take the precautions necessary and should not put our children at high risk. However, this was about the attitude we seek to instil in the next generation of Believers.

Over the Channel in France, with its aggressive secularism, it has become commonplace for many Muslims to hide their Islam. Britain’s Muslims, including my sons, are confident and very comfortable expressing our faith and culture, Alhamdulillah. This is home and we aren’t guests here. The vast majority of our compatriots are respectful towards us and, especially in the vibrant melting-pot that is London, we have grown up together, laughed, cried, learned and played together. We grew up being told to express our culture and be ourselves.

In the 80s racists used to abuse us for having a different skin colour – which we couldn’t hide. They would hurl insults at my mother for observing hijab. That overt racism is largely gone. But the point is this: Our parents didn’t persevere through the tough times that they faced, only for our generation to lie down as soon as we face some pressure!

By all means let us teach our children to take the normal precautions any child should. Teaching them the very powerful duas and supplications for going outside as well as the du’a when facing fear, and the du’a for resolve, were my first port of call.^[1] But I refuse to instil cowardice in their hearts and will continue to teach them to hold their heads up high as Muslims in a world where their faith is misrepresented.

I see parenting as a calling. Children are the ultimate carriers of our values beyond our own short lives. Most of us still hear our mothers’ voices in our heads, giving us the occasion telling-off or reminding us to do the right thing. Most of us subconsciously ask ourselves what dad would have done. We may of course reassess some of those values, rejecting some and adapting others. However, a parent’s attitude and philosophy of life is no doubt a most powerful factor in setting a child’s direction in the world.

So how will I be teaching my children to respond to anti-Muslim hatred? What do I hope their attitude will be, growing up in 21st Century Britain?

The key messages I will be giving my children are:

First: Have faith in Allah’s plan. Our tradition teaches us that everything, however difficult it may be for us to understand, happens for a reason and happens by the will of God. It teaches us that through Sabr – patiently persevering upon the straight path, through hard work and prayer, we will see the fruits of our efforts.

Second: Never be afraid to be different. Some of the greatest people in history went against the grain. They were immensely unpopular and often persecuted. In the end, their unwavering, patient, perseverance for justice shone through. We have an example of that in the great messengers of God such as Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, peace be upon them. And in recent times we have the likes of Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X – who fought injustice, were persecuted or killed for their cause, but morally triumphant as eventually the world caught up with them.

Third: Be politically engaged. Outrage at injustices around the world is natural. But how you allow that to manifest itself is pivotal. The Qur’an tells us that we must live up to being “the best people extracted for the sake of humanity.” The conditions for being amongst the best of people are that we must enjoin the good, beginning with ourselves and forbid what is wrong and have faith in God. Loving ones country means sometimes holding a mirror up to it and with wisdom, speaking truth to power.

Fourth: Be socially engaged. Contribute and give to society positively with all your heart and with all of your talents. Serve your neighbours, serve your fellow citizens. The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ would go the extra mile to reach out to people and fulfil their needs, to feed, to clothe, to share a burden. He never encouraged us to live in ghettos, happy with our own piety. Mixing with people, sharing, caring, giving, getting involved with the issues of society is his example and your duty.

Fifth: Seek deeper knowledge of scripture from traditional scholars who are also forward-thinking. The Qur’an has a context to it. Reading ones own interpretations into it willy nilly gives a warped understanding. We see the catastrophic effects of that in lands where injustice is being justified by ignorant Twitter and Facebook muftis interpreting revelation. Our tradition is rich, it gave birth to one of the greatest civilisations in history. Don’t be rash. Don’t be a hothead. The energy of youth needs to be tempered by the wisdom of scholars and elders. Our faith needs a generation of leaders who have depth of understanding and a wealth of wisdom in order to traverse the murky waters that may lay ahead. Be that generation.

^[1] Some of the supplications can be found in du’a books and on the website: http://www.makedua.com/ . A couple of examples are:

بِسْمِ اللهِ ، تَوَكَّلْتُ عَلَى اللهِ وَلَا حَوْلَ وَلَا قُوَّةَ إِلَّا بِاللهِ

“In the name of Allah, I place my trust in Allah and there is no might nor power except with Allah.”

