The Good, the Bad and the Anxiety

Re: Sohail Rabbani

Ironically, I agree with you Sohail, without
really compromising my viewpoint. This is what I refer to as calling it something else.
To take inspiration from the Quran (especially helps in finding the superiority
of gora rang completely preposterous) doesn`t
need you to be part of the daira of Islam as
a religion. Sure, one can continue to feel the plight of Muslims around the world, eat
siwayyaN at Eid, even go for the congregatinal Eid prayers, enjoy the muezzin`s exhortation, etcetera, etcetera,
and believe in Allah, without accepting the
Quran as dogma (somehow God`s spoken work
makes it sound more palatable), but why
insist on calling oneself ``Muslim?`` Religion is only a part of culture, and it at times
can certainly dictate it, but it`ll never become the whole. Dogmas have the same status
in religions, as axioms in geometry. As far as I am concerned, one can be a ``Muslim``
only religiously and a ``Muslim`` culturally
only by its extention. Even Salman Rushdie
can claim to be a Muslim culturally, but he
would never be taken seriously if he tried to claim to be one religiously. It`s commonly
claimed that what makes you a ``Muslim`` is the
utterance of the ``Shahada`` (in Arabic), so
where do we put the ``Muslims`` who are unwilling to do so or just uninterested in such rituals?

Regarding the article, when one professes to be a ``Muslim`` in the public sphere of life,
like if BG claimed to be one at a Thela in
juma bazaar, one is making themselves vulnerable to ``advice,`` just based on appealing to the injunctions in the Quran.
``Amar bil maaroof wa nahi anil munkar`` allows
exactly that, and it`s definitely not easy to
reinterpet in a more ``favorable`` way. Of course, you are always allowed to give up
the dogma and earn your claim to fame on death row. The death penalty for apostasy is
sometimes carried out by the awaam, if the
government is too lax in bringing justice to
the offender.

I say let`s vote for less fasting and more
Eids!

Eid Mubarak

re: shahhbaz chaudhry.

thank you for your comments.

first of all I would like to say that I was not comparing Pakistan to the US. Judging and moralizing are not peculiar to us -- I was merely sharing my experience as a Pakistani woman. If americans do the same things, it doesnt make them better in my book.

secondly, I do realize that a lot of times ``our`` people care and therefore, take it upon themselves to intervene. I object when people think caring about someone means moralizing to them. If I need help with heavy groceries and a Pakistani man asks to help me, of course I will think that is a warm act. However personal choices of what to wear and whom to ride in a car with are not situations where one can assume that the person needs help.

I found the fruit vendor`s comment particularly invasive. I really dont want to repeat what saima shah has articulted so well.

also, i was not suggesting that the pakistani men at campus `harassed` me or that all pakistni`s are harassers.

RE WAHEED MALIK
No, I never stole liquid soap from the restrooms :-)


RE SAULAT HUSSAIN

Thank you for pointing out that we have to learn to be tolerant. Yes, I realize that older people dont know and understand me. I have a problem when they ASSUME things without really knowing a person.


RE MUSLIM SISTER

I call myself ``bad girl`` not because I think I am bad. I know I am not. I am re-interpreting and re-appropriating the term for myself. I realized a long time ago that trying to earn the label ``good girl`` actually meant adopting behaviours and attitudes that lower women`s self-esteem and stifle their creativity and individuality. (I am sure there are equivalents for men)

By calling myself ``bad girl``, I want us to think about what these labels mean and represent.

the point about inter-racial relationships was an example of situations that cause some people anxiety. You are right, its a problem in most cultures.

Thank you for praying for my self-esteem. I pray, in my own way, for yours.

Your Muslim Sister
Bad Girl.


RE MATHA

I think Sohail Rabbani has responded, better than I could have to your comments.

Eid Mubarik to you ;-)


RE MAK
Please learn to read before you comment on an article.

I never asked ``why she is not allowed to put on western dresses, why men and women not allowed to fonfabulate with each other freely ?`` These questions seem to be foremost only in your mind. The central question I asked was whether our preoccupation with others` morality is actually a reflection of our anxiety about our own goodness and integrity.

