Growing up Muslim

Re: 101
I have also happened to hear the Imam in person a few times this year. He has indeed a charismatic personality with a lot of patience and humility. Also, an extremely sharp man. His wife, a Kashmiri Lady, happens to conduct discussion sessions at her place in Manhattan for young women. I have attended one gathering where young Muslim Women professionals and students from all parts of the world participated and desired to contribute in an effective manner towards the growth of their community. Sometimes we get so involved in the daily rut and lose sight of what`s going on in our own community that these gatherings(very focused)create awareness.

Re:104
Thank you for highlighting the facts and figures. The only thing is that it`s on individuals and what route they want to adopt. For instance, my sibblings were very fond of hulla gulla on their respective wedding ceremonies and weeks of unending dholak sessions. I simply have no tolerance for such stuff and find it full of headaches. And, I completely agree that we need to simplify our life where we can; but I cannot impose my will and way of life on them or vice versa.

Post 97:
I completely concur with your points in this article and how Saima has portrayed certain events. They are all separate from each other. Probably there should have been some heading like Case I or Case II or Scenario I and stuff.

Azim Mian , highly esteemed washington-correspondent for jang karachi, writes of a Pakistani wedding. (jang, aug 10,2003--editorial op-ed page)

Salient points:

1) Rasheed Chaudhri, perhaps the most successful self-made Pakistani in US
2) his daughter gets married in thoruoughly Islamic muslim (not southasian zeroclass, mind you) wedding ceremony.
3) Al-Gore & Hillary Clinton were attended. Hillary even spoke 2/3 minutes
4) Shahbaz Sharif was there. Bainazeer couldn`t attend.
5) about 2000 guests attended. Paid arrangements made for invitees` stay in hotels.
6) No liquor was served to any guest.
7) No Indian-style shameless dances, called modernism, took place.
8) No bhangraa-type of panjabiness was exhibited.
9) Amna, the bride, though served as Hillary`s assistant at one time

---

never behaved or exhibited the third-rate `mainstream` `assimilated` kind of ghetto-ness being touted here.

Hmmmm...not really.

Umer M.

In response to echooooboom, #99:

``Most of those born & bred in North America do NOT visit/write on chowk. They do not identify with it. CHOWK is generally the haunt of homeland-desis or papered-citizens. Again not a GROSS generalisation, just a viewpoint from an Islamophile.``

Now, now, no need to be so harsh. There are many reasons why people participate on chowk, however I don`t think generation plays an important role here. More like the desire, the NEED, to be heard in a pseudo anonymous form. There are all kinds here...

``The generation2 is overall is the pride & joy of the ummah. Proudly & confidently straddling a culture which is of their OWN making. They are the American & Canadians who are as much learning from as TEACHING to the generation-mayflower.``

...sounds familiar, I just heard similar sentiments from an Uncle some months ago. There is this beaming pride towards my generation from our parents and their friends. It is most gratifying. No longer are we children to be guided, the tables have turned and our advice and company is actively solicited.

Still, our success and struggles were pale in comparison to that of the generation that preceded us. At least for my parents, coming to a foreign and inhospitable, as it turned out at the time, land was no easy feat. To the ease and comfort they afforded my generation, that ``mayflower`` generation you talk about has my utmost respect and admiration. I`ve but a shadow of their bravery.


``Wealth turns any place into your homeland, and Poverty makes you a stranger in your homeland.``

That`s quite a profound statement! I see it`s inherent truth. I also see what you mean by wealth affording one a degree of leverage in a foreign environment.

Your statements regarding dictating terms brings up an interesting issue. Is ghettoization necessarily a bad thing? I think it depends. If a ghetto is a reclusive escape from a society, a weak attempt at protecting oneself from an overwhelming and domineering culture, then I think it`s not the proper way to handle our issues. However, if it`s for the sake of creating a support structure, to strengthen ourselves as a community, I`m all for it. Sadly, the Pak/Muslim community in that area is note so organized.

I can think of two ghettos in the Toronto area, one Jewish (Bayeview area in north york), and the other Chinese (Markham) that I wouldn`t mind emulating.