The Prophet ﷺ told us, when we say this, an angel will say: “you shall be defended, protected and guided”. (Abu Dawud)

And this wonderful du’a which every one of us should memorise! It is protection from facing ignorance or harm when going out! Make sure your kids have memorised it!

اللَّهُمَّ إني أَعُوذُ بِكَ أَنْ أَضِلَّ أَوْ أُضَلَّ ، أَوْ أَزِلَّ أَوْ أُزَلَّ ، أَوْ أَظْلِمَ أَوْ أُظْلَمَ ، أَوْ أَجْهَلَ أَوْ يُجْهَلَ عَلَيَّ

“O Allah, I seek refuge with You lest I should stray or be led astray, or slip (i.e. to commit a sin unintentionally) or be tripped, or oppress or be oppressed, or behave foolishly or be treated foolishly.” (Abu Dawud)

Fatima Barkatulla is a seminarian and award-winning Islamic lecturer. Follow her on Facebook. A version of this article was published in The Times and Times Online on Saturday 9th April 2016

^[1] ‘thaub’ is sometimes called a dishdasha (it is a long, dress-like garment worn by men in the Middle-East). ‘Thaub’ is the more commonly used name for it in the Muslim community.

The post Five Courageous Ways To Respond To Anti-Muslim Hatred appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

Like many children of first generation immigrants, Hassan was prodded towards a stable career in healthcare rather than the decidedly less secure world of being an artist. His innate artistry is out of place in the sterile world of Medicine, but he accepts this trade-off for the security that a career in medicine brings.

Much like Hassan, I contend that Islamic history is art trapped in the world of sciences.

While Teddy Roosevelt wasn’t being busy leading the Rough Riders or being President, he made the same case for history in general. Every civilization and culture views history through a different lens. While the Europeans classically treated History as a category within literature and the Hindus as often indistinguishable from mythology – Muslims took an entirely different approach. When it comes to fields of Islamic studies, we tend to classify the most important as sciences. Tafsir, Ilm al hadeeth, Tajweed and Fiqh are all researched and taught with the same precision and accuracy as physics or maths. There is relatively little room for artistic license or experimentation.

This is a strength especially when it comes to the studies that make up the bedrock of the faith and are used to decide the rules and regulations that govern it. However, problems arise when subjects that don’t naturally fit into the scientific category are reclassified as such. One such example is Islamic history. Our history has often been subjected to the same rigorous standards as those applied to other Islamic sciences. Anything that doesn’t meet the highest standards of verification and authentication can potentially be downplayed or treated as suspect.

This view of history was pioneered by none other than the father of historiography Ibn Khaldun, who was frustrated by the “uncritical acceptance of historical data.” It comes as no surprise to find out that Ibn Khaldun was a jurist before he found fame in later life as a historian. However, history is not merely data to be proven or interpreted in a narrow set of ways. History is the art of putting together bits of information from the past and weaving together a narrative that gives us an insight into the motivations and actions of those that preceded us.

Translation: Artists tend to see boats first, scientists tend to see arches.

For instance, History as science will tell us that the Moghul Empire finally collapsed due to a range of socio-economic factors afflicting the corrupt Moghul state combined with the overwhelming military superiority of the British. While that may technically be accurate, History as art would explain the fall as a perfect storm of threats compounded by the tragic but unexpected outcome of an aging Emperor’s affections for his ambitious and treacherous young wife Zeenat Mahal. The former view is based on empirical evidence but wholly uninspiring and devoid of the human touch, while the latter is pieced together based on some facts, some extrapolations and based on the characters of the personalities involved.

Worth sinking an Empire over?

Skeptics from the scientific school of thought will read the above and fear that this is a call to legitimise superstition and fairytales. It is not. The reality is that the majority of our history, or any history for that matter, will fail to pass the benchmarks that we must necessarily use for our sciences. The result of this is that there are swathes of our history that are simply looked upon as second class and therefore not prominent.

Maria Konnikova argued the same point cogently in Scientific American. There needs to be a paradigm shift in how we see and classify Islamic history. Islamic historians should feel comfortable in the freedom to discuss and teach aspects of our history that may not be 100% verifiable, but that fit within the broad construct of our traditions. We need to explore and cultivate the vast fertile expanses between irrefutable evidence based facts and pure fiction. Should we do so, we will reap a rich harvest of engaged and inspired Muslims who can take lessons and inspiration from our past and use it to guide our future. That’s hopefully something that even the most dedicated scientist would find it difficult to argue against.

