Naeem's Blog

I've been giving some thought lately to the Allah vs God debate. Its not a new debate by any means. However, as it was brought up recently in this post on defining American Muslims, I thought I'd give my two cents.

I actually agree with both sides of the argument. I see the necessity in translating Allah to God in the context of interfaith discussions and media presentations. That view is presented very nicely in this article. That being said, I am staunchly against any attempts by the American Muslim community to anglicize Allah. I particularly like the point of reverse orientalism presented in the above Guardian article – here is the quote:

"…we have also seen the rise of another phenomenon which might be called "reverse orientalism", where Arabs and Muslims deliberately "other-ise" themselves in order (they hope) to better resist western influence."

And its in this spirit of 'other-ising' that I have decided to rant:

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We are not mere monotheists. We are absolute monotheists. We are monotheists extraordinaire. We are monotheistic crème de la crème. We are monotheistic supremacists. We have the market cornered on monotheism – a monotheistic monopoly.

And we are linguistic monotheists to boot. Allah is one. God is not. We believe in Allah whereas you believe in God (or his other monikers). We are defined by our belief in Allah, not our belief in god or God or G_d. While you have rendered unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and rendered unto God what is God’s (inferring some sort of scandalous equality between the two), we have rendered all unto Allah. That is true monotheism.

When we say Allah is our God we do not mean our God is Allah.

You may ask 'Who is Allah?'

We will defiantly reply 'Allah is Allah!'. There is no need for any clarification when using the divine designation, Allah. Allah is universally known while your god is busy fumbling with his identity. Allah has no definite or indefinite, whereas you have a god and the God. Allah has no plural, whereas you have gods. Allah* has no upper case or lower case, whereas you have god and God. Allah has no feminine, whereas you have goddess. Allah cannot be possessed, whereas you have my God, our god, his G_d. Allah has no prefix or suffix, while you have godly or godless. Allah has no compound, while you have godfather and godsend. Allah has no synonym, while you have Lord or deity.

Our linguistic monotheism is flawless. Allah. Full stop. He is a complete sentence. He is without need for a subject or a predicate or even a past plural subjunctive. He is a complete thought. He is the ultimate thought. He is the only thought.

I bow down to Allah while I dare not even stand for god. Allah has been blasphemed by the reaffirmation of His existence (‘Ana al-Haqq’) whereas God has been blasphemed by His extermination (‘God is dead’). There is none like unto Allah while You. Draw. God. (And if that is not repulsive enough, you have stooped even lower by portraying G_d in Hollywood movies!)

I am on a first name basis with my Creator, solely by virtue of His infinite Mercy. He has allowed me to call him Allah. No need for any formalities with the Most Sublime.

And if for no other reason, I shall solely refer to Him as Allah as that was the only articulation of the Divine ever having passed through the lips of my beloved, Muhammad (saw). He called on all to return to Allah. My beloved called upon his Beloved by the one glorious name. Allah and Muhammad are inseparable until the end of time and beyond; it will never be God and Muhammad.

My dear friend, you are my fellow citizen. You are my neighbor. You are my coworker. You are my confidante. Yet there is one path whereupon we shall never tread jointly. Allah and your social construct of divinity are two parallel lines and ‘never the twain shall meet’.

* Please forgive the irony of using the upper case A with Allah as that indignity is not of my choosing (for it implies that a lower case allah is a possibility), rather it is a constraint of the English language. In Arabic there is no such concept of capitalization

(inspired by this Shaykh Husain talk)

Here's a nice article summarizing the Justice Department's record on prosecuting supposed terrorists. It does a nice job in presenting the facts behind this witch-hunt.

In all, the study found that in nearly 6,500 cases treated as "terrorism" investigations by the Justice Department since September 11, only about one in five defendants have been convicted.

And the average sentence for those convicted in "international terrorism" cases was just 20 to 28 days, and many received no jail time at all, the study found. The reason: Many of these cases involve lesser charges like immigration violations or fraud.