Both communities are quite wealthy, so it`s not your typical ghetto. Speaking to your point, enter Markham, for example, and you`ll notice that the place is semi-officially bilingual: English and Cantonese. Hell, walk into a bank and you`ll see that the ATM machines are bloody well in English and Cantonese as well! Impressive...considering that officially French is the second language, and that it`s no where to be seen. One wonders if that would be possible if they didn`t have the economic clout and inward focused organization they do.

I fail to get why the american society`s social values are being held in such high esteem over here........what has their lack of sexual repression, their openness to other cultures ( which i doubt to a great extent ...) and their family value system achieved which you want the immigrants to emulate.......?
care to elaborate please ?
the fact is that its not just sub continents desi communities which want to stick together......others do that as well........cz they can understand each other better.........you wanna meet an arab you go to brooklyn and you wanna meet a black you go to harlem. What about their assimilation into the american society.
You fail to realize that it takes two or three generations for every immigrant to get assimilated into a new community....it doesnt happen overnight......how can you expect the first generation which has moved to america to assimilate so quickly and adopt their values......its impossible.......its a time consuming process.......plus its not as if their american values are worth emulating that these people should go out of their way to get assimilated and do away with the mistrust which have they have of these other communities which is natural for them. Its infact a good sign that they hold their own cultural values sacred and try to hang on to them as long as they want it because eventually they all want to return to pakistan........whethet its possible for them later on is another thing........so how can you expect a person with plans of eventually coming back to the sub continent to change his values over night.

Only persons suffering from inferiority complex of having a somewhat lesser culture will do that in a jiffy.
cheers
raza

For the fused (as in bulb), confused, and defused generation-0/1 maybe herein lies the answer.
Seek, and thou shall find.


A Muslim attitude that fuses Western and Muslim values
By Alexandra Alter


PHOTO: Frank Abdul Majid
Imam Feisal leading fellow Muslims in prayer

Sheikh Feisal Abdul Rauf makes an impression wherever he goes. He has barely set foot in the French Malaysian restuarant across the street from his Manhattan mosque when the restaurant`s bald, beaming owner comes running to take Feisal`s coat.

``Bismillah,`` in the name of God, Feisal says luxuriously, his thick, dark eyebrows inflecting with excitement as multiple curried dishes quickly appear. ``There is no one like you,`` he tells the restaurant owner, who has brought the dishes himself. ``You are the shining one,`` the owner says deferentially.

Uptown, in front of the office of the American Sufi Muslim Association, Feisal`s not-for-profit Islamic cultural institute, he has just extracted himself from his Lexus when the Pakistani fruit vendor calls out, ``Salam alakum, Shiekh,`` prompting Feisal to wander over and pop a ripe strawberry in his mouth.

Among the many people that seem to seek and enjoy Feisal`s company, his spiritual followers are without a doubt his most avid fans.

About 200 Muslims regularly gather at Masjid al-Farah to listen to Feisal, an Egyptian-born Sufi Sheikh of the Nur Ashki Jerrahi order whose creative and deeply spiritual articulation of Islam has attracted many young, Westernized followers back to their Islamic roots.

``Why do Americans believe that Islam is foreign to their culture?`` Shiekh Feisal asked a crowded mosque at the conclusion of one of his Friday sermons. ``If they do, the responsibility to change this perception lies with us.``

For the last 20 years, Feisal has been calling for an Americanized Islam that fuses Western and Muslim values. His followers have been inspired by him; his critics have taken disapproving notice of his liberal teachings. But few non-Muslims recognized Feisal`s progressive voice until, in the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks, Americans began searching for a moderate expression of Islam.

In speaking to the need for a culturally American Islam, Feisal appeals to a broad cross section of the American Muslim population. When the mosque fills up on Friday afternoons, the long, narrow hall is packed with devotees from Bangladesh, Pakistan, Iran, Long Island and New Jersey. Overall, it is a young crowd.

