Why I am an anti-feminist...

Nesrine Malik, writing for the Guardian, complains about the condescension that is rife with Western feminists. She asks that they distance themselves from localised efforts to empower women so that the natives do not get suspicious whilst also pointing out that the struggles for women in different parts of the world are not the same.

Malik's article is itself condescending, for it reminds us of the days when the good native tells the White Man (or Woman) that it is best if they leave the conversion of the tribes to them, since they can speak their language. Feminism, a broad school of thought, is a Western ideology. It is rooted in the historical perspective of the Western European Weltenschauung that seeped across the planet thanks to guns, germs and steel. Malik disagrees with the Western feminists on the method that this ideology should be expressed and spread, but she shares with them the same intellectual background and belief in the universality of their beliefs. She says:

Although basic rights and dignities are universal, there are ways of enshrining them without perfectly emulating a western experience.

Yet Malik cannot perceive that she cannot make the claim about the universality of these "rights and dignities" while at the same time divorcing it from the western experience. The very use of these words, and the baggage that is tagged along with them, anchors her entire enterprise in the western experience.

I am an ardent anti-feminist, though it is not a position that I came to suddenly but rather through my experience, and especially over the last two years, which has solidified my view of this perspective as causing more harm than good. What I reject utterly is that this classifies me as a misogynist, a chauvinist or that I hate women. I appreciate that feminism is a broad school with many nuances (contrary to what people popularly believe it is not just about females either), but I reject its attempt to redefine our understanding of concepts such as the family or the roles of males and females in human society within the predominant human civilizations.

There are points of view in feminism which I should, and in fact I do agree with, but the agreement is coincidental and not incidental. My perspective on a right is with relation to its object, so a right in my view cannot be "enshrined" in anything as it can easily become a wrong if its object is incorrect. My perspective on relations between the sexes is defined Islamically. When I say Islamically that means that I use the Qur'an and the prophetic sunnah as a guideline. The Qur'an and the prophetic sunnah are rooted in the historical, cultural and social perspective of a non-Western society, untainted even by the brutish influence of Roman "civilization". This non-Western society happens to be Arab, but its values are an expression of the human being in the full Heidegerrian sense. Men and women as they are, right here, in this world. Living, procreating and interracting in complex power relations with no restrictions. These values were important for this non-Western society because without them, power relations resulted in what we call injustice. Islam is distinct from Islamic peoples and what we call Islamic history is actually the "history of Islamic peoples" so we cannot use Islamic history, or Islamic peoples and these terms are contradistinct with Islam itself.

In properly defining the roles and nature of the relationship between male and female, Islam refines and solidifies the normal in what was already existent in non-Western societies. The normal is defined as that which is "always or for the most case", so the existence of exceptions is just that, an exception and not a demolition of the norm. The normal relations and roles of the sexes are reinforced by Islamic values, not imposed by them. In adhering to these norms and guidelines justice is ensured between the sexes, when not, we get something like the Taliban or Peter Andre and Jordan's marriage.

I am opposed to feminist ideology because inherent within it is an attempt to dismantle and destroy this norm and its subsequent relabelling as something archaic, oppressive and, ultimately, evil. The Islamic conception of relations between male and female are marked for demolition by this ideology because of the failures of Islamic peoples to meet that standard. From this fundamental misconception, a new nomenclature is derived based on "rights and dignities" that are enshrined but with no clear understanding of what they are to relate to. Yet this proposed alternative that the West so passionately indoctrinates Arab or Muslim women like Malik with is not viable. It destroys homes, relationships and societies by cracking a nut with a sledgehammer. It also takes what is valuable from us, as Muslims, and replaces that with something of lesser quality and value.

When I say I am an ardent opposer of feminism, then this is why, it is because I hold men and women to a higher (and more coherent) standard than that which feminism demands of its followers. Recognising this fact gives me the confidence to voice this opinion in the face of what can be almost mouth foaming anger by ex-Muslim feminists.

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Some Ramadan thoughts

In a movie that was completely rubbish, there was one scene that I enjoyed very much. My own feelings of spirituality are tempered by a similar internal dialogue and that is why I really enjoyed this particular scene. Enjoy.

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On Hannibal Barca...

