STORIES, STORIES

Can you spot the Bey? I currently work at AMG International , a Malaysian publishing house that produces closed distribution (in-house) business magazines and corporate publications. We have a sizable stable of magazines that we produce content for and then send off to print a few times every month (one of them pictured above, a magazine for the country's electricity utility). Right before we do, my Malay co-workers at the Graphics Department hold up the proofs to me in mock seriousness and say, " Du3a2 ? Bismillah?" to which I nod, signaling my approval and acceptance of full responsibility for any costly error that might just bite us all in the ass when thousands of copies are finally in print. In many ways, the things we do here as Southeast Asian Muslims, the Arabic words we say in worship, look and sound like parodies or parroting of the Arab (Saudi?) Islamic culture, but in many other ways, they're not. It's the Asean Muslim brand of Islamic cultur...

He Who is Neither Nor by Nessreen One time at lunch, a friend, who I presumed to have received some sort of bad news just then, sighed and said, “God is good." I was all “What do you mean God is good ?” because I’m always ready for a nice old argument about religion, and he was all “Just that. God is  good.”  He didn’t explain further, but we all know why we say God is good  to punctuate tragedies big or small – to remind ourselves that God only gives us things that we can handle, that He puts us in difficult situations so that we may be stronger and wiser and that our faith in Him may be harder to shake. We say it as a salve to our wounded souls when beset with misfortunes.  But what if (and the chances are very, very high, given the nature of God’s all-knowing existence versus our tiny, tiny excuse-for-a-speck ones), what if we were looking at it all wrong?  Saying God is good  is just the same as saying God is bad . After all, thi...

RANTINGS OF AN ARAB MALE by Hakeem Jomah Unpopular opinion time!  I believe that man is a product of his environment.  I ALSO believe that, given certain catalyzing factors, man can regress or progress despite his environment.  The Arab male is molded to believe from day one that he truly is a king in his own right; with that comes the mandatory responsibility to provide for and nurture a family financially and emotionally, and play a part on the disciplinarian front.  And right off the bat, that's gargantuan pressure. They're ALSO bred and molded to believe in a mandatory self-entitled pride and unearned respect from his family, and it's up to the Arab male to figure out on his own how he goes about doing that. But he's so used to being spoonfed everything that he skips the "how to earn it" part, and jumps right into the "expecting to be respected" part. I'm an Arab male, I've lived this. A lot of people have th...

I've had the good fortune (on top of my generally good fortune) of being invited this past weekend by a Malaysian family to spend a (half) day of Ramadan the way the local Muslim Malays do. It was the first time I've had a good look inside their ecosystem, and therefore it fascinated me. An 'open house,' they call it, when they invite people into their homes to break fast. My host family knew my background, courtesy of the mom's very short but apparently very impactful friendship with my mother in Jeddah when she was there for an 3mrah  visit a few months ago. An aside before I continue: I've always contemplated the difference between my mother's generation and mine when it comes to forging friendships. For me now in my 30s, getting new friends is a great bonus that comes with striking out on my own career-wise. I no longer look for friends to be my posse and support group – I already have that from my 20s, and they're all in different countries now...

I went to the 2013 Islamic Fashion Festival held in KL last month (November) at the Marriott, because that's the kind of thing I do now apparently, and of course, as with anything that is predicated with the word "Islamic", it raised all kinds of heated, almost hateful questions within my circle, me being officially Muslim and coming from both the Arab world and the Muslim-Asian one. Everyone just getting their tar7as all up in a twist. I don't blame them, but I'm also a little detached. Why can't we all just enjoy some nice fashion style coupled with some religion-influenced culture without discussing who's going to hell and who's not? No? Kk. So, the Islamic Fashion Festival (IFF) was founded by Malaysian royalty Raja Rezza Shah, an entrepreneur, fashion enthusiast and jet-setter, as one would expect. When the infamous 9/11 disaster cast an evil glow on Muslims and Islam far and wide, he repurposed this glow into a spotlight on a catwalk and b...