``These young people are living in a time and place different from that of their parents,`` Feisal says. ``They want something that is suitable for their reality. And their reality is a complex one. More and more Muslims today are cultural polyglots.``

A polyglot himself, Feisal was born to Egyptian parents in Kuwait in 1949. He lived in England and Malaysia before moving to New York with his father at age 17. After receiving a degree in physics from Columbia University and a master`s in plasma physics from Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey, Feisal taught high school mathematics and worked at a company that sold industrial filtration equipment, But throughout his life, Feisal had a sense of himself as a spiritual leader.

``When I came to this city in 1965 with my father, I had a vision of giving sermons in New York,`` he said. ``I always knew in my bones that I`d be a spiritual teacher here.``

His calling may have been in his genes as much as his bones. A descendant of the prophet Muhammed through the line of Hassan, Feisal`s grandfather was involved in Sufism in his ancestral village in Egypt. His father founded such prestigious centers of Islamic education as the Islamic University on Malaysia and the Islamic Center on Riverside Drive.

Feisal`s international upbringing primed him to recast Islam for an American audience, said Anisa Meting, a religion reporter who first met Feisal 32 years ago when he served as her camp counsellor at Muslim youth camp in Fort Dervis, N.Y.

``He`s lived in so many places and has these various prisms to look at Islam in the world. He knows what is constant about Islam and what is cultural,`` Meting said, adding that Feisal`s nuanced explanation of Sharia, or Islamic law, was invaluable to her as the executive producer of the PBS Frontline documentary ``Muslims.``

Besides appealing to young, Americanized Muslims, Feisal`s understanding of Western culture aids his efforts to educate non-Muslims about Islam.

``He really knows how to talk to Americans, which gives him an advantage over other Muslim scholars,`` said Rabbi Leonard Shulman of the Center for Religious Inquiry, where Feisal began teaching classes in Islam and Sufism over three years ago. After 9/11, his class enrollment jumped from 20 to about 60, Schulman said. Last September at Masjid al-Farah, at a commemoration of the one-year anniversary of the September 11th attacks, Feisal impressed Schulman by stating in front of an al-Jazeera broadcast crew that he had more in common spiritually with his Christian and Jewish brothers than with Muslim extremists.

``He certainly showed a lot of guts that day,`` Schulman said.

The Rev. Dean Morton of New York City`s Interfaith Center said the current interest in Islam has put Feisal in high demand.

``Feisal has been Mr. Muslim,`` Mr. Morton said. ``He has a genuine respect for the diversity of religious traditions. He`s not out to convert us non-Muslims.``

Feisal likes the parable written by the Sufi poet Jalaluddin Rumi that describes an Arab, an Iranian and a Turk who all have a different word for grapes.

``They`re talking about the same reality, using a different language, and they`re getting caught up in the language,`` Feisal said. ``The objective of all mystical and spiritual traditions is to go to the truth beyond the paradigmatic modes of understanding. Once you do that, you`re able to recognize the truth in others.``

While Feisal`s broad-minded posture has earned him respect among interfaith circles, he is decidedly less popular with more conservative Muslims who see his magnanimous attitudes toward other religions as unIslamic.

``Some people don`t like his liberal ideas and how close he is to his disciples,`` said Nas Georgas, one of his young followers.

Feisal isn`t easily intimidated by his critics.

``They may not like what I say, but they leave me alone because my credentials in orthodoxy are very strong. They can`t debate with me,`` he says in a low voice, a smile bubbling up.

96: hamidm2

Ever heard yourself what you say and how you say it?

The drone and the hum has become a flatliner.

It sounded like a healthy beat few weeks ago and now after a few interacts it has evolved into the humorous laugh of a hyena and the sneering smile of an alligator.

Man/Woman does not live by halvaa alone.

PS: Your family has really made it. Congratulations.
From what I hear you are the only desi who has been inducted into the Hall-of-Tamed of Springfield.
Regards to Homer et al and a very special howdy-pardner to Apu.

97:digit

Most of those born & bred in North America do NOT visit/write on chowk. They do not identify with it. CHOWK is generally the haunt of homeland-desis or papered-citizens. Again not a GROSS generalisation, just a viewpoint from an Islamophile.

