Al Bayan 2023: The Origins Issue

AL BAYAN 2023

the ORIGINS issue

What’s Inside

Past

10 11 13 15 21

Pr

25 27 27 28

n 29

09

e s e

Cats of the McSA i still bite my nails sweet slumber I Pledge Allegiance to the United States Vision Board

Embroidered with Love & Resistance Roots Homesick Dadi Inherited Elegance Muslim Origins in a Non-Muslim Culture

t Waiting for the Beginning Dania’s Big Break a letter from a president Overwhelm

33 35 37 39

Future

Al BAYAN 2022-23 Editorial Staff S

C o-

r

mA b

d

la

De

sign

Edit o r

d ito

f

C hi e f

Ed i t o r i n C h i e

in

Ta s n e e

al

R a f e e M a n ag in g E

ar

-

Ed ito r

en

utt

o

me

aM

s Ya

ar

A en aB Sam

m er C

Asiyah Aras tu Print Editor

Contributers Ruba Ahmed Copy Editor Onyekaorise Chigbogwu Photographer Rama Darrayad Writer Yahya Arastu Writer Taymae Mimouni Writer Rayyana Hassan Writer Ifra Waris Writer Noraan Mohamed Writer Nabila Qadri Writer Fardeem Munir Writer

Editors’ Note

C

ollege is unique for many reasons, but one in particular stands out the most. Here, we are on the precipice of the start of our lives despite having 18, 19, 20 plus years of life behind us. The difference, now, is the expectation of something new and entirely our own waiting for us on the other side. College acts as a transition between the homes we grew up in and the homes we are starting. There’s a consciousness of where we come from, but not necessarily who we are and where we are going, which is what makes the exploration of identity so beautiful here.

and passing it down to their future children. Its cyclical existence evades origins in that way, but for us, Islam finds us at different points in our lives, giving us a chance to start over again.

Here, traditions find a new home and the juxtaposition is beautiful. Take your shoes off when you walk in my dorm room. Burn some bukhoor over the stove of your oneyear apartment lease. Pray taraweeh in the courtyard of a church.

As we finally hand off this issue to you, may it be the start of something new and beneficial to you. I am so proud of every article, spread, and photograph in here. The Origins Issue honors the places and histories we come from and how they continue to inform who we are today, and who we will be.

Islam is a faith founded on an oral tradition––the longevity of the religion depends on generations passing it down to their children, and their children learning that knowledge

T

he making of this edition of Al Bayan has seen my senior year at Northwestern to my first year in graduate school. I write to you from my desk five months after graduating from Northwestern, five months of reflecting on my time in college and the role Al Bayan that encompasses therein.

This edition of the magazine, and the Origins theme in particular, weaves together pieces of our collective history as young Muslim adults with spreads holding colors as bold as our truths. If college is a time for self-understanding and self-creation, then this edition of Al Bayan represents our efforts to combine old with new, synthesizing where we come from and exploring where we take ourselves now.

The beauty of the space created by the magazine lies in its honesty, our earnest attempts at honoring personal stories. There are no right or wrong ways to tell our stories—it

The decision to carry our pasts with us into the future is a conscious one and for Muslims that means continuing the routines and traditions our parents raised us with. And for those who weren’t raised with these practices, we pull those threads from our shared past and ancestry. A rich tapestry from a time when Muslims led the world and culture.

Sama Ben Amer

is simply enough that we tell them with the methods that resonate with us. This environment is especially important in college, where taking a leap or trying something new has fewer sequelae, like a room with corkscrew flooring, where the ground can dampen the impact of landing.

We hope you read this edition with your own stories in mind, finding points of connection and feeling the warmth in our community of writers. We hope they allow you to better understand parts of your own journey or of those around you. And most importantly, we hope they invite you to share your origins as widely as you dare: your leap will only be met with corkscrew.

Sara Muttar

“Past”

W

Embroidered

with Love & Resistance

hen I say I’m Palestinian, I have to be prepared to defend myself—either through knowledge, words, or action. My identity immediately becomes a gateway for political conversations I do not invite.

As a Palestinian raised in the diaspora, I am merely viewed as a puzzling “geopolitical conflict,” not as an individual with a unique ethnic heritage. But just like anyone else, I love to talk about my culture as I am incredibly proud of and attached to my roots. I grew up learning that, as Palestinians, our existence is in fact resistance: they can try to take away our land, but the land knows the delicate hands of my grandparents who planted its olive trees; the land recognizes the language of tatreez, the unique style of cross stitch embroidery inspired by its landscape.

Writing by Rama Darrayad Design by Sama Ben Amer

brought all the way from our village: Silwad, northeast of Ramallah. I’ve always loved how the patterns and motifs of tatreez are unique to different Palestinian villages.

Palestinian women wore tatreez as an emblem of the villages they will return to, with threads woven in their garments older than the state of Israel.

Tatreez is a unifying symbol of my cultural identity, one that can never be occupied or stolen.

A closer look at the detailed hand-stitched embroidery

When I wear my thobe, or any embroidered item I own, I feel proud to know that I am preserving my ancestral roots. It is not just a dress, not simply another adornment—every stitch is a symbolic statement; every pattern tells a story that cannot be forgotten.

How could I ever possibly forget the threads of my identity?

An old photo of my teta wearing the traditional thobe described. Whether it is to go olive picking or attend a wedding, Palestinian women love to wear tatreez on any and every occasion.

A photo of myself wearing my teta’s beautiful hand-stitched thobe from our village: Silwad, northeast of Ramallah. It just so happens to be purple tatreez too!

As a Palestinian woman, tatreez is especially significant to me. When my grandparents—along with hundreds of thousands of other Palestinians—were expelled from their homeland in 1948, 9

My teta (grandmother), may Allah SWT have mercy on her soul, was one of these women who used to practice the art of tatreez. She often wore one thobe that I particularly treasure, which was gifted to me by my father after she passed. It is hand-stitched with beautiful blue and white thread,

I am honored to wear the same traditional garments that my grandmothers wore, and cannot wait to pass them down to future generations through my own daughters. Above all, I look forward to the day I can roam the streets of Jerusalem, reunited with my family and homeland, proudly wearing my tatreez in a Free Palestine, insha’Allah.

ROOTS ROOTS I

always enjoy the look of surprise on people’s faces when I tell them I have an extended family of over 1,000 people. It then leads to a lengthy explanation of how my great-great-grandfather had 12 kids, each with large families of their own. This patriarch of my family was known as Arastu Yar Jung. His given name was Abdul-Hussain, and he was born and raised in the old city of Hyderabad, India. He went on to attend medical school and was appointed to the staff of Osmania General Hospital, where he eventually became its first superintendent. This is where it gets interesting. Late in his career, he was appointed royal surgeon to the ruler of Hyderabad, known as Nizam Mahbib Ali Khan, the sixth Nizam of Hyderabad.