The post Science Not Art: Problems with our Islamic History appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

After a 5-year wait, the Diyanet Center of America, also known as the Turkish American Community Center, is ready for worshipers and for visitors of all faiths.

A true majestic wonder- it is something made from a hundred million prayers. May Allah bless this gift to the people of the United States from the Turkish nation.

The photography is by Salam Aref of New Dream Designs, an upcoming architect, artist and designer based in Maryland.

The center of the masjid is designated as the sacred sanctuary

The Mihrab is made of marble and gold leaf technique which was applied by artisans from Turkey. The upper part of the side of the mihrab is decorated with tiles imported from Turkey. On the pediment of the mihrab is a figure of the tree of life which symbolizes the 99 names of God.

The ornate, marble mimbar is used for special occasions such as the Eid salah. It was designed and made in Turkey

The kursi, where the imam gives dars, is composed entirely of wood and was made in Turkey. The kündekari technique of woodworking (the tongue-and-groove paneling of polygons and stars set in a strap work skeleton), which is the traditional art of wood decoration, and inlaid with mother-of-pearl. As the characteristic of kundekari technique, no nails, screws, glue, or fasteners were used in the panels

Over the area of the sanctuary, there is a main dome on each side of which are five small domes. In order to provide  light inside the mosque, there are windows around the rim of the main dome. This dome is adorned with Arabic calligraphy, one of the traditional decorative arts of Islam. The large and small domes are supported by arches, in conformity with traditional architecture. Four marble columns were brought in from the Turkish provinces of Istanbul, Eskişehir, Afyonkarahisar, and Tokat, which are famous for marble.

An intricately carved rehal holding a large Quran

The central dome is inscribed with Surah al Ikhlas.

A tree of life motif is centered, complete with the 99 names of Allah.

“The Million Dollar Door”

The door of the main masjid is a brilliant piece of art made with the Kündekâri technique, This woodworking technique was developed in Anatolia during the era of the Seljuks. “Masters involved in the art of kündekâri, known as kündekârs, state that the starting point of this art is patience. They also complain about the lack of patience and interest among the younger generations concerning this traditional art form. In practice, say the masters, if you overlook a deviation even on the order of millimeters, you will lose control and fail to assemble the kündekâri. The technique produces pieces that are known to last for seven to eight centuries easily if not subjected to the negative effects of such things as earthquakes, fire, and excessive humidity.” From AnadoluJet magazine.

The mosque has six wood doors which open to three areas of the sanctuary and three areas of the courtyard.

The central courtyard is anchored by a marble fountain. Copper taps are used keep an old world aesthetic.

The windows in the outdoor courtyard

This is the only masjid in America that has two minarets

The mahfil, the area reserved for women covers about 1300 square feet. The ceiling
of the mahfil is covered with five small-scale domes. The domes are decorated with geometric designs.

Chandeliers in the domes of the main hall of the masjid

A 220-seat auditorium is a part of the multi-purpose cultural center. This includes a  conference room equipped with an advanced sound system and simultaneous translation rooms.

Tiles adorning the cultural center at DCA

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Lyrics for No More

by Shahroz

The post No More (Spoken Word) – Shahroz appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

a short story

PART ONE | PART TWO

After the summer internship, Paula and I went our separate ways. We kept in touch, but we had our own lives to focus on. I went to college close to home to be near John, and Paula went to college in another state. When we talked, which was usually about once a month, Paula talked mostly about her burgeoning spirituality and all the different Islamic awareness activities Sommer was organizing. Though Sommer herself lived far from us both, Sommer was active nationally in several Muslim youth organizations and ran a pretty successful blog that focused on sexism amongst Muslims and the need for feminist interpretations of long-held patriarchal interpretations of the Qur’an and prophetic traditions.

Once Paula had even called to tell me that I absolutely had to turn on the TV “at this moment” because Sommer was being featured on a CNN special about Islam’s alleged oppression of women. John was due any minute to pick me up and take me out to dinner, but I was curious enough to turn on the TV while I waited. John rang the doorbell while I was still watching and I asked if he could give me a minute, and he stood in the front room of my apartment watching snippets of the show himself as he waited for me.

