~inspired~

hello blogging world! i havent blogged for sometime, been busy getting my head around things. second term of final year is horrible i swear. but Alhamdulillah i'm getting there, insyAllah all will turn out well.

its been a brilliant week so far in uni wid one world week going on. i attended a good forum on darfur and a really amazing forum on guantanamo bay. moazzam begg (for those who dont know he was a detainee at gitmo for 6yrs) and he didnt really go into details of how he was treated in gitmo. but he did say that it wasnt the worse of detention camps that he has been put into, and indeed that got everyone thinking. there are far worse off detention camps, "ghost" cells out there torturing people inhumanely!

i also went to a screening of the movie kite runner. now that is an absolutely brilliant movie. i highly recommend it to everyone! of course there are a lot of disturbing scenes, but i say this again n i wont stop saying it, how long are we going to turn a blind eye? just because something unsettles you and makes you queasy doesnt mean it doesnt happen. it really got me angry too to know that people still do mess up culture and religion.

now there is something that i cannot stand in this world. you can insult my race, my gender, but you do not insult my religion. i hate how people blame islam for all the injustices that they face when in fact it is their psychotic culture that is the reason such things occur. no where in islam is it condoned to have genital mutilation, no where in islam are honour killings allowed, no where in islam is it stated that women can not drive!

i can go on and on about how islam is misrepresented but seriously, sometimes i just think its a waste of time. i know i am a pessimist but its true, what is the point in explaining urself till u get so emotional only to have people not even listen to a word ur saying?! its no point in trying to explain that islam isnt the opressive religion it is because ppl are just going to find faults with it.

the issue at hand is not explaining. i am done with explaining. its time to act. show people that islam isnt this opressive religion. all this call for a united ummah to throw off the evil west is really getting on my nerves. why dont we try to unite the ummah internally, resolve issues within our communities. we cant just unite ourselves on the basis of having a common enemy. it doesnt work that way. if we dont settle our differences and resolve our disputes then we will never move forward. we will just set ourselves a million steps behind, and we will just continue being people adhering to an "opressive" and "barbaric" religion.

if you ask me what are my religious views, what are my principles, i can give you quite a list. i whole heartedly believe in Islam. but i do not think of myself as self-righteous, i do sin and i have moments when my faith is weak and i question what should not be questioned. i regard myself as a muslim feminist, i believe in the equality between men and women, i believe the Prophet (pbuh) was a feminist and i believe that a woman has every right to say or do whatever she wants if the men in islam do not want to step up to the plate. seriously muslim guys are getting rather pitiful...thats a whole other debate that requires a post by itself.

anyways, moving back to the main agenda. after doing a lot of research for my dissertation, after reading articles, after watching documentaries, i really do wanna change the world. and after watching that movie kite runner and watching how they depicted taliban i just have this need to tell the whole world that culture does not equate religion. those who do things in the name of islam are not doing things in the name of islam at all.

i was watching this interview wid ayaan hirsi ali, and i hate that woman, i really do NOT like her. but after i was listening to her interview i dont really hate her anymore. i pity her. all her frustrations and anger with islam, its not islam that has made her that angry. it is the way how the men in her culture manipulated the deen. she shouldnt hate islam, she should hate those uneducated morons who twist the words of God to suit their own lust and desires.

so here i am, i am inspired to change the world. i want to do something for my deen, insyAllah. but first i gotta get through my degree, and with baby steps hopefully final year wont be a pain.

"oh my Lord, my sins are like the highest mountains, my good deeds are very few theyre like a small pebble, i turn to You, my heart full of shame, my eyes full of tears, bestow your forgiveness and mercy upon me. Ya Allah, send Your peace and blessings on the final Prophet and his family and companions and those who follow him." - Supplication by Sami Yusuf (appropriately placed in the praying scene in Kite Runner, one of my favourite films!)