The generation2 is overall is the pride & joy of the ummah. Proudly & confidently straddling a culture which is of their OWN making. They are the American & Canadians who are as much learning from as TEACHING to the generation-mayflower. Whoever coined the garbage concept of `mainstream`. Must be some sociology/psychology type academic--the generation-lost.

Wealth turns any place into your homeland, and Poverty makes you a stranger in your homeland.

The self-made `uneducated` rich muslim who have the means can afford to dictate their terms to banks for no-interest deals. Invite their jewish, whitey, anglo & black friends to their houses and INSIST that they have separate arrangements for men & women. Their women, from behind the veil & burqua ( they drive too--and the police are polite, respectful and defferential to them) command & control MBA/CPA types of those on their payroll.
This all not from hearsay.

Same above freedom is enjoyed by those who have some skills to offer to a giant like IBM, who dare not comment on their tableeghee attire and demeanour. Again this too not hearsay.

The plight of the 9 to fiver artyfarty, ghettoised sociologist-`educated` one is known to all. Desperately trying to compensate their median incomes by fashion-statements & eateries which take away their 2 days earnings..it is quite a laugh when some fondly mention their lattes` & cappucinos--I mean how pathetic can one get. Such small pleasures they think gives them the power to level the playing field or play soccer with a ping-pong ball for the sake of equality and rights.

No gross generalisations here -- just a view point of an Islamophile.

``Declare thineself in unambigous terms so that thou be accorded clear & clean justice``--from the Book of Anonymous Wisdom.

In response to Saima, who wrote in #37

“You criticize my article for being `all over the place`--Yet you seem to have understood it well enough to critique it.”

Your article is all over the place in the sense that the flow of your argument was difficult to determine. The examples you gave didn’t seem to be related to each other, aside for your dislike of certain behavior. Also, the expressed need for a better approach at dealing with integration issues, coupled with an advocating of greater inter-communal communication seem not to fit together well in the same piece.

“Some people find more than two variables scary--but social phenomena can rarely be described using two or three variables.”

Certainly, however it would help if these variables were explicitly identified and how the examples related. Otherwise, your examples read like attacks on individuals whom many people reading can relate to…the net effect is a dampening of your message, and a lot of misunderstanding.

“No I wasnt pointing out extreme behaviour--just regular stuff that communities do to protect their original values.
That inspite of some degree of dissonance and criticism of their original culture, they enforce what they `know` or were taught in childhood rather than any other strategy (note rather than).”

I think what you observed may be trivial facets of what people do to protect and propagate their values in an alien environment. From my experience, I can say that there is a lot more that goes on between children and parents than thoughtless attempts at child rearing that perhaps you were in no position to observe. Or it may be that the particular parents you described are aloof in this regard.

Whatever the case, those who do criticize their original culture may not necessarily require a shift in values to adapt to a new culture/environment. Such a shift is hardly a strategy for dealing with issues, it sounds like the end result of a crisis. Pardon me if my interpretation is wrong here, however it seems clear to me from your article that you advocate a post-Islam Muslim ethos as a possible ‘strategy’.

“The struggle of immigrants to establish what u call equilibrium was immortalized by my description of it--not trivialized. It is hard.”

It IS hard, and it definitely involves more than imparting mores pertaining to sexuality, or other conservative values.

“Do you really think the migration was for economic reasons only? Wasnt it because the parents wanted to give more freedom to travel, better education and other benefits of belonging to the winning western culture? The right english accent carries a lot of value in the world.”

Yes, economic reasons only. My parents were not so familiar with the west, and the benefits an organized society could offer. Further, their problem with Pakistan was it`s poor economic state, not the social conditions. Nor was there a concern for a future family. My parents migrated to Canada back in the early ‘60s. They had every intention to return, once making whatever they deemed to be ‘enough’ to survive in Pakistan. Years turned to decades, and finally the desire to return dissipated. We settled.