Because of his renown and skill, my great-great grandfather was given the title “Arastu Yar Jung,” which alludes to the wisdom of the famous philosopher Aristotle.

He remained an adviser to the Nizam for many years and was known for treating the needy and poor of the local community often at no cost to them.

Writing by Yahya Arastu Design by Tasneem Abdalla As transportation became more accessible and widespread, his descendants began to travel abroad to Great Britain, primarily to study medicine.

Some returned home to Hyderabad after completing their studies. Others made the trek across the pond to New York, and from there to various cities along the Atlantic seaboard. Decades after Arastu Yar Jung’s descendants settled across the globe—in the UK, the US, Canada, India, and Pakistan—several members of our family undertook the task of organizing a reunion. Considering the size of the family, this was a monumental endeavor. It took several years to coordinate the logistics for such a largescale gathering. We ended up gathering at NorthBay Camp—a lakeside resort in Maryland—back in 2019. If I’m being completely honest, I probably recognized a quarter of the people there, and knew even less by name.

But it was a great opportunity to reconnect and meet family members that I didn’t even know I had.

I’m constantly reminded of

what a huge blessing it is to have such a well-connected extended family. When my own family goes on road-trips across the U.S., in most cities we visit, we have some relative or distant cousin that we can meet up with and spend time with.

“

It’s a blessing because we get to maintain ties of kinship (ṣilat al-raḥim) with the added perk of not needing to book a hotel. In all seriousness, having a network of people with such strong ties is beneficial in so many ways.

”

Whether I’m looking for career guidance, advice on other important life decisions, or the warmth of friendship and community, being part of a big family really is something special.

My other great-great-grandfather, Haji Kurban Hussain, has his own unique history and his own line of descendants, but that’s a story for another Al Bayan article.

Group photo from the Arastu family reunion at NorthBay Camp in Maryland, circa 2019.

10

I

was born in a clinic in Oujda, Morocco. On that Ramadan day, younger than I am now, my mother became, well, my mother. And only a mother can know the feeling of being a mother. The overwhelming love, excitement, and all-consuming fear for the new life held in your arms.

It’s hard for me to even imagine that sort of anxiety. Now imagine that your husband gets a visa to the United States, and, after only a year and a half, you and your family leave everything and everyone you know. My mother’s fears skyrocketed. A new country, a new home, a new life. Add to that moving to the U.S. after 9/11… it made for terrible anxieties and a longing for home.

a conversation in English, but I still mixed in some Darija, which frequently left my teachers confused. But when I started kindergarten, I was as articulate as Word Girl.

This was when my father decided to crack down on the language spoken at home, to “preserve the culture.” He “no longer understood English,” so if my sister or I needed something from our parents or just wanted to talk, it had to be in Darija— otherwise, we’d get no response. My little brain couldn’t comprehend why: we were in America, so we should speak English. A free country and all, yeah? (That one got me into plenty of

HOM trouble…) As I got older, it dawned on me that my mother never taught me the language she spoke with her family: Tamazight.

My father and his side of the family couldn’t speak Tamazight, and neither could my sister and I. This was when I realized that, although my parents were both Moroccan born and raised, my mother’s Amazigh culture was just a little bit different from my father’s more Arab-influenced culture.

“Sometimes, I feel this deep ache for something that I never had to begin with, but nevertheless feels like it was taken from me”

Though he still deeply missed Morocco, my father was, luckily, never fazed by much, and was able to be the calm that our family needed.

So, we survived in the U.S., and my sister was born less than a year after we moved. At this point, neither of my parents spoke particularly great English, and neither could I. I spoke Darija at home, and learned English from watching TV (thank you, Blues Clues). Once I started preschool, I could certainly hold 11

Writing by Taym Design by Sama

Tamazight: her language, my language.

I would always ask why, but never got a proper answer. And so I started to wonder: why wasn’t my mother’s culture and language also being preserved? Was it less important? Was it because it wasn’t Arab? I wondered and wondered, and still wonder today. From frequent exposure, I can understand most of the language, but I still can’t speak it. Every time that I hear my mother’s family conversing with each other, I feel a sense of melancholy, a sense of longing for this part of my culture that was never cultivated in me.

I love being Moroccan, and I will always be Muslim before anything else.

But sometimes, I feel this deep ache for something that I never had to begin with, but nevertheless feels like it was taken from me.

MESICK

mae Mimouni Ben Amer

My mother always told me stories of Figuig, her hometown, and what it was like growing up there. I loved hearing those stories as a kid (especially the ones with snakes and scorpions), and even more so now that I can appreciate them, knowing that they are important to my background and half of my culture. But she never taught me

That is how so many second generation immigrants feel here in the U.S.—like they’re missing something. I was blessed to have had the chance to learn and speak Darija, but many other kids are never taught their parents’ language, or they lose it as they grow up speaking only English at school. Either way, we second generation immigrants never truly fit in with those around us: not with our peers, not with our family.

We are left with an inexplicable yearning for something that we never had, a yearning for a home that was never entirely ours.

12

T

Dadi

he narrow stairway opens into an expansive basement. Long wooden shelves mounted on steel brackets line two walls, floor to ceiling, stacked with clear boxes. Layers of fabric peek through the cloudy plastic. Some boxes are labeled: tulle, batiks, corduroy, denim or “cotton for kids’ nightgowns” neatly folded in stacks. Others are a whorl of scraps: lace, chiffon, cut up sari blouses. In the back, there is a shelf stocked with beads, buttons, and sequins that are arranged like candy in jars.

There’s a huge table in the middle of the room, composed of two dressers pushed back to back. A great piece of plywood rests on top, covered with a gridded plastic mat for measuring and cutting fabric. It is often strewn with scraps, scissors, plastic patterns, stacks of precut strips for quilting, or sample fabrics awaiting auditions for the next project. The hefty wooden drawers of both dressers overflow with projects in various stages of progress.

Writing by Asiyah Arastu Design by Tasneem Abdalla A home is incomplete without a sewing machine, even if that home is a tiny flat in a Bombay highrise that is the size of half my living room, even if the sewing machine is powered manually. Dadi would sit on the floor, pumping the pedal with her feet as her mother sewed. When little girls were invited to a party, Dadi’s mother would take one of the few dressy saris she owned and pin it down to Dadi’s size with the skill of a seamstress. These saris were family treasures, textile heirlooms passed from mother to daughter. I wonder if any of those saris accompanied Dadi across oceans and decades—biding their time in clear plastic boxes, awaiting a new life, perhaps as part of a magnificent ancestral quilt.

