Stuff Muslims Like

At the moment quite a popular web phenomena is the satirical blog Stuff White People Like, in which Christian Lander and Myles Valentin take digs at yuppie culture (with Things Bogans Like being on the other end of the spectrum...). So that's all well and good, upper-class white folks hold much of the power on this planet, but what about the not always-so-white 20% of the world population? That's right, the MUZ-LIMZ.

So what do Muslims like? Here's a 'lil mini-list I compiled.....

1. Not being on time

There's GMT, EST but don't forget MST - Muslim Standard Time. You'd think that showing up late is the Sixth Pillar of Islam. People say that they'll show up at X time, and arrive two hours later. And it's not only guests that suffer from this chronological laxity, but the host as well. It gets to the point that a lot of the time the guest technically isn't even late at all - showing up at an Islamic conference half an hour late when the organisers take forty-five minutes to start means actually makes it possible for a latecomer to be early! Trippy, dude.

2. Asking reverts how they came to Islam

Typical scene: a mosque after Friday noon prayer. The khateeb/a board member/some important dude asks the soon-to-be-new-Muslim to come up to the front. The revert says the shahada into the microphone. Is promptly engulfed by a sea of brothers asking him how he became Muslim. Even further down the track the revert is still not safe. Any mention of one's non-originally-Muslimness will almost inevitably result in the same question over and over again - "So, how did you become Muslim?". Some wonderful, caring people will preface their question with "I know you've probably been asked this a million times before..." before shooting out the big Q - as if it makes things any different!

Indeed, everybody expects a dramatic, action-packed story filled with many trials and tribulations, and touching accounts of spiritual realisation. Typically, the revert would have previously been an alcoholic/drug addict/criminal/broken veteran/Islamophobe/devil-worshipping chainsaw-murderer (basically, the more unsavoury, the more inspiring). Personally, I prefer the reply "I'm just in it for the chicks".

3. Conspiracy theories

Lost, The X-Files, Prison Break, JFK and Roswell......everybody loves a good conspiracy theory, and Muslims are no different. Here's an example of what a typical Muslim conspiracy theory looks like:

Non-Muslim theory: 9/11 was when a bunch of guys crashed a couple of planes into the World Trade Center

Muslim conspiracy theory: 9/11 was when a group of automated Israeli cyborgs controlled by Mossad and funded by the CIA crashed a couple of planes into the World Trade Center after making sure that they were loaded full of kidnapped Muslims who everybody thinks are non-Muslim Americans because the US Government forged all the IDs on the casualty registers in order to provide an excuse to invade Afghanistan to recover the lost Ancient Sceptre of Kickass a powerful artefact with the power to level continents originally owned by the Knights Templar whose descendants still exist as a secret society pulling the strings of power behind closed doors in the US Government in an unholy alliance with the Jews each one of who is actually a mutant guinea pig from outer space operating a sophisticated biological human-suit.

These theories aren't just limited to coffee-bar chatter or nights at the multiplex. Indeed, Muslims love their conspiracy theories so much that they make every effort to live them out in the daily activities. For instance, here in Melbourne many a Muzzie can be seen enthusiatically taking the tram up to the CBD for lunch rather than buy a cream cheese bagel in St Kilda......after all, we can't risk the money going to the evil guinea-pig world domination plot, can we?

4. Inserting 'Arabisms' into each and every sentence

The Muslim is obliged to be in a constant state of the rememberance of God, and this is reflected in his/her speech. He/she reacts to good fortune with "Alhamdullilah" (praise be to God), expresses amazement with "Subhanallah" (glory be to God) and bids people farewell with "Fi amanillah" (I leave you in the protection of God). However, all too often, people feel that they just have to extend this practice to also peppering their speech with random secular Arabic words and phrases - even when they aren't actually Arab themselves!  Khalas akhi, I'm all for linguistic diversity, ya'ni, it's all just a bit try-hard. Yalla!

5. Calling people "Wahabi"

Want a quick and easy way to marginalise people who disagree with you? Simple, just slap the "Wahabi" label on them! Is someone questioning your penchant for Fiddy Cent? No worries, just call them a "Wahabi"! Dude is uncomfortable with women not covering their heads in public? Oooh, they must be "Wahabi"! Somebody thinks your complete rejection of the Four Sunni Schools of Jurisprudence and the hadith collections is just a little bit iffy? "WAHABI"! "WAHABI"! "WAHABI"! (oh, the irony of the last one...)