I've always believed from the beginning, as I'm sure most Muslims have also, that this war on terror is ironically about the US government (and its allies) instilling a sense of terror onto its citizenry.

From the early days in immediate post-9/11 with the mysterious anthrax powder scare to the indiscriminate raising of the terror alert level to the governmental calls for stocking up on plastic and duct tape and so on, the only terrorizing taking place in the West is conducted by the governments themselves. This atmosphere of fear is not a coincidental derivative of the international war on terror – it is an indispensable concoction used to stifle dissension as the Empires feeds its imperialistic ambitions.

A second timely article can be found here . It refers to the recent Amnesty International report on the human rights abuses perpetrated by democratic governments in the name of battling terrorism:

"The politics of fear" is being used, not only by terror groups, militias and dictatorships but, increasingly, by democratic governments, says Amnesty.

With that in mind, I was reminded of this witty video clip. Enjoy!

Politicians and 9/11

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Much Ado About the Fort Dix Pizza Plot

By NICOLE COLSON


To listen to government officials and the mainstream media, the six New Jersey men arrested for allegedly plotting an attack on the Fort Dix military base were well organized and nearly "ready to strike."

But like all of the government's claimed victories in "fighting terrorism," there are disturbing holes in the story that should raise questions about scapegoating and scaremongering.

The U.S. attorney's office in New Jersey announced May 8 that five men--Jordanian-born U.S. citizen Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer; Turkish-born legal U.S. resident Serdar Tatar; and brothers Dritan, Eljvir and Shain Duka, ethnic Albanians from the former Yugoslavia who were reportedly in the U.S. illegally--had been charged with "plotting to kill as many soldiers as possible in an armed assault at the Fort Dix Army base."

A sixth defendant, Agron Abdullahu, a legal resident also from the former Yugoslavia, is charged with illegally holding weapons for the others.

The FBI says it learned of the supposed plot when the men went to a Circuit City store and asked a clerk to transfer a jihad training video of themselves onto a DVD. They were arrested after allegedly attempting to purchase weapons from an undercover FBI agent.

According to the government, the men had conducted surveillance on Fort Dix, obtained computerized ballistic simulations and stolen a map of Fort Dix from a pizza shop located near the base in order to help plan their attack.

But the extent of their supposed military-style "training" appears to be trips to a firing range in the Poconos and playing paintball in the woods. According to the Washington Post, the indictment against the men "indicates that the group had no rigorous military training and did not appear close to being able to pull off an attack."

Nor do court papers indicate that the suspects themselves were convinced of their own supposed plan. At one point, for example, they express doubt at the thought of obtaining automatic weapons--noting that they are, after all, illegal.

The media's reports on the arrests immediately deemed the six as "Muslim fanatics" and "Jersey jihadists." But some of the men were known to be not particularly religious. In fact, according to the New York Times, investigators have quietly admitted that "there is little indication that they were devout--or even practicing--Muslims."

Perhaps most troubling, however, is the FBI's use of two paid "informants" in the case. One of the informants, according to the Times, "railed against the United States, helped scout out military installations for attack, offered to introduce his comrades to an arms dealer and gave them a list of weapons he could procure, including machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades."

That begs the question: how far would the supposed "plot" have gone had the FBI not been there to push it forward?

In fact, in November, Tatar himself contacted police in Philadelphia, telling a sergeant he had been approached by a man who "pressured him to acquire maps of Fort Dix." He even told the sergeant he was worried that that "the incident was terrorist-related."

The Feds claim that Tatar was simply trying to throw off suspicion and determine if the first informer was a plant. But the fact that one of the defendants in a supposed terrorist cell actually called police to report possible terrorist activity raises serious questions about the truth of the government's claims.

* * *

Over-hyped declarations about terrorism prosecutions are nothing new for Bush administration. It has announced one high-profile terrorism case after another, but few have ever been substantiated, and many more have been riddled with racism, entrapment and abuses.

Last fall, for example, several men of Middle Eastern descent were arrested in separate incidents in Ohio and Michigan on terrorism charges. They had aroused suspicion by buying too many cell phones--and, in one case, taking pictures of a bridge. Charges were later quietly dropped, but not until after the government smeared the men in the media as potential terrorists.