What seems like a life time ago, I began reading about Hannibal Barca, a fascinating figure in world history. My interest became an obsession and I like to think that I am a mini-expert on the subject, though of course I am far from it. During my time researching about the man, I had frequented a site by one Dr Hilary Gowen, a site which sadly disappeared without a trace a few years later. Through some ingenuity and lots of hard work, I was eventually able to reconstruct her site to the best of my abilities, to allow other people access to this amazing part of history.

The fruit of my labour became Carthagelives.com a site that has been running for a few years now and in which you can read all you need. It is simple yet functional and I do hope you enjoy it. Within this site is information about Ancient Carthage, the Punic Wars and of course Hannibal Barca.

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What rank in God's world is there that is lower than the rank of one who adorns himself with the abandonment of the truth that is traditionally believed by the hasty embracing of the false as true, accepting it without [reliable] report and verification? The imbeciles among the masses stand detached from the infamy of this abyss; for there is no craving in their nature to become clever by emulating those who followed the ways of error. Imbecility is thus nearer salvation than acumen severed [from religious belief]; blindness is closer to wholeness than cross-eyed sight.

al Ghazali, Incoherence of the Philosophers, 3.6

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Kilo and the information revolution..Not.

An utterly pointless article by Michel Kilo in al Quds al Arabi... His is the historical narrative that we are so sick of and one that has it's roots in On Liberty by Mill. That view of history is that it is the story of the struggle of the individual against tyranny.

He, Kilo, portrays the "information" society as something which is shaping individuals. A miraculous and wondrous phenomenon that is now forging a new global consciousness were it not for the "evil" religous fundamentalists on one side and the oppressive governments on the other. Both of these groups are at opposite poles of the political spectrum, but they are united in their fear and hatred by this phenomenon, by you...the new child of the people. Yes that is right, this is your struggle for freedom that is under threat.

Articles like this remind me of those old children's cartoons. Once the series is running out of villains, they are then all grouped together as they pose a new, more serious threat to the galaxy. Then we can watch them lose again over another five or six episodes. This kind of political writing might be fun in the beginning, but the novelty soon wears off and it rapidly becomes tiresome and predictable. Kilo is probably a nice guy but he is no intellectual.

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تل الزعتر و حبايبنا

This weeks selection from Sheikh Imam's songs. Tel al Za3tar and Habayebna in one clip.

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Ramadan Mubarak....

Main Entry: dec·a·dence

• Pronunciation: \ˈde-kə-dən(t)s also di-ˈkā-\
• Function: noun
• Etymology: Middle French, from Medieval Latin decadentia, from Late Latin decadent-, decadens, present participle of decadere to fall, sink

• Date: 1530

1 : the process of becoming decadent : the quality or state of being decadent

2 : a period of decline

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Fajr...and the thin line between do and do not.

The worst feeling in the world is not of living through the worst day of your life, it comes the day after, at that precise moment when you wake up and remember it all. Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life...

It is 3am, my phone adhan has gone off. I fumble to switch it off. The feeling of panic and desolation sets in and I sit in the dark for a bit, trying to pick up the pieces of my self. I desperately trying to glue it together before that feeling of loss, desolation and utter meaningless existence sets in. That feeling that everything will come to an end, like sand on the beach which will slip through your fingers. There are those who are gone, you wonder what became of them; there are those who are with you still, and you wonder how long it will be before they too set away. Finally you are left surrounded by strangers. Perhaps life is like this, it will watch you slowly lose everything, until nothing matters to you anymore and then you too can slowly fade away. I've woken up to this feeling at every fajr I can remember...

The sufi's talk about obliterating yourself into the love of Allah. I agree with them, everything in this spinning world is attached with sorrow and soaked in the dye of sadness. To love what can hurt you as well, to want only for yourself what can never be yours alone - such folly! All for what? Some fleeting moments of happiness which must by nature end for they had a beginning. So utterly pointless. Life is suffering?!

No, because with hardship comes ease, with hardship comes ease. I could lay down again, lose myself again, my power to get up does not respond, it asks me if I have a will to do so first. My will tells me it is ready. I ask it what right it has to drive me to get up, and I find my will rooted in my knowledge..How can I have knowledge of anything? It is because I'm alive. I'm still alive.