We don't always know where our faith lies. Or even what it looks like. Or if it's ever enough to sustain us. We stumble around in our meaningless existence, with our gadgets and that endless babble of apps running in the background, straining against religion. "We are atheists!", we cry. Silently. We are not for the rigid walls of any religion, we don't subscribe to these restrictions, these violations on our freedom, these killings of our true selves. We are young, we are invincible. We are such strong people. We are so strong we refer to ourselves in the collective. There is no abstract idea that can break us, not words, not heartbreak, not betrayal, not fate nor any series of unfortunate events. Except maybe something so basic and so physical as literal, unbearable pain. And only then do we draw on our faith. "God SURELY wouldn't give me anything I wouldn't be able to handle. For He is All-Compassionate, He is Most Merciful." ...

So, yeah. Driving. First, I'd like to congratulate all the people who participated in the campaign for women to drive in Saudi Arabia, including those who didn't ostracize and throw eggs at (or hit with an  3egal ) those who DID participate. This is indeed a baby step, albeit a huge baby, towards the fulfillment of women's (and in fact, men's, too) most basic of rights: the right to think for themselves and to make their own decisions. And that's what we should probably remind ourselves of: what we are fighting for. What IS the point of all this? Driving, although very real and very literal, is really just a strong symbol representing our right to do things without having to ask permission from a male relative. What other areas of our lives do we have to constantly ask a man permission to do? Education? Our right to acquire knowledge and be brilliant? Marriage? Our right to find and choose the right person at the right time to ruin spend the rest of our ...

Happy Valentine's Day, Bebi!  All the way from Jeddah. Coz Bebi, WE ARE CLEAR. While most of the world is celebrating love and commercialism, our Hay2a is busy prowling the streets ( again ) for businesses and individuals participating in this love-mongering, and preaching against this day. In the process, they have unwittingly been raising more awareness and promoting this holiday. Hilarity ensues. Great job on defeating your purpose(s)! On a lighter note, here's a great post from Sharifa's photo blog , and here is a song from the Backstreet Boys, for is there not a better time to unleash the boyband ballads than on an equally mushy day? You agree with me, of course. Enjoy! And if you're one-half of a couple, remember never to compare your relationship to others (because that's very unfair and stupid), and always make time to spend with each other. "Attention is truly valuable." - Seth Godin

Umberto Eco 's The Name of The Rose FINALLY. Uff, it took me forever to finish this book. Just try reading 500 pages of this: Meanwhile, the obstinate insistence of the chthonian voices did not let up, as if the threatening presence of enemies, of the powerful who persecuted the people of the Lord, remain unresolved. Until that Neptunian roiling of a single note seemed overcome, or at least convinced and enfolded, by the rejoicing hallelujahs of those who opposed it, and all dissolved on a majestic and perfect chord and on a resupine neuma. And that's just two sentences. "Chtonian"? "Resupine"? "Neuma"? It felt like I was back in uni, with my required literature reading, except I embarked on this resupine neuma of cacophonous asymmetry voluntarily. (Also, did I not sound so smart just then? Big words FTW!) I shouldn't have been so surprised, though, because I came across Umberto Eco through my literary circle back in uni, when all we did as...

I'm sure by now we've all (or at least most of us have) read/heard about the 9-year-old daughter of an American mom and Libyan dad, the girl who chose to start wearing her hijab in the States at a very young age. [ For the full story, click here. ] The story is written from the point of view of the mom, about her personal struggle in accepting her daughter's choice, and the things she learned from it. I've been asked by so many people about my opinion on this, so I'm just gonna re-post here the email I wrote to one of my friends on the subject sometime ago. I read this article a few days ago, and it's very interesting in that it really tests a person's claims on being open-minded, and it also explores some of the core difficulties that bi-racial/bi-cultural couples or families face. In my opinion, the girl is young, she has become influenced by this side of her heritage, and she is exploring it. It's nothing definite or concrete. It's a good thi...