Moving On

Friday, October 24, 2008

Although I have to admit that in some ways this decision has been affected by the recent blogosphere upheavals (in a good way!), I have been thinking about moving my blog for several months now. And I've finally decided to do it. For me it marks more of a change in what I want to write about, how I'm feeling, and where my focus is; it may or may not appear all that different to you. I've also included a lot more information about my work, research, writing, and art. The basic site is up now and I will insha'Allah be making a post or two with actual content this weekend. Please change your links! Labyrinth Walk will still be accessible for the time being.

http://yaaaishah.wordpress.com

I Love Your Blog

Sunday, October 19, 2008

The amazing Aaminah nominated me for an "I Love Your Blog" award over a month ago, and I've been remiss in posting my appreciation and passing it on. Anyway, she called me though-provoking and some other nice stuff which I really don't feel I deserve, but I am so appreciative that people enjoy reading me. Sometimes I have doubts about my writing or the directions I go or whether I should even be doing this and I find every comment reassuring. It's good to know that I am reaching someone.

Rules:
1. The winner can put the logo on their blog
2. Link to the person you received the award from
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs
4. Put links of those blogs on yours
5. Leave a message on the blogs nominated

With the understanding that I love so many blogs and this list is by no means complete, I nominate:

Umm Zaid (Sunni Sister), who just left the blogosphere. Others have more eloquently expressed the effect of the loss of her voice, but I just wanted to mention her here. I have admired her and enjoyed reading her since I first stumbled upon her blog in the beginning of the year, shortly after converting to Islam, and her sites for Muslim women and converts were major resources for me. I wish her all the best insha'Allah and will be keeping her in my thoughts and du'as, and I thank her for all the time and effort she put into her writing, because it meant so much for the rest of us.

Umm Farouq (Southern Muslimah), who I've also enjoyed reading from the (my) beginning. Her posts about living in Jordan, about raising her children, and just everything have always appealed to me. She just writes beautifully.

Professor Black Woman (WoC PhD), whose blog is a sometimes painful but always needed reminder for me that we cannot afford to be complacent or apathetic.

AV (Read My Writes), my brother from another mother, who has been an irreplaceable friend and help as I've come to Islam, and whose posts are always grounding and thought-provoking.

Saha (SchoolSaha), who has decided to stop her general/Islamic blogs but Alhdamulillah still writes an amazing homeschooling blog. I want to be like this woman when I grow up.

CripChick (cripchick's weblog), disability activist extraordinaire, someone else I want to grow up to be like. Her poetry always strikes me on a deep level, and I love reading the different issues she discusses.

Seamus Sims (E Pur Si Muove), my other brother from another mother, and someone I've known offline for some time. I have just always felt like we "get" each other, and I love hearing more of what he is thinking. I always connect and am moved by his posts.

Odds and Ends

Friday, October 17, 2008

Don't forget to sign up to participate in Aaminah's Winter Scarf Project for Project Downtown - Grand Rapids! If you can't knit or crochet, you can donate money or scarves. I'm hoping to at least knit a few scarves in the next month or so for this.

And I also had to share an older post (from May 2008) that I just stumbled upon - a description of Islam as a psychological disorder (by an Islamophobic blog). The scenario is that hopefully in the mid-22nd century, Islam will be added to the DSM-VII, which the author characterizes as an "amazing reference manual" used by health professionals worldwide.

Okay, I'm not even going to bother deconstructing the insanity of the rest of the post, because I am sure you are all just as speechless and vacillating between horrified and amused as I am, but let's just deal with that "amazing reference manual" bit. I don't personally know a single health professional who uses the DSM as anything other than a reference for insurance claims (in America, if your visit is partially covered by insurance, your health care providers have to use consistent diagnostic numbers and other information from the DSM to make sure your insurance company won't deny your claims). Perhaps this is because I have primarily interviewed and know eating disorder specialists, who hate it for the same reasons I hate it, or perhaps it's because in my own mental health treatment, I judge (and I admit fully that I judge) whoever I am seeing on the first visit by where the DSM is located in their office (and if it IS their Bible, I don't go back). Insha'Allah in the increasing (but blessedly still negligible) likelihood that Islam is ever labeled as a mental disorder, by the time it happens either this will still be the case or the mental health community will have tossed the DSM out of the window altogether.

But in case you wanted a condensed version of what this DSM entry would look like (and I am certainly not taking credit for ANY of this, this is all direct or indirect quoting from The Hesperado blog, not ANY attempt to plagiarize, trust me):

Islam shares "superficial features of other sociopathologies, such as Communism, Fascism, Nazism, Utopianism, Gnosticism, Politically Correct Multi-Culturalism, and Third Worldism." Okay, I get why most of that list might be considered appropriately pathological to Islamophobic people, but I always thought gnosticism was cool to "rational thinkers" because it's always questioned organized religion. I am at a complete loss for what "Third Worldism" means - I don't know anybody but the wealthy dictators the "enlightened West" (you know, that entity Islamophobes love so much and want to protect) has propped up who actually prize the characteristics of the so-called "Third World" and would want to continue such a society.

Signs and symptoms of Islam include: "super-tribalism, supremacist complex, eschatopathology, super-cultural OCD, super-communal schizophrenia, puritanism/erotomania." Tribalism? ...Really? You know, one of my women's studies professors would often point out the fact that if it's in Africa (or often in the Middle East), we call it tribalism, but if it's in Europe, it's an "ethnic conflict." The treatment includes: allowing the military full control over the fate of the subject (including, presumably, the ability to kill - and, of course, torture - without consequence), mass deportation, indefinite internment and interrogation, quarantine, deprogramming ("utilizing the skills of ex-Muslim apostates"), pharmacology, shock treatment, lobotomy, and institutionalization.