Calmly, I get up in the dark and go to wash my face, my arms and my feet. Ever since I heard that the Prophet used to leave the water dripping from his body so that his sins would dry with it, I've done the same. I feel good doing that. Rumi once said he is but dust on the path to this wonderful man. As I stand facing eternity as he and countless others have, I hope that the water which drips down my face will wash away not only my sins but my sorrows too...

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Define strange...

What a great way to wake up...the phone rings and I'm asked, "M, I just need you to hear this guy in a scene we're using to make sure he isn't swearing or asking us to buy potatoes, his house was just bombed and his whole family were in it".

I then hear a grief stricken man whose voice is the epitomy of rage and despair yell something incoherently.

"Nothing I could make out, I think it's ok.".

"Great, thanks!"

"No problem"

I went back to sleep...

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Doing some subtitling work for the Syrian schools documentary that will air on the BBC in September. I love how we pronounce words in English with our own rhythm, "I learned by reading the Dicshinnirry".

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Free Free Palestine! Once we have a party, watch some porn and enjoy a whiskey....

al Jazeera is reporting that gunmen declare an Islamic Emirate in Gaza. The head of the group, a Bin Laden and Zawahiri sympathiser, has called upon Hamas to adhere to Islamic Shariah, and, should it do so, then his movement will submit to it. I have suspicions about such a movement, suspicions about their authenticity and their motives and suspicions about who is supporting them. If they really cared about Jihad then they would throw their lot in with Hamas, who have done an admirable job compared to the lousy Fateh, not throw away young men with a quixotic horseback attack on an Israeli checkpoint.

Hamas just can't win either way. I don't understand what people want with it. An armed resistance to Zionism? They do it. Less corrupt and more principled than Fateh? They are so. So what is with all the "buts" and provisos which are mentioned whenever Hamas are mentioned. It is almost like anybody who says anything even remotely supportive of any effort they make has to then qualify their statement, for they do not want to be associated with these religious crazies. So they run campaigns to block porn? So they try to stop people drinking alcohol or doing drugs? So they want women to wear a hejab? So they encourage Islamic teachings?

Call me crazy, but...where is the actual, physical wrong, in any of that? Excuse them if they have withstood a seige for over two years and an onslaught by the Middle East's most efficient killing machine, and all this with virtually no backing from a single one of the belly-dancing regimes in the region, in fact in the face of hostility from almost all of those same bellydancing regimes. Or perhaps the bellydancing leadership of the PLO and of Fateh were any better? From Monte Carlo to Kuwait City and from casino to bar to brothel, was that the leadership that was going to liberate Palestine? What about Arafat? You fret over whether he was murdered or not now, not that that even matters, for his wife is living on a fortune that is supposed to be there to liberate Palestine, not keep her living in the manner she is accustomed to in Paris. What the hell is she doing in Paris anyway? Have you forgotten how silly he looked reaching his arm out for peace in the White House, a peace which accomplished what? Is it such a God damn surprise then that you now have Abbas and Dahlan as key in a movement which has become rotten to the core?

Then we say Hamas is this or that but...or we say the Palestinian people deserve better. Frankly I don't think the Palestinian people deserve more or less than what they are capable of, and they are capable of a lot. They are not victims, they have money and they have know how and if they wanted to they could run over the Zionists in a short period of time. The Palestinian fighter is unbeatable when fighing in the right direction from what I hear. They just have to make sure they know what the hell it is they care about more. Porn, drinking, wearing bikini's and "partying", or freeing their homeland. If Hamas can deliver then Hamas it is, no "ifs" or "buts".

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Faith, tolerance and Kalam

An excellent article about Islamic Kalam and it's history and importance was sent to me this evening. (Thank you Faraz). Another interesting feature in it was the seedling views of an Islam in which Muslims are more tolerant of one another's difference. Here is an excerpt regarding science:

In short, attacks today on religion by scientism should be met by Muslims as Ash'ari and Maturidi met the Mu'tazilites and Jahmites in their times: with a dialectic critique of the premises and conclusions thoroughly grounded in their own terms. The names that come to mind in our day are not Ash'ari, Baqillani, and Razi, but rather those like Huston Smith in his Beyond the Post-Modern Mind, Charles Le Gai Eaton in his King of the Castle, Keith Ward in his God, Chance, and Necessity, and even non-religious writers like Paul Davies in The Mind of God and John Horgan in his The End of Science and The Undiscovered Mind. Answering reductionist attacks on religion is a communal obligation, which Muslims can only ignore at their peril. This too is of the legacy of kalam, or the "aptness of words to answer words."