“That’s the girl who taught you about Islam?” John remarked after we were in the car.

“Yeah,” I said, smiling to myself as I buckled my seatbelt in the passenger seat. I was proud to have personally known someone who was so prominent.

“Good thing you only knew her for a few weeks.”

My eyebrows shot up as I regarded John. “What do you mean?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know, Faith. She just sounds a little too opinionated for her own good.”

I smirked. “You know what Paula would call you now?”

He grinned knowingly. “A sexist?”

“And maybe a racist too.”

We both laughed.

“Why racist?” he said, humor still in his tone.

“Because it’s obvious you think Arab-Pakistani girls don’t have a right to their own minds.”

We chuckled, shaking our heads. It was a bitter joke because John was White, and he often said he felt reluctant to share his opinions about anything objectionable that a non-White did because he feared he would be labeled a racist.

“But I do agree with one thing she said.” John’s tone was serious.

“What’s that?” I asked, curious.

“That people who are gay and lesbian have a right to worship God like everyone else.”

I grew silent and looked out the passenger side window. The day I became Muslim Paula had asked Sommer if a gay person could be Muslim. When Sommer said yes (albeit reluctantly), Paula said, “That’s all I wanted to know. Because I think I want to be Muslim too.” Then she became Muslim herself.

More than a year had passed since that conversation, and I couldn’t get it out of my head. What did Paula mean by that? Did she consider herself gay? But that didn’t make any sense. In high school, she’d had more boyfriends than most of the girls we knew. Was this because she was confused about her sexuality? Or maybe she was putting on a façade to hide who she really was.

“Yeah,” I agreed noncommittally, but I continued to stare out the window next to me. “We all sin. Nobody should be prevented from worshipping God just because their struggle is different from other people’s.”

“I’m ready, Faith,” John said seconds later.

I turned to him, my forehead creased. “Ready for what?”

“To become Muslim.” He smiled flirtatiously then added, “And to marry you.”

I brought a hand to my mouth in surprise. “Are you serious?”

“If you are,” he said as he slowed to a stop behind a line of cars.

“Is this your idea of a proposal?” I teased. “Asking me to marry you at a stoplight?”

“It’s more than an idea actually,” he said, smiling at me before turning his attention back to the road. “I want us to make it reality.”

Married Life

John and I eloped a week later so that we could enjoy each other’s company before making any official announcements of a formal wedding to our friends or family. Though I wanted to tell Paula, John convinced me that we should keep the decision to ourselves.

“What if she doesn’t approve?” he asked one day as we lay awake in his apartment. “It would crush you, and I want the memories of this time to always be special for us.”

“I think she’ll be happy for me,” I said, but I detected hesitance in my tone. Sommer had practically become a spiritual mentor to Paula, and though I wanted to believe that was a good thing, Paula’s rants about male patriarchy in religion were increasingly more passionate than they were before she accepted Islam. I could only assume her views on early marriage (I was only nineteen and John twenty-one) did not mirror mine.

The mere possibility of hearing Paula criticize me for “dishonoring my womanhood” by giving myself to a man before I even had a college degree made my stomach churn in dread. John was right. We should keep this between ourselves for now. Besides, I was beside myself in happiness to be with John right then, and I didn’t need anyone else’s opinion, dissenting or otherwise, to make that feeling any more genuine.

“No it’s not. No it’s not!” My eyes fluttered open in the darkness, and I found John sleeping next to me, his breathing soft and rhythmic. My heart pounded with the same frustrated conviction that it had the first time I’d seen the dream. I sat up in bed, confusion and worry lingering where grogginess should have been.

The dream was unchanged. I had no idea what I was arguing about, and I didn’t even know whom I was arguing with except that she was some girl with a faded red-heart tattoo on her lower back. I felt close and distant from myself at once, and the more I yelled, the farther the girl was out of my reach and the closer to myself I felt. There were black snakes and lizards coming toward the girl, but she didn’t see them because she was so happy and content with whatever she was telling me. “No it’s not!” I kept telling her in response, growing more desperate with each moment. And right before I woke up, I was in a green pasture alone, far from the girl, but I was losing my voice yelling at her though I knew she couldn’t hear me.

