The Meaning Of Motherhood In The Arab World And How It Has Changed Recently!

“Allah does not charge a soul except with that within its capacity. It will have [the consequence of] what [good] it has gained, and it will bear [the consequence of] what [evil] it has earned. “Our Lord, do not impose blame upon us if we have forgotten or erred.”

An Egyptian woman who is single has decided to adopt a child and bring him up singlehandedly! She is an author, a well-known figure in Egypt. Ironically, her fame is based on a blog called “I want to be a bride”. She created this blog 15 years ago introducing herself as a single woman belonging to a group of other women aged from 25 to 35 years old whom are their society’s scrutiny and pressure to get married. I think I am one of them now as a thirty-year old! This coincides with an unbelievable video of a husband who stabbed his wife because she wanted to get divorce. News of a wife killed her husband unintentionally because he bought her one air conditioner not two as she desired! An accident of a doctor who was suffocated by her husband before her children as he usually abused her, but this time the result was lethal!

Women do not need wombs nor sperms to be real mothers within the lukewarm wedlock! It is an instinct we do have from the Almighty Allah, so children don’t ask for titles, lineages, nor names. They only need a shoulder to lean on, a cuddle away from judgemental people, a guru to teach him/her how to dust off themselves when life thrusts them. They will be also their mothers’ crutches in the future. Marriage is a blessing but it is not a hindrance to experience life as long as we don’t perform something prohibited or offensive! Alha for being a monotheist belonging to our forefather Abraham, Adam, and Eve. Alhamdulillah for knowing that we are mortals and everything is transient!

They are dead, we are dead! Therefore, we are woven into the same tapestry of life voluntarily and peacefully! Do whatever you want to do. Be whoever you want to be! Life is beautiful.

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Congratulations Ghada and Adam! I wish you all the best here and in the hereafter together, ameen!

Some Anecdotes About Women I Have Met Recently!

  

 No human being can be more human than another human being. I liberate you from my ignorance! 

     I am so grateful for having such a job which allows me to mingle with those wonderful women. Those women have been deprived of education and that air of independence and freedom I currently enjoy. These feelings did not happen overnight as I had to pay upfront and stand lonely during the last seven years. I have tribal roots, but I usually have that feeling of being rootless. Maybe it stems from being single so far. Girls who do not get married at age 25 considered leftovers and spinsters, but people show me respect and courtesy while I will be turning 30 after three months. I have discovered that we convey the message to others about the methodology of decently treating or mistreating us as WOMEN. We are the preys and the perpetrators.

     Where I live, women care much about gold, banquets, dowry, and trousseau! we have to buy such and such not to make others belittling us. we should buy twenty bed sheets, ten quilts, four kitchen gadgets, two kids’ rooms even before consummation, mats, spacious flats, etc even if you are insolvent since you have to do so!. Egyptians usually say ” الجواز ستر” which means marriage is a protection for women, but those are mere restraints.


   Marriage is a bundle of clemency, love, unwavering support, and equality. It is not an arena to wrestle with others or to show off while you are paraplegic and suffocated with debts and ignorance. Recently. I get used to witnessing such situations and gladly I have met Mona. Mona is a divorced woman and a mother of three-year old child. She can read and write but she is living on the dole for divorced women and it is pittance unfortunately! Mona and I had many conversations together as we are at the same age but with different priorities and standpoints. She has experienced bitterness as he ex-husband was thrusting her daily for months. Now, she is living with her parents and siblings serving them without any attention to her needs nor pain.

If I did not know Islam well, I would curse my religion! But Islam came down to eradicate the customs and traditions of Arabs. We were objectified as we were goods and chattels inherited to anyone. I think our bygone is insurmountable as those traditions defiantly and forcefully encase our religion and deliberately obliterate it! In Islam the most sinful things are taking orphans’ rights and wrongly smearing women’s reputations. I have also met Fatima with her broken fist as her father kept beating her until she gave him money. Should we bear any filial love towards our parents without receiving their paternal compassion in the first place?? Should I feel loony and offbeat as I do not think much of being married or having a child? I am not an ostrich inclining to bury myself under any circumstances. My relationship with human beings is neither trustworthy nor sustainable. I enjoy being woman from the upper with those tribal roots as they are gurus to stand up against such superfluous superficiality.

Life is lived only once. but experiences are perennial. We are mere portable memories and we voluntarily choose whether to discard or to carry all the way. We are blessed to be WOMEN as we are equals only walk side by side and go hand in hand. Thankfully, my goes have come in handy and I finally feel success and contentment.