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There are stories in the news about the British mercenary who killed two other guards in a drunken rage. Mentioned innocuously in the articles is the fact that he was captured and detained by Iraqi police and is being charged in an Iraqi court, as if this is a given since the crime took place in Iraq. However this is far from a given in anybody's book. That Fitzsimons should hang for what he did is not a subject for debate, but one wonders whether a similar fate would be so clearly obvious had he killed Iraqis instead. In spite of the fact that Iraq is occupied, I feel somehow that there will not be a rush to save him from the death penalty, owing to his mercenary status and to the fact that he killed two other white men. I could be wrong. But if people think that this is a sign of the increasing power of Iraqi legislation and law enforcement in a country which has American boots marching in it, then they must think again. If and only if we see mercenaries or occupation officials, leaders and soldiers sitting in the defendant's box in an Iraqi court, with a hangman's noose as a genuine possibility for their crimes, will we truly believe that Iraq has finally become a sovereign country.

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Sex, lies and the LBC

If there is one man who wishes the earth would open up and swallow him, it is probably Mazen Abu Jawad. On the 15th of July the LBC had broadcast an interview with him on its show "Ahmar bil khat al Areed" (The Thick Red Line). During this interview, Abu Jawad talked frankly about his sexual exploits and conquests and the audience were given a detailed insight into his views on the subject. Since then, the Jeddah office of LBC has been shutdown indefinitely and Abu Jawad is languishing in a cell somewhere, wondering what will happen to him.

There will be two accounts describing this event. The first, more prominent one, will be parroted by the self-proclaimed champions of civilization, humanism and individual freedom as yet another example of an oppressive society forcing its morality down everyone's throats. They would argue that there is nothing wrong in Abu Jawad talking healthily about a subject which is natural and normal. He must be given his freedom to speak without fear and to experience sexuality with no fear of consequences. Yet in their mind, they think that the stifling oppression they are fighting, as well as its reaction in sleaze like the LBC broadcasts, is the incarnation of a Foucaltian's bad dream; A self pornographication and subsequent moral disgust in a society where the power structure has gone mad in trying to maintain itself.

In the second account, largely Islamic but also Christian and Jewish, this episode will serve as yet another example of the steadily decomposing state of morality that the region is being subjected to by the anti-culture which is seeping in through the televisions and radios. People I speak with are getting sick and tired with the sexualisation of Arabic popular culture, they are tired of sexually abusive men and women who dress like harlots and they are sick and tired of the stupid ideology of individual freedom that is parroted without understanding. The older generation tell me that there were always certain people of a particular standard and it was known that they were no good, or that there were certain areas where morality was less stringently monitored than others, but what is happening in streets across the Arab world is nothing short of bewildering to them. In short, they say, it was easy to avoid rubbish by avoiding these people or areas but today it surrounds them and it is forcing its way into their homes and families.

There is no doubt that Mazen Abu Jawad is a fool. There is also no doubt that he was exploited by a sleazy television programme for a channel which has always been known to prefer displaying women with little or no clothing. However if we think that this sexualisation of pop-culture is there because of a demand, we must think again. Hypocrisy, and this may disappoint Europeanised and Americanised Arabs who relish exposing it in the people around them, is not news. The morality of Arabs and Muslims can accomodate the adage, "It is better to have standards and miss than to not have any standards at all", as the greater evil is not hypocrisy, but corruption. I agree with the latter group rather than the former. We are not Victorians, we are Arabs and Muslims - deal with it.

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Adiga-Tcherkess Dance

Enjoy...the most graceful dance in the world is to be found in Kafkasya.

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"Foreign Office expresses 'outrage' as Hossein Rassam appears among accused at Tehran court".

:-)

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A letter to an Egyptian Liberal "Thinker"...