“It means you’re going to find the truth,” Sommer had said, interpreting the dream. “And after you find it, you’re going to be tempted by yourself or someone you love to give up your faith, but you won’t insha’Allah.”

Unable to sleep, I tossed aside the comforter, causing John to stir in his sleep. I went to the bathroom then washed my face. John and I were scheduled to have breakfast with my birth mother at nine o’clock the following morning, so I really needed to sleep.

Was I getting cold feet? Was that what this was about? I’d asked John to come with me because I thought it would make things easier. But now I wasn’t so sure. I’d suggested to John that accompanying me might be the inspiration he needed to find his own birth parents. Like myself, John was adopted. But unlike myself, John didn’t have the slightest inclination to find his real mother and father.

“What if they’re drug addicts or something?” he’d often say.

“So what if they are?” I’d retort.

“It’s different for African-American families,” he’d said once. “You all have closer bonds with your parents.”

“What? That’s not true.” I don’t know why, but I was deeply hurt by that comment. I guess in a way I felt that this was John’s pathetic attempt to avoid facing his past. Unlike my own experience as the brown child of two White parents, John’s outings with his adopted parents never incited questions or suspicions as to who his “real” parents were. Like my own adopted parents, John’s were White, as was John, so people naturally assumed that John was their biological son. Apparently, other than close family and John himself, they’d never told anyone that John was adopted, and I sensed that in a bizarre case of wishful thinking, John believed that if he kept quiet about his true background, it would disappear. He didn’t even want to accompany me when I met my birth mother for the first time. I suppose even that was cutting too close to home for him.

After leaving the bathroom, I felt a sudden need to read the Qur’an before trying to go back to sleep. I was still a bit unsettled by the dream, mainly because I could find no reason for having seen it a second time. I’d already found the truth. I was Muslim now, so what was I supposed to get from the dream this time around? Would my birth mother oppose my decision to be Muslim? But how would she find out in the first place? I didn’t wear hijab, and I certainly didn’t plan on telling her about my conversion, at least not during our first meeting.

I removed a copy of the Qur’an from a bookshelf in our bedroom, and I carried it to the kitchen, where I decided to put some water on for tea while I read.

“We have explained in detail in this Qur’an, for the benefit of mankind, every kind of similitude. But man is, in most things, contentious.”

—Al-Kahf, 18:54

This is the verse that would stay with me as I drifted to sleep the night before I would meet my birth mother.

A Life Changed Forever

The door to my apartment bathroom banged against the sink counter as I rushed inside. I dropped to my knees in front of the toilet and hung my head over the bowl as my stomach heaved and the contents of my breakfast exploded from my mouth. I clutched the porcelain seat as I vomited twice more and gagged on the bile burning the back of my throat. I spit into the commode one last time before reaching up to flush the toilet. I collapsed onto the tiled floor with my back against the porcelain bowl as the rush of water sucked the putrid contents down the pipes even as the stench of vomit lingered in the air.

I covered my face with my hands and my shoulders shook as I moaned and tears spilled from my eyes.

“I’m coming right now,” Paula said when I called her minutes later. I didn’t want to tell her what had happened because, technically, my marriage to John was still a secret. But I really didn’t know who else to turn to. After John, she was the only person I considered a good friend. I wanted to talk to my mother (my adopted mother) but I hadn’t even told her I was Muslim or that I had found my birth mother—or that I’d run off and married John without her knowledge. And I knew now wasn’t the time to divulge this, especially after what had happened at breakfast.

It was late at night when Paula stepped inside my apartment and found me sitting in the dark living room, staring off into space with my legs folded pretzel-style in front of me on the couch.

“You left your door open,” she said, playfully scolding me as she closed the front door and locked it. A second later light flooded the room.

I managed a tightlipped smile, but I didn’t look in her direction. She put her arms around me and pulled me into an embrace, and I laid my head on her shoulder. The tears welled in my eyes again, but I blinked to keep myself from breaking down again.

We sat like that for some time in silence before she asked, “Faith, are you sure? Maybe there’s some mistake…”

I drew in a deep breath and exhaled. I’d said the same thing over and over to myself the whole day, and I didn’t even want to imagine what John was telling himself. I’d rushed out of the restaurant without him and took a taxi alone to my apartment. I still had a couple months left on the lease before I was supposed to move out and live with John full time.