That picture is taken from another fellow, so excuse me my friend 🌻

Read On My Behalf Please!

A lot of things we can do through this crazy time. Please read to make that world bearable. Covid19 is a lesson, and history is full of many lessons, but we never heed intentionally or unintentionally! Those are 100 books, so read and fathom well.

The link;

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AsbOT8tkbgZ9gUske4ow_YjNeRiA?e=eZJ6pk

 

 

The Meaning Of Religion As A Religious Woman

       Before the internet, the gap was wider as each community was well-versed in its traditional lore only. Now, you can make friendship with people overseas while you are plopping down on your sofa through your cellphone. Nonetheless, we are suffering from those trolls behind their keyboards!

      Two years ago, an Egyptian cook has decided to take her hijab off. I could not make out people’s demeanor when they scorned and understated her. She was called a spinster looking for a groom, they suspected her faith without any deference! Her decision was personal, but trolls insisted on making it a religious matter!

      Mo Salah, the Egyptian football player posted a picture of his daughter while she was playing on the piano. The comments revolved around religion and Islamic nurture. Their comments exuded their ignorance of religion and its essence.

      Dina Tokio has decided to take her hijab off as well. As a Muslim blogger, her decision was not her own. Therefore, people have decided to threaten, insult, and send their pernicious messages to her.

      A month ago, I read the news and there was a survey of British people’s acceptance of Muslims and hijab as compatriots like anyone else there. The majority claimed that hijab symbolised backwardness, and this would never represent their country, especially after its long-term battle to spread freedom and justice.

      For me, all these scenes have ignited an important question about religion, and whether we preserve it, or it protects us from that ingrained brutality. It was profound as I always thought of religion away from any tales or fecund imagination.

     In 2019, I was eager to read religious books away from any tales or prejudice. I have found some books and thankfully the riddle got unraveled. Every religious rifle was a result of a political conflict and a paranoid ruler. Religions are based on the same pillars of mercy, care, worshipping, fasting, alms, and the afterlife. The last messenger is our debate. There is another life in another realm and we all want to experience it as human beings, and monotheists with different hue, physiognomy, and religions. God wants us to be different, so we have to coexist with each other.

    After I read some books, I came up  with some conclusions;

• First and foremost, Everyone is held accountable for their deeds here and in the hereafter. This message is an allusion to dissuade those trolls as accountability is sole!

 

• The first cosmic covenant what matters the most. Allah enjoined Adam to worship, supplicate, and befriend all human beings.

 

• If religiosity does not better you, so you definitely misunderstand it.

 

• I have to neither witness your ugliness, nor make my phone kosher to stave off such things. Therefore, I have decided to give up using my Facebook  account.   

 

• Read the study Quran book. It is the best Quranic commentary I read, especially for those who have some ambivalence towards Islam.

 

• Read Reza Aslan’s books, no god but God, Zealot, and god; a human history. This author helped me fathom how we have disfigured religions with our chauvinism and bigotry. He is a Shiite Muslim who was Christian before. His books are page turners and enlightening, especially for a sunni woman who has never mingled with Shiites.

 

• As a feminist, kecia Ali and her books about sexual ethics in Islam. Some thorny issues such as the dowry, concubinage, and slavery. Kecia did answer a lot of profound questions as a Muslim woman.

 

• Good Muslim, bad Muslim book astounded me. The cold war, opium industry, the socio-economic mutation of Islam from a mere religion to a political identity, and the Middle East has become an arena. The inception of militant groups, explosions, and fundamentalism are expressed in detail in this book.

 

• Finally, who witnesses wars and survives, will suffer from its dregs until they pass away.

Thanks for your embrace and time!

Restoration Of Saudi Women’s Entitlement

Saudi women are finally allowed to travel on their own. In a place where relics and traditions overshadow religions and its essence. Before Islam, women were goods and chattels inherited after their master’s death. They were concubines, dispossessed, dependants,etc, until Islam came down. However, it sounds nomadic lifestyle outstrips even holy scriptures.

Can I travel alone with no mahram?

It is permissible for a woman to travel without a mahram “guardian” provided the way, destination, and return journey are safe and provided she does not meet with any harassments jeopardizing both her safety and religion. It has been narrated through Aidy Ibn Hatem that the prophet told him, “And if you live a long life, you will surely see women traveling from Hira till they circumambulate the Ka’ba, fearing no one except Allah“.