An article titled "The Prisons of the Arab Mind" on the website of the so-called Reform Party of Syria, by a man called Tarek Haggy, bears a striking resemblance to an angry exchange I had with a man called Elie Hajj on the Creative Syria website. Mr Haggy calls himself an 'Egyptian liberal intellectual'. At the time, my comments pointing out the fallacious, if not downright mallicious, intent behind Mr Hajj's comments were subjected to scathing criticism. Good. If people thought Mr Hajj's comments, or Mr "Haggy's" for that matter, are a good idea, they deserve every irreverant remark and insult under the sun. For those not interested, my response to Mr. Tarek Haggy's article. To date I have not received a response from him.

Sir,
I write to you with regards to your article "The Prisons of the Arab Mind" which was published on the website of the "Syrian Reform Party". Whilst I respect that your professional experience as chairman for a large multinational oil company as well as your life experience would qualify you for many things, I believe after reading your articles that politics and in particular what you refer to as "the Arab mindset" is not one of them. I have neither the time, nor the inclination, to detract from the major part of your article, which a reasonably studious undergraduate student of the Middle East would quickly pick apart. However, as I do have a particular interest in Islamic philosophy and history, I will focus instead on pointing out the fallacies upon which you build your narrative.

Firstly with regards to Kant, the concept of transcendental idealism is one which humanity itself may never have grasped. This is because the human mind is imprinted from birth with the "grid reference" of time and space, as such, it would be impossible for us to grasp a reality which lies beyond such reference points. This, Kant calls the noumenal world. Please note that you criticise Ghazali for this very position when you say that he did not believe "the human mind capable of grasping the Truth as ordained by God". This is exactly what Kant was referring to. Now I find it hard to believe, based on your flimsy use of this term, that you have understood (on the assumption that you have even read) Kant's writings on this term. But it might be a thought to actually know what a philosopher is talking about before using his nomenclature in future articles that you pen. In addition, it is tragic that you are ignorant of the nuances in thought between men such as Ibn Hanbal and Abdul Wahab, and between what they believed and what the Prophet Muhammad taught. That subtlety has been butchered in order for the subject matter to fit nicely into your categorisation. Especially when you tie this all in with Saudi Arabia, ironically a key ally of your sponsor, the United States of America. My main problem in your article lies with the great injury that you have done to the Iberian peripatetics, tying them with the Mutazilites. Ibn Rushd, if you had bothered to read his thought, was trying to revive a pure Aristotelianism, rather than the neoplatonist interpretation that had become prevalent in the Byzantine and later Islamic worlds. Neoplatonism is a 1000 year effort to reconcile the philosophy of Plato with Aristotle on one scale, and the contrary positions of Aristotle with himself on another, the result, coming from Plotinus in Alexandria, was neoplatonism, which was taken as "the" way to interpret Aristotle. Had you bothered to read the Decisive Treatise, you would have seen that Averroes was in fact *against* the spread of philosophy to those who were incapable of grasping the truths it brought. Effectively his position would be something we'd recognise as "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing", an adage which is painfully poignant the more I read your article. Anybody who was to break this rule should, as Averroes put it, be executed. Hardly the shining beacon of liberal rational thought that you put him out to be - not that I am condemning him, but I understand his context and his philosophical contributions, something which, sadly, you do not. The Mutazila, apart from the disastrous Mihna that they imposed on the Islamic world, were kalam theologians, not philosophers. Their use of kalam put an emphasis on reason but in a nuance that again you have either not bothered acquainting yourself with or just willfully ignored. It is the Mutazila who are the origin of the Asharites, who had broken off with the Mutazila due to differences and inconsistencies in Mutazila thought and in fact al Ghazali is an Ashaarite himself. So your category is firstly incorrect to lump the Mutazila with the falasifa on one side and al Ghazali on the other. Secondly, it is not the Mutazila, but mainly Avicenna, the most important figure in Islamic philosophy, who Ghazali criticised, and in specific on three areas. The eternity of the world, the reincarnation on the day of judgement and with regards to God knowing particulars. All other philosophy and science was not a problem. Also, Avicenna had in fact fused the thought of the falasifa and the kalam people (this includes Mutazila don't forget) and made what he thought a solution to the divide. So Ghazali did not just criticise Avicenna, but also the kalam theologians for what he saw were errors in their positions. What Ghazali did was in fact demonstrate that Avicenna's theory was not airtight and that there are problems. Again, you appear to have neither read Avicenna's work on the necessary existent, nor have you read Ghazali's tahafut, maqasid or miyar al ilm, any one of which would have given you a more coherent understanding of the history of Islamic philosophy. You will also be amazed to know that the inheritors of Avicennan logic and philosophy, as well as kalam (who included the Mutazila), are the Sunni and Shia theologians who use arguments which were criticised, and also built upon by Ghazali. Ghazali's Asharism changed during his life, and whilst he devoted himself to being a Sufi, the new theological interpretation he fused with philosophy would form the bedrock and incubator for Avicennan thought. If you want an example of this, read something about Imam Khomeini, Mullah Sadra or Suhrawardi...Ghazali was called Hujat al Islam by both the Sunnah and the Shia because of the strength of his writings and the acceptance of his criticisms as valid. It is unfortunate that I must say this, but you are a living embodiment of the adage, "grey hair does not a wise man make". Your article is factually incorrect, racist, and wilfully misrepresentative of the facts.

