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!

Greedy Bellies, Hungry Hearts

Romanticism and materialism are by-products of categorisation, conflicts, wars, order, races, etc. Greedy bellies have converted us into mere expats fleeing from that suffocating periphery. Living up to people’s expectations causes greed, whilst we grow expats because social norms insist on leaving us adrift. Human psyche is easily acquainted with, but still difficult to be redressed.

Accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Hellotalk,etc, are meant to be hearts’ food. Compliments and emoticons are tidbits would never make us full. To my way of thinking, relationships, especially, online ones are paintings relying on the painters. We are the painters who choose which one to show off, or dismiss, which is considered a masterpiece, or barely a scribble.

According to science, order is woven into the tapestry of life and it is something unchangeable as evolution occurs differently. However, religions have another standpoints that human beings are equal before Allah.

“And drive not away those who call upon their Lord morning and evening, desiring His Face. Naught of their reckoning falls upon thee and naught of thy reckoning falls upon them, such that thou shouldst drive them away and thus become one of the wrongdoers.”

This Quranic verse was reportedly revealed when a group of prominent Makkans indicated that they wished to join the Prophet’s teaching circle, but were loathe to sit among and be associated with some of Muhammad’s other followers who were of low social standing (including Bilāl and other freed slaves) and so asked the Prophet to send them away.

Universal trust: with money as a go-between, any two people can cooperate on any project.

Human beings believe that money is the key overshadowing hearts. I am deep down sure that there is a relationship between money and that void in our lives. Accumulation of one side will definitely shrink the other one. Ironically I have none of them, but that void is unbearable!

An Outcast

“These displaced persons are mostly unwanted where they fled from; unwanted where they are, in refugee camps; and unwanted where they want to go.”

“With the exception of those born in refugee camps, every refugee used to have a life. It doesn’t matter whether you were a physician in Bosnia or a goat herder in the Congo: what matters is that a thousand little anchors once moored you to the world. Becoming a refugee means watching as those anchors are severed, one by one, until at last you’re floating outside of society, an untethered phantom in need of a new life.”

I think this book shows only a sample of refugees and immigrants and how they are living where they are now. As someone who was born and raised in Egypt willing to live in a better place someday; the scene does not sound beautiful, but my humanistic instinct is prompting me to flee at least to keep it safe.

You may want to check out this too The Displaced.