I am Homesick!

aerial view of Hobart

Hobart Wharves (across from the Art School)













































Salamanca Markets

My Beautiful Island

These photographs are of Tasmania, the island where I grew up. Much of the states beautiful wilderness is under threat of being logged . How beautiful is Allah's creation and yet we want to destroy it.

Sorry, I'm not really laughing!

by the grafitti artist Banksy

Not all non-marital relationships are "slutty"

Suroor (Achelois) and PM are discussing issues on their blogs which have brought up the concept of "sluttiness". If I knew how to do that spiffy linking thingy with their names, I would but being a computer idiot, I cannot, sorry. But I do have links to their blogs on my sidebar.

There has been a lot of talk about sex outside of marriage. Obviously all sex outside of marriage is not ok according to Islam, but this doesn't mean that it is always slutty and meaningless for the people involved. There are plenty of people who have very committed long-term relationships without getting married. They may choose not to get married because they do not believe in it as an institution, they may not feel that they need the state to endorse their relationship. This does not mean that they are promiscuous and superficial or irresponsible with no concern for their families. It may mean simply that they see their relationship as valid in itself without needing to be propped up by the law of the land.

What we need to remember is that the validity of an Islamic marriage comes from it being a commitment between a couple to conduct their relationship according to the laws of God. People who have no religious belief obviously cannot marry in this way, but would a State marriage be any more acceptable Islamically? There is no consideration of Allah in a State marriage. I have no idea about the legal considerations of this, my point is simply to remind people not to be judgemental. Yes, there is plenty of "sluttiness" in the world but it doesn't always come from non-muslims. The behaviour of many young Muslim men in my own community is far more slutty than the behaviour of many people I knew in my non-muslim past.

This is not an endorsement of Godless marriage or de-facto relationships, I don't want to suggest that there is not a problem with non-marital sex in the West. I just think it's important to make it clear that statistics which state the amount of people involved in non-marital relationships, cannot be used as examples of sluttiness, because there are plenty of de-facto relationships that could not in any way be described by this word.

Sakina

When I think about how patronizing I used to be about people saying that their religious experiences provided them with "peace", I am ashamed. I was so skeptical, I was sure that this "peace" was just psychological. In a way I envied these people because their religion was able to provide them with a means of finding tranquility. But I thought that really it was self-deception. Amongst my circle of friends religion was something to condemn or laugh about, I could never imagine taking it seriously. Born again Christians were a particular target of our mirth. We had such arrogance, we were so sure that our understanding of life was the correct way of thinking. But in reality we understood nothing. Most of us had a great emptiness inside of us which we tried to fill through intellectual pursuits or just plain hedonism. Amongst that group of people, to suggest that spirituality might have a central role to play in life would be like suggesting that we get the plague voluntarily, it was just not something a "thinking" person did.

It's not surprising therefore that most of my friendships from this time did not withstand my conversion to Islam. I moved from having friends who never thought about God, to having friends who placed religion at the center of their lives. Now I'm so used to taking for granted that someone knows what I'm talking about when I refer to feeling close to Allah, feeling His Mercy and the peace that comes with it, that I no longer know how to explain such things to a non-believer. I remember my own cynicism. How do you explain that the "peace" that accompanies religious experience comes from Outside? How do you explain that you simply "know" this?

In the days following my conversion a non-believing friend made a short film about my decision to enter Islam. She filmed me as I prayed. I so much wanted her to understand the intensity of the prayer, that I made du'a that Allah open her heart. When I finished she appeared quite overwhelmed. She had "felt" something, but she quickly rationalized things by understanding it as an intensity caused by religious devotion. She compared it to visiting churches in Italy. Nothing could convince her that it was more than the effect of extremely focused concentration.

To believe is an act of the will, we have to choose to believe. Allah gifts us with experiences during which He draws us close to him, but ultimately it is up to us to decide what to make of them. I "know" that the peace that comes with Islam is not a construction of my own mind. To become a Muslim is the most transformingly wonderful experience, one that I do not have the power to create for myself.

from a Chinese Qu'ran