As a young girl on her way to her grandmother’s house, Dadi vividly remembers leaning over the front railing on the top tier of a double decker bus as it passed the slums on the city’s fringe. She gaped at the huts made of tin cans beaten into flimsy sheets, and then she saw the roofs. They were draped with quilts laid out to dry, made of old clothes, torn clothes, all stitched together into a medley of color. They enchanted her and never released her from their spell.

“In Bombay, the flat we lived in was the size of half your living room,” Dadi always says. Every morning, she and her family rolled up It wasn’t long before she found A home is incomplete without their cots and stowed them her true calling in life: textile art. Dea sewing machine, even if that away for the day. They cades later, as a mother and grandshared one cupboard for all mother, on a visit to Bombay, Dadi home is a tiny flat in a Bombay their clothes. Dadi owned by the same sight where her highrise that is the size of half my passed a few sets of school unipassion for quilting put down its first living room, even if the sewing forms, some kurtas to wear roots. She fumbled for her phone— at home, and a nightgown— this was her chance to capture this machine is powered manually. folded in neat stacks at all tapestry of color for posterity. The times. Each sibling was albus zoomed past before she could lowed two wooden pencils take her photo. for the entire school year, so they used every pencil to the stub.

Now, Dadi curates a portfolio of screenshots on her laptop that are pulled from Facebook posts about the When the siblings quarreled, their mother would press Bombay of her childhood. She has thousands of stories a few coins into their hands. All bad feelings forgotten, at her fingertips. She waits for a grandkid to come her the children held hands and skipped down the street to way who is ready to listen. If she gets tired of waiting, she buy kulfi, sugarcane juice, or taffy molded into fantastic brings the story to life. She brings the story to us. Like the shapes. These days, Dadi is tempted most by specialty time she took a black and white photo of the school she fabrics and upholstery samples and lace trims. Wherever attended as a child, traced the image onto fabric, and she travels, she is drawn like a magnet to fabric shops. Ev- then stitched each detail by hand. ery time she promises herself that she’ll just take a peek and not buy anything new. Every time, she walks out with Dadi’s latest art quilt is one of the many projects that at least a yard of some tantalizing textile. have been sparked by the screenshots or photos she so diligently compiles. It is a vibrant portrait of our family Naturally, all motion in the sewing room revolves farm as viewed from her house that she submitted to a around the sewing machine. Its base is set below the local quilt show. Free motion quilting recreates the texsurface of the table, which is sprinkled with bits of stray tures of the clouds and the furrows of mown grass. Carethread, thread spools, and bobbin. A fat tomato pin cush- fully selected fabrics bring to life the trees and the brick ion bristles with yellow and magenta straight pins. There red barn. Miniature cows, goats, chicken, and sheep cut is a narrow compartment on the right hand side of the out from fabric dot the landscape. The quilt even features sewing machine for storing a stitch opener, thread snips, the bonfire pit, an old stump, the white fence with four and the nut pick Dadi uses as a sewing stiletto to guide old wagon wheels mounted on it, the Gorilla Cart parked the fabric under the presser foot. by the barn.

“

13

,,

Arastu Acres, Zohra Arastu (2022), Appliqué quilt.

“Arastu Acres” circa 2022; photo used as a reference for the quilt. Photo courtesy of Zohra Arastu.

14

INHERITED ELEGANCE

15

photographed by: onyekaorise chigbogwu creative directed by: sama ben amer set design: onyekaorise chigbogwu & sama ben amer design by: sama ben amer 16

9

BRINGING THE PAST TO THE PRESENT

“Growing up, it never felt like my family had ever left Sudan” — Haneen Awadelsayed 19

“I am an extension of my culture and heritage” —Rayan Tabidi

igins in r O m i l a s u Muslim Cult ur M ne o N

Writin g Design by Ray y

by T asn ana H ee m a Ab ssan da lla

Rayyana with her mom and younger sister Nura getting ready for a community party, circa 2007.

21

W

hen asked to identify your origins, you might mention your ethnicity, your community, your family structure, or your religion. In most contexts, you can usually mention an overlapping combination of these categories, but one tends to shine forth more than the others. Understanding your origins and the history behind them is a challenge in and of itself. Navigating your future and your identity using the concept of origins as a foundation is another challenge.

Islam is at the forefront of my identity. Religion, as a singular path of origin, defines who I am and the way I navigate my life. The way I position myself amongst the communities around me is through Islam.

Ethnically, I come from a South Asian background, but my roots and personality are most notably tied with the American Midwest. I’ve spent my Sundays attending church services and football watch parties with my friends. My family debates over what to get for Ramadan iftars revolve around Midwestern fast food or some variation of Italian cuisine. Although many Desi cultural traditions intertwine with Islamic practices, I find myself navigating religion independent of the ethnic component.

My relationship with Islam is not tied to other parts of my identity.

Instead, it is the foundation of every aspect of who I am. As the Muslim and Desi diasporas broaden, many families find themselves tying culture and religion together as a way to connect to both origins simultaneously. But as my parents navigated adulthood in post 9/11 suburbia, they made a

distinct effort to avoid conflating religious and cultural practices. They wanted to prioritize Islam above all else when raising my three sisters and me, but that came at the cost of not being able to show me how my ethnicity intersected with Islam.

While I sometimes wonder how the overlap of my origins could have changed my identity, I am wholeheartedly grateful that Islam remains an integral part of who I am, with no other origins to disrupt my relationship with Islam.

As I navigate the different communities I am part of, being a Muslim is what is most important. Growing up in a Protestant Christian community, I was able to share with my friends how my religion was similar to, yet different from, their beliefs. We were able to share experiences such as religious practices, prayers, and sermons, but without culture attached to what we shared. My understanding of religion was tied to the experiences around me. I was never worried about also having to adhere to cultural customs in order to fulfill my religious duties. As I moved from my Midwestern community to Northwestern, I knew Islam would largely shape my college experience.

From academics to personal relationships, Islam has helped navigate how I pursue success in college. It has also helped pave the path for my ambitions beyond university.