I was regretted to read the article written by the Bad Girl (she knows her) with grossly and realized how our frustrated women (a tiny group) see shackles in pakistan. I dont know what religion she belongs to but seems she put her values, culture and customes aside across the border. She complains the freedom has not been given her despite she lives in a country like US. She didnt explain what does she mean of freedom explicitly but it appears she needs to wear (or not to wear) western skin-tight light clothes to provide relief herself and agony to guys, to shake butts in noisy ,smoky bars with glittering glasses toasting with white mates to show off her modernization and to wander with them whenever and wherever she wants. The notion of freedom permeated so extensively she likes to chat with shop keeper giving her status (name, marital status, address etc.) but erupts to hear his advice. She raised several preposterous points asking why she is not allowed to put on western dresses, why men and women not allowed to confabulate with eachother freely and why she needs to wear hijab. These points are explained in Quran and if she belongs to Muslim family she must read again to refresh her memory and their is no point to decline or argue on that. I think she should encounter herself and rebuild her esteem.

We must Thank You for your sharing your way dealing with life as a muslim woman. Perhaps bad girl deals with it even better by acknowledging the problem for what it is, and trying to understand it, sharing it and telling others to change the automatic secondary status assigned to Muslim women.

It is NOT lack of self-esteem that puts courage in a woman, but self-esteem itself. Bad-girl found the remark on her clothing, hideously personal and humiliating. Put yourself in her place. Perhaps a ``good `` woman like you would have said, ``Thank you for looking at my body. All this time I had actually thought you were speaking to me as a fellow person. You must have very good intentions towards me``. And a ``really good`` woman would have been covered from head to toe to start with so that everyone knows how ``really good`` she is.

Muslim person, try and guard against being so approval seeking. It is a sign of fatally low self-esteem.

Thanks for the appreciation:). Delighted you liked the poem so much that u put it up, bad girl. Smirk smirk !!. And Moe, the Anthem is far too good to be compared for my humble little effort. I accept the compliment though:-)

Mademoiselle Saima, Your poem ``The Spirit of A Woman`` is power-packed, especially the last
punch line:

Set her free
Look at me!

Fully complements another poem posted elsewhere on chowk titled ``A Woman Anthem For Our Chowk Women`` by Salman Rushtudie Limbaugh, especially these two stanzas:

I won`t tell you ``gosh, my wife just doesn`t understand``,
Or stick my hand in my pocket to hide that gold band!

Wow, what similarity of imageries in both!!!!

maThajee:

I take exception to your assertion that one cannot claim to be a muslim if one does not believe this or that. You fixed the minimum mandatory standard, as being an utterly unquestioning believer of every word of the Quran.

That is indeed a very popular point of view. But it is a very fascistic and dogmatic one. I, for example, call myself a muslim (besides other things), yet I cannot honestly believe that Quran is the unadultrated world of the Creator of the cosmos. I find that a rather far-fetched claim. It does not take away, in my eyes, from the beauty and value of that Book as a corner stone of our heritage.

I remember reading an interview of the president of Uzbekestan, when he was asked if he is a muslim. ``Yes``, he said emphatically. ``Do you believe in God?`` asked the reporter, ``No``, replied the man with equal vigor.

Being a muslim is a part of our heritage and our identity. We can emancipate our views, but we cannot alter our identity, nor for that matter, should we even want to.

...SR

So you did finally get pegged, didn`t you?

An accurate narrative, and it`s accuracy reawakens the desire to understand a simple
basic point, as quoted in the author`s own
words, ``What does it mean to be a ``Muslim``?``

I think the issue is simple (inspired by digital logic)! You either believe in it, and
therefore accept the Quran, at least,
prima facie, or you don`t. I`ve not met a single ``Muslim`` who doesn`t believe in the
``la raiba feeh (there is no doubt in this (book)`` characteristic of the Quran. If you
disagree with what the Quran has to say,
that is even an iota of it, but
desire of ``staying`` a ``Muslim,`` I can only
offer you sympathy! This point is strengthened by (part of) another aayat ``kuloo fissilme kaafataN`` (the translation
people are familiar with in Urdu is: Islam
meiN pooray pooray daaKhil ho jao; embrace
Islam completely). So if you want to pick and
choose (which applies to reinterpretations
which annul clear injunctions rather than
open-ended, unprecedented situations (the ones for which ijmaa (communal reinterpretation) is allowed)), then you
can call it something else, not Islam.
No wonder digital logic works better with
computers!