Imam Ahmed’s report of the hadith includes: ” By He in whose hands is my soul, verily Allah will bring this mattar (Islam) into completion till women travel from Hira and circumambulate the Ka’ba without being accompanied by anyone”. From this hadith with its different chains of narration, some scholars have derived the permissibility of a woman traveling alone if her safety is guaranteed. Moreover, they have used this hadith to restrict other prohibiting hadiths which, according to them, referred to the lack of security associated with travel in the distant past.

The majority of scholars have permitted a woman to travel for obligatory hajj without a mahram if accompanied by trustworthy females or company. They based their opinion on the precedence of the Mothers of Believers (may Allah be pleased with them) who went on hajj after the prophet’s death and the caliphate of Umar was accompanied by Uthman Bin Affan.

Allah create us different to know each other and witness his phenomenal creation on earth. I am so glad and looking forward to hearing more pleasant news about Saudis and others!

WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

The ousted Egyptian President has died. I believe that he was not our representative, but he was the elect. As we know the now- banned Muslims brotherhood and our former president’s affiliation with them. It reminds me of good Muslims and bad Muslims book when Mahmoud Mamdani illustrated the conversion of Islam from a religion to a political identity.

A devastating war between the United States of America and the Soviet Union, and the arena is the Middle East. You may say Islam commands Muslims to fight non Muslims. Well, you are mistaken, my friend! We believe in the first cosmic covenant between God and Adam when Allah enjoined him to worship, supplicate, and befriend all human beings. There were neither massacres nor brutality.

Muslims are enjoined to seek jihad. Ironically there are no crusaders as jihad is divided into two parts. The first one, the lesser, commands Muslims to seek knowledge wherever it is “أطلبوا العلم من مكانه”. The greater struggle enjoins Muslims to fight poverty until we get rid of it. Therefore, Al-Qaida, Taliban,ISIS, and Muslims brotherhood are intruders as we are not allowed to prosecute nor judge others as long as we do not witness ourselves nor they confess. We are not held accountable for other’s deeds. Everyone will deal with the consequences of their own behaviour in this life and will be accountable to God on the Day Of Judgement.

“Did Israel’s army, using dozens of tanks and armored personnel carriers, along with hundreds of missile strikes from US-supplied Apache helicopter gunships, besiege Jenin’s refugee camp for over a week, a one-square-kilometer patch of shacks housing 15,000 refugees and a few dozen men armed with automatic rifles and no missiles or tanks, and call it a response to terrorist violence and a threat to Israel’s survival?” It was Mahmoud’s question about Palestine and Israel.

That book encapsulates what is going on now, and describes terror as a political and sociological mutation. Hopefully, we are going to bridge the gap someday. Our planet is oval with no dimensions and our intellect should do so. Homogeneity is gruesome and irrelevant to the first cosmic covenant!

Inner peace.

A Fallacy

Yesterday I was reading the Qur’an and its commentary. I came across a sentence and contemplated its meaning a lot. The sentence was about the difference between human beings and other beings and the reason behind our superiority over them. We are the chosen ones because we have emotions. Yes! You read it correctly.

Emotions which enable us to comprehend actions and reactions. Emotions are a bundle of love, hatred, envy, empathy, anger, fear, serenity, etc. It is about the ability to be in your shoes. Without emotions, I would never be able to understand your angst . However, these emotions are the source of cruelties and crimes in the name of protection and love. How many times did we go astray because we misunderstood our emotions? How many times did we convey the wrong message of love to our beloved ones? How many times did we transgress in the name of sparing our own life?

Emotions what make human beings stand up for each other because we savoured life’s bitterness before. We are living in adjacent condos, without feelings, we would never overcome the walls in order to make friends, have spouses, witness our children, etc. How cruel this life would be with robots only obey commands without any feelings. Your heart is the real scale not your brain. I was mistaken when I thought the opposite many years ago.

The more space my heart gets, the more aware I become refraining from overseeing and judging others. Yes! I am higly ranked in the ecosystem because of that organ and its intelligence to differentiate. I have all the vibes, and the ability to choose what suits my ranking, and what relegates my humanity. The compass is in my hand, and I choose which direction to walk in. I am so grateful for having such journey. May Allah forgive me when I flounder but surely I will be back again.

Have a nice day and a peaceful life my friends and hola after months of not posting anything!