The fact that I view Islam as the singular foundation of my origins is a result of immense privilege and countless blessings, alhamdulillah. I have access to resources and education that many other members of the diaspora do not

Rayyana with her cousins and sister at their grandparents’ house, circa 2005.

have access to. My grandparents immigrated to this country not only to look for a better life financially, but to raise their children in a place where religion and education were valued above all else. They sacrificed a more cultural upbringing for their kids and grandkids, they showed me that my relationship with religion should remain strong regardless of my struggles. Their sacrifices gave my parents access to better opportunities to learn about Islam, but also much greater access to better education and careers. My parents were able to find success in their personal endeavors while still holding Islam close to their hearts. Both generations taught me that success in a non-Muslim culture does not have to come at the cost of religious values.

These religious and educational opportunities have truly shaped my identity. My relationship with religion would not be this strong without access to better resources than those available to the generations before me.

My relationship with Islam does not directly correlate with culture, community or other factors people consider as part of their origins. Islam is the singular foundation for my identity: how I view myself in the world. I am endlessly grateful for the generations before me, who sacrificed so much to show how to navigate a non-Muslim society through a firm understanding of Islam.

22

“Pr “Pr

resent” Present”

‘Cats

of the

McSA Writing by Ifra Waris Design by Tasneem Abdalla

This is Nala (some would say she is the cutest cat in the entire world), a 7 year old domestic shorthair. Her hobbies include shedding her fur everywhere, scratching couches, eating plastic, and sleeping on my computer when I need to do work.

Ayesha Mohammed

C

ats sleeping on prayer mats and in mosques. Videos of cats refusing to walk on the Qur’an. Cats dressed up in thobes for Eid. The internet and social media are filled with images and videos of Muslims and their feline friends. Cats roam the streets freely in most Muslim nations, lounging around and eating food from shops, winning love from the community. This relationship between cats and Islam has existed for over a millennium before the internet.

From the time of Prophet Muhammed ‫ﷺ‬, cats have been cared for and loved by Muslims. Many tell the tale of the Prophet ‫’ﷺ‬s favorite cat, Muezza. She was asleep on one of his robes during prayer time, and, rather than disturb her nap, the Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬cut off part of his sleeve to let her sleep in peace. Throughout his life, the Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬was always seen showering kindness on Muezza and other cats.

Abu Hurayrah, one of the Sahabah, who is credited with narrating over 5000 hadith, was famous for his love and care for cats. His title literally means “father of kittens” in Arabic.

There is also a hadith about a woman who entered the Fires of Hell because she tied a cat to a post and neither gave it food nor set it free to find food for itself (Sahih al-Bukhari 3318).

Additionally, for centuries, Islamic scholars have kept cats in their libraries to prey on any mice that might destroy books. Because of this, cats have sometimes been depicted in paintings alongside Islamic scholars.

In my own experience, adopting a cat has changed my perspective on the value of life and Allah’s creation. Caring for and living alongside a fellow creature of Allah has made me realize just how much beauty and detail permeates this Dunya. Cats, with their unconditional love and minimal necessities, are a shining example of Allah’s glory and infinite blessings.

Clearly I love cats enough to dedicate an Al-Bayan article to them. Featured here are the cats of our McSA Wildcats.

Lovable Lulu!

This is Lulu, he’s a Maine Coon Tabby mix.

Originally, Lulu was thought to be a female kitten up until his first vet appointment, when the vet complimented his dress and announced that he was a male kitten. Lulu loves playing around but hates being on playdates with other cats.

Marium Aljuboory

MISCHIEVOUS MILO This is Milo. Milo and I coincidentally share the same birthday! Ever since he graced our household during the foreboding Covid-19 era, Milo has kept us entertained with his mischievous antics and comforting cuddles.

Ifra Waris

Knotty Kopi Kopi is a 7-year old Himalayan! He’s got so much fur that you could devotedly brush him every day and never get rid of every tangle and knot.

Yasmeen Rafee

Supportive Shami!

This is Shami! He’s a cute little kitty that likes to go on walks and give high fives.

He provides full time emotional support for the household but is also a master manipulator. Even after he takes a little nibble out of you, you can’t stay mad at his cute face.

Razan Naffakh

Blear-eyed Biloo!

This is Biloo. His talent is sleeping 25 hours a day. Even fell out the window once during his deep slumber, hence all that cardboard protection in the picture.

Abdalla Bin Masood

26

i still bite my nails Noraan Mohamed I still bite my nails. At age 5, I looked to my older sister for a sense of what was normal, and I never questioned what she did. Sure, it was unnatural at first, but it gave me something to do. I’m nearly 20 now, and I still bite my nails. It confuses me at times, why someone of my age would need to do something like putting a finger in her mouth to feel any sort of safety. But it is my thing, and I have always bitten my nails. My mother’s harsh stares at the dinner table…, to the way I felt at weddings when the music was too loud…, to forming friendships with extreme discomfort…, even in adulthood—, especially in adulthood—, I have always bitten my nails. Just as my sister taught me, and as my mother taught her. It is no longer to feel normal… no, it actually makes me feel quite strange, being the only girl around me with hands hiding under her thighs. But I still need to do it. Maybe it’s anxiety. Or maybe it’s just a habit. But more than anything, it reminds me that I am still a human, just as I was at age 5. And while my body has changed, my fingers never will. They will always be bloody and disgusting and mine. They will always be mine and my cuticles will always hurt and I will be reminded that I am real. Maybe I’ll quit one day, but it’s not likely.

I’m not even quite sure I want to quit anymore. Life can take away everything from me, but it can never make me stop biting my nails.

sweet slumber Yasmeen Rafee if your head was nestled in my lap and i was here (fingers disentangling the knots in your hair) i would turn off the stars and tug ink-dappled curtains over the moon to shroud you gently in the shadows so that you may slumber (good night; travel well)

27

I Pledge Allegiance to America Nabila Qadri

We pledge Allegiance to our Immigrant Dream for the country we still call Home and to our steadfast Culture for which we still value one family under the scrutiny of America— Divisible.

With tragedies and triumphs for all of us. …

I pledge allegiance to the American Dream of the melting pot of America, and to the loss of Culture for which I assimilate: one transgression under the Guise of liberty— Consequential.

With justice and freedom for those that are not us. …

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, And to the Republic for which it stands, One nation under God Indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

28

Vision Board A

little girl lives at 829 Foster Street. She leans out of her perpetually open window, about to release another purple heart into the cascade of hearts that flutter down the brick wall like flightless butterflies. Muralist Ryan Tova Katz hoped this girl and her purple hearts would bring a smile to people’s faces. A trademark ‘N’ in the bottom right corner of the mural is a nod to Northwestern’s 2020 graduates.