6. "Exotic" Reverts

It's tough being an Anglo Muzzie. You were all the rage back in the day, but now the best you usually get is a "Mashallah bro!" and perhaps a quick hug. Then everybody turns and looks at the guy who just walked into the musallah. Excited whispers abound.

Ethnic Muslim 1: "Is he Indonesian?"

Ethnic Muslim 2: "Nah don't think so bro....."

EM1: "Malaysian?"

EM2: "Dunno bro..."

EM1: "C'mon, ask him!"

EM2: "No, you ask him!"

EM1: "Ah, where are you from brother?"

New Dude: "Erm....Australia..."

EM1: "Aus....Uzbekistan!?"

ND: "Nah, I'm Australian. I was born here."

EM1: "Aw, yeah bro, but y'know, where are you from?"

ND: "......"

EM1: "Like your parents...."

ND: "Y'see, me dad is....aw heck....well basically I'm Chinese...."

EM1: "AW MASHALLAH BRO! SUBHANALLAH YA RABBIL'ALAMIN!" (massive Arab cheek-kissing bear hug)

Anglo guy: "Trust me bro, it's not always smooth going." 

ND: "You don't say...."



There's my bit of cheap humour for the day!

Insert Beatles/U2 Joke Here...

Imagine there's no rebels

William Easterly

December 19, 2010

 

THE recent release of the Beatles's music on iTunes, coupled with the anniversary of John Lennon's death in New York City 30 years ago this month, has brought on a wave of Beatles nostalgia. For so many of my generation growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, Lennon was a hero, not just for his music but for his fearless activism against the Vietnam War.

Is there a celebrity activist today who matches Lennon's impact and appeal? The closest counterpart to Lennon now is U2's Bono - another transcendent musical talent championing another cause: the battle against global poverty.

But there is a fundamental difference between Lennon's activism and Bono's, and it underscores the sad evolution of celebrity activism in recent years. Lennon was a rebel. Bono is not.

Lennon's protests against the war in Vietnam so threatened the US government that he was hounded by the FBI, police and even immigration authorities. He was a moral crusader who challenged leaders whom he thought were doing wrong.

Bono, by contrast, has become a sort of celebrity policy expert, supporting specific technical solutions to global poverty. He does not challenge power but rather embraces it; he is more likely to appear in photo ops with international political leaders - or to travel through Africa with a treasury secretary - than he is to call them out in a meaningful way.

There is something inherently noble about the celebrity dissident, but there is something slightly ridiculous about the celebrity wonk.

Lennon was no Johnny-come-lately to the antiwar movement. As early as 1966, during the Beatles' American tour, he answered a reporter's question about Vietnam, much to the consternation of the band's business manager. ''We just don't like it. We don't like war,'' Lennon said simply. And when he married Yoko Ono in 1969, they used their honeymoon to stage two serio-comic ''bed-ins'' to publicise the antiwar cause.

Lennon also merged his activism and his music: In 1969, Give Peace a Chance became the anthem of the movement after half a million people sung along at a huge demonstration at the Washington Monument. That same year he sent back an award he had received a few years earlier from the Queen, in protest against British support for the Vietnam War. After moving to New York in 1971, he continued his high-profile opposition to the war, and two more songs released that year - Imagine and Happy Xmas (War Is Over) - expanded his antiwar repertoire.

Lennon paid a price for his activities. We now know from subsequent Freedom of Information Act releases that the FBI monitored and harassed him. In 1971, Richard Nixon set in motion a four-year effort to deport him, which failed after the political tide in America turned against the war.
In this role, Lennon was continuing a venerable tradition: the celebrity as a crusader against the wrongs committed by those in power. In the 19th century, the celebrity activists had been not musicians but writers. Charles Dickens, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and other authors loudly supported the abolitionist crusade against slavery. Harriet Beecher Stowe went further and wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin to boost the anti-slavery cause - a sort of 19th-century equivalent of Imagine.

Mark Twain denounced American imperialism and atrocities in the 1898 Spanish-American War and the 1899-1902 Philippine-American War, publishing his savage satirical essay To the Person Sitting in Darkness in 1901.

In the imperialist claim to spread ''civilisation'', he detected ''two kinds of civilisation - one for home consumption and one for the heathen market''. Twain also saw ''two Americas: one that sets the captive free, and one that takes a once-captive's new freedom away from him … then kills him to get his land''. Other Twain essays on the same issue were so politically toxic that he could not get them published during his lifetime.