“I know at least 2 women from a Hindu background were told by the parents--marry anybody but if u ever talk about considering a muslim, we will die. These arent extreme people, these are educated, hardworking people with strong fears and suspicion of another community. One girl never dared, the other waits with the muslim boyfriend for some change in the parents` attitudes. “

I beg to differ. These are extreme people, in their exclusion of a single group. It would be different, however, if they desired their children to marry only Hindus. Such attitudes are prevalent within faith and ethnic communities, and quite frankly I don`t mind it much. I`ve discussed this with friends of other faith groups, and those of us who think their faith to be important are of the same opinion. If our children do indeed marry out of the faith, then it is due to our failure as parents to impart our values and sense of identity.

............ ``growing up muslim`` is kind of like growing up with a debilitating condition that will eventually kill you if you let it run its course .......... most desi parents i know, and i know hundreds of them, are one sandwich short of a picnic when it comes to raising kids in amreeka .........they are perfectly mad! ............ most of them are caught up in an imaginary world where their daughters are next in line for immaculate conception, and their sons are constantly reciting ayat ul kursi instead of dreaming of naked women every twenty five seconds like normal healthy boys .............. how ridiculous can you get!......... they drag the little brats here and there, to masjids and biryani dinners and tafseer classes and think they are doing one heck of a job while their white counterparts are driving all across the country to swim meets, lacrosse camp, soccer tournaments and little league baseball .............little do they now that they are creating insecure, confused and sexually repressed fools who might be able to graduate cum laude from an ivy league school but will probably end up as spinsters or unsuccessful suicide bombers or, worse still, as misogynist muslim husbands and frigid muslima wives ..............on the other hand, the white kids, toughened up by years of little league hockey and cheer leading , will grow up to run ge and hp and have healthy sexual relationships............

.......some anecdotal evidence: at a recent biryani fest my daughter came running to me looking all flustered and worried ....``don`t talk to ayesha`s dad about the prom - her parent`s dont know she went!`` .......aha!.......so ayesha`s dad is shelling out twenty grand a year to send her to a hoity toity private school but won`t spend a couple of hundred for a dress for the prom - what an idiot!.......so ayesha will go off to a prestigious college and end up marrying david bluemstine with a beanie on his head and her dad will act surprised when he gets an invitation for hannuka dinner ........really, what an idiot!.............and then i go to these graduation parties where i see ``our`` girls hugging and kissing on sam, chris and matt while abdullah and ahmed are totally ignored by their ``sisters`` and instead ogle kristen and karly while their mothers are talking about bringing them brides from karachi ............ so we are doing a good job of raising our kids? ..........nonsense! ........ i am inclined to believe my ten year old when she says, ``dad, you don`t know anything`` as she explains how spongebob can talk to a squirrel living under water..........

Romair,
I did say the welfare state leads to more girls keeping to babies;read the line again.
How can you expect that just because they are white,Westerners should know the answers to all of life`s big problems?That`s like admitting they should be smarter than us.Money doesn`t always confer wisdom,you know.I don`t think I`m the one with the colonial mindset here.
I don`t think indiscriminate sex is a good idea,but nor do most Westerners.No one wants their kids to grow up unhappy.The thing is that there is a difference between having sex with random strangers and sex as part of a loving mutually supportive relationship outside marriage.

A father might appear to be trying to do what is best for a child,but much child abuse derives from parents trying to `persuade` their children,among both whites and Asians.I think it is dangerous to shrug and say he`s doing his best.Even with honour killings,a father might feel it is better for her that his daughter be dead than `defiled`.Yes,that is an extreme example but you do get my drift.