I wonder how many students wave back at this little girl as they scurry to and from the Foster Purple Line Station. Maybe she is trying to coax us out of our boxes by opening her window and heart to us all, her purple cascade linking us to her heartbeat and her hopes.

Writing by Asiyah Arastu Design by Sama Ben Amer

in baggy, paint-splattered t-shirts that hang to their knees.

Behind them, Charlton’s paintbrush coaxes out the outlines of faces and figures from the riot of color.

This time, no longer distracted by the task of photographing it, I look more closely at the mural itself. I notice that it exudes the utopian energy that, for some people, makes Evanston exceptional. Four scouts and their troop leader gather around a bonfire, among them a Black girl, a Muslim girl in an orange hijab, and a blonde girl in a wheelchair.

Beside this image is a quote from Girl Scouts founder Juliette Gordon Law: “Truly, ours is a circle of friendships united by our ideals.”

Cheri Lee I linger under the Charlton and Ryan Lake Street viaduct Tova Katz, along with marveling at the countless others, mural celebrating seek to bring joy to 100 Years of Girl Evanston through Scouts. I squat their artwork. I hope down low, and snap we can find a way ten photos, each a to celebrate and slanted close-up of beautify this city one segment of the without forgetting mural. Balanced on those who take the curb, I lean back shelter under the viaso far to get a better ducts next to these angle that I risk top- Mural at 829 Foster Street by Ryan Tova Katz. brightly colored murals because they have pling backward onto Photo courtesy of Asiyah Arastu nowhere else to go; those who struggle to the street. I notice find a place to live that meets their needs the cars veer slightly away from the curbside to avoid because of rising prices; those who still suffer from segbulldozing me. regation and redlining in Evanston.

After a few Google searches, I find a time-lapse video of Girls Scouts helping artist Cheri Lee Charlton paint the 100 Years of Girl Scouts mural. They beam at the camera 29

I hope we can imagine a more vibrant and beautiful city without glossing over the centuries-long struggles of its diverse communities against oppression and injustice.

“I hope we can find a way to celebrate and beautify this city... ...without forgetting those who take shelter under the viaducts... ...next to these brightly colored murals because they have nowhere else to go” 30

“F

Future”

Waiting for the Beginning Writing and Design

by Sama Ben Amer

I

n the Buddhist tradition, there is no such thing as a beginning and an end, a start and a finish; there just is. We live in a sequence of so many little beginnings and finishes, starts and ends, that when you zoom out to see the bigger picture, it just is––kinda like a derivative in calculus. Ever since I started college and began to study things exclusively in the context of politics and death and colonization, I’ve felt an instinct to preserve my knowledge of math. My whole grade school experience could be mapped through the sequence of math we were taught––we started and ended the same way: we learned how to count just so we could learn to explain how math worked.

When Sir Isaac Newton invented calculus, did he know how to simplify fractions? What came first: the first fundamental theorem of calculus or fifth grade math?

Calculus is the study of how things change, and I never want to forget how things change. If I know how things change then I can anticipate them better, so the loss of a present hurts less. Out with the old, in with the new. All the best gifts lose their shiny plastic after a certain period of time, but I’m tired of starting over and over again.

7 billion creatures of the same species, there has to be a finite amount of situations someone can encounter because we are not too different from each other; one person’s lie is another person’s truth.

All of this for half a second of satisfaction before life takes over and I’m no longer in control of what happens next.

They never said that life was gonna be easy––a new baby covered in the comfort of her mother’s insides, eyes wide shut but it isn’t enough to shield her senses from the change thrust upon hershe is in so instead she cries and cries and cries; a mother lingering in her daughter’s new college dorm, because maybe if she never leaves then the moment will never end.

I’ve been anticipating college for so long. They told me it was when my life would really begin, but the moment I’m waiting for still hasn’t arrived. It’s been a year and I’m forgetting the calculus I’ve learned and I’m in an odd state of limbo—tortured by self induced tension.

A sunrise never gets old, no matter how often I see one, and that’s how I know that I’ll never see change coming. Where does the time melt between the empty blue of the dawn and the fierce pink and orange explosion of the day?

I often wonder about the power contained in the moment right before the Big Bang––the potential energy churning, waiting at the threshold of the universe. And then everything exists. And now I’m looking at an awe-inspiring sunrise that makes me forget about my lingering worries from the night before.

I came here to be a writer and yet I’m still waiting for the moment of awareness, the split second right before the balloon pops when I finally have the gratification of knowing the waiting is over, like the moment on an idle DVD screen where the pixelated logo is about to hit the corner of the screen perfectly. Knowing what happens next to such a visceral degree that I can almost taste, touch, smell, feel the moment, without having to live with the moment. I pour it all onto the page and it reads like a truth and who would know that it never happened? As a journalist, I seek out the stories no one tells, but what about the stories that are imagined? In a world with over

I used to sit frequently on the windowsill of my freshman dorm, pressing my cheek against the cool glass pane until I couldn’t feel my face. I stayed frozen, in an almost meditative state––my legs folded into my chest, my arms wrapped around my body to safely keep me in place. As I watched the world outside my room, I almost forgotcouldn’t help but forget where I was. The quiet of campus, interrupted only by the rustle of the many trees, and the unremarkable buildings with the same facade, reminded me too much of the unremarkability of my unremarkable hometown. Then a wave of deja vu would crash over me: I’ve been here before, in my bedroom, tears tracking

33

down my face like the condensation of the window I was leaning on, longing for something more than the utter lack of control I felt at home where my every move was dictated by mother. Did anything change between now and then? I was still waiting for permission to start my life and make my own choices even 300 miles and one time zone away from home.

For something to stick to my brain hard enough to persist through the innumerable distractions throughout the day and keep meyou awake, makes it a Problem. The difference between a Problem and a problem lies in the justification for it and if something is on my mind, surely that makes it justifiably important. A Problem keeps you up at night, a night that feels so long you forget what it’s like to know the sun’s warmth and be rewarded for your knowing. A night that feels like infinity but is actually fifteen minutes because it’s taking too long for you to fall asleep. Have you ever noticed that as soon as you realize you’re falling asleep, you stop falling asleep? Change only happens when we’re not noticing.

There goes the sunrise again––I smile because I almost forgot what it’s like to know the sun’s warmth and I vow to never take it for granted again.

I have lots of Problems because I don’t have the power to forget. I’m in a constant state of awareness like a front-facing camera and I’m taking all the pictures.