Alas, today's celebrities seldom challenge power in the manner of Twain or Lennon. Bono's signature effort involves the Millennium Development Goals campaign, a United Nations-sponsored initiative to achieve eight anti-poverty goals by 2015. The campaign stresses that 189 world leaders have endorsed the targets to reduce poverty and hunger and to improve health by the deadline.

In the course of his activism, Bono had regular photo-ops and lunches with President George W. Bush, giving Bush a much-needed publicity boost on US foreign aid and on his campaigns against AIDS. For example, the singer appeared onstage with Bush at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington in 2002, as the president pledged a $5 billion increase in foreign aid. In May of that year, Bono even toured Africa with Bush's first treasury secretary, Paul O'Neill, fully aware that the administration was capitalising on his celebrity.

''My job is to be used. I am here to be used,'' he told The Washington Post. ''It's just, at what price? As I keep saying, I'm not a cheap date.''

While Bono calls global poverty a moral wrong, he does not identify the wrongdoers. Instead, he buys into technocratic illusions about the issue, without paying attention to who has power and who lacks it, who oppresses and who is oppressed. He runs with the crowd that believes ending poverty is a matter of technical expertise - doing things such as expanding food yields with nitrogen-fixing leguminous plants or solar-powered drip irrigation.

These are fine moves as far as they go, but why have Bono champion them? The technocratic approach puts him in the position of a wonk, not a dissident; an expert, not a crusader. (Little wonder he hasn't cranked out a musical hit related to his activism.) Can you imagine Lennon passing himself off as an authority on the intricacies of Vietnamese politics and history? His message was simpler: This war is wrong.

Bono is not the only well-intentioned celebrity wonk of our age - the impulse is ubiquitous. Angelina Jolie, for instance, is a member of the US Council on Foreign Relations (seriously), in addition to serving as a UN goodwill ambassador. Ben Affleck has become an expert on the war in Congo. George Clooney has Sudan covered, while Leonardo DiCaprio hobnobs with Russian President Vladimir Putin and other leaders at a summit to protect tigers; both actors have written opinion essays on those subjects published in The Washington Post, further solidifying their expert bona fides.

But why should we pay attention to Bono's or Jolie's expertise on Africa, any more than we would ask them for guidance on the proper monetary policy for the Federal Reserve?

True dissidents - celebrity or not - play a vital role in democracy. But the celebrity desire to gain political power and social approval breeds intellectual conformity, precisely the opposite of what we need to achieve real changes. Politicians, intellectuals and the public can fall prey to groupthink (''We must invade Vietnam to keep the dominoes from falling!'') and need dissidents to shake them out of it.

True dissidents claim no expertise; they offer no 10-point plans to fix a problem. They are most effective when they simply assert that the status quo is morally wrong. Of course, they need to be noticed to have an impact, hence the historical role of dissidents, such as Lennon, who can use their celebrity to be heard.

We're hardly starved of potential moral challenges for our leaders today, in the age that has witnessed Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and enduring wars with unclear objectives and the clearest of casualties.

On Bono's signature issue of poverty, for instance, why not call out a few of the oppressive regimes that keep their people impoverished - as well as the leaders, in the US and elsewhere, who have supported them with economic and military aid? (Bono has acknowledged that ''tinpot dictators'' were a problem for aid efforts in the past but has not confronted today's despots and their enablers in rich nations.)

We need more high-profile dissidents to challenge mainstream power. This makes it all the sadder that Bono and many other celebrities only reinforce this power in their capacity as faux experts. Where have all the celebrity dissidents gone? It's not a complicated task. All Lennon was saying was to give peace a chance.

William Easterly is a professor of economics at New York University and co-director of NYU's Development Research Institute.

THE WASHINGTON POST

The Rev. Canon Dr. Giles Fraser on Christmas

The cringe at the heart of Christmas

Giles Fraser

December 12, 2010

Christmas can be a bad time for those of us with an allergy to all that Jesus-is-my-friend theology.

CHRISTMAS can be a bad time for those of us with an allergy to all that Jesus-is-my-friend theology. As the angels sing, the eternal mystery pulsing through all things becomes a human being. Yes, this is orthodox Christianity. But what too many Christians take from this is theological permission to get terribly chummy with the divine. As God turns into Jesus, mystery can be replaced by sentiment, eternity forced to the scale of the domestic imagination. God becomes my best buddy. It's the cringe at the heart of Christmas.