“He recognized her too, Paula,” I said, dejected, my voice scratchy as I spoke into the cloth of her shirt.

“But he was a baby when he was adopted. How could he even remember?”

I shook my head, but that felt like too much effort. I sat up and Paula released me so I could look at her while I spoke. “I was eighteen months, and John was almost four.”

Paula averted her gaze. “But he’s…”

“We have different fathers,” I said, already knowing what Paula was thinking.

I groaned aloud. “Why is this happening?” I blurted, a surge of anger overtaking me. “I love him.”

“But he’s your brother, Faith,” Paula said softly.

As if I didn’t know that! I wanted to slap her right then.

Paula drew in a deep breath and exhaled, the sound painfully empathetic. “Maybe this is a test from Allah. I know it must be hard, but—”

“Hard?” I glared at her. “No, Paula. Getting through high school was hard. Learning how to pray was hard. Saving myself for marriage was hard.” I shook my head and stood up, my arms folded over my chest as I struggled to keep my composure. “This isn’t hard, Paula. This is…” My mind frantically searched for the term that could aptly explain my fury. “…f—ed up!”

I usually didn’t use profanity, but right then I really didn’t care. No words, not even profane ones, seemed heart-wrenching enough to accurately describe what I felt right then.

“Why would God even let this happen? Why did He make me and John fall in love?” I said, angry gasps between my questions. “He could’ve stopped us. He knew we weren’t allowed to be together.”

I clinched my jaws and balled up my fists. “This is so unfair,” I said, speaking under my breath. “This is so f—ing unfair.”

“No it’s not,” Paula said softly, but she wasn’t looking at me. She was looking at her hands. I could tell she hated being in this position. She didn’t want to be the one to tell me I couldn’t be with the only man I loved. She didn’t want to be the one to tell me there was no way for me and John to remain married. She didn’t want to tell me that I’d saved myself, prizing my chastity and virginity all throughout my youth, only to give my heart and body to someone I was never allowed to be with in the first place.

“It is unfair,” I said, raising my voice as I glared at her.

“No it’s not,” she said, raising her voice as she met my gaze. Her eyes filled with tears as her jaw trembled in tortuous compassion for me. She wanted to take away my pain, but she couldn’t. I looked away.

“It’s a test from Allah,” I heard her say, but I couldn’t look at her. Tears filled my own eyes as her words pierced my heart. I knew she was right. But I didn’t want her to be. “You’re being tempted to give up your faith,” she said.

At that, I jerked my head around to meet her gaze and found that she and I were thinking the same thing. She apologized with her eyes, but I sensed she felt that, for my own good, I needed to hear what I already knew.

“It’s like what Sommer said about your dream.”

Moving On

“Do people think that they will be left alone on saying, ‘We believe’

And that they will not be tested?”

—Al-‘Ankaboot, 29:2

John and I eventually annulled our marriage, and we mutually agreed to go our separate ways and avoid communication with each other except online via Facebook and Twitter. But we kept even that to a minimum. A year after the annulment, John left America to study Arabic and Islamic studies in the Middle East, but I remained where I was.

Paula and I grew closer as friends, and as she had the day I’d called her distressed, she periodically drove six hours to our hometown to visit me. She eventually opened up to me about her own personal and spiritual struggles and admitted that she was in fact attracted to women, not men. But in high school, she’d tried to fight it.

“I thought I just needed to meet the right guy,” she said. “But it turns out there was no right guy.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked her one day as we spoke on the phone. I wondered if Sommer knew, but I didn’t feel comfortable asking.

“I’m hoping for a miracle,” she said jokingly. But I detected a sense of resentment in her voice. “Maybe I’ll start a convent for Muslim nuns. You know, vowing celibacy for the sake of Allah and all that.”

We both laughed.

“I’ll make du’aa for you,” I said more seriously, letting her know I would pray for her. “I know it must be hard.”

“In a way,” she said, her voice somber, “you and I are the same.”

I grunted laughter. “I guess so.”