The pictures replay in my mind and without warning, I’m suddenly in my birthday outfit that my mom picked: the headband creating imprints in my brain; the matching cardigan and narrow skirt set that presses against my legs anytime I try to run––a reverse straitjacket keeping me in line lest I am not performing my role as a girl well enough for the audience. The thick, cable knit stockings with faint skid marks lining the calves from raking the bottoms of my ballet flats against the suffocating fabric. I still make it work, bounding across the party, looking like a penguin late to work. My headband one sudden head turn away from becoming a boomerang. I love the feeling of air on the back of my heels as my shoes clomp on and off and it’s a miracle I haven’t fallen on my face yet. But I keep on running so I don’t have to stop and see that no one is chasing after me, that any game of tag was long forgotten as they all went back to enjoying the cake with my name on it.

What lingers with me more than the itch from my birthday cardigan, or the pile of birthday gifts that I keep eyeing, is an awareness of what’s happening, something that language couldn’t articulate for me but I just knew in the same way a baby knows how to breathe through

its nose and blink its eyes. These random access memories are marked by an instinctive truth that my body couldn’t deny. I had no friends who cared more about me than the food at my party. A truth that always existed but I never noticed, until I did.

It’s funny how once you start noticing something, you can’t stop. Ever since I started my Buddhism class, I can’t stop noticing signs of samsara, the endless cycle of life and death all around me. “Life goes in cycles, what comes around goes around.” I knew that I was suffering from the impermanence of life, but I didn’t realize that everyone else was suffering, too, or that there was a whole religion dedicated to this suffering, which makes the experience of suffering a lot cooler. Does knowing you’re suffering make living any easier? In Buddhism, one realm that you can be reborn into after death is the god realm––a place for those who are spiritually awakened to the world, where all senses are heightened and blissful and sublime. Yet, the very knowledge that brought them to this realm would make them never want to leave because despite the pleasures of this world, its inhabitants are still mortal, so they experience a heightened level of suffering at watching their bodies decay and slowly die. Maybe ignorance, then, is actually bliss.

Now that I’m here, the place where my life is supposed to begin, I’m too scared to make a move, to ruin the canvas and have to live with a stain that I will forever be trying to cover up. The stars are never going to align and the hand of God isn’t going to reach down to tell me my life is beginning and my canvas cannot get any emptier. There is no such thing as an origin, just the unknowing and then knowing, but I can’t ride my bike while looking in the rearview mirror. In calculus, there is only infinity running in either direction; the origin on a graph is where all positive infinity and all negative infinity intersect and cancel out. The origin is the only point where nothing exists, and like the Big Bang, take a step in any direction and suddenly there Is. The beauty of life lies in its surprises, but I’m plagued with a chronic sense of awareness that leaves me living like a deer in the headlights. And yet the sunrise still catches me off guard; the night doesn’t last forever.

34

a letter from a president Writing and Design by Yasmeen Rafee

part i. emergence in Islam, there is unity—but not uniformity. i often find myself disappointed by how we, as a community, understand doubts in faith. we frequently speak of religion with a righteous sense of self-assurance. as a result of this rhetoric of confidence combined with the circumstance of being a religious minority in an arrogant nation, i posit that when Muslims feel doubt in the teachings of Islam, we feel immense fear on top of our shame. we know and must remind ourselves that Muslims are not monolithic. our sects and ethnic backgrounds shape our adherence to certain practices of Islam. most importantly, as dictated by the human condition, not everyone experiences the same level of conviction. in fact, we all experience doubt—for some, this doubt is all-encompassing, all-consuming, and makes worship an act of anxiety when it should be an act of comfort. but hear me: an individual is no less of a Muslim for experiencing this waning of conviction. i fear that our community forgets this. i want us, then, to become a community that does not shut out doubt, but rather embraces it. let us speak of our doubt. let us share our experiences. let us affirm our faith, together.

part ii. divergence in the spirit of encouraging others to speak more openly about their hesitations in faith, and with the intention of fostering an environment where we share our personal journeys with Allah swt, i wish to share my own. as a child, i always thrived in times of novel circumstances—i recall the excitement and thrill i felt when my sisters graduated high school and i was awash with the exhilaration of my newfound independence separate from their shadows—but my first year of university was a cruel transition, and it was particularly difficult for my spiritual devotion. at one point, i almost did not believe in Allah swt—a statement that i now reflect back on with grief. in the past, i’ve struggled to articulate what exactly about that time wrung me out dry and tainted me with such bitterness. presently, i frame it as follows: there was something so anxiety-inducing about the relentless onslaught of pandemic-era impermanence—the stilted embraces, and the vicious uncertainties, and the see you soon, maybe—that i felt immensely lonely. and, at a time when i wished to be closest to God to feel His comfort, i was furthest. i became angry with Him. i held little attachment to the practices of Islam. i felt doubt.

35

part iii. convergence to those who are currently experiencing doubts and yearn to feel closer to Him—i was you. i am you. it is the human condition to doubt that which we have been taught. it is natural, and unavoidable, and resolutely human. what i encourage, then, is that you hold onto the faith that lies in you, however faint it may feel, and cherish it. nourish it, as you would a blossoming floret during the spring’s rainfall, and explore God as it feels right for you. for me, in my time of most profound doubt, i found comfort in nature. i began to see Him in the gnarled roots beneath the oak trees along orrington ave; the crisp breeze upon weary, sunburned skin; and the crooning of songbirds at dawn. some days i would question this method of religious affirmation: how could i be Muslim if my connection was strongest to Allah swt when i was outside and not in the traditional spaces of Islam—in conversation with an imam; seated at a sunday school desk; or within the shelter/sanctuary of masjid walls? but i see now that the binding of my love to Him could occur everywhere, for God is everywhere. He is the Almighty; He is love and sincerity; the gift of laughter; the miracle of spring.

part iv. experience i share these words with you now as a symbol of my trust to this ummah. i feel shame for having been led astray, yet i am now so grounded in my faith in Him that i see doubt as having been a necessary trial to affirm my belief. having been furthest from Allah swt at one point in my life, i better understand why i believe what i believe. as a community, i implore us to practice transparency and empathy. do not judge those around you, for we are all imperfect in our faith. let us trust in each other to share our stories of doubt and confide in one another, with the hope of joining in unity. i send you off with my warmest love: have safe travels, and wander without worry, and may Allah swt make your journey one of ease.

36

Dania’s Big Break Story by Sara Muttar Design by Sama Ben Amer

ROGERS PARK he streets were nearly all at right angles, and geometry was not Dania’s best subject. She turned right on Thorndale, then took a right turn on Clark.