In contrast, throughout the Hebrew scriptures God is inscrutable. He is found in the burning bush or speaks out of the cloud at the top of the mountain. At best, God is only glimpsed from the corner of one's eye, if at all. The second of the 10 commandments gives specific instruction that there cannot be an image of the invisible God. It is a way of suspecting any form of God that presents itself as too clear, definite or certain. And this is not just about visual representation. Any representation - philosophical, literary or poetic - that reckons it has God sussed deserves to be distrusted, smashed even. Iconoclasm is the way theology strikes back against the hubris of believers who think the question of God is quick and easy.


Perhaps this is a fancy way of saying that all good theological conversations should begin ''I do not know''. Yet today it is strident certainty that marks most public theological discourse. Believers who are sure of themselves and of what they mean by God slug it out with unbelievers who are equally sure. In this deeply uninteresting boo-hurrah, what is completely ignored by both tribes is that subtler and more complex approach to the big questions, in which the universe is experienced as the most extraordinary mystery.

To stare into the night sky and ponder why there is something rather than nothing, to experience awe at a child's birth, to want the world to be transformed, to seek forgiveness for your own failure and stupidity, to feel the need for silence, to suppose that love has to be at the heart of things - these experiences are not the preserve of the religious. In many such things, those of faith and those of none sit alongside each other as fellow travellers.

This week sees the start of Uncertain Minds, a series of conversations on agnosticism convened jointly by The Guardian and St Paul's Cathedral in London. It is an attempt to make space for a different, more open sort of discussion, one not dominated by a binary clash of certainties. There will be some on both sides who view all this as a traitorous collaboration with an ideological enemy. But that's ridiculous. The human search for meaning and truth needs many voices.

There is much, for instance, that belief has to learn from unbelief. The whole apophatic tradition in theology regards the search for God as being driven along by a recognition of what God is not. In this way, theology proceeds through a series of denials - God cannot be this, God cannot be that - thus stripping away falsehood and driving us deeper into the nature of reality. If Christians believe that God is truth, they must not be afraid of where the search for truth leads, however seemingly uncomfortable.

The reason so many contemporary Christians find this cloud of unknowing approach so peculiar is that they have overemphasised the immanent God/man of Christmas to the exclusion of the transcendent God of the universe. In downplaying God's sheer otherness, they have become overconfident that they know what God looks like.

Evangelical Christianity, with all its emphasis on Jesus as friend, risks domesticating the divine, pulling God too much within the dimensions of the human perspective. With this sort of Jesus at hand, God becomes just too easy.

Yes, of course, one can read the incarnation very differently. I would argue that the idea of God as a baby is one of the most disruptive theological suggestions ever made. After all, isn't God supposed to be omnipotent? Here, Jesus is a supreme form of denial - a denial of God as power. And this powerlessness can be as much intellectual as anything else. To be a Christian is not to have the answers. Sometimes it's just about living the questions.

GUARDIAN

Giles Fraser is canon chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral.

Sheikh Hisham Kabbani @ The Melbourne Theosophical Society

On 2 December, the Melbourne Theosophical Society hosted a public talk by Sheikh Hisham Kabbani of the Naqshbandi Haqqani tariqa, which was part of his second visit to Australia (the first being in 2009). The Sheikh also brought his family along.

The MC's introduction (young members of the Sheikh's family in the foreground!)

Getting the microphone ready

Expounding a point (Ali Elsayed at immediate left)

The audience included his Australian-based murideen, members of the society, and various interested individuals. Sheikh Kabbani made a humorous entrance as he grabbed a handful of sweets from a bowl near the MC's podium and threw it into the crowd, in a move too fast for my camera finger to capture. Preceding his talk, Ali Elsayed performed several qasidas in his rich voice, assisted by a trio of backup drummers.

After the performance, Sheikh Kabbani began his talk in earnest, dealing with the subjects of the importance of having a spiritual guide, and how to cultivate one's spirituality in a hostile modern environment. Notable memories included his account of talking to a psychologist one day who advocated the daily counting of one's own good deeds. Sheikh Kabbani agreed somewhat with this concept, but emphasised the concept of counting one's bad deeds, as self-reflection biased in favour of the former often just serves to feed one's ego. He also exhorted the audience to practise regular meditation, using the analogy of the mind as a computer - uploading too much results in a crash which must be balanced by downloading (he possibly meant to use the words 'upload' and 'download' the other way around, but hey....), which is the use of meditation. Often when he mentioned the Prophet's name (s.a.w.), he would stand up from his seat in respect, also taking the audience with him!