A similar pattern has played out in the case of seven men of Haitian descent arrested in Florida last year on charges that they were plotting to blow up Chicago's Sears Tower.

Though the charges are still pending, the case against the men rests on little more than the fact that they allegedly gave an FBI informant lists of shoe sizes in order to purchase military boots for them. Even the FBI was forced to admit that the plan was more "aspirational than operational."

As a recent editorial in the Palm Beach Post commented, "[A]nyone heard lately about the so-called 'Miami 7'? The Justice Department with much ballyhoo last year claimed the five U.S. citizens, one legal permanent resident and one Haitian national had conspired with al-Qaeda 'to levy war against the United States'...But Justice may face an uphill climb to show how the men were anything other than poor, unsophisticated street vendors and easy dupes when the government's agent came casting suggestion."

Then there is so-called "dirty-bomber" Jose Padilla, who spent more than three years in solitary confinement in a military brig as an officially designated enemy combatant for allegedly plotting to take part in an al-Qaeda plot to detonate a radioactive bomb inside the U.S.

When the Bush administration suddenly announced in November 2005 that federal criminal charges had been filed against Padilla, the indictment made no mention of the dirty bomb plot or most of the other original charges.

Today, Padilla's lawyers say he has been so psychologically damaged by the physical and psychological abuse he suffered at the hands of the government that he can no longer participate in his own defense.

Likewise, former University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian remains in prison today despite the fact that a jury acquitted him of the most serious terrorism charges against him and deadlocked on several lesser counts.

To end his imprisonment and be reunited with his family, Al-Arian agreed to plead guilty to a single count of supporting the nonviolent activities of a Palestinian charity. Yet his release date has come and gone, and he remains behind bars--because federal prosecutors now claim he is a "material witness" to other trumped-up terrorism prosecutions, and want to force him to testify.

Despite government assertions, the truth is that Al-Arian has been prosecuted for his political beliefs and defense of Palestinian rights--not for any "terrorism."

* * *

A closer look at the government's own records show that the "war on terror" has yielded few convictions.

Late last year, a study by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University found that in the first eight months of 2006, the Justice Department prosecuted 46 international terrorism cases--but declined to bring charges in 209 cases that the FBI or other agencies had referred, frequently because of a lack of real evidence.

"It is clear that the prosecutors are deciding that a lot of the investigations being recommended do not cut the mustard and do not meet their standards," David Burnham, the co-director of TRAC, told the New York Times.

In all, the study found that in nearly 6,500 cases treated as "terrorism" investigations by the Justice Department since September 11, only about one in five defendants have been convicted.

And the average sentence for those convicted in "international terrorism" cases was just 20 to 28 days, and many received no jail time at all, the study found. The reason: Many of these cases involve lesser charges like immigration violations or fraud.

In other words, the prosecutions that the government labels as being about "terrorism" are almost never actually about terrorism.

In fact, a February audit released by the Justice Department's inspector general found that the department usually "could not provide support for the numbers reported or could not identify the terrorism link used to classify statistics as terrorism-related."

Convictions for immigration violations, marriage fraud and drug trafficking were counted as "terrorism convictions" by the Justice Department. Such cases included: charges brought against a marriage-broker for being paid to arrange six fraudulent marriages between Tunisians and U.S. citizens; the prosecution of a Mexican citizen who falsely identified himself as another person in a passport application; and the case of a suspect charged with dealing firearms without a license.

As one anonymous former prosecutor recently told Truthout.org's William Fisher, "U.S. attorneys are well aware of their bosses' priorities. Since 9/11, all of them have been under pressure to bring terrorism prosecutions.

"In many cases, that has led them and their superiors, as well as prominent politicians, to call high-profile press conferences where they announce terrorism charges against people, but when they show up in court, there are no actual terrorism charges."

Nicole Colson writes for the Socialist Worker.