But I didn’t want to think about John. Even now, three years later, he still had a hold on my heart. I’d tried to talk to other Muslim men for marriage, but nothing ever worked out. There were times that my heart and mind would search frantically for a way for me and John to be together. I searched fatwa after fatwa, asked scholar after scholar, and read all the Islamic material I could in hopes of finding something, anything, to justify me and John getting remarried. I’d even found a couple of religious loopholes that seemed plausible justifications for arguing that, technically-speaking, John and I were not officially brother and sister—by law or Islam. And since our mother never married my father or John’s father, weren’t John and I technically “illegitimate children” who were not mahram (legal relatives) for each other?

“Be careful,” Paula told me one day after I explained to her what I’d learned. “You don’t want to do like that story in the Qur’an where the people were forbidden to fish on Saturday, but they put out the net on Friday so they could collect their fish on Sunday.”

I sighed in agreement, but my heart fell in defeat. I missed John so much that my heart literally hurt for him. Why couldn’t I just move on?

“But there are so many different interpretations of things,” I said, desperate for any justification for what I wanted. “Maybe the laws forbidding mahram’s from marrying don’t apply to illegitimate children.”

Paula laughed, but I could tell she wasn’t trying to be mean. “Oh please, don’t go there,” she said. “You start doing that reinterpreting thing, and you might interpret yourself right out of the religion.”

“Maybe you’re right,” I muttered.

The Invitation

I hugged my knees and concentrated my attention on the parking lot beyond my apartment window. It was all I could do to steady my trembling and think of something besides the torn envelope and embossed card next to me on the crumpled sheet of my bed.

I was upset. I knew that much. But there was something deeper knifing at my heart.

Your attendance is requested at the wedding celebration of Paula Smith and Sommer Khan.

I gritted my teeth as I glanced at the folded ivory-colored card. On the front of the card was a faded red heart, and beneath the heart was the calligraphic quote, “It’s about love.”

No it’s not, I protested in my mind. No it’s not.

Part of me wanted to pick up the phone and confront her. I’d seen the link on her Twitter page to the article by Sommer entitled “It’s About Love” that defended the rights of gays and lesbians to fully participate in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic faith traditions. But I’d thought nothing of it. Same-sex marriage was discussed in the article, but I would have never imagined that Sommer was implying that our “faith tradition” should treat these unions as Islamically acceptable.

“It’s about love,” Sommer kept repeating throughout the article.

“No it’s not,” I said aloud as I snatched up the invitation card from my bed and ripped it in half right through the faded red heart.

It’s about Allah, I thought to myself, reflecting on the tremendous lesson I learned from my own struggles. And it’s about whether or not you’ll accept Allah’s invitation to choose Him over your desires.

Umm Zakiyyah is the internationally acclaimed author of the If I Should Speak trilogy. Her latest novel Muslim Girl is now available.

To learn more about the author, visit ummzakiyyah.com or subscribe to her YouTube channel.

Copyright © 2014 by Al-Walaa Publications. All Rights Reserved.

WRITTEN FOR MUSLIMMATTERS.ORG

The post The Invitation – Part 2 appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

a short story

PART ONE | PART TWO

I hugged my knees and concentrated my attention on the parking lot beyond my third-floor apartment window. It was all I could do to steady my trembling and think of something besides the torn envelope and embossed card next to me on the crumpled sheet of my bed.

I was upset. I knew that much. But there was something deeper knifing at my heart.

Your attendance is requested at the wedding celebration of…

I gritted my teeth until my jaws hurt.

Betrayal. The feeling sliced through me so suddenly that for a moment I stopped shaking.

Fourteen Years Before

Life as I knew it ended a week after my ninth birthday. It was late May, right when a month of school felt like a year, and the days dragged on until the desire for summer drove everyone, even the teachers, to a mixture of madness and dejection. Schoolwork was no longer displayed on classroom walls. Decorations were slowly and surreptitiously removed from bulletin boards, and the hall monitors turned a blind eye to students lingering in the corridors without a pass. And even failing students held a flicker of optimism because teachers no longer had the energy or concern to hold students back.

Later, I’d find myself wondering if my life would have turned out differently had my mother’s energy or concern for my future mirrored the pity teachers had for hopeless students…

I came home aggravated as usual. I was tired of the rushed homework assignments that I had to cram into my schedule every night because yet another teacher wanted to finish the book before the year ended.