Her cheeks glistened under the scattered afternoon rays of the September sun. Her dilated blood vessels painted them with crimson as her nervous paces beaded them with sweat. Dania paused, her eyes scrambling around the crosswalk. She continued with a right turn on Elmdale, followed by a right turn on Greenview. As she pulled her defeated gaze from the concrete slabs of the sidewalk to the rest of her surroundings, she saw she was back at the front steps of Senn High School.

T

Dania recognized two of her new friends, whom she had met in ESL class earlier that day, leaving the building.

“January Sun! Steven!” she called, sounding more desperate than she anticipated. She lowered her voice, “Hi, guys.”

“Dania, what’s up!” The pair walked down the concrete steps of the main entrance, meeting Dania at the last step.

“Honestly, I’m a bit lost.” Her voice trailed off into a chuckle. “Do you know where I have to turn to get to this place?” She pulled up her sleeve to reveal the number on her forearm, penned-in with the black sharpie her mother, Hela, used to draw out the address of the family’s apartment. Just in case of an emergency, Hela had said.

“7301 Sheridan,” Steven inspected, “that’s super close to where I live.”

January Sun nodded in agreement. “For sure, I live nearby, too. We’ll walk you home.” She laughed, “We don’t need you getting lost on your first day of school.”

Dania could hardly believe their kindness. “That would be so helpful,” she said, and went on to tell them about the four right turns she made before she saw them.

The trio laughed their way through the coordinate grids of Rogers Park.

This was months before Dania learned about the Damero layout of Chicago’s streets in senior American Geography, before she mastered the English language, and before she had her first kiss. This was the year when Dania moved across the globe—courtesy of the United Nations World Refugee Organization—and when she tried her first pork gelatin gummy bear. This was the year when Dania decided to make decisions for herself.

AL-MUWAQQAR Earlier that year, as fragrant April jasmines blossomed in the courtyard, Dania stood over a steaming cauldron.

She stirred saffron water into the aromatic rice, a holy 37

concoction bubbling with the scent of star anise, mild curry, and tender chicken. Imagining herself taking a bite, she checked her salivation just in time to prevent the sticky liquid from trickling into the pot.

It was the month of Ramadan, and Dania was helping Hela prepare iftar. It was the second week of the month, and their turn to host their community for the evening prayer and breaking of the fast. Last week, Dania’s aunt, Khala Haifa, hosted. Next week, it would be her uncle, Amoo Haitham. This week, Dania and her family had the pleasure of opening their doors to dozens of children, their parents, and all the less fortunate members of the village.

Dania referred to the guests by Khala and Amoo—aunt and uncle—though they were not related by blood. In fact, their families, like many in the community, hailed from dueling tribes in Palestine. But here, in a small Bedouin town in the Jordanian desert, the once sworn enemies became kin, a family forged from exile. When Dania’s grandparents, Jidoo and Teta, were expelled from Gaza, Jidoo packed the family’s heirlooms and photo albums on the back of his mule and walked Teta and their five children across the Palestinian-Jordanian border. Stateless, nameless, and penniless, they settled in Al-Muwaqqar with other Palestinian refugees. Forty years later, their children and grandchildren were fated for the same powerlessness of their predecessors. They lived alongside the sandstorms and camel-back desert trade that was part of a modern-day silk road led by the town’s Bedouin Jordanians.

Dania was aware of her heritage: the pain and heartbreak that comes from leaving an ancestral home, as well as the community and tender growth that comes from creating a new home. Every time she tended to her own courtyard garden in Al-Muwaqqar, she imagined Jidoo, may he rest in peace, picking a fig from his trees in Gaza and feasting on its sweet succulence. She hoped that making her home here would provide her ancestors with the same comfort of home—that anchoring herself to this new land would allow them the joys of belonging.

Though the month of Ramadan is all about remembrance and gratitude, Dania’s mind withdrew from its retrospective daydreams as she turned to tend to the boiling pot of still watery biryani on the stove.

ROGERS PARK The sound of the Marimba alarm coaxed Dania out of bed in the morning after being snoozed five times. As she regained consciousness, Dania propped her body upright, legs dangling from the side of the bed. She eyed the different corners of her bedroom, where distinct piles

of clothing lined the ubiquitous wooden baseboards of her family’s apartment. Each pile held a particular category of clothing: house clothes, casual school clothes, fancy school clothes, masjid clothes, and so on. While Dania likely owed this unique organizational scheme to her undiagnosed ADHD, Hela theorized it was an issue of femininity. “Good girls have pristine rooms, because disorganization is a manly trait,” she reminded Dania from time to time.

And Dania really did believe that she had to clean her room, fold her clothes, and put them away in a tidy closet where they were out of reach in order to reap the fruits of womanhood. And when the tidying became overwhelming, it was her status as a woman, rather than the tidiness of her room, that she believed to be in peril.

She rose from her bed to grab a few items from the casual school clothes pile: two mismatched socks and her favorite pair of jeans and long-sleeve T-shirt, all of which she bought in a bazaar in Amaan before her family left in August. a croissant for the road when Hela stopped her, “Can you stand up?”

Dania put down her croissant, “Okay,” she said. She pushed herself out of the chair. “But why?”

“We have to buy you new jeans, Dania.” Hela tugged on the fabric at Dania’s hips, “These ones are too tight now, too form-fitting. Wear your blue pants instead, the ones Khala Sundus sewed for you.”

Dania looked at her own pants, adjusting their fit. “But Mama, there’s nothing wrong with these ones. Look.” She turned in a circle to prove to her mother that the pants fit as normal. She couldn’t imagine why the same jeans on her same body had been permissible by her mother in Jordan, but suddenly became inappropriate in America.

Hela shot her a disapproving look from above the rim of her glasses. “Yalla, yalla,” she said, ushering Dania into her room. As Dania changed into the drab blue pants, she wondered if her mother was becoming worried, or even frustrated, at how differently the people in Chicago dressed: their shoulders kissing the sun and bosoms breathing the cool October air—making her feel she stood out like a sore thumb. Or maybe Hela noticed the way Dania stood a few steps ahead of or behind her when they were strolling along Lake Michigan or walking to the grocery store, subliminally distancing herself from her hijabi mother, fully covered from her toes to her last piece of flyaway hair. It was not Dania’s intention to worry her mother; she simply did not know what to do when the Western eyes of sunburnt Caucasians landed on her and her mother’s foreignness. Since her mother, a visibly Muslim woman, showcased their cultural contrasts more overtly, Dania figured it might be better to step away from Hela’s spotlight.

AL-MUWAQQAR “I got a call earlier,” Hela said quietly, as she signaled to turn onto Duwar Al-Saqar, the automated sound clicking

every few seconds. As the traffic light turned yellow, Hela pressed her foot onto the brake, her body easing closer to the steering wheel.