I had the opportunity to ask him a question at the end. I wanted to know his opinion about I felt the use of the term 'Sufism' in lieu of 'tassawuf' contributed to the popular perception of  'Sufism' as a fringe sect of Islam, rather than its most central and profound science. The Sheikh mentioned in his reply  how 'Sufism' was essentially a western term. He said that tassawuf didn't have a name in the earliest history of Islam, but was a concrete reality, citing as an example the Ahl al-Suffa (People of the Bench/Platform), a group of poor Muslims who spent their days in constant worship, who for this purpose the Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) actually allocated a corner of his mosque to.  He illustrated his point in a pithy statement, which essentially was that tassawuf used to be 'a reality without a name', but these days is 'a name without a reality'. He further stated the role of certain Muslim reform movement/s of the modern era (whose oil money and political and media influence far outstripped their actual status as a heterodox minority) in potraying tassawuf as a deviant practice. However, he also mentioned how these reformers are having difficulty getting out of the mess they created, citing as an example how a certain Wahabist newsletter/paper actually tried to assert that Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahab practised tassawuf himself!

After answering my query the Sheikh finally took his leave, although not without having a woman or two from the audience apparently coming up to him to take bayat (Suleiman's note 12/12/10: my bad, apparently it wa just babies getting blessed)! Although I would have relished the opportunity to pick the Sheikh's brain further, the event was a valuable privilege which I was glad to take part in.

Flock Ewe, Sheep-Killing Baa-stard!

Hello possums.

Not too long ago was the festival of Eid ul-Adha, the Islamic festival when Muslims commemorate Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son for God (see here for an in-depth explanation of the event). It is a tradition for eligible individuals to offer a sacrifice (a sheep, goat, camel, or cow) on the days of the celebration. This sacrifice is known as udhiya or qurban/qurbani, and the meat is shared out amongst the community, especially the poor and needy. It's best for one to undertake the slaughter oneself, however it is considered permissible for people to arrange for someone else to perform the slaughter on one's behalf, which doesn't have to be in the same country as the person who ordered the sacrifice. Such a practice is especially common amongst Muslims living in the urban areas of western countries, where it is highly impractical to offer a sacrifice the traditional way.

I ordered my own qurbani through the non-profit organisation Mahboba's Promise, an Australian NGO founded by Mahboba Rawi, an Afghan refugee. A short while ago, after Eid, I received an email from MP with a link to an online photo album with pics from the organisation's Eid slaughter in Kabul. As I scanned through the images, I came across photos of the freshly prepared meat laid out on a cloth on the ground, with signs bearing the names of the corresponding qurbani donors marking each pile of cuts. And lo and behold, I saw the pile of meat with a sign bearing my name!

Meat, glorious meat (sorry folks, my name is not included in this shot!).



Conflicting emotions surged through my heart. The pride of, well, seeing one's own name put to something. The shame of realising that one is feeling this pride. However, I came to recognise a feeling which transcended all others, though I couldn't really name it.

You see, I came to realise something about our interactions with each other and the world, in this plane of existence. We all intellectually know that all actions have their respective effects. Throw a pebble, and make ripples. However, this knowledge is often precisely that - knowledge. We know it, but we act like we don't, and live like we don't - because even though we know it, it is just not real to us. We live in our foggy little bubbles, going about our everyday affairs, and who could blame us - if we don't experience something, can we really be expected to have a strong feeling about it?

So as I gazed upon my name on that nice little heap of mutton, Afghanistan became real to me. Those kids and slaughtermen in the photos, making dua together became real to me. Because of the power of a photo, my knowledge became real. I now knew, with full confidence that I just helped, no matter how ever so slightly, to make things better for a few people, for at least a short while. I realised that one could indeed create a tangible change and make a difference no matter where in the world one may be, as long as one puts one's mind to it. For a few moments at least, I truly got a sense of the brotherhood of man - we indeed are all in this together. No matter how seemingly insignificantly, my life cannot help but be touched by yours, and yours cannot help but be touched by mine.

I guess you could say that the overarching emotion I felt was hope. From the realised knowledge that I received in those few moments, I knew that anything is possible in regards to man. I received renewed hope in mankind's collective destiny, and have hope that we can work together to realise it.

Will I be able to sustain such realisations? For how long will I be able to live my life in the light of such realities before I sink again into forgefulness and the everyday humdrum? I don't know....but hope is alway there!

Big up yo'self Mahboba and co.!