In the next few days I will post some of my thoughts on our valient yet failing efforts to reconcile our 'American-ness' with our 'Muslimness', but in the meanwhile I found these two posts quite interesting:

I see...Naked people!

What does it mean to be Muslim-American

The first post nicely highlights the incongruity between one of the core principles of Islam and Western society, namely Hayaa (insufficiently translated as bashfulness).

The second link is nice as it provides some good food for thought on the subject issue. Seeing that its a draft and the authors are looking for suggestions, there is vast potential and I pray that they succeed in their efforts.

To the surprise of no one, it has been 'revealed' that Bush has authorized special black-ops missions in order to destabilize Iran. Actually, it may be a surprise to Joe Six-pack and his neighbors as they have this naive impression of their government's benevolent nature being the flag bearer of all things civilized.

But fear not my fellow peace-loving Americans, the great Empire has classified this plot as non-lethal according to the report:

The "nonlethal" aspect of the presidential finding means CIA officers may not use deadly force in carrying out the secret operations against Iran.

And the fun doesn't stop there...

The comments section in the linked report features an entertaining effort by a group of right-wingers charging ABCnews (and their reporter Brian Ross) with treason by letting the Iranians in on this 'covert' plan. Are you kidding me? No really, you have got to be joking! Oh sure, Iranian intelligence is not upto par with the highly vaunted, strikingly accurate US intelligence community, but I doubt they're reading ABCnews to learn about covert actions going on in their backyard.

I especially liked this gem found in one of the comments:

I consider ABC News Traders to the United States

Having gotten a glimpse into the mindset (and spelling skills) of these jokers, I'm beginning to understand how Bush got re-elected.

On a more serious note, we should open our collective eyes and connect the dots about the reality of our government's annoying addiction to causing chaos. There is a dark history of government-sponsored acts of terrorism and it continues to this day in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Iran (and countless other places not featured in the nightly news). As much as I'm appalled by the erroneous way of many Muslim extremists who have committed horrible acts in the name of Islam, I am not about to give a free pass to the subversive tactics of the Great Occupier and its British sidekick in their war on terrorism.

Lets not forget about their willingness to bomb their own people in hopes of stirring up anti-Castro sentiments or the mysterious British undercover officers caught driving a booby-trapped car in Basra. The list goes on.

That's why I seriously doubt the daily reports coming out of Iraq where all the violence is so neatly packaged as Sunni-Shia violence. Is it really beneath the occupying forces to sabotage the stability of the country in order to blame the mess on sectarian clashes or outside-terrorists, thereby washing their hands of the blood they spilled?

Such a blame game would be too convenient.

I thought this Arab News article to be interesting, especially since many pilgrims visiting Mecca and Madina are solicited by swarms of professional beggars. Personally its a tough decision for me - I'm constantly wavering between giving them some money or turning them away. On the one hand, I know that if I (and others) continue to give, they will continue to beg. But on the other hand, I remember the Hadith Qudsi about Allah (swt) asking His servant:

O son of Adam, I asked you for food and you fed Me not. He will say: O Lord, and how should I feed You when You are the Lord of the worlds? He will say: Did you not know that My servant So-and-so asked you for food and you fed him not? Did you not know that had you fed him you would surely have found that (the reward for doing so) with Me?

May Allah guide us to what is best!


Undercover Beggar Reveals Shocking Realities

MAKKAH, 23 May 2007 — It seems that begging is not a marginal job that is practiced by the poor, as I recently came to realize when I went out begging in the streets of Makkah. In fact, I found it to be a highly profitable business that makes people rich in a short space of time. The only thing one needs is skill in pretending and eliciting sympathy.

Prior to going out to beg, the first thing I did was to carefully observe other beggars in order to imitate them and be successful in deceiving people. Some would pretend to be handicapped; others would pretend to be well-off people who had suddenly lost their wealth and status. Some would beg in family-like groups in cars and on foot, while others would loiter around street corners and near traffic lights. Some women are known to target young men by flirting with them and then demanding money that impressionable naive young men would quickly offer. Some older women are even known to offer young girls in return for money.