“Just go, please,” Dania banged her hand on the dashboard. “We’re not going to make it on time if we don’t make this light, Mama!”

Hela cocked her head in Dania’s direction, her eyes enlarging as she looked at her daughter in disbelief. “I don’t work for you,” she started, with furrowed eyebrows. “If you don’t like my driving you can walk to Khala Alaa’s house.”

As the sun latently drew to finishing it’s lap across the evening sky, the duo headed to Khala Alaa’s house for iftar on the 27th night of Ramadan, one of the most important of the month. Dania found it is easier to be optimistic for the positivity of the month when she was not consumed with the brain fog of seven and a half hours without food, when her breath had not gone stale with dehydration.

And on her 27th day of fasting, her spirit tested her patience for these very reasons.

The mother and daughter sat in silence as they waited for the traffic light to change. Dania knew her mother had not had an easy month: between leaving for her job at the textile factory immediately after the first call of prayer at dawn and coming home just before the maghrib prayer call marks the start of the night, Hela worked very hard to provide for her daughter. But Dania was too exhausted to rectify their earlier conversation, to hash out her guilt, and she knew her mother shared the sentiment.

When the crossing lane approached a yellow light, Hela shifted in her seat. She pressed on the gas pedal as soon as she saw the light change.

“What was your call about?” Dania said softly, with the intentions of saying sorry for being unbearable.

Hela held her breath a while, then exhaled, “It was from the refugee organization.” She paused, “Our flight to America is next week.” She turned to face the passenger seat, searching for her daughter’s eyes.

Dania looked beyond the dashboard, her gaze unchanging. She did not speak for a minute, her throat closing in on itself every time her mind attempted to voice a word. She wanted to ask her mother how they will travel so far away from home, or why now, or what they will do once they are there. The warmth of the Jordanian sun, the pungent yet sweet scent of camel, the selfless community that surrounds her… How was she to live under unfamiliar skies, with unfamiliar scents, and unfamiliar people?

But Dania already ran through these responses weeks ago when she went into her application interview with the World Refugee Organization: she knew after she graduates from high school that year, she will bear no legal protections as a minor; she faced deportation in Jordan and could no longer anchor her family on this land.

Her home, where she was born, held no future for Dania nor her family.

38

Overwhelm

Story by Fardeem Munir 2023-03-28 1:05 AM / Dhaka

We begin with the sugary name of Allah.

Joy upon his gorgeous Prophet in Madinah

Design by Sama Ben Amer

new found free time of two weeks or three, I will learn everything I want to. Explore every single curiosity. Read the 50th book I added to my reading list 2 years ago.

That obviously never happens.

I am graduating in a few months and I wanted to use this spring break to break out of this pattern. I asked Jihad:

A

ll school breaks are overwhelming.

Regardless of my pick of classes, Northwestern has a way of making every quarter insanely hectic. Every quarter, no matter how well intentioned I am or how closely I try to follow my schedule, ends with a night of too much coffee, too much dread, working on some stupid paper. At least ChatGPT provides some relief on that front these days.

As I try to bang out the paper my mind drifts. What new apps can I build? There’s a hot new programming language out: Rust. Should I learn it? What can I build with it?

I discover a new book on Sufism, or Mughal history and—without a moment of consideration—I add it to my books app.

The list has grown. It will continue to grow.

I start working through a book. It gets too dense so I take a break. Twitter. Is that an interesting article? Added to my bottomless reading queue.

I begin breaks with a lot of joy and a heavy dose of lying to myself—that with my 39

Jihad had no answers (which is troubling because he always has answers).

Allah created Adam and the whole incident with the bowing and Shaytan played out. At some other point another important event happened: the covenant.

In Surah A’raf, Allah reminds us of the covenant, when all human souls were brought forth and Allah asked, “Am I not your Lord?”

To which we answered, “Yes! You are! We testify.”

The story of this world is the grief of a heavenly soul locked in this dunya. Our bodies are 24, 50, however many years old.

Our souls—who knows their age?

We come here with a faint memory of the covenant. We spend our lives rarely thinking about the covenant. Yet the cove-

nant animates our fitrah and animates our deep understanding of right and wrong.

No matter how hard the dunya tries to make us forget, how can we forget our Lord? How can we forget our experience with the Infinite? The Uncreated?

In recent months, I have come to realize how strong the memory of that covenant is in all of us, even if we do not recognize it.

Yes, the trust, the amanah that we accepted during that covenant is worth discussing. But what about the joy of experiencing the Divine? Of witnessing Allah? Of having the creator of the heavens and the earth ask us a question?

Your standing at night in prayer is a covenant with God That you will act righteously during the day.

Your fasting is covenant that you will refrain from Allowing earthly desires to lead you and become your master.

Your silence is a covenant that your speech will be pure and beneficial Each moment is in reality a covenant Each covenant is a tributary of the original covenant Your spirit took with the Ultimate Reality, Before it was placed in the world of bodies and forms.

Forgetfulness and neglect of the covenant is the root of all evil.

The Prophet was called Al-Amin, the Trustworthy.

Because he knew the weight of a covenant Because he knew the weight of the Covenant.

– Baraka Blue

tion! Excitement! But what about a week from then? Life goes back to normal and the high we experience fades.

And how could it not fade? How could the experience of achieving anything compare to the memory, however faint, of meeting Allah Jalla jalaluhu. Even if our mind doesn’t consciously make that comparison, our heart knows.

This is not to say that we should give up on our goals. Rather, it is about seeing the reality (haqiqa) of things, to see with the Sight of Allah, the true measure of what this world can provide to a soul of heavenly origin— which is to say, not much.

I look at my list of unfinished books, my list of potential app ideas, businesses I want to pursue, people I want to meet, things I want to experience.

I take a step back.

Enough of learning, my friend!

You read so many books to become all knowledgeable, But you never read your own self.

– Bulleh Shah

We are all seeking something. I, too, am seeking some kind of euphoria that I think awaits me at the end of completing all these things. I remind myself that the euphoria either doesn’t exist or simply won’t last.

I am really seeking to be reunited with the Divine. To be reunited with the Beloved.

We come to the dunya having experienced the Ultimate Reality and it has creI look again at the Apple books app. Does ated a void in our souls. There is no filling it Allah not say, “In the heavens and earth here. there are signs for those who reflect?”

Think about the experience of finishing a project or reaching a goal you have P.S. The song pairing for this article is Shiworked toward for months, even years. Ela- fa by Al-Firdaus Ensemble :) 40