“Faith! Is that you?”

I threw my backpack on the tiled floor of the foyer and groaned as I shut the front door. Who else would it be? “Yeah, Mom!” I yelled back.

“Come here, sweetie.”

I groaned. I already knew something was wrong because my mother never called me “sweetie” unless there was bad news or she wanted me to do something I loathed, like clean the bathroom.

“Mo-om,” I whined before I even dragged myself into the den, where I was certain she was sitting in front of some stupid soap opera.

I was surprised to find her on the couch in front of a darkened television screen. She forced a smile when I entered, and I saw the thinly veiled sadness on her face. I kept my arms folded, and my face twisted only because it didn’t make sense to change my stance or soften my pout. But I sensed my mom was trying to cheer me up to lighten the blow, and that’s when a sick feeling came over me and I knew something was wrong. As awkward as it sounds, this was the first moment I actually saw my mother, I mean really saw her.

In retrospect, I should have known. I know I was only nine, but really, let’s be frank here. My mom was a fiery redhead with blue eyes, and my dad, who shared my mom’s eye color, was so blond that he was often mistaken for an albino. And they both shared that pale, colorless complexion that the sun blotched instead of tanned, not to mention their straight, limp hair that wouldn’t curl even when it grew long. I, on the other hand, had dark brown eyes, kinky black hair that only braids and thick ponytail holders could keep in place. And my skin looked like latte with a generous portion of milk.

Yet stupidly, I’d thought nothing of how my playmate and neighbor, Paula, was often mistaken for my parents’ daughter and I her best friend, instead of the other way around. It was something we’d laugh about. But in that moment before my mother spoke aloud what I should have known all along, I saw my parents for who they were: two middle-aged, White people who had everything they could want in life, except the hope of ever having a child of their own…

Five Years Before

“I’m so happy for you!” Paula squealed as she drew me into a brief hug as I stepped into the foyer of her parents’ home. I wore a smug grin as I shrugged off my coat and stepped out of my muddy boots. I usually didn’t bother taking off my shoes when I visited, but I didn’t want to soil the plush carpet.

“But are you sure?” Paula said, drawing her eyebrows together as she regarded me.

I looped my arm through hers as we walked toward the stairs leading to her bedroom. “Mm hm,” I said, giddy as a kid who’d won a trip to Disney World. “Positive.”

“Oh my God,” she said as she hurried up the stairs, almost dragging me beside her. “You have to tell me everything! How are they?”

I laughed as she ushered me into her room and closed the door. “I don’t know yet…” A tightness formed in my throat, and a twinge of sadness weakened me. What if my birth parents didn’t want to meet me? Just because I was eighteen now and had a right to find them without my adopted parents knowing didn’t mean my birth parents would want me to find them. But I had found them. Or at least the agency I’d paid with the money from my part-time job at the mall had found them. Now it was just a matter of waiting to see if they wanted to be found.

“But John is really supportive,” I offered, a smile plastered on my face as I sat down on the edge of her bed.

“That’s good.” Paula’s tone was distracted as she sat beside me, one leg folded between us. I hated the way she acted whenever I mentioned my boyfriend. He was the first boy I met that I really connected with, and although I’d only known him for a few months, I really felt like he was “the one.” I’d never felt like that with anyone else. Why couldn’t she be happy for me? She knew how much anxiety I usually felt around guys. That’s why I was still a virgin while most of my classmates debated whether or not “respectable girls” could have one-night stands.

Paula herself would often tease me about being so “compulsive” about intimacy with the opposite sex. She went through boyfriends like most girls went through lipstick. In a way, I envied her. I wanted to feel that freedom with myself and my body, but I just couldn’t. Paula had all these radical ideas about feminism and women opposing patriarchal oppression, especially with regards to the female body, and to be honest, it sounded really convincing. But it just wasn’t me. I wasn’t sure if I was backwards or just old-fashioned. But if I gave myself to someone, it would have to be someone special, someone I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. And I was beginning to feel like John was that person…

“I’m sorry, Faith,” Paula said with a sigh. “I’m really happy for you and John. It’s just…” Her voice trailed as her eyes stared at something beyond my head. “…I wish I could find someone too.”

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