Nobody is trying to make you change your opinion, cz i can see how inflexible you are. But we can surely comment on your lack of understanding of critical issues. Its amazing how can you just comment on Quran being anti women without any thing to back it up. First of all the fact that Quran allows something doesnt mean it actually encourages you to do that.......4 marriages have been allowed for various special reasons and in different contexts...not as a norm....how can you even think quran clearly declares women one degree less then women....where is the issue of slave women and child marriages in quran ? this is surely a piece of rubbish coming from a supposedly enlightened author. The fact that you cant quote any ayat which says all this just goes on to show how baselss your arguments are. Just because you say it is anti women doesnt make it so..........why dont you consult some shrink who can counel you on your narrow mindedness. next time try to be a bit open in your approach.
cheers
raza

If saima shah had that experience with 2 or 3 families, and if I had that experience with 2 or 3 families... it won`t be an odd case would it? eh?

what saima has written is generally true of most immigrants.

adnan-rafiq:
``One might not agree with his methods, but lets not forget that the father is trying to do what he knows best.``

Quite so! I have always felt a lot of sympathy with the father coming from a society which still believed in ``sparing the rod and spoiling the child``. Imagine the plight of the poor fellow who thought he was merely doing his duty when he slapped his son who talked back at Mom or worse, and then received a call from the Children`s Aid Society.

When I was with the Immigration department and there was a lot of concern about too many coloured immigrants coming to Canada, I jokingly used to tell my colleagues that we should show a short film to every prospective immigrant what he could expect from his wife or daughter in five years` time and half of them would probably change their mind [The other half, I told them, would be dissuaded if they were made to spend a few hours in minus 20 degrees celsius].

#89

adnan_rafiq
``How about a little gratitude for the father who suffers from an acute case of ``slave mentality``, yet raises successful bright kids?``

---

So you want me to be sympathetic towards migrant parents who have a very hard choice to make? I am. Ideally what I would like is some thought before they make that choice and think through if the old way is the best way BEFORE they impose limits to their children`s lives. A little debate, some dialogue would go a long way. I object to using the default mode of parenting.

I quoted Socrates in my article for he had the original idea of thinking through an idea such that nobody could shake that argument. 3 days this article has been up--nobody has yet convinced me through argument that repressing their children`s curiousity would elicit a better moral character, inner peace and scholastic ability (isnt that what we all want to see in our children?). The most that people have said is: There are many well-adjusted second generation children who take the best from East and West. But how they do that is ambiguous--so let`s ask them, how their parents dealt with their identity and the moral baggage.

About the slave mentality and success. Both aren`t interdependent--. Socrates the great philosopher was not a slave but hugely unsuccessful. Socrates himself said in his dialogues--that the pursuit of reason is for happiness, not success because sycophants can be very successful.

Having said that--my `sweeping statements` and `gross generalizations` aside, do you seriously thing that you or I or these other migrants do not have a slave mentality? We may be paid slaves, but slaves of the system we are. Everytime a third world citizen stands in endless lines, forced to produce every document he has to prove himself, he is a slave. In his own country he is a slave to his dream that migration will give him power, and in the foreign country he is a slave to his fear of loss of identity. And through out it all he is slave to every need of his that makes him do what he does not like.

Is bigotry and hypocrisy necessary to raise morally upstanding children?

People need to refrain from generalizations. And one needs to look beyond one`s own experiences for examples, also. I still have to say that my experiences with South Asian immmigrants have been far more posiitive than this article points. Then again, maybe, those are just limited to the people I meet.

``They also shared certain lifestyle choices with all average Muslim families. The need for halal meat, the fact that the wife was always dependent on the husband, the husband chose the menus, the clothes, the apartment, and made all spending decisions be they minor or major. One thing stood out even more—the almost Neanderthal ideas about female sexuality.``

I really cannot say that average Muslim families have Neanderthal about female sexuality. There are many that probably are. But if one looks outside a certain circle, one will find quite a few that aren`t. It is difficult to generalize. Once again, depends on personal experiences. I assume anyone commenting on the subject, makes an assumption that their surroundings are the, ``average Muslim family.`` I maybe making that assumption also, when pointing out that my experiences don`t match this article.

From the descriptions of the families described, that the author is interacting with, I would say they are quite backwards in this area. However, if the author looks outside this circle, she will discover a more positive outlook of Muslims families, also.

I would be interested in finding out whether the author includes her own personal experiences within the range of, ``average Muslim families,`` described in this article. Not as an attack of any sort, but just to find out where she is coming from. Because sometimes people have personal experiences, and make a generalization of those experiences.