Most people understand this difference, so
why do we want to ``stay`` ``Muslims?`` Firstly,
the injunctions relating to apostasy are a bit too clear (and unfortunately well-known).
Secondly, with most of us, the emotional
blackmail factor from family and friends
(humaree tarbiyat meiN kiya kamee reh gayee!; meiN nay yeh din dekhnay keh liyay
tumheiN paida kiya tha!; hai, isay Amreeka
nay Kharaab kar diya!) with related threats of excommunication and ostracization can be draining. There are, of course, others.

Things only get worse by being a ``Pakistani woman!`` because cultural norms come into play as well (effective rules of being
judgemental about women are not very different in other South Asian countries). KhaNdaaN ki izzat ka muamila hai, waghaira, waghaira.

Talking about behavior in public, I wonder if
it`s more offensive for men to see their maeN, behnaiN, beTiyaN in ``immodest`` attire,
or for the women to spectate the resulting
khooN-khuwaar gazes and genital-scratching symphonies! Shalwaar qameez has it`s privileges!

Eid Mubarik!

Re: Saima and ``the spirit of a woman``

What a beautiful poem, Saima. It should have a section for itself! I always like the way you understand what is being said and enrich it sooo much with your own contributions!

Regarding older/unmarried/divorced/widowed women: absolutely right! In fact, some of the more pious amongst us who raise fingers at ``these`` women forget that prophet Mohammad`s first wife was a widow who was his boss and 25 years older than him. And, he also married women who were divorced. Throws all those steretypes right out the window, huh?

Re: Sohail Rabbani
Thank you for your appreciation. Its always reassuring when ``the other side`` ( ;-) ) can resonate with what is being said.

I especially like your example of heaven and hoors - come to think of it, that`s pretty much what it comes down to: men get hoors and we get sauqans.

Yes, a lot of Muslim women have a problem confronting the bias against women in Islam. I get defensive about Islam in the West also, with its Muslim bashing (another subject). But, I feel, as women and men, we have the right to re-appropriate religion and re-interpret it for ourselves for it to make sense to us. It should not be a question of whole hearted acceptance versus complete rejection. Why can`t I say that I am a Muslim, though I don`t pray five times a day and I don`t buy into the Muslim-patriarchal model? Of course, Islam was pretty radical AT THAT TIME and the prophet was an incredibly awesome and progressive man, especially when it came to women, for those times. But, its been 14 centuries. Can we re-think some things for ourselves?

GREAT!! BRILLIANT!!

You have said it so well!! I completely agree with you. This is exactly how it is. There is this questioning of a woman`s morality at the first sign of individuality or difference. ``Is she a good girl. If she is such a feminist will she have an affair with me?``

Imagine what it must be like for the widowed/older-unmarried/divorcees. ``Must be bad, otherwise they would be married``. Thats the kind of reasoning which follows women here.

EXCELLENT !!! SUPERB !!! WONDERFUL !!!

Bravo, or rather, Brava...! Very powerful and extremely apt. I`ll have to read, and re-read your piece to fully appreciate it.

Growing up in La`whore, in the Is`slimy rip-public-off, I was never aware of gender issues until a childhood friend of mine introduced me to ``The Second Sex`` by Simone de Beavure... (I don`t want to misspell her name,... Satre`s companion), during summer vacations. That book literally ``opened my eyes``.

However, most (but by no means all) Pakistani women, my two sisters included, refuse to reject the inherent inequities they face on a day to day basis. I find it very frustrating and hard to understand.

As best I can tell, their biggest hang-up is so-called ``religious``. For clearly, Allah intended thus. ``Hell with it,`` I say. ``Islam yeh keyhta ha``,(translation: Islam says so) they respond. ``Then don`t follow that crap,`` I retort, adding, ``junet-ul-Firdaus mey mujh ko tu char hoor milay gee, tum ko kayeh milay ga, 4 saquan ?`` (translation: I will get 4 `hoors` in Paradise, but what will you get, 4 rivals?). (My implication being that as a man, it suits the hell out of me, but why in goodness` name are you women buying into this?) ``Tauba, tauba, tum tou kafir ho gaye ho,`` they respond. (trans: mercy, mery, you`ve become an infidel.)