As a teenager, I was never confident about my body. I was darker-skinned than was generally accepted; I had thicker eyebrows than other girls. I never believed any man would find me beautiful. Unlike some of my fair-skinned friends, who were pursued relentlessly, no one pursued me. There was this one classmate who gave me a little attention, and I really thought he would be the first and the last. How disappointed I was when I found out that giving... Read more
Lots of things have been going down at www.patheos.com/blogs/loveinshallah and within the Muslim blogosphere. The recent article on Muslim men returning “back home” to find wives generated diverse cyber chatter, with various responses supporting or criticizing different positions. On the heels of that debate, the Miptserz-coining, Somewhere in America, video featuring women in hijabs and cool turbans skateboarding to Jay-Z generated widespread media controversy. Again, Muslims drew well-argued lines on the good, the bad, and the ugly regarding the video’s use of... Read more
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3Nq0NzRrfE The “Mipsterz” video has been making waves in the American Muslim community. What are your thoughts about the video? The range of commentary from the Muslim community seemed to range from “beautiful, cool, diverse and vibrant” to “what’s the point?” (what’s the point of any music video?) to some terrible shaming of the women involved in front of and behind the cameras. Some commentary we appreciated. “Somewhere in America?” by Professor Su’ad Abdul Khabeer; “Somewhere on the Internet, Muslim... Read more
I Will Be Satisfied I will never be satisfied Until you flood me like the Nile floods the plain Until your arms become Babylonian lions and devour me raw Until you scale me like the Temple of the Feathered Serpent And I will never be satisfied Until you cast yourself into the fire And its flames are cool and safe for you because of me Until you break the chains of impossibility And slay the beast of doubt like oxen... Read more
In a vibrant new video, journalist Nushmia Khan examines the hands of the Pakistanis she met while reporting. “With all these hands, I could only see potential — potential in a country that has been deemed a failure by so many,” she writes. Read more
Rest in power & peace, Tata Madiba. South African freedom fighter & icon Nelson Mandela has passed away at the age of 95. Hamba kahle! Read more
We’ve crossed the one-year anniversary of my blog, Brain Knows Better, and it’s pretty incredible to think how much my life has changed over this last year. It’s been a ton of fun to explore the psychology of sci-fi, but more than anything, this blog has helped me be honest about who I am – a big geek. I didn’t like who I was in middle school and tried everything I could to blend in.I wasn’t always this open about... Read more
You’ve got to meet my brother, my friend Mina tells me as we wander the streets of San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter while our husbands attend a conference nearby. He’s a drummer. His band’s toured quite a bit, some of their songs are used as television theme songs, and one of their tracks is in Django Unchained! Next time he’s in town we’ll all get together. You’ll like him. He’s an artist, like you. I wanted to protest this... Read more
I’d forgotten that the psychic said he was going to come to me in the spring, with a briefcase in hand. I was so heavy with grief that the thought that I’d ever be able to feel love in my heart again felt like fiction. There was room for nothing but sadness and survival. How could I ever fall in love again? Instead, I fixated on the things that she said that mattered in that moment, only seven weeks after... Read more
Threads A hushed night. Soft and still. I see threads. Threads. There are threads. Laced like webs. Twined around my fingers, my toes, the vessels within my heart. Stretching out piercing through particles and atoms. Crisscrossing through time. Interlocking and tangling. Knotting with other threads. Weaving and weaving. (more…) Read more
Love, InshAllah
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