Sincerely,
Maysaloon

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Nietzche and Ramadan

When most people think of the ancient Greeks, they think of them in terms of civilization, democracy, heroism and individualism. In truth, the Greeks were a race torn between genius and insanity. The large columns and marble slabs that we see in Athens would have, in their day, been surrounded by crowds of people selling, shouting, defecating and jostling. The pillars themselves were actually painted garishly in different colours, or etched with graffiti, making ancient Athens seem more like the Hammidiyah Souk in Damascus or some place like Mexico city or Cairo. In the Hammidiyah, in front of the giant Ummayad Mosque, you find Roman ruins surrounded by a bazaar built by the Ottoman Turks in front of a Muslim mosque that was once a church and before that was once a temple to a Roman god, located at the heart of what we now call Syria, just another new kingdom in the scene of world history. CD players blare out the latest religious anthems, stalls sell all manner of foods and goods and boys wheel around large hauls of merchandise as they take it from one place to the other. This is what we must have in mind when we think of the ancient Greeks, along with their learning and high culture. It is the stink of sweat which reaches us when history comes alive.


As a person deeply interested in history, society and how it changes, it struck me early on in my studies how utterly insignificant man is in the scheme of things. Like grains of sand, each and every individual thinks they are making their mark, yet they will be forgotten and it will be as if they never were. It was with this mindset that I first came across Nietzsche's ideas about art and culture. Friedrich Nietzsche mentioned the Apollonian and the Dionysian in Greek culture. The Apollonian signified the commonly believed view of Greek civilization, knowledge, learning and virtues with its expression in Greek drama as tragedy. As for the Dionysian, it is the wanton, libidinous and hedonistic aspect of a civilization finding its best expression in comedy and farce. I got the impression whilst reading this that the Dionysian is the escapism of a humanity which would be too depressed to look at its condition and the futility of it all. Instead it chooses to loose itself in partying, sex, drugs and 'rock'n'roll'. The answer seemed to lie in the tragedy and hardships of the Apollonian, in the recognition of the infinite and the infinitesimal.


The Apollonian tendency in our psyche, this engrained or cultivated tendency, pushed us to seek out philosophy, to learn and enlighten ourselves. and to try to find a way to distinguish the universal from the particular and the meaningful from what seemed meaningless. If nothing meant anything, then what is this we see before us? Why is it this way and not that way? The questions begin, and then our understanding of the relation these objects can have with us, and then how we ourselves gain knowledge of them, before beginning to ask that age old question, "Why are we here?". If the answer, as Sartre tells us, is nothing more than a deafening silence, and mankind were truly crying out in vain, then nothing has meaning. Nietsche transforms into Foucault, which translates into over-educated, arrogant post-graduate students who have no manners, no respect and no conception of what it means to live well or to do well. There is no moral framework for them to cling to, and so they attach themselves to infantile popular expressions of what morality is, expressions inherited from the last coherent framework that Western civilization had of 'right' and 'wrong', the struggle between fascism and communalism or liberalism, then the struggle between communism and capitalism. Within this flimsy cobweb, no actions or decisions have consequences nor any moral worth. The cycle returns back to the Dionysian as a despaired Apollo returns to the sun.


