{"id":524,"date":"2012-01-11T09:00:11","date_gmt":"2012-01-11T17:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/loveinshallah\/?p=524"},"modified":"2014-11-03T11:19:12","modified_gmt":"2014-11-03T18:19:12","slug":"spotlight-yasmine-khan-sweeping-the-sunshine-and-love-inshallah-contributor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/loveinshallah\/2012\/01\/11\/spotlight-yasmine-khan-sweeping-the-sunshine-and-love-inshallah-contributor\/","title":{"rendered":"Spotlight: Yasmine Khan, sweeping the sunshine and Love InshAllah contributor!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
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Yasmine Khan is a graduate student whose professional \u00a0interests lie in advancing multiculturalism, diversity training, and fund development. \u00a0She\u2019s also a photographer and long term blogger at \u00a0SweepTheSunshine.com.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

An excerpt from Yasmine\u2019s story, \u201cIt Will Be Beautiful\u201d:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cSlowly, we connected over Facebook comments, emails every\u00a0few days, and intermittent text messaging. Many of our conversations\u00a0were about books, sharing recommendations and discussing\u00a0novels we had both read. One night in late January, as we wound down a Gmail Chat conversation, he said, \u201cI have a book\u00a0of Allama Iqbal\u2019s poems in English. I can send it to you, if you\u00a0want it. Let me know, and I\u2019ll drop it in the mail.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

I paused for a few minutes\u2014sharing one\u2019s address is still such\u00a0an intimate thing, even in this digital day and age\u2014but then sent\u00a0him my mailing address, along with a note, only half joking, \u201cI\u2019m\u00a0trusting that you\u2019re not some scary stalker.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0The book arrived a few days later. I had to acknowledge receipt\u00a0of the gift, so I gulped, picked up the telephone, and called Yasser\u00a0for the first time. I reached him as he was picking up his daughter\u00a0and her friends from school. While he and I spoke, I could hear\u00a0little-girl voices chattering in the background, and the sound\u00a0made me smile, even as it rattled me.\u00a0<\/em>What the hell am I getting myself into?\u00a0Still, our conversation flowed lightly and easily.\u00a0I laughed often and did not feel at all awkward. When I hung\u00a0up and squinted at my phone, I was shocked to find the call had\u00a0lasted an entire hour.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

To read the rest of Yasmine\u2019s story,\u00a0order\u00a0<\/a>Love InshAllah\u00a0today!<\/p>\n

Why were you drawn to this project?<\/strong><\/p>\n

For most of my life, my search for love was something I rarely discussed, even with my closest friends. When I was invited to submit a piece for this anthology, a part of me balked at sharing something so personal. Today, however, the personal is also, by default, political. And so I couldn\u2019t resist the opportunity to contribute a story celebrating love and romance from an American Muslim perspective.<\/p>\n

One of the most rewarding things that came out of writing my story and then later sharing the details of my relationship on Facebook was that I received notes from other women who are in similar relationships. I felt less alone, I finally felt there were other women who understood the path down which I had been embarking, and I felt encouraged by the warmth and support that shone through those notes. And that, more than anything, underscored the point of this project, for me: the universality of love, and the community that we create and cultivate when we share our stories.<\/p>\n

What was the most challenging part of sharing your story?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Although I have a relatively active online presence via platforms like Facebook, blogging, and Flickr, I tend to be very private about most of the actual details of my life. It was thus challenging, and even a bit disconcerting, to write so openly and in-depth about the nuances of my love story when, in real life, so few were privy to those details at the time.<\/p>\n

If there\u2019s one thing you hope that readers will take away from your story, what is it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

More than anything else, I believe ours is a story about trust \u2014 especially during the times when we had no idea how this story would continue unfolding. And so, I hope that my and Yasser\u2019s story will inspire readers to trust in love and in God. \u00a0Trust in God by praying for positive outcomes, and by doing everything within your own power to bring about positive outcomes. For those who fear how your parents, friends, or community will react to your stories or secrets, I hope that your confidence in the importance of sharing your story will bring calmness and articulateness to your telling of it. \u00a0Trust that God, and love, can open people\u2019s hearts (and your own heart) in the most unexpected ways.<\/p>\n

Anything else you want to share?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to add that while one of the biggest factors in my story was geography, I would encourage others to remain open to all possibilities, even if love arrives via long-distance. In our case, we are children of a digital age, and we made full use of the technology at our disposal: Gmail, Gchat, Skype, phonecalls, textmessaging. We held on to everything there is in a relationship that is not entirely tangible \u2013 and there was quite a lot, actually, because we wanted there to be, and so we worked hard to cultivate the innumerable forms this relationship took.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Yasmine Khan is a graduate student whose professional \u00a0interests lie in advancing multiculturalism, diversity training, and fund development. \u00a0She\u2019s also a photographer and long term blogger at \u00a0SweepTheSunshine.com.\u00a0 An excerpt from Yasmine\u2019s story, \u201cIt Will Be Beautiful\u201d: \u201cSlowly, we connected over Facebook comments, emails every\u00a0few days, and intermittent text messaging. Many of our conversations\u00a0were about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2101,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[123,339,687,802,824,1007,1262,1575,1598],"class_list":["post-524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-love-inshallah-writers","tag-american-muslims","tag-dating","tag-islam","tag-love","tag-love-stories","tag-muslim-women","tag-relationships","tag-women-writers","tag-yasmine-khan"],"yoast_head":"\nSpotlight: Yasmine Khan, sweeping the sunshine and Love InshAllah contributor!<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Yasmine Khan is a graduate student whose professional \u00a0interests lie in advancing multiculturalism, diversity training, and fund development. \u00a0She's also\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" 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