I started begging after Asr prayers and finished after Isha prayers when the Anti-Beggary Department arrested me. Overall, it was an exciting experience: I earned over SR300 in just four hours. Having observed local beggars, I tried several methods of eliciting money, which all proved workable and taught me lots of things about the craft. At times I limped on one leg, at others I pretended I was paralyzed in one arm. I targeted kind and gentle people, and made sure I looked pitiful and convincing. The experience was difficult and made me feel ashamed at times.

My evening of begging began in a crowded street. With some trial and error I managed to earn a lot of money. Looking in people’s eyes is the key to earning their sympathy. I started my stint by targeting two men who were standing on a street corner talking. One ignored me while the other handed me SR3. On receiving the money, I said, “Only SR3?” They then asked me how much I wanted and I said I wanted SR20. The man then took back the SR3 he had given me, insulted me and told me to move on. I smiled and left.

I moved to a nearby residential district where I hid one of my arms by pulling it out of its sleeve. A man passed by, handed me SR15 and said: “Thank God that He has protected me from being in a condition like yours.”

An elderly woman also went past and then headed to her car. She then gave her driver SR40 to give to me. It was then that I realized that begging is a profitable business.

At another location, I saw a man who was counting his money after coming out of a pharmacy. I came close to him, asked him for financial help and insisted he give me SR10. I then sat down to count the money that I had earned when a young boy came and handed me SR5. A passing woman looked at me compassionately and also handed me some money.

Later, I began hanging around intersections and traffic lights. As soon as a car would stop, I would be handed money. I stopped by five cars and was handed money by all of the occupants.

Spurred by the begging-feeling, I visited the upmarket Al-Hamra district where residents usually come to walk and jog.

I noticed a man observing me from afar when a young man handed me SR20. Unperturbed, I continued to pretend to be poor. The man came close and slid his hand in his pocket. I reached out for the SR50 he was handing me when a group of men suddenly came from behind and handcuffed me. It was then that I realized that they were from the Anti-Beggary Department and that I had been arrested in a sting operation.

They took me to a large anti-beggary van parked close by, which had a woman and her child inside. The woman had also been arrested for begging. We were then taken to the anti-beggary office where I explained to Mansour Al-Hazmi, manager of the Anti-Beggary Department, who I was and what I was doing. He was sympathetic and appreciated the efforts of the media in shedding light on the problem.

“The social security schemes established by the Saudi government have helped reduce the number of Saudi beggars,” he said, adding that the authorities are keen to provide citizens with comfortable lives. “Saudis make up 1.5 percent of beggars. The rest tend to be non-Saudis,” he said.

“If a Saudi beggar is arrested, his case is studied and then transferred to the Social Security Department or other charity organizations, especially if they are children. If they are elderly, then they are transferred to elderly homes,” he said. According to him, the files of beggars are then transferred to the Labor Office to find them employment. Meanwhile, non-Saudis are arrested and then deported to their home countries.

The art of begging is a tricky one. However, as long as people continue to hand money to beggars, the trade will continue to thrive.

For the longest time I've been convinced that the two-party system in the US is a democratic sham. It gives the illusion of choice while in reality allowing you to choose between six and a half-dozen. And in cahoots with the independent media outlets, who effectively promote this charade, the pretense of an open democratic society is established allowing the sheeple to go back to eating grass and roaming the fields. Now, I'm not advocating the traditional conspiracy theories on who or what is running the world - but suffice it to say that its not the masses and their voting machines.

I specifically remember an apt analogy given by a friend some 10 years ago. Imagine a debate between two sides, one arguing for Coke and the other for Pepsi. The argument for the pros and cons of each is presented in a civil manner - both sides respecting each others right to choice. As the audience looks on, a third person walks in and suggests the unthinkable, 'Hey fellas, whats wrong with water?'.

You hear a collective ghasp in the audience, mothers cover their children's ears, onlookers can be heard whispering 'nutjob', 'deviant', and 'anarchist'. One of the candidates smirks with an air of arrogance, instantly disregarding the newcomer with a pompous chuckle, while the other retorts forcefully, 'Water? Water! You must be out of your mind young man. With that kind of thinking, why not suggest that we all start drinking gasoline?!'