In this tired, frankly depressing, helenistic view of history, I found only despair and anguish. When I reflected on the matter, I found that the expressions of European culture and civilization, whilst beautiful in some aspects, were also deeply frightening, morbid and gloomy. The Gothic cathedrals, the gargoyles, the darkness of it all was truly soul crushing. Last year on a visit to Spain I had gone to an exhibition on the work of Goya, a Spanish artist who had witnessed Napoleon's invasion. He seemed to me to exemplify in many of his works this morbid Western phobia of death and this frightening view of life. Goya's painting of a dead duck comes to mind when I write this. I contrasted this with the ethereal beauty, lightness and innocence of the architecture I had seen in Andalusia; the Mosque of Cordoba and the Hambra palace in Granada. It was this contrast which struck me. The Hellenistic world was dying, and it was the wave of Islam which came to give a despairing human society a renewal of purpose in what it meant to be human, to live and to relate with others. Outside of the cycle of Hellenistic Apollonism or Dionysion escape, there was the otherworldly Quran. The old way of life lived on, with all its tragedy, triumph and passion, but stabilised with a faith - Islam.The tragic impulse in our psyche becomes our longing for rest and nearness to Allah, the early Muslims followed the Sunnah (tradition of the Prophet) by crying when reading the Qur'an. Crying for the profoundness, for grasping the infinite if only briefly, and then, once the crying was done, being thankful for the opportunity to live and to live well. I cry sometimes, and afterwards I always feel better, as if the pent up rage and sadness for whatever has upset me has just been lanced. The calm and acceptance which comes afterwards are like a mercy from an emotion which only minutes before threatened to drive me insane. The balance, the "Sirat al Mustaqeem" (straight path) becomes the focus of life, to tread between the Apollonian and the Dionysian, to work for this life as if I lived forever, and the afterlife as if I were to die today, in the words of the Prophet Muhammad. In this daily struggle, or jihad, I found my purpose and sanctuary from despair. I understood the Qur'anic words, the mercy to the worlds (رحمة للعالمين) and Allah's calling those who followed His Qur'an as the people of the "middle way".

Ramadan is knocking on our doors, and this is the state of my mind I wished to share as I welcome yet another visit from this friend. I wish everybody a beautiful and insightful Ramadan - albeit a bit earlier than usual.

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Thoughts and dreams...

I fell down again today. It doesn't even hurt anymore...I see a city overrun, the walls are crumbling and things are on fire. Men are fighting each other in the streets, houses and alleyways. The sight is awful to behold and I can see horrible things being done. I can tell that both sides are desparate, but my heart wants the defenders to win. That they are still fighting amidst all this awfulness, it gives me hope, but there is no glory here.

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Pining for my friend - Ramadan...

Today I felt like writing something personal. Ramadan is coming soon and to be honest I'm waiting for it quite eagerly and with different emotions. I feel tired, drawn out and hollow. The daily battles I have within myself have taken their toll, what with my nafs repeatedly breaking out of the chains that I now have to reapply almost every morning - like bandages to a wound that refuses to heal. Fasting washes over this arrogant nafs like a tsunami of righteousness, unforgiving, austere and cleansing. It will be so good to feel human again, with desire, selfishness and ego too tired to raise their heads. When Ramadan comes, I turn inwards, I forget all these things, and just struggle with fulfilling my obligations, keeping my own soul clean. Ramadan...that friend who is so hard to endure and so hard to wait for. Never have I felt so beautiful a burden...

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و قد أعذر من أنذر

I have been told that somebody is spreading rumours about me. They know who they are. I do not like rumours, especially when they are not true. If somebody has a problem with what I write or have written, then do something about it..

...now I'm going back to watching De3a Day3a - the most intelligent Syrian comedy I've seen in a long time. Incidentally, this blog will be quiet this month as I finish my dissertation and my dissertation will finish as soon as I finish my procrastination, and my procrastination will finish as soon as I watch De3a Day3a.

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السلام

The song is called "The Peace" by the famous Sheikh Imam and it is the point of view of the Arab Egyptian nation with regards to the so-called "peace" with Israel. Enjoy.

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