Also, prevention of this horrible disease ever invading the West is supposed to be accomplished by eradicating Islam where possible and essentially quarantining the rest of the Islamic world behind an "Iron Veil" so they don't pollute our happy-go-lucky, racist, homogeneous communities.

Wow. You know, I normally try to avoid posting about Islamophobia, but this would be funny were it not so absurd and meant so seriously. And were our country not experiencing a climate where this kind of viewpoint is actually garnering widespread support.

Taking Notes

Thank you so much for the comments, support, and just everything. Also for the compliments on the new layout! No, it is not my work - I've become lazy in my old age ;) It's actually from a blog layout site. But I think it is really beautiful, although I've been kind of trying to keep myself from changing it (yet again) to something extremely minimalist.

I've been trying to catch up with my Google Reader for nearly a week now (also I added a widget so you can see more of what I think everyone should be reading!) and I'm finally down to 0 unread posts! (By the time I finish posting this, there will be at least ten new posts, I'm sure.) But there just have been so many things I've wanted to share, so here is a post of links to awesome posts (in no particular order, really) for you to read instead of listening to me babble exhaustedly and nonsensically.

Islam: Saha has a beautiful post on developing daily rhythms. This is something I've been trying to do so much now and her post is just inspiring. Ibn Ayyub's posted some short, heartwarming tales on delivering a khutba and who's really being invited to dinner. Al-Izzatulillah relates: "Do not make your heart like a sponge." The daughter-in-law of Shaykh Abdallah bin Bayyah has started a blog to make him and his teachings more accessible to sisters. Achelois discusses why young Pakistanis are leaving Islam.

Memorable blogs against poverty: Aaminah recounts being homeless. WoC PhD shares stories of poverty and brings up the reality of a diet consisting mainly of dirt, in a world where bloggers have become too caught up in the election to care about the rest of the world. Her posts have brought me to tears and forced me to reexamine my conscience.

Uncategorized: The Velveteen Rabbi shares a writer friend's rendering of the Torah in rhyme. And...I don't think the folks at Fox were specifically trying to get this one wrong...but "World Bank to Protect Poor, Vulnerable Countries"? Isn't that something like "Wolf to Carry Small, Vulnerable Animal Around in its Mouth Without Eating It"?

In cancer news, Womanist Musings questions the "cancer is sexy" trend, what with CrazySexyCancer and Breast Cancer Awareness Month's Save the Ta-Tas campaign. CNN reports cancer patients foregoing treatment because of the cost.

From Womanist Musings, a fifteen year old faces two felony charges for taking nude pictures of herself with her cell phone and sharing them with friends. If convicted, she may be forced to register as a sex offender. Not to overshare from my wild, pre-hijabi youth, but, uh, I've taken nude pictures of myself while under AND overage, for artistic reasons and...not so artistic reasons. Excuse me while I go hunt down every last copy of THOSE lest I one day find myself in jail for taking pictures of my own body. To underscore the absurdity of this, what's next? If teenagers aren't allowed to show our friends pictures of our bodies, does that mean that next we will be arrested for being naked in the same room? If so, I could really give the cops an expose from my days in open showers in Sea Cadet boot camp.

The Anxious Black Woman brings up the vulnerability of women's studies (and other "studies") programs. This hits close to home for me because I'm a women's studies minor and my religious studies BA overlaps with many other ethnic studies-type courses and programs. Our women's studies program has one...count 'em...one full-time professor, who is also the director of the department, and incidentally whose teachings I and other students I know have just had a really difficult time relating to - I admire her work and she's a great person, but the state of the department means women's studies at our university is incredibly one-sided, especially in introduction classes where people with no prior background and who will not pursue women's studies at all are just getting (what I feel is) an incomplete experience. We had another full-time professor, who also worked in the French and Francophone literature department, who is really amazing, but who is going next semester to teach in Morocco (where she lived for quite some time - she is actually German but has spent many years living in various places in Africa). Our women's studies program is not encouraging to professors or students; it doesn't attract people. It's tiny. Almost all of our courses are taught by professors outside of the women's studies department, at least 90% are actually cross-listed courses on gender in other departments, not specifically women's studies courses. If women's studies is reduced anymore at my university, there will be no program, no one to take it, no one to teach it.

Election stuff: Racialicious's open letter to white voters (AKA Joe Sixpack and the Hockey Moms). WoC PhD examines how Palin could have, instead of acting unethically in the Troopergate situation, used it as a way to help the issue of domestic violence (especially because of Alaska's high rates of sexual and domestic violence compared to the rest of the US). Over at the Daily Kos, txtres brings up a painful reminder of the gravity of McCain's dismissal of "health of the woman" clauses.

From Iraq: Faces of Grief is a collection of poignant photos. AlterNet posts an excerpt from an account of an American soldier's experience.

Please make du'a for my friend!

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

My dear friend and sister who was instrumental in my conversion to Islam just had surgery and it has not gone well. She is stable now but the surgery did not fix what it was supposed to fix and possibly caused even more problems. She was so excited about it and doing so well over Ramadan, and she just got married Alhamdulillah, and I wanted this to go well for her so badly...we all did. She really needs thoughts and prayers. Please keep her in your du'as. Thank you.