I was reminded of all this when I watched this hilarious video clip:

http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/2007/05/politics_in_the.html

I was reading about what we Muslims of immigrant parents are losing being raised in the West and I'm becoming more and more convinced that our current lifestyle is passing on very little of value to our children.

Although I was raised my entire life in the US, my parents maintained, not out of any sense of cultural preservation but more out of reflexive habits I believe, an environment wherein certain etiquettes and positive tendencies were instilled in me. I am not a cultural supremacist. I am not asserting any one Muslim culture over another. What I am saying is that the American (and Western in general) culture has not yet developed an Islamic persona which can be inculcated into our future generations. Therefore, it is of the utmost priority that we do our best to retain Islamic values that are inherent to our cultural heritage.

I am not discussing the more controversial issues of unIslamic cultural baggage that too often get conflated with Islamic teachings – such as misogynistic practices, arranged marriages (against the will of the involved parties), and sectarian discord. I am referring to the discreet yet extremely significant habits and propensities which embellish our Islamic identity. These practices are the window dressings of our Islamic tradition. In fact, without Islam these cultural customs that I talk so highly of would probably be laudable, but in the end, inconsequential. It is their reinforcement by the Islamic teachings of the Quran/Sunnah that have given the space to these disparate cultures to flourish and establish such beautiful habits.

Furthermore, I do find a critical difference between nostalgic reminiscing about grandma’s homemade halwa or playing stick ball with the cousins and my celebrating the positive cultural nuances that are sadly withering away right before our eyes. Times change and surely we can never bring back the beautiful memories and innocent recollections of our youth. However, certain moral values ought to stand the test of time, regardless of the various migratory paths that humans may take.

Allow me to stroll down the halls of my upbringing, sharing with you some examples of what I wish to communicate:

As I was growing up, I fondly recall the required respect we had to have for not only our elders (‘Aunties and Uncles’), but also some of our own peers, who may have been just a month older. Conversely, I remember taking advantage of said principle by requiring my underlings to refer to me as ‘Naeem bhai’.

I recall my parents always upholding the highest standards of hayaa whereby they never shared PDA (Public Displays of Affection) in front of us (and here I'm referring to simply hugging or holding hands, nothing even remotely comparable to the reprehensible actions perpetrated in front of their children by parents of the West).

I remember never getting socially comfortable around my sisters and their female friends. I don't recall ever being told explicitly by my father, but it somehow was understood that we didn't mix with them. I'm guessing it had alot to do with the segregated social functions that made it abundantly clear where we were and were not allowed to go.

I remember the adaab of eating collectively with the family, sitting on the ground, and regularly eating with our hands - no such concept as fast food in our home!

I remember always speaking to my parents in Urdu (as broken as my attempts may have been) even though we would talk to each other in English.

I remember my father's home having its door always open to guests. Living next door to the masjid gave us the unique opportunity to host countless number of families over the years.

And throughout my childhood, my parents never ever explicitly stated these practices as being Islamic teachings – they just were part of my parent’s identity. Although my father was aware of his Islamic self, he didn’t sit the family together on the ground for dinner with any Sunnah of the Prophet in mind – as I mentioned above, it was more out of habit (i.e. that's the way his father did it). And that's the beauty of it all – our various cultures from back home have so much integrated Islamic norms into the daily life that it is scandalous when anyone fails to abide by them.

You don’t believe me? Don’t try walking around my grandfather’s house eating or drinking while standing unless you want his cane upside your head!

I discovered this thing called blogging and its pretty cool. I get to post stuff about anything I want, you get to read it, and we all live happily ever after. On top of that, if you wish, you can leave a comment and I can delete it if its not to my liking. Very cool!

Seriously, I decided to shift from sending mass emails to this format for one main reason - I wanted to hear back from others and get their input on matters I felt to be of importance.

I promise not to write about my cat as long as you